Nobody Knows (18 page)

Gideon’s battered Plymouth sat alone in the driveway. Vincent tried the doors, but they didn’t budge. The cops must have locked the car.

He walked slowly to the bungalow, trying to psych himself up. If he could find the ring, he could get Mark back. He had to do what he had to do.

The boy swallowed hard and ripped the tape from the back door. He tried the rusty doorknob, but the police had locked that, too. Vincent pulled his Busch Gardens key chain from his pocket, separating out the key Gideon had given him.

The familiar smell of garlic greeted Vincent as he entered the kitchen. Gideon always said that garlic made fresh fish taste even better. He used garlic on just about everything, and the strong aroma had found its way into the thin cotton curtains on the windows and through to the upholstery on the furniture in the living room.

Vincent felt tears well in his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to stand beside Gideon anymore as he fried up his prized daily catch at the old stove. There would be no more sea stories or tales of buried treasure. No one to run to show his latest find on the beach. He had lost his best friend.

Resolutely, Vincent wiped his palm across his wet cheek. He may have lost his buddy, but he sure as heck wasn’t going to lose his brother. Not if he could help it.

And Vincent
could
help it—if he found that ring.

For the next half hour, he rummaged through all the places that the intruder and the sheriff’s department had already searched, hoping against hope that they had missed something. They hadn’t.

Where would Gideon have put the ring? Where would he have thought it would be safe?
Vincent stood quietly in the middle of the kitchen and tried to think as he imagined his friend would think. Nothing special came to his mind. Absentmindedly, he walked to the door and looked out on the rear porch, cringing as he noticed Gideon’s tacklebox lying on the floor. That old, battered box was Gideon’s prized possession.

It was worth a try!

Vincent squatted beside the box and lifted the dented metal lid. In the special compartment, beneath the jumble of lures and hooks, he found what he was looking for.

Warm rain slapped against their yellow rubber slickers as Cassie, Leroy, and Felix alighted from the crew car in the marina parking lot. While Felix unloaded the gear, Cassie and Leroy ran ahead toward the docks, scouting out targets of opportunity to obtain the best video material. Scores of sailboats and cabin cruisers rocked, vulnerable in the graying waters. Pelicans perched in determination on the wooden posts. Men in shorts and dock shoes and hooded rain jackets pulled and lashed and worked to secure their craft as the rain fell harder.

“You say this guy knows we’re coming?” asked Leroy.

“Well, we didn’t set up an exact time,” Cassie answered, “but he told me yesterday that he would talk to us.”

She wiped back a strand of wet hair from beneath her hood and squinted through the rain, spotting the marina owner’s bright orange baseball cap. Jerry Dean stood at the end of the main dock talking to another man.

“There he is, Leroy.” Cassie pointed. She headed out onto the dock, leaving Leroy behind. The wooden planks creaked beneath her sneakered feet.

“Jerry?”

The marina owner spun toward her, his brow furrowed, his mouth set in a grim, downturned line.

“Cassie Sheridan, from KEY News,” she reminded him. “I know this is a very bad time for you,” she apologized, “but could you talk to us for a few minutes?”

“Oh God, I don’t know, lady. I’m up to my eyeballs here.” He gestured loosely out at the churning water.

This was a part of her job that Cassie hated. Convincing people to be interviewed, cajoling them, when talking before the television camera was the last thing they had on their worried minds. It seemed like such an invasion of privacy. But human reaction was what made a riveting piece. It was the spice in the recipe of facts and images. “Just a few questions on what you’re up against here, Jerry. I promise, it will be quick. Then, if it’s all right with you, we’ll take some shots of the marina and the boats.”

Cassie shot an uncomfortable glance at the man who stood beside the marina owner, automatically noting how good-looking he was. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“All right,” Jerry answered with resignation. “I told you I would, so I will. But let’s do this fast.”

Cassie beckoned Leroy and Felix out to the end of the dock. Felix clipped a wind guard on the microphone, handed it to Cassie, and hoisted his camera on his shoulder, fiddling with the focus. Cassie held up a
blank page of her reporter’s notebook for the cameraman to aim at while he adjusted the white balance.

“Go ahead,” called Felix from behind the big camera. “Anytime you’re ready.”

Cassie held the microphone beneath her mouth and asked her first question. “What are you anticipating here?” She swung the microphone to her interviewee.

Jerry sighed, rain peppering his face. “Well, the weather service has issued its watch for a wide belt up and down the west coast. I’m hoping that the hurricane doesn’t hit us hard, but I’m preparing for the worst”

The microphone went back to Cassie’s mouth. “What does that involve?”

“We’re trying to tie up these boats as tight as we can. After that, it’s in Mother Nature’s hands.”

Cassie recognized her sound bite, but she continued. “How many boats do you have moored here?”

“About two hundred.”

“What do you think they’re worth?”

Jerry paused to consider. “Millions.”

“They’re insured, aren’t they?”

“Sure, owners insure their boats. But you never get it all back. And sometimes, after people go through something like this, they don’t have the heart to buy another boat.”

“So the ramifications are not good for your business,” Cassie led.

Jerry looked at her with exasperation. “Of course, the ramifications are bad for my business. It can take years to come back from something like this.” He was at the end of his patience, and Cassie knew it.

“Okay. I think we have enough. Thank you for your time.”

The camera clicked off.

FELIX’S CAMERA
recorded the seabirds huddled on the edges of the dock, the rain sliding off their oily wings; and thick ropes coiled around wooden piles, connecting expensive water craft to their moorings. The cameraman stopped repeatedly to wipe the rain from his lens as he shot video of the rocking boats from a half dozen vantage points.

“We should try to get an owner to talk to us,” Leroy suggested.

Cassie scanned the area. The man who had been speaking with Jerry was watching them. Cassie walked over to him. She didn’t bother introducing herself again. “You have a boat docked here?”

The man nodded. “That’s mine.
The Eyes Have It.”

Cassie looked in the direction the man’s hand pointed. “Beautiful boat.”

“Thanks. I hope it survives.”

“Would you be willing to say just that for our camera?”

The man shrugged. “Sure, I guess so.”

After the short interview, Cassie asked the man to state and spell his name so she would have the correct information for the identifying graphic that would be superimposed under his picture from the studio in New York.

“Harrison Lewis, M.D.”

Cassie placed the face that she had first seen atop a
tuxedoed body. “You were at the fund-raiser at the Ringling mansion the other night, weren’t you?”

Lewis looked at her sharply. “Yes, I was. I noticed you, I think you noticed me. My friends call me Harry, by the way.”

Cassie felt her cheeks grow warm. Busted. She was thankful when Felix interrupted.

“We have some good stuff, Cassie. It would be great to have some shots from another angle, though.” The wiry cameraman shot a sly look at Harry. “From the water looking into the marina.”

Cassie picked up on it. “I don’t know how we are going to get that, Felix. There’s a small-craft advisory posted. Boats aren’t supposed to go out.” She felt Harry staring at her.

“I could take you out,” the doctor offered.

“You’d be willing to do that?”

“Yeah. Why not? I’ve sailed in worse than this. We’ll just go out a little way, you can get your pictures, and we’ll come right back. Nobody will be the wiser.”

Wendy was lying on the couch, and Deputy Gregg sat in the chair he had pulled up beside her. When Vincent, soaking wet, bounded through the front door into the living room, his mother’s eyes brightened. But seeing no small figure following her older son, Wendy shrank back on the sofa in defeat.

“Go get a towel,” she instructed dully, and returned her attention to the officer.

“I wish we could have someone here to stay with you, Mrs. Bayler. But this hurricane is using all of our staff. With the evacuations ordered, there’s a lot to do,” Danny apologized.

“I don’t need anyone to stay with me. I need you all out there looking for Mark.”

“We are, Mrs. Bayler. We are.” Danny was uncomfortable with his own reassurances. A few guys were looking around for the missing five-year-old, but most of the sheriff’s department resources were being directed at getting the thousands of islanders off the
Sarasota keys. The kid couldn’t have wandered off at a worse time. If he
had
wandered off.

“Mrs. Bayler, I hate to bring this up, but I have to. Many missing children cases turn out to be the work of an ex-spouse. Do you think there is any chance that Mark’s father might have taken him?”

Wendy’s mouth cracked into a leer. “That’s rich. Vinny Bayler hasn’t bothered with his kids for years. Hasn’t bothered to see them, hasn’t bothered to send any money to support them. He wasn’t happy even when they were born. I doubt that he’s all of a sudden gotten fatherly.”

Danny cast a look at Vincent, who stood wide-eyed, listening to every word. Nice for a kid to hear that his father didn’t want him.

“Just the same, do you know where we can get in touch with him?” asked the deputy.

“I have no idea. The last I heard, he was shacked up with some Cuban girl in Miami somewhere. I think he had a baby with her, too. Another child with his miserable blood.”

At that Vincent walked into his bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind him.

WITH ALL
his determination, Vincent pushed the stinging words from his mind. He couldn’t afford to worry about his mother’s cruel comments now. He had to concentrate on getting Mark back.

He was tempted to march back out there and tell Deputy Gregg about the call from the kidnapper. But
he had watched enough television to know that going to the cops didn’t mean everything would work out fine. The cops fouled up sometimes. They made mistakes. Kidnappers panicked. The abducted person died. The kidnapper had insisted that Vincent not go to the police, and Vincent wasn’t going to.

He peeled off his wet T-shirt, tossed it on the floor, and pulled on a dry one. Lying down on Mark’s bed, he could smell his brother on the pillowcase. When he got his brother back, he was going to be nicer to him. He promised. He felt around in the deep pockets of his shorts and patted the ring.

Television had also taught him that once the kidnapper got his ransom, there was no guarantee he’d give Mark back. Vincent was going to keep his side of the bargain. He had to make sure that whoever had taken his little brother was going to keep his.

The boy got up and opened his closet, taking out the cardboard box that was home to his shell collection. He emptied the contents on the floor. He scooped Mark’s plastic prescription bottle from the top of the dresser and wrapped the cord around the electric pounder that still lay on the floor from the last time Mark had used it. He didn’t want to think how long it had been since Mark had had a treatment, didn’t want to imagine how congested his brother must be by now.

He placed the medicine and the pounder in the box. Then he pulled off the cover of one of Mark’s coloring books and began to write on the back of it. He was reading over what he had written when there was a knock on the door.

“Vincent?” called his mother.

He folded the paper, put it in the box, and slid everything under the bed.

“Vincent.” Her voice was stronger this time.

“Coming.”

He unlocked the door and opened it.

“I’m sorry, Vincent. I shouldn’t have said all that stuff about your dad in front of you.”

Well you did
, Vincent thought,
and you can’t take it back
. Instead, he answered, “That’s okay.”

He studied his mother’s face as she stood in the doorway. She suddenly looked a lot older to him. Old and very tired. He felt sorry for her and momentarily guilty that he was such a burden to her. But, hey, he didn’t ask to be born.

“That deputy says we should evacuate, but I told him that I’m not leaving this house until I have Mark back. What if he came home and nobody was here?”

She turned and walked back to the couch, not waiting for her son’s answer. As she lowered herself onto the frayed cushions, she remembered. “That news-woman called. She left her cell phone number.” Wendy thrust her chin in the direction of the kitchen.

Vincent picked up the slip of paper from the counter and studied the number before putting it in the breast pocket of his T-shirt.

Even before she climbed into the boat, Cassie was worried about it.

She hadn’t experienced it in years, but she hadn’t forgotten going out onto the Chesapeake Bay on a rented boat that time when Hannah was little. It was a day far calmer than this one, but in the middle of their sail she had felt nausea more intense than any she had ever known.

Since then Cassie had kept away from small boats. She was tempted to tell Leroy and Felix to go on without her, but she didn’t want to wimp out. After all, this boat was larger than the one she had been on then. And maybe that seasickness had been just a one-time thing.

Harrison Lewis had steered them out only ten minutes into the choppy water when she began to feel it. The color drained from her face and her knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the boat.