In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue... (9 page)

They drove about
five miles down the path before the road began to even off. The brilliant harbor peeked between the trees and Desmond pointed to a fisherman’s boat in less than perfect shape bobbing in the water. There were areas where the white paint had been completely stripped from the wood and on the side, the name was handwritten in black spray paint: The S.S. Cordella.

Whenever a wave hit, the boat tugged at the dock as if trying to break free, and Larke wondered how many more hits it would take before the entire thing collapsed.

“That’s his boat?” she asked, following Desmond’s finger. “If he has the resources to get us money and fake passports, why doesn’t he put some of that ingenuity into his boat?”

Desmond chuckled
. “Doug loves that thing. He bought it several years ago for a few thousand dollars.”

The boa
t tipped so far to the right that she feared it would end up submerged in the water.

“I th
ink he might have paid too much.”

They parked the truck underneath a string of palm trees on a gravel parkway just off of the sand
, and made their way over to where the boat was hitched. A shirtless man appeared on the dock, his light blue denim shorts frayed at the bottom edges and torn right above the left knee. His dark blond hair tousled wildly in the breeze and a shadow of his beard outlined the lower portions of his face. When he spotted them walking towards him, his bright blue orbs glittered with relief. He rushed over, grabbed Desmond in a brief, yet rough hug, and then turned to Larke.

“
I’m pleased to finally have a chance to meet you, Larke,” he greeted. “I’m Doug Casey. Come on in and have a seat.”

They followed him onto the treacherously unstable boat, but once Larke crossed the threshold, she understood why he kept the outsid
e looking as shabby as he did. The interior looked as if it belonged to a luxury yacht.

There was a desk in the back corner set-
up with a hi-tech computer system and several monitors, one which had Gano’s face frozen on the screen. The entire right side of the boat was littered with all different types of gadgets—cameras, trackers, scanners, and other contraptions that she couldn’t identify. A sofa wrapped around the opposite wall and a mini fridge hid underneath the computer desk.

“I was not expecting this,” Larke admitted, sitting on the sofa.

“No one ever does,” Doug replied, taking a seat at the desk. “It’s why I keep the outside looking like I do. I actually had to bring my wife inside a few times to convince her that I was really working and not lazing around on a fishing boat.” His eyes flashed to Desmond. “I’ve got some of the information you asked about.”

He
tapped a few keys and the computer screen split into a picture of Gano’s face next to a shot of Jarvis. On the other monitor were photos of the two ranging from grade school to adulthood.

“
Guess we’ve figured out why Larke was abducted,” Desmond said.

“That’s not all,” Doug added. “I just got word from headquarters. Not only do they now know that Larke is missing, so is Jarvis.”

Larke’s head shot up. “Eddie is missing? Missing how?”

“They’re saying that he was lost in transit,” he explained. “One of our guys talked to one
of the inmates that witnessed it and he said they took him professional style. Three men dressed in all black boarded the vehicle and extracted Jarvis like a scene straight from a movie.”

Desmond’s jaw clenched. There was no doubt in his mind that now that he was free, Jarvis’ sea
rch for Larke would intensify.

“How’d they find out that Larke was missing?”
He asked.

“I don’t know,” Doug answered with a shrug.
“Someone leaked it to the FBI, so we’re either looking at a crack in our agency, or someone else knows about what’s going on.”

“
And they’re trying to stir the pot.”

“Exactly.”

“Has the link been made between Larke’s, Cory’s, and Jarvis’ disappearances yet?” Desmond asked, then cursed. He’d forgotten that he hadn’t told Larke about Cory.

“Cory’s
missing?” She asked, landing an accusatory glance on Desmond’s face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I forgot.”

“So, this whole ‘Babylon Roots’ thing. That was a lie? You knew who abducted me all along?”

Another curse resounded.
He’d forgotten about that as well.

“Yes, but let me explain,” he rushed out before she had a chance to speak. “I wasn’t sure who’d abducted you back at the old house.”

“But you had a hunch.”

“A hunch doesn’t mean much in this line of work.”

Her eyes darted between him and Doug. “Really? You guys operate off your gut and intel. A hunch means everything.”

Desmond and Doug began to plead their case, but she put a hand up before squaring her eyes on Desmond. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with you later.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Ignoring it, she faced Doug again. “So, has anyone pointed out yet that three of the key people involved in the Jarvis case are missing?”

“That’s the funny thing.” Doug pulled up a copy of the Washington Post. “Yes, but not in the way that you think. T
he media is calling the case a curse. The FBI, they’re thinking an external source. That one person is behind all three of the disappearances.”

“
Is that one person Eddie?” She asked.

“No
.” Doug swayed in his chair. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Desmond?”

“That Larke has a mole in her office?”
Desmond asked, glancing at Larke. “And that this could be the same person who leaked to the FBI that she’d gone missing?”

Doug also looked at her. “Did
anyone else in your office know about what had been happening? The threats? The stalking? Any of that?”

“No,” she answered, trying to conjure the memory and failing.

“You’re sure?”

“
Pretty sure.”

He twisted his mouth. “Still doesn’t feel right.”

Desmond reached for a folder that was sitting on top of the desk. “What have you found so far on the Jarvis-Delgano connection?”

Doug
tapped a few more keys. “Not much. They grew up together, but Eddie chose to move to the US while Richards stayed in Jamaica. Virtually everyone on the island knows their story, and that they’re involved in some sort of intricate drug smuggling operation, but I couldn’t find a shred of evidence that Delgano ever stepped foot onto US soil. It almost looks like they haven’t had any contact since Eddie left eighteen years ago.”

He turned the monitor towards them. “But
have you ever heard of a police officer that, on just his salary, can afford a property on the Amalfi coast in Italy? Or purchase a Lamborghini roadster in cash?”

Larke moved closer to the screen. “So, Eddie and Gano are still working together.”

“And are somehow able to exchange money without leaving a paper trail,” Desmond added.

“But why come after me?”

Doug pulled up another screen. “Larke, how much was Eddie worth when your team looked into it?”

She thought back to the trial. “About forty-five million.”

He chuckled and pressed a button as numbers began to scroll across the screen. “Try one-hundred and twenty-million dollars.”

Desmond sucked air through his teeth. “Damn.”

“Damn is right,” Doug added. “With men like Jarvis, that money means that they have absolute power. The fact that he was able to keep more than half of his net-worth hidden from the IRS means power even over the US government. Your conviction trumped that power. You threatened his livelihood. That’s why he targeted you.”

Desmond handed the folder to Larke before grabbing another. “Did you find anything on Cory?”

“No, but my instincts tell me that he’s not alive.”

“
But he didn’t kill me right away,” Larke suggested. “Couldn’t that mean that Cory is still alive somewhere?”

Doug and Desmond glanced at each other.

“Larke,” Desmond began, “the most logical reason explaining why Jarvis ordered to bring you in alive, is because he wanted to kill you himself. You were the direct threat. Cory was the accessory. So, it was less important to him to have a direct hand in Cory’s death.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, wishing that she could go back to a few years ago, right before she made the decision to accept the posit
ion at the US Attorney’s office.

“I’m sorry,” Desmond apologized.
“I didn’t mean to put it that way.”

She didn’t respond and distracted herself by flipping through the folder. In the file, there were photos of young men that had been killed along with Doug’s notes as to how Eddie was probably connected. The entire thing made her nauseous.

“Another thing,” Doug continued. He pulled up an image that looked like it was taken from a surveillance video of Delgano standing with an unidentified man. “This third man just recently popped up on the radar, but I haven’t been able to find any information on him down here. My informant has been combing through the island and coming up bone dry. Nobody knows anything about him. Getting this image was pure luck, but I’m thinking that he’s the main link in the chain joining these two together.”

Larke went to the
sofa and continued to flip through the materials. She couldn’t believe that she’d had the nerve to feel triumphant when she’d convicted Eddie on the murder charge. Looking at all the information, the drugs, the money, and the secrecy, it was possible that he was linked to dozens of homicides. George Vickers’s murder didn’t make up for that. It never could.

A piece about a girl who’d suddenly died within hours of leaving an airplane caught
her attention. The girl’s death was never investigated as the coroner reported that it was due to natural causes.

“This girl,
do you have her medical records?”

She held up the folder for them to see.

“Taina Bailey,” Doug recalled. “No, I didn’t check for them. She died of natural causes. The only reason her name came up is because she was the girlfriend of a young man whose death I think is tied to Jarvis’ operation. She was called to the police station for interrogation after his death and had nothing to offer, so they let her go. On the flight back to her home in the Virgin Islands, after getting off of the plane complaining about a headache, she died that night in the hospital.”

Larke brought the folder over to Doug. “Do you think you could get her records?”

“I can try, but my contacts in the VI are scarce.”

“What island is she from?” Desmond asked.

“St. Thomas,” Doug replied.

Larke pointed to the picture. “This was a nineteen year old girl with no
reported history of chronic illness, so for her to just die like that is a bit suspect.”

Desmond nodded. “You’re right. I mean, it says here that she died within h
ours of leaving the airport.” He skimmed through the details. “And look at this, she wasn’t even treated in the hospital. She was taken to a privatized facility to seek care. And guess who footed the bill? The Deputy Superintendent himself.”

Doug grabbed the folder, surprised that he
’d missed such a simple connection.

“I would bet everything I have that the family wasn’t satisfied with her cause of death,” Desmond declared. “If we can get to them, we can get to the records.”

Doug started to respond but was interrupted by the sound of something solid hitting into the side of the boat. He ducked, pulled a gun out from underneath the desk, and then tossed a matching rifle to Desmond. Carefully peering outside of the window, Desmond made out Gano’s frame about a hundred yards away with a small fleet of vehicles behind him. In front of him, four men were on one knee with their firearms pointed at the boat, while a woman stood talking to him with a baby on her hip. She pointed at Ivor’s trucked parked on the gravel, then at the boat.

“Come out now,” one of the men spoke over a megaphone. “We know you are on the boat and if you want to keep your lives, you need to come out with your hands raised.”

Desmond loaded his weapon and motioned to Larke to keep her head down. Doug sank to the floor and moved a few objects around to reveal a smaller circular window closer to the floor of the boat. It was covered by tinted film and had a second opening next to it just large enough for him to fit the tip of his rifle through.

Gano stomped over and grabbed the speaker from the man. “Look, I know you know who this is,” he bellowed. “And if I didn’t hurt you before, you should realize that I’m not trying to hurt you. There are some people who want to talk to you young woman, so I suggest you give up this nonsense chase before you lose your life.”

Desmond and Larke looked at each other.

“He doesn’t know you’re with me,”
she realized. Desmond found it even more interesting that Gano hadn’t gotten any additional information out of Eva and Ivor. He smiled at the thought.