James Grippando - Blood Money

It was Rene’s necklace.

“Don’t touch anything,” the undercover agent told him.

Jack stepped away from the bench, sickened by the symbolism of the swap.

“He’s got Sydney,” Jack said.

The agent said something into her hidden microphone about “abort,” which took it from obvious to official that the mission had failed.

Jack’s gaze drifted back to the necklace on the bench, and he wondered if Sydney was still alive-and how much time they had.

Andie’s surveillance and apprehension team quickly shifted gears to abduction and recovery mode. The FBI communications van was at the exit to the parking garage, poised to speed down Biscayne Boulevard. Andie was buckled into the passenger seat with tech support on the line.

“I need a location,” she said, her patience waning.

“No GPS reading,” her tech agent said.

“Damn.” Andie was certain that Merselus had found Sydney because she had screwed up the FBI’s directions on how to disarm GPS tracking on her iPhone.

“We’re triangulating now,” tech said.

Andie crossed her fingers. The electronic pulse that every cell phone in the power-on mode transmitted to cell towers every eight seconds was distinct from GPS tracking, but the process of triangulating between a cell phone and towers took more time.

“Got it,” he said, and he gave her an approximate address, give or take a hundred-yard radius. Triangulation was less precise than GPS. “That’s the best we can do.”

“That’s on the river.”

“North of the Brickell Avenue Bridge,” he said. “I’m sending you the coordinates now.”

“Send them team-wide,” said Andie. “And thanks.”

The driver hit the gas, and the tires squealed as the van raced out of the parking garage. They were headed south on Biscayne Boulevard as Andie confirmed backup and got on the line with Special Agent Crenshaw, whose team was already on the move in a black FBI SWAT van.

Crenshaw asked, “How current are the coordinates?”

“About four minutes ago.”

“Four minutes? They could be five miles from there by now.”

“It’s all we’ve got to go on for now.”

“How about an update?”

“Not likely. Our guess is that he texted rather than called to try to keep the phone on for less than eight seconds. He barely missed it. We got one reading when he sent the text, which by itself may not have been enough for us to triangulate. Got a second pulse just before the phone was powered off, which gave us a little more data to work with. I wouldn’t expect him to turn on the phone again and send another pulse.”

“Did you issue a BOLO?”

Andie understood the point of his question. A be-on-the-lookout alert could draw everyone into the conflict-from local police to the neighborhood crime watch. Or even the media.

“BOLO went out three minutes ago,” said Andie.

“Shit,” said Crenshaw.

“Had to do it,” said Andie. “If they’re speeding down I-95, I need highway patrol in the loop.”

“Be on the lookout for what, though? Do you honestly think Sydney Bennett looks anything like what she looked like in trial?”

“Probably not. But we have a decent image of Merselus that we lifted from a snippet of enhanced video taken by a Coast Guard officer of him and Sydney on the runway at Opa-locka Airport. He may not even know we have it, so it may be helpful.”

“Send me that now,” said Crenshaw. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you supplement the BOLO with the usual multijurisdictional caveat.”

“And that would be. . what?”

“Tell the locals to stay out of my way,” said Crenshaw.

She knew he was only half-serious-maybe a little more than half. “Roger that,” said Andie.

Midnight came. Jack was driving across the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne, halfway home and flanked on both sides by the dark waters of Biscayne Bay. With a slight turn of his head to the left, he could admire downtown Miami and the sparkling skyline that stretched along the shore of the mainland. The view was beautiful-deceptively so, as the city seemed oblivious to Merselus and his plans for the night. Rene, her necklace, and Sydney were heavy on Jack’s mind when the phone call came from Andie.

“Are you okay?” asked Andie.

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“You won’t see me tonight.”

He got that answer a lot in response to “Where are you?”

“Do you want me to notify Sydney’s parents?” Jack asked.

“It’s covered.”

“Good. Not exactly two of my favorite people.”

“Which reminds me. Don’t lie awake tonight mulling over your long-shot theory about Celeste Laramore’s biological parents. It went nowhere. DNA tests showed no possible biological connection between Celeste and anyone in the Bennett family-Sydney, her parents, Emma. No one.”

Andie had told him from the get-go that he was getting carried away with the physical resemblance between Celeste and Sydney. “Still don’t understand why she visited Sydney, why she started looking more and more like her.”

“My bet is that Celeste thought she could be related to Sydney, or maybe even wanted it to be true. I hate to speak badly of a young woman in a coma, but frankly I think it was some kind of weird celebrity worship. Granted, Sydney was the worst kind of celebrity, but she was still a celebrity.”

“Maybe,” said Jack.

“I gotta go. I’ll call you.”

“Stay safe,” he said, and the call ended. Jack checked his speed. He was on the downward slope of Miami’s highest bridge, the end of the causeway and the beginning of the island of Key Biscayne and its notorious speed traps. He brought it down to thirty-five m.p.h. and dialed Theo at his bar. Music and crowd noise were in the background.

“How’s Abuela ?” Jack asked. Jack hadn’t told his grandmother what he and Andie were up to, but she had still felt uncomfortable staying at the house alone, so Theo told her it was national Take an Abuela to Work Night.

“She’s awesome,” said Theo. “She’s sharing a booth with Uncle Cy and on her third Cosmo-Not.”

Cosmo-Not was Theo’s version of a nonalcoholic Cosmopolitan. Uncle Cy was Theo’s great-uncle, an eighty-year-old relic of Miami’s Overtown and its jazz heyday of the mid-twentieth century. Cy was still quite the saxophone player, with emphasis on player .

“Tell Cy to keep his hands to himself,” said Jack.

“Will do. How did it go tonight?”

“Don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Got it.”

“I’m almost home, and I’m embarrassed to say that I forgot all about picking up Abuela . Too damn much on my mind.”

“No problem. I’ll drop her off.”

“Thanks.”

“Unless she hooks up with Cy.”

“Don’t push it,” said Jack.

Jack ended the call, tucked his cell away, and just drove. The monotonous hum of tires on asphalt was the backdrop for his thoughts. He passed the Seaquarium, home to Flipper the dolphin and Lolita the killer whale. He wondered if they were asleep; and if they were asleep, he wondered if they were dreaming; and if they were dreaming, he wondered if these highly intelligent legless mammals ever dreamed about walking like the trainers who fed them. Then he shook off the silliness and accepted the fact that the old games he played to trick himself were futile. Never in his life-not even as a high-school boy obsessed with the hair and lips of Julia Roberts-had he managed to conjure up a successful diversion from worries and concerns that were certain to keep him wide awake and staring at the ceiling till dawn.