Dead Run

CHAPTER 27

Saturday, November 17

9:45 p.m.

Rick’s Island Hideaway looked nothing as Liz had imagined. She supposed that because of the movie Casablanca she had expected lots of tropical plants, slowly whirling ceiling fans, women in sleek sundresses accompanied by modern-day Bogies.

Nothing could be further from reality. No plants. No sleek sundresses or Humphrey Bogart look-alikes. And instead of Sam “playing it again” at the piano, a sound system pumped out reggae music, its decibel only a notch below ear numbing.

The level needed to be heard above the raucous crowd.

She hesitated in the doorway, uncertain what to do. Obviously, her timing sucked, big time. The crowd at the bar was six deep. Rick and another bartender, a sexy-looking twenty-something woman with a wild mane of sun-streaked hair, worked the bar-each managing to fill drink orders, run the register and socialize in what seemed to be one fluid movement.

Rick would not be happy to see her now.

Liz hung back, considering her options. According to the message Mark had left on her machine the previous evening, he expected to be initiated into the Horned Flower last night. He had been meeting his contact at ten-fifteen.

If you don’t hear from me, go to Rick Wells. He’ll know what to do.

She hadn’t heard from him. She feared every minute could mean the difference between life and death.

If he wasn’t dead already.

“Goin’ in, babe?”

Liz glanced over her shoulder. She had been blocking the doorway. “Sure, sorry.”

Decision made, she stepped through. A moment later, she found herself in the middle of the Saturday-night crowd, elbowing her way toward the bar. She got within shouting distance and did just that.

Rick heard his name on her first try and looked her way. A smile creased his face. “Hey, Liz Ames. What brings you in on this busy night?”

“I need to talk to you,” she shouted. “It’s important.”

“Yeah?” He flashed her damn near the sexiest smile she had ever seen, then shifted his attention to a man sitting at the bar directly in front of him, nursing a beer. “Hey, Pete, be a gentleman. Make room for the lady.”

The other man glanced over his shoulder at her. She saw immediately that he was inebriated. “You wan’ to sit?”

“Thank you, but I don’t mean to-”

“S’ okay.” He slid off the stool, landing unsteadily on his feet. “Pete g’home now.”

She put a hand on his elbow to steady him. He smiled at her, then wobbled off, the crowd seeming to part for the old drunk.

Liz climbed onto the stool. “You didn’t have to chase him off. I could have-”

“Don’t worry about it.” He cleared away Pete’s glass and beer bottle, wiped the spot then replaced them with a fresh drink coaster. “Old Pete’s been keeping that spot warm since just after lunch. Time to cut him off.”

“Since noon?” She glanced in the direction the man had gone, amazed. “I hope he’s not driving.”

“Nope. Used to bicycle but landed in the ditch one too many times. Val impounded his bike.”

She cocked an eyebrow at the way he said the other man’s name, with real affection. “You and Lieutenant Lopez are good friends, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much the best of friends. We go way back.” He nodded at a couple other patrons, then returned his gaze to hers. “What can I get you?”

She really didn’t want anything, but felt guilty taking up both his time and space at the bar and not ordering. “How are your frozen margaritas?”

“Killer, if I do say so myself. With salt or without?”

“With, of course.”

He told her he would be right back and worked his way down the bar, taking several other orders as he did, all the while calling out humorous one-liners and greetings.

Liz dragged her gaze away, mouth going dry. She trailed her finger through a bead of moisture on the bar. Rick Wells was just one of those guys who had it all: looks, charm, personality, brains, bod. The complete, woman-eating package. No doubt he had been an athlete in high school and had had a bevy of adoring cheerleader types buzzing around him all the time.

One of those guys a smart, serious girl like her should avoid at all costs.

Her ex-husband had been one of those. But Jared had been shallow, too. A quality she hadn’t noticed until too late. Liz returned her gaze to Rick and found him conversing with another patron while he shook the thick, frozen mixture into a glass.

He looked at her then, and smiled. She experienced the tickle of sexual awareness and jerked her gaze away. Don’t be stupid, Liz, she told herself.

A moment later he set the drink in front of her. “One killer frozen margarita. With salt.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, then sipped. She had to admit, it was the best margarita she had ever tasted. She told him so.

He grinned and leaned toward her. “It’s a secret recipe. My very own.”

“I’m impressed.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Not in the same league as curing cancer, but on a steamy Key West night, it’ll do the trick.”

That it would. The sweet, tangy concoction no doubt packed a deceptive wallop.

“But you didn’t come here to shoot the breeze or drink margaritas, did you?”

She shook her head. “No, though I wish I had. I came because of Mark Morgan.”

“Mark?” His eyebrows shot up.

“He said you were his friend. That he trusted you.”

“That right? He bother to tell you he lifted six hundred bucks from my register, then left town? He trusts me, all right. To be a sap.”

She shook her head, confused. “Left town? That can’t be right.”

“It’s right, I guarantee you that. He left me a note telling me he did it.”

“When did this happen?”

“The night Tara died.”

The night he and Tara planned to run away together. “I’ve seen him since then.”

His gaze sharpened. “When?”

“Last Monday.”

He hesitated, as if deciding if the direction of this conversation was worth any more of his attention. He took a step away from her, signaling that he had decided it was not. “I don’t really have time for this right now. The drink’s on me, Liz.”

“Wait!” She leaned toward him, lowering her voice. “He contacted me about Tara ’s murder.”

He straightened and turned toward his new bartender. “Margo, can you handle the bar for a few minutes?”

She nodded and Rick indicated for Liz to follow him to his office. She did, and there he shut the door behind them. They didn’t sit. “What’s going on?”

“Mark’s in trouble, Rick. Big trouble.”

“Go on.”

“He was there that night, in the garden.”

“Holy shit.”

“He’s Tara ’s baby’s father. He’s the reason she was in the garden that night. They’d arranged to meet there. They were running away together.”

“Son-of-a-bitch.” Rick crossed to his desk and sank heavily onto its edge. “The IOU he left. Of course.”

“IOU?”

“The six hundred bucks. He left me a note promising to pay it back. He said it was an emergency.” Rick passed a hand across his forehead. “What else did he tell you?”

Liz launched into the story, finishing with Mark’s account of finding Tara dead, and running.

“No joke he’s got himself in trouble,” Rick muttered. “Stupid kid. Did you tell him to go to the police?”

Her silence was his answer and he narrowed his eyes. “Exactly how did you say you knew Mark?”

“He contacted me last Monday. I never heard of him before that.”

“Then why call you?”

“He wanted someone to know everything in case…he disappeared.”

“But why you?”

She hesitated, considering her options. She could tell him the easy part of the story and probably get away with it. But at this stage of the game it seemed not only pointless but dishonest as well.

And being dishonest with Rick Wells would be a mistake.

“Because I had counseled Tara. And because I’m Pastor Rachel Howard’s sister.”

She saw the moment he made the connection. “From Paradise Christian. The woman who disappeared.”

It wasn’t a question. She answered anyway. “Yes.”

He glanced at his watch. “I have to check on Margo. It might be a few minutes.”

The door shut behind him and she sank onto a chair. Only then did she realize she was shaking. She clasped her hands together and moved her gaze over the office. No photos adorned his neat desktop, no awards, diplomas or other memorabilia hung on the walls.

No, she realized. One picture. Mostly hidden behind the in-box on his desk. She stood, crossed to the desk and picked it up. It was a picture of Rick in his full-dress police uniform and a woman in a lovely spring outfit. Liz tilted her head. Rick’s graduation from police academy, she decided, judging by his crisply pressed uniform.

That the woman adored him was obvious by the way she was gazing up at him. Because of the slightly fuzzy quality of the photo and the way the sunlight fell across her face, it was difficult to make out her features. She had coloring similar to Liz’s own; a slight build. She was pretty.

A lump in her throat, Liz returned the framed photo to its spot on his desk. As she did, she discovered another photo tucked into the back of the frame.

It was of a little boy with curly blond hair and Rick’s smile. He looked to be about three and was smiling at the camera, pure joy radiating from him.

Who was he? she wondered. Rick’s son? A favorite nephew? Was the woman his wife? That would have been her first guess, but Rick didn’t wear a wedding ring.

Though these days many men didn’t.

She trailed her finger lightly over the boy’s image. She found something sad about the way Rick had the photographs tucked almost out of sight.

She heard Rick at the office door and quickly replaced the child’s photo, then set the frame back where she had found it. She turned just as Rick stepped through the door.

“Sorry,” he said. “Saturday’s my busiest night.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it-just not for what he thought. By peeking at those pictures she had pried into a corner of his life he obviously preferred no one see. “My timing stinks, but I didn’t…I was afraid for Mark. I think he’s in danger.”

Rick sat and ordered her to do the same. “Now, start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

Liz began. She told him why she had come to Key West, that she didn’t believe the police version of her sister’s disappearance. She relayed the content of the message her sister had left on her answering machine. “She said she had uncovered illegal activities on the island, something that involved the young people. She feared for her own safety. I believe those involved killed her. Nobody believed me…until Mark.”

Rick leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and linking his fingers together. “Go on.”

She repeated everything Mark had told her: that the group called itself the Horned Flower, that Tara had belonged and that they had threatened her when she tried to get out. “They describe themselves as a family and are both devoted to and possessive of other members of the family, as well as suspicious of those outside. So suspicious that Tara had to keep her relationship with Mark a secret for fear of reprisal. He said the group was into drug use and indiscriminate sex. Their shared ideology was hedonistic and atheist.”

“What you’re describing is a cult,” he murmured. “There are thousands of loosely joined and highly organized groups in the United States that meet the criteria that defines a cult, basically a group organized around a central figure and singular philosophy. Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, Crowleyism, the Charles Manson family all fit the criteria though each is very different from the other.”

“Whatever they are, they had great power over Tara and she was terrified of them. He believes they killed her because she tried to break away from them. He believes they killed my sister as well.”

Rick looked unconvinced. She pressed on. “Mark decided the best way to expose the group was to become one of them. He left me a message saying he was being initiated last night. He told me to come to you if I didn’t hear from him.” She held her hands out, palms up. “So, here I am.”

For a long moment, Rick was silent. When he finally spoke, his tone was low, measured. “Have you asked yourself if Mark was truthful with you?”

“No. Why wouldn’t he have been?”

“Maybe he had something to do with Tara ’s death?”

“No way.” She shook her head for added emphasis. “You didn’t see him when he talked about Tara, about that night. He was in love with her.”

“Do you have any idea how many victims are killed by the very people who claim to love them? A lot,” he finished, answering his own question. He paused as if to allow his words time to sink in. “I was a cop, Liz. I’m thinking like a cop here. Sorting through the facts, looking at this from all angles.”

“And I’m not?”

“Frankly? No, you’re not. You’re too close. Emotionally involved. Overwrought.”

Making a sound of frustration, she stood. “I’m so tired of people telling me that. I’m not overwrought. Mark feared for his safety. He contacted me so someone would know what he was doing and sound the alarm if he disappeared. He’s disappeared, we have to do something!”

Rick stood. She had to tip her head back to meet his eyes. “Okay,” he murmured, tone as calm and soothing as if attempting to reason with a headstrong child. “You’re fine, steady as a rock. Just hear me out. In all probability, Tara was killed by the accomplice of a man who murdered young women in Miami, or someone who is copying his crimes. There’s a chance your sister fell victim to the same maniac. Or that she suffered a mental breakdown and ran off, the way the police think.”

She opened her mouth to deny it was true, and he held up a hand to stop her. “Your sister’s been missing what? Three months?”

“Four,” she corrected. “She was last seen July twelfth.”

“So, where’s her body, Liz? Tara ’s killer made no attempt to conceal his handiwork. If you hadn’t found her that night, someone else would have the next morning. Taft worked in the same manner.”

He had a point; she had wondered the same thing.

But she knew she was right.

“Maybe he wasn’t ready to reveal himself?” she offered. “Maybe he panicked? There could be a hundred explanations for why Rachel’s…”

She let the words trail off; his expression softened. “The KWPD is working in conjunction with the sheriff’s department and the Florida Crime Bureau in an attempt to locate the killer. Perhaps Tara was a member of a group called the Horned Flower, but I hardly think a bunch of pampered teenagers is capable of butchering one of their friends. And trust me, Tara was butchered.”

“Please help me,” she whispered. “I have nowhere else to turn. No one else to turn to. Mark said you’d know what to do.”

“I’m sorry. Go home, get some sleep. In the morning-”

“In the morning Mark might be dead. Are you sure you can live with that?”