Luckily, Gus and I didn’t look out of place. He was wearing a yellow and pink Hawaiian shirt that I joked made him look like a combination of Jimmy Buffet and Nick Nolte when he got arrested for drunk driving; I had on a baseball cap and a long-sleeved grey Henley shirt that covered up all my tats. We both had sneakers and sunglasses. We could have been a father and son going out for their sunset walk. No one would suspect that Gus was a walking weapon.
Soon we were upon Javier’s house, looking the same as it did on Google maps. Only this wasn’t a concept, an idea, an image on a phone. This was the house, all white with its raised porch overlooking the beach. Idyllic and deadly. And Ellie could have been inside, maybe in one of the windows that had bars on it. The thought caused a jolt of anger to run through me.
As usual, Gus picked up on it. “Take it easy,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth. We were just walking past, two guys on a walk. No one should suspect anything, not if we kept going on our easy going way.
Once we were a few yards from the house, Gus stopped and pretended to look at his watch. “What time is sunset, do you know?”
I swallowed hard. Was that code for something? I could barely even think.
I could tell his eyes were on me underneath the glasses. He lowered his voice, pretending to adjust his watch. “Just the one car. Recognize it?”
I nodded, unable to find my vocal chords.
“Come on, let’s go see how Dana’s garden is doing,” he said more loudly and began walking again. I followed, wondering if we were being watched or followed but knew I couldn’t even look around to check. The skin at the back of my neck prickled.
We turned down the next street and once we were out of sight, he pulled me to the side into the flowering bushes of someone’s yard.
“We might be lucky,” he whispered gruffly. “One car means less people. Maybe. Either way, I’m going to go around and up through the beach. Enter from there, probably from the main floor. I didn’t like the looks of those windows but I’m going to assume that’s where she’s being kept. Unless Javier is that paranoid. Which the bastard probably is. Still. You wait here.”
He brought out his cell from his pocket and checked the time. He took off his watch and handed it to me. “In five minutes from now, you knock on the door or ring the doorbell and ask if Dana Prescott is home. They’ll tell you, you have the wrong house and give directions. Maybe. And hopefully you’ll be on your way.”
“Hopefully,” I said with a grimace. “Who is Dana?”
He shrugged. “She lives around the corner. I Googled home businesses in Ocean Springs and her location came up the closest. Home computer services. You’ll be more believable if you’re asking about someone who lives here. Maybe Javier and his pals are the good neighborly types.”
“Like a neighborhood watch,” I said. The shakiness had come up into my voice. I needed to hold it together if I was going to be any help.
He gave my shoulder a hearty slap. “You’ll do fine. You’ll know when it’s time to go. Then you run, you get back to the car and you bring the car three houses down. Ellie and I will be running along the beach and will come in between that red house I pointed out. You got it?”
I nodded. He watched me for a few moments to make sure, then suddenly he was off and running in the opposite direction, moving a lot quicker than I gave him credit far. He disappeared down the next street, heading for the beach.
I slid the watch around my wrist, my hands shaking, the leather slipping. Five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes.
Oh shit, Camden, I told myself and suddenly my head was between my legs, nausea sweeping through me like a bat out of hell. I hadn’t been this nervous in a long time. Not even when Ellie and I were going to get Sophia and Ben. The last time I’d felt this nervous was when I was planning to catch Ellie in the act of robbing me.
I had to admit that still stung from time to time. How the whole time I knew she was scoping me out, wanting my money, not giving a shit about leaving me high and dry. Not caring about her old friend Camden, the doormat, the lovesick puppy, the goth queen. She looked me in the face and lied time and time again. And then she broke into my house and robbed me.
But that was the old Ellie. When she traded herself in for me, the sacrifice she made for my freedom, for Sophia and Ben’s freedom, I knew that old Ellie was dead. Still, being here now in Mississippi, in the very place where she gladly lived a lie for over a year, a part of me had to wonder if the old Ellie would be resurrected. It was something I tried not to think about, because it only added an unnecessary fear. The fear that when Gus and I came to get her, that she would not go.
I looked down at my watch. It was time.
I breathed in deeply through my nose, adjusted the cap on my head and came out of the Gardenia hedges, striding down the road and turning onto Javier’s street. There was the house, just as before, and for once I could gaze at it through the cover of sunglasses and take it all in. After all, I was just looking for someone now, Dana Prescott, and heard she lived here at 425 East Beach Road. I heard she had a lovely garden and fixed computers.