They paralleled the beach, the sun approaching the watery horizon. Soft orange light washed over the bars and carts lining the street.
Behind them, Cassidy heard the rev of an engine. At the same instant, she saw Bruce’s expression in the side mirror change. She turned to see what was behind them. A small tan car with tinted windows was right on their heels. She expected Bruce to pull over to let them pass if they were in such a hurry, but he accelerated. Cassidy felt a slick of fear slide down into her belly.
The car behind them came closer.
“We’ve got company,” Bruce shouted over the engine noise.
“What?” Cassidy replied.
“They’ve been following us for a while.”
Cassidy felt a jolt of panic as the tan car began to overtake them. The car’s front right corner was inches from her left leg. She realized that the car was going to force them off the road.
“Hang on!” Bruce yelled. He slowed suddenly and turned right, into an alley lined with dumpsters and boxes, garbage bags cinched tight. Cassidy yelped as the back tire skidded, but Bruce regained control, and they sped straight, faster than Cassidy knew was safe. She turned to see the tan car speeding towards them, barely fitting through the narrow space.
“Who are they?” she yelled.
Bruce shot out of the alley and turned left onto the busy street lining the beach. Brakes squealed and horns honked as they cut across traffic. All around them people were walking, sitting in bars, riding in taxis. Music played from the restaurants and mixed with the sound of outboard motors whining in the bay. Cassidy heard screeching tires and crunching metal and turned back to see a motorcycle on its side and a car stopped on the sidewalk. Honking and yells erupted from passersby, who were tending to the motorcyclist. Cassidy watched the tan car steer around it and race after them again.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Cassidy cried.
“Those guys might be the police,” Bruce yelled back.
Bruce took a sudden left into another alley, then a right onto a side street. Adrenaline poured into her bloodstream; she gripped Bruce’s middle tighter. He turned onto a narrow walkway meant for pedestrians headed for the beach. People jumped out of the way and yelled at them. Cassidy looked back, but saw no sign of the car. Could the police really be chasing them? The path emptied onto a crosswalk that crossed to the strand. Bruce drove across it and onto the sand, weaving in and out of the people, around the restaurants. People jumped out of the way, their eyes wide with fear; a group of guys shouted curses.
Bruce cleared a large restaurant and pulled up along the side. The low sun cast a warm, soft glow over the sand, turning it golden and sparkly. “Can you get to the boat?” he asked.
“Like, swim?” she asked.
“Maybe you can catch a ride on that,” he said, nodding at a large catamaran rocking gently in the shallows. A sandwich board placed in the sand advertised whale watching tours, and a line of people were waiting to climb aboard.
“Okay,” she said, dismounting.
“Give me his phone,” he said.
“Why?” She slipped Reeve’s phone from her pocket.
“Because that’s how they found you,” he said, and slid the battery out of the device. “Want me to take yours too?”
Cassidy shook her head. “My case is waterproof.” She looked behind them but there was no sign of the tan car. “What are you going to do?” she asked, dismounting from the moped.
“Follow them.” He must have seen the look in her eyes because he added, “I’ll be fine. I’ll meet you out there later.”
Cassidy felt her fear deepen. “Okay,” she said, forcing the waver out of her voice.
Above her, on the street, she heard the swish of a fast car. She flattened herself against the side of the building. Bruce’s jaw clenched. “That’s my cue,” he said, and sped off after the car.
Cassidy stood in the shadow of the restaurant, trying to control her breathing. She was shaking, with goose bumps pricking her arms and the back of her neck. Who had been following them? Had the phone call to Reeve’s phone set it off? And what did they want?
Cassidy hurried to the water’s edge, lining up with the other tourists. Would they get her close enough to the Trinity? Could she jump off without being noticed? She stepped aboard, realizing that she would have to swim in her clothes.
The catamaran pushed off from the shore and the sails filled. The others on board oohed at the sensation of gliding across the water.
Cassidy found a place on the back pontoon and sat, watching the lights of the shore, her thoughts swirling.
If Reeve was dead, why was she being chased?
Music from the catamaran’s speakers drifted across the decks, and she heard the crack of beer tops opening and conversations swirling. A man was making an announcement about the tour and the kinds of whales they might see.
Cassidy’s thoughts returned to the phone call. Una hora, the woman had said. But where? Cassidy checked her watch and calculated that she had another twenty minutes until whoever had called would be expecting Reeve to meet them.
Cassidy thought about this. Reeve had paid Tikvah International two thousand dollars, for drugs or something else illegal. And then he picked it up in San Juan. Then something went wrong. Had Reeve double-crossed his source? If so, why call him back at all? They would know that he was a crook. They would know that he was missing because they would have been involved.
Or were they?
Several facts came together at once, so fast that she felt off balance, and before she knew it, she was sliding into the ocean and swimming back to shore.
As a kid, she had swum in the ocean many times. She had completed the junior lifeguards program at age thirteen. It was the only
