Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set Page 9

  “I have to predict earthquakes to contribute?” he said in a teasing tone.

  “I don’t predict earthquakes,” she said quickly. “Nobody can.”

  “You know what I mean,” Bruce groaned, giving her a splash.

  She realized she was being unfair. Of course, Bruce contributed—she remembered how he had helped the woman caught inside at Witch’s Rock, the kids at Playas del Coco who had swarmed around him, the envelope he had handed to the hotel owner.

  “Just make sure you don’t get so busy saving the world that you forget to enjoy it,” Bruce said, giving her a sideways glance.

  Pete had called her a workaholic more than once, but she had thrown the term right back at him. They would both often work late into the night, forgetting about making dinner until they were half-blind from hunger. Sometimes dinner would be a bowl of popcorn and a green smoothie, or scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese. When Pete was writing, it was like he stepped into another world. It was the same for Cassidy.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she said with more force than she intended. A set approached and Cassidy jumped to action. The bright light made her squint as she paddled forward. A swishing sound, followed by the crumbling roar of the wave, focused her mind. The wave lifted her up, and she punched to her feet, soaring down the face. She arced her body in a smooth upward turn, towards the center of the wall. The water shone like a silvery blue mirror as the light bounced off it. She could see her shadow out of the corner of her eye, trailing her. Speeding water tickled her toes, and that playful optimism sprouted inside her.

  The wave was beginning to curve over her, and she crouched low, savoring the sensation of flying. Bright sunlight dappled the water, its colors changing from indigo to pale blue, and then the wave spilled over her head in a spinning coil, closing her inside. Leaning forward, she shrunk lower and grabbed her outside rail. Trailing her other hand in the wave, her fingertips bounced against the powerful, up-heaving water. She was almost to the channel and the curtain over her head pulled back, basking her in beaming sunlight. Curving her body upwards, she flew over the lip and dove over the back of the wave. Unexpected tears sprung from her eyes as she reached the surface. Those few moments of joy and delight were intoxicating. If only they could have lasted just a little longer, she thought.

  By the time she rejoined the lineup, the Trinity’s other guests were either paddling out or getting ready to. She squinted at the big boat bobbing outside of the wave, its metal railings and finishes shining in the low sunlight.

  “Nice ones,” she heard one of them say. It was Marissa, the first to arrive.

  “Yeah,” Cassidy said.

  Marissa gave her a wink and sat up.

  Libby and Jillian soon joined them, but the mood was quiet, mellow, as if they all had a silent agreement not to spoil the glorious morning with conversation.

  Cassidy stared at the green hills rising up to dark mountains in the distance and wondered if Reeve was there somewhere.

  Cassidy was the first guest to return to the boat—her head was beginning to pound from the lack of sleep and the glare of the sun. As she came on board, she found a stack of freshly folded towels and several jugs of fresh water for rinsing. She stood on the swim deck and rinsed her head and face before grabbing a towel and drying off as she faced the sun. Descending into the lounge, she caught the rich scent of coffee and helped herself to a cup. Jesus was chopping onions and peppers.

  “Good waves?” he said in his careful speech, grinning with his crooked teeth and laughing eyes.

  Cassidy nodded, then took her coffee to her bunkroom where she quickly dressed, and downed some Tylenol. Then she pulled out her neatly stashed knapsack and removed the stack of papers she planned to proof. Normally, she would make these corrections on her laptop, but she had known that wouldn’t be possible on the boat, so she had asked permission to use the camp’s printer. While this would require an extra step once she returned, it was better than doing nothing. When she returned, the pressure to publish would be immense—that and the imposing reality of nailing down a job—a real job at a university. Tucking the stack of papers under an arm and gripping her mechanical pencil, she hopped to the floor, picked up her coffee, and went to the galley. She fished out a bagel from a basket covered in plastic wrap and nibbled on it, her focus wandering back to her work as she sliced the bagel and smeared it with cream cheese. Had Héctor downloaded the latest data set yet? Would their seismic stations stay operational? She knew that last thought was unlikely—equipment had a bad habit of walking away. Stuff like solar panels and car batteries made sense; they were valuable. However, even things as seemingly useless to the average citizen as specialized electronic cables and ammo boxes disappeared too. The toughest loss was the seismometer. They were extremely expensive, and fragile. Sometimes looters would find her station, strip its guts and leave the seismometer, not knowing exactly what it was; but the damage would be too extensive to fix it.

  “You play ukulele?” Jesus asked, wiping his hands on his apron.

  Cassidy put the lid back on the tub of cream cheese. “No, why?”

  Jesus lifted his eyebrows to indicate something above.

  Cassidy was at a loss. Then the meaning slid into place. “You mean, you don’t?” she asked carefully.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. He indicated with his hand, just like the day before, to enter his room.

  Cassidy abandoned her breakfast and approached the narrow door, then stepped through it. The bed was made, neat as a pin just as before, everything shipshape. She looked up. The ukulele case was there. “Do you know Reeve?” she asked, as goosebumps traveled down her arms.

  Jesus continued to smile his big, soft smile. Did he nod? She couldn’t tell.

  She placed one foot on the corner of the bed, and braced her other leg against the wall, then reached up to the hammock.

  “Just the ukulele?” she asked him as her fingers found the edge of the backpack.

  “Sí,” he said in his deep voice. “Mi bolsa,” he said to indicate that the backpack belonged to him.

  Cassidy removed the ukulele from the netting and worked her way back to the floor. She sat on Jesus’s bed and paused, running her fingers over the black worn case. The clasps were weathered, maybe it was all the salt air; one was extremely tight and while prying it open, it sliced her thumb. She shook out her finger, sucked on it. She lifted the lid of the case to a polished ukulele resting inside black velvet. She put the case on the bed and removed the ukulele, holding it in her lap and strumming it once, unable to resist hearing the music. The instrument seemed to be in tune, but the sound was too loud for the small cabin. She peeked inside the hollow space, shook it in case something was hiding inside, but it was empty. She turned her attention to the case, but there was no hidden compartment, no false bottom. Disappointed, she put the instrument back in its velvet and closed the lid.

  “Gracias,” she told Jesus.

  Jesus nodded deeply and stepped from her path so she could exit his room, ukulele in hand. At least she could return something to Rebecca and Pamela, she thought with a sick feeling in her stomach.

  After a refill of coffee, she climbed to the sun-dappled bow deck and grabbed a seat cushion for a mat. She sat down, crisscross-style, with her back to the women riding waves. But she couldn’t seem to get into her work. The discovery of the ukulele kept looping through her mind.

  Reeve had taken his clothes and other personal effects, but not his ukulele. Were ukuleles expensive? Maybe Reeve didn’t even really play it, but had just brought it along for fun. He had always dabbled in music. Maybe he was teaching himself how to play. If he had been going to San Juan to party, of course he would have left it. But if he had only gone into San Juan to get high or get laid, why take everything else?

  The conclusion was that Reeve had known he was leaving and wasn’t coming back.

  Why?

  Cassidy went through the possibilities. He was running from someone
or something in Costa Rica. So then why not just hop a bus and go over the border? Why abandon Bruce’s trip and his responsibilities? He had a passport, an income . . . And if Reeve had known that he was going to abandon Bruce in San Juan, why bring the ukulele at all?

  What if he had left other things behind that Bruce hadn’t noticed? Though whether or not those supposed things Reeve abandoned would give any clues as to why he left and where he was headed was unknown. Could she search the boat without making it a big deal? The other guests might think she was nuts. Bruce might not like her poking around.

  “Hey,” Bruce said from inside his wheelhouse. He had opened the sliding windows.

  She looked up from her papers, realizing that she hadn’t read a single word.

  Bruce’s smile looked tight. “We’ve got company,” he said, then stepped out of sight.

  Ten

  Alarmed, Cassidy gazed at the horizon, and saw a small boat approach. A slick of terror pooled in her gut. The boat was painted with a blue, gray, and black camo pattern, and there were figures onboard wearing red vests. Her eyes couldn’t quite make out the lettering on the side of the boat, but she did notice the large gun stationed at the bow and the person standing ready to use it.

  “Who is that?” she asked but Bruce was on the radio, replying to whoever was coming towards them.

  The boat slowed and maneuvered so it was side by side with Bruce’s. The men onboard all wore stern faces, their black eyes targeting Bruce. The man at the big gun on the bow stood with his feet planted wide, the brim of his hat pulled low over his dark eyes.

  “What do they want?” Cassidy said as an officer prepared to board the Trinity.

  “They’re the Narc police,” Bruce said, stepping forward to greet the officers. He was holding a kind of dossier, and she realized it contained their passports.

  Cassidy hung back, but she could still overhear some of the words the officer who stepped aboard was saying: “documents” and “search”.

  Then, with a wave of his hand, two officers jumped aboard and began methodically opening storage spaces, barking to each other in short phrases, as if amped, ready for some kind of find. They passed by her as if she wasn’t there, and disappeared into the galley. They had a charged, aggressive energy. Cassidy realized that her heart was thumping. These men had guns, and plenty of authority to use them.

  The man who was in charge, his dark, squashed face a confusion of odd crinkles, took the paperwork from Bruce and sat at their dining table where he methodically went through everything. He copied down information from their passports into a notebook he pulled from one of the cargo pockets in his pants.

  Cassidy heard the two officers down below talking with Jesus, then it was quiet again. Cassidy imagined the officers rifling through her backpack, or the other women’s belongings, touching their private things.

  The man stood and returned the passports and paperwork, practically snapping his boot heels together. He said something sly, and indicated Cassidy with his chin.

  The officers shared a light chuckle.

  “No, solo surfeando,” Bruce replied, his jaw tight.

  The two search officers returned. One gave his report—Cassidy couldn’t hear it but the lead officer turned to Bruce and asked: “Donde están los otros?”

  Bruce indicated the beach with his chin. “Surfeando.”

  The officer squinted in the direction of the waves and turned back to Bruce. He asked another question, to which Bruce’s reply had an edge—defensive, but not angry. The lead officer seemed to think about this, then nodded. He stepped clear of Bruce and replied “Asegúrate de hacerlo,” he added, then the officer jumped back onboard his boat. The engine started up, the bumpers were pulled in, and just like that, they were gone.

  Bruce remained standing, tracking the boat as it moved down the coastline. “Well, that was fun,” he added when they had become a small dot in the distance.

  “Does that happen a lot?” Cassidy asked.

  Jesus poked his head up from the galley. Something wonderful was cooking; Cassidy could smell onions and melting cheese.

  “Se fueron,” Bruce told the old man.

  Jesus nodded and disappeared back into the galley.

  “Every now and then,” Bruce said.

  “What did they say about me?” she asked. “And why did you get mad?”

  Bruce turned to look at her finally, and though his body posture was relaxed, his expression was still tight. “It was nothing. He probably meant it to tease me, you know, here I am with six ladies all to myself.” He sighed. “Typical male machismo. These guys aren’t exactly of the enlightened male outlook.”

  “Right,” Cassidy said, shaking off the weird vibe that the officers had cast. “But then he said something about ‘be sure to’, what was that?”

  “Oh, he was trying to bust my balls for not calling in our arrival in Nicaragua. I told him I would in San Juan, where there’s actually a port.” He swept his hands to indicate the expanse of empty jungle and distant mountains. “He said that inland from here, there was some kind of feud going on between clans.”

  “Are you worried?” Cassidy asked. Tracking drug wars was not something she knew anything about.

  He gave her a sideways glance. “I’d be stupid not to be,” he said.

  The women were paddling back from the lineup, their configuration like a swarm of bees.

  “At first I thought they might be pirates,” Cassidy said.

  “Nah,” Bruce said.

  “Don’t drugs come in by boat?”

  Bruce kept his eyes on the returning surfers, or maybe the distant mountains. “Yeah, coke makes a lot more than tuna.”

  “Narc patrols don’t catch them?”

  “Some. But they can’t keep up.”

  Marissa and Taylor reached the back of the boat, unfastened their leashes and climbed up to the swim deck. Soon the others were back, and everyone pounced on the egg frittata breakfast Jesus had laid out. As soon as they finished eating, Bruce pulled anchor and the boat sped towards the south. Cassidy was silently relieved.

  After a sunset session at another remote wave, Cassidy slipped to the bow and her stack of documents, hoping to pick up where she left off, but found Benita leaning back against the railing, playing Reeve’s ukulele and singing softly.

  She must have seen the look on Cassidy’s face because she stopped mid-strum. “Is this yours? I found it on my bunk.”

  “Uh, no, I mean, yes, it’s mine.”

  Benita gave her a shrewd look.

  “You can play it. I don’t mind, I was just surprised, is all.”

  “This is actually a really nice one. Do you play?”

  “No,” Cassidy said, settling in on her cushion. She realized that her answers were not making much sense.

  “My son learned in school. He got really into it.” She looked up. “Do you have kids?” she asked.

  Cassidy tried not to download all the reasons why she did not. “No,” she said. She remembered that she hadn’t answered Benita’s question the day before about her marital status.

  Benita shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing that happens if you ever do. Your kid gets into something, and then suddenly you’re into it too.”

  “It’s my stepbrother’s,” Cassidy said.

  Benita fingered a few more keys and strummed. “The one you’re looking for,” she said. It was a statement, not a question, and Cassidy remembered that Benita was a lawyer. A good one, too, she guessed.

  Cassidy looked out at the blue horizon. The sun would be setting soon, and the soft glow on the water looked like a sheen of pearl luminescence. From inside the boat, she caught the occasional whiff of baking bread. “Yes,” she said.

  Benita gave her a look. “Are you guys close?”

  “Not really,” Cassidy replied, “but there isn’t really anyone else.” She looked out again, this time at the distant charcoal-and-brown mountains shrouded in wispy clouds. “He was working for Bruce on one o
f these trips. He went ashore in San Juan and never came back.”

  Benita’s eyes narrowed, and Cassidy could tell her mind was working. “What did the police say?”

  “I talked to the police in Tamarindo and Santa Cruz, but they said there wasn’t much they could do because he disappeared in Nicaragua. I don’t know if anyone’s talked to the police in San Juan. My stepsister tried calling, but she doesn’t speak Spanish. She has been talking to someone at the U.S. Embassy, but I don’t think anyone’s taking her seriously.”

  “Do you have an idea of what happened?”

  “No,” Cassidy replied, then the pieces of her so-called investigation played like a mind-movie behind her eyes. “Maybe.”

  “Do you want help?”

  Cassidy looked at her sharply. Help? How could anyone help her with this?

  Benita shrugged. “I handle sexual harassment cases, so I understand how to play dirty.”

  “Well, I don’t know that there’s any dirt.” She thought about it. “He’s had problems with drugs in the past. Did some time in juvie.” Cassidy remembered how she had returned home from a college-scouting trip to discover that some of her things were missing, her mother’s pearl-and-gold pendant among them. “He got in a fight with a taxi driver a few months ago. He was also apparently seeing a prostitute.”

  “You find her?”

  “No,” Cassidy replied, feeling like a failure.

  “No drug charges or activity?”

  “I talked to his neighbor at his apartment.” She shuddered, remembering the ratty room and the even rattier neighbor. “And the surf guides he hung out with.” She shook her head. “No one I talked to reported seeing him doing drugs.”

  “Could he have been involved with the distribution chain somehow?” she asked.

  Cassidy breathed out a big sigh. She remembered Bruce’s comment about coke making a lot more than tuna. And the fact that drugs moved from Columbia through Central America. Could Reeve have tried to smuggle drugs in order to sell them? The thought was absurd.