We called her for help.”
“Okay, I get all that. So how did you find Claire?”
“Dr. Eloise worked with Claire’s husband. His name is Nicholas Black. She asked him if his wife could help me find my baby. Then she sent us here to wait for Claire Morgan to come. She told us about you, too. She told us you were very big, but I did not expect you to be as tall as this.”
Novak probably did look large to her. She was tiny, five foot one, if that. Novak frowned, not sure he wanted to take this case, much less hear all the gory details. It did not sound like it would have a good outcome. Finding a baby already missing for over a month and inside a different country would not be easy. “You have no idea who took Rosa?”
“No, but other children have been taken from our village and others, too. The men come at night and steal our children. Then they leave and our babies are never seen again.”
In the ensuing silence, both Castillos stared at him, as if they had said enough and only waited now for him to get up and go get their baby. They looked young and innocent and desperate and sad and almost too stoic, considering what had happened to them Well, that story wasn’t going to get it, not by a long shot. He needed to know more than what she’d told him.
“What about the men who attacked you? How do they fit in with this?”
Alcina shrugged and shifted her gaze to her little brother. She spoke to him in rapid-fire Spanish. Novak was fluent, too, another perk from working missions in Central America. She was telling the kid to join the men at the fire so she could talk to the big man alone. Pedro didn’t argue. He jumped down off the chickee and walked over to the fire. He sat next to a couple of the younger men.
“Is Pedro okay?” Novak asked her. “He didn’t say anything.”
“Pedro’s brave. You saw how he fought the man at the beach.”
“What about you? That guy got you pretty hard in the face.”
Her hand moved up absently to touch the bruise. She gave a little shrug. “It does not hurt now.” She turned her face away as if she didn’t like him looking at her injury. Then she looked back. “How did you know it was us on the beach?”
Their eyes held for a moment. Hers looked as dark as midnight. “I didn’t know. I just saw a man abusing a woman and child who were a lot smaller than him. I don’t like that. I intervene when I see it happen. And you have no idea who they are?”
She shook her head. “Eldon says they are called Skulls. We do not know such men in Guatemala.”
Novak knew for a fact that there were men like that in Guatemala. They just didn’t ride motorcycles. “Consider yourself lucky. There’s nothing good about them.”
“You will find my baby.”
“I’ll try. Do you know how many men are in that gang? I saw five, but there’s got to be more.”
“Eldon says there are many and that they will try to kill anyone who helps us. They have been looking for us.”
“Why do you think the kidnappers wanted Rosa?”
“Dr. Eloise says they bring babies to America and sell them. She said she has heard that there is a devil in Fort Myers, and he sends his demons to snatch our children.”
Alcina seemed calm now, except that she was squeezing her hands together. Novak knew all about human trafficking. That kind of thing ran rampant south of the border, especially in Guatemala and Nicaragua but in other countries as well. The feds usually handled those kinds of crimes, especially ICE and DEA. Illegal infant adoption was one of the worst crimes in Novak’s eyes, but there was also sex trafficking and human slavery. All of it was terrible. Countless unsuspecting American couples who wanted to adopt a child were duped by these criminals, unaware that the children brought to them were not from orphanages but stolen out of villages. The Skulls could be involved, but he doubted if they were the brains of this or any other operation. They were too dumb to run anything. The baby-snatching business had been going on unabated for years.
“What devil in Fort Myers?”
“She only knew he was a lawyer there. Claire Morgan found out his name and thinks he is the one who brings the babies up here.”
She had relaxed some, a lot more than Novak would have been relating the story of his lost child. “How’d Claire figure that out?”
“I do not know.”
Novak wasn’t surprised. Claire could find out things nobody else could. “What’s the lawyer’s name?”
“She calls him Max Kellen. Dr. Eloise said she suspected he was a bad man.”
Novak had never heard of him. “What interest do the Osceolas have in this? They’re getting mixed up with some dangerous people.”
“They feel gratitude to Dr. Eloise. She worked here with them for a long time. She is a good person.”
Novak blew out his breath. This thing could get ugly fast. It already was. Bad news was: he’d already run into a buzz saw and Claire hadn’t even shown up yet. Those thugs were gunning for him and they’d barely gotten started.
“Dr. Eloise says that you and Claire Morgan are good at your jobs. That you will get my baby back. I know you will.”
“Well, I can’t promise you that. Maybe you should go home to Guatemala. I think you’d be safer there. What happened on that beach tonight will happen again, if you stay here.”
“I am Rosa’s mother. I should be here.”
Novak couldn’t deny that. One thing he did know, she and her brother shouldn’t be duking it out with brutal criminals. “Then you need to stay out here, or somewhere safer than that condo. Let these guys protect you on the reservation. They won’t make the same mistake twice.”
“Eldon will protect us at his condo.”
“He lives there?”
“No, he owns those buildings.”
“He owns Ocean’s Edge?”
“Dr. Eloise says he is a good businessman.” She leaned forward. “Is this Claire Morgan strong and brave enough to find Rosa?”
Novak almost smiled but couldn’t dredge one up. “Yeah, she’s pretty much got that tough thing going on. One thing, for sure, she never gives up, never, no matter what, no matter how bad it gets. That ought to make you feel better.”
Alcina smiled a little.
What didn’t make Novak feel better was the fact that Claire was going on six months pregnant now. She did not need to take an active role in this kind of investigation, and her husband was going to have to convince her of that. Claire had a mind of her own, but she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d put her own baby in jeopardy. She would listen to reason this time.
“Do you think she’ll be here soon?” Alcina asked.
“I hope so. Tell me something. Those guys from last night? Do they work with this Kellen
