Beach Town (51 page)

She looked at the other missed calls. Clint had called around nine Saturday night and left a message. Her pulse blipped a little. Had something gone wrong? Was he back in the hospital?

His voice sounded much better, stronger even. “Hey, Greer. Listen, I might be headed over your way tomorrow for a little business venture. I'm feeling a lot better already. Maybe I could take you out to lunch. You're not shooting on Sundays, right? Anyway, call me when you get this. And thanks for what all you did for me at the hospital. I feel like a lucky man, having you for a daughter.”

Greer bit her lip at the poignant sound of his voice. At some point later this morning she would call him back to let him know lunch wasn't in the cards for today. For now, she just didn't want to have to deal with disappointing one more person.

She got up and wandered around the boathouse, checking to see that everything was ready for today's rehearsals. She kept glancing at her phone, praying it would ring.

Finally she decided to track Eb down. If he was going to break up with her, he was going to have to do it in person—to her face.

She was headed for the Hometown Market when her phone began to vibrate. She snatched it up before the first ring was complete.

It was CeeJay. “Hey, where are you? I came over to your room with a thermos of cold Bloody Marys and hot gossip, but you're not around.”

“I had to go back to the boathouse to pick up my phone. I accidentally left it there overnight. But listen, I'm waiting on a call from Eb, so if my phone beeps and I disconnect, don't get your feelings hurt, okay?”

“I would never get my feelings hurt over a booty call,” CeeJay promised. “Before you hang up though, I just gotta share. Have you seen TMZ?”

“You know I don't read that stuff,” Greer said. “What now?”

“You're gonna want to read it today. They've got an item saying that Kregg and Zena are an item. A ‘hot item' to quote their smutty little story. And they've got the goods to prove it. Somebody has apparently been stalking Kregg's backyard pool with a camera with a very long lens. They must have been on a boat. The photo is of Zena and Kregg, frolicking on a chaise by the pool, wearing nothing but some really ugly tattoos.”

That did give Greer a laugh. Her first one of the day. “I bet I know right when it was taken. Eb and I saw them leaving the Inn Friday night in Kregg's Hummer, and they were already getting really cozy. Both of them showed up late for work yesterday, and it was obvious they'd had an all-night rager.”

“I've got to say, the girl has a body that is drop-dead gorgeous,” CeeJay said. “Even if she is dumber than a box full of rocks.”

“Not so dumb she doesn't know a meal ticket when she sees one,” Greer said. “Zena is one screwup away from a one-way ticket back to the unemployment line, if I have anything to say about it.” Her phone beeped to signal an incoming call. “Gotta go,” she said, and quickly connected to the next call.

“Hi, Greer, this is Wally, your dad's buddy? Have you talked to Clint today?”

She felt another stab of fear. “No. He left me a message last night, but I didn't get it until just now. What's wrong? He's not back in the hospital is he?”

“That's just it,” Wally said. “I don't know where he is. He called me last night and asked if I could carry him over to Roberta this morning to see a vehicle he'd found on Craigslist.”

“Roberta?”

“That's a little bitty town about halfway between his house and Cypress Key, where you are,” Wally said. “He found an ad for a 1942 Willys jeep. Unrestored. That's like the Holy Grail for Clint. He's wanted to have one for his picture car inventory for years. I told him I didn't know. My wife, she likes to go to church on Sundays. Her people are foot-washing Baptists, and I kinda promised—”

“Wally,” Greer interrupted. “Can you get to the point, please? What are you trying to tell me?”

“When I got out of preaching just now I saw Clint left me another message. He said never mind, he'd figure it out for himself. I thought that meant he'd gotten somebody else to take him over to Roberta. But I went by his place a little while ago, and he's not there. And his Blazer is gone too.”

It took a moment for Wally's meaning to sink in. When it did, Greer gasped.

“You think he decided to drive himself, even though he's half blind and he's got a cracked rib? An hour and a half each way? Alone?”

“Yes ma'am,” Wally said, sounding miserable. “I don't know what else it could be. I called the other fellas who work for Clint, and his neighbors, but he's not with any of them, and none of them have talked to him today.”

“God,” Greer moaned. “What do you know about the jeep thing he wanted to see? Do you have the Craigslist ad in front of you?”

“I don't know anything about that Craigslist business. That was all Clint. Your dad, he likes hunting the cars down and buying 'em. I just work on 'em.”

“All right, Wally. I'm going to see what I can find out. In the meantime, if you hear from him, will you let me know right away?”

“Yes ma'am. My wife said to let you know she's praying for Clint.”

Pray for both of us,
Greer thought.

 

61

1942 WILLYS JEEP. ALL ORIGINAL. SOME RUST ISSUES. READY FOR YOUR RESTORATION PROJECT. $3,000. Cash Serious offers only. Will not last at this price.

The Craigslist ad was accompanied by a photograph of what looked like the skeletal remains of a jeep, with weeds growing up through the hood.

“Really, Clint?” Greer muttered to herself. “Three thousand dollars for that?” But she was sure she had the right ad. It was the only one for a vintage jeep in the Florida Craigslist ads, and the only one from Roberta.

She'd pulled into a gas station to do a Google search for the vehicle Wally said her father was questing after.

The ad had no contact phone number, so the only thing she could do was e-mail the seller, requesting that he call her immediately about the jeep.

She tried calling Clint's cell phone again, but again it went directly to voice mail. She shook her head in frustration. Two days ago he'd been a sick old man who could barely stand to pee. Now he'd apparently taken off in search of the Holy Grail.

Greer drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel, trying to decide on a course of action. She didn't know for certain that Clint was on his way to Roberta, but Wally couldn't think of any other reason he would have left his house on a muggy Sunday morning.

It started to rain while she tried to organize her thoughts. Just a light drizzle, just enough to drive the relative humidity all the way through the roof.

Her mind ran amok with all the things that could have happened to the old man. He could have been run off the road and been badly hurt, too badly hurt to answer his phone, even. He could have ventured out for groceries, true, but she'd seen at least a month's worth of groceries in his kitchen, and he'd seemed perfectly content with a regular menu of canned soup and frozen Stouffer's lasagna. Even worse scenarios started to haunt her.

Clint lived alone, in a remote rural area. Anybody could have broken into his house and abducted him, taken him away in his own car … a terrifying stream of horror movie–inspired possibilities unspooled in her overactive imagination.

“Enough.” She typed “Alachua” and “Roberta” into the Kia's GPS and waited for the map to upload onto the car's nav screen. She started the car and headed off in search of a stubborn, half-blind old man, who was in search of a broken, rust-bucket, World War II–era Army jeep.

Three miles down the road she noticed a distinctive green golf cart pulled over on the shoulder of the road. She slowed down to get a closer look and spotted what she'd expected, a faded Silver Sands Motel bumper sticker affixed to the back of the roof canopy.

In another half a mile she saw a slender teenage girl trudging along the side of the road, a small backpack slung over her shoulder. The girl's hair was plastered to her head. She wore a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops. Definitely not an outfit for a hike in rainy, swampy Florida weather.

Greer pulled alongside the girl, rolled down her window, and beeped her horn.

Allie jumped, and Greer could tell she was poised to run, until she recognized the Kia's driver.

“Hey, Allie,” Greer called. “I saw the golf cart up the road. Did the battery die again?”

“Yeah.”

“Get in and I'll give you a ride home,” Greer said.

“No thanks.” Allie kept walking.

“Allie, I know you're mad at me, but it's really not safe for you to try to walk all the way back home. We must be four or five miles from the Silver Sands.”

The girl's face took on a familiar, stubborn set of the jaw. It must have been a Thibadeaux family trait. “I don't care. I like to walk.” She kept on going, staring straight ahead.

The rain had gotten heavier. Water streamed down the teenager's face. Greer coasted along the shoulder, still trying to persuade the girl. She pointed toward the sky. “Look at those storm clouds, Allie. There's a cold front moving in. That means lightning and thunder.”

Allie looked up and, as if on cue, a menacing rumble echoed in the distance. Still she shook her head and walked on.

Greer was losing patience. “Damn it, Allie! Get in this car this minute or I'll call Chief Bottoms and have her send a patrol car to pick you up.”

The girl snatched the door open and slid onto the seat, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant preschooler.

Greer closed her window, wiped away the raindrops that had leaked inside, and drove back onto the roadway.

Allie stared straight ahead, but Greer could see that her eyes were swollen and red rimmed.

“You saw TMZ today, huh?”

“Yes,” Allie whispered.

“I'm sorry, but Kregg is a sleazeball. And if it makes you feel any better, that girl with him in the picture is Zena. And she's a lazy slut.”

The girl's facade cracked slightly. She bit her lip. “Zena? Zena who I worked with on the set?”

“That's the one. He was hitting on her at the Inn Friday night, and then they left together. I know it hurts, to find out he cheated on you that way,” Greer said.

“You don't know anything,” Allie cried. “You don't know what it feels like…”

Greer shrugged. The sky ahead darkened and a bolt of lightning streaked across the inky horizon.

Her cell phone dinged to signal an incoming e-mail. She swerved back onto the shoulder again, braked and read the e-mail.

RE: Willys Jeep. Still available. What information can I give you?

Greer typed her number and response as fast as she could.

Please call me immediately at this number. Have reason to believe my elderly father might have contacted you about the Jeep this morning and he has now gone missing. This is not a scam! Thank you, Greer.

Allie watched what she was doing with feigned indifference. Greer again steered onto the roadway. The storm was moving in. She needed to find Clint before something bad happened. Unless it already had.

“What's going on?” Allie finally asked.

“My father is missing. He was in a car wreck Wednesday and he's half blind and has a cracked rib and is on pain meds. He just got out of the hospital Friday. It's not safe for him to be driving. We think he left his house in Alachua this morning to go look at an old car, but he's not answering his phone.”

Greer's phone rang. The caller ID listed an unfamiliar number, but with a local area code.

“Is this Greer?” It was a man's voice.

“Hi, yes! Thanks so much for calling.”

“I don't really understand what you want from me. The jeep is legit. I've got registration papers and everything.”

“No, I don't doubt that. My father told his friend he'd seen an ad for a Willys jeep for sale on Craigslist. He asked his friend if he'd take him to go see the car this morning, but his friend couldn't do it. Now my dad's car is missing. He just got out of the hospital and he's losing his vision. He's not supposed to drive. At all. Can you just tell me if a man named Clint contacted you?”

“Yeah,” the seller said. “He sounded like an older dude. Said his name was Clint and he had cash, but he needed a ride to come see the car and could I wait until Monday maybe. I told him I had another guy coming to look at it this morning, and the first person to show up with the cash gets the jeep. Wouldn't you know it, both guys were no-shows.”

“What time did you talk to Clint?”

“Hmm, he e-mailed me last night and I sent him my phone number this morning. Must have been around eight a.m. As soon as I told him I had another buyer on the hook he got all excited and said he'd find a way. That's the last I heard from him.”

“It's nearly noon. If he was coming, he should have made it by now,” Greer said.

“Yeah, if he was coming from Alachua, he'd have had plenty of time to get here, even if he drives as slow as all the other retired old farts around here.”

“Something must have happened to him,” Greer said, thinking out loud. “Would you mind texting me your address?”

“I can do that,” the seller said. “Now you got me worried about the old dude. Could you let me know when you find him? And, hey, tell him the jeep's still available.”

She clicked to disconnect and handed the phone to Allie. “Sorry, but I'm not gonna have time to take you back to the motel after all. Could you please call your aunt and tell her you're with me?”

Allie made the call, and it was obvious from her rapid-fire delivery that she was leaving a message. “Hey, Gin. It's Allie. I borrowed the golf cart, but the battery ran down. Don't worry, though, Greer is giving me a ride back, just as soon as we do some stuff.” She disconnected and looked over at Greer.