“It’s getting harder to deflect attention from you, Danny,” Higham says. “Collins is like a dog with a bone and she’s expressing a real interest in The Brit and The Enigma.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “She wants the ultimate trophies?” I ask, feeling James’s mood dip further.
“She wants recognition.”
“Put her on a fucking leash,” I say, getting up in his face. “You want peace in this city, you need to stand down and let me run it. If you want crime figures down, you need to let me eliminate the fuckers that are shipping in women and drugs and hiring the down-and-outs to do their dirty work.”
“I need them alive, Danny,” Higham hisses. “Otherwise, you make the figures fucking worse.”
“With no bodies, there’s no evidence. The population merely drops. I make sure there are no bodies.”
He inhales, closing his eyes. “Collins has a woman in custody,” he says on an exhale. “She was found at a rest stop on the freeway. Disorientated, dirty, foreign.”
“And?” James asks, moving in closer, risking getting his boots wet.
“She was taken from her home in Serbia. Trafficked. She escaped.” He opens his eyes. “She talked about where she was held, the languages being spoken by the men, what they looked like.”
“Polish?” James asks.
“Yes.”
“And where was she held?”
“It sounds like an airport. A factory or hangar.” Higham looks at me. “I’m just saying, Danny.” He casts his eyes over to James and the others. “If Collins brings in the Polish or the Russians, she plans on making a deal with them.”
“A deal?” Goldie says.
“Yes, a deal. Their—”
“Freedom in exchange for us,” James finishes. “She wants them to lead her to us.”
“She knows where to find us,” I say. “Every fucking copper in Florida state knows where to find us.”
“But they don’t have the evidence they need to put us in cuffs.” James laughs under his breath.
“She thinks they can help her get that evidence.” Higham looks embarrassed. He should.
“Who is this fucking woman? She swans into Miami, reads a few files, and thinks she has the answer to eternal peace in the city?” I’m fucking fuming. “Does she fucking know who she’s dealing w—” I cast my eyes across the bay, my mind going into overdrive. “A hangar.”
“What?” Brad asks, dipping his toes in the water to join me.
“Higham, you said the woman in custody mentioned she was held in a hangar.”
“Yes.”
I inhale, facing the others. Fuck! “Otto, I want every detail you can find on the purchase of Winstable Boatyard three years ago.”
Without a word, he goes back to the cabin, and I follow, our recent brawl forgotten. “Leon!” I yell, and a second later he appears from one of the containers. “Get the skis ready.”
“Sure thing, D-Boss.”
I look at him, nodding, holding up one finger, and he acknowledges me, running off toward the container that houses a few loaded jet skis.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Brad asks as James overtakes me, pulling his T-shirt up over his head, revealing his mammoth scar. The sight still makes me flinch.
“I know where the Polish are holding the women.” Fuck, how did I miss this?
“Where?”
I can hardly say it without wanting to throw up. “The boatyard Pops built.”
“No.” Brad wants to laugh but worry is stopping him. “That was sold to be developed as an educational facility for disadvantaged kids.”
It’s been over three years since I stepped aside to let that happen. Of course, I wasn’t willing to at first. Was prepared to break a few legs to keep the land. Then the disadvantaged kids’ card was brandished. It’s as if whoever needed Winstable knew I’d soften to that. Fuckers! “Do you see an educational facility over there?”
Brad looks across the water, not that Winstable is visible. Just a dot in the distance. “Jesus.”
“Yeah.” I take the steps fast as I pull my wetsuit up and when I enter the changing room, James is ready to get back on the water. “I want you two and Otto to take the road,” I say to Goldie and Ringo. “We’ll go in from the water. Distract them. Get them all out front.”
“And do what?” Ringo says. “Ask for directions? For fuck’s sake, Danny. Think about this. They’ll know our faces.”
“I can help.”
We all whirl around and find Higham in the doorway. His face is serious. His stance unmoving. “A routine stop by. A few questions about a local robbery. Ain’t nothing as distracting as the Feds at your door.”
We all look at each other, none of us willing to admit it’s the solution we need.
“You don’t kill anyone,” Higham goes on. “Not on my watch. But you scope the place, find out what you need to find out, and go back at nightfall when I am not there.”
“Deal,” I say, and James looks at me incredulously.
“You want to discuss that with me?”
“Nope. The others can use the boat.” I leave the changing room, on a mission, trying not to think about Rose. Trying not to remember where she came from. Who she was before I took her.
A slave.
I suppress a growl, marching on and wading into the water, climbing on my ski. Brad is beside me, getting on his. “You need to take a few breaths, Danny.” He frowns when Leon tugs around a loaded ski and ties it to the back of the boat as Ringo, Otto, and Goldie get onboard. “Higham said—”
“You want to go in unarmed?” I ask, feeling the top of my head for my shades. No shades. And then Leon appears, holding them out to me. I accept and slip them on.
“Fuck me,” Brad breathes, looking across to James. Then we all look back to Higham driving off.
“Let’s go,” I say, chugging out. “We go in from the left, close to the cove. There’s a concealed, dilapidated jetty a quarter mile from the shore,” I go on, more for James’s benefit, since he isn’t familiar with our old base. “We’ll go on foot from there.”
I get no acknowledgment, everyone silent and taking a moment, before I put pressure on the throttle and stand from my seat, picking up speed, but not so much that Ringo can’t keep up.
We stick close to the outskirts of the bay, and as soon as I have Winstable in my sights, I don’t take my eyes off it, doing everything I can not to let my anger rule me. The place my father built when I was fifteen, my childhood haven, now being used to hold abducted women? Lord, have mercy on my soul, I will butcher them all, and when I find out who bought it? Who fooled me into standing down? My teeth clench.
Calm.
I shut off the engine when I’m a few feet offshore and let the current carry me onto the pebbles next to the jetty. “Fucking hell,” Ringo mutters, eyeing the disintegrating wood. “If the current picks up and pulls the boat, this thing is collapsing and going under.” He gingerly steps onto the wood and leaves some extra rope before winding it around a stray post, the sturdiest he can find, which still isn’t too sturdy.