holland-submission-5-8-18
Chapter 25
My research assistant Sally Fitzgerald had been busy. I knew that once she had the scent of something interesting she would follow it like a hound until she had it treed. This morning she was practically baying with excitement. We sat huddled over the table in our office with a nautical chart and several aerial photos splayed out before us.
“The edge of Southwest Channel used to cut through here, right?” Sally’s index finger landed on the chart. She tapped on an area just south of Egmont Key. Her black nail polish stood out against the pale blue of the chart.
I grunted my assent. I was tracking back and forth between the chart and the photos. Something was different. The channel looked wider.
“Look at this picture,” Sally continued. She pulled a photo closer. “What do you notice?”
“Channel is wider here, and again over here.” I indicated two points just off Egmont, where there were a series of tiny uninhabited mangrove islands. Then I asked the obvious. “Never seen a channel get wider on its own. Usually they close up.”
Sally nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly. So, we already know that something’s up on Egmont, right? Assholes who killed our drone made themselves a nice little harbor. Anyway, I did a little digging when you asked me to look into the conservation laws. Nothing earth shattering there. It’s exactly like we thought. And Egmont is public land. Belongs to the state, although the feds have laid claim to it from time to time as well. So, I started looking at ownership on the surrounding keys and that’s where things got mysteriouser and mysteriouser.”
I sat back and waited, arms crossed.
“The thing is, all these little islands here,” she tapped the photo. “Aren’t on any chart yet. Too small. Just a collection of mangroves on some shoals, right? But, it turns out someone owns them. An LLC by the name of JASH Holdings. All I could find was it’s just another shell company registered to the address of a company that provides a service setting up shell companies. I put a call in to a friend who knows someone who might be able to get some more info for us about who JASH might be, but I think it’s a dead end. People who set up shells do it for anonymity.”
I tucked a stray stand of hair behind my ear and processed what it might mean. Suddenly, I remembered something Duncan had told me.
“Hold on a sec,” I held up one hand and pulled out my phone.
Duncan answered on the second ring. “Whassup?”
“Listen, you told me you had sold to an LLC recently, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Do you remember what it was called?”
“Um, hang on.” I could hear him shuffling papers. “Here it is. JASH Holdings.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered. Sally looked at me sharply with one pierced eyebrow arched.
“What is it?” Duncan sounded anxious.
“When do you close? And, what do you know about whoever is buying your place?”
“Couple of days. Why? Meg, what the hell is going on?”
“Don’t really know yet. Just following a hunch or two. Did you meet the buyer?”
“No. Offer came into my realtor and I said yes. He told me he was working with an attorney for the buyer. That’s all I know.”
I considered it for a moment. That sounded typical to me. No reason why Duncan would have met the buyer.
“Listen, can I call you later?” I still needed to ask him about what Joe Monroe was doing out there.
Sally and I considered the chart again. Carefully, I traced the widened channel onto it and drew the tiny mangrove islands. Several of them were within a stone’s throw from the hidden harbor on Egmont Key. They all appeared to have deep water access.
“What do you think?” Sally asked. She was studying one of the aerial photos for the hundredth time, looking for something we hadn’t yet seen.
“I think it is one helluva coincidence that the same shell company who just bought Duncan’s ranch also happens to own these little pieces of nothing at the mouth of Tampa Bay.” I visualized the wall of my study, studded with sticky notes and photos. “I need to figure out what all the connections are. And I think it comes back to Harlan Cushing. He’s at the center of this, I just know it. There’s something I’m just not seeing yet, but it’s on the tip of my brain.” I needed to get home to have another look.
Thirty minutes later when I pulled into my driveway my spidey senses started to tingle. My tires spun and popped on the crushed shells as I skidded to a stop and hopped out. It was too quiet. Where was Moby? I had left him lazing at home today to avoid the heat and chaos of traffic. Usually he greeted me with a low, rumbly warble of joy and a blur of wagging tail. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom step of the porch that I saw the blood smears. All feeling drained from my extremities and my heart thumped hard as I took the steps three at a time.
“Moby? Here, boy! Where are you?” The house was eerily still as I flung the porch door wide. I sensed the mess before I saw it. Someone had toppled furniture and flung the contents of every drawer in the house. There was more blood. Jesus. Where was Moby? I called for him again and again, my voice becoming shrill with desperation. No. This was not real.
A sound reached my ears through the rush of panic. Footfalls on the porch steps.
“Meg? You in there?” It was Jacob Townsend from next door. His dark head appeared in the door frame.
I stood in the center of my ruined living room, my feet rooted to the spot. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.
“Meg, it’s okay. Moby’s okay.” Jacob was standing in front of me, then his long arms encircled me. “Moby’s okay, honey. Steve’s got him. He’s taking him to the emergency clinic.”
I stood back and looked at my friend, his words finally registering. “What happened?”
Jacob shook his head. “Don’t know, really. We heard a noise, like this quiet whimpering sound. Steve went outside and found Moby under our deck covered in blood. Wrapped him up in a towel and looked at him as carefully as we could. Hard to tell where he was hurt, actually.” Jacob’s Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed hard. “Meg, he got a bad cut.”
“Oh, god.” I couldn’t think straight. My poor, sweet, loyal dog. The tears came then, unbidden.
Jacob held my shoulders and his eyes searched my face, trying to offer reassurance. “I think he’s okay, though, Meg. Looked like it was just a superficial wound. Had already begun clotting. Steve cleaned it out and, like I said, he’s taken him to the vet on Midnight Pass Road. Let me drive you over there right now.” He looked around and did a double take as he noticed the extent of the damage for the first time. “Whoa. What the hell?”
My tidy house was a disaster. Mess everywhere. It occurred to me someone should call the police. But I needed to be with Moby. Just then, Jacob’s cell rang. The caller ID showed Steve’s name. My stomach twisted with anxiety as I listened to Jacob’s end of the conversation. He nodded and took my hand, then led me gently out the door.
Ten minutes later we were all reunited in a tiny treatment room at the clinic. Moby was sprawled on the examining table and thumped his tail feebly when he saw me. The veterinarian was inspecting his left hind leg. The blood stains in his light fur looked obscene, but otherwise he seemed very much intact. I threw my arms around his sweet body as relief flooded through me. His soft tongue lapped my earlobe.
“He’s a lucky fella,” the vet rubbed Moby’s big head and introduced himself to me. “I’m Dr. Ordway.” He was a few years my senior and wore a white lab coat over a dress shirt and tie.
The only wound appeared to be a superficial cut just above Moby’s left knee. It had bled a bit initially, but there was little damage to the surrounding tissue. It would require six stitches and the dog would have to stay quiet for a couple of weeks. No swimming and no running. I nodded along gratefully as he explained. He noted that there was more blood on Moby than one might expect from this sort of wound.
I told him about the break in at home and he scrunched his forehead in concern. Then Steve Abbott spoke up and explained again how they’d found the dog cowering under their deck. He had been covered in blood. They had toweled some of it off trying to find the wound.
Dr. Ordway bent over Moby and ran his hands along his ribs and underbelly again.
“Nothing else here. Seems to me he probably got a bite or two in, which might explain the blood.”
“So, Moby got his teeth into whoever did this to him?”
Dr. Ordway shrugged. “Maybe. I couldn’t say for sure.”
“What do you think happened to my dog?” I thought about my ruined house. Whoever had broken in might not have been expecting company. Moby must have been terrified. I hoped he took a good-sized chunk out of the asshole who did it. My relief at seeing him alive was beginning to give way to anger. I tried to keep the edge out of my voice. “Did someone stab him or did he cut himself on something else?”
“Looks like a knife wound. Clean incision, but shallow. Blade was sharp but not very long.” He made a slow slashing motion across the dog’s hind quarter. “I would guess that Moby charged whoever it was, maybe got a hold of a piece of him, so the guy pulled out a pocket knife and lashed out.” He sounded disgusted. His hand moved to Moby’s head again and gave his ears a gentle rub. Clearly, the man loved dogs. “Let me get him cleaned up, and you can take him home.”
Steve, Jacob, and I waited together outside in the reception room. They asked questions about the break in and listened intently as I recounted what I could. I was too tired and too rattled to give much in the way of details. Both men listened carefully. Steve was especially interested in Congressman Cushing. They exchanged knowing looks at the mention of Sam Fletcher’s name as well.
“What?” I demanded.
“Don’t think we haven’t noticed you’ve had an extra car in that driveway in recent weeks,” Jacob smiled broadly.
Steve nodded along. “And don’t think we haven’t noticed you not coming around much lately, either.” He gave a little eye brow waggle. “When do we get to meet this man?”
“Okay, okay,” I tried for mock exasperation. “Next time he’s in town. I promise.”
Both men sat back, satisfied. They had a way of using humor to diffuse hard moments without losing concern. Don’t know what I’d have done without them.
Later, after we brought Moby home and the police had left, Jacob and Steve had brought over a pizza and helped me clean up. They had insisted Moby and I come stay the night with them and I was grateful for the invitation, but wanted to put my world back in order first. It was a miserable job, made less miserable by their cheerful conversation and helpful decorating hints. In the living room and kitchen, drawers had been emptied, cushions slashed, books strewn about, and furniture overturned. The bedroom was much the same, with clothing tossed about and my closet turned inside out. It took a couple of hours, but slowly the house was restored. As the sun sank low over Lido Key, I sent Moby home with Steve and Jacob and turned my attention to the study.
What I had discovered there was truly devastating and I needed to be alone. Whereas everything in the rest of the house had been trashed or scattered about, the study had been left alone. In fact, the most unnerving part was that it appeared nearly untouched. Except it was most definitely not untouched. My computer was missing, as were the contents of my file drawer, my notebooks, and my backup drives. The wall where I had painstakingly created my mural was now blank. It was as though someone had gone to the trouble to create utter chaos everywhere else but had come through this room and scrubbed it clean.
I was in shock. I tried to stem the tide of disbelief, nausea, and grief that flooded through me as I took inventory of the missing pieces of my life’s work. All my research notes, my raw data, my publication files, and pending projects were gone. Poof. Just like that. Ice water sluiced through my limbs. My feet were nailed to the floor. As the enormity of the loss hit finally me, I collapsed into my desk chair and held my head in my hands. The full realization was beginning to sink in as my mind ticked through all of the items I had brought home for safe keeping instead of leaving them at the office.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I whispered over and over like a desperate mantra.
The only saving grace was that I still had other back up disks and some notebooks at the lab. Sally also had copies of the raw data from the Navy project, thank god. It would be okay, I kept telling myself. Still, I felt gutted. This was a violation that went beyond anything I could rationalize or put into words, even. It had been the same way when my mother died. I thought about that night years ago when the worst-case scenario just kept unfolding and there was no turning it away. I’m sorry, Meggie. She didn’t make it. My shipwrecked father had held me as I sobbed into his chest. Grief had carved a deep canyon inside me, one that I had spent years trying to bridge through hard work, predictable routines, and a precise, orderly world. Keeping my life tidy and neat had been the only thing that made sense. Science had always been a safe harbor.
I stood up and looked through the big picture window at the Sarasota skyline across the bay. I wondered whether Harlan Cushing was aboard the Lucky Lady tonight. Someone was out there trying to put a stop to my research. A stop to my questions. A stop to me. Clearly, I had uncovered something that was making someone very, very nervous. Drawing in a deep breath, I rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands. If there was one thing I learned, it was that fear always gave bad advice.
Alright, motherfuckers. I’m coming for you now. I was done being afraid. I was done playing nice. I was done playing by the rules. It was bad enough they had messed with my boat, my livelihood, and my home. But no one messes with my dog. I was done.
Chapter 26
The night air on the Gulf of Mexico washed away any lingering doubts about what I needed to do. Isurus carved its way north, tracing the dark silhouette of Long Boat Key off to my right. I had left Moby with Jacob and Steve, who promised to love him up and keep him safe. Neither man pressed me when I explained I needed to be away for a day or two. After the break in, they sensed something had shifted. It was best not to pry.
I was headed for Egmont Key and the little constellation of mangroves isles that didn’t appear on any nautical chart but were apparently owned by a shell company called JASH Holdings. It was obvious that I had stumbled onto something in my research. I was tired of being caught flatfooted, always half a step behind. It was time to see for myself what was really happening at the mouth of Tampa Bay that no one wanted me to see.
It was just past two o’clock in the morning when I made the long turn around the tip of Anna Maria Island. It was exhilarating being alone on the water in the darkness, where there were no boundaries. I could have been the only remaining person alive in the world. I was flying with the throttle wide open and adrenaline coursed through me as I switched off the running lights and full darkness enveloped me. I knew these waters intimately, and driving Isurus felt like being with an old, familiar lover.
I had made two calls earlier in the evening, one to Sam Fletcher and the other to my ex-husband Matthew. Sam had been horrified to learn about what happened to Moby, not to mention the theft of my computer and files. He had offered to return from Tallahassee as early as tomorrow to keep me company and help me secure the house. I told him it was okay. I needed some alone time, and I had meant it. All my life I had retreated into solitude whenever things got to be too much for me and the water had always provided refuge. The introvert in me needed to recharge and figure things out without the boundaries of people, buildings, or traffic. If I was honest, the tendency to withdraw probably helped torpedoed my marriage. Matthew’s insistence on putting himself in harm’s way as a war correspondent hadn’t helped, but I had put more blame on him than was my right.