Courtney cleared her throat. “Are you okay?”
Mariah deeply inhaled. “Yeah … I’m okay. Why do you want to find him?”
“He took something from my grandmother, and he took something from me. I might be able to return what he stole from my grandmother.”
“He takes from everybody he meets, and he takes everything. If you’re lucky, you still have your soul, but he’ll try to claim that, too. I was fortunate to get out of there. Others, not so much. I keep thinking that he put some kind of hypnotic trance on me, and it’ll be just a matter of when and where that he’ll try to make me do something bad.”
“But you said you got out of there. How can he make you do something against your will if he’s not near you?”
“He’s in my brain. At one time he was in my heart. I guess that’s where the mistakes start and where they return to haunt you. I feel like I might have some kind of post traumatic syndrome. Listen, Courtney, I was your age once. I didn’t listen to my mother because I thought I knew the ways of the world. I always wanted to be working as an actress in films, but I eventually wound up working in carnivals. I grew up in New Orleans. My mother used to come here to Mambo Eve’s place. Eve always treated me like family.”
“I didn’t have much of a family. My grandmother is a little like the lady in the store, Mambo Eve — wise and kind.”
“Compassion was something hard to find in the carny world. Don’t get me wrong, there were some sweet and good people there, guys like Boots. But by and large, it was my house of the rising sun. And it was a hard life. Men like the Bandini brothers were always there to offset the good. And now you’re asking me about the very worst of the worst — the Prophet. He was calling himself Reverend John when I first met him. Wasn’t long before he’d convinced some of his followers he was a prophet from God. And they believed him.”
“You talked about getting out of there … where was there? Where is he?”
Mariah embraced her bare arms, the breeze blew through the bamboo, stalks rubbing together, creaking. Her eyes followed the black cat as it walked from the store and dropped to its belly, stalking a lizard warming in the sun on a brick paver. “Whatever he did to you, whatever he took from your grandmother, it’s not worth going there. Nothing’s worth that. He’s wicked — very evil. Men like him have a special place on reserve in hell. Walk away from this, okay?”
“I can’t. I don’t have anything to go back to. If nothing else, he knows who I am. I just hate the fact that I’m related by blood to him. Where is he?”
“What did you mean when you said if nothing else, he knows who I am?”
“It’s more complicated than I have time to explain right now. Please, if you know where he is, tell me.”
“Last time I saw him he was running a small compound on twenty acres, a cult of followers, in the hills of Virginia about thirty miles west of Leesburg. I can go inside and draw a map for you. But I’m warning you, don’t go there. They’ll do things to you that will make your skin crawl, and if he decides to kill you, the blood won’t be on his hands.”
Courtney watched as the cat approached, a live lizard clutched in its mouth, the blue tail slapping the cat’s whiskers. The cat dropped the lizard near the table and observed with a detached stare as its prey attempted to crawl away. Courtney turned her head from the dying animal. “The poor lizard. That cat caught and hurt it just to watch the little thing die. And I thought only humans were capable of that.”
“She used to bring me baby birds. That really freaked me out. Not that it’s okay to kill lizards. It’s just different, you know?”
“No, I don’t know.” Courtney pulled the baseball cap out of her bag and slipped the dark glasses on her face. “Thanks for your help. If you can draw that map, I’ll be on my way.”
Mariah sat straighter in her chair. She studied Courtney’s face for a few seconds. “Oh my God … you’re the girl on the news, the one they say could be the daughter of Senator Logan’s wife.”
“I’m not her daughter.”
“I had lunch at Gino’s around the corner. The news was on TV, and they showed a sketch that some street artist did of you at Jackson Square. The whole world’s hunting for you.”
“Please, draw the map for me. I have to go.”
“They say you killed two men … one was Tony Bandini.”
“I was the only witness to the first man killed. And he was a friend of mine. Police didn’t believe me. Then Tony Bandini slapped me and tried to stick his dick in … he tried to force me to have oral sex with him. His gun was on the table. I grabbed it and warned him, but he laughed and came for me again. I didn’t have a choice.”
Mariah reached across the table and touched the top of Courtney’s hand. “I understand, and I believe you. I’m sure Boots did, too, and he was no fool. You just got to get all this straightened out. You can’t keep running, looking over your shoulder.”
Courtney heard a siren in the distance and wondered if it was safe to return to the Toyota truck.
58
I didn’t think that I wasn’t being followed as I drove from Ponce Inlet to DeLand, at least I didn’t see any signs of being tailed by a car. If I was being followed by a satellite, then someone must have hidden a GPS tracker somewhere on my Jeep. I’d done a thorough search in the parking lot at the marina before I left, found nothing but road grit and mud in the undercarriage and wheel wells. Earlier, I’d left a broken piece of a toothpick wedged out of sight between the hood and the body of the Jeep. It fell to the lot after I opened the hood.
A good sign.
On my drive to Deland, I took detours, sped up and slowed down, constantly watching the rearview mirror and taking a back road into the town. DeLand is Mayberry RFD on growth steroids. The quaint town, forty miles west of Daytona Beach, oozes southern charm, a lineage of yesteryear still in its brick streets. The entire stretch of Main Street, with a slow tempo composed by birdsong from shady trees, might as well be a picture postcard of a National Historic District. The Boston Coffeehouse mixed well with the antique shops, bookstores and upscale bars.
I entered the coffee shop looking for a woman wearing a yellow T-shirt and the words: World’s Greatest Grandmother. She wasn’t there, and she didn’t sound like the type of person who’d be late. I walked through the shop with its dark-wood tavern feel, the smell of ground coffee, chocolate, and fresh-squeezed orange juice followed me to a table in the far corner. I sat and waited. Three other customers, college kids with open laptops and ears closed by ear-buds, occupied tables. I approached one student, twenty-something, jock build, Stetson University T-shirt, baseball cap on backwards. He looked up and took the buds out of his ears.
I said, “How’s school?”
“It’s all right.”
“A grandmother needs a favor.”
“Whadda you mean?”
“She’s coming in for coffee. She just needs a strong guy like you to escort her back to her car. Here’s twenty bucks if you can walk her to her car.” I dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table.
“Sure, dude. I don’t mind helping little old ladies.” He smiled.
“Good. I’ll give you the high sign when she’s ready to leave.”
“Cool. Where is she?”
“She isn’t here yet, but she will be.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks.”
I turned and walked back to my table. I was on my second cup of coffee and no sign of Lois Timbers. I hoped the college kid had a lot of homework. As I waited for her, I replayed the conversation I had with Kim on my boat. I’d mentioned where I was meeting Lois, but I didn’t speak her phone number aloud. If my boat, buy some remote chance was bugged, they’d know where I was meeting Lois, but they’d have no idea how to contact her. And I’d left not long after I’d spoken with her. No one, unless they lived in DeLand, could have arrived here quicker than I did.