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It was a brief message. Only one sentence.

  Sometimes one sentence can change everything. It can put everything into perspective. It can turn your world upside down.

  This was that kind of sentence.

  The trouble had begun with a simple Facebook friend request. I never thought it would escalate to this. Who could have predicted it?

  Selfish thoughts flooded my mind. What the hell are you doing, Rip? This is supposed to be your Florida vacation. You aren’t supposed to be dealing with trouble. You didn’t come here for that. You came here to enjoy the Sunshine State. The sun. The sea. The seafood.

  I had many plans for my Florida vacation. I wanted to take a siesta on the white sands of Siesta Key Beach. I wanted to eat a gargantuan slice of key lime pie at Randy’s Fishmarket Restaurant in Naples. I wanted to catch some fish, do a little boating, drink free orange juice at a Florida welcome center, hike along a nature trail, ride an airboat in the Everglades, visit the Edison and Ford Winter Estates.

  But no. I couldn’t do any of these things. Why? Because I was too busy dealing with trouble.

  These selfish thoughts looped through my mind.

  Then I glanced again at the message on the laptop screen. I reread the one sentence. A chill ran down my spine.

  Immediately my selfish thoughts evaporated. They were replaced by feelings of guilt. Guilt for thinking only of myself. What about Julie? What was this doing to her? What kind of torture was she going through?

  My eyes studied her. She looked scared. Her eyes blinked rapidly.

  “Julie? You okay?”

  She opened her mouth, shut it. No sound came out.

  Her screen began to swirl with a screen saver. Tropical fish floated endlessly through coral reefs. The screen saver disappeared when she ran her finger over the touchpad.

  The message from Kirsten Love reappeared.

  I read it yet again:

  I’VE BEEN WATCHING YOU.

  CHAPTER 26

  COPS BOND WITH other cops. Which makes sense. After all they share secrets and power and a language of their own. Sometimes they even share dangerous experiences. This is when they bond the most.

  My twenty-five-year career in law enforcement afforded me the opportunity to work with thousands of cops from all over the country. I shared dangerous experiences with many of them. I bonded with many of them.

  I am retired now. But that bond is still there.

  One guy I formed a bond with currently works for the New York City Police Department. He had joined the force at a young age and then worked his way up the ranks to his current position as an inspector.

  I got out my phone and punched in his number.

  “Inspector Reynolds speaking.”

  “So it’s Inspector now, is it?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “You don’t recognize my voice?”

  “Sing a few bars of ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President.’ Maybe it’ll come to me.”

  “Haaaappppy Birthd . . .”

  “Stop it, Rip. I can’t take it.”

  “You should see what I’m wearing.”

  “Or not.”

  “Anything exciting happening in the Big Apple today?”

  “We had an incident with a floor buffer.”

  “An incident?”

  “Yeah. Guy insults a janitor. Janitor knocks him down, attacks him with a floor buffer. Guy got his ass buffed and polished and waxed.”

  “Those buffers remove stubborn stains too.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Listen, Joe, I need a favor.”

  “Oh good. Been hoping somebody would ask me for a favor. That’s what I’m here for—doing favors for anybody asks. And now you call and ask for a favor. Hey, it must be my lucky day.”

  I told him about the ID place in New York City. I gave him the address. I said they were buying and selling Social Security numbers there. I asked him to go check it out for me. I told him I would do it myself if I weren’t in Florida.

  “Joe, I need you to find out where they got one of the Social Security numbers from.”

  “What’s the number?”

  I gave him the number. It belonged to Julie’s ex-husband. I wanted to find out who had sold it to the ID place.

  “Something else, Joe.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you find out if her ex-husband bought a new Social Security number? I’d like to know what that number is.”

  “No problem.”

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  “You’re expected to return this favor. That’s how it works.”

  “I plan to.”

  “How?”

  “For your birthday I’m going to get you a floor buffer.”

  “Swell.”

  CHAPTER 27

  AS JULIE AND I walked along the beach we talked about the message she had received from Kirsten Love. We wondered if it could be true. Had somebody been watching us? Had somebody seen us at Toddler Town Day Care? We wondered who would be watching us. And why.

  After a while we sat down on the cool morning sand. Gulls lingered in the air above the shoreline. A boat winked and glittered in the distance. We sat staring out at the sea for a long time.

  Then we watched as a young mother and her little boy began to wade out into the blue water. Not far. Just until the water reached his little round knees. She stayed near him. She hugged him against her side. When a harmless wave hissed past them they giggled and giggled and giggled.

  I glanced at Julie.

  She smiled sadly.

  “I phoned Heath’s parents today,” she said. “I let them know about everything that’s been going on. I felt they should know. After all they are Max’s grandparents.”

  “You still close to them?”

  “We were never close.”

  “Guess that’s probably true for most in-laws.”

  “I’ve spoken to them only a few times since Max’s abduction.”

  “You tell them about that guy who had Heath’s IDs?”

  “No. I skipped that part.”

  “Probably wise.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Heath close to his parents?”

  “They’re not his real parents. They adopted him when he was thirteen.”

  “And Heath’s—what, thirty-three now?”

  “Yes.”

  “So they adopted him twenty years ago.”

  “Twenty years ago. Yes.”

  “Heath ever talk about his real parents?”

  “Never. He would always get angry if I brought up the subject.”

  “Seems he used to get angry a lot.”

  “All the time.”

  “Wonder where that anger came from.”

  “Who knows. A bad childhood maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  My mind has a natural tendency to find and make patterns. First it tries to see the big picture. Then the neurons in my brain begin to find connections within that big picture.

  It is a little like working on a jigsaw puzzle. You look on the cover of the box to see the complete picture before you begin to fit together the interlocking pieces.

  My mind could see the big picture of Max’s puzzle. It was an ugly picture. A menacing picture. The neurons in my brain were trying to fit together the pieces.

  “Julie, have you got any old photos of Heath?”

  “How old?”

  “Twenty years or so?”

  “You want to see what he looked like at age thirteen.”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Come on,” she said, and stood up. “Let’s head back to my RV. I think I may still have some old photos in a drawer somewhere. It’s nearly lunchtime anyway.”

  I got to my feet and brushed sand from my swim trunks.

  We began to walk.

  “Mom, are you here?” Julie said from her RV living room.

  No answer.

  “Your mother left you a note.”r />
  “Let me see it.”

  I handed it to her.

  “What’s the note say, Julie?”

  “It says she went to play bingo and will be back in a few hours. It also says that if we’re in here having sex, we should hang a sock on the door.”

  “I’ll go get a sock then.”

  “Sit down, mister. It’s time to each lunch.”

  “What’s for lunch?”

  “I’m making Key West pink shrimp with key lime butter. I may need some help stirring.”

  “That’s my specialty—stirring.”

  “Stirring up trouble maybe.”

  She took some items out of the refrigerator and set them on the kitchen counter.

  “What’s in that little glass bowl, Julie?”

  “My prep work. The recipe called for it. It’s a mixture of key lime juice and hot pepper sauce and butter.”

  She melted two tablespoons of butter in a skillet, then stirred in a bowl of peeled shrimp. The skillet sizzled.

  She pointed a butter knife at me.

  “You’re up, Emeril,” she said, and handed me some kind of stirring utensil. “Time to put your special skill to work.”

  “I’ll go get the sock then.”

  “Not that special skill.”

  I began to stir.

  Three minutes later Julie reduced the heat to medium.

  “Okay, Rip, now you add those ingredients over there.”

  I stirred in mushrooms and garlic and white wine.

  I kept stirring. I was good at it. Better than Emeril.

  Five minutes passed. My stirring arm never got tired.

  “Good, Rip. You’re doing good. Now you remove the skillet from the heat and then stir in the mixture I prepared earlier.”

  It took me less than a minute to do it.

  I set down the skillet and faced Julie.

  “BAM!” I said.

  “You’ve been dying to say that, haven’t you?”

  We ate at the dinette table. We would have eaten outside at a picnic table but we didn’t want the big Florida bugs to hijack our shrimp.

  “You’re not big on cooking,” Julie said. “Are you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Is there any particular reason?”

  “Several actually.”

  She looked at me expectantly.

  “You want me to list the reasons?”

  “I would be interested to hear them.”

  “Okay. One, I live alone. Two, cooking takes time. I’d rather spend that time doing something I really enjoy. Life’s too short to live it any other way. At least for me it is. I already feel as if I don’t have enough time to read and write, to think and learn, to travel and explore. Every minute spent in the kitchen is one less minute I have to do those other things. Three, cooking’s messy. I hate cleaning up. Four, cooking . . .”

  “I get the picture.”

  I forked a shrimp into my mouth.

  “You’ve seen what I usually eat,” I said, and chewed. “Mostly it’s fruit, vegetables, grilled chicken, Greek yogurts, Lean Cuisines, oats. Everything’s healthy. Nothing takes time to prepare. Nothing leaves a big mess.”

  We ate for a bit in silence.

  When we had finished I wiped my mouth with a paper napkin.

  “That shrimp was delicious, Julie. Out of this world.”

  Her eyes showed amusement. They twinkled playfully.

  “Something funny?” I said.

  “I think it’s time for you to go get the sock.”

  CHAPTER 28

  IT WAS ALMOST three in the afternoon when we finally removed the sock from the door. Julie’s mother still hadn’t returned home yet. We figured it was either because of the sock on the door or because her bingo game ran late.

  “You want to give your mother a call, Julie? See if she’s okay?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine. She would have called otherwise.”

  “What are you doing back there? You’ve been dawdling in the bedroom for ten minutes now.”

  “Come on back here, Rip. I’m just looking through a drawer of photos. I’m trying to find that old one of Heath.”

  I took my coffee to her bedroom and sat down on the bed beside her. She had dumped a mountainous pile of photos on the bedspread and I watched as she thumbed through them one by one.

  “Look at this one, Rip. It’s my graduation picture from Florida SouthWestern State College. God, look at my hair. I can’t believe I wore it that way. How embarrassing.”

  “I don’t have that problem,” I said, and pointed to my shaved head. “I have a hairstyle that never goes out of style.”

  “You have no hair on your head. You shave it all off. How is that considered a hairstyle?”

  “Good point. But I still say it never goes out of style. How can it if it isn’t a style in the first place?”

  “Since when are you concerned with being trendy?”

  “All your points are good ones today.”

  “Hey, look at this photo.”

  “Your father’s young in that one.”

  “Isn’t he handsome? I told you Max got his looks from him.”

  “They have the same blue blue eyes.”

  “Exactly the same.”

  She frowned when she picked up a photo of her wedding day.

  “It was such a happy day for me,” she said, and flicked the photo across the room.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I hope you never do that with photos of the two of us together.”

  “Don’t worry, Rip. At least your hairstyle will be the same in every photo.”

  We spent the next five minutes trying to find an old photo of Heath. There must have been five hundred photos piled on the bedspread and I bet I looked at three hundred of them.

  It gave me a more intimate glimpse into Julie’s life. I saw photos of her as a child, a student, a wife, a mother, a professor. I saw her happy moments and her sad moments. I came to know her better.

  “I can’t find that damn photo anywhere,” she said. “Let’s go look in Mom’s bedroom. Maybe she has it in there.”

  We went to look.

  Ten minutes later Julie sighed.

  “It’s not in here either.”

  “Not a big deal, Julie. Let’s go do something else. We could go to the pool or watch a movie or go for another walk.”

  We were three steps from the door when Julie stopped.

  “Wait,” she said. “I have one more place to check.”

  She pulled a box from under the bed.

  “Mom keeps all kinds of memorabilia in here.”

  I sat on the bed while she rummaged through the contents of the box. It contained documents, letters, maps, newspaper clippings, photos, postcards, scrapbooks.

  “What’s this?” she said, holding up a jewelry box. “I’ve never seen this before. It looks ancient. I wonder where she got it from.”

  Julie opened the jewelry box and peered inside. She lifted out a tray. Her eyes widened.

  “What is it, Julie?”

  “A hidden compartment.”

  “Probably where she keeps the good jewelry.”

  “I don’t see any jewelry in there. But I do see a photo. It looks like an old photo.”

  She took it out and looked at it.

  She dropped it.

  “Oh my God, Rip. Oh my God . . .”

  It was a photo she had never seen before.

  And it changed everything.

  CHAPTER 29

  “WHY ARE THESE things happening to me,” Julie said. “One thing after another. First the creepy video. Then the chilling message. And now this.”

  She stared at the photo. Her hands trembled and her nostrils flared. She flopped into a chair.

  “My own mother,” she said. “She lied. I can’t believe it. If you can’t even trust your own mother, who in the world can you trust?”

  I settled into a chair opposite Julie.

  Her whole world had shattered. The past had collided wi
th the present. Julie didn’t know whom she could trust. Everything she thought she knew about her life was unraveling. Her life was a mirage. A facade. A life filled with dark secrets.

  “I need to get out of here, Rip. Take me somewhere. Anywhere.”

  I went to the back of my RV and lowered the garage ramp and fired up my Honda Fury. I backed it down the ramp.

  “Hop on, Julie.”

  The engine growled and we exploded forward.

  In no time we were roaring down the highway, feeling the absolute freedom of the open road, sweeping past other vehicles, leaning into the curves, the speed of the road racing under our feet, the countryside blurring past like an impressionist painting.

  In my mind’s ear I heard that classic motorcycle song by Steppenwolf. In my mind’s eye I saw Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper heading out on the highway.

  The fast speed and the brisk air always help to clear my mind. I hoped it was helping Julie too. She needed it.

  By the time she signaled me to stop we were almost halfway to Tampa. I pulled over and stopped on the roadway and stood straddling the motorcycle.

  “What’s up?” I said over my shoulder.

  “Are you getting hungry yet?”

  “I could eat something.”

  She told me about a great restaurant in Tampa. It was located across the street from the public library. We went there.

  We took our time eating. We enjoyed the food and our surroundings. The staff didn’t try to hurry us along. It wouldn’t have worked anyway.

  After dinner we stood out on the sidewalk and looked up and down the busy street. The sun slanted and the shadows stretched.

  “Beautiful evening,” I said.

  Julie managed a smile.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

  “Feel like heading back?”

  “Actually there’s something else I want to do while we’re still in Tampa.”

  “You name it.”

  “Would you mind if we visit the cemetery where Max’s urn is buried? It’s not very far from here. We won’t stay long.”

  “We can do that.”

  The entrance to the cemetery was an archway with black iron gates and a curved stone wall.

  We drove past hearse after hearse. I saw coffins being unloaded, services being conducted, coffins being buried. The air smelled of roses.