Randy White - Shark River

I waited until they were gone, then jumped in my boat and ran straight across the bay to Punta Rassa, where I’d already arranged for a rental car through the big resort and spa there.

I checked the contract twice to make certain I’d paid for full insurance coverage, no deductible. I checked to make sure it had a good emergency brake, too. Most rentals don’t.

It was a Japanese car, white, common, indistinguishable from a dozen other similar makes, foreign or domestic.

Perfect.

I sat in the car at the boat ramp parking lot, watching traffic come across the bridge from Sanibel. I was waiting to see the cab of my old blue pickup come up over the rise, Tomlinson and Ransom inside, and planned to sneak into traffic behind them.

Earlier that morning, right on schedule, I’d called Lindsey at her snowy hideaway, which now she was fairly certain was in Colorado, although her dad wouldn’t allow her to describe the little nearby ski resort where her bodyguards-Big Ben and Little Ben, she called them-now took her daily. I called her not just because I’d agreed to call her but because, I realized, I had come to look forward to our talks. Liked hearing her strong laughter. Liked hearing her energized plans for things we were going to do in the future. At one point, she’d told me, “Know what I’d enjoy doing? Coming back to Florida and just the two of us getting on a boat and going somewhere. Some place that’s peaceful and quiet, but wild. Not one of those resort places. A place that’s got some heart to it. After all this crazy crap is over and we know we’ll be safe.”

Something about the phrase “that’s got some heart to it” brought a specific location to mind. I told her, “If you want wild and remote, there’s an area south of here where the Everglades drains into Florida Bay. Nothing but mangroves and empty beaches and this river that runs clear back up into the sawgrass.”

“Can we go there and camp? Promise?”

The last time I’d camped in that area was years ago, just after my parents were killed. I’d gotten in my little skiff and disappeared on my own, alone for more than two weeks.

I didn’t tell her that. I’d never told anyone that.

“We’ll get a houseboat,” I said, and talked with her for a little longer before listing my plans for the day-driving alone to Mango-so that she could pass them on to her father, via telephone, as I knew she would.

It was the first time I’d ever lied to her.

They were being followed.

I wasn’t certain at first. With Ransom driving, they came rolling over the high bridge, then east on the six-lane highway with its 7-Elevens and strip malls. I filtered in behind, keeping a car or two between us, but I could see they were so busy talking that there was no danger of them taking notice of me.

Ransom was an inconsistent driver. She’d speed up, then slow down, drifting back and forth across lanes. She probably didn’t have much experience driving in traffic. Maybe she’d never driven in traffic before. What had she told me? Cat Island had one tiny little section of paved road, that’s all. Everything else was shell or sand.

Florida attracts some of the worst drivers from around the nation and around the world. It had to be a white-knuckle introduction to life on the modern highway.

But she seemed relaxed, unimpressed. I could see her laughing and chatting away as she tailgated and swerved and cut off cars that she’d passed, indifferent to blaring horns and angry finger-grams flashed her way.

She and Tomlinson seemed to have more and more in common. They were both horrible drivers.

Because she was unpredictable, it took me awhile to spot the car that was following them. I noticed a green Ford Taurus with the plain, unadorned look of an inexpensive rental.

Had I needed to tail someone, it was the kind of car that I would have selected.

I watched the car pass my blue pickup, then linger until my truck had passed it. Then the Ford fell in behind, but in a different lane. When Ransom slowed unexpectedly to something approaching school-zone speed, the Taurus had to pass once more. When the car gradually reduced speed so that Ransom could again slip by, I knew I was watching a solitary surveillance. Had even one other car been involved, the Taurus would have handed her off and continued at speed.

Nope, it was a lone tail. And not someone particularly good at what he was doing.

Mango is about fifty miles southeast of Sanibel, and there are a couple of ways to get there. Like me, Tomlinson tends to stick to the slower back roads and I was pleased when I realized that he was doing the navigating. We went south on U.S. 41-an illustration of crazed manners and automotive chaos. In South Florida, melting pot driving habits are so unpredictable and dangerous that defensive driving is not enough. You must drive tactically. After fighting our way southward, we turned inland on Corkscrew Road, a two-lane asphalt. I dropped back a quarter-mile or so from the Taurus, then pulled up closer when a cement truck slipped out between us, providing me with good cover.

I drove and watched the scenery change from car dealerships and office condos to orange groves, Brangus cattle, and phosphate pits; vast acreage interrupted by an ever-growing number of gated communities with names like Cross Creek Estates, Eagle Ridge, Jamaica Bay-names founded not in geography but at the desks of advertising agencies. The logos varied but the template was the same: little guardhouses, rolling fairways, stucco and spray-creted houses with red synthetic roofs pressed to look like real Spanish tile, lakes and palms in sodded lots, communal pool and tennis courts, and high, ivied concrete walls built to keep Florida out, thereby preserving inside the careful replication of a Midwestern suburb.

We turned south, and the land changed again, from fertilized green to dry-season gray, cypress trees standing in sawgrass, limbs bare as winter maples, and black water that glittered on the distant curve of horizon.

A cement truck turned down a shell access road, leaving just the three of us on this isolated, narrow highway. My blue pickup, the Taurus, and me, all of us separated over a mile of fast asphalt.

I decided it was time to make my move.

The driver of the Taurus had Latino features, the black hair and coloring. He was wearing a collared Polo shirt and narrow, wraparound black sunglasses.

He drove one-handed, forearm draped over the wheel. Cool and very relaxed. He was focused on the pickup, and no doubt figured I was up there ahead of him. He hadn’t done a visual ID, just assumed if the truck was rolling, I was in it. No problem. He’d stay right back there until it was time to make a move of his own. Or maybe call in for backup; just a messenger boy assigned to keep me in sight.

I came up behind him gradually, opened the glove box and placed the Sig Sauer on the seat beside me. Then I pulled the ballcap I was wearing down low, punched the accelerator and passed him. I got a pretty good look at the guy from his blind spot before I touched a shielding hand to my face, not wanting to risk him recognizing me. I pulled back into my lane after a safe distance… and then gradually, very gradually, began to slow.

I wanted to put as much space as possible between the Taurus and the pickup. Wanted to now do to him what, presumably, he had planned to do to me: separate me from traffic, isolate me, then strike.

He was a tailgater. He came flying up behind me with a road rage flamboyance. I watched in my mirror how he put his bumper up close to mine, his mouth working: What the hell kind of idiot was I to pass him, then slow down?

I waited until he swerved out to pass me, then I slammed the accelerator down.

Neither vehicle had much horsepower. But the little Toyota had enough to keep him from getting around me. A lone semi coming from the other direction forced him in behind me again. Once again, I slowed, watching his reaction in the mirror.