Heavenly Honeymoon (Zoe Donovan Mysteries Book 15) (12 page)

Alex’s grin was wider than I had ever seen it. God, I hoped her parents would go for it. If not, she was going to be heartbroken.

“You aren’t making this up just to distract me from the storm, are you?”

“I brought it up right now in an effort to distract you,” I admitted, “but Zak and I have been discussing it, and the others have agreed to help out.”

Alex let out a screech that sounded like a yelp as she wrapped her arms around my neck and held on tight. “There’s nothing in this world I’d like more than to come to live with you and Zak. We could be a real family.”

We heard a helicopter land outside the building the minute the storm let up enough for it to set down. Apparently, my knight in shining armor had once again come to save me. The poor guy. He was frantic, thinking Alex and I had been caught on the narrow trail that wound its way along the cliff when the storm hit. I could tell by his look of relief that he was happy to see we were safe and dry inside the basement of the sturdiest building on the island.

The wind had all but stopped, but the weather forecast promised plenty of the wet stuff for another twenty-four hours at least. I’d never gotten around to calling Malik about the scuba lesson, but I imagined it was a moot point at this juncture anyway. I’d been thinking about everything I’d learned and I was pretty sure I’d figured things out. Now all I had to do was convince Talin I was right. Luckily, he answered when I called the number he’d given me and agreed to meet me at the jail.

“Okay,” Talin began once we were seated in the same room in which he’d interrogated me. “What do you have?”

“As much as I hate to admit this, I believe Ricardo Jimenez, the dog-hating lowlife, was actually on the yacht to warn Park Lee that he was being scammed.”

Talin looked surprised but not shocked by my statement. “Really? Can you prove that?”

“No,” I admitted. “Not at this point.”

“Perhaps you should start at the beginning,” Talin suggested.

This time I’d made a point to use the ladies’ room prior to my trip to the jail, so I was more than willing to take the long way around.

“After my lovely time in your jail I decided I most definitely didn’t want to spend any more time here. And after getting to know Toad a bit, I realized that while he’s a perfectly lovely man, he was never going to be able to solve Ricardo Jimenez’s murder on his own. You seemed to have disappeared, and although you told me not to, I’m afraid I may have poked around just a tiny bit.”

Talin didn’t look surprised. “I expected as much.”

“You did?”

“Your Sheriff Salinger told me that you would. He also assured me that you are very good at poking around. I’ve been watching you, but I decided to give you some rein to see where you took me. So what did you find?”

I don’t know why I was surprised that Talin had been playing me the whole time, but I was. I was half-tempted not to share what I knew, but that would be childish, not to mention downright stupid.

“Zak found out that Jimenez had set up an offshore account to deal with the funding for a salvage operation he believed he was a partner in. There were five deposits into the account for twenty thousand dollars each. All five of the deposits were made by VIP guests of the resort. The only one of the men currently visiting the island is Park, so he’s the only investor I’ve spoken to. I think we can assume all five men were exposed to a similar experience.”

I paused.

“Go ahead,” Talin encouraged.

“When I spoke to Park, he indicated that the man he took diving lessons from mentioned to him that he had found a sunken ship whose cargo appeared to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This of course piqued Park’s interest, so he asked for more information about the wreck. The scuba instructor took him out to the dive site and had him dive down to the point where he could see the skeleton of the ship. He then showed Park some artifacts he’d brought up, as well as the ship’s manifest, detailing the gold and jewels the vessel was carrying when it sank. Park, being the rich yet bored businessman he is, told the man he wanted in on the treasure hunt, so the instructor set him up with Ricardo, who had been put in charge of fund-raising for the operation.”

“And who is this scuba instructor?”

“I believe his name is Malik. He’s Jimbo’s cousin and he looks exactly like the man I saw on the yacht the night Ricardo was murdered.”

“So Malik and Ricardo were business partners?” Talin asked.

“That’s the way it would appear, but I believe there’s more to it than that.”

“Why do you think so?” Talin asked.

“Last night I saw Malik at the movie. I followed him into the jungle, where he met a woman who was obviously his lover. It was Della.”

Talin’s eyes got big. “Della is cheating on Jensen with Malik?”

“Based on what I witnessed I’d say so. It also appeared, based on what I managed to see and overhear, they’re very much in love.”

“While that’s a big piece of news, I don’t see what it has to do with either the salvage operation or Ricardo’s death,” Talin pointed out.

“Bear with me, I’m getting to that. I found some of the facts I’d uncovered puzzling at best. For one thing, why did Malik cut Ricardo in on the deal in the first place? From what I’ve discovered, it appears Malik was the one who stumbled across the wreck. Yes, he’d need equipment to salvage the vessel, and that would take capital, but if it really was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, I would think he would have rich individuals seeking the thrill of an adventure lining up to invest in the project. Malik was the one with access to the rich guests. He was the one who sold Park and most likely the others on the idea of investing in the venture. Why cut in some random vendor?”

“Good question.” I could see Talin was on the edge of his seat.

“At first I thought Ricardo might be blackmailing Malik. He seemed to be the observant type. He knew Chandella was cheating on Jensen, so maybe he knew Della was cheating on Jensen with Malik as well. I figured Ricardo heard about the treasure and wanted in, so he threatened to tell Jensen about Malik and Della if they didn’t make him a partner.”

I waited for Talin to catch up with the thought chain. It had taken me a minute to get there as well.

“But Jensen didn’t even know Ricardo. That was what he said when I spoke to him after the murder. Why would he believe him over Della?”

I smiled but remained silent.

“Unless he had proof,” Talin realized.

“Almost there,” I encouraged.

“The baby. Della is carrying Malik’s baby, and somehow Ricardo found that out. Malik is black; Della is white and so is Jensen. When the baby is born it will be obvious it isn’t Jensen’s. He will divorce Della and banish her from the island.”

“Exactly.”

“This is a good story, but do you have proof of it?”

“No,” I admitted. “At this point it’s just a theory.”

“Okay, so Ricardo finds out about the baby and blackmails Malik into cutting him in on the treasure hunt. That still doesn’t explain why Ricardo wanted to be on board the yacht the night of the dinner, or why Malik killed him that night. If Malik was tired of the blackmail why not kill him at a more convenient time?”

“I asked myself that same question, and the only answer I could come up with was that the blackmail wasn’t the reason Malik killed Ricardo. In fact, I pretty much discarded the blackmail theory once I really thought it through, but I figured it was an important enough piece of the overall picture to bring it up.”

Talin looked confused. “But I thought you just said you believed the reason Malik cut Ricardo in on the deal was because he was blackmailing him.”

“That’s what I thought for a while. I’ve since changed my mind.”

“You are a complex woman, Zoe Donovan.”

“So I’ve been told. I really am getting to the point, so just bear with me.” I began to set the scene. “Malik and Della are in love. Della finds out that she’s pregnant and realizes it’s only a matter of time until Jensen finds out the baby isn’t his. She feels entitled to a payout for her time in his service, so she and Malik come up with a plan to scam some of the VIP guests out of their hard-earned money. Malik knows about the wreck, and maybe he even has some artifacts he’s collected over time. He comes up with the idea of selling shares in a salvage operation. Once the money is deposited into his account, he and Della can use it to start over again somewhere else. He realizes he needs a front man. A fall guy. So he decides to cut Ricardo into the deal.”

“If Malik found a shipwreck worth hundreds of millions of dollars why would he settle for one hundred thousand dollars?” Talin asked. “Unless,” he realized, “the ship is not really
The Carolina
and there is no treasure.”

“No, I believe the ship is
The Carolina
, and there was a treasure at one point. When I was trapped in the church basement this morning I came across a book that listed all the shipwrecks in this area for the past three hundred years, as well as an accounting of the treasure on board and the current status of that treasure.
The Carolina
was an English ship that sank with a rich dowry in 1764. In today’s market the value of the cargo would be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. The problem was that the ship was harvested over a hundred years ago.”

“So Malik is selling shares in a salvage operation related to a ship that has already been salvaged.”

“Yes, I believe so.” I took a breath before I continued. “And I believe Ricardo really did believe there was a treasure. I don’t think it was until he returned to the island a few days ago that he realized he’d been duped. It seems the money that had been deposited into the account he’d set up to pay for the salvage operation had been transferred out of his account the day before the cruise. It was only after he was made aware of the transfer that he figured out that not only had he been had but he’d been set up to be the fall guy.”

“Wouldn’t it be too late to warn Park?” Talin asked.

“Zak found out that there’s a forty-eight hour window in which the money is held after the transfer is initiated. I imagine Ricardo’s urgency in gaining access to Park was to warn him before that time period was up.”

“So if Mr. Jimenez did not set up the transfer from his account, why couldn’t he stop it?”

“Zak looked into that. The account was set up by Ricardo and his name was on it, but Malik was the one who set up the password and thus had control over the money. I’m not sure why Ricardo couldn’t stop the transfer after it was initiated, but I think we need to assume that wasn’t an option. I believe Ricardo wanted an invite to the dinner party to gain access to either Park or Jensen or both. We know he blackmailed Chandella into getting him an invite at the last minute. I believe Malik found out that Ricardo had obtained the invitation, so he snuck aboard and killed him. Of course, like I said, I can’t prove it. We’ll have to get him to confess.”

“And how are we going to do that? We don’t have any proof.”

“I have a plan.”

“I’m not surprised.” I actually saw a look of admiration in Talin’s eyes. “So what is your plan?”

“The transfer of the money was completed, so we should assume Malik is now in control of it. He and Della met last night in a semipublic place, so I have to assume they’re ready to flee the island and may not care if Jensen finds out about the affair at this point. If they haven’t already gone, which is doubtful due to the storm, we should assume they will once the weather clears up.”

“We are expected to have steady rain for another twenty-four hours at least,” Talin confirmed.

“Okay, so whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it today.”

“We?”

“Assuming you need my help of course. Which I’m willing to give, as long as I’m allowed to leave the island on Wednesday as planned.”

I listened to the sound of the rain pounding on the metal roof of the old building while Talin contemplated the situation. I had to wonder if Jensen suspected Della had been cheating on him. Chances were he was too arrogant to even consider such a thing. I know I should be angry with Della and Malik for killing Ricardo and messing up my honeymoon, yet I couldn’t help but remember the depth of the passion they seemed to share.

Still, they could have just left the island and earned their bread and butter by working hard and living frugally. Stealing from the rich guests at the resort might in some twisted way seem justified to them, but it was still stealing.

“All right. I agree to accept your help and I agree to let you leave on Wednesday as you have planned to do. So what is your plan?”

“We steal their money.”

“Steal their money? How would we do that? It isn’t even on the island.”

“No, but it’s sitting in an account Zak has already traced. We don’t need to actually steal the money; we just need to set up false data so they think it’s been transferred.”

“Your Zak can do that?”

I shrugged. “Zak is a genius. I’m sure he can handle something like this, but he’ll need access to better computer equipment than we brought with us.”

“Mr. Ewing has the best computer equipment money can buy,” Talin stated.

“I guess he needs to find out what’s going on at some point.”

It turned out that Jensen did have state-of-the-art technology at his disposal. It was really quite impressive. Zak knew his way around it because he had helped to set up the software, so putting our plan into play was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I have to admit I felt bad for Jensen. I didn’t think I would. On one hand, he’d been keeping multiple women and should have realized they might not all stay faithful to him, but he was devastated to hear our theory that the baby was most likely not his. Of course we still didn’t know that for certain, but after we shared what we knew to be true, he admitted he’d been harboring a small amount of doubt.