The Buried (The Apostles) (2 page)

H
atch Hatcher adjusted the jib, propped his bare feet on a five-gallon bait bucket, and tilted his face to the sun-soaked sky. He had steady winds, low chop. Should be straight-line sailing. At this rate, he’d arrive in New Orleans with time on his hands.

He ran a hand through his hair. Too long. He should probably get a trim before his presentation in the Big Easy. He was giving a talk to regional law enforcers on crisis negotiations and would be representing the Blue Suits. He tugged off his T-shirt and balled it under his head. Or not. He grabbed an icy longneck from the cooler at his side. Natalia lived in New Orleans. Clara, too. He uncapped the beer. His was a good life. A job he loved, beautiful women in every port, and time to travel the world on a boat called
No Regrets
.

He raised his beer, toasting the sun and sea.

His satellite phone rang. Caller ID showed a number from Cypress Bend. The bottle froze midway to his mouth. He knew one person in Cypress Bend, but she wanted nothing to do with him. She’d made that clear ten years ago when she’d sent him sailing from Apalachicola Bay. His fingers tightened around the bottle, the veins in his forearm thickening and rising.

Nope. Not going there. Because he wanted nothing to do with her, either.

He pushed away the past. Gathered in the peace.

Always peace.

As he reached for his fishing pole, the call went to voicemail and he noticed the blinking light on the phone. One other message, this one from the Box, headquarters for the FBI’s Special Criminal Investigative Unit. His team. He couldn’t ignore that call.

“Hey, Sugar and Spice, miss me?” Hatch said when his teammate Evie Jimenez answered the phone. Evie was the SCIU’s bomb and weapons specialist, and he loved getting her fired up.

“I refuse to feed your gargantuan ego,” Evie said. “You may have every woman east of the Mississippi charmed by that syrupy drawl, but not me,
amigo
. Speaking of your ego, we got a call from Atlanta PD. The kid you talked into giving up his boom box at the high school got a seriously mentally ill designation. He’s in a treatment center and getting his life together. One of the Atlanta news stations wants to do a feature on you.”

“Tell ’em I’m on assignment.” Hatch’s role as a crisis negotiator was simple. Get in. Defuse. Get out. “Park around?”

“Yep, but he’s in the communications room with some techie. Computer crashed again.”

Hatch grinned around another swig. The Box was a huge glass, chrome, and concrete structure on the rocky cliffs of northern Maine, and while the SCIU’s official headquarters looked like an ultra-modern marvel, it had a notoriously cranky computer system.

“I’m returning his call,” he said. “You know what he wanted?”

Evie paused, which sent warning sirens blaring through his head. His fiery teammate never paused for anything.

“Okay, Evie, what’s up?”

Another beat of silence. “Have you checked your e-mail?”

“Not today.” Technically, not for a few days. His work featured long, intense moments of negotiation with men and women in the throes of crisis, insanity, rage, or a soul-sucking combination of all three. So when time allowed, Hatch set sail, which was why he’d ended up with Parker’s team. His boss understood his need to disconnect. Hatch had spent the past week anchored near the sugary sand dunes of Islamorada in the Florida Keys hunting for buried treasure.

“Then you haven’t heard about Alex?” Evie continued.

“Alex?”

“Alex Milanos.” The quiet stretched on. “Your son.”

A burst of laughter shot over his lips. “Good one.” He was careful about these things. He didn’t do long-term commitments, and his disastrous relationship with his old man had cured him of any parental longings.

“This isn’t a joke, Hatch. A woman from Cypress Bend contacted the Box and insisted on talking to you. Parker finally took her call. Name’s Trina Milanos, and she claims her daughter, Vanessa, knew you, as in the biblical sense, and that Vanessa’s thirteen-year-old son is yours.”

Hatch studied an icy bead on his longneck as if it were a tiny crystal ball. Vanessa Milanos? He couldn’t picture a face. The name didn’t ring a bell either, and he certainly didn’t associate it with Cypress Bend. Cypress Bend was Princess Grace’s kingdom. Grace Courtemanche was royalty, and he’d told her that every night as they lay intertwined on the deck of
No Regrets
, drenched in sweat and moonlight.

But this call from Cypress Bend had nothing to do with Grace Courtemanche. Some other woman claimed he had a thirteen-year-old son. He did the math. The timing could work. In his college days, he’d spent a number of summers on St. George Island, one of the barrier islands below the Florida panhandle. He’d taught sailing to kids at a posh summer camp, and before the summer of Princess Grace, he’d had a string of women on his boat and in his bed. But he was careful about these things.

“At the risk of being blunt, I don’t leave bits and pieces of me around,” he told Evie.

“That’s part of the problem. Sounds like Vanessa Milanos wanted you in the worst way, and she admitted to her mother that since she couldn’t have you, she’d settle for a piece of you. She sabotaged your efforts at protection. Take a look at the picture in the e-mail. Same shaggy blond hair. Same baby blues. Same killer dimples. Plus Parker, being Parker, had a rush DNA test done.” Evie paused. “It’s a match,
padre
. He’s your son.”

Hatch’s throat constricted, and he stretched his neck, trying to ease the way for words. As a crisis negotiator, words were his tools, his constant companions, always at the ready.

“There’s more, Hatch,” Evie added. “The granny needs you in Cypress Bend
pronto
. It appears your son has gotten himself into trouble. He’s in jail.”

Grace needed a bomb. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. Just something with the ability to blow up the attitudinal Ford compact she now called her own. She unbuckled her seatbelt, reached across her car, and took a hammer from the glove compartment. Hitting something sounded good.

“’Nother dead battery, Miss Courtemanche?” The security guard that prowled the government buildings clucked his tongue as he walked up beside her.

“This month it’s the starter.”

“Man, you didn’t have problems like this when you owned that fine Mercedes. Now there was a car. You need some help, counselor?”

Help me!

Then call me!
Grace shot a look at her phone on the dash. Ringer on. Fully charged. And painfully silent. No more calls from Lia Grant. And no update yet from the deputy at the sheriff’s department who promised to look into the calls immediately.

“Thanks, Armand, but I can take care of it myself.”

An hour later and with Lia Grant’s voice still echoing through her head, Grace turned onto a rutted road winding into the swamp and drove to a one-bedroom shack with a sagging front porch and rusted metal roof. Feathery cypress branches filtered the retreating sun, but even the seductive cover of lacy shade couldn’t soften the wretchedness of her new home. She climbed the rickety porch steps and tripped over a knobby column of white. Another bone, this one a grisly joint speckled with bits of dried flesh.

“Dammit, Allegheny Blue, how many of these do you have?” An ancient blue tick hound sprawled in front of the door opened a cloudy eye. He heaved himself up and rested his head against her thigh. She nudged him away with her knee. “Don’t even pretend we’re friends.”

She tossed the bone into a trashcan on the porch, where it clunked and rattled among the dozen already there. “No more bones.”

Her new
housemate
licked his lips, sending a line of drool across the hem of her skirt, and followed her inside where she reset the alarm, not that the shack held anything of value. Most of her furniture and home electronics were in storage. But her boss was right; her new place was remote, a good half mile from her closest neighbor, hence the security system.

With Blue at her heels, she filled the dog’s food dish with dry chow, softened with warm water. When he looked at her with drooping eyes that had seen way too many doggy years, she said, “You’re going to die of clogged arteries. You know that, don’t you?”

He licked his lips.

She sighed and opened the refrigerator.

It’s cold…Help me!

“I did!” Grace grabbed a piece of cooked bacon and slammed the door. Another wave of frosted air prickled her skin. “Okay, after the
ninth
call.” She tore the bacon into bits and threw them in Blue’s bowl. “What more am I supposed to do?”

Winners do, Gracie, and doers win
. Not Lia’s words. Her daddy’s.

She breathed in his calm and confidence. “You need
my
help, Lia? Fine. You got me.” She set Blue’s bowl on the floor with a clank. The old dog thumped his tail against her leg and dug his nose into his dinner.

Grace dug out her phone and called Jim Breck, the internal security chief and her go-to guy with a local wireless phone company. The SA’s office regularly turned to him for wiretaps and call records.

“Counselor Courtemanche, why does it not surprise me that you’re working after hours?” Jim said. “Haven’t you heard there’s life beyond the office? Things like families and hobbies.”

She laughed. “Not for souls like you and me, Jim. Now, did someone from the sheriff’s department contact you this afternoon for a call search?”

“Not yet.”

Probably because the deputy didn’t have Lia Grant screaming in his ear. “I need to know the subscriber’s name and contact information on a series of calls I received.”

“Got the paperwork?”

No, and she wasn’t likely to get a subpoena, not while on
vacation
. “This isn’t an official investigation,” she said.

“Sorry. Can’t move forward without a subpoena.”

Sometimes you had to bulldoze past a few roadblocks. “I received nine calls from a stranger begging for my help. This whole thing could be a series of crank calls from associates of a convicted felon who’s been harassing me. Or it could be a young woman in danger and running out of time. I’m seriously leaning toward the latter.”

Jim said nothing. She said nothing, letting her track record speak.

“Let me see what I can do,” he finally said. An excruciating two minutes later he came back on the line. “Interesting.”

Without a subpoena, they were walking a fine line. “Can you verify the subscriber’s name?” Grace asked.

“No.”

“Can you verify the subscriber’s address?”

“No.”

No surprise there. “Can you verify it was a prepaid phone?”

“Yes.”

“And let me guess, the subscriber is listed as Mickey Mouse.”

Jim cleared his throat and said with a cough, “Clark Kent.”

Much like Allegheny Blue and his search for bones, Grace couldn’t let go. “Where was the phone purchased?”

“Retailer in Port St. Joe.”

“If I give you the time of the calls, can you tell me the location?” She rolled her shoulders and flexed her wrists, a warm-up of sorts, like in tennis.

“Caller didn’t activate GPS functionality, but according to the Call Data Record, the call came off the Cypress Point cell tower. It’s an OmniSite covering a three-mile section. Topo map shows dense swamp, a handful of high-end resort properties, and a few residences.”

Her wrists stilled mid-circle as she peered at the shades of gray outside her kitchen window. Lia Grant’s calls had been made within three miles of her home. Creepy coincidence? She gave both hands a shake. Even more reason to keep digging.

After thanking Jim, she called up a search engine and searched for “Lia Grant” and “Florida.” A dozen hits turned up, including one about a young woman who lived in nearby Carrabelle. Within fifteen minutes Grace had a full page of notes on the nineteen-year-old nursing student, including a current address and—she grabbed her cell—a phone number.

After eight rings, a groggy voice came on the line. “’lo.”

“Lia Grant, please.”

“Lia’s not here.”
Yawn
. “Who’s this?”

“Grace Courtemanche. She called me this afternoon.”
Nine
times. “I’m returning her call.”

“You spoke to Lia today?” Something rustled, and when the voice spoke again, all fuzziness was gone. “I’ve been trying to reach her all day. Last night she had a volunteer shift at the hospital, and she borrowed my car but hasn’t returned it. If you talk to her, tell her to get her ass and my wheels home.”

“I’ll be sure to relay the message.” Because Grace was going to find this girl. She phoned the Cypress Bend Medical Center, and the woman manning the welcome desk said Lia had not shown for her volunteer shift.

“Quite odd for Lia,” the chatty woman said. “Although she’s young, she’s a responsible little thing, a real good girl.”

Tell Momma I tried to be a good girl.

Grace hung up and reached for her purse. “No, Lia, I’m not going to talk to your mother because you’re going to tell her yourself.” The lump of dog struggled to his feet. “You’re not going with me. You shed and drool, and you stink.” She opened the front door and Blue lumbered past her, a slow-moving avalanche. “Dammit, Blue! Get back here.” He plodded across the drive and planted his butt near her car. Tonight she didn’t have time to fight. She opened the passenger door. “The vet said you’re supposed to be dead by now.”

This time her car started on the first crank, and Grace took the route from Lia’s apartment—the place she was last seen—to the medical center—the place where she never showed. She crept along the two-lane highway bordered by swamp, pine forests, and a deserted oyster processing plant that reeked of long-dead fish. No stalled vehicles. No signs of foul play.

The employee section of the hospital parking lot had two security lights, both burned out. She aimed her headlights at the rows of cars, slamming on the brake when she spotted a blue hybrid. She checked the license plate number Lia’s roommate had given her. A match.

“This is too easy,” Grace said to Allegheny Blue as they got out of the car.