Tortured Spirits Read Free Page B

raven. I hope you enjoyed your stay.”
    â€œThanks, Walter. This is for you.” Jake handed him a fifty-dollar bill.
    â€œThank you, sir.”
    Jake also handed Walter an envelope. “Would you see that Jasmine gets this?” He had left her a note and his business card.
    â€œCertainly.”
    With a bag slung over one shoulder, Jake rolled his suitcase outside, where Vincent popped his Dodge’s trunk and loaded the luggage.
    â€œYou know exactly where we’re going?” Vincent closed the trunk.
    Jake secured Edgar’s cage in the backseat. “Not yet. Just Miami.”
    â€œPlay it by ear, free as a bird. I like that.” Vincent opened the passenger door for Jake, who got in.
    Jake waited until Vincent sat beside him before saying, “Drive for two hours, then we’ll get lunch. After that, I’llspell you for an hour.”
    â€œYou’re too good to me,” Vincent said, shifting the car into gear.
    Jake reclined his seat and closed his eyes. He heard Edgar croaking close to his ear.
    His cell phone’s ringtone awoke him from a half sleep seventy minutes later, and he returned the seat to its upright position.
    â€œI’ve got your room and your car, five minutes apart,” Carrie said. She read the addresses to Jake, who programmed them into Vincent’s GPS. “There’s only one Miriam Santiago in Miami. Her husband is in jail on Pavot Island. He’s some kind of political prisoner.” She read Miriam’s address, which Jake jotted down on the back of a business card.
    â€œGood work, kid.”
    Vincent drove along the Gulf Coast into Mississippi. Jake stared out his window at the gray water. First Katrina, then Rita, then the British Petroleum disaster had devastated the area. While most of the world had recovered from the economic collapse Jake had partially brought about by causing the death of Nicholas Tower, his former employer, the deep southeast continued to languish. Although microbes had eradicated much of the spilled oil, the question of how much damage these man-made dispersants would have on the ecosystem lingered like a ticking time bomb.
    In Biloxi, they ate lunch in a large boat that had been carried several hundred feet inland by Hurricane Camille and then converted into a restaurant at the very spot whereit had come to rest.
    Jake took his turn at the wheel, and they crossed into Florida. The sudden appearance of palm trees made him feel as if they had entered a foreign country, and in Tampa, sitting in the passenger seat as the sun turned orange, he pointed out an alligator on the side of the highway. They pulled over to a McDonald’s for dinner, so he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving Edgar in the car, then got out and stretched their legs. Mosquitoes as thick as houseflies swarmed around them as the pink sky darkened.
    â€œIt’s growing season year-round down here,” Vincent said.
    â€œI don’t think I could ever get used to it.”
    â€œI know other New Yorkers. You’re all the same: you think that little island you live on is the center of the universe.”
    Jake knew better, but he didn’t say so. He fed Edgar some birdseed, then took his turn behind the wheel again.
    â€œLet me know when you get tired,” Vincent said.
    â€œI’m tired.”
    â€œDamn.”
    Forty minutes after they changed places once more, the sky turned black, clouds outlined in red.
    â€œYou want me to stop at a motel?” Vincent said.
    Jake yawned. “No. We’ve made good time so far. Let’s keep going.”
    â€œIn that case, are you going to tell me why you’re going through so much trouble to find this woman and what it has to do with Edgar?”
    â€œNo.” Jake found it highly unlikely Vincent would believe Edgar had been a cop before becoming a raven, thatMiriam Santiago’s niece had caused his transformation, or that Sheryl’s spirit had told