Tied to the Stern Read online

  “You might as well make this easy, Don!” a voice said from the other side of the dumpsters. “We both know you’ve never been the shot I am, and I’ve got all night.”

  “That’s what you think,” I muttered to myself. As I spoke, an idea formulated in my mind. Don, presumably the man from the Facebook post, might not have been near as good a shot as whoever was shooting at him, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that I sure was.

  Taking a deep breath, I rushed out to the dumpster Don hid behind. Keeping as close to the ground as I could, I heard a couple of shots ring out. Obviously, the man shooting at Don had seen me running toward the man and shot at me too.

  Luckily, he missed by such a margin that I didn’t even feel the bullet whizz by me.

  “Good shot, my ass,” I muttered, sliding into the dumpster so fast that the damn thing shook on impact. Breathing heavy, I looked over at Don. His eyes were wide, but they were also glassy. I might not have been a doctor, like my wife, but I had seen enough to know this guy was about to pass out. I couldn’t have that. For one, getting a man Don’s size out of here alive would be one hundred times harder if he couldn’t run himself. And, number two, I needed him alive to question him. Might as well start that right now. “Don,” I muttered. “Are you okay?”

  “Get the hell away from me!” he answered, panicking as he saw me and sticking the gun in my face.

  “I’m not with whoever is shooting at you, Don,” I said, jerking away from the gun, which was shaking so hard it was a wonder he hadn’t already accidentally squeezed the trigger. “I’m here to help you.” Twisting my arm, I grabbed his hand and coaxed the gun out of it.

  “Who-who are you?” Don asked. Swallowing hard, I was surprised at just how quickly this man gave up his weapon.

  “I’m a man looking for Eve Jensen,” I answered. “I know she was with you, and I know-”

  “You leave her alone!” Don said, his hands balling into fists as his sleepy eyes took on a new tint of panic. “All she wanted was the truth! All she wanted was what was right, and you people nearly destroyed her for it!”

  I shook my head, taking it all in. “I’m not who you think I am,” I answered. “I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t-”

  “You couldn’t hurt her now!” Don said. “Because you’ll never find her! And, even if you did, that place is a fortress. It’s a damn fortress! I should have never brought her here. I should have never let her come!”

  “Don,” I said. “I need you to calm down. I need you to tell me what’s going on.” I swallowed hard, steadying myself and deciding that I needed to go all in if I was going to make this work. “Listen, Don. I’m a cop. I’m here to make things right. Whatever is going on, you can-”

  As I spoke, I heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine revving up. As it did, the glow of headlights illuminated the space on the other side of the dumpster. Instantly, my blood ran cold.

  “Don,” I said, my eyes going wide. “Is the guy shooting at you in a car?”

  Don didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Those headlights and that engine didn’t come from a bicycle.

  “Get up!” I yelled. “We have to move! We have to move now!”

  I stood, grabbing the man and pulling him hard as I heard the screeching of tires on pavement. The engine roared and the headlights grew brighter and closer. I heard the crunch of the dumpster as the car ran into it. My legs pumped harder and harder, pulling Don along with me, as I felt the heat of the car’s engine nip at my heels.

  I reached the turn in the alleyway an instant before the dumpster caught up with us. The car had pushed it the entire way. It slammed hard against the wall of the restaurant as I shoved both Don and myself out of it’s way.

  As I did, though, both of us fell hard against the pavement. Looking up, I saw a man pulling himself out of the passenger side window. Blinking hard, I saw that the man I was looking at was none other than the bastard I’d dropped back in the bungalow, the man who Nate sent to the Mailroom.

  “You’re just everywhere, aren’t you, Mr. Davidson?” the man said.

  “And you’re supposed to be in the Mailroom,” I said, swallowing hard.

  “How do you think I got this gig?” the man asked in response. “Nate used it as a punishment, but it’s just a place where we’re assigned the most difficult jobs.” He shook his head. “Luckily for me, I like difficult, especially tonight.” His eyes trained on Don.

  “Tell her she I was wrong,” Don said from beside me. “I thought we could do this. I thought we could make it all better, but she was right. You keep Eve safe, and you tell her that the Archer is pure evil, just like back then.”

  He reached something to me, and it crumpled in my hand. Looking at it, I saw it was an aged note. Written in red crayon, it said ‘Leave, and don’t come back for a long time’.

  With no idea what that meant or why Don would hand it to me, I watched the man from the Mailroom settle in front of us. Then he took a shot...a shot that hit Don right in the head.

  I shook, looking at the light go out of Don’s eyes.

  “What are you-what are you doing?” I asked.

  “My job, Mr. Davidson,” the man said, nodding at me. “I’m doing my job, which is more than I can say for you.” The man slid out of the car, his gun trained on me. “I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, and I’m not quite sure what you’re really up to. What I am sure of is that I was right about you. You’re trouble, and I’m about to expel you.”

  He settled in front of me, moving the gun up to my forehead. I felt the pistol in my own hand. In a second, I could move it up and shoot him. I had no doubt I was quicker than him. As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to.

  A shot fired from behind me. It hit the man’s chest. Another shot took him down.

  Looking back,. I saw Natasha standing there, gun in hand.

  “Sure made a mess of things without me, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “I’m assuming that won’t be a problem anymore,” I said breathlessly, staring at the woman. “Your boss say it was okay for you to help me?”

  “Not exactly,” she answered. “He told me to keep my hands out of it until I heard from him again.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I guess I’m still really bad at following directions.” Her eyes moved from me to Don. “That’s a shame. I had some questions for him.”

  “You and me both,” I said. “Unfortunately, that won’t happen now.”

  “Come on,” Natasha said, offering me a hand and helping me up. “We have to get out of here. No good will come from either of us being found at this scene. Besides, I found out a few things, and it changes everything.”

  Chapter 24

  “You okay, Stormy?” Natasha asked me, handing me an ice pack in the living area of our shared bungalow. She took me back here after the fiasco at the restaurant, and now that we were finally alone in a place where we knew we couldn’t be heard, we could finally speak freely about all that happened.

  “I’m fine,” I answered, grabbing the ice and setting it on the table. In truth, nothing was hurting me. “What about you?”

  “Me?” Natasha asked. “You’re the one who was shot at and almost ran over.” A smile spread across her face. “You seem to be making a habit of that lately.”

  “Story of my life,” I answered. “But the physical stuff isn’t what I was talking about. I want to know if you feel okay mentally.”

  “Mentally?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “Why the hell wouldn’t I feel okay mentally? Do you mean because we’re in the same position we were before you took it upon yourself to go traipsing around Frenchtown, or because I had a momentary lapse in sanity and decided to safe your ungrateful ass.”

  “My ass is very grateful. Trust me,” I answered, standing to meet the woman. “Even if I totally could have taken care of things myself.”

  “That’s not what it looked like from where I was standing,” Natasha said.

  “Looks can be deceiving,”
I replied. “Case in point, once upon a time, you looked like a woman who was very much in love with me. That was certainly deceitful.”

  “Are we still dealing with this?” Natasha asked, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Look. I screwed with you a million years ago. I’m sorry, okay? It was a crappy thing to do, but it was also my job. How many times is a girl going to have to apologize?” She scoffed. “I gave you your grandmother’s ring back.”

  “After you disappeared without letting me know you had even survived out in Vero Beach,” I reminded her. “For all I knew, you could have dropped that ring in the mail before all of that happened. Your body could have been floating out there in the ocean, never to be seen again.”

  “Would you care?” Natasha countered, her blonde eyebrows darting upward.

  “What kind of question is that?” I scoffed, my heart skipping a beat.

  “A reasonable one from where I’m standing,” Natasha said. “I did horrible things to you, Stormy. You stand, first and foremost, in a long line of men who I did wrong. I promise that, if you asked any one of them what should happen to me, they’d go with the ‘body floating in the ocean’ thing.”

  “They don’t seem like very good people,” I answered.

  “They were fine,” she answered. “It was me who wasn’t great.” She shuffled nervously. “That’s why I did what I did. It’s why I ultimately decided to help you, even if it goes against what Merriman wanted.” She took a step toward me. “You are a self righteous son of a bitch, but you’re also the only man I’ve ever known who is worth a damn. I won’t let you do this by yourself. I can’t.”

  “I think you’re better than you think you are,” I said, nodding at Natasha. “Which is why I’m wondering if you’re okay. You killed a man tonight.”

  “A man who was going to kill you,” she reminded me.

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying that you did it. It happened. I need to know where you’re head is,” I replied.

  “Exactly where yours should be,” she answered. “In the game.” She ran a hand through her wavy hair. “The man who died tonight, the one I didn’t kill, was named Donald Rightman.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Do we know what he had to do with Eve Jensen, other than the fact that they took a photo together the night she disappeared?”

  I knew he had something to do with her. His reaction when I asked about her was such that it became clear he cared about her. It was also clear that she was both alive and he was hiding her from a person or people who wanted something from her.

  “We do,” Natasha said. “Well, I do, but you’re about to. Donald Rightman is a billionaire. He owns a few conglomerate businesses throughout the world, including the parent company that owns the factory where Eve Jensen’s husband worked before he died.”

  “It’s also where he died, isn’t it?” I asked.

  Natasha’s smile widened. “Now, you’re getting it,” she answered.

  “Eve Jensen sued the parent company, and by extension, Donald Rightman, after the death of her husband,” Natasha said. “It was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, and the proceedings were sealed.”

  “I don’t get it,” I sad, looking over at Natasha with curious eyes. “They looked friendly in the picture. Even if I did settle with someone, I’m not sure I’d be taking cozy selfies with a person I had sued.”

  “Me either,” Natasha said. “Especially someone whose suit was responsible for a bunch of follow up suits that, rumor has it, has left Mr. Rightman in financial trouble. But that’s not even the weirdest part.”

  “Really?” I asked. “What else did you find out about Rightman?”

  “Nothing about him,” Natasha said, shaking her head. “I learned something about Eve Jensen. This wasn’t the first tragedy she’s endured.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, moving closer to the woman.

  “Eve Jensen is her married name. She kept it after her husband died a few years go. Before that, she was Eve Ferns. Does that name sound familiar to you?”

  “Should it?” I asked, searching my memory and finding it lacking.

  “Maybe not,” Natasha answered. “What about Jessica Ferns?”

  “Jessica Ferns?” I asked, realizing that the name pinged at something in the back of my mind. Though I couldn’t tell where from, I knew that name somehow. “Wait,” I said, gasping as it came to me. “She’s the teenage girl that went missing a long time ago, right?” I shook my head, perhaps trying to jostle the memory loose. “She had red locks and freckles. She looked like the Wendy’s mascot only a little more grownup.”

  “Right,” Natasha said.

  “She was on vacation with her family. I can’t remember where they were, but I remember my mom using her abduction to teach me how important it was for me to keep my eyes open about things.” I glared at Natasha for a second. “Didn’t someone die, too?”

  “Her father died,” Natasha said, sparking the memory in my mind. “They were in a bungalow, much like the one we’re in right now. Jessica’s mother and little sister went out to explore the area, leaving Jessica, who was said to have a headache, and her father in the bungalow. When the mother and sister returned, they found the place had been destroyed. There was blood everywhere. Jessica’s father lay dead in the bedroom and Jessica was gone, kidnapped. She was sixteen years old at the time, and after that, she was never seen or heard from again. They never found any evidence in the room of the people who might have taken her.”

  “It was on all the news stations,” I said quietly. “Made national headlines, especially when the little sister started blaming the missing sister for the whole thing. She started going on talk shows, saying Jessica was the one who wanted to go to St. Thomas. She said, if not for her, the father would still be alive.”

  “It sure did,” Natasha said. “But that was back in the 80s, and she was just a kid.”

  “I’m not blaming her,” I responded. “It just leaves me wondering what any of that has to do with Eve Jensen.”

  “Like I said, Eve Jensen used to be Eve Ferns, little sister to Jessica Ferns,” Natasha answered. “And the place they were visiting when all of this happened was none other than St. Thomas Island.”

  “What?” I gasped, hearing everything and realizing what it all meant. “Eve Jenkins went back to the place where her father was killed and her sister disappeared.”

  “And she disappeared too,” Natasha said, finishing my thought.

  “But she didn’t,” I said. “I mean, not really.”

  “What are you talking about?” Natasha asked.

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure,” I admitted. “Listen, I obviously don’t know what happened to Jessica Ferns in the 1980s, but I can tell you that Donald Rightman knew exactly where Eve was when he died. He said he never should have allowed her to come here and that I would never find her.” I shook my head. “Apparently, he thought I meant to hurt the woman.”

  “Or he hurt her and by saying you’d never find her, he meant he’s done something horrible with the body,” Natasha said.

  My stomach turned at the prospect. Still, we were swimming in dangerous waters and this was the sort of thing that happened in them.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I recognized the tone in his voice. He cared for her. He wanted to keep her safe.”

  “Well, he did a piss poor job at that, didn’t he?” Natasha answered.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he did the best job ever. Maybe she’s sitting pretty somewhere right now while the rest of the world is out looking for her.”

  “And why would the whole world, or at least the St. Thomas criminal elite be looking for the newly wealthy sister of a long missing girl and the daughter of a long dead father?” Natasha asked.

  “That, along with where she is and if she’s safe is the million dollar question,” I replied.

  “I have another million dollar question for you, Stormy,” Natasha said. “Let’s say sh
e is safe. Let’s say she’s hidden. What do we do if we find her?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “If Donald Rightman was close to her, if he was protecting her, then it begs the question of who he was protecting her from,” Natasha said.

  “Oh my God,” I muttered. “Nate Chambers might want to find her to hurt her for some reason.”

  “And, if that’s the case, then we can’t just hand her over to him. Can we?” Natasha asked with surprisingly little emotion in her voice.

  “You know the answer to that,” I said fervently.

  “I do,” she said. “But answer this one for me, Stormy. If we don’t hand her over, that means Nate Chambers and his goons will blow our secret. If they do that, what do we do then?”

  “Honestly,” I muttered, staring at the floor. “I have no idea. But I do know what we have to do now.”

  “And what’s that?” Natasha asked.

  “In order to deal with the issue of what happens when we find Eve Jensen, we have to actually find Eve Jensen first. Since Donald Rightman knew where she was, we have to find out what he knew,” I said.

  “And how are we going to do that?” Natasha asked.

  “We’re going to investigate the only way I know how,” I answered, grimacing. “Tonight, that means we’re going to break into a dead man’s house.”

  “Damnit,” Natasha said. “I was really hoping to try out that jacuzzi tonight too.”

  “What can I say?” I murmured, shrugging. “Guess you can’t have it all.”

  “Can you have any of it?” she asked. Looking down at herself, at the flowing dress she had been wearing since the first time I saw her this morning, she said, “Give me ten minutes to go change into something more durable and then we can go add ‘breaking and entering’ onto our list of crimes. Who knows? Maybe, when we get there, some caution tape will be up and we can tack ‘tampering with a crime scene” on top of the whole thing.”

  “If we’re lucky,” I said. “Of course, when have we ever been lucky?”