Takedown (An Alexandra Poe Thriller) (6 page)

Tightening her grip on the hammer, she started down the narrow hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the deck that overlooked the ocean. Both bedroom doors were hanging open, the mattresses stripped of sheets. She almost continued on, but something on the floor of the room she and Danny used to share caught her eye. She stepped inside and her jaw tensed.

A sleeping bag.

Surely whoever had slept here had plans to come back. Or maybe he was outside, hiding in the thick tangle of bougainvillea trees, hoping she would soon leave.

Angry now, Alex snatched up the sleeping bag with her free hand and dragged it down the hallway toward the small den that was used to access the back patio. Not surprisingly, the door to the deck was no longer boarded. After throwing it open, she stepped outside, looked out at the bay and the trees, and flung the bag over the rail to the ground below.

“Okay, asshole, time to find yourself a new place to crash.” She raised the hammer, shaking it at the trees. “And if you come back again, you’d better have health insurance, because you’re definitely gonna need it.”

She hadn’t expected an answer and didn’t get one. All she heard was the rustle of leaves in the wind, and the distant raspy cry of a mangrove cuckoo. But again she had that gut feeling. That sixth sense she had picked up during her tour in Iraq.

Someone was out there and had heard every word she’d said.

She hoped he’d taken her seriously.

She was in the storage shed, trying to decide whether to go through the boxes or simply dump them all, when she heard tires on the driveway and the thrum of an engine.

Wiping her dusty hands on her jeans, she stepped outside and waved hello as a Ford came to a stop next to her car, and the man she assumed was Thomas Gérard emerged.
 

He was much better looking than she had pictured him. Definitely European, with a bit of a Clive Owen vibe.

He said, “Nice to finally meet you, Ms. Poe.”

His smile was disarming, and she had no doubt it had served him well. She stepped forward and shook his hand. “Yes. It’s good to see a face to go with the voice.”

“And the e-mails. Don’t forget the e-mails.”

“You’ve been persistent, I’ll give you that.” She turned now and looked at the house, seeing little more than an old shack in need of some tender loving care. “Although I’m not sure what you see in the place.”

He smiled again. “Location, location, location…”

They laughed and she said, “Apparently you aren’t the only one who feels that way.”

His brows went up. “You’ve had another offer?”

“No, but I’ve had an uninvited guest. Someone broke in and has been sleeping here. I’m not sure for how long.”

“Have you called the police?”

She shook her head. “I doubt there’s much they can do.”

“But what if he comes back?”

“He’ll find out soon enough that I’m no damsel in distress,” she said, then gestured toward the house. “Shall we take the ten-cent tour?”

“By all means.”

He followed her up the steps, and they spent the next several minutes moving from room to room, Gérard snapping photos with his phone. He had seen only the exterior of the house, and yes, he had assured her, it was practically a done deal, but he wanted to make sure his client knew exactly what he was getting into.
 

Alex was almost embarrassed by the condition of the place, which could only be described as Early Garage Sale. No wonder the rentals had dried up. Funny how she hadn’t noticed this when she was nine years old. Or even the last time she was here.

Gérard had a quiet confidence about him that went well with the smile and good looks. She didn’t often find herself admiring men—her life was too complicated for such pursuits—but there was something about this guy she found…beguiling.

When he was done snapping photos, he said, “I don’t see anything here that would change my client’s mind, but I’ll have to send these to him and make sure he’s still interested.”

“So, is this what you usually do? Hunt for houses for anonymous clients?”

“That all depends, but yes, I specialize in properties that are often difficult to acquire. And houses in the Keys are hard to come by.”

Alex was about to respond when they heard a loud clunk and hum as the ancient refrigerator in the kitchen came to life.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was hoping the electricity would kick in before dark. They told me it might take a while.”

“So you’re staying overnight?”

“For a couple days, at least. If I’m gonna unload this place there’s a lot to do. We’ve collected quite a bit of junk over the last few decades.”

“Something I’m not familiar with,” he said. “I move around too much.”

Alex nodded. “What kind of accent is that you’re hiding? On the phone I thought French, but now I’m not so sure.”

He gave here another smile. She wished he’d stop doing that.
 

“I was born in Belgium, but I’ve lived and traveled all over the world. I seem to collect bad habits in lieu of possessions.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but before her imagination could run wild, she started moving toward the front door, making it clear their meeting had come to an end. She had work to do and wanted to get started.

He got the hint and followed her, offering a hand to shake.

She shook it and said, “How soon will you hear from your client?”

“Tomorrow, perhaps. Maybe even as early as tonight.”

“I’ll look forward to your call, then.”

He glanced toward the back of the house. “What about your intruder? You’re sure you’ll be safe here alone?”

“Don’t worry, I can handle myself.”

He studied her. “You haven’t told me what you do for a living.”

“I’m kinda like you,” she said. “But I hunt for people instead of houses.”

By his look, she could see he didn’t quite believe her, but he didn’t push it. Instead, he simply flashed that smile one last time and headed through the doorway. But as he reached the top of the steps, he stopped and turned. “I have a thought.”

“Yes?”

“Since you’re staying over, how would you feel about having dinner? Or drinks, if you’d prefer. I’ll be in the bar at the Largo Inn tonight and I hate to drink alone.”

I doubt you do it very often
, she almost told him, and while the offer was more than tempting, she shrugged and gestured to their surroundings. “I appreciate the invite, but I’ve got too much to do. Another time?”

“Of course,” he said, looking a little disappointed, then turned and headed down the steps to his car.

A
LEX
WAS
BACK
in the storage shed when she found it. A rectangular metal case she didn’t remember ever seeing before, despite the fact that at one time or another, she and Danny had been through every inch of this place, dodging lizards and hunting for treasure.

Ironically, that’s what the case looked like—somebody’s treasure box, complete with a locked clasp, and no bigger than a hardback book. She’d found it inside an unopened cardboard box at the back of the shed, buried beneath a stack of her grandparents’ faded and dog-eared
LOOK
magazines, as if it had been deliberately placed there in an attempt to hide it from the casual explorer.

Had her grandfather put it there? One of her parents?

She could only assume it had been hidden years ago, and that she and Danny had missed it because of their complete lack of interest in the fifties and sixties, the two decades covered by most of the magazines. Faded photos of Sinatra and Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn weren’t exactly top draws for curious kids.
 

Alex turned the treasure box in her hand and the contents rattled.

Coins? Jewelry?

She carried it to the workbench, set it down, and took a screwdriver from her father’s tool kit, jamming it into the space behind the clasp. After a single tug, the lock snapped.

She didn’t lift the lid right away. Instead, she stared at the box, excitement welling up inside her. In that moment she was nine years old again, with Danny beside her, and her mother and father upstairs making lunch or lounging on the patio or playing a spirited game of Shanghai, and all was good in the world.

All was good.

She held on to the feeling as long as she could, not opening the box until the sensation passed. When she lifted the lid she found four items inside: a tattered newspaper clipping, a key, a worn 5x8 manila envelope…and a ring.
 

Her mother’s ring.
 

Alex’s throat constricted and tears filled her eyes. She remembered this ring vividly. Her mother had always worn it on her right forefinger, an ornate silver band with a polished turquoise stone from Nishapur. A gift from Alex’s great-grandmother.

But why was it here? Her mother, an anthropologist, had been killed by a terrorist’s bomb in Lebanon during a research trip. Wrong place, wrong time. She would’ve had this ring with her. Would never have left it behind.

Had it been recovered from the rubble? From the body itself?

Apparently so. But why hadn’t Alex known about it?

She stared at the ring, unable to choke back the tears, remembering the many times she’d sat on her mother’s lap, running her fingers over the smooth stone, wishing it could be hers. Remembering Mom’s promise that one day it would be.

“It is family tradition, Alexandra. My grandmother had only sons, so she passed it on to me right before she died. And one day it will be your turn to wear it.”

“I don’t want you to die, Mommy.”

Her mother had smiled. “Don’t you worry, child. I’m not going anywhere for a long, long time.”

But only a few years later, she was gone.

Alex took the ring from the box, held it up for a moment, then slipped it on her right forefinger. The fit was a little snug, but she had no intention of ever taking it off again. The promise had been fulfilled, a thought that brought a whole new wave of tears.

Wiping them away, she reached into the box again and took out the clipping. It was from a Lebanese newspaper, written in Arabic, the photo showing what was left of the cafe where her mother and two others had been slaughtered.

Alex studied it a moment, wondering if any of the victims had felt anything, remembering the friends she and Cooper had lost to IEDs in Iraq. She briefly closed her eyes, then set the clipping on the workbench and returned her attention to the treasure box.
 

The next item was the key. She took it out, studied it, and saw a series of numbers etched into the head, along with the letters
S&G
.

The key to a locker of some kind?

A safe deposit box?

Maybe whatever was inside the manila envelope would give her the answer. She took it from the box and opened it, dumping its contents onto the workbench.

A stack of photographs. Small, square snapshots, some black and white, some color, all faded by time. Photos of a baby, a young girl, a teenager. All with the face of Alex’s mother, many with an Iranian backdrop—a mosque, an open fruit market, a street in Tehran.

Her mother had rarely talked about her childhood, but here was a glimpse of it. One Alex had never seen before.
 

Looking into the eyes of that beautiful young girl got Alex’s heart thumping. What was her mother thinking all those years ago? Did she know she’d one day wind up living in the United States, married to an American soldier? Did she dream of having children?

All at once, Alex felt cheated, thinking it should be her mother sharing these photographs with her. She wanted to reach into the past and warn her not to go to Lebanon. To stay away from that fucking cafe.

Yet despite the pain, no tears came this time. She was the stoic Alexandra now. The soldier. A trait she’d inherited from her father. And she knew that wallowing in what-ifs was a waste of time. She couldn’t change what had happened to her family.

Nobody could.

But as she came to the last photo in the stack, that stoicism wavered. What she saw was her mother at twenty years of age, or maybe a bit younger, standing on the steps of a large house that looked very Persian. The word “palace” came to mind. And she was wearing an elaborate white wedding dress and veil.

What the hell?

This wouldn’t normally be anything earth shattering, except for the fact that Alex had seen photos of her parents’ wedding, and this was
not
one of them. They were married at Baltimore City Hall, and her mother had worn a simple yellow sundress that hung in her closet years after she was killed.

Alex flipped the photograph over, hoping to find a date on the back, but there wasn’t one.
 

What she found instead was an odd series of letters and numbers that looked like a website link, truncated by Google’s URL shortener:

goo.gl/ALUAfk

Alex didn’t move. The presence of her mother’s ring had indicated that the box could have been hidden away for a over a decade. But what about this web link? Google’s URL shortener had only been available for a few years, which meant the box had been left here more recently.