Florida Son Read online

  FLORIDA

  SON

  W.J. COSTELLO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  FLORIDA SON

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 by W.J. Costello.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. For information address: wjcostello.com

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  Novels featuring Rip Lane:

  Missouri Loves Company

  Florida Son

  California Bust

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER 1

  “SOMEBODY SENT ME a friend request on Facebook.”

  “Old boyfriend?”

  “It’s a woman.”

  I shaded my eyes and squinted against the golden slant of Florida sunshine. The surf curled and boomed along the curve of beach. I turned and looked at Julie.

  “You going to accept her friend request?”

  “I’m not sure, Rip. I don’t recognize her.”

  “Aging can make people look different.”

  “It’s not just her face. I don’t recognize her name either.”

  “Maybe you just forgot it. Aging can make people forgetful too.”

  “Maybe I’ll forget to invite you to tonight’s cookout.”

  “I’ll remind you.”

  Her smile showed white teeth against a tan hide. She kicked off her flip-flops and began to tap keys on her laptop.

  We were quiet for a while.

  Then I heard her breath catch.

  “What’s wrong, Julie?”

  She brought her hand up to her throat.

  “Julie?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Julie?”

  We had met two weeks before. We had both pulled into Sarasota Oceanfront Campground at about the same time and our motor homes ended up in adjacent sites. So we were temporary neighbors.

  “You okay, Julie?”

  She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

  “I . . . I accepted the friend request.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s some kind of sick joke.”

  “Joke?”

  “Who the hell would do this to me? Who is this person?”

  “Let me see.”

  She spun her laptop so I could see the screen. It showed the Facebook profile page of a woman named Kirsten Love.

  “And you have no idea who she is.”

  “None.”

  “What’s the sick joke? Is it . . . ?”

  I stopped talking when I saw tears slide down her cheeks.

  My hand reached out and touched her arm.

  She grinned away the tears and looked away.

  I waited while she pulled herself together.

  “It happened five years ago,” she said finally. “Exactly five years ago today. Today’s the fifth anniversary of that horrible horrible day. The worst day of my life. I was married at the time. Married but going through divorce.”

  Divorce. I could relate to the pain. Been there, done that.

  “Heath and I had a son,” she said. “Max—that was our son’s name. He was three. Good-looking boy. Smart as a whip. Max was the joy of my life. And then one day . . .”

  Her face broke. She put it in her hands and cried. I put my hand gently on her shoulder. It seemed to help a little bit.

  Two toddlers played in the moist sand at the edge of the water as their mother captured the moment with her camera. It reminded me of my own youth. My parents used to travel extensively and they always brought me along. We went everywhere. Across America. Overseas. Everywhere. And we always took pictures. Lots of pictures.

  Now and then I look at those pictures and the warm memories make me feel good. I think those childhood adventures are why I ultimately chose to live a mobile lifestyle.

  Julie stopped crying. Her wet eyes glanced at my eyes. She cleared her throat.

  “Heath used to threaten me with physical harm and sexual abuse. Twice he threatened to kidnap and hurt Max. But that didn’t stop a judge from granting him weekend visitation with Max.

  “Heath’s anger issues got worse and worse through the divorce proceedings. I eventually had to get a restraining order against him. It was supposed to stop him from coming near us. It was supposed to protect us. But it didn’t do that. It didn’t do anything. It was just a worthless sheet of paper that didn’t mean a damn thing. Not a damn thing.

  “And so one morning I get a creepy text message from Heath. It was a suicide threat. He was always doing things like that. So I didn’t think much of it at the time.

  “Then later that day I go to pick up Max from day care. I park the car and walk inside and look around. I don’t see him anywhere. Nobody on staff knows where he is. Nobody saw him leave.

  “We search for him. We search every inch of the building. We search the neighborhood. No sign of Max anywhere.

  “So I call the police department. A dispatcher tells me an officer will be sent over immediately. I wait an hour. Nobody shows up. I call again. Forty minutes later two officers finally arrive.

  “I show them the restraining order and tell them I think Heath took Max. One of them gives me a look. He says, ‘Well he is the father. And you two are still married. Best thing is to give him a little more time with his son.’ Can you believe that?

  “The two officers tell me to call them back if Max isn’t home by dark. Then they leave. Without doing anything. They just leave.

  “It was like having my heart ripped out of my chest. I felt as if part of my soul was taken from me. My baby was gone and nobody would help me. Not even the police.

  “I tried to contact Heath but his phone just kept going to voice mail. I left messages for him. He never called me back.

  “I had a feeling Max wasn’t going to come home that night. A mother’s intuition. Unfortunately it turned out to be right.

  “At dusk I drove down to the police station and spoke to an officer. He told me family abductions are common. Parents
do it mostly for control, power, revenge. They want to hurt the other parent, show them who’s in charge. But I didn’t care why Heath took Max. I just wanted him back.

  “I filed a missing persons report. They entered Max into the National Crime Information Center Missing Person File. They issued an Amber Alert. They launched a search, canvassed the neighborhood, brought in the media.

  “Leads came in. Detectives sifted through them. None panned out.

  “Weeks later Max was still missing and nobody had heard from Heath. I asked the police why it was so hard for them to find my missing son. They said their department lacked resources and personnel and specialized training in the field of missing persons.

  “I asked them for information about the case but they wouldn’t tell me very much. They said releasing information could impede the investigation. Building a solid court case seemed to be more important to them than finding my son.

  “It didn’t take me long to realize I had to go on the offensive myself. I couldn’t just sit around and wait for the police to save my baby.

  “So I got busy. I contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I contacted the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. I plastered the city with posters and flyers. I contacted the media. I set up a website devoted to Max’s abduction.

  “It took a lot of time and money. My normal life was turned upside down. But I didn’t care. Nothing was going to stop me from finding my Max. Nothing.

  “Three months passed. Then that horrible day came. It was five years ago today. The body of a small child was found buried in a swampy area near our house. The height and weight of the body was consistent with Max’s size. The body . . . it was wrapped in a blanket and locked in a suitcase. Such a heartless way to dispose of a life. The coroner’s office positively identified the body. It was Max.”

  “Sorry for your loss,” I said.

  She nodded sadly.

  “They ever find Heath?”

  “Never.”

  I nodded sympathetically.

  The two toddlers on the beach scooped sand into a red bucket with little plastic shovels. The happy parents watched from their beach blanket, tall drinks in hand, camera at the ready.

  Julie pointed to her laptop screen.

  “This woman who sent me the friend request? Her Facebook profile page has something strange on it. It must be a sick joke. It can’t be real.”

  “What is it?”

  “When Max turned two I began to teach him sign language. He wasn’t deaf. His hearing was perfect. But my father became deaf at the age of nine and deafness can be inherited and so I wanted Max to be prepared. Just in case. You know? So I began to teach him sign language.”

  “Good to be prepared.”

  “My father was often depressed about his deafness. Supposedly he killed himself because of it.”

  “Supposedly?”

  “He drove into a telephone pole at a high rate of speed. Mom thinks it was suicide. I think otherwise.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. So I didn’t.

  “Anyway I wanted Max to be prepared. I never told Heath about it. He never knew I was teaching Max sign language. It was a secret between me and my son.”

  “And nobody else knew about it.”

  “Nobody except my mother. We tell each other everything.”

  “So what’s this woman have on her Facebook profile page?”

  “A video. It shows the hands of a young boy. His face is hidden by shadows.”

  “Hands?”

  “They look like Max’s hands. I know that sounds crazy. I know it’s been over five years since I’ve seen him. But I spent so much time looking at his hands. They look like my father’s hands. Do you want to watch the video?”

  “I do.”

  She played it.

  “The hands are communicating in sign language,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “They are.”

  “What are the hands saying?”

  “ ‘Happy anniversary, Mommy.’ ”

  CHAPTER 2

  “THE LAPTOP SCREEN’S hard to see with the sun glare,” I told Julie. “Let’s go inside.”

  Our motor homes were parked within sight of the beach. Easy access to the beach was the best feature of Sarasota Oceanfront Campground. The fees were a little pricey, but worth the convenience.

  My RV is an Outlaw Class A toy hauler. It is the only home I own. I had bought it when I retired from the U.S. Marshals Service. I was only forty-six at the time and wanted to begin living my life on the road.

  “Something to drink?” I said to Julie as we climbed into my RV.

  “Lemonade?”

  “Coming right up.”

  We set our drinks on the dinette table and Julie opened up her laptop again.

  “Your new Facebook friend,” I said. “How many other friends she have on Facebook?”

  “Let’s see . . .”

  Julie scrolled down.

  “I’m her only friend.”

  “Big surprise. Any other pictures of this mystery woman?”

  “No. Just the one.”

  “Any of her interests listed?”

  Julie scrolled some more.

  “Well she seems to be a big sports fan,” Julie said. “She likes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Orlando Magic. She probably lives in Florida.”

  “Be my guess.”

  “I’ll check and see . . .”

  “I bet no location’s listed.”

  “You’re right, Rip.”

  “Another big surprise.”

  “Wait, here’s something . . .”

  “I can see it. She likes the National Association of the Deaf.”

  “Weird. This is so weird. Who is this woman?”

  “We could Google her name.”

  “Good idea.”

  Julie brought up Google and typed in the name Kirsten Love.

  “Look at that,” I said. “Seventeen thousand hits.”

  “Too many to look at. I’ll type more keywords into the search box to narrow the results.”

  “Try her name along with the word Florida.”

  “Done. Still too many hits. I’ll add the word deaf.”

  It yielded a reasonable number of hits. We looked at all of them. It took a few hours. We learned nothing.

  “Now what?” Julie said.

  “Maybe we should watch the video again.”

  She brought up Kirsten Love’s Facebook profile page again and then clicked the PLAY button on the video. We watched the little hands communicate in sign language.

  “Those are Max’s hands,” Julie said when we had finished. “No doubt about it.”

  “No doubt at all?”

  “None.”

  “Then maybe you should contact the police.”

  “Why?”

  “To let them know about this.”

  “Why? They weren’t very helpful before.”

  I wanted to say something good about cops. I wanted to explain how hard the job is. I wanted to tell Julie that finding missing persons isn’t easy. But I knew she would resent it. So I didn’t say anything.

  She turned to me. She went to work on me with those aquamarine eyes. They probed my face for a time.

  “I have an idea, Rip.”

  “Okay.”

  “You used to be a deputy U.S. marshal.”

  “True.”

  “You were trained to find people.”

  “Also true.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well why don’t you help me. You can find out whether this thing is real or just a hoax..”

  “And what if I can’t?”

  “I have faith in you.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “THE HANDS IN the video may not even be real, Julie. They could be computer-generated hands.”

  “But they look like Max’s hands, Rip. I mean that’s what they would look like at age
eight.”

  “Age-progression software can do that. It can predict the effects of aging.”

  “But wouldn’t somebody need an old photo of Max’s hands in order to digitally age them?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Made any enemies lately?”

  Julie blinked.

  “None that I know of.”

  “Who knows that Max’s body was found five years ago today?”

  “Anybody can read old articles about it on the web.”

  “Any of those articles ever mention he knew sign language?”

  “No. I already told you my mother and I were the only ones who knew about that.”

  “You were the only ones who knew about it before the abduction. But what about after?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whoever abducted Max could have figured it out.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the abductor saw Max use sign language. It’s possible—that’s all I’m saying.”

  She nodded.

  “There’s another possibility, Julie.”

  “Which is?”

  “Maybe your mother told somebody.”

  “That Max knew sign language?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Who would she tell?”

  “You could ask her.”

  Julie frowned.

  “And what if she says she didn’t tell anybody?”

  “It narrows the possibilities.”

  “I’m really wondering what the possibilities are.”

  I knew better than to speculate on the possibilities. Maybe Max was still alive. Maybe he wasn’t. The one thing Julie didn’t need was false hope.

  “Your father ever meet Max?”

  “Sure, Max was two and a half when Dad died.”

  “And you said you began to teach Max sign language when he was two.”

  “You think maybe Dad found out about it and told somebody?”

  “It’s possible. He could have figured it out on his own. After all he knew sign language. Maybe he saw Max use some. Or maybe your mother told your father about it. And then he told somebody else.”

  “Dad wasn’t like that. He kept things to himself.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything. Including Mom’s disappearances.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “It happened a lot when I was a kid. Mom would disappear for weeks at a time. Dad never asked her about it. He acted as if it were normal. If it bothered him, he never showed it. He always kept it to himself.”