Authors: Roxanne St. Claire
“Wait a second. Dan?” Joel stood, also frowning at the other man. “What’s the matter?
Something wrong with the evidence?”
Dan dropped his hands into his pockets and nodded slowly. “It’s gone.”
“The fortune?” Dan didn’t seem surprised that Joel made that assumption. “Are you
kidding me? What did the clerk say?”
“She has no explanation.”
“But did you check the notes for a copy of what was on the fortune?” Joel asked.
“Anything in those files had to have been recorded in the notes.”
“I got it,” he said. “But that’s not quite as reliable.”
Joel blew out a breath and looked over Dan’s shoulder as if he expected the SAC to charge
in any second. “What did I tell you about that guy? He can’t even run an evidence room.”
“There has to be an explanation,” Dan said.
“There might be,” Joel said. “A whole lot of files from the midnineties were taken up to
storage in D.C. I know you’d think that something that small would be in a 1A file, but it
could have gotten transferred. I’ll look into it for you.”
Thomas Vincenze tapped on the door, snapping a cell phone shut with his other hand.
“C’mere, Dan.”
He stepped out, and Maggie hesitated for a second as Joel gave her a very hard and
suddenly accusing look.
“Pretty big coincidence that this disappears right after Ramon gets out of prison and you
show up again. Don’t you think?”
She bristled at the comment and the tone. “Excuse me?”
“This is still my case, Ms. Smith. Not . . .” He notched his head to the door. “His.” He took
one step closer. “And I know you didn’t ask, but allow me to give you some unsolicited
advice.”
“No, thank you.”
He leaned closer to whisper it anyway. “If you think you can trust that man, then you
obviously don’t have a very good memory.”
“So what happened with him?” Dan asked when they got into his car. “You don’t seem
happy.”
“Neither do you.”
“I’m not. A key piece of evidence is missing.” He started the car but didn’t pull out. “What
did he say to you to upset you?”
Did she seem upset? She thought she was holding it totally together. “He said exactly what
I expected, mostly in subtext. Tell me about the notes you got.”
“Don’t want to talk about it, huh?”
“Actually, no. Drive.”
Instead, he pulled out his phone and hit a few buttons to bring up a text. “Here’s what was
in the evidence notes, which aren’t as reliable as the physical fortune. It said ‘Success is
failure when turned inside out.’ And on the back, four numbers again. Five-nine-two-five.”
“What can we do with that?”
“Run the words and numbers through some cryptography software, brainstorm possibilities
with addresses and GPS, parse the words for clues. With two fortunes we have twice as much
as we did first time around, if my theory is correct.”
“We don’t know that my fortune wasn’t just a regular old cookie. The clue could have been
on the one Lourdes had.”
“Or anyone in the house that afternoon, but everyone else was arrested that night and
searched.” He turned the ignition on and headed out of the parking lot.
“Not Lourdes.”
He nodded. “We should visit her. But first, there’s somewhere else I’d like to stop by.” He
pulled out and headed toward the expressway entrance. “The search was thorough, so I don’t
expect to find anything, but I do think it’s interesting that the house is still owned by the
Jimenez family.”
Great. Just where she never wanted to go again.
He flicked the blinker and pulled onto the highway. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“Will you tell me what Joel said that upset you?”
“He implied that I might have something to do with the missing fortune, and he doesn’t like
that you’re nosing in on his turf.”
“He’s never liked me. He’s a stand-up guy, an agency man to the core, but very competitive
and jealous. Don’t let him bother you.”
She nodded, trying to take the advice to heart, looking at the traffic out her window. “He
also said you and your boss were an item.”
“Then
really
don’t take anything he says to heart.”
He whipped the car into the next lane and accelerated, weaving through traffic as if it were
the Indy 500. They skirted a truck, and threaded between a van and an SUV. She filed his
silent but powerful response and stayed quiet all the way to Coral Gables.
Each mile, the landscape grew more and more familiar, and as he maneuvered through the
lush hallways of banyan trees that shaded the pricey neighborhood, she broke the silence. “I
remember the first time I came here.”
“You were, what? Seventeen?”
“Eighteen.” Scrawny, scared, and scarred by Baba’s death and the harsh reality that her
mother, wherever she was, didn’t want anything to do with her. “In fact, I met Ramon on my
eighteenth birthday and, of course, I took that as a sign that he was meant for me.”
“You were here a few months before I was,” he said.
“I remember,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment. “I remember the day I met you.”
“You do?” He seemed surprised.
Of course it wouldn’t have left an impression on him. “I was so happy there was another
gringo around. Someone who would speak English to me other than Ramon and Lourdes.”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “I had an instant crush.”
“Me, too.”
“You did not,” she shot back. “You had an instant insider.”
He turned onto Granada, then cut his gaze her way again. “Maybe crush is the wrong word.
But there was instant . . .”
“Lust.”
A smile pulled at his lips. “That, too.”
Funny thing, lust. She’d felt the same chemical response when he’d walked into her bar that
she felt when he’d walked into the dining room at Viejo’s house. Like wings were fluttering in
her stomach and her whole body wanted to just . . . attach to his.
“Here we are,” he said. “Just like old times.”
They were on Alfonso Street, which looked even more rich and elegant than she
remembered. Until they reached the gate, where signs of abandonment flourished.
“It doesn’t look like anyone lives here,” Maggie said as they drove the length of the two
adjacent lots Viejo owned. The house was blocked by live oak trees and thickets of palmetto
palms, except for one little corner of the second floor that rose above the highest branches.
They exchanged a look, and he slid the Porsche up to the curb about a block away. “Let’s
check it out.”
Dan shook the wrought iron gate set into the chipped and faded stucco privacy wall. The
entire place felt forgotten and neglected, except for one addition to the entrance: a state-of-
the-art security access keypad on the other side of the gate. That, oddly enough, looked
sparkling new.
“I remember the old key code,” Maggie said. “Oneone-two-nine.” She used to wonder if
November 29 would be a lucky day for her.
Dan tried it, but, predictably, nothing happened. “Let’s go around to the side entrances,” he
suggested.
They started down the eastern perimeter of the property, moving along a narrow pathway
between the stucco wall and a wild, ten-foot-high jungle of shrubbery, so thick that Dan had
to hold branches back for them to pass. When they reached the side gate, that whole section
was buried by oleander and hibiscus trees.
“If only we had a machete,” Maggie said, pulling back thick palm fronds to get closer. “See
that row of bricks along the foundation of the wall? One of them, the third from the left, I
think, wasn’t grouted in and Ramon hid a key there so he could get in after El Viejo locked up
for the night. But I doubt it’s still there, or still works this gate.”
Dan tore at some of the branches and ivy covering the large iron gate, testing it. “No
keypad access here. Maybe all this shrubbery is enough to keep someone out.”
“Can you hold these branches back while I dig down there to look?” she asked.
He made an opening so that Maggie could get on her knees and work the bricks as she’d
seen Ramon do. The third brick was loose in the grout.
“Got it.” With one good yank, she was able to slide the brick out, set it aside, then gingerly
reached her hand into the hole.
And touched the edge of a key.
She rocked back on her heels and looked straight up at Dan. “This, my friend, is a sign
from the universe.” She held the key up to him.
His grin, a little crooked, gave her a kick in the tummy.
“Nice work, Maggie May.”
And the old nickname pretty much left a boot mark on her heart. She could still hear his
voice, whispering in her ear when they were alone and he slipped his hand under her shirt.
Maggie May . . . then again, she may not
.
“Let’s see if it still works,” he said, obviously not sidetracked by memories.
He helped her up and they headed to the gate, where he inserted the key. The latch
unlocked with one turn, and he pushed the ten-foot-high gate open against the thick Florida
crabgrass so they could slide in.
For a moment, they just stared in silent disbelief.
What used to be a spacious and gloriously landscaped expanse of prime Coral Gables real
estate clearly hadn’t been pruned, cleared, or inhabited for a very long time.
Dan led them along the wall, away from the water, toward the main house. Untamed brush
grew everywhere. The swimming pool, enclosed in shreds of dried, torn screening, was
completely drained, cracked, and coated in mossy fungus.
At the far end of the property, near the water and tucked into a wall of protective shrubbery,
there were a few grassy slopes. Viejo had carted in tons of dirt to build a miniature valley
where he’d planned to grow coffee. The endeavor was a disaster; Miami didn’t have the
climate or the soil. But the hills stayed, along with the tool shed the workers had erected.
Their
shed.
She didn’t look. Instead, she took in the brown patches of grass where sun had broken
through the foliage and burned it, while other areas were jungle green and thick. The back of
the three-story hacienda was in total disrepair—faded, chipped, with numerous barrels
missing from the Spanish tile roof, and the ones left behind were shadowed with black mold.
Every window was gray with filth, and closed tight.
“Remember what a showplace it was?” Maggie said softly. “Viejo was maniacal about the
landscaping and maintenance.”
“Look at that rusty patio furniture. Same stuff. I guess they never moved anything out.” As
they got closer, Dan used one hand to keep her behind him, the other poised for access to a
weapon she knew was under his shirt.
They passed the patio and walked down one side of the house, trying to peer in dirt-
encrusted windows, until they reached the utility room. When Dan stopped and tried the lock,
Maggie looked around, transported back to the nights when she’d used this exit to steal out
and meet him.
A yellow piece of paper in the bushes caught her attention. She plucked it out—a post
office delivery notification. Someone tried to deliver a package to . . .
“Michael
Scott
?”
Dan turned from the door. “What?”
“Look at this.” She held the paper to him. “And look at the date. One month ago, someone
tried to deliver something to Michael Scott. A dead man who never officially lived at this
abandoned house.”
“An oversize package from New York,” he said, studying the paper hard before slipping it
into his pocket. “We can track that. But now, I really want in.” Kneeling down, he pulled out a
key ring, and used something to work the lock.
“You carry a lock pick?” she asked.
“Security works both ways.” In a few minutes the knob turned and he gave it a push, but it
didn’t open. “It’s bolted from the inside.”
“Not when I lived here,” Maggie said. “Do you have a tool to break the dead bolt?”
“Yep. It’s called a Glock.” He tapped along the frame of the door a few times, then
unholstered his gun and motioned for her to get back. The shot echoed over the water and
made her ears ring as the door popped open.
The dank smell of mold and humidity hit Maggie as they stepped in, along with a rush of
memories.
Once when she was folding clothes back here, he’d come to talk to her. To arrange a
meeting. He’d pressed her up against the hot, rumbling dryer and they’d kissed, insanely close
to getting caught, but unable to stop.
Because she thought he cared.
“Come on,” he said, reaching to pull her into the house, his expression determined.
She followed him into the kitchen. The smell was putrid, the air was heavy, and everywhere
she looked, she remembered the shadowy, unhappy life she’d lived here. Always bound by a
false sense of security, the property of one man and the playmate of another. No, the
informant
of another.
But he’d been so
good
to her.
She stole another glance at him, bracing for the rush of revulsion for what he’d done to her,
but getting a different rush altogether.
Damn her body. Damn her hormones.
Damn
him
.
“It’s as if nothing has been touched since the day the FBI finished the investigation,” he