The Bounty Hunters: The Marino Bros.: Box Set (131 page)

“Can we get a still of that and enlarge it,” he asked Lucas, who nodded and began to hit some buttons. “Let’s look at the feed in the back now.” Lucas cued it up. Off in the distance, they saw the pier then Cat coming out. The camera panned the rest of the yard then thirty seconds she was there again, stretching. “Fast forward that until we see something, but not so fast we miss it.” Andreas, calmer, came up behind Gio who made room for him. The look on his face was grim.

Deadly.

Three minutes later, the same tourist with the large straw hat was coming down the pier. Cat turned at his approach, and the man rushed her. He punched her in the jaw, and she slumped over before she made it to her feet. “My God! I shouldn’t have left her!” His voice was desperate. Deep, dark guilt settled on him once more. Romeo had taken what he loved right from under his nose.

“We are going to get her, Andy.” Gio promised, his heart thundering.

“Make no mistake, bro,” Blaze came up behind him putting a hand on Andreas’ shoulder. “We’ll find her, and he will pay.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Andy whispered. His voice sounded like a pained animal. He watched as Sal Mazzelli, now with bright orange hair, and a sun burn ointment covering his nose, first put a cloth over Cat’s face. He placed the package on the dock, his memento to Andreas, and then gently picked up Cat, walking her down the pier. He hurried, like he knew security would come any minute. He wandered into the bushes that lined Andreas’ property with the property on the left. Thirty seconds later, they saw a boat, a speed boat, zoom by in the left part of the screen. But it was too far to see anything clearly.

“Get a picture of that boat, and enlarge it. If you get an identifier call it in to the Coast Guard.”

Lucas nodded, while the Marinos turned to Andreas. “Andy, hold it together man, we will find the boat, and find him.”

“Nah, he’ll dump it.” Andreas was pacing once more like a caged animal. The tick in his cheek revealed his fury. “He knew we had security, fooled us all. He’s been watching us for a while. Fuck! Where would he take her? That’s what we got to figure out
.” Where would he take her? Where would he take her? Think. Think.
He repeated his mantra. He had no clue.

“We can’t give up on the boat angle. Lucas, call the Coast Guard either way, and Marcus, call the police and see if they can get a chopper in the air.”

“On it, sir.”

Andreas slammed his fist into the wall beside one of the book cases. His mind was racing. He was near panic. His breathing was becoming louder as he held his fist in his hand wanting to hit something else. “I don’t think he’ll kill her. Not right away. We have time,” he murmured.
Please let us have time.
“I’m calling Tony. Those guys got us the Intel we needed before, maybe they can pull another rabbit out of a hat.”

“Call him,” Gio encouraged. Keep him busy. Keep him focused on finding her. His heart was breaking for his brother, but he knew if he could keep him focused on finding Cat, he wouldn’t lose it. As long as they had a chance to get her back, to get Cat back alive, before this bastard did something sick and twisted to her, Andy would keep his shit together.

Please, Gio looked up, let us get him this time. If not, if they didn’t save Cat, he didn’t know if his brother would recover. Glancing at his other brothers, he knew they were thinking the same thing.

*     *     *

Although it was
Christmas Day, and he had been spending it with his wife and son, Tony answered the phone when he saw who it was on his caller ID.

His heart ached for the man after he told him what had happened just a few hours earlier. “I’ll do what I can. I promise.”

“Please. Dig deep,” Andreas begged.

Tony heard the desperation in the man’s voice. He knew what that felt like. He had been there himself almost a year earlier. He looked across the room at his wife, Sherrie, who was nursing their son. “I will. I promise.” He knew Sherrie would understand.

Intel

B
J and Lily,
two of Tony’s best computer technicians had been at it for eight hours. They had nothing. They called it in to Tony who was waiting by the phone all day. Andreas had called twice already to get a status update and fill him in on the progress of the investigation from their end. By nine o’clock, Tony went to his headquarters to check on the progress himself.

He steered into the parking lot of Alvarez Security and parked. Andreas reported to him earlier that they had found the boat. It had been abandoned twenty miles away, on a private beach near Tarpon Springs, Florida. A young couple had called it in. They had seen a man carry a woman to a parked car nearby, and gave a description of the vehicle. An APB had been sent out on the color and make, the license plate too. Once they found the boat and saw it was a rental with yet another fake identity, they had been able to track a rental car to the same name. But that car had been found in Ocala, dumped two hours later. At that point they did not know what Sal was driving. No thefts reported, and nothing rented under any of Sal’s other known identities.

All they knew so far was that Spiro Makas, aka Sal Mazzelli, Darryl James, and a Kenneth Gagne was headed North. That was what his tech people were working on now. They had several aliases on the man, and they were scouring their files and databases for properties, places the man had been before. Somewhere he might be taking Cat. But so far, all the places they thought were probable, turned up vacant, or others were residing in them.

He was about to call Andreas and give him the news, when a fatigued Lily jerked up from her seat at her computer station. “Hang on, I think I have something.”

Tony put his phone away. “What is it?” He jumped from his seat at the conference table.

BJ, his other technical specialist, slid across to Lily and looked over her shoulder.

“Hang on.” She hit a few keys, and a document appeared on the large screen at one end of the conference room. She began to explain what they were looking at.

It was a deed. “After getting nowhere on the aliases, I decided to look at family properties. I knew the father lost all of his, but what about the mother, I thought. And Bingo. I found out Spiro inherited a cabin. It belonged to his mother. It’s in Virginia. It was not owned by his father, so it wasn’t confiscated by the FBI. But his mother who divorced the father when Spiro was ten, didn’t own the property then. It belonged to her father. She died, let’s see, four years after her ex was arrested. But Spiro had already disappeared by then. That’s why we missed it in the first look at family properties. No one ever found it because she left it to a trust company in the name of George Spiro Makas. Her son’s middle name is George. She reversed it, or he did. After New York, he probably hid out there with his mother until she died. It was probably his safe haven. But there is nothing around the area. He probably left so he could work. I’m just assuming. It’s a long shot, but it is also not far from here. Maybe an hour’s drive. We could check it out.” She turned in her seat and looked up at her boss and friend.

He was smiling. “Good work Lily. BJ, can you get it up on satellite.”

BJ nodded and slid over to his computer station. Thirty seconds later, they had a grainy image of the small cabin. “There is a car, but I can’t get in close enough to make out any license plate.” BJ was tapping on his keyboard. “It looks like it has been backed into a carport, and nothing but trees, and a stream behind it.”

Tony had a hunch. This could be the break his friend needed. “I’m calling Andreas. This could be it. BJ call in the team.”

*     *     *

“We’re on our
way. Thank you, Tony. I owe you. I owe you.” Andreas’ heart hammered in his chest. Gio was already on another phone, making the arrangements for the private jet that would take them to Virginia.

“I am assembling my team now, and we’ll formulate a plan. We are getting the specs now as we speak. And we’ll figure out a way to get inside. We will pick you guys up at the Richland Airport. We’re gettin’ your girl back, and we are doin’ it tonight. We’ll have everything ready as soon as you touch the ground.”

Andreas ran his hands through his course black hair for the millionth time that day. He nodded at his two younger brothers. They understood the silent message. Blaze and Nikko ran upstairs to pack, and tell the women what was going on. As soon as Gio hung up the phone, Lucas was told to bring the car around. Their flight left from TIA in thirty minutes. They didn’t have a minute to spare.

Home Sweet Beautiful Home

W
hen Spiro pulled
onto the dirt road leading to his mother’s cabin, he smiled. The long drive and the fear of being caught stayed with him throughout the entire day. He only stopped to refuel when he was sure Catarina would not wake up.

He’d allowed her to stay awake for the past two hours. But he took precautions. He tied her hands together with cord and they were also attached to her feet. He had done that at his last stop before he made the decision to allow her to regain consciousness. He did not want her to sleep all night. He wanted her company.

He also did not want to take a chance on her overdosing. She meant too much to him. He hated having to do it in the first place, but it had been necessary to keep her subdued for the long drive. But these last few hours, the long stretches of backroads that he took to get to his mom’s cabin would not be very well travelled, especially on a holiday. Just in case someone passed and noticed her, he covered her with a blanket.

Plus, the weather was much colder in this neck of the woods. He would have to see about getting her some warmer clothes eventually.

When she had woken up, she had been quite groggy and disoriented. When her eyes finally focused on him, he had seen the confusion, and fear. “Hush now, my beauty.” He smiled at her, eyes watering at seeing her grey eyes once more looking upon him. His heart constricted. She was really with him. By his side, where she was always meant to be. “You remember me. You know I won’t hurt you, right?” She nodded nervously and licked her dry lips, but the fear was still there.

He offered her a sip of soda. He purchased a fountain drink for her at his last stop. He was sure it was watered down by now, but with her hands tied he would need to assist her. He put the cup in front of her, but she was looking at it suspiciously. “It’s a soda, I’m sure watery by now, but it’s wet,” he offered.

She vaguely remembered a dropper being placed in her mouth before, and didn’t doubt that the drink might be laced. But her mouth was so dry, and parched, she risked it. She moved her head forward an inch and took a small sip making a face. “I have some bottled water and other things in the trunk. We are almost home, another thirty minutes.”

Cat swallowed down the lump of fear choking her, and wondered how Andreas was doing. She felt her ring lying between her breasts, the one he had given her that morning. She had put it on a chain this morning before her workout fearful of losing it. It had been slightly too loose for her slender fingers. The pain slammed into her. Dreams she had never dared to dream had come true today. She hoped she had the chance to hide it. She did not want him to see it, suspect what it was and take it from her.

She nodded. He was still staring at her. His birth defect was still noticeable despite the facial hair he sported now. He had died his hair an orange color, and it made him appear more clownish, but she would not show her distaste. She now knew what he was capable of.

“You are still so beautiful,” he whispered in the silent car. His breathing was erratic, and he gave another sideways glance. She kept her mask in place.

She cleared her throat. “Thank You.”

She would have recognized the voice instantaneously. He spoke softly and evenly. Every word enunciated with precision. She remembered that he had mentioned once his need to see a speech therapist for years as a child until his father refused to pay for it any more. He also had several surgeries to correct his deformity, but those operations had only been able to do so much. The cutting had left nerve endings damaged and had paralyzed his top lip to a great extent.