Five o’clock rolled around. Still no call from Karen, and then, when Ashley tried to get hold of Jan, she couldn’t reach her, either.
Len Green, out of uniform, handsomely dressed in khaki trousers and a brown knit shirt, appeared in the small space that had been allotted as her office. “Ready?”
“I have my car here, Len.”
“I know. I’m going to follow you home, then we’ll take my car and meet the others at the restaurant.”
“But I can drive myself.”
“Everyone knows you don’t drink and drive. And we intend to get you blitzed tonight.”
“I don’t want to get blitzed. In fact, I won’t be doing anything if Karen doesn’t show.”
“You still haven’t heard from her? I’m sure it’s nothing. She was excited about tonight. I’m sure she’ll show.”
“I’m glad you feel so confident.”
He shrugged. “Come on, I’ll follow you home.”
“All right. But you’ll have to have coffee at the bar or something and wait for me. I want to shower and change.”
“I’ll wait forever,” he told her.
Friday evening, and Bordon remained unconscious.
Jake refused to break his vigil at the man’s side. He’d had a number of talks with the surgeon, who had given him an extensive list of the man’s injuries. The liver, pancreas, stomach and intestines had all been damaged. Bordon had lost an incredible amount of blood, and then there had been internal bleeding. They had done all they could, but the man had little more than a ten percent chance of surviving the next forty-eight hours. He could regain consciousness any time, or he might never regain it.
Jake had to go on the chance that he might.
The other inmates were questioned extensively during the day. Every one of them denied wanting to harm Bordon. Despite strip searches and a thorough search of the cafeteria, the weapon that had inflicted such heavy damage had not been found.
During the long hours of the day, Jake had taken a few minutes here and there to walk out in the hall and get in contact with the force in Miami-Dade. The night shift had given way to day, and Marty had come on duty.
“So Bordon was practically skewered, and he’s still hanging in,” Marty had said. Jake could imagine his partner shaking his head over the irony that a criminal might survive, while innocent people died every day.
“He’s hanging in—barely.”
“Well, I’ve got things covered here,” Marty told him, and began to tell him all he had learned. Skip Conrad had found prints belonging to Jake, Marty, Nick, Ashley and a number of other people whose prints were on file, all of whom had had reason to be on the boat. Skip had also commented on the lack of prints in many places, which might well have meant that someone had been painstaking in their efforts to make sure no incriminating fingerprints were found.
Marty had seemed puzzled about his request regarding John Mast and the plane crash, but he promised to get the information and did so quickly, calling Jake back within the half hour. There was excitement in his voice when he called. The reports issued out of Haiti, where the plane had gone down, had stated that there were no survivors. And that was the assumption. But only eighty of the plane’s eighty-eight passengers and crew members had been retrieved from the ocean. John Mast’s body had not been one of those identified. Because of the circumstances of the crash, he and his fellow unidentified passengers had been presumed dead.
“He’s out there, somewhere, Marty, I know it,” Jake said.
“Maybe, Jake. Maybe. You going to stay up there until Bordon dies?”
“I have to wait it out, Marty.”
“I understand. But listen, I’ll keep going with the property investigations. If you need me, call.”
“Right.”
He’d let his partner go, realized that he’d forgotten to tell him to keep Franklin and the others up to date on the information, so he made a call to the FBI man, who promised to get right on a search for John Mast, and to Blake, who would see that a report was written out and circulated. When he finished speaking with Blake, he started back toward Bordon’s bedside. Then he hesitated and put a call through to Ashley’s cell phone. She didn’t pick up. He called the bar. Katie answered. Nick and Sharon were out, as was Ashley. “She came home, showered and left again. Big celebration tonight for her promotion,” Katie told him.
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ll tell her you called.”
“No, that’s all right. I’ll catch her later.”
He hung up and returned to Bordon’s side. He glanced at the priest, who had come into the room and was saying prayers.
The priest had told Jake that Bordon had, indeed, been to church regularly.
“Father, has he told you—”
“No. He wasn’t much for confession. Not that I could tell you even if he had said something, but no, he didn’t tell me about any crimes.”
“Thanks.”