Chapter 38
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Miami, Florida
Flint toweled off and dressed rapidly in dry clothes from the go bag. Denim shirt, black jeans. He didn’t have a spare pair of boots in the bag, so he slipped both feet into his wet boots.
As he collected his few belongings, he raced through the options. The hotel had limited exits. If they were being watched from multiple angles, escape would be difficult.
“Status on Lizzy?” Flint asked.
“Still in her room. But we need to move. Now.”
Flint checked his weapon and grabbed the satellite phone. “Back exit?”
Drake replied, “Service elevator to the loading dock. I’ve got eyes on it through the security feeds.”
“Route?”
“Clear for now. But that won’t last.”
Flint opened the connecting bedroom door. Lizzy sat on her bed, still wearing the oversized clothes from the hotel gift shop. She looked up when he entered.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “Right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Company. Get your shoes.”
She didn’t ask questions. Within thirty seconds, they were moving down the hallway toward the service elevator. Drake led, checking corners and sight lines. Flint stayed close to Lizzy, ready to shield her if necessary.
The service elevator was ancient and slow. As it descended, Drake monitored his phone for updates from the security feeds.
“Still clear at the loading dock,” he reported. “But they’re moving through the lobby now.”
“How long do we have?”
“Maybe five minutes before they reach our floor.”
The elevator finally opened onto a dimly lit loading area. Industrial concrete floors, overhead fluorescent lighting, the smell of garbage and cleaning supplies. A black SUV waited near the loading dock with its engine running.
“Gaspar’s guy left it here for us,” Drake said in response to Flint’s inquiring glance.
They moved quickly across the loading area to the SUV. Flint helped Lizzy into the back while Drake took the driver’s seat. He slipped behind the steering wheel, slid the transmission into drive and pulled away immediately after Flint settled into the passenger seat.
“Where to?” Drake asked.
“The Kendrick Hotel. Downtown,” Flint replied. “You know it?”
“Yeah. Been there before.”
As they drove through the pre-dawn Miami streets, Flint turned to face Lizzy. The urgency of their escape had stripped away any pretense of safety.
“Who is after us?” Lizzy asked from the back seat. She sounded terrified, but Flint guessed that could change depending on the answer to her question.
“Frankie’s people, most likely. He saw us take you from Cuba,” Drake said, checking the mirrors.
“We don’t have time for careful conversation anymore, Lizzy,” Flint said quietly. “Those people back there were here because of you. So we’re going to talk, and you’re going to tell me everything. Starting now.”
Twenty minutes later, they were settled into two adjoining rooms at the Kendrick. Drake had swept both rooms and confirmed they were clear of listening devices.
Flint dropped into the chair beside the window and clicked on the television. The screen flickered to life on a cable news station.
He ran through a few channels. Local affiliates. International feeds. All carried the same story.
“Breaking news from Cuba last night,” one anchor said with artificial gravity. “Massive power outages across Havana...”
Images flickered across the screen showing Havana in chaos. The blackout had affected the entire island.
Fires burned near the harbor. Orange flames licked at the colonial buildings like a lizard. Roads were closed by debris and abandoned cars.
Military vehicles moved along slowly in the streets. Armed men patrolled near the docks in the harbor.
Rumors flowed like water, which the news anchor read from the prompter while grainy cell phone footage of boats moving in the darkness displayed on the screen.
No mention of Lizzy Pace or Frankie Tantanella. No sign of who had lived or died in the chaos left behind.
Flint watched until the images blurred together, and the same footage looped endlessly with different commentary. Same fires burning in the same streets. Same boats disappearing into the same dark water.
“Nothing new,” he said to the room, and muted the sound because Drake had flopped out on the second bed and was already snoring.
Flint left the Havana story running in silence. Blue light from the screen painted shadows that moved and shifted like ghosts on the walls.
Flint’s thoughts wandered to the woman who had died on that sidewalk in Ravenswood all those years ago. The woman whose death had given Lizzy Pace the chance to disappear.
No name in the papers. No headlines. No obituary that anyone would remember. Just a broken body on wet pavement, another casualty of desperation and bad luck.
Maybe she’d had family somewhere. Someone must have wondered where she went. Maybe they still did, all these years later. They might be checking missing person websites and hoping for news that would never come.
The thought hit Flint harder than he expected.
He had spent years, off and on, wondering about his own biological mother. Not knowing where she’d gone or why she’d left him. Just emptiness and unanswered questions that grew faint with time.
Now he knew that Marilyn Baker was his mother, and she’d been murdered. Which was why she never came back to the orphanage for him.
This unknown woman was erased from the world so completely that even her death had been stolen. Absorbed into Lizzy Pace’s escape plan like the woman had never existed at all.
A soft knock at the connecting door between the rooms interrupted his thoughts. His watch showed 5:17 a.m.
He rose slowly and opened the door. Lizzy stood there in the hotel robe, her damp hair pulled back.
“Can’t sleep?”
“I keep thinking about what happens next.” Her voice was steady, but her hands trembled slightly. “About what you want from me.”
“Smart.” Flint stepped aside, but his posture remained guarded. “Come in.”
She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest like she was trying to hold herself together through sheer force of will. The overhead light made her skin look pale and translucent.
Flint settled into the chair and studied her expression with an experienced investigator’s focused attention.
“Won’t we wake up Drake?” Lizzy asked, glancing toward the snoring man.
“Yeah. Let’s go into your room and talk about Devon Cole,” Flint said following her through the connecting door. “I need to know about his current operations. Personnel, finances, security protocols, anything that might help us.”
Lizzy sat on one of the beds and allowed Flint to take the chair after he’d closed the door. “I don’t know those things. Frankie kept me away from—”
“Stop,” Flint sliced through her protest. “You lived with Frankie for more than twenty years. You’re his wife, which means that you can’t be forced to testify against him. So don’t tell me you don’t know how he makes the money you live on.”
She flinched but held his gaze. “I’d be dead now if Cole knew I survived the fire at the Fisher house.”
“I understand you were trying to protect yourself,” Flint said. “But Cole’s going to know you’re alive now. The question is whether we can use what you know to stop him before he comes after you.”
She flinched and her composure cracked slightly but didn’t break.
“You want me to betray Frankie. My husband. The man who saved my life and gave me the freedom to live,” Lizzy said flatly.
“I need to understand Devon Cole. You seem to think he would have been okay burning a teenager and three young children alive in their beds.” Flint’s tone was firm but not cruel.
“The man who’s spent the past twenty years building wealth and power while those children grew up orphans thinking they had no family and no one who cared for them at all. ”
She stared at the muted television screen where the burning Havana videos played on an endless loop. As if she’d been muted, too, she said nothing.
“Tell me about the accident in Ravenswood,” Flint asked, changing the subject slightly simply to get her talking. “And the woman who died in the bus accident.”