blood aroma into his face like a chef over a pot. Peter had almost wet himself when his dad suddenly grabbed him and shoved his face down toward the blood-splattered bear until they were nose to black-and-bloody nose.
“This life, you either get the bear,” the crazy drunken bastard had said in his French Canadian accent, “or the bear gets you. Your choice, yes?”
Exactly, Peter thought.
At least he knew Jeanine lived in New York City, knew that she worked somewhere around here. Hell, knowing that she was still alive was enough. Catching up with her wasn’t an if anymore, it was a when.
His phone rang. He glanced at the screen. His wife, Vicki.
Horns honked as he stared up at the endless windows, his rage cooling now, replaced by his hunter’s natural, cold patience.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to get that bear somehow, Pop,” Peter said as he lifted his phone. “Always have. Always will.”
Book Four. THE PRODIGAL WIFE RETURNS
Chapter 71
I DIDN’T KNOW what time it was when I woke with a start, spilling Justin Harris’s court transcripts.
The plane that I was now on was a tiny fifty-seater. I’d had an hour layover in Atlanta before getting on the disconcertingly small aircraft.
After I put Harris’s folder away, I looked out the tiny window, wondering how close we were. There was nothing but water underneath us now, as silver and bright as tinfoil under the harsh Southern sunlight.
As I was staring at the light, the butterflies in my stomach woke up and got right back to work.
It was Florida light. Key West light.
Was I safe now? Hadn’t I left Peter back in New York? I didn’t know.
I looked up as the cabin speaker tolled out a musical bong, and the stewardess announced that we were about fifteen minutes out. Across the aisle, a decent-looking, fair-skinned man of about fifty smiled at me. He wore Bermuda shorts and a gray NYU gym shirt and had wavy strawberry blond hair.
He was Australian and quite drunk. I knew these things because he’d tried to hit on me by the gate in Atlanta. Under other circumstances, I probably would have let him. I certainly could have used a drink.
“To paradise,” Crocodile Dundee said with a goofy theatrical flourish as he raised his plastic cup to me. I smiled politely before looking away.
More like Paradise Lost for me, I thought, staring back out the window. I made out the line of a large structure beneath us.
I closed my eyes, my stomach suddenly seizing up, my teeth and ears aching with tension. Clammy sweat stuck my shirt to my back as the coffin wall of the fifty-seater plane suddenly felt like it was bearing down on me, burying me alive.
The structure I’d spotted was the Overseas Highway. The same Overseas Highway where the Jump Killer had almost murdered me nearly two decades before. As if that weren’t heart attack–inducing enough, as the plane descended, the white hot Florida light began sparking off fishing boat after fishing boat, each one a carbon copy of the Stingray Peter sailed.
I shouldn’t have come here, I thought, instantly overcome with terror. This was stupid. I was stupid. I’d escaped from hell. Why was I going back?
“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey,” a Southern voice cooed in my ear. It was the stewardess, a short, sturdy blond woman in her early fifties. She held my hand. “I can see it in your face. Don’t worry. Everybody gets airsick sometimes. Even me. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Turn the plane around, I felt like telling her. But was that even safe? Did I have anywhere to hide now?
As she snapped open a vomit bag, I heard the landing gear hum down. I felt its jolt beneath my feet as it locked into place.
Then black stars lit across the inside of my closed eyelids as I threw up. With an embarrassingly loud and drawn-out retching sound, I returned the airline’s complimentary honey-roasted peanuts and Diet Coke. When I glanced across the aisle again, my Aussie buddy was intently studying his in-flight magazine.
Terrific, I thought, wiping my mouth with a napkin.
Way to hit the ground running.
Chapter 72
HAVING SPLASHED SOME WATER on my face, I felt slightly better as I came down the rolling stairs of the tiny jet onto the airport tarmac. The small Key West airport looked the same as it always had: namely, as laid-back and weathered as its baggage handlers. You could actually see the crystal blue water sparkling beyond the runway’s chain-link fence, lulling and beautiful and beckoning.
I tore my eyes off it as I followed the line of smiling, ready-to-party young businesspeople. This wasn’t a vacation for me. It was more like a suicide mission. Get in and get the heck out, I told myself.
“Miss?” said an NBA-sized black guy in aviator shades and a green tennis visor, tapping me on the elbow on the airport’s sidewalk.
Christ, did he recognize me? I thought. “What?” I snapped at him.
“Do you need a taxi to your hotel?” he said warily as he pointed at the car behind him.
We stopped at the Hyatt five minutes later. After I paid and tipped the driver, I hurried into the lobby as if the parking lot were a sniper zone.
The large black female concierge gave me an easy smile when I came in. “Nina Bloom?” she said when I showed her my credit card. “Oh, yes. I just got off the phone with someone about you.”
“Your firm just upgraded your room,” she said. “They must like you. You’ve been transferred to one of our penthouse suites.”
The first time I felt that I’d breathed all day was after I’d tipped the bellboy and had the door securely locked behind me. It really was a beautiful suite. South Beach chic. White leather furniture, black quartz countertops, neon bright modern art. Outside the sliding glass doors, a queen-sized white chaise with my name on it lay on a private, Mexican-tiled roof deck.
There was also a huge gift basket on the countertop. Tropical flowers, Godiva boxes. Even an orange and green magnum of Veuve Clicquot champagne.
“Thanks for doing the right thing, kid. Go get ’em!” my boss had written in the message.
Well, at least I was making someone happy.
I read in one of the hotel magazines about the upcoming Conch Republic (as Key West jokingly called itself) Independence Celebration. There was a bed race down Duval Street and, of course, lots of drinking. Maybe that was a good thing. Hopefully, the whole police department, including Peter, would be more than busy with the greater influx of tourists than normal.
I plopped down on a low, white leather couch and called Emma.
“I made it,” I said. “I’m so tired.”
