Mitch felt the ABS trying to compensate. She pumped the pedal, trying to counteract it, coaxing the skid. The SUV slid sideways. Mitch thought she’d avoided a rollover then the bumper caught the wall, flipping the Expedition onto its passenger side.
The air bags deployed, scaring her. She barely had time to register the squeal of tires over the grinding of metal against concrete as another impact rocked the Explorer as the van, unable to avoid the collision, plowed into them. She prayed the people inside were okay.
Her teeth clenched as she waited for additional impacts as the vehicles slid to a stop. With the passenger side facing down, she tore the now-deflating airbag out of her way and grabbed the steering wheel with one hand while scrambling to unbuckle her seat belt with the other.
Mitch’s heart pounded as she forced the driver’s door open. Another set of tires squealed and she felt another impact somewhere along the chain of the accident.
For an instant, anger overcame her terror. “You bastard!” she screamed. “That’s two vehicles you’ve cost me!” She heard him growl, a sound beyond human, and felt his hand clamp onto her ankle. She kicked out, screaming, and felt satisfaction when she connected and he grunted in pain, releasing her.
The momentum had carried them nearly twenty yards down the other side of the center of the span and traffic quickly built up behind them. She knew the bridge cameras had already picked up the wreck and she prayed no one was injured.
Besides John.
Looking behind her to the south, she saw the emergency lights of the cruisers rapidly threading through traffic along the emergency shoulder, but it would still be at least a minute until they arrived. To the north she saw the approaching lights of an FHP cruiser. Looking back to the wreck, she saw John moving, untangling himself. In a moment, he’d be free.
She bolted. The bridge signaling system was already stopping southbound traffic. Heading for the wall, she looked back at the sound of John’s voice.
“I’m going to kill you, bitch!” His head appeared. “You’re dead!” He started pulling himself from the wreck.
She could now hear the cruisers’ sirens, less than a quarter mile away, but they wouldn’t arrive before John freed himself.
The gun!
She mentally kicked herself for not grabbing it. Mitch jumped over the wall, dodging the support cables, and down to the other side where she ran back toward the south.
Mitch heard John hit the pavement and jump the wall. “Come here, Mitch!”
“Fuck you!” she screamed over her shoulder, not looking back.
Confused motorists watched her run, unsure whether to help or not. The deputy in the lead of the northbound group spotted her and raced up the breakdown lane, finally sliding to a stop near her. Ed bounded out of the cruiser before it even came to a complete stop, the 9mm in his hand, and he jumped the wall, putting himself between her and John.
John didn’t stop until he saw the deputy get out and jump the wall too, his weapon also drawn. Mitch and Ed watched him weighing his choices.
“Drop your weapon now!” The deputy assumed a shooter’s stance.
John backed away, the gun hanging limply from his hand. There was a three-inch gash over his left eye and blood ran down his face. “I never thought you’d get the best of me, Mitch.”
“Drop the gun now!” the deputy repeated.
John shook his head. “Never thought it’d all end like this.”
“John, drop the gun. It’s over. Give yourself up,” Mitch said from the protection of Ed’s arm.
John shook his head. “It’s all ruined. Don’t you understand? Game over. I’m not going to prison.” His legs hit the outer wall of the southbound span and he looked down at the water several hundred feet below.
Turning his attention back to Mitch, he smiled, chilling her blood. “I’ll see you in hell, Mitch.” He raised the gun.
Ed pushed Mitch to the ground, bringing his gun up and firing at the same time the deputy fired. Mitch saw a deadly red flower blossom around John’s left shoulder, the bullet’s impact knocking the gun out of his hand and pushing him over the wall.
“No!” Mitch screamed, running to the wall with the deputy and Ed behind her. The deputy holstered his gun and called for backup on his radio.
“Shots fired, man in the water, we need a rescue boat at the center span immediately!”
The murky Tampa Bay swallowed John’s body, with barely a ripple as the waves swept over the area, leaving no trace. Ed holstered the 9mm and wrapped his arms around Mitch as she collapsed against him.
“Will this nightmare ever end?” she sobbed. Hauntingly, Sami’s joking words about John jumping off a bridge came back to her. Mitch was beyond tears, but felt Ed’s on her cheeks as she crumpled to the pavement.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Authorities dragged Tampa Bay for several days. Divers searched the base of the Skyway and along the pilings of the fishing piers on either side, which were remnants of the original span that collapsed years prior after a freighter collided with it.
Nothing.
Without the body, it was impossible to discern whose weapon had found its mark, but the coroner’s inquest concluded there was little chance John Tyne could have survived the fall after being shot. At the time, the outgoing tide probably carried the body to the open Gulf. Ed didn’t admit it to Mitch, but he had aimed to kill more out of anger than self-preservation, and was pretty sure his bullet had found its mark.
John Tyne was declared legally dead.
Mitch was officially a widow.
* * * *
Mitch wasn’t sure what returning to a “normal” life was supposed to entail. A week after the showdown, Mitch still wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep—didn’t cry. Ed turned to Sami for help. Sami was the only person who really could say she knew what Mitch had been through. Sami didn’t need a degree in psychology to tell Mitch had emotionally shut down from the shock of everything that happened
It was an experience she knew quite well.
Sami told Ed to pack Mitch a bag. She picked her friend up in Aripeka despite Mitch’s feeble protests. She took Mitch to a small inn on a lake near Inverness and finally, after twenty-four hours of doing most of the talking, telling Mitch the full story of what happened to her in Brooksville when Steve went crazy, Mitch opened up and let go of the pain, talked about it.
And cried.
Sami was the only one who could understand the fear, the guilt, the anger, the jumble of emotions all fighting for dominance, each demanding Mitch’s full attention and energy. Three days later, Sami drove Mitch home, Mitch’s mental wounds finally scabbing over.
Two weeks after John’s leap from the Skyway, Mitch still carried the 9mm in a holster under her arm. She still triple-checked the locks on the doors at night. She still jumped at noises. It got to the point where Ed made her keep the gun on his side of the bed, fearing she’d panic during the night and accidentally shoot him or Pete.
She still couldn’t believe John was dead. It didn’t seem real without his body.
She still had nightmares.
The real bombshell came five weeks after the incident. Mitch regained quite a bit of her nerves and actually stopped looking over her shoulder all the time.
“Knock knock,” Ron called from the porch.
“Come in.” Mitch jumped up from the couch and hugged her friend. “Wasn’t expecting you until later.”
“I know. I need to talk to you.”
She frowned. “What?”
“Sit down. Where’s Ed?”
“On his way back from St. Pete. He’ll be home within an hour or so. Why?”
“Shoot. I wanted him to be here, but we can do this now.”
“Ron, what is it?”
“Sit down, Mitch.”
She sat on the sofa and he sat on the coffee table, facing her.
“Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?” she asked him.
“Mitch, I??
?ve got good news and bad news.”
“Okay, bad news first.”
He took a deep breath. “John had a bunch of stuff in both your names. The Feds and police have seized bank accounts and holdings in excess of five million dollars.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
He nodded. “It’s obvious you had no involvement in his stuff, so they’re not going after you. It could have been messy, but it’s not.”
She relaxed. “Is that the good news?”
He shook his head. “No. You get the Carollwood house. They’ve released it. As John’s widow, you get it.”
“Sell it. As soon as possible.”
He nodded. “I figured you’d feel that way. But that’s not the good news either.”
She was confused. “Then what the hell is the good news?”
Ron looked around for a second and spied a copy of the Sailboat Trader magazine, a classified advertisement for sailboats. He picked it up and dropped it in her lap.
“Pick a boat out of there.”
“What?”
He smiled. “Pick a boat. Any boat.”
“Ron, you’re not making sense.”
He took her hands in his. “Mitch, John went out of his way to hide money. He set up accounts in your name.”
“What?” Speech temporarily escaped her. She finally managed to choke out, “How much are we talking about?”
He smiled. “So far, over thirty accounts, a total of sixty million dollars.”
That floored her. “You’re kidding?” she whispered.
Ron shook his head again. “You know me better than that. And the fact is, that’s a low estimate. We’re still finding accounts, trusts, blind trusts. It’s staggering. He invested and reinvested, sheltered, hid funds. We even found three accounts in South Africa.”
Her knees shook but she somehow found the strength to stand and circle the room. “Probate?”
“They’re in your name. Only the house will be subject to probate. You don’t get to keep all of them, because the Feds want to seize a good chuck of them because of John’s drug dealing. But what you do get to keep totals over two million.”
“How soon can we—”
“I’ll get you a copy of John’s death certificate in the morning from the ME’s office and you can have a clerk marry you and Ed as soon as you get a license, if you want.”
She squealed with delight, jumping into his arms. Ron hugged her, spinning her around playfully, delighting in her joy.
Jack arrived then, a briefcase contrasting with his khaki shorts and parrot-print shirt. “I see you told her.” He laughed.
She raced over to him and hugged him, too. “When did y’all find out about this?”
“We first started finding stuff a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be seized before we told you,” Ron explained. “Most of what you get to keep is foreign assets, so even though the DEA could order them frozen and fight to seize them, they’d spend too much money and manpower to get them and would more than likely lose anyway, versus they can keep the bulk of the money. They’re willing to leave some of it alone if you voluntarily surrender the bulk of the funds.”
Mitch shook her head. “Let them take them.”
“That’s what we figured you’d say,” Jack said, opening his briefcase and producing papers. “We talked to the Justice Department today and drew up the paperwork.”
She picked up a pen from the counter. “Let me have them.”
He held them away from her. “Don’t you want to read them first?”
She shook her head again. “Nope. Let me have them.”
Ron laughed. “Mitch, read the damn things first.”
She glanced over them perfunctorily and signed them. Ron had his notary stamp in his briefcase, and Mitch grinned while he witnessed them.
“Say, how’s your wedding ceremony officiating?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
“Mitch, I love you like a sister, but I refuse to wear a tux. Even to your wedding.”
Ed arrived soon after and Mitch broke the news to him. Stunned, he said nothing, just stepped out onto the porch and stared out over the saw grass flats.
Mitch followed him. “Ed, what’s wrong?” She reached out and touched his shoulder.
“Nothing,” he softly replied. “Not a damn thing.”
“Somehow, I pictured you a little happier than this.”
He pulled her against him. “I’m just… I don’t know.”
“We don’t ever have to work again.”
“But I enjoy what we do, what I do.” He pulled away from her and went over to the railing.
She put her arm around him. “Ed, this changes nothing between us. I love you and still want to be your wife, but it means we can afford to get what we want without worrying about budgets. We can pay Dan to work full-time, make him the manager and take off to the Keys or the east coast or wherever, whenever we want! It’s our money.” She spun him around. “You do still want to marry me, don’t you?”
That broke his spell. “Of course I do.” He swept her into his arms. “I’m just in shock. I’m glad we’ve got this, but it’s…” He shrugged.
“Unreal?”
“Yes.” He smiled.
“You haven’t heard the best part yet,” she teased.
“It gets better?”
She nodded. “Ron can have us a copy of John’s death certificate in the morning. I’m officially a widow.”
Ed smiled. “That’s right. The divorce papers never got filed.” He hugged her. “What do you say we get your name changed?”
* * * *
Ron married them in a small ceremony at Matt and Sami’s house that weekend. Surrounded by their friends, Mitch finally pushed away the last remnants of the black cloud hanging over her. They honeymooned for a week at a lodge on Cedar Key, returning refreshed and happy.
Epilogue
Kenny Schoenborn officially closed out the Romeo case with John’s confession to Mitch and the files recovered from his computer. But he still collected newspaper articles that caught his interest. Two months after John’s disappearance, a twenty-two-year-old coed psych major from the University of Miami was found in a wooded area near Lauderhill, strangled, recently had sex, but no peanuts. Enough similarities, however, to worry him. The case wasn’t his, but he collected the specs and put them, along with the clipping, in a file next to the Romeo file. This file also contained several other items.
Article from the St. Petersburg Times, dated September 30
Missing Fisherman’s Body Found
(Tierra Verde) The decomposing body of Wallace Porter was discovered by two fishermen in a mangrove near Ft. DeSoto Park. Porter’s boat was found drifting near Boca Grande Island three days ago.
Porter was reported missing by his wife when he failed to return from a fishing trip on September 26. Cause of death is not certain, but preliminary findings indicated he may have fallen in his boat, hit his head, and fell overboard, drowning. The Medical Examiner’s office had declined further comment until a full autopsy has been performed. This is the second fatal incident near the Skyway in less than a week, the first being when serial murder suspect John Tyne was shot and fell from the Skyway Bridge…
Article from The Boca Beacon, dated September 28
Drifting Boat Found
(Boca Grande) The boat belonging to missing fisherman Wallace Porter of St. Petersburg was found drifting in the Boca Grande pass yesterday. There was no sign of foul play or the missing fisherman…
Article from the Englewood Tribune, dated September 30
Useppa In Mourning
(Useppa Island) The small community of Useppa is in shock today after the discovery of the brutal murder of island resident Dr. Thomas Rawlings. Lee County Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Hammon said robbery was the apparent motive.
“The house was ransacked, his wallet, jewelry, and boat were taken. He might have surprised the robber.”
The boat, a 251 Pro
Line, has not been located. Dr. Rawlings had a general practice in Englewood and will be sorely missed…
Article from the Englewood Tribune, dated October 2
Stolen Boat Recovered
(Ft. Myers) Sheriff’s deputies recovered the stolen Pro Line belonging to murder victim Dr. Thomas Rawlings. It was found abandoned on Ft. Myers beach. No clues yet as to who the murderer is…
* * * *
Mitch’s dreams never did stop, but they got better. The nightmares were never as severe. Sometimes, she kicked his ass. And they never happened more than once a week, usually less frequently.
On one of Mitch’s rare days minding the dive shop, she picked up the phone when it rang.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” Then a click and a dial tone.
Mitch stared at the phone in her hand, finally replacing it as goose bumps carpeted her arms.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tymber Dalton lives in southwest Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”), son, and too many pets. She loves to hear from readers. Please feel free to drop by her website and sign up for her newsletter to keep abreast of the latest news, views, snarkage, and releases. (Don’t forget to look up her writing alter egos Lesli Richardson, Tessa Monroe, and Macy Largo!)
www.tymberdalton.com
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