Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set Page 14

  He wiped his mouth and set his napkin down. “The one Reeve paid before leaving Costa Rica,” he replied slowly. “And . . . it’s some kind of charity?” He shook his head, as if confused.

  Cassidy sat back, trying to put the facts together, but there were too many holes.

  “Why would he pay them?” Bruce asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Cassidy sighed.

  “Could he be mixed up in the trafficking somehow?” Bruce crossed his arms. A dark look passed over his face. “Talk about stupid,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Bruce got up and paced to the back of the boat. He leaned on the gunnels and gazed out over the black bay. Above, the stars dusted the inky dome of sky in patterns she would never see in Eugene: belts of powdery bits of light, bright constellations, their patterns clearly visible, the Milky Way. She crossed the distance to the gunnels, and he turned to her.

  “The people who deal in human trafficking have entire armies, guns . . . there are complete patches of jungle that they have claimed as their territory.” He grimaced. “They’re very powerful. And ruthless.” He paused. “If he crossed them somehow . . . ”

  “So maybe that’s it, then,” Cassidy said, though it still didn’t all fit together. “Or maybe the two aren’t related at all. Maybe he did try to sell drugs, and something went wrong. Meanwhile he pays two grand to an anti-sex trafficking organization. Maybe out of guilt?”

  Bruce had turned his back to the bay and was half sitting on the gunnels, his long legs stretched out. “Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

  “Did you follow the car that chased us?” she asked, remembering the way he had hidden in the shadows then took off in pursuit.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “They staked out the Pelican for a while, then headed out of town. I followed as far as I could.”

  Cassidy shuddered at the idea of the thugs waiting for her at the hotel. “Are Benita and the others safe?” she asked suddenly. “Should we warn them?”

  Bruce shook his head. “They’re safe.”

  Cassidy tried to figure out why he sounded so confident and decided to believe him. “Who do you think they were?” she asked.

  Bruce looked away. “Not sure.”

  The alcohol was starting to have the desired effect, and she swung her legs over the side of the boat, letting them dangle over the water.

  “Could they be the police, and they wanted to keep what happened to Reeve quiet?”

  “It’s possible,” Bruce said. “Nicaragua’s police are sort of a joke. I mean, they keep things pleasant for the tourists, but they’re paid off by big crime, and sometimes, they even run the show.”

  “Well, whoever it was, I received their message loud and clear.” Cassidy had already come to this conclusion, but it felt good to say it out loud. “Someone doesn’t want me to find out the truth.”

  “And you’re fine leaving it at that?” he asked, scrutinizing her with an intense stare.

  She remembered the desperation she felt while being chased. If they’d caught her, what would they have done to her? A shudder rumbled through her core. “No, but I don’t see any other option.”

  Sixteen

  Bruce had joined her on the gunnels, the ice in his drink tinkling in the glass. “I was really worried when I got to the boat and didn’t find you,” he said quietly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just acted. I should have tried to let you know somehow that I’d gone back.” When she and Pete were apart, they had a standing agreement to check in with each other at 8:00 p.m., either by WhatsApp if she was in Central America, or he was in Canada or Spain or Timbuktu, or by text or phone if they were stateside. After being on her own for over a year, she realized that this practice of being accountable had become foreign to her. Even her postdoc position was unstructured—nobody checked to see if she had made it home from the airport, or scolded her for working too late into the night. The faculty overseeing her position just expected her results and collaboration when requested. It was the way she had lived before Pete. After her father passed away, she had left Pamela’s home as soon as she could and resisted her attempts to keep tabs on her.

  She and Quinn did this for each other, of course, but it was looser, and they didn’t share the details of their lives the way she and Pete had.

  “What’ll you do, after this?” he asked.

  Cassidy looked up at the stars again. How could they be light years away but look so close? Like they were about to fall down right on top of them. “Well, I’ll probably need to call Pamela, Reeve’s mom, and Rebecca, his sister, will insist that I come for a visit, which I’ll refuse.”

  “Why?”

  Cassidy huffed. “Why should I go see her? Reeve is her brother. She sent me on this crazy mission. She can come see me.”

  “Sounds like you two aren’t exactly close.”

  “That’s right. Plus, I’m going to be too busy to go anywhere for a while.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Huh?” Then, she realized what he was getting at. “Predicting the size of Arenal’s next eruption. Calculating potential lahar flow rates, coauthoring about six papers, and publishing like crazy.”

  He whistled. “You can do all of that?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “What will you tell his mom?”

  “Everything,” Cassidy sighed. Then, seeing Bruce’s look, she added, “It’s not like she doesn’t know every shitty thing he’s done. The drugs, his criminal activities, his rehab . . . she’ll see it for what it is.”

  “And that is?”

  “That he got caught up in something bigger than he could handle, and it cost him his life.”

  Bruce was silent. They sat there as the quiet stretched between them. Cassidy listened to the water lap the sides of the boat. A breeze from the land brushed her cheek. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ears and realized it was still damp at the back of her neck. With a swift twist, she had it up into a messy knot and the resulting breeze across her bare neck felt wonderful.

  “Will those men who chased us . . . ” Cassidy felt her heart race at the memory. “I know you said we’re safe here, but . . . are you sure?”

  “You’re safe,” he said, his eyes locking with hers.

  “After this. After I’m gone. You’ll be okay, right? They won’t cause trouble for you, will they?”

  “Nah,” Bruce said, swinging his legs back over the gunnels. “C’mon,” he said, “I want to show you something.”

  “So I said to him, sir, please keep your pecker in your pants,” Bruce finished with a cackle.

  Cassidy spluttered in laughter, rolling around on the deck chair cushions they had laid out on the roof of the wheelhouse. Above them, the stars and a half moon lit the night. Bruce had been entertaining her with “the worst guest” stories, and her stomach hurt from all the laughing. With her mission over, and the idea of returning home starting to crystalize in her head, a big, black cloud was forming on her horizon. Home meant the house without Pete, the solitary late nights, and the geology colleagues who gave her pitying looks.

  “Your turn,” he said, sipping from his drink. Bruce had brought the bottle.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “I don’t have any stories like that!”

  “C’mon, tell me a story about a volcano erupting, or a scandal in your program. Maybe something you did.”

  “Me? I’m a nerd. I’ve never caused a scandal.”

  “Never cheated on a test?”

  “Never.”

  “Never slept with a professor?”

  Cassidy laughed. “Oh, yes, I swoon for flannel and Birkenstocks. I can’t keep my hands off them.”

  “A student?”

  “No!” She punched his arm. “Some of them are pretty cute, but they’re babies, Bruce! They can’t read a map. They can’t draw. They party like rock stars. They don’t give a shit about the work.” She sighed and took a sip of her drink. “
Oh! I know! I’ve dealt with plenty of accidents. Rock chips in kids’ eyes, a rock hammer impaled in a kid’s foot, a kid who had a psychotic episode. It turns out he was bipolar but nobody could tell me about it because of HIPAA laws. Can you believe that?”

  “How’d you know he was psychotic?”

  “Because he was acting batshit crazy. Apparently, he hadn’t been taking his meds because he was afraid we weren’t going to have enough water. We were on a desert trip, but there was plenty of water! That one made me so mad. What if he tried to hurt himself or someone else?”

  She sighed. “Lots of crazy stuff happens on field trips. We meet on Saturday morning, and I drive one of motor pool’s big vans, and we go look at road cuts or streambeds or places with interesting geology.” She chewed on an ice cube. “This one time, I a student brought his girlfriend, and they made out in the back of the van the whole time. Another time, at field camp—” she paused to explain “—geology majors have to complete a six-week mapping course, ours was in Montana. We live in the dorms at the local college and complete four separate projects, plus take field trips.” Bruce nodded. “Anyways,” she went on, “one time I hiked over this ridge and five students were playing hacky sack, naked.”

  “I’ve actually done that,” Bruce said.

  Cassidy guffawed. “Oh my god. Please tell me why.”

  Bruce just shrugged. “Why not?”

  Cassidy sighed. “One year, I had this one student, she was an adult, and, well, she was always kind of fragile, sort of a baby, you know, always needing help with stuff that she should know how to do, like color code a map, or how to filter her water. It was like she had never camped before. Can you imagine? A geology student who had never gone camping? Anyways, I had to take her to the emergency room because she refused to poop in the community bathroom or outside, and eventually she just got so backed up she couldn’t poop. Oh,” Cassidy continued, a memory sprouting in her head. “Here’s a good one: one of my students hopped on the back of a Harley and rode off into the sunset. Just like that. This group of bikers came rumbling into town, and the next minute Sienna, who, rumor has it, was an exotic dancer on the side, just hops on and disappears.”

  “Did she come back?” Bruce asked.

  “She was back the next day.”

  “Whoa,” Bruce said with a shudder. “I wouldn’t hop on the back of a biker gang’s motorcycle. Did she know what she was getting into?”

  The mention of a motorcycle gave Cassidy an uncomfortable sensation down in her gut, but the alcohol made it feel distant, diffuse. “I was furious,” she said. “What if something had happened to her?” She sighed, and to her dismay her eyes began to sting. “What if she hadn’t returned? They could have left her on the side of the road somewhere. They could have hurt her, even killed her,” Cassidy choked out the last bit and the tears began to fall.

  “Hey,” Bruce said softly. “What’s wrong?”

  Cassidy hugged herself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “I know,” Cassidy said, her voice a squeaky croak. “It’s not your fault. There’s tripwires all over the place.” She wiped her cheeks. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Bruce said.

  “I just miss him,” Cassidy said, and a fresh set of tears bloomed. In two days, she would be back in her house, in her big, empty bed.

  Bruce was quiet.

  Cassidy closed her eyes, trying to stay in the moment. This moment and not in the past. Not wishing for what was gone. And not wishing that Bruce would try to make it okay. It wasn’t okay. No one could make it okay—she had to the do the hard work of pushing through the grief.

  “I don’t want to go home,” she growled, resisting the cloud of pain hovering on her horizon that would descend on her in Eugene. “It’s harder.” She tried to focus on the warmth of Bruce’s body near hers. Would he hold her if she asked? Stop, a voice inside her head blared. You know where that might lead, and haven’t you taken enough risks on this trip?

  A sob escaped her lips and she closed her eyes.

  Seventeen

  Cassidy stirred and opened her eyes to pitch dark, and a chill in the air. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth. Bruce had gone. She sat up and was about to call out when she heard voices.

  She lay still, trying to use all of her senses to pinpoint the sound. Bruce’s voice rose in pitch. He sounded angry. Then she heard another voice, lower in tone, reply.

  A pricking sensation spread across Cassidy’s skin.

  Someone else was on the boat.

  They were below her on the stern. She peered over the edge of the wheelhouse roof, but the deck below was covered, so Bruce and whoever was with him were hidden from view. Cassidy noticed the outline of a small outboard motorboat tied up to the Trinity’s stern. She heard a man laugh, but it wasn’t friendly.

  Cassidy rolled away from the edge, her heart hammering into her throat. Who was here?

  It must be the middle of the night, Cassidy realized. The only lights shining came from the masts of the other boats. No people moved about that she could see. It was also deathly quiet except for Bruce’s and the intruders’ voices. Was Bruce in trouble? Should she signal for help somehow? She remembered the radio.

  The argument continued, and the boat rocked slightly. The sound of feet scuffled on the deck. This time she caught the tail end of Bruce’s reply: “ . . . debo nada. Ya no!”

  Her brain tried to make sense of it: not anymore. What did that mean? Could the argument be about her? Needing to know more, she descended the ladder past Bruce’s wheelhouse and snuck into the galley. She paused to listen. The men were still on the stern deck, talking in angry voices. But now that she was at the same level as their feet, she couldn’t make out their words.

  A set of feet moved toward the galley. Did they know she was here? With a rush of panic, she suddenly realized how exposed she was.

  In a flash, she was inside Jesus’s room. She flattened herself against the wall behind the door, willing her heaving breaths to calm. But the intruder’s feet didn’t come any closer. Instead, she heard a sickening smack, the noise a fist makes against flesh. A fight.

  Bruce roared and there were more sounds of hitting, grunting. Cassidy grimaced. She risked a peek from behind the door, and through the windows lining the galley, saw Bruce tumble and crash to the floor then scramble to his feet again.

  Almost as soon as the full understanding of what was happening came into focus, her gaze landed on a small black object, abandoned about halfway between the opening from the galley and where Bruce was battling two men. Cassidy recognized it instantly. It was a gun. She felt a trickle of sweat roll down her temple. Was it Bruce’s?

  Bruce made a lunge for the gun, and Cassidy realized her horrible mistake. She should have stayed on the roof, where the men might not know to look for her. Hearing a horrible crash from the deck, she realized that Bruce was losing the fight. She was trapped in Jesus’s cabin. Where could she hide?

  She glanced around the tiny room, but there was no closet—and no escape. The window above his bed was only a vent with slats. Using all the Zen she could conjure, she remained still, barely breathing, her eyes searching for a way out. She tried to focus on the soft cotton of the hoody against her cheek and the idea that it was like her armor, a shell of protection. Her eyes went back to the bed and the space below it. She had seen the cupboard door before, but she hadn’t felt comfortable poking around in Jesus’s drawers. Was the space big enough to hide in?

  On the deck, they were talking again, their voices low. She could hear Bruce’s heavy breathing and grunts, as if he were answering them. One of the intruders raised his voice. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she heard Bruce’s reply: “Tendrás que matarme.”

  You will have to kill me.

  Cassidy’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. No! A powerful sense of rage rose up inside her.

  In a flash, she left Jesus’s room an
d climbed the stairs to the deck. It took a moment for the men to realize her presence, but by then she had the gun in her hands.

  Eighteen

  One of the men stood over Bruce who was crumpled in a sitting position on the deck, as if he had just been thrown there.

  “Cassidy, no!” Bruce croaked.

  She risked a quick glance at him. His shirt was ripped at the shoulder. His lip was bleeding, and one eye looked swollen. She wondered what other wounds lay hidden.

  The man nearest Bruce was frozen in place and looking at her shrewdly, like a cat eyeing a mouse he was considering eating.

  “Get back!” she said, pointing the gun at him. Were her hands shaking? She forced them forward, hoping her posture conveyed strength.

  The two men locked eyes.

  Cassidy took a step forward. “Dónde está Reeve?” she said.

  The first man’s dark face clouded with confusion. The two intruders locked eyes again.

  A strange feeling settled in her chest. “Mi hermano, dónde está?”

  The first man rattled off something in Spanish to the other one. “No conozco a tu hermano,” he replied to Cassidy, then moved forward, his hand open. “Now give me the gun,” he said in heavily accented English.

  Cassidy’s finger gripped the trigger.

  “Aiee!” the man said, putting up his hands. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Where’s Reeve! What have you done with him?” Cassidy heard the sounds coming from her mouth, but it was like someone else was speaking. The words were full of hurt, and anger.

  “Cassidy,” Bruce said. “Put the gun down. You don’t want this.”

  “I want the truth!” she cried. Her hand was beginning to shake, but she forced herself to be strong. He was right—she did not want this, any of it. Her resolve faltered. Then she thought of Reeve, gone, probably by the hands of these very men.