In a surprisingly short time, Dr. Miller traced Markowitz’s Internet access backward from the university grid to a physical address in Florida. Armed with that address, and hoping the Markowitz-Romero-Penny connection would hold, Larson drove Hope to Springfield and chartered a King Air twin engine to Tampa, topping out his credit card and forcing him to call in for a “preapproved” home equity loan.
Late that same afternoon, Larson drove a rental car past a cattle farm’s unmoving windmill that stood in a field of lush green grass intermittently shorn by gray longhorn cattle looking worse for the wear in the Florida heat.
Stretching high above the flat green horizon, eighty-foot-tall telescoping steel poles held clusters of powerful gas-vapor highway lights that trained down onto the cloverleaves and rest areas. A blessing in hurricane season perhaps, but an eyesore on any other day. The occasional building crane loomed in the distance, reaching for the rare cloud like a bony finger. Randomly placed cell towers also rose from the green jungle, looking for all the world like derelict oil rigs. The only other break in the perfectly blue sky came from a musical staff of high-voltage wires strung across the highway. These were images one absorbed on the flatness of Interstate 75, heading south from Tampa: orange construction cones; bumps of black road tar in a sea of powder gray concrete; a set of smokestacks belching in the far distance.
They passed a sign indicating they’d entered Manatee County. Larson upped the rental’s speed, desperate now to reach their destination.
“You’re not coming to Useppa with me,” Larson said, having delayed it as long as he could.
“Of course I am.”
“I’ve arranged something. A buddy of mine will look after you.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“At the end of this it would be nice if Penny had a mother.”
She bit her tongue and said no more.
Larson had left Dr. Miller both his own and Hope’s original cell phone number-the number now call-forwarded to the Siemens he’d given her, and therefore it was impossible to triangulate. Miller and Hope spoke the same language; she would be the one called with anything technical.
“Tell me she’s okay, Lars,” she said at last.
“She’s okay,” he said.
“Tell me again.”
“They have not hurt her. Guys like this, it’s all about profit and loss. There’s no profit in that.”
She unstrapped her seat belt and moved over the gap between the seats so that she could lean against him.
Larson drove on in silence, holding his breath. With each mile, he pressed the rental a little faster, and she leaned more heavily against him. He could have just kept driving.
Ninety minutes later, now on the island of Gasparilla, a hotel bellhop, clad in khakis and a green golf shirt, awaited them with a brass luggage dolly and a look of impertinence. Larson’s rental blocked the hotel’s semicircular drive, other arrivals now idling behind him.
The night air rang behind a chorus of cicadas and tree frogs. The Gasparilla Inn’s white antebellum facade loomed large before them. Hotel guests came and went, climbing into golf carts used on the island in lieu of cars, a parade of salmon and lime green Bermuda shorts, Tevas and leather deck shoes, spray-on tans eager for the real thing, diamonds and silicone.
“Tommy’ll take care of you,” Larson said.
“I don’t want Tommy to take care of me.” She turned intentionally childish.
Larson had bunked with Tommy Tomelson during a two-week in-service training at the FBI Academy a couple years earlier. He’d stayed in touch enough to know that the man had lost his wife to cancer and had subsequently taken a year’s leave from the ATF, then a short nosedive into a rum bottle, and finally sobered up enough to live the grief-stricken existence of a charter-boat captain. He was currently operating a tarpon charter out of Miller’s Marina, which served Larson’s needs well.
Tommy was up there on the veranda, smoking a Marlboro and drinking something dark, watching the tight buns and the halter tops pass by while waiting for Larson to sort things out. He was a big guy, with a fisherman’s tan and a quarterback’s shoulders, his sun-leathered face covered now by a pervasive veil of discontent and loneliness.
“When and if I find her, you’ll be the first to know. All right?”
She held on to his arm.
“Listen to Tommy and do as he asks.”
“At least take him with you, if not me. Please don’t go alone.” She squeezed his arm.
“This is not heroics. It’s simple numbers. Tommy stays with you.” He’d gone over this a dozen times in his head. The smarter call was to wait for Hampton or Stubblefield to fly down here. Maybe both-to take on the house on Useppa Island with as strong a force as he could currently muster. But Markowitz logged onto the grid at night-and with the meeting of known crime families called for the following night, the list had to be close to being fully decrypted. Larson didn’t have twenty-four hours to wait.
“You call me the minute you know anything.”
“Same there,” he returned. “If Miller should call-”
“You’ll hear about it,” she said. She leaned away from him, then changed her mind and craned across to kiss him. Larson turned to meet her lips. There was nothing particularly romantic about it, but he felt it long after.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“As if I have a choice,” he fired back. “This is me we’re talking about.”
The first hint of a smile began, but then she hid it well.
She paused, the car door now open a crack. “If you find her-when you find her-she won’t trust you. We talked about getting a dog, she and I. We were going to name it Cairo. Like Egypt. Use it. It may help.”
“ Cairo.”
“Yeah. Ever since she saw a picture of the pyramids she’s wanted to go there.” Her eyes grew distant as if watching a film run inside her head.
Larson walked her up the hotel’s front steps and introduced her to Tommy Tomelson.
As he left, he felt horribly alone.
Tommy Tomelson had used some of the life insurance from his wife’s passing to buy the twin-engine inboard-outboard four-hundred-and-forty-horsepower Christine, judging by both the name and all the bells and whistles he’d added. GPS satellite navigation. Sonar. Weather radar. SailMail e-mail. Larson read his own e-mail off the BlackBerry as he navigated the channel cut into the shallow bay between Gasparilla and Useppa. Fishing craft, cigarette boats, and pleasure cruisers stayed to the dredged channel, crowding it. Larson opened it up once he’d cleared the speed-controlled areas. Dusk was an hour off, the sun burning harshly to the west, the air holding that twinge of change that came with approaching twilight.
Larson hoped to make the return crossing before darkness fully descended. He wasn’t keen to test his maritime skills on a friend’s six-figure investment.
Tying up at Useppa, a private spit of old island luxury less than a mile long, required permission. Tommy, who often chartered for the island’s guests, had called ahead for Larson. With no bridges connecting it to the mainland, and only the marina for access, Useppa was as remote a place as could be found. It made great sense as a retreat for Markowitz.
Walking off the immaculate dock and onto the island proper, Larson stepped back a century, entering an enclave like nothing he’d ever seen. No cars here-only golf carts used for everything from maintenance to transportation. Larson climbed a sidewalk set amid a lush botanical garden of wild orchid, mangrove, tropical fruit trees, and flowers in garish colors. Tiny lizards scurried through the underbrush, sounding to Larson like rats. Single-story shell-white houses carried names instead of street numbers, black shutters, and screened-in porches. BEGONIA HOUSE. THE BOUGAINVILLEA. THE ROSE COTTAGE. Larson ducked beneath a heavy overhanging branch that ran tentacles back to the ground like a shredded curtain. Lights already glowed yellow behind a few windows. The air smelled of perfume. Small waves lapped on a crescent-shaped man-made beach below and to his left. A few sailboats were tied up to moorings there. The encroaching dusk foreshortened distance and softened edges, giving everything a look that for Larson usually followed two or three cocktails.
He stepped off the path, making room for a middle-aged tennis couple with a perky teenage daughter in tow who offered Larson a smile full of braces. The sidewalk terminated in front of a hundred-year-old inn, from which emanated the sounds of a busy bar and dining room. The lush life. Tony Bennett crooned about lost love.
Bit by bit, byte by byte, it was to here, Useppa Island, that Dr. Miller’s information quest had led them. The technology had been explained to Larson-using Internet service providers to trace Markowitz’s digital identity to a Direct PC high-speed Internet account.
The address was The Sand Dollar, Useppa Island. Larson had been expecting a hotel, not a private residence.
Larson found the look of the place intriguing, its isolation and privacy perfect for hiding, an ideal location from which to decrypt Laena.
Near the end of the path he reached and entered the Useppa Inn. Paddle fans and linen tablecloths. A wood bar with a dozen varieties of bottled rum hanging inverted in a metal rack. Larson slid up onto a stool and ordered an Appleton Estate rum and tonic with a lime wedge. Two women sat at a window table nursing what looked like iced teas while a pair of elderly fellows shared beers by an overhead television with the sound off showing a prerecorded golf match. One of the women wore a witch’s hat and green nose. The other wore Harry Potter glasses and had a wand sitting on the table. Halloween with the elderly.
Ten minutes passed and Larson ordered another rum. Knowing he shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach, he added a basket of french fries to the mix and called it dinner, capping it off with a double espresso. An octogenarian entered, sat alone, and ordered a vodka up.
Larson daydreamed of the St. Louis Rowing Club on Creve Coeur Lake, missing the spiritual exercise as much as the physical. He felt bone-tired, though the french fries had helped to wake him.
The house detective, an older, florid-cheeked man named Harold Montgomery, whom Tomelson had phoned ahead of time, doubled as the dinnertime maitre d’. Smelling of lime cologne with an afterglow of gin and tonic, he offered Larson a damp, soft-fleshed right hand and the two men greeted one another by sharing a few stories about Tomelson. Montgomery wore dark trousers, a white shirt, a navy blue tie with anchor insignias, and a sheen of perspiration across his brow. His sport coat was a mean-spirited, shocking green better reserved for highway work crews. He had a piece of food stuck in his top teeth. He’d missed a few spots shaving. His white hair was front-combed in a failed attempt to hide his baldness. Montgomery raised his right index finger to signal the bartender and was quickly delivered a gin and tonic.
“To absent friends,” Montgomery said in a tight voice, clinking glasses with Larson.
“Let’s talk about the layout of The Sand Dollar,” Larson began.