The Morales girl had been rushed. Too soon after Cline. But it had to be that way. The Messenger was being cautious and skittish. He was weak. But he was Julian’s only direct link to the Voice.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He flipped the cheap disposable open and checked the display. A text message. Nina.
Do you have time to meet to discuss the apartment tonight?
Julian smiled. He took a mental inventory of the situation—he walked through every step of his plan, looking for holes, problem areas. Each part had to be thought out and organized.
He responded, his fingers used to texting on the crappy flip phones by now.
Can we meet later tonight? Sorry, just swamped at work. Looking forward to getting you a great deal, Nina!
***
Nina Henriquez checked her iPhone. No new messages. She sighed. It was past ten o’clock, and she was pushing her curfew, again. She’d already had to avoid two FIU campus police officers as they made their rounds. For some reason, this real estate dude, Steve, had asked to meet on the university’s Modesto A. Maidique campus—named after the school’s Cuban-born ex-president. The campus was huge—about ten blocks long and wide, nestled next to the equally massive Tamiami Park in southwest Miami—a cobbled-together collection of buildings tacked onto the land as the university gained approval to build them, decorated with a sprinkling of standing art pieces, wide swaths of greenery, man-made lakes, and plenty of students. Except now. The area was desolate; the only sound Nina could hear was a distant stereo playing Reggaeton. Nina wasn’t super-comfortable with the situation, but thought, whatever. She needed to move, and she didn’t have time to wait to graduate and get into a good school. She’d had it with her dad, her stupid little brother and his demands, and her bitch of a mother. Wherever she was.
Nina looked older than her sixteen years. She usually wore her long brown hair down and she was fit—as much of a gym rat as you could be at her age. She could pass for a college student, she thought. Most definitely an FIU student. Shit, FIU was like high school continued anyway. But she couldn’t live in that house with her father any longer.
She’d signed onto the Craigslist apartment listings one day while in the school computer labs, bored out of her mind. She’d had it out with her dad that morning for the millionth time. He’d come home at two a.m., reeking of cheap wine and even cheaper perfume. He wanted something to eat, but lo and behold, the fridge was empty. Nothing Nina could do about it, no sir. He was having none of that, though, and took it out on her. What had started with a surprise slap and a wave of apologies going on for days and almost weeks was now the occasional full-on beating. Black eyes, broken nose. Nina had gotten good at dodging the swings aimed at her face and running out of the house. But he got her good last time. Rough. Slammed her against the wall, held her there, slapped her face. Called her every name he could think up in his muddled, alcohol-brined brain.
Slut. Whore. Just like your mother.
Thinking about it now, Nina fumbled around in her purse for a cigarette, but then remembered he’d taken those, too. Part of keeping tabs on her, he’d said. New curfew. No smoking. No drinking. No hanging out after class. Fuck that guy, she thought. He’ll feel like shit when I’m gone, she thought, living it up in my own place, doing whatever the fuck I please. She was staying with her aunt—her brother had come along, too. It was a temporary arrangement, at best. She still had a curfew. The rules weren’t gone. Her aunt had been clear enough about that when Nina and her brother, Robert, showed up. She didn’t have the energy or the space for them beyond a night or two. It was only a matter of time before her father woke up from his stupor and realized he didn’t have his butler and maid around to fetch him a beer or grab dinner and keep the change. He’d be hunting them down soon. Maybe tonight.
Her younger brother had even less say in what was going on in their lives than Nina did. She’d had it. With her dad, her brother, everything. It was time to go. Nina would make it work, at least long enough for Nina to come of age and become his legal guardian. In the short-term game, though, she had to get out of there. She needed to survive. For herself and for Robert. If she had anything in common with her mom, a woman she remembered less each day, it was that. She was a survivor. She checked her phone again. Nothing.
She walked over to a small bench area. She felt a chill, even though the weather report predicted another typically warm Miami evening. That’s when she saw the headlights from the parking lot directly across from her. They shut off, and she saw it was a white van. Was that him? She wasn’t sure. She’d never met Steve in person.
She saw someone approaching the bench. It was a man, normal build. He was waving. She waved back.
Why did I do that?
she thought. She considered leaving. Going to her aunt’s and sleeping on the floor. Bracing for the next, inevitable beating or verbal lashing from her father once he found them. Anything normal and comfortable, as fucked up as that was. But she didn’t. The man stepped into the dim street light and nodded. He seemed clean-cut. Not fat or skinny. His hair was parted in a weird, sitcom-dad way. He was older, but everyone seemed older to Nina. He didn’t look like a freak at least. He seemed harmless.
“Nina?” he said, his eyes wide, not blinking.
“Hi, yeah,” she said. “You Steve?”
He stuck out his hand. She shook it.
“Hi, yes, I’m Steve,” he said. Smiling. His teeth were very white. His eyes were still wide. “Glad you could meet me here. Sorry for the late time, just been crazy at the office, as you can imagine.”
He sat down on the bench opposite Nina. They were just a few feet apart. She didn’t have any idea what questions she should ask of a real estate agent, especially one working basically pro bono, from what he’d told her. Did that even exist? He seemed a little nervous—no, not nervous really, she thought. More excited than nervous. She ignored that.
“So, what now? Do you have, like, an apartment for me? Is that how this works?” she asked.
He smiled. “Well, I do have a few,” he said. “It’s going to be tricky, especially since you don’t have a roommate or the money for a deposit. I figured, if you don’t mind, we would drive to a few places and check them out.”
“Now? Isn’t it too late to be going into apartments?”
“I called in advance,” he said, his tone clearer now. “They’re expecting us.”
“Why don’t we go another time?” she said. “I mean, do I just pick a place and you make it happen? Why would you do that for me? I barely have a job.”
Steve cleared his throat and folded his hands together. Was he getting annoyed? Nina wondered.
“Well, I’m doing this off the books, you see,” he said. “I know you’re in a tough spot, so I’m not making any money. I’m just trying to help you. So, I can’t really do it during regular work hours.”
Nina nodded. “OK, that makes sense,” she said. “I guess I just thought it’d be weird for people to be waiting around in the apartments they wanna rent for some dude and a girl to show up to check it out, you know? But I don’t get this apartment hunt shit.” She let out a dry laugh.
“Please don’t curse.”
“What?”
“Your language,” he said, a forced smile spreading across his face. “Please don’t curse. It doesn’t become you.”
“The fuck you talking about, man?” Nina said. She stood up. “You know what? Fuck this. You’re weirding me out. What kind of a creeper meets a teenager this late and then wants to go on a tour of Miami?”
Steve stood up and took a step toward Nina. She backed up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to weird you out; I’m just really old-fashioned when it comes to some things. I apologize. Let’s just see a few places; maybe you’ll really like the first one. I just want to help you out.”
Nina felt a bit calmer. But she couldn’t shake the uneasiness. Why had she come here?
“I don’t think I can,” she said. “I gotta get back home. My dad’s waiting for me.”
Steve shrugged. He seemed disappointed, but understanding. “No problem,” he said. “At least let me drive you home, or to your bus stop. It’s the least I can do, for making you come out here.”
“I don’t think so,” Nina said. “I’ll call a friend to give me a lift.”
“It’s up to you,” Steve said, motioning to his van.
He was about to say more when he stopped and reached into his pocket. He raised his other hand in Nina’s direction—telling her to wait a moment—while he walked a few steps away, talking softly into his phone. A few moments passed. He ended the call and returned to where he’d been standing.
“Sorry, that was my girlfriend,” Steve said. “She needs me to come home. She’s not as cool with me working twenty-four/seven as I am. I have to go home and fix things.”
He let out a self-deprecating laugh. In that moment, he seemed so normal—so mundane and boring. Nina almost felt bad for this nerdy guy. He shrugged and started to head for his car before turning back.
“Sure I can’t give you a lift? We can drive by a few places I wanted to show you on the way—depending on where you live,” Steve said, his tone flat. He didn’t care one way or the other it seemed. “We won’t have time to go inside since my girlfriend needs me, but you can get an idea of what I had in mind. Your call, though.”
Nina paused for a second before responding. “Sure, OK, let’s go,” she said. “I live near the water treatment plant, on Sixty-third Street. Is that too far?”
“Oh, not at all,” Steve said, starting to walk toward the parking lot. “It’s right on my way home.”
***
Julian tightened the black cords wrapped around Nina Henriquez’s wrists. He was humming to himself. She’d been out for the better part of an hour. He dragged her farther into the storage area and toward a small set of stairs that led below.
The space wasn’t much, he realized, but it met his requirements. Quiet. Inexpensive. Out of the way. In addition to its unique two-floor setup and a fairly accessible main storage area there was also—via a small set of stairs—a basement.
He yanked Nina up and carried her down the small staircase. The room was the size of a large closet. He set her against the far wall onto a dirty, uncovered twin mattress and untied her arms. She let out a confusing series of sounds as he bound her wrists to her ankles with Velcro rope. She was tied up, but could move somewhat. Within her reach were a few boxes of cereal, some bottled water and a bucket.
He stood up and looked over the cramped, dark space. He walked up the rickety stairs and closed the hatch-like door above the tiny room, enveloping the small space in darkness.
Pete stifled a yawn as he unlocked the Book Bin’s front door. It was just past six in the morning and he had the unenviable task of opening the store. He hadn’t spoken to Dave since their argument a few days before. It was fine. Dave was a friend. Friends argued. He put his coffee cup on the ground and crouched down to gather the bundle of
Miami Times
that waited near the door. That’s when he saw the headline:
“Miami PD search for girls’ killer still drawing blanks.”
He let the door swing open while he pried a single copy loose from the pile. It was a column by Kathy, no less. He skimmed the story at first, then began to read more closely. It was almost a blow-by-blow account of their investigation so far. Kathy didn’t quote him. Still, she was laying out the bits of information they’d collected via their interviews with Alice Cline’s roommate and Erica Morales’s mother, including the detail about the killer using mirrors around the two bodies—something that Kathy had gleaned from a confidential source—one that probably wouldn’t be as willing to feed her inside dirt next time. The bits from the interviews included information that Pete had no idea was on the record, and stuff the police might not even have—or want out there for the public or killer to recognize. Kathy was intimating that he, Pete Fernandez, “the amateur who brought down one of Miami’s deadliest mob enforcers,” thought the Miami-Dade police were inept: look at all the info he found while working with his sometime partner Kathy.
What was she trying to do? What little advantage they had was now in black-and-white newsprint, plastered all over town and on the Internet. They’d blown their sources, their trust—for what? For a headline that would disappear in a few hours from
The Miami Times
’ rinky-dink website, or be lining a birdcage in a week or two. He threw the paper down on the floor and kicked his coffee cup down the sidewalk, spilling the brownish liquid in front of the store entrance.
Pete dug his hand into his front pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He tapped Kathy’s name in his contacts. She picked up on the second ring.
“Miami Times, Kathy Bentley speaking.”
“What the fuck did you just do?”
“Pete, let me explain.”
“How could you do this? You blew any cover we had. All our info is out there. Now the cops know everything we know. He knows everything we know now. This is seriously fucked up. What were you thinking?”
“Are you going to let me talk, or just get all your pent-up, repressed alpha male anger out?” she said. “Let me explain before I just hang up on you.”
Pete didn’t respond. He watched as the coffee he spilled spread around in front of the store, soaking the stack of newspapers. He’d have to pay for those, he thought. He didn’t care.