Wood's Reach (8 page)

“He’s under the bed.”

Mac peered underneath, expecting to find him bound there, but it was empty.

“No. We have to move it. There’s a compartment in the floor.”

Together they moved the bed, and she showed him where they had taken the carpet up. A minute later, they were staring at the outline of the plywood cover. “I’ll be right back. Gotta find a screwdriver.”

As he walked away, he heard her singing something, probably to Trufante. The woman was an enigma, but he would expect nothing less from Trufante. For now, all he could do was get the Cajun out of here and find somewhere safe to figure things out. Sending them to TJ’s now, instead of waiting until the morning for them to come down, might be the best course of action. He suspected that Hawk might take some time to lick his wounds, but he’d be back.

Bounding down the steps two at time, he reached the patio and glanced toward the quiet street, wondering where the car had gone. Curious, he risked a glance around the concrete pilings supporting the house and saw it parked down the block. There were no lights on, but he thought he saw the outline of a head in the driver’s seat.

Thinking he’d deal with him after Trufante was free, he went to the boat and retrieved the toolbox. Back upstairs, he returned to the bedroom and looked at Pamela’s face in the glow of the phone, rocking softly to some tune in her head. Ignoring her, he set the plastic box beside the panel, opened it, and removed a screwdriver. Using all his force against the handle to prevent the tips from stripping, he extracted the screws one by one and finally lifted the lid.

Trufante was curled up in a ball, his frame barely fitting inside the cache. A lifeless eye looked up at Mac, who exhaled sharply when he realized his friend was still alive. Pamela appeared next to him, and together they lifted him out of the hole. “You good?”

“Damn headache is all—champagne will do that to ya every time,” he said, shaking his head.

“Come on,” Mac said. He noticed something between one of the joists and the plywood below it. “Can you shine the light in there?” he asked Pamela.

She was on her knees, fussing over Trufante, who sat on the floor with his feet in the compartment. Together they examined the interior of the space. The light hit something. At first, Mac thought it was a discarded screw or nail left over from the construction, but when he moved closer, he realized it was a coin. Taking a flathead screwdriver from the box, he carefully dug it out of the tight space it was lodged in and held it up for them to see.

“Hot damn,” Trufante said. “They pulled a bunch of whatever that is out of there.”

Mac almost told them he had seen where it was now stored, but thought better of it. Though he trusted the Cajun, this information was better held close. “I’ll check it out later. We better get out of here.”

They left the house and were standing together on the back patio when Mac remembered the car parked out front. “Follow me.” He led them downstairs and to the dock, trying to remain in plain view of the street. Talking loudly, he told them they could stay out at Wood’s tonight and made a show of helping them into the boat. The engine fired, and he leaned over to Trufante.

“Take this,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the thumb drive, and after pausing for a second, he grasped the coin too. He handed them both to Trufante. “Stay low in the stern. When I back out, and the mangroves block the view from the street, you two hop off. I think one of his henchmen is waiting in a car a few houses down. If he thinks we’re all together on the boat, my guess is he’ll go and report back to Hawk. Once he’s gone, take the bike and head to Key Largo. Alicia’s expecting you tomorrow, but I think it’s better to get you two out of town tonight.”

Trufante nodded. “What about you?” he asked and leaned over to tell Pamela the plan. She nodded her head and moved to sit on the transom.

“Don’t worry about me,” Mac said softly, then called out loudly for Tru to get the lines.

Trufante went to the bow and released the forward line, then went aft to the transom where he untied the stern line. “Okay,” he called over the noise of the engine.

Mac looked back at them, and they nodded they were ready. Slowly he reversed, cutting the wheel to swing the bow away from the dock as if he were merely pulling away, but he let it go a few seconds too long, allowing the stern to fall back into the mangroves. The boat shifted when the couple jumped to the seawall, and he calmly pushed the throttle forward and started moving away from the dock.

***

Hawk sat on the deck of his trawler watching the headlights from the police car recede from the driveway. What had started as a contentious discussion with the deputies quickly became friendly after Hawk placed a call to the sheriff’s private line. The deputies had been warned to back off the antiquities dealer and focus on Travis. Hawk went below and glanced at Ironhead, lying on the couch with an ice pack on his head. Passing by him without a word, he grabbed the bottle of scotch and went for the cabin door, the sight of the man turning his stomach.

“I could use a swig for the pain,” Ironhead moaned.

Hawk turned on him. “The only pain here is the one in my buttocks from you. That was my boat you wrecked, and now I have to have it pulled out of the canal before my ex finds out.”

“What about dropping me by the hospital? I’m pretty sure something’s broke.”

Taunting him, Hawk took a swig of the amber liquid directly from the bottle. “I’ll give you some aspirin and a glass of water. That’s all you’ll get from me. Go ahead, they’re in the drawer by the sink.”

Hawk’s gut feeling was confirmed when Ironhead, belying his alleged injuries, jumped off the settee and went for the bathroom. Jiggling the pill bottles he had already removed and stuffed in his pockets, Hawk smiled to himself and went out on deck.

He heard cursing, and drawers being slammed through the open door, but he ignored it. Mike had a history, one he knew well. He’d already caught him pilfering pills and had removed everything except the generic aspirin from the bathroom.

“I can’t find shit in there,” Ironhead said, standing in the doorway. “I’m out of here.”

“Do what you must, but I’ll have no part in it,” Hawk said.

“Whatever.” Ironhead walked to the walkway.

***

His head throbbed in rhythm with every step he took. There was nothing Hawk was going to do for him. Cursing himself as he walked, he hoped he hadn’t screwed up the relationship. The guy wasn’t fun, but the work was interesting—and it paid. Where else could he go and be allowed to dive as well as break heads? All bosses were assholes; the only real problem was the pills—and he needed some now.

He looked straight ahead as he crossed over the bridge he had just smashed the boat into, not wanting to see the damage, or the condescending look he knew would come from Hawk, who was sitting on the deck of the trawler. He followed the golf course around a bend, passing a row of boats moored against the seawall, then a resort, an apartment building, and an empty marina. Reaching the first cross street, he continued straight for another block until it dead-ended into Sombrero Beach Road, where he turned left. On his right was the small strip mall that held the Brass Monkey. If there were pills to be found on this blasted island, they would be here.

He crossed the street and entered through the blacked-out door. Music greeted him, and although there were laws against smoking in bars, the place reeked of it. Searching through the sea of bobbing heads and loud voices, he saw an empty seat on the far side of the bar. He worked his way around the room, dodging bodies until he reached the vacant stool.

“Hey, Mike, you’re not looking so hot,” the bartender said.

“I got trouble. You got something that can help?”

The bartender shook his head. “You know you got some credit issues.”

Ironhead reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenties. It was all he had left, and he wondered if payday would even come this week after he’d wrecked the boat. He placed the bills on the bar.

The bartender eyed the bills before grabbing them from the scarred copper bar top. “Should leave enough for a chaser. Want a beer?” A minute later he placed a beer on a cocktail napkin and with a practiced hand slid two pills underneath it.

Ironhead grabbed the bottle and took a long swig. With his other hand, he snagged the napkin and extracted the pills. Feeling better at the sight of them, he slammed the oxycodone in his mouth and finished the beer. That would take care of things tonight, but tomorrow morning the ordeal that had become his life would resume.

He saw Wallace coming towards him and put his head down. It was one thing to be reprimanded by Hawk, but he was not about to take any crap from the failed and disbarred lawyer. It was bad enough he was forced to spend most of his days with him.

“Thought I’d find you here. Boss is pissed,” Wallace said.

“Whatever,” Ironhead said, hoping the pills would take effect quickly.

“If you don’t have any other offers, I’d be thinking about making amends,” Wallace said.

The bartender made a move toward them, but Ironhead waved him away. He turned to Wallace. “What do you have in mind?” He hated groveling.

“They thought they were slick, but I watched them,” Wallace said.

“You want a pat on the back or what?”

“Travis got the girl, and they went back to the house where we had the Cajun in the floor.”

Ironhead was focused on him now. “And?”

“I saw the three of them get back on the boat and start to pull away. It was then I noticed the bike.”

“What bike?” Ironhead asked.

“Remember, we never saw a car, you know, how they got to the house in the first place.”

Ironhead realized he was right. That was how this whole mess had started. If they’d known the couple was in the house, they would never have broken in—at least not then. “So, what of it?”

“I pulled out, you know, to give them the slip. Then I saw the Cajun and the girl jump off the boat and make a run for the bike. I followed them back to his apartment,” Wallace said with a big grin.

Chapter Ten

Mac’s first priority was the boat. There were probably more twenty-foot center-consoles in the Keys than Toyota Corollas, but there was only one with a torn-off T-top. If he wanted to stay invisible, he needed to get rid of the now worthless stainless structure that had supported the old top and would catch the eye of anyone who saw it.

Mac had spent a sleepless night anchored on a shallow mudflat in Boot Key Harbor. Trusting the tides, he had risked the shallows and grounded the boat in two feet of water, using several nearby wrecks to provide some cover. It would be morning before the tide came back in and floated him off. Until then he was stuck.

The only hassle he had encountered was the mosquitoes that kept him awake. They were gone with the dawn and, like clockwork, just after the sun rose, the boat lifted and he was free. After pulling the anchor, he motored across to the main channel and turned to the west, following the markers past the gas docks and turning into a small canal before the harbor entrance. He idled to a dock on the left that serviced the boatyard and tied off the boat.

While he walked to the office, he looked around the work area for his boat and found it sitting on supports near the back of the yard, buried behind several other boats that were currently being worked on. It didn’t look like it was going anywhere soon. Head down, he entered the small office.

“Hey, Mac,” the man behind the counter said. “I’d shake your hand, but… ” He continued to clean his hands with a rag.

“Bill,” Mac replied. He stood there, staring at the coffeemaker.

“Go ahead. First one’s on the house,” he said. “Come to take care of that invoice? Just need to get paid and put a few finishing touches on her and she’s ready to go.”

Mac poured a cup and sat down on a barstool by the counter. “That’s going to have to wait. I see you’ve got her in the back anyway. Just add on the storage charges.”

“So, what brings you by?” Bill asked.

“Got into a bit of a scrape last night. I was wondering if you can pull the tower from my boat?”

“Sure. No big deal. What am I doing with it?” Bill asked.

“Store it until I can find a new top,” Mac said.

Bill put down the rag and went to the door. Mac grabbed the coffee and followed him out. Together they stared at the center-console.

“You got a story to go along with that?”

“If I told you Tru was involved, would that suffice?” Mac answered.

“Probably. I’ll keep an eye on the
Keynoter
for the official account.”

“You do that. I just can’t be running around like this,” Mac said.

An hour later, the tower was unbolted, and a forklift lifted it off the boat. Mac watched the operator set it next to his fishing boat, then climbed back aboard the center-console. “I’ll cover that next week,” he said and fired the engine. Mac untied the lines, waved a thank-you to Bill, and waited for the flooding tide to push the boat away from the dock. When the boat was in the center of the canal, he eased down on the throttles and idled out of the canal.

He steered through the last pair of markers and accelerated, surprised by the additional speed the 250-hp engine provided without the weight of the tower. The only drawback was that without the antennae, the electronics were worthless, but this was his backyard, and he steered back to Wood’s by memory.

After tying off, he climbed down and walked back to the house. He found his phone on the workbench, the battery dead. Starting the generator, he set the phone to charge and left the shed. Sitting on a stump, he thought about what he needed to do next. He wasn’t a gun guy and had nothing more powerful than a twenty-two, a small-gauge shotgun, and some spearguns, but thinking there might be a need now, he remembered Ironhead and Wallace dropping theirs into the water when the sheriff arrived.

***

The sun hit Trufante in his eyes and he rolled over, smiling when he found Pamela was next to him. Day eight. A few ups and downs yesterday, but the streak was still alive. He brushed the hair covering her face aside and watched her eyes move as the light hit them.