The Last Witness

[TWO]

Over the Leeward Islands, Lesser Antilles

Monday, November 17, 6:50 A.M.

“Then Ricky, he showed up at the Sanctuary,” Krystal Gonzalez was saying as Maggie McCain watched her pacing the living room of Maggie’s Society Hill town house.

She stopped and began crying again.

“And then he grabbed Brandi, said she still owed him money, so that meant he owned her. Ms. Quan yelled for Ms. Spencer to call the cops. And Ricky, he said that that would be their last mistake ever.”

The curvy, petite nineteen-year-old anxiously ran her fingers through her black hair. A very slender doe-eyed twenty-six-year-old woman of Asian descent, who stood about as tall as Krystal, appeared. She stroked Krystal’s head and said meekly, “Brandi begged us not to call.”

A tall, sad-faced twenty-seven-year-old black woman walked up, nodding. “Said he’d kill us all. Burn down the Sanctuary.”

“Lizzi and Brandi were afraid of the cops, that they’d arrest them, too,” Krystal said. She pointed across the room. “All they wanted was out.”

Maggie looked to where Krystal pointed. The two attractive twenty-year-old blondes were standing there.

“That’s why Lizzi said they went along with leaving town. She and Brandi thought they could get away on the road. But that didn’t work. And then Lizzi and Brandi told Ricky again that they wanted out, that if he didn’t let them out, they’d go to the cops. Tell them how he started giving them drugs and working them when they were underage. But then I never heard from them again”-she glanced across the room, and when Maggie looked, too, the blondes were gone-“so I told Ms. Quan and Ms. Spencer all that. And I told them about the notebooks he kept in the office and what was in them. They didn’t believe me. ‘All you girls do is lie.’ So I stole two when Ricky passed out drunk in the office.”

She held up the thick, well-worn spiral notebooks.

Maggie looked at them, then looked back at Krystal.

Now Quan and Spencer were no longer in the living room.

“I texted Ricky, said I was done doing that shit. Told him to leave me alone or he’d never get his books back.”

Krystal, motioning with the books for Maggie to take them, said, “It’s here. Now we can be safe.”

Then she softly repeated it, “Now we can be safe.”

Then Krystal was gone, and the notebooks sat in a pool of blood in Maggie’s burning kitchen. .

“Excuse me,” an insistent female voice said, causing Maggie McCain to slowly open her eyes. She felt someone shaking her, then realized that it was her seatback being pushed and that the nasal voice was that of a flight attendant, who added, “You’re going to need to put this upright for landing.”

As American Airlines flight 504 banked over the Caribbean Sea on final to land at Cyril E. King International, Maggie wiped tears from her cheek.

So, how long are the bad dreams going to go on?

She slid open the window shade and stared out.

Monsters like Ricky can’t get away with this.

The sun was coming up, casting dramatic light across the verdant hills of the islands rising from the vast blue ocean. Bright colorful houses dotted the hillsides down to where the larger resort hotels spread out along the white sand beaches.

Normally, the beauty stirred a sense of excitement and adventure in Maggie. Now she felt neither, only a surreal numbness.

First thing I am going to do, she thought, is get that bastard where it matters most to him-in the wallet. Let him worry and squirm.

I know what money he’s making, and the outrageous, disgusting way he’s making it.

And I can use his books to get him, too.

He’s going to learn you don’t fuck with a McCain.

She watched out the window as the airliner settled toward the sea, coming so close to the surface that it looked like it might land on the water. Then at the last minute its tires finally chirped as they touched down on the runway, the threshold of which began right at the water’s edge of the small island.

“Welcome to the tropical paradise of Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands,” the flight attendant’s nasal voice came across the intercom, her tone attempting to be perky.

Backpack slung over one shoulder and wearing sunglasses and the Georgetown Hoyas cap, Maggie deplaned and made her way through the concourse to Baggage Claim Two. She passed plenty of police. There were uniformed local cops, as well as federal agents, ones with their shirts lettered ICE or DEA. She kept telling herself that she had nothing to worry about from the Drug Enforcement Administration or Immigration and Customs Enforcement-or any other cop. And none seemed to pay another young American woman any particular attention, which she thought more or less supported that.

Then again, she realized, she really didn’t know who might be looking for her.

She saw, not surprisingly, that a lot of women were talking on their cell phones, and wondered if she should pull hers from her backpack in order to blend in. She immediately decided against that, because the last thing she wanted to do was turn on the phone. If a cop noticed her pretending to converse over a darkened phone, one clearly dead, it would raise more flags than simply not having a phone out in the first place.

Near Baggage Claim Two, she found the man holding a clipboard so that it showed the YELLOWROSE logotype and TRADEWINDS ESTATE. He was a short, brown-skinned, potbellied, gray-haired islander with a friendly face. She walked toward him, and as she approached she saw that his name tag read MANUEL. Pleasantly addressing him by name, she introduced herself as Alexis Stewart, and after he had turned over the clipboard and confirmed she was indeed on his shuttle bus list, she went to the baggage carousel to locate her luggage.

It was there within minutes, and another twenty after that Manuel had all five of the newly arrived guests of the Tradewinds Estate aboard the turquoise open-air safari bus, an older Ford F-250 flatbed pickup converted with a thatch roof over passenger benches that could seat fifteen. He’d used up at least half of that time squeezing their luggage into a rear compartment.

Maggie decided the other four guests, judging by their rings, were married couples. They had found their seats in the first and second rows of the safari bus. They talked among themselves, their conversation animated and covering the usual small talk, beginning with, “The islands are just so amazingly beautiful.” “Is this your first time to visit?”

Maggie, having seen the dynamic happen time and again, knew the odds were high that during their stay the women would become fast friends, with the men dutifully following suit.

Which was one reason Maggie discreetly had taken her seat on the second-to-last row, and proceeded to pretend she was reading a paperback. She was grateful the shuttle wasn’t an enclosed van, which would have put her in closer proximity to the others and they likely would have attempted to draw her into the conversation. While she was prepared with stories of what she was doing there-starting with “a birthday vacation”-she really didn’t want to lie if it could be avoided. And not talking was simply a way of doing exactly that.

The turquoise safari bus, merging with the traffic flow on the left side of the street, turned off the airport property and followed Veterans Drive along the coast. The rising sun was quickly warming the cool morning, the temperature, according to the flashing WELCOME TO SAINT THOMAS sign they just passed at the airport, already approaching eighty.

As the humid salty air blew through the open bus, Maggie breathed in deeply and thought that it felt good.

Or maybe it’s that I’m out of Philly. . and in a place that’s far away. . and feels far safer.

I’ve always felt safest in the islands.

Over the top of the paperback, Maggie watched as they passed the familiar sights of Frenchtown-Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, at the foot of Frenchman’s Hill, caught her eye, and the busy ferries at Blyden terminal-then the shops and restaurants lining the narrow, congested streets of downtown Charlotte Amalie.

It will be easy to blend in.

She looked across Veterans Drive. In the bay were fifty or more sailboats tied to mooring buoys. A couple of the big fifty-foot-plus catamarans were already under way, people moving about purposefully on deck as sails were hoisted.

On the far side of Charlotte Amalie, where two cruise ships towered over the docks, the safari bus turned off the main road. It made a series of sharp turns, Manuel grinding an occasional gear as he downshifted and followed the serpentine two-lane up a steep incline. After topping the tall hill, he left the bus in a low gear and it chugged down the other side.

The truck’s engine then backfired-and the two wives shrieked, then a moment later laughed at themselves.

Maggie was surprised she hadn’t jumped out of her skin.

Shortly thereafter, the brakes squealed as the bus approached on the right an eight-foot-high natural stone wall covered with thick flowering vines. There was an enormous gate that blocked any view of what was behind the wall. The only clue was on the gate-a wooden sign with hand-chiseled lettering: TRADEWINDS ESTATE, AN EXCLUSIVE YELLOWROSE ESCAPE.

The breeze carried the fragrance of the vine flowers, filling her head.

The gate slowly swung open, and Manuel ground the transmission into gear, then rolled the safari bus through.

Maggie caught herself sighing with relief.

“As you requested, we have you in our most secluded cottage,” the young black hostess said, as she and Maggie stepped from the brightly painted electric golf cart. A bellman in a battered black cart that carried Maggie’s luggage was pulling up behind them.

Maggie guessed that the hostess-her name tag read BEATRIX-was no more than eighteen. She had somewhat hard features but a pleasant, reserved personality. She spoke with a hint of a British accent.

“Being the farthest from the main house,” Beatrix went on, “it also commands the best private view on the property.”

They had just come from the “main house,” a four-story mansion of quarried stone once owned by a rum maker. Five years earlier it had been converted into a quaint boutique hotel with twenty rooms. There was a large open reception area on the first floor, which led outdoors to the grand restaurant overlooking the sea. It had tables to seat sixty, and except for a thatched roof was completely open to the elements. Nearby, a large swimming pool with a waterfall had been sculpted into the hillside.

With the main house’s conversion, a dozen cottages had been added throughout the property, as had the one-lane paths winding among them through the hills.

Maggie saw that her cottage, out on a point of the hillside three hundred feet above the small bay below, was built in a hexagon shape. Its walls were mostly large windows that could be slid together, completely opening three-quarters of the building to the cool, steady winds blowing ashore. A level down, tall palm trees framed the stone decking that contained a small swimming pool, an infinity style that appeared to flow into the ocean itself.

Maggie, slipping her backpack from her shoulder and placing it on a low couch, found herself admiring the elegant, comfortable furnishings and how everything seamlessly blended in with the natural surroundings.

“It really is quite lovely,” she said, trying to sound more excited than simply relieved to finally be there.

“Your welcome package is over there,” Beatrix said, motioning toward a low wooden table beside the pool. “We deliver a continental breakfast of fresh baked goods daily, or anything more at your request. There is a pot of our rich local coffee, as well as a pot of hot water if you should prefer tea. And fresh fruit.”

“Perfect.”

The bellman, having delivered Maggie’s bags, stepped out of the cottage and slipped away without a word, disappearing behind the tall thick hedge of sea grape trees that shielded the cottage.

“Finally,” Beatrix said, “I spoke with our marina manager, and he asked me to tell you that the dockmaster is seeing to your charter boat. You’re welcome to call him or”-she gestured toward the section of hedge to the right-“just beyond there are steps leading to the marina, as well as the beach. It’s a lovely walk down. Coming up, however, you may wish to take one of the golf carts. Even I find the hills to be a workout.”

Maggie smiled. “Good advice. Thank you. Did you grow up here?”

“I recently came here to attend school. I grew up in Virgin Gorda.” She pointed. “That’s about ten miles away, in the British Virgin Islands.”

Maggie was nodding as an image of the giant volcanic boulders on the beach at the Baths of Virgin Gorda came to mind.

“Do you know it?” Beatrix said.

“Actually I was just. . I mean, just wondering if it was worth the effort.”

“Oh yes. It’s much quieter than here, fewer people. I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true. I take the ferry back and forth, but you could easily sail there. Just be sure to bring your passport.”

“Not this trip. But that’s good to know.”

“Well, then. Anything else you need is simply a phone call away,” Beatrix said, handing Maggie her business card. “Please contact me directly, or of course any of our staff.”

–

Five minutes after Beatrix left, Maggie had made herself a cup of tea-denying herself a splash in it from the liter bottle of local Cruzan gold rum she found on the welcome tray. She took the tea into the bedroom of the cottage and began digging through her suitcase. She had bought the luggage and most of the clothes in it at the giant outlet mall just south of Baltimore the previous day.

At the bottom she found a pair of linen shorts and changed into them, then tried to flatten out the wrinkles as she carefully hung her blue jeans in the closet.

Then, back in the suitcase, under her canvas sailing bag, she found the hard plastic case and pulled it out. She worked the combination of the lock, then took out her Baby Glock. With a practiced hand, she loaded the pistol in between sips of tea.

She knew that having the pistol was illegal in the Virgin Islands.

God help me!

First it was coming up with fast lies. Then traveling on false IDs. Then bringing a gun, which I’ve never done.

Is there no end to what I’ll do going down this rabbit hole?

But. . at least I am still alive.

She dug again in the suitcase and pulled out the heavy canvas sailing bag. She made it a little heavier by slipping the Glock in it, then grabbed her tea and went out to the pool deck.

Beside the table holding the food and drink was a chaise longue in the shade of an umbrella. She put the bag on the chaise’s thick blue cushion, then looked back to the cottage, shook her head, and retrieved her backpack from the low couch inside.

Finally, sitting cross-legged on the cushion of the chaise longue, she pulled her laptop from her backpack. She looked at the canvas sail bag and saw its neat stitching that read YELLOWROSE SPRING BAY RESORT amp; SPA, VIRGIN GORDA BVI.

Glad Beatrix didn’t see that.

But then I could have just said it was Mother’s, or anyone’s, for that matter.

There I go again. Ready with the easy lie.

And, really, why does that bother me?

Because the girls always do it?

But to them, it must be a survival skill.

Which is what I’ve made it. .

She reached in the sail bag and removed a square gray plastic-encased device that was about half the size of her laptop. It had a small face panel with a power on/off button, a battery-power gauge, three jacks, and two light bars, one vertical and one horizontal. It also had an adjustable folding leg that allowed the device to sit at varied angles. She placed the device at the foot of the blue cushion and plugged one end of a cable into one of the jacks and the other end into the laptop.

Okay, let’s power on everything.

With the laptop booted up, she clicked on an icon shaped like a globe.

She leaned toward the foot of the cushion. Both light bars on the device’s panel blinked yellow. Then the vertical one turned half yellow and half green. She slowly rotated the device left and the horizontal light bar blinked red. She reversed, rotating the device to the right. The red went out, then the yellow that returned was replaced with half green. She continued turning it right-and then both bars became a solid green.

She looked at her laptop screen, and in one window there was: INMARSAT ACQUIRED. ANTENNA STRENGTH 98 %.

Well, good. The subscription’s not expired from last time.

No way I could renew it without a hit on my credit card.

Would have to rent one. Or steal one. .

Then she opened a new window on her Internet browser and clicked on the icon that would take her to a secure server.

After she signed in, an icon that looked like a mailing envelope automatically popped up. On it was a small red circle with “109” on it.

Her throat constricted.

And fifty of those e-mails are probably from Mother.

She must be going bonkers. I feel awful.

But this has been my first chance to send anything since yesterday.

She opened a new e-mail message, typed “I’m fine!!!” in the subject field, then wrote in the body: “Hi!! I’m in a good place but on the move. More shortly. Promise! Love you!! Mag.”

She then sent it to her mother, father, and cousin Emma.

Hang in there. . so far so good.

She clicked again on the globe icon, and a moment later the screen read DISCONNECTED FROM INMARSAT. Then she powered off the antenna.

She poured herself some more tea.

Sipping it, she looked over the edge of her cup out at the Caribbean Sea, then thought of the dream she had on the airplane. She shook her head as she felt her eyes tear. She put down the cup.

Okay, you bastard. .

She reached in the canvas sail bag, removed a thick spiral notebook, and flipped back its well-worn cover. She began to carefully study the first page-then suddenly began sobbing, and curled up in the fetal position on the cushion.