“Doesn’t look like it,” Dave said, “but she has to be here somewhere. He’s got to be hiding her somewhere nearby.”
“Close, but not too close,” Bullard said, looking around. “There’s got to be another set of boats, another dock area, or he’s just under the trees a little bit.” They kept moving, sliding down the coast a little bit farther, before turning around and coming up even closer along the edge.
One boat floated against a dock. It was at the end of the dock, which was pretty rough and tumble. He looked at it, then at Dave. “I want to check that one out.”
“That works,” Dave said. “We should go pick up Fallon and Garret first,” but, even as he looked back, he saw the men coming down the shoreline. When they saw the boat in question, they immediately headed for it at a faster pace but casually, so they didn’t attract attention.
Bullard watched carefully from a distance, knowing his crew would do everything they could to keep him from getting into the action too fast, but he desperately wanted to find Leia, and, if that meant getting out there and searching these boats himself, he would do it in a heartbeat. When they came out and shook their heads, Ryland brought their boat closer and picked them up.
“No sign of her,” Garret said. “That one boat had a kitchen down below, but nothing like a bed and no sign of a woman having been there.”
“Crap. Did anybody on shore have anything to say?”
“No, except that one of the fishermen died this morning.”
“What happened to his boat?”
“Turns out his boat is missing,” he said in that dry tone.
“Any idea what it looked like?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, exactly like the one we’re chasing.”
“Has anybody seen it this morning?” Bullard asked.
Fallon shook his head.
“Shit, so he came from here, and we don’t know where he’s gone.”
“Exactly.”
Bullard felt his heart sinking as he realized that she could be anywhere up and down this coast right now. Just then Fallon heard a cry. He turned, jumped off the boat and walked back up the dock, seeing an old woman sitting there. They waited on the shore as close as they could, while he assisted the old woman back down to their boat.
“She’ll need some money,” Fallon said. Dave didn’t even hesitate, as he pulled out money and handed it to the old woman. “Now, it’ll take a bit to translate.” Fallon worked on it patiently, then finally turned to them and said, “The man who died—his boat was here, and she said he was killed for the boat.”
“So, he didn’t die of old age then?” Bullard said.
She shook her head, when she understood the question.
“Did she see who did it?”
Fallon worked on getting answers, and the woman shook her head. Finally Fallon said, “She said it was a white man.”
“Sure it was, but she had no idea who though, right?”
“Correct.”
“Interesting,” he said. “We’ll have to do something here to see if we can get a little better answer.”
“Good luck,” Fallon said. “I don’t think she knows that much.”
But, as they kept digging, she revealed hearing a noise and the sounds of a fight. Then the man was skulking down to take the boat, but she’d never seen him before. The man who died had been poor, but he’d also had done a lot of deals that he shouldn’t have. He was known as somebody who would do anything for money. He was also a drunk. At that, she turned and headed back where she came from.
Bullard immediately said to Fallon, “Go ask her if she’s got any idea where this guy was going.”
Fallon stopped her at the hill and asked, and she pointed up the way they had come. Then she laughed and said something that immediately got Fallon’s attention, and he questioned her a little more. When he got back to the boat, Fallon had a new lead. “She said there was a second man.”
“A second man, but she doesn’t know anything about him or what?”
“According to her, it was the dead guy’s brother,” he said.
“So we’ve got two men to deal with now?” Bullard asked.
“Only one at the boat,” Fallon clarified. “The other one left on his own.”
“So, where’s this brother now?”
“He lives just around here,” he said.
“Time to go visit,” Bullard said, and, with that, they pulled up to the dock. Bullard got out and stretched his legs. He liked being out in the water as much as the next guy, but getting back on land for a bit would help get his legs to calm down somewhat. Following Fallon, who led the way using the directions he’d been given, they headed up to the house.
As they got closer, they crossed paths with an old man who glared at them. Fallon immediately told him who they were looking for. He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to talk to them. But then Dave once again held out money. He frowned, then looked at it, looked from one man to the other. “What do you want with him?”
“We think he kidnapped a woman,” Bullard said bluntly.
The man looked at him and nodded. “He did. He was getting money for her.”
“Why?”
“Because he could,” the old man said, with a cackle.
“Do you know why somebody wanted this woman?”
“He was being paid to bring her.”
“Okay, do you know where the handoff will be?”
The old man shrugged and said, “Back up there a couple miles offshore.”
The language barrier was a little bit disruptive to sort out, but Fallon eventually understood that they had a meeting place somewhere in the ocean.
“Do you know how much he was getting paid?” Bullard asked.
“I don’t know. It was a third party,” he said.
“Of course it was,” Bullard said. “Any idea how to find him?”
“No,” he said, “and, if you want that woman, you’ll have to get her fast, before she goes into the system.”
“Are you talking the sex trade?”
“Why else would anybody want a woman?” he asked in surprise.
Bullard realized that’s what most people would think, and that’s probably what the doctor was hoping for. With that, Bullard nodded, and they headed back to the boat. Fallon stopped for a moment and talked with the old man a bit more, but he quickly caught up.
“I told him I’d pay him if he found out anything else.”
“Good,” Bullard said. “We really need somebody on our side. Or, if not on our side, at least on our payroll. So far, it seems like everybody out here is just looking after themselves.”
“It’s the way of the world,” Dave said. “We’ve seen it time and time again.”
“I don’t like it,” Bullard snapped.
“You never did,” Dave said. “You’ve spent a lifetime helping others, and it really gets your goat when anybody pulls shit like this.”
“But why her?” he said, shaking his head.
“Bad luck is what I’d say,” Fallon said.
“Leia was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Dave suggested, “and somebody with more power and more money managed to screw her life over pretty good. She didn’t know how to fight him, so she did the only thing she could think of to survive, and that was to step out of the fight.”