Sacred

“National Geographic.”

“Oh. You’re sure it’s harmless?”

“Ange,” I said.

She shuddered. “So I’m not a nature girl. Sue me.”

The egret jumped off the rail and landed by my elbow, its thin head up by my shoulder.

“Christ,” Angie said.

I picked up a crab leg and flung it out over the rail and the egret’s wing hit my ear as it took off over the rail and dove for the water.

“Great,” Angie said. “Now you’ve encouraged it.”

I picked up my plate and cup. “Come on.”

We went inside and studied the map as the egret returned and stared at us through the glass. Once we had a pretty good idea where we were going, we folded up the map, and finished our food.

“You think she’s alive?” Angie said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“And Jay,” she said. “You think he came here after her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me either. We don’t know much, do we?”

I watched as the egret craned its long neck to get a better look at me through the glass.

“No,” I said. “But we’re quick studies.”

17

No one we talked to at the Courtyard Marriott recognized Jeff Price or Desiree from the photos we showed them. They were pretty sure about it, too, if only because the Weeble and Mr. Cushing had shown them the same photographs half an hour before we arrived. The Weeble, smarmy little bastard that he was, had even left a note for us with the Marriott concierge requesting our presence in the Harbor Hotel bar at eight.

We tried a few more hotels in the same area, got nothing but blank stares, and returned to Harbor Island.

“This isn’t our town,” Angie said as we rode the elevator down from our rooms to the bar.

“Nope.”

“And it drives me crazy. It’s useless our even being here. We don’t know who to talk to, we don’t have any contacts, we don’t have any friends. All we can do is walk around like idiots showing everyone these stupid photographs. I mean, duh.”

“Duh?” I said.

“Duh,” she repeated.

“Oh,” I said, “duh. I get it. For a minute there I thought you were just saying duh.”

“Shut up, Patrick.” She walked off the elevator and I followed her into the bar.

She was right. We were useless here. The lead was useless. To fly fourteen hundred miles simply because Jeff Price’s credit card had been used at a hotel over two weeks ago was moronic.

But the Weeble didn’t agree. We found him in the bar, sitting at a window overlooking the bay, an abnormally blue concoction filling the daiquiri glass in front of him. The pink plastic stirrer in his glass was carved at the top into the shape of a flamingo. The table itself was nestled in between two plastic palm trees. The waitresses wore white shirts tied off just below their breasts and black Lycra biking shorts so tight they left no doubt as to the existence (or lack thereof) of a panty line.

Ah, paradise. All that was missing was Julio Iglesias. And I had a feeling he was on his way.

“It’s not fruitless,” the Weeble said.

“You talking about your drink or this trip?” Angie said.

“Both.” He worked his nose around the flamingo and sipped the drink, wiped at the blue mustache left behind with his napkin. “Tomorrow, we’ll split up and canvass all the hotels and motels in Tampa.”

“And once we run out?”

He reached for the bowl of macadamia nuts in front of him. “We try all the ones in St. Petersburg.”

And so it was.

For three days, we canvassed Tampa, then St. Petersburg. And we discovered that parts of both weren’t as clichéd as Harbor Island had led us to believe or as ugly as our drive down Dale Mabry. The Hyde Park section of Tampa and the Old Northeast section of St. Pete were actually quite attractive, with cobblestone streets and old southern houses with wraparound porches and gnarled, ancient banyan trees providing canopies of shade. The beaches in St. Pete, too, if you could ignore all the crotchety blue-hairs and sweaty redneck bikers, were gorgeous.

So we found something to like.

But we didn’t find Jeff Price or Desiree or Jay Becker.

And the cost of our paranoia, if that’s what it was, was becoming tiring, too. Each night we parked the Celica in a different spot, and each morning we checked it for tracking devices and found none. We never bothered looking for bugs because the car was a convertible and whatever conversations we had in it would be drowned out by the wind, the radio, or a combination of the two.

Still, it felt odd to be so aware of the watchful eyes and ears of others, almost as if we might be trapped in a movie everyone was watching except us.

The third day, Angie went down by the hotel pool to reread everything in our case file and I took the phone out onto the balcony, checked it for bugs, and called Richie Colgan at the city desk of the Boston Tribune.

He answered the phone, heard my voice, and put me on hold. Some pal, I swear.

Six stories below, Angie stood by her chaise lounge and stripped off her gray shorts and white T-shirt to reveal the black bikini underneath.

I tried not to watch. I really did. But I’m weak. And a guy.

“What’re you doing?” Richie said.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Watching my partner squirt sunblock on her legs.”

“Bullshit.”

“I wish,” I said.

“She know you’re watching?”

“You kidding?”

At that moment, Angie turned her head and looked up at the balcony.

“I’ve just been busted,” I said.

“You’re dead.”

Even from this distance, though, I could see her smile. Her face stayed tilted toward mine for a moment, then she shook her head gently and turned back to the business at hand and rubbed the oil into her calves.

“Christ,” I said, “it is way too hot in this state.”

“Where are you?”

I told him.

“Well, I got some news,” he said.

“Pray tell.”

“Grief Release, Incorporated, filed suit against the Trib.”

I leaned back in my chair. “You published a story already?”

“No,” he said. “That’s the point. My inquiries, such as they’ve been, have been extremely discreet. There’s no way they could’ve known I was onto them.”