The King Tides

Chapter 9 King Tides

“May I keep this?” Lancaster asked.

“Of course,” Pearl said.

Tearing the sheet off the pad, he turned it into a square, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. The more he learned, the less he understood. If the white van hadn’t been casing the house last night, then who were the drivers of the other five vehicles? How did they fit into the puzzle? He didn’t know, and supposed they would have to wait for one of them to show his face again. In his experience, waiting for a bad guy to act was dangerous. The better choice would be to draw one of them out.

“Would you be up for a field trip?” he asked.

Pearl and his wife exchanged troubled looks. The house was their sanctuary, while the outside world was a frightening and unpredictable place.

“Nicki was nearly kidnapped the last time we went out,” Pearl reminded him.

“She was actually kidnapped in your backyard,” he replied. “We can’t just sit here and wait for another attempt to be made. I want to grab the bull by the horns and confront one of these guys.”

Nicki lay on the carpeted floor beside the dog. The conversation was upsetting her, and she pulled the dog closer and gave him a protective hug.

“Where do you have in mind?” Pearl asked.

“I was thinking of a little shopping excursion on Las Olas, followed by lunch. I’m going to tail you, and see if I can catch one of these creeps.”

“You want to use our daughter as bait,” Pearl said.

“In a manner of speaking, yes. If I can get my hands on one of these jokers, I should be able to make him talk.”

“Do you plan to hurt him?” Melanie asked, sounding alarmed.

“I want to put the fear of God into him,” he said. “The law doesn’t look kindly on adult males who stalk teenage girls. Most guys who do this stuff know this. If I catch one of them, I’ll threaten to have him locked up, which should scare the daylights out of him. Then I’ll offer to make a deal. I’ll let him go, provided he tells me why he’s stalking your daughter.”

The Pearls again traded looks. They were gambling, and the stakes were high if things went wrong. They needed more convincing, so he said, “My goal is to find out why Nicki is being targeted. There has to be a thread that links these creeps together. If I can discover what that thread is, I can get to the bottom of what’s going on here, and keep your daughter out of harm’s way.”

Nicki rose from the floor and took her parents’ hands. She gave them a smile that was best described as courageous. “I want to do it. I want this to stop. Please.”

Melanie let out a deep breath. “You sure about this, honey?”

“Positive, Mom. Jon won’t let these men hurt me, will you, Jon?”

“No one’s going to hurt you, Nicki,” he said.

“I’m okay with it, if your father is,” Melanie said.

Pearl frowned. As a doctor, he knew that there were no good choices in bad situations. Leaving the house was a scary proposition, but staying inside was equally nerve-racking. The time had come to take action and deal with the situation head-on. “I’m in,” Pearl said.

Each fall, the King Tides swept across South Florida, turning coastal roads into rivers as the full moon swung closer to the Earth than normal. This year’s flooding was particularly harsh and had pushed water onto lawns while threatening coastal businesses.

The hand-painted signs were in nearly every yard: NO WAKE ZONE! At least people had a sense of humor about it. If the meteorologists were to be believed, this would one day be a regular event, as gravity and rising sea levels ravaged the coastline. So far no one was screaming too loudly, so the natives just figured out a way to cope.

Lancaster coasted down the flooded streets as he followed the Pearls to Las Olas. On the corner he spied a kid in swimming trunks with a bamboo fishing pole. He lowered his window and stuck his head out. “Catch anything?”

“I caught a shark, but my mom made me throw it back,” the kid said.

He waved and drove away. That was the cool thing about living in Fort Lauderdale. The locals had a sense of humor. Except for the occasional evil soul, the natives were friendly, and easy to get along with.

The Pearls drove a white Infiniti SUV that gleamed like a freshly minted coin. It occurred to him that everything in their lives was brand-new. New life, new home, new car. They’d probably thought they’d died and gone to heaven when they’d moved here. Then the problems with Nicki had started, and it had all gone to hell.

The Infiniti braked at a stop sign. Pearl glanced in his mirror at his tail. The good doctor looked scared, and Lancaster wondered if his original assessment was wrong. Abductions were about money, and Pearl obviously had plenty of it. Was Pearl the real target and Nicki just leverage? He had a feeling that he was about to find out.

They drove past palatial Mediterranean-style homes so tightly squeezed together that it was impossible to see the ocean. The streets were quiet, and he used the Pandora app on his cell phone to play a Jimmy Buffett song, “Cuban Crime of Passion.” During his first trip to Key West, Lancaster had crashed on the couch of the song’s composer, a genial barkeep named Tom Corcoran. Lancaster had been right out of the military, and Corcoran’s hospitality had gone a long way to help him get adjusted.

In his mirror he spied a black Ford pickup filled with lawn equipment riding his bumper, the driver a burly Hispanic with a handlebar mustache and borderline crazy eyes.

He called Pearl on his cell phone. “See the black pickup behind me?”

“Yes, I see him,” Pearl said.

“I think the driver’s following you. There was a black pickup on your list. Did it have lawn equipment in the bed?”

“I believe it did.”

“Must be the same guy. I want you to speed up. I’ve got your back, so don’t get scared if he tries anything stupid.”

“Got it.”

Pearl hit the gas and sent waves onto several manicured front yards. Within moments, a block separated their two cars. The crazy Hispanic punched his horn. Lancaster looked into his mirror and raised his hand as if to say What do you want? The Hispanic shook his fist, then passed Lancaster on the left and raced down the street.

His cell phone rang. Pearl calling.

“He’s chasing us!” Pearl said. “What should I do?”

“Nothing. Leave the heroics to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Run him down and have a talk with him.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“You and your wife ask too many questions. Just drive.”

Lancaster ended the call. The Hispanic had caught up to the Pearls and was riding their bumper. The situation was teetering out of control, so he got in the opposing lane, pulling up alongside the pickup. The Hispanic was watching a video on his cell phone while he drove. Lancaster strained to see and made out a girl’s face.

“Pull over!” he yelled.

The Hispanic ignored him. Lancaster ripped out his wallet and flashed the badge the department had given him in a shadow box when he’d resigned.

“You heard me, pull over!” he yelled.

Still nothing. He spun his wheel and made their bumpers kiss. The Hispanic started to freak out. Men who stalked children knew the harsh reality of life in prison. Regular beatings, and when that got old, the other inmates often killed them. Desperate to escape, the Hispanic jumped the curb and drove across a heavily landscaped front lawn.

Pearl called him. “He’s getting away! Are you going to run him down?”

“No. I’m going to let him go,” Lancaster said.

“But he’s stalking Nicki!”

“We can’t prove that. He hasn’t broken any laws besides being a bad driver. If the police get involved, I could get in trouble. Get out of here. I’ll meet you in town.”

“Whatever you say.”

Pearl hung a left at the next intersection and took off. The pickup was still riding on lawns and tearing up irrigation systems, and Lancaster continued to follow. At the block’s end, the pickup returned to the street. Lancaster memorized the license plate before watching it drive away.

There was nothing like a car chase to get the heart pounding. He parked in front of a house being tented for termites and caught his breath. His old partner, Devon, was now employed at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and he texted him the pickup’s license and a message:

He was making progress. He had a license plate and soon would have a name and an address, and that would lead to all sorts of interesting information about their stalker. No sooner had he pulled away from the curb than his cell phone rang.

“There’s another guy after my daughter,” Pearl said.