Nobody Knows (21 page)

Where was he now? She was going to kill that kid.

She saw the note on the kitchen counter.

Mom,
Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.

Vincent

What was the matter with him? He knew that she was worried sick about Mark. It was just like Vincent, running off, not thinking of her feelings.

She went back to the window and looked out again
at the raging storm. Where could Vincent have gone to in this? Her mind went the natural next step. Vincent might drive her absolutely crazy, but she wouldn’t be able to bear it if anything happened to her other son.

Cassie recorded the track that Felix would feed to New York.

“I’ll be downstairs in the restaurant if you need me.”

Denny’s was deserted save for the man who sat in the corner. A dripping raincoat was draped on the chair beside him.

“Thanks for coming.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” Sarge looked out the plate-glass window at the raging storm. “I should be at the evacuation center. Not here, defending myself against a baseless charge.”

Cassie waited.

“How did you hear that Merilee claimed to have written ‘Nobody Knows’?”

“I have my sources,” said Cassie, thinking of the overheard conversation at the Ringling party, “and I’m not going to reveal them.” Sarge didn’t have to know how vague her information was or that she was on a fishing expedition.

“Well, she was lying. Merilee didn’t write ‘Nobody Knows.’ I did.”

“That’s a hard thing to prove, isn’t it?”

The promoter shrugged. “Maybe, but I think I would have won if we went to court.”

“But now you won’t be going to court, will you? Merilee’s not around to take you there.”

Sarge picked up a napkin and wiped his damp brow. “Look”—he sighed—“I know it looks bad. A woman claims she wrote my song, a song that stands to make big, big money, and now that woman turns up dead. But, believe me, Merilee had a lot of irons in the fire. She was a real operator, and she made enemies along the way. I’ll admit it. I’m not sorry Merilee’s out of the picture, but I know I’m not the only one.”

“Care to name names?” Cassie opened up her notebook.

“Her boss at the porno place for one. Webb Morelle at Web of Desire Productions couldn’t have been too happy that she was demanding some of his action.”

“And you know this, how?”

“Merilee told me. We were neighbors, you know. She used to come over and we’d drink some wine and she’d run her mouth off about all her big plans. She had delusions of grandeur, that one.” Sarge shook his head. “My mistake was I played ‘Nobody Knows’ for her before I had it copyrighted, never thinking that she would claim it as her own. I should have known better.”

Cassie wanted to steer the conversation back. “Who else was Merilee on the outs with?”

“She couldn’t stand that actor she had to work with. Van something or other. And by the looks of the welt
on her arm she showed me one time, he wasn’t too fond of her either.”

“Anyone else?”

Sarge thought a moment. “Well, there was one poor slob I felt sorry for. I can’t remember his name. From the sound of it, he had fallen for her hard. But she was just using him. She had her cap set for some eye doctor, and she was stringing this other clod along as a backup in case the doctor didn’t come through.”

The doctor must have been Harry Lewis, thought Cassie. Who was the clod?

The late afternoon sky was dark and ominous. Vincent had to push himself through the wind and sheets of rain, stopping at the worst gusts to grab hold of a tree or street sign.

At the beach, roaring waves crashed on the Old Pier. As Vincent looked out at the concrete structure, Gideon flashed through his mind. All the hours they had spent together on the pier. All the good times they had had. No more.

If only he hadn’t found this stupid ring!

Vincent patted at his rubber slicker, feeling the tiny bulge from the zippered pocket inside the jacket. The ring was there, safe and sound. He was going to keep his side of the bargain. This guy better keep his.

The boy waited.

HE DROVE
toward Siesta Key with Mark strapped into the front seat beside him. Safe enough. With the dark
skies and the drenching rain, nobody was going to notice the boy.

“We’re going home?” the five-year-old asked, recognizing familiar landmarks through the rain.

“Yeah, we’re going to meet your brother.”

It was going to be a relief to get rid of this sickly kid. Sweet or not, let him be somebody else’s problem.

But as the car approached the North Bridge, his anticipation turned to panic. Police cars and barricades blocked the entrance.

Absolutely no one was being allowed on Siesta Key.

“Someone called us with something, Mrs. Bayler. The clerk at the 7-Eleven says a man came in early last evening and asked directions for Calle de Peru.”

Wendy digested what Deputy Gregg’s words could mean. “You think this man might have come and taken Mark?”

“It’s a possibility we have to look at. Has anyone called?”

“No. Only a couple of hang-ups. How are you going to find this guy?” Wendy demanded.

Danny wished he knew. The clerk had described a man of medium build with a beard and grayish hair. But the kid had said there was something not quite right about the guy’s appearance, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Danny suspected a disguise of some sort. “We’re doing everything we can, Mrs. Bayler,” he tried to reassure her. “In the meantime, you and Vincent have to get off this island.”

“Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m going, especially if someone has Mark and could be calling.”

The sheriff’s deputy understood. If Robbie was missing, he wouldn’t leave either. “Well then, at least let us take Vincent to the evac center.”

“That might be a good idea,” Wendy admitted, “if Vincent was here for you to take.”

The furious gust blew him to the sand, pinning him there. Vincent struggled to get up but was blown down again and again. He managed to crawl toward the road, finding partial shelter under a boarded-up beach house perched on metal pilings. He huddled beneath his rain-jacket, wiping the stinging water from his eyes, the wet, gritty sand from his face. How long had he been waiting?

He peered through the torrential sheets of rain, searching for some kind of movement. Car lights or a human figure. Two human figures, he hoped, one grown, one small. Instead, the only activity was the ceaseless crashing of the white-capped waves smashing onto the shore.

How was the guy going to see him beneath this house? He had to get out there and stand in a spot where he would be visible. With head tucked, he headed out again.

Each step took all his strength, planting his thin legs as firmly as he could into the sand for support against
the punishing wind. When he reached the pier, Vincent was exhausted. Still, he clung to the hope that the man who had Mark would come. When he came, he’d have to be able to find him. If Vincent could climb on top of the pier, the guy would surely be able to spot him.

He hoisted himself up onto the concrete shelf. His rubber coat flapped against his body as he turned his back on the turbulent water, searching the dark beach for a sign of the man.

At the next gust of wind, Vincent felt himself propelled forward and his feet skid along the slick cement, struggling, in vain, to keep his balance.

Hurricane Giselle was slated as the lead story on
Evening Headlines
. Felix was downstairs in the parking lot, manning the satellite truck. Cassie stood, miked up and ready, at the door to the hotel balcony.

“When we’re through here, we’re getting ourselves to the evacuation center,” Leroy ordered, watching the boats tossing like bath toys in the marina across the road.

“No argument from me,” replied Cassie. “We’d be nuts to stay here any longer.”

The
Evening Headlines
fanfare began to play on the television set. Cassie pulled up the hood of her yellow slicker, took a deep breath, and stepped out onto the balcony. Through the open door, she watched Eliza Blake welcome the audience and lead directly to the report from Sarasota.

Images of lines of fleeing traffic and people camped out at the evacuation center filled the screen, along with the predictable shots of roaring waves and jiggling palm trees. The pictures Felix had taken at the
marina and from Harry Lewis’s boat rounded out the piece, along with a sound bite from Jerry Dean about potential economic hardships and a spokesman from the National Hurricane Center comparing Giselle with past storms.

“Ten seconds,” warned the voice from the New York control room through Cassie’s earpiece.

She had memorized her final scripted line. Cassie looked into Felix’s camera lens as she heard her recorded voice say, “Sarasotans are hoping that Giselle will have mercy on them but, realistically, they are, at the same time, preparing for the worst.”

“Cue, Cassie,” came the voice in the earpiece just as a wind gust swept through the balcony, blowing Cassie into the iron safety railing. Wincing with pain, she struggled to regain her balance.

“Eliza, as you can see, the winds are getting stronger,” Cassie shouted through the roar of the wind, “and forecasters have issued their hurricane warning. They are now predicting that Giselle will crash into this area overnight. Eliza?” She tossed back to the studio.

“Cassie Sheridan, on hurricane watch in Sarasota, Florida,” said Eliza Blake, safe and dry in New York.

Cassie pulled out the earpiece and ran back into the hotel room. She grabbed the towel Felix held out, wiped her soaked face, and vowed that this was the last time she would cover one of these natural disaster nightmares. Someone else could have the pleasure, she thought as she rubbed her throbbing arm.

The police car rolled into the emergency room bay at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. The officer helped the boy from the backseat and led him inside.

“He’s out of it,” Sheriff’s Deputy Savadel called to the receiving nurse. “I found him on the beach on my last patrol. It looks like he might have hit his head on the pier. I don’t know how long he was out there.”

The nurse looked at the red and already purpling lump on the child’s forehead and felt his neck for a pulse. “What was this kid doing out in a hurricane?”

“Beats me,” Savadel answered in disgust. “Who knows why kids do what they do?”

“Well, he’s lucky you found him.” She wiped the wet, sandy hair from the boy’s brow and thought of the reports she had heard of the child missing from Siesta Key. “This couldn’t be the kid that everyone’s been looking for, could it?”

“No, that kid’s five. This kid is much older.”

The radio attached to Savadel’s belt announced the next emergency.

The nurse nodded. “Go ahead. We’ll take over from here.”

“I’ll try to check in later and see how he’s doing,” replied Savadel as he headed back into the storm.

BEHIND THE
partially drawn curtains, Vincent lay on a wheeled hospital bed, oblivious to the activity in the rest of the busy emergency room. His jacket lay on the bedside table where the nurse had placed it.
This kid’s parents must be frantic
, she thought.

While waiting for the overstretched doctor, the nurse looked for some sort of identification, starting her search at the top.

In the breast pocket of the boy’s T-shirt she found a slip of paper with a phone number on it.

“Mom?”

“Hannah?” The last thing Cassie had been expecting was a call from her daughter.

“Are you all right, Mom?”

“Yes, I’m fine, honey.”

“I just saw you on TV. It looked like you hurt yourself.”

“Oh, that. That was nothing,” Cassie lied. The arm ached. “I’m so glad you called, though, Hannah. I’ve been thinking of you, sweetheart, and wondering how you are.”

“It’s boring up here.”

“I could take a little boring right now. Boring sounds good.”

Static crackled on the cell phone line.

“Hannah?”

“Yeah?”

“I better go now. I’ll call—” The phone went dead.

She’d call back later, when they got to the evacuation center. She liked thinking that Hannah had made it
a point to watch her on television and that she still cared enough to be concerned when she thought her mother had hurt herself. That was something at least.

She was about to leave the hotel room when the cell phone rang again. Cassie answered, fully expecting to hear her daughter’s voice calling back.

“Hannah?”

“This is Erin Duby, an ER nurse at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Cassie Sheridan.”

“Do you have a son?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“We have a young boy here who had your phone number in his pocket.”

“What do you mean you’ll meet us at the evacuation center?” Lou-Anne screeched into the telephone. “In case you’ve forgotten, Webb, you have two kids. Why aren’t you here where you belong? If I have to answer one more of their questions about this hurricane, I am going to go out of my mind. And now you tell me to pack them up and get to the evacuation center myself? You’ve got some nerve, buster.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Lou-Anne. I have a business to run—a business, I might add, that pays for the cushy life you enjoy—and I spent the day securing it. So quit complaining and get in the car and start driving. We don’t have time for your tantrums.”

Her husband gave her no time to fire another salvo. Lou-Anne heard the decisive click on the line.

Cassie gave the nurse Wendy Bayler’s telephone number and jotted down directions to the hospital. Then she called Leroy’s room. “You’re moving the satellite truck, aren’t you?”

“Of course. It’s not safe to leave it here. Besides, we’ll need it to transmit from the evacuation center in the morning.”

“Right. Well, you and Felix go on in the truck. I’ll take the Jeep and meet you there.”

“Any reason?” Leroy asked.