Ironically, Duval Street was also home to the oldest church on Key West, Paradise Christian. Rachel’s church. The last place Rachel had been seen alive.
Liz glanced to her right. She could see Paradise Christian’s startlingly white bell towers over the tops of the banyan and cabbage palm trees. A bar called Rick’s Island Hideaway separated her storefront from the church.
A lump formed in her throat. This was the closest she had been to Rachel in nearly a year. She missed her so much it hurt.
“Okay, yes?”
It took a moment to realize the maintenance man had spoken. When she looked at him, he grinned down at her, his teeth bright against the backdrop of his dark, leathery complexion. She guessed he was of Cuban descent, not a huge stretch of logic as Key West was actually closer to Havana than Miami.
“Yes,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Perfect.”
He climbed down the ladder. “ Key West, she is like a mysterious woman, she gets in your blood and won’t let you go.” He flashed his startlingly white smile. “Or for you, a potent man. You will be happy here.”
Liz let out a shaky breath and murmured her agreement, feeling like a complete fraud. She hated Key West already. It had taken her sister from her.
He closed the stepladder and hoisted it onto his broad shoulder. “Have a beautiful day!”
Liz watched him walk away, then wandered into the office and busied herself unpacking books and office supplies, filling drawers and shelves, trying to achieve organization out of chaos. Difficult to do when her emotions were more of a jumble than the contents of her moving boxes. One moment found her near tears, the next fueled by an awesome determination.
Her therapist had warned that she might feel this way. He had begged her not to come to Key West. She wasn’t ready, he had insisted. She had suffered a nervous breakdown; she was emotionally fragile. Too fragile to be reliving Rachel’s last days in an effort to discover what happened to her.
Guilt swamped Liz. If only she hadn’t attended that convention. Rachel had called; she had left a panicked, crazy-sounding message. One about having uncovered illegal activities on the island, one that involved a teenager in her flock. She had been threatened. They were watching her, how many of them she didn’t know. She was going for help and would contact Liz soon. She had ended the message by begging Liz to pray for her-and to stay away from Key West.
She fought the guilt. The urge to fall apart. She had completed the application process that validated her license to practice clinical social work in Florida. She had closed her St. Louis practice, rented out her house, stored all but the most essential of her belongings and moved with the rest down here. Ready or not, she had to do this.
Liz crossed the office, stopping at the front window. She stared blindly out at the street, thoughts filled with Rachel.
Where are you, sis? What happened to you?
And where was I when you needed me?
The last cut her to the quick, and Liz swallowed hard, struggling to focus on the facts as she knew them. Sunday, July 15, Rachel had failed to show up for church. Concerned, one of the congregation had gone to the parsonage to look for her. They had found the door unlocked, the house empty.
The police had been called. They had found no evidence suggesting foul play. No body. No blood, overturned chairs or other signs of a struggle. Her car had been missing, but her clothes, toiletries and other personal items had remained.
Because of the lack of evidence, they believed Rachel had either fallen victim to a bizarre accident or suffered a mental breakdown that caused her to run off.
The authorities leaned toward the latter explanation. For if Rachel had been involved in an accident, why hadn’t it been reported? Where was her car? Her plate and license number had been faxed to every law enforcement agency in the state. Every hospital and morgue in south Florida had been sent her picture. Nothing had turned up.
She had been acting strangely, they said. The members of her congregation had reported that suddenly the tone of her sermons had changed from gentle and forgiving to fire and brimstone, all sin and no redemption. The messages had become so frightening that families with small children had stayed away, fearful their children would suffer nightmares.
Liz didn’t buy it. Rachel was the most stable person she had ever known. Even as a kid, her sister hadn’t been affected by life’s ups and downs, not the way Liz had been. Rachel had remained centered no matter the crisis she encountered: a new school, a broken relationship, a failing grade, their parents’ constant bickering.
Not only had Rachel been able to put it all into perspective and move on, she had been there for Liz. Supporting and encouraging her. Shoring her up when fear or uncertainty had overwhelmed her.
Liz had asked once how she did it. She’d answered that her absolute faith in God protected her. She believed in his divine plan. And with believing, with faith, came peace.
So, what had happened to turn her sister from a gentle preacher, one who believed in sharing the story of God’s great love and forgiveness, into the person the police described?
Liz suspected she knew the answer to that. The illegal activities Rachel had spoken of in her message. She had been frightened. She had warned Liz that “they” could be listening. That “they” meant her harm. That she was going for help.
Liz feared the “they” Rachel had spoken of had killed her.
She fisted her fingers. She had shared her sister’s message and her suspicions with the police. Instead of convincing them to reopen their investigation, the information had validated their own belief that Rachel had suffered a mental breakdown.
A burst of laughter jarred her out of her thoughts. A group of teenagers had congregated outside her storefront. They appeared to range in age from early to late teens; one of them carried a baby in a papoose on her back. Unkempt, dressed in ragged jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts, they looked like street kids. Throwbacks to the hippies of the 1960s.
The Rainbow Nation kids, Liz realized. Her sister had told her about them. Unlike sixties-era hippies, however, the Rainbow Nation was a highly organized, international network that even boasted a Web site. They traveled from one warm climate to another, panhandling for a living. Here, they had claimed Christmas Tree Island-an uninhabited spoil island created by dredging refuse and covered with pine trees-as their own. Rachel had wanted to minister to them, had promised herself that bringing them the Word would be one of her missions.
Had Rachel acted on that promise? Liz wondered, moving her gaze over the group, settling on the broad shoulders and back of the tallest of them. Or had her ministry on Key West ended before she’d had a chance?
As if the young man felt her scrutiny, he turned and looked directly at her, his dark gaze uncomfortably intense. A slow smile crept across his face, one that conveyed both amusement and malevolence.
Liz told herself to laugh or shoot him back a cocky smile. She found herself unable to do so. Instead, she stood frozen, heart thumping so hard against the wall of her chest that it hurt.
A moment later he broke the connection, turned and left with his friends.
Liz released a shaky breath and rubbed her arms, chilled. Why had he looked at her that way? What about her had earned his contempt?
She shifted her gaze slightly, taking in her own reflection in the glass. Thin, pale face. Medium-brown hair, green eyes, mouth slightly too wide for her face.
She used to be attractive, she thought. She had possessed one of those bold smiles, the kind that both inspired confidence and put others at ease. People had been drawn to her. They had liked her.
Where had that bold smile gone? she wondered. The self-assurance that had sometimes bordered on cockiness? When had she become so fearful?