James Swain - The King Tides

He decided against it. Rising from the floor, he placed the Kindle on the bedside table. He turned around and saw her gazing at a framed photograph on the dresser. It was a group photo of his SEAL team taken in Yemen with the team wearing facial hair disguises and head scarves. His protruding belly made it easy to pick him out of the group. She shifted her gaze to him. She did not acknowledge the photo or his presence in it, which he found surprising. Most people who had seen it wanted to know more.

“When do you plan to tell your sister about the videos?” he asked.

“This afternoon,” she said. “Melanie and her husband are taking Nicki to a birthday party for one of Nicki’s friends. My sister invited me to join them.”

“They shouldn’t be taking Nicki out,” he said.

“I told her the same thing,” she said. “Melanie said that three guards you recommended are going to accompany them. Are they any good?”

“They’re ex-SEALs,” he said.

“That works,” she said.

He went to the dining room to clean up the mess around the china cabinet. The sight of his grandmother’s ladle lying in pieces on the floor got him angry, but he kept his feelings bottled up. He placed the shards onto the palm of his hand and deposited them into a wastebasket in the kitchen. She was right on his heels.

“That was old, wasn’t it?” she asked.

“It was a family heirloom,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I’ll replace it. It’s the least that I can do.”

He nodded and returned to the dining room and put the rest of the pieces back into the china cabinet. Replacing a broken ladle was easy; fixing her niece’s situation was not. It would require taking the Cassandra videos down from the web and coming up with a strategy to protect Nicki from further harm. So far, Daniels hadn’t said that she was going to do any of these things. Maybe she had a plan and didn’t want to share it with him. Or maybe the sting was so important to her that she planned to keep it going, and didn’t care what happened to Nicki. It sounded cruel, but he’d seen stranger things in law enforcement. Daniels glanced at her watch and frowned.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“I told Melanie I’d meet her at eleven thirty, and it’s already five after eleven,” she said. “I don’t want to be late and get things off on a bad foot.”

“I hope it goes well with your sister.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like you to accompany me.”

“Why is that?”

“I want you there when I talk to them,” she said. “It’ll make things easier.”

For who? he nearly asked.

“If you think it’ll help,” he said.

“I do,” the FBI agent said.

The Harbor Beach Surf Club was a members-only yacht club located on Highway A1A that charged more to rent a dock slip than most people paid for their mortgages. Lancaster had driven by its gated entrance many times but never been inside.

Daniels’s rental was a silver Dodge Challenger. It was from Hertz and was part of their Adrenaline Collection. She drove like a New York cabbie, her right foot alternating between hitting the gas and slamming on the brakes. It was like riding a bull, and he kept his hand pressed to the dashboard and prayed she didn’t rear-end another car.

“How much farther?” she asked.

“It’s less than a mile up the road,” he said. “Do you always drive so fast?”

“I have a need for speed. Does that bother you?”

“You could get pulled over. A1A has its own patrol.”

“I’ll bat my eyelashes and talk my way out of it.”

She hit her blinker and turned into the club. A security guard found her name on a list and put a pass on her dashboard. They drove a short distance to the pavilion where the birthday party was being held. The club dated back to World War I, and there was nothing fancy about it. Just a marina, a brick pavilion that had restrooms and a covered area with picnic tables, and a private stretch of beach on the other side of A1A.

After parking, they got out and approached the pavilion. It was decorated with silver helium balloons and streamers with the birthday girl’s name. About fifteen parents and the same number of kids were eating burgers and dogs and making lots of noise.

The Pearls sat at a picnic table in the shade. Nicki was eating a hot dog and looked like she was having a good time. Her parents sat to either side of her. Neither was eating. Carlo stood nearby, wearing an untucked white shirt to hide the firearm he was carrying. Although Lancaster didn’t see Karl or Mike, he knew they were nearby.

The Pearls stood up. Nicki put her dog on a paper plate and rushed her aunt. They hugged, and Daniels got choked up and wiped away a few tears. Nicki’s parents stayed in their spots wearing thin smiles. Daniels broke free of her niece and came up to them.

“Hey, Melanie,” she said.

“Hey, Beth,” her sister replied.

“You haven’t changed.”

“Neither have you.”

“I wish you’d told me you’d moved back.”

“I’ve been busy. You know how it is.”

Daniels was a bully, except when around her older sister. Then she was a wimp. Daniels shifted her attention to her brother-in-law.

“Nolan.”

“Beth.”

“You look good.”

“That’s funny, I don’t feel good,” Pearl said. “Melanie tells me that you tore Jon’s condo apart before calling us. I can’t say it surprises me. You were always one to shoot first and ask questions later.”

An awkward silence ensued. There was not enough pavement for Lancaster to stare at. Nicki came over and broke up the party.

“They’re going to cross A1A so they can go swimming in the ocean,” the teenager said. “Can we go too? I brought my swimsuit with me. It’s under my clothes.”

“Let’s ask Carlo,” Melanie said. “Carlo, what do you think?”

“Is this a public or private beach?” Carlo said.

“Private. Only the club’s members can use it,” Melanie said.

“That should be okay,” Carlo said.

“Yay!” Nicki said.

The birthday party was abandoning the pavilion for the beach. The partygoers walked single file down a gravel path through the mangroves. The Pearls were the last to leave, with Carlo behind them talking on his cell phone to his partners. Daniels stayed behind, shamed by the exchange with her brother-in-law. In her hand were the keys to the rental. Did she really think she could just leave?

Lancaster went over and snatched the keys out of her hand.

“You’re not wiggling your way out of this one,” he said.

The partygoers used the striped walkway to cross A1A. By the time they reached the beach, Nicki had seven adults protecting her. The teenager stripped off her clothes to reveal a pink bikini underneath and joined her friends in the water.

Lancaster stood a dozen yards away, taking everything in. There were perhaps twenty other swimmers enjoying the beautiful day, and a lone lifeguard sitting in a high chair. Daniels stormed over and grabbed his arm.

“Give me back my car keys,” she seethed.

“Not until you tell your sister and her husband what you’ve done,” he said.

“If you don’t give me my keys, I’ll arrest you.”

She had been reduced to threats, and he laughed under his breath. “What do you plan to tell the judge? That you ransacked my place without a warrant and held me against my will? Or that you made kiddie porn without considering the consequences?”

“Third time. It wasn’t intentional.”

“That’s a cop-out. I’ve dealt with perverts. Porn is the fuel that keeps them going. That’s especially true with pedophiles.”

“I want my keys.”