The King Tides

Chapter 5 Nimbs

Lancaster leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. Carrying a one-hundred-pound woman on your back was tough, even for a man in great shape. To become a SEAL, he had been required to run a mile and a half in nine minutes. Then in training camp, he had to run the same time wearing boots and long pants. It had been brutal, and he could only imagine how challenging carrying a person on his back would be. He couldn’t see Janey’s abductor traveling more than half a mile before growing exhausted.

He used Google to check traffic to Melbourne. Interstate 95 was still a parking lot. It was more important that he stay connected to Shorty’s bloodhounds on his laptop, which he couldn’t do while stuck behind the wheel of his car. He needed to stay put for a while.

He turned around in his chair. His hosts hadn’t moved, and were so quiet that you would have thought they were in an operating room watching open-heart surgery.

“I hate to impose, but can I stay here? We’re close to finding her.”

“Can you really find a missing person on your computer?” Melanie Pearl asked.

“Yes. With the right help.”

“Of course you can stay. Would you like a drink? I just made some iced tea.”

“Please. Spike it with rat killer.”

She raised her eyebrows, his humor lost on her.

“Artificial sweetener, if you have it. It makes me think better.”

“You have a strange sense of humor,” she said.

Movement caught his eye. The red dots were all over his laptop’s screen, the bloodhounds fanning out. In the old days, it would take a search party to find a missing person. Now, just a few dogs and the right software program. It was like playing a video game with life-and-death consequences.

A cold nose touched his wrist. The guard dog had snuck in and was checking him out. Nicki Pearl trailed behind it, her eyes glued on their guest. A nasty bruise on her forehead was the only sign of her recent brush with darkness. Her father motioned her closer. Nicki ignored him and kept her distance.

“Who is this?”

“This is Mr. Lancaster, the man who saved you this afternoon.”

Lancaster petted the dog’s head and smiled. Nicki’s fear ebbed, and she stepped forward and offered her hand. South Florida was a tough place to raise kids with all the bad influences and sick degenerates running around. Nicki exuded a rare innocence, and he wondered how long her parents would be able to keep her this way.

“Thank you, Mr. Lancaster,” Nicki said. “Are you a policeman?”

“Call me Jon. I was once. I work for myself now, helping people like you.”

“I’m taking a CSI course at school. It’s really cool.”

“They teach CSI at your school? That’s great.”

“It’s part of the biology curriculum. What do those red dots on your laptop mean? Are you working a case?”

“Those red dots are a pack of bloodhounds wearing GPS collars that are helping me find a missing girl in Melbourne.”

“Wow. Can I watch?”

“That’s up to your parents.”

Nicki looked to her father for permission. Pearl glanced at his wife, who’d returned with a tray of iced teas. Melanie nodded, and Pearl said, “Of course, honey.”

The teenager pulled up a chair next to Lancaster and stared at the screen.

“A young woman named Janey MacKenzie went missing three nights ago while walking home from the cocktail lounge where she works,” he said. “I’m pretty certain that a customer abducted her, so I hired a tracker to use his bloodhounds to find her.”

“Why are the dogs wearing GPS collars? How does that help?”

The kid was sharp. The GPS collars didn’t help Shorty, but they did help him. Leaving the Traccar app running, he opened the Collector Application software program and began adding data overlays to the map of Melbourne on the screen. Each overlay was a different color that visually illuminated the screen. “This is a software mapping tool that lets me add layers of data to my search map. Do you know what the biggest problem finding a missing person is? Too much information. If the searcher can’t bring all his information together, he’ll miss valuable clues. Make sense?”

“Like putting all the pieces of a puzzle together,” Nicki said.

“Exactly. The first overlay in yellow shows the areas where the police searched the night Janey went missing, so we can eliminate those. The second overlay in blue shows the addresses of registered sexual offenders in Melbourne. Each time the bloodhounds pick up Janey’s scent, we’ll be able to see if it’s near any bad guy who might have hurt a young woman before.”

“You mean a pervert,” Nicki said.

“Correct. The third overlay in pink shows the locations where people have been abducted and killed in Melbourne in the past. If we find a match with that overlay, it might mean that we’re dealing with a serial killer.”

Nicki squirmed in her chair. “Do you think a serial killer did this?”

“No, I don’t. There haven’t been any abductions in Melbourne in over a decade, so the chances are slim that this is the work of a serial killer. But you can never be too careful, so I always include it.”

The overlays softened the red hue of the dots so they were barely visible. Nicki pointed at the dot on the left side of the screen, on the western side of downtown.

“That one’s stopped moving,” she said. “Is that significant?”

Lack of movement could mean many things. A hit, or perhaps one of the dogs had stopped to relieve himself. “Let’s check,” he said. His cell phone lay facedown on the desk so he would not be distracted by incoming emails or news alerts. He turned the cell phone over to see if he’d gotten a text. As he did, it lit up. Shorty was calling him.

“We got a hit from a garbage can in an alley,” the tracker said.

The breath caught in his throat. Had he been wrong? Had Janey been knocked over the head, killed, and thrown away? He’d been wrong on cases before, but this time it was different; he’d connected with the grandmother on an emotional level, and breaking the news to her that Janey had perished would hurt him deeply as well.

“You see a body?” he asked.

“Lid’s off. I’m shining my flashlight in it. I see women’s clothes.”

The air in his lungs escaped. “Describe them.”

“Black jeans, red halter top, a pair of pink Keds.”

“Any sign of blood?”

“Not that I can see. No.”

“Don’t touch anything. The same for your son and his friend.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, Jon.”

“No harm in reminding you. You said the can was in an alley. Any idea which house it might belong to?”

“It belongs to 1249 Rachel Court. It’s spray-painted on the side.”

“Beautiful. I’ll call you right back.”

He ended the call. Missing-persons cases were like roller-coaster rides that were filled with emotional highs and lows that came at you without warning. The low had become a high, and he planned to keep it that way. Janey’s abductor had stripped away her clothes, knowing she was less likely to run away while naked. She had been turned into a sex slave, was his guess. Based upon everything her grandmother had said, Janey would play along until an opportunity to summon help presented itself.

“Is she still alive?” Nicki asked tentatively.

“I think so. Now we have to save her.” His fingers typed the address into Google. A reverse directory site named Spokeo came up with the desired information. 1249 Rachel Court was a one-bedroom dwelling with a single-car garage with an appraised value of $85,550. The owner was named Ryan Wayne Nimbs.

“Is he the bad guy?” Nicki asked.

“Could be. Let’s check the sexual offender overlay.”

He single-finger-typed a command. Tiny stars appeared on the pink sexual offender overlay on the screen. Each star represented a current resident of Melbourne who’d been arrested for a sexual offense at some point during their life. There were enough of them to start a support group. None lived on Rachel Court.

“He’s not there,” Nicki said. “Maybe it isn’t him.”

Or maybe the sexual offender registry had missed Nimbs. The Sunshine State, home of endless sandy beaches and amusement parks, was also a breeding ground for sexual predators, and the state didn’t have the resources to track all of them. He minimized the screen, got on the internet, and pulled up mugshots.com. If Nimbs had been arrested for sexual assault or kidnapping, a record of it would be here. He typed in his suspect’s full name and hit “Enter.”

“Wow, there he is,” Nicki said breathlessly.

Nimbs’s mug shot filled the screen. Spiked hair and a face like a blunt instrument with a Neanderthal slant. A hideous neck tattoo of a skull with a dragon’s mouth spitting out a serpent. Thirty-four years old, six foot three, 230 pounds. One arrest for false imprisonment and rape, which had led to a stretch in prison. Additional arrests for lewd and lascivious behavior and assault. A really bad hombre.

“He must be your abductor,” Pearl said, breaking his silence. “Are you going to alert the police, and have him arrested?”

Lancaster closed his laptop and stood up. He would make a call, but not to the police. Nimbs’s absence from the sexual offender registry may have been accidental, or it may have been deliberately omitted by someone in the Melbourne Police Department who knew Nimbs or was related to him. Melbourne was a backwater town, and those things happened. He had friends at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement office in West Palm Beach. He’d call them instead.

“I need to run. Thank you for your hospitality,” he said.

The Pearls followed him into the foyer. Their faces were filled with apprehension, and he thought he knew why. He had won their trust, and now they felt safe. As long as he was in their presence, no harm would come to Nicki. But the moment he left, the fear of Nicki being abducted would return with a vengeance.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Are you going to help me?” Nicki blurted out.

His eyes met Melanie Pearl’s. She had teared up and nodded vigorously.

“Yes, Nicki, I’m going to help you,” he said. “In the meantime, I want you to stay inside the house. No more sunbathing by the pool.” She agreed, and he addressed her parents. “I want you to pull Nicki out of school until this situation gets resolved. One or both of you need to be with her when she’s away from home. Preferably both of you.”

Her parents said yes. It was all he could do for now. He shot Nicki a parting glance. He still had no idea why she was being targeted. Normally, he would have a clue by now. But maybe Nicki did. Maybe she was holding back out of fear that her parents would become angry with her. It was time to press her.

“Nicki, I want you to be honest with me. Why are these men after you?”

Nicki swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I just know that they’re evil.”

Yes, they are, he thought, and said goodnight.