Blood of Cain

63

On the way back to the Marina, I stopped in the Tiki Bar and let Big John know what happened to Kim. He picked up the phone and ordered flowers to be sent to her in Halifax Hospital. As I walked down L-Dock, I thought about what I had to do and the options for doing it. I didn’t know if Courtney Burke was dead or alive. To keep her alive, I had to know her real identity. My key, I felt, was lying in the brief conversation I had with the mystery woman on the phone. Who was she? Where was she?

I had to find out. To protect Courtney and Kim, I had to try to reach Andrea Logan. I knew that either her phone, mine — or both of them, were monitored. I stood near the palm frond thatched roof of a fish-cleaning station and made the call. After five rings, I thought it was going to voice-mail, and then she said, “Hello, Sean. I can’t talk now.”

“Andrea, don’t hang up, please. Even if you can’t talk, you can listen for thirty seconds. The life of a close friend of mine was threatened. She’s an innocent victim in this, just as Courtney — a girl who might be our daughter — is an innocent victim.”

“Sean, I’m sorry, I have to go.”

“Before you do, tell him to back off. All this can be worked out, but if Courtney’s harmed … there’s no turning around. Tell him, Andrea.”

“I’m so sorry.” She disconnected. I stared down at the phone in the palm of my hand, resisting the urge to throw it into the bay. I started toward Jupiter.

“Sean, wait up.”

I turned around to see Dave walking down the dock with two large plastic bags of ice. He said, “I caught the news bulletin on Channel Nine. They’re saying a shooting just happened on Sailfish Street. Please tell me Kim’s not hurt.”

“She’s hurt, but she’ll live.” I told him what happened.

He looked across the marina, his eyes troubled. He watched a charter fishing boat, four customers in the cockpit, the crew already serving the men drinks. Dave said, “They’d better keep security posted right outside her door. The only way that this roller coaster will come to a screeching halt is to find Courtney.”

“That’s all I’ve been thinking about the last few days.

“Well, apparently, she’s not in Florida anymore?”

“What do you mean?”

“She was spotted in New Orleans. A street artist, a guy who used to be a police sketch artist, said he spoke with her near the French Quarter. He said she ran away, and then he sketched her face from memory, from the brief time he talked to her. Let me put this ice away, one bag’s for Nick, and I’ll show you the sketch on my tablet. I downloaded it from CNN.”

As we walked by St. Michael, Dave yelled, “Nick, get your ice before it melts.”

“Where’s Max?” I asked.

“After playing an intense game of tag with Ol’ Joe the cat, she hit my sofa for a power nap.”

Nick came out of his boat, hair tousled, eyes puffy. Dave handed him a bag of ice over the transom. He grinned and said, “A boat without ice is like a car without tires. You get nothing done. Any luck on finding the girl?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Nick, Kim’s been hurt.” I gave him a brief explanation. He listened without interruption, the condensation from the ice dripping on top of his brown bare feet.

He shook his head, glanced at a pelican soaring over the water, and said, “Sean, I’m in good shape now. Let me join you hunting for these guys. Kim’s like a sister to me. I’m coming with you.”

“You’re still not fully healed. Sit tight. I’m trying to come up with a plan that will remove Kim from any of this.”

“How fast can you pull that off?”

“Not fast enough.”

Dave said, “It’s believed Courtney Burke was spotted in New Orleans. Toss your ice in the freezer and come aboard Gibraltar. I was about to show Sean an image of what looks a lot like Courtney.”

Nick nodded, walked back inside St. Michael, and reappeared with a six-pack of Coronas in his hand. He followed us to Gibraltar, sitting on a stool at Dave’s bar, popping the top off a beer. “Want one?”

I shook my head. “Not now.”

Dave said, “I’ll be mixing a batch of Grey Goose martinis after five-thirty.”

I picked Max up and set her on my lap, scratching behind her hound dog ears. Her brown eyes began to close.

Dave picked up his tablet and found the image. He enlarged it on screen and said, “The sketch artist was interviewed. He said he’d spotted the girl eating alone on a park bench near Jackson Square close to the French Quarter. He said, even with her dark glasses and hat, he could tell she was beautiful. He told a reporter that the girl had a face of an angel — a face he had to draw, if he’s to be believed.”

Nick sipped his Corona and said, “To me, it sounds like a way to pick up women.”

I studied the image. “It’s hard to say, but from the sketch, it could be Courtney. There’s a resemblance … but it could be a million other young women, too. We can’t be certain it’s her.”

Dave nodded. “But we can be certain of one thing: whoever sent those two bounty hunters to Gibsonton, whoever intimidated and hurt Kim … you can bet they’ve sent their troops to New Orleans, or they may already have someone in the city.”

Nick said, “Maybe that’ll take the heat off Kim.”

I said, “If they find Courtney in New Orleans, yes. But they still believe Kim knows the name of the woman who lent her mobile phone to Courtney. Dave, do you have anyone at your old place of employment who you can unconditionally trust?”

“There are a couple at the agency who haven’t retired. I’d trust them in any situation.”

“Good.” I wrote down the number and handed it to him. “Here’s the number to the woman I told you about — the one Courtney called. I believe it’s connected to somewhere in South Carolina or across the state line near Augusta, Georgia.”

Dave looked through his bifocals. “Okay, what do you need?”

“The physical location of the person who has that number. It may be a landline or a mobile phone. I need the address. Home or apartment. If it’s a mobile, and the GPS is on, I’ll need her location as I’m tracking her.”

“That’ll take minutes to find out.”

“Good. It’s urgent. Did any of the news stories say whether Courtney’s been spotted by anyone else in New Orleans?”

“No one has come forth, but with Carlos Bandini adding money to the Crime Stoppers reward, it’s now at two-hundred grand. That’ll bring out the sentinels and ghost hunters.”

Nick chuckled. “The Big Easy has its share of ghost hunters.”

I said, “The question is — if the girl in that sketch is Courtney, why did she go to New Orleans? What’s there or who’s there? Will she stay hidden in the city? Now that she’s been seen, probably not. Where will she go next?”

“Good questions,” Nick said. “It’s too damn bad that all this is happening with your ex-girlfriend, at least with her politician husband, because if Andrea Logan gave a damn about the girl who might be her daughter, she could be in a position to help find her. But you can’t even tell Andrea because it places Courtney in the cross-hairs of an assassin. Screw it, Sean. I’m worried about Kim now. Call Andrea and tell her to tell her husband to back off or you’ll kick his sanctimonious ass the length of the Washington Monument.”

“I did call her a half hour ago.”

Nick’s dark eyebrows arched. “What’d she say?”

“She listened, mostly. For half a minute. Without mentioning Senator Logan by name, I urged her to tell him to leave it alone … or there will be consequences.”

Dave exhaled, set his tablet on the table and said, “You walk a fine and very dangerous line, Sean. Logan has the full protection of the Secret Service. If you even utter a threat specifically against Logan, they’ll arrest you so fast your head will spin. It’s a hell of an unfair advantage. He’s could have access to the NSA’s resources to monitor calls, emails, and any electronic communications through its PRISM program and Patriot Act. Is Logan privy to it? I don’t know. Regardless, he can be in his jet or luxury bus on the campaign stops, whisper treacherous directives for his subordinates to follow, and stay beyond reproach in the eye of the law and the public. But you, Sean, have to play by the rules.”

“Maybe,” I said standing. “Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked.

“I might not be able to threaten Logan, personally. But I can send a sincere message through someone else.”

Nick leaned forward on the barstool. “Sincere? Through who?”

“That will depend on who they send. The invite goes out tonight. Dave, I’m going to give you a call in a little while. Play along. They’re listening on my main phone, no doubt. And now it’s time to turn the tables.”