Bitter End Page 7

  Instead, Screech turned in the opposite direction, which almost immediately led him to a dead end.

  Coming to an abrupt halt, he placed two hands on the railing and stared at the dark water below. And then, with a deep breath and shouts at his back, Screech hoisted himself overboard.

  PART II – Blindfolds and Acid Reflux

  Present

  Chapter 19

  The last thing Beckett remembered was taking a sip of the bitter coconut drink. He knew that he hadn’t been alone, that Chloe and her friend were with them at the time, but that was about it. Only they weren’t with him now; the two corpses on the bed were different girls entirely. Who they were, and where they’d come from, was a different story entirely.

  A narrative that he wasn’t privy to.

  He shook his head.

  “Look, I have no idea…” Beckett let his sentence trail off. Something wasn’t right here.

  Aside from the two dead girls, of course.

  The militia had stormed into his villa with barely a knock, their weapons drawn. They’d known that the corpses were here before they’d entered.

  “Looks like you just couldn’t stay out of trouble, could you, my good doctor?” the man with the beard, the only one without a uniform, said with a grin.

  And the combination of that smirk and the use of the term ‘good doctor’ made something inside his head click.

  Of course, Beckett thought with a scowl. Bits and pieces of his conversation with this man, whose name slipped his mind, came flooding back.

  Enjoy the coke and the girls, I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me later.

  It was all a setup; Beckett was supposed to help this man with something that he couldn’t recall, and when he’d refused, the man had set him up.

  More leverage to get Beckett to do his bidding. Which was…?

  “I’m unarmed,” Beckett said, raising his hands to underscore his point. It was a redundant statement; after all, he was only wearing a pair of sweaty boxers, but he needed more time to collect his faculties.

  “Don’t move,” the man in front ordered.

  Beckett obliged. But while he stood completely still, his eyes drifted about the room, desperately seeking a way out. The door was completely blocked by the armed men, but the window behind him was partly open.

  If I can only—

  But any hopes of making a mad dash for the window were foiled when one of the men stepped forward and ordered him to put his hands down, a pair of gleaming handcuffs at the ready.

  Beckett clucked his tongue and did as he was bid, cringing at the foul, bitter sensation on the back of his tongue.

  What the hell was in that drink? He wondered. Why is it so bitter? Why—

  Beckett groaned as more memories of the night prior started to become clear.

  My girls… they keep getting sick, the man with the beard had told him.

  You mean the girls that you’re using as drug mules keep overdosing?

  The bitter drink, the two corpses with the paste in the corners of his lips, the need for Beckett’s services… it all made sense now.

  But this realization had no bearing on the current situation.

  “I can help you. I can help—” godammit what the hell is his name?

  A pair of hands grabbed his hands and started to push them painfully up the small of his back.

  “I can keep your girls from getting sick.”

  He started to remember his conversation with the bartender, about how this man was no Donnie Brasco, that he was—

  Donnie! His name is Donnie!

  “Donnie, I can help you,” Beckett said as he felt cold metal brush against his wrists.

  “Hold on a second,” Donnie said.

  The man with the cuffs relaxed momentarily, and Beckett didn’t hesitate.

  He bolted.

  Someone shouted something in Spanish, and Beckett somehow made it to the window before the first shot was fired.

  The bullet whizzed by his ear, coming within inches of his flesh, just as Beckett propelled his thin body out the window with a dexterity he never knew he possessed. The next two bullets splintered the window frame behind him.

  “Don’t kill him, you fucking idiots — don’t kill him!” Donnie’s words followed him into the sun.

  Gee, lucky me. I get to live another day. But you, Donnie, I doubt you’re going to be so lucky when I’m done with you, Beckett thought as he sprinted as fast as his weary legs could carry him.

  Chapter 20

  Screech hid in the water next to the yacht for so long, repeatedly ducking beneath the surface whenever he heard someone above or saw the flicker of flashlights, that he’d become a human prune. Only after the sun started to peek above the horizon and the commotion on the boat above died down did he risk swimming away from the yacht. Several minutes after that, he summoned the courage to make a break toward shore.

  Lack of sleep had made his memories untrustworthy, but when he’d poked his head up several times during the night, he’d overheard a conversation between the militia and some of Donnie’s men. It sounded as if several of the girls had managed to get away and they were in the process of trying to figure out what to do with the rest of them.

  When Screech eventually made it back to dry land, water-logged and exhausted, he also found himself frozen with indecision. Donnie had the local police on his side, and there was no question that the two goons who he’d gotten in an altercation with would recognize him; after all, he and Beckett had been the only two male guests on the yacht the night prior.

  Beckett… I need to find Beckett.

  Assuming, of course, that the man had made it off the yacht in the first place. Screech had high hopes; the man had proven himself resourceful many times before.

  If his time with ex-NYPD Detective Damien Drake had taught him anything, it was that there were two types of people in this world: victims and survivors. While Beckett most definitely fit into the latter category, Screech was still trying to figure out which group he belonged to.

  And, as the old poker saying went, if you’re sitting at the poker table for an hour and still don’t know who the fish is? Guess what, genius, it’s you.

  Yeah, well, victim or not, I’m not ready to give up. Not just yet, anyway.

  Screech kept his head low as he hurried up the small embankment toward the villas. Sticking to the shade offered by palm trees and rock outcroppings, he somehow managed to keep from being noticed. Being immersed in water for a good portion of the night had brought about a tremendous chill, and he desperately wanted to dry himself off and fetch some new clothes, but he didn’t dare head back to the reception area. It was too risky and likely crawling with militia.

  He knew that there was a good chance that Beckett’s villa would also be overrun by corrupt cops, but he had to make sure that the man was okay before he found a way off the damn island.

  But Screech never made it to the villa.

  He was partway there when he spotted someone sprinting toward him, a shadow in the sun, the man’s legs pinwheeling like a cartoon character’s.

  The man was running so quickly that Screech had to dive behind an outhouse to avoid being bowled over as much as being seen.

  When the man passed by him, Screech realized that he recognized him.

  His face was red, bordering on purple, and his hair was slick and flat against his skull, but there was no denying who it was.

  His tattooed chest and arms gave him away: it was Beckett.

  Screech stepped away from the outhouse and was about to holler after Beckett when he heard a commotion behind the man and slunk back into the shadows.

  Two men in uniform were sprinting after Beckett, their own deeply tanned faces red with exertion.

  Screech huffed. He wanted to help his friend but just couldn’t see how. They were on an island, after all.

  An island run by Donnie DiMarco, no less; there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  Screech swallow
ed hard. He’d seen Beckett backed into a corner before, or, more precisely, sandwiched between two houses.

  And that had ended badly for the man who’d confronted Beckett.

  Remembering that he had his cell phone on him, he reached into his pocket and pulled it out. But a night underwater had rendered it inoperable.

  “Shit,” he swore under his breath. He lifted his eyes and watched as Beckett sprinted toward the yacht of all places, the militia hurrying after him. And then, behind all of them was Donnie DiMarco, clad now not in a white, satin robe, but in plaid shorts and a low-cut V-neck T-shirt.

  And he was still smirking. The prick was still—

  Screech yelped as a hand came down on his shoulder, causing him to drop his cell phone.

  Chapter 21

  Beckett wasn’t sure how he managed to get away, let alone where he was headed. He just kept his head down and kept on running.

  His feet glided over a rock pathway, then neatly shorn grass. Gravity propelled him down the gradual slope toward the dock. It made little sense to head back to the yacht, the likely spot where the girls in his bed had met their demise, but his legs just kept on churning.

  Beckett couldn’t stop, even if he’d wanted to.

  Shouts followed him, but they were muted by the blood that rushed in his ears. His first thought was that he could just keep on going until he reached the end of the dock and then dive right in. From there, he would swim until his arms and legs and lungs gave out, hoping by some sheer stroke of luck that someone who wasn’t bought and paid by Donnie picked him up.

  Beckett shook his head.

  That was ridiculous.

  His best chance was to hide and hope that Screech came up with something… wherever he was.

  The last time he had seen Screech, they’d been busy inspecting the boat, trying to avoid the temptations of a dozen half-naked women. Perhaps he was lying in bed somewhere, covered in a sheen of sweat accompanied by now fully naked women.

  Beckett only hoped that in Screech’s case, these girls weren’t dead.

  Thoughts of the dead girls drove Beckett’s legs even faster.

  He could overlook Donnie’s drug-smuggling ways, and maybe even the fact that he had somehow gotten insight into what had really happened with Craig Sloan.

  But what Donnie had done to those girls, and the fact that he’d used their bodies to frame him, that was inexcusable.

  He had to pay.

  Which meant that Beckett wasn’t going to leave the island after all. Not until he’d dealt with Donnie, that is.

  Instead of continuing toward the dock, Beckett made a sharp left and found himself within range of the bar that he’d frequented the day prior with Screech… before all of the craziness had happened.

  Beckett slid around the backside of the bar and then ducked beneath it. Heart still pounding, his lungs struggling to draw a full breath, he relished the bit of shade offered by the chest-high wooden structure. It felt sturdy enough to lean up against, but wouldn’t stop a bullet.

  He heard a shout, followed by his name being yelled on the wind — Donnie DiMarco calling for the good doctor again — but paid it no heed.

  He did, however, scold himself for being so stupid. Kevin the bartender had warned him several times to stay away, that Donnie was no good, but he’d ignored the warnings. Beckett was confident in his ability to take care of himself, but never had he thought his meddling would result in the deaths of two drug mules.

  How ignorant he was.

  Another shout reached him, and Beckett pressed his back even harder up against the bar. In the process, his shoulder knocked a bottle off the shelf. Eyes wide, he juggled it in both hands, knowing that if it smashed to the ground the militia would find him in seconds — if they didn’t know where he was already.

  With a grunt, he managed to finally grab the bottle. To his surprise, however, it wasn’t a bottle of alcohol or even some syrupy mixture; it contained a powder and the label looked pharmaceutical.

  Confused, Beckett brought it up to his face and read the label.

  Rabeprazole.

  Beckett turned around to look at the shelf behind him. There wasn’t just one bottle of Rabeprazole within arm’s reach, but at least a dozen. This was no over-the-counter treatment for acid reflux; Rabeprazole was a powerful proton-pump inhibitor for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease. In the concentrated, powdered form, it would have to be mixed in a—

  An image of a coconut flashed in Beckett’s mind, one so vivid that he considered that he might still be high.

  Kevin was making the girls on the yacht drink the coconut slurries with Rabeprazole mixed to neutralize their stomach acid.

  Which was why he kept saying that the drinks weren’t for Beckett or Screech, and why they tasted so goddamn bitter.

  Beckett pictured the girls in his bed with foam on their lips and their wide, blank stares.

  High doses of Rabeprazole might be able to cause acute liver failure, along with cardiac problems, but Beckett didn’t think that overdoses could be fatal, at least not on their own.

  But in conjunction with alcohol and cocaine and god knows what else?

  It was possible.

  More than likely though, it simply didn’t work; the shitty baggies that they were using burst inside the mules despite attempts to neutralize their stomach acid. And that explained why Donnie was so intent on getting Beckett involved. A chemist might have been a more appropriate candidate for such a task, but it was hard to find one that you had incriminating photos of.

  Beckett slipped the bottle back on the shelf and realized that even though he had spent a good minute or two reading and thinking about the proton-pump inhibitor, he no longer heard either Donnie’s voice or the militia’s shouts.

  His hiding spot wasn’t that good; there were only so many places on the private island that one could take cover before being found.

  With a deep breath, Beckett raised his head just high enough to peek over the bar before ducking back down again.

  “What the hell?” he whispered.

  Chapter 22

  It was all Screech could do not to scream.

  He tried to pull away from the strong grip on his shoulder, but it was next to impossible. He lifted his head and stared up at a bald man with muscles that bulged from beneath a skin-tight t-shirt. His heavily lined face was etched with a frown.

  Screech’s heart finally decided now was the time to pump, causing his appendages to tingle with the fresh flow of blood. It wasn’t Donnie DiMarco or even one of the militia; it was Bob Bumacher, the man who had hired him to find his yacht.

  Screech blinked several times to make sure that the hulking man beside him wasn’t an exhaustion-fueled mirage.

  “What? How did you—so fast—you came…” Screech was having a difficult time putting together a full sentence.

  Bob brought a finger to his lips and then leaned out from the shadow of the outhouse. Screech followed his gaze and noted that he was staring at Donnie DiMarco, who was talking to the men in fatigues near the dock that moored the yacht.

  At this point, Screech didn’t give two shits who actually owned the yacht. All he cared about was getting off the island in one piece. It was time to be a survivor, and maybe save Beckett in the process. No, that wasn’t right; definitely save Beckett in the process.

  “What are you—”

  Bob hushed him again and surveyed the scene with more intensity.

  Screech felt the need to tell the man that the militia were in Donnie DiMarco’s pocket, but something suggested that Bob already knew this.

  He’d learned a long time ago that someone who could be influenced by a dollar, could be bought for two.

  Considering the gaudy sum that Bob had offered Triple D to find his yacht, finances didn’t appear to be an issue for Bob Bumacher… and whoever else was behind him. There was no way that Donnie DiMarco or Bob Bumacher could put together a drug smuggling ring of this magnitude without help. I
t was logistically impossible.

  All I know is that the shipping crate is waiting and that Mendes is none too happy with Donnie’s… uh… extra-curriculars.

  Screech scratched his chin.

  Who in the Sam Hell is Mendes?

  It took him a moment to realize that Bob was no longer staring out at the dock and had instead turned his attention to Screech himself.

  Screech, fatigued to the point of nearly falling over, lowered his gaze.

  Bob put his hand again on Screech’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze.

  “You done good, Screech. Now I want you and your friend to stay out of the way for a little while. Keep low and I’ll get things sorted.”

  Finally grateful for someone else to be taking the helm, Screech nodded.

  With that, Bob released his grip and stepped out into the light, his massive arms held wide, a smile on his face.

  “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed. “How nice to see you again. My employer says hello.”

  Confusion washed over the faces of the men with the machine guns. The only person who didn’t look confused, however, was Donnie DiMarco.

  That man turned and ran.

  Still not sure he fully understood what was going on, Screech turned his eyes away from Bob Bumacher and searched for Beckett.

  Bob had instructed him to stay out of the way, but when he caught a glimpse of a frightened-looking Beckett poked out from behind the bar, Screech knew he couldn’t do that. Well, he could stay out of the way, but he couldn’t stay here. He had to get to Beckett, he had to tell his friend what he’d seen.

  About the girls trapped in the cell on the lower level of the yacht.

  Beckett would know what to do.

  He had to, because Screech sure as hell didn’t.

  Chapter 23

  Beckett clutched a half-empty bottle of bourbon in his hand as he waited for the man to approach. He hadn’t seen his face, had only heard his obnoxiously loud breathing, but he wasn’t taking any chances.