Abducted in the Keys Read online

  MATTHEW RIEF

  ABDUCTED IN THE KEYS

  A LOGAN DODGE ADVENTURE

  FLORIDA KEYS ADVENTURE SERIES

  VOLUME 9

  Copyright © 2019 by Matthew Rief

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  ABDUCTED IN THE KEYS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  THE END

  About the Author

  LOGAN DODGE ADVENTURES

  Gold in the Keys

  Hunted in the Keys

  Revenge in the Keys

  Betrayed in the Keys

  Redemption in the Keys

  Corruption in the Keys

  Predator in the Keys

  Legend in the Keys

  Abducted in the Keys

  Join the Adventure!

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  matthewrief.com

  PROLOGUE

  Miami, Florida

  August 2010

  It was just after midnight. After checking one more time that the coast was clear, the girl slid open her window and dropped onto the grass below. She kept to the shadows. Moved quickly, but quietly. Across the knoll. Into a cluster of palm trees.

  She stopped when she reached the road. The evening was silent, aside from a soft breeze through the overhead fronds and the beating of her heart.

  Hard part’s over, she thought.

  She was fifteen. Tall and pretty. Long dark hair, high cheekbones, big hazel eyes, and a narrow waist. She looked more woman than girl.

  She’d spent most of her life bouncing from foster home to foster home, and the occasional group home. She’d been living at St. Mary’s for over a year, but it had felt like an eternity.

  Time to pretend to be a normal teenager. At least for one night.

  She stepped out from the trees, darted across the street, down a few blocks, then hopped onto a bus heading downtown. While riding, she thought about him.

  William.

  She’d met him two weeks earlier in an online chat room. He’d been sweet, flirty, and best of all, interested in her. He was also seventeen and had a car and a job.

  And his profile picture.

  She smiled as she pictured him.

  Like a modern-day James Dean. The classy handsome bad boy look.

  The bus’s hydraulics hissed. The doors opened. She stepped out two blocks from their agreed-upon meeting place.

  A restaurant she’d never heard of in a part of town she’d never been to. She tried to remember the name of it.

  Something Italia.

  Sounded fancy to her. And after, he said they could go see a movie. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to a theater. Well over a year. Nothing but old movies played on a television that was deeper than it was wide ever since.

  Maybe he’ll buy us some popcorn. And soda.

  Her excitement and anticipation rose with every step on the sidewalk. She looked around, keeping an eye out for something Italia.

  The street was quiet. She spotted only three people and one car in five minutes of walking through the humid evening air.

  She reached an intersection and turned left. Up ahead, she spotted a sign above a building with large glass windows and smiled.

  Amore Dall’italia.

  She strode over, stopped in front of the doors. They were closed.

  Of course.

  She wondered if William knew. Wondered if maybe the restaurant had recently changed their hours.

  She knew she wasn’t too late. She didn’t own a cellphone or wear a watch, but she trusted her mental clock. She’d left at midnight, and the trip over had taken no longer than half an hour. Twelve thirty. That had been the agreed-upon time.

  She stood and waited for a few minutes.

  She looked down at her outfit. Skinny jeans. A blue tank top. Nothing posh, but they were the nicest clothes that she had.

  Hopefully, William will think I look pretty.

  She waited another minute. She strolled back and forth. Looked up, looked down, bit her lip a few times. Just as she wondered when the next bus would arrive, she heard footsteps on the sidewalk beside her. She turned and saw a tall guy wearing jeans and a white polo shirt.

  He looked good. Styled hair and a chiseled jaw and a nice tan.

  “Scarlett?” he said, his voice smooth as silk.

  She nodded.

  “Willi—”

  “You come alone?” he added, cutting her off.

  Another nod.

  “Yeah, I…” She paused a moment, then glanced at the dark restaurant beside her. “They’re closed.”

  William stepped in close. Flicked his cigarette into a street gutter. He looked and sounded much older than seventeen.

  He reached out, grabbed her hand softly, and smiled.

  “You look even better in person,” he said. Before she could reply, he motioned behind him. “I know another place. It isn’t far.”

  She smiled, and they held hands as he led the way. A big diesel truck grumbled by. Scarlett could hear music coming from a bar in the distance.

  She was just about to ask him where they were going when he led her toward a dark alley.

  “It’s right on the other side,” he assured her. “Best cheeseburgers in town. And they’re open until two.”

  She followed him. A stray cat eyed them from beside a dumpster. She could barely see it by the light of the moon. The alley became darker the deeper they moved into it. It didn’t look like it led anywhere except a dead end.

  “William, this looks—”

  She froze as an engine started up and a pair of bright headlights switched on just a few steps in front of her. She shielded her eyes and tried to squeal. But she couldn’t. Something was blocking her mouth.

  She trembled in fear as she realized what was happening. William had crept up, grabbed her from behind, and pressed his right hand over her mouth. He squeezed her so tight she could barely breathe.

  Scarlett watched in terror as the van’s side door slid open violently. Two guys dressed all in black climbed out and moved toward them. One had a sack in his hands. The other a coil of rope.

  Her dread turned to anger. She struggled with everything she had. Bit down hard on
William’s fingers. Let out a shrill cry and elbowed him in the gut.

  William groaned and cursed. Scarlett managed a single step out of there before the other two closed in. They grabbed her, smacked her over the head, then held her down.

  Scarlett felt a sharp pinch, then felt woozy and passed out on the blacktop.

  “The bitch,” William said, eyeing his bloody fingers.

  He reared back to kick Scarlett’s unconscious body, but one of the other guys stopped him.

  “No damaging the merchandise,” the guy grumbled, holding William back. He motioned toward the van and added, “Get her loaded up with the other two. The three of them need to be ready for delivery tomorrow evening.”

  They carried Scarlett’s limp body into the van. Then they climbed inside and slammed the door shut.

  Within seconds they were on the main road, putting distance between themselves and the scene.

  ONE

  Florida Keys

  The Next Day

  This was it. The stage was set. Mano a mano. The moment of truth.

  I gripped my weapon with both hands and homed in on my quarry. With my lungs throbbing, I narrowed my gaze, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

  The stretched rubber tubing snapped free, launching the metal spear through the gin-clear tropical water. I watched as the three-pronged sharpened steel tip struck home. It sliced through the unsuspecting wahoo just between its dark left eye and pectoral fin. With little more than a twitch, my prey went motionless, and I reeled it in.

  A clean kill.

  I grabbed hold of the spear right where it entered flesh, and looked up. I finned smoothly for the surface, exhaled as I broke free, and took in a few quick, much-needed gulps of fresh sea air. Grabbing the wahoo by the meat of its tail fin, I raised its elongated blue-and-silver body up out of the water. I dug my other hand into its gills, steering clear of its razor-sharp teeth.

  My wife, Angelina, stood against the transom of my 48 Baia Flash. Her smile was nearly as big as my own when she laid eyes on my catch.

  “You couldn’t have gotten a bigger one?” she said.

  I laughed. Pulling off my mask, I let it hang around my neck.

  “I’ll try to do better next time,” I joked as I kicked toward the stern.

  She had her hands on her hips, her blond hair tied back, and was peering at me through a pair of aviator sunglasses. Wearing a turquoise bikini, her lean, tanned body glistened in the late afternoon sun.

  “Wahoo!” Jack shouted when he surfaced beside me.

  Shouting “Wahoo!” after surfacing with a speared wahoo was a tradition that Jack kept up religiously.

  Jack Rubio was one of my best and oldest friends. A fourth-generation conch, Jack was the owner of Rubio Charters, a fishing and diving charter that had been catching the ocean’s bounties and showing tourists the underwater world since the eighties. Jack was a few inches shorter than my six-two, with curly blond hair, a deep tan, and a wiry frame.

  “We’re gonna need to grab the scale for that one, bro,” Jack said, enthusiastically.

  He held up a black mesh bag and I counted three spiny-tailed lobsters stashed inside. He’d already caught his limit for the day, so now he was just trying to up the sizes.

  “The bugs are hot this year,” Jack added as he finned for the port-side gunwale and dropped the bag on the deck.

  It was August 6. Opening day of lobster season. After four months of only being able to watch the crustaceans with watering mouths, the time of delicious reckoning had come. Like Christmas morning in the island chain.

  I plopped my catch down on the swim platform, removed my mask and fins, and climbed up out of the water. Jack heaved over the gunwale while Ange stepped over the transom and helped me haul up the wahoo.

  My happy yellow Lab, Atticus, ran down, whipping his tail against everything as he jumped into my arms and practically knocked me back into the water. I glanced at my dive watch and saw that I’d been under for just over three minutes. An eternity for a dog.

  I grabbed his tennis ball and tossed it out over the water. Before it had even splashed, Atticus was on the focused hunt, diving into the water and swimming quickly. Ange handed me a towel and I dried off while Jack sorted through the lobster in the live well, tossing out a few of the smaller ones for a later time.

  I stowed my gear, then took a quick picture with my fish before wrapping it in last week’s edition of the Keynoter and putting it on ice in my big cooler. Pulling out my portable grill, we cooked up some of the lobster tails right on the water as the sun sank down toward the Gulf of Mexico.

  Ange steamed up some vegetables in the galley and Jack whipped up a few rum runner cocktails. Once ready, we plated the food and ate it up on the bow while watching the sunset. The clouds covering much of the western sky had turned a deep shade of purple with glowing fringes. Streaks of rebellious light broke free at the shifting cracks, casting beams across the sky and twinkling like diamonds over the water.

  My father had taught me years ago to always watch the sunset if you can. It’s a good time to pause and reflect on the events of the day. Reminisce about the good stuff and learn from your mistakes.

  After a string of rip-roaring adventures that had taken their toll on us physically and mentally, things had slowed down. I hadn’t even fired my Sig Sauer P226 pistol since we’d taken down Valmira Gallani, an Albanian mafia leader who’d tried to kill us and take the Florentine Diamond for herself. That was last October. Nearly a year ago. Aside from a few trips down to Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean, Ange and I had spent all of 2010 in the Florida island chain.

  I’d turned thirty-three in February. Ange and I had had our first anniversary in May. Most of my life had been characterized by action, travel, and more action. Always another bad guy. Always another fight. And though I enjoyed bringing justice upon the doorstep of those who deserved it, I’d be content spending the rest of my days right there on the boat, spearfishing, diving, and sucking the marrow out of life.

  I kissed Ange on the cheek, then petted Atticus and took another savory bite of the buttered grilled lobster. Fresh seafood didn’t get any fresher than that.

  Just after the final rays of sun sank into the water, Jack’s phone vibrated to life on the bow deck beside him. He answered the call, smiled, then turned to us.

  “Lauren just got done with her charter,” he said. “She’s on her way to Conch Haven on Lower Sugarloaf to see the Wayward Suns. You two up for some live music?”

  Lauren Sweetin had moved to Key West from Tennessee after divorcing her cheating husband two years ago. After the courageous change of scenery, she’d dived headfirst into the island lifestyle, buying a catamaran and starting her own snorkeling charter company.

  She and Jack had been flirty with each other for a while and had finally made their relationship official a few months ago. I ragged on him that it was about time. Jack and Lauren were a match made in tropical heaven.

  “I’ll have to check my schedule, Jack,” I said with a grin as I leaned back and took another swig of my rum runner.

  “Schedule? What is this word?” Ange added.

  “Count us in, sweetie,” Jack said into his phone. “We’ll see you there.”

  When we finished eating, we headed back down into the saloon, cleaned up a little, then I started up the Baia’s twin 600-hp engines. Operating the windlass remotely, I brought the anchor up, then Jack secured the safety lanyard.

  I eased forward on the throttles and brought us around to an easterly heading. Once on course, I glanced at the radar before bringing us up to the Baia’s cruising speed of forty knots. I loved the feeling of bringing my boat up to speed, hearing the ocean crash against the bow, feeling the warm wind whip against my face whenever I rose up over the windscreen.

  TWO

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled us into an empty space on the dock in front of Conch Haven restaurant. After killing the engines and tying off, I dropped down into the main cabin and put on a pa
ir of cargo shorts and a faded Rubio Charters tee shirt. Ange dressed in a black tank top and denim shorts, while Jack was content with his board shorts and tattered ball cap. I swear, the guy never takes those shorts off.

  I fed Atticus, filled his water bowl, then cracked open a few of the windows so he wouldn’t get too hot. After locking it up and engaging the security system that I’d installed myself after buying her over two years ago, we headed down the dock, following the sound of the music.

  Conch Haven restaurant is a two-story, well-renovated local joint that’s right on the water. To the south is a condominium complex, to the north an empty lot followed by a long stretch of abandoned wharves, docks, and structures that Jack told me used to be part of a sponge factory.

  Lauren waved at us from the second level, her smile as big as they come.

  “Come on up,” she said enthusiastically over the sound of the band. “I saved the table, so first round’s on you guys.”

  We walked along the sand that transitioned to a pinewood deck. There wasn’t too much of a crowd, and it consisted mostly of locals. August isn’t exactly the high tourist season in the Keys. With average highs of eighty-nine degrees and the threat of hurricanes, it’s no wonder. But opening day of lobster season does bring down a throng of hungry, adventurous exterminators every year.

  Heading up the stairs, we weaved through the tables and waitresses, reaching Lauren over by the edge. She’d picked a good spot, with a great view of the ocean as well as the band.

  “You three save some lobster for the rest of us?” Lauren said before pulling Jack in for a kiss.

  “The small ones,” he said after catching a breath.

  Lauren was pretty, with long auburn hair, tanned skin, and a voluptuous figure. She also had a personality that was an attractive blend of humor and intelligence. I’d liked her from our first meeting.

  Having already eaten dinner, I decided on a Paradise Sunset beer when the waitress came over. Lauren had ordered a big plate of shrimp nachos that arrived just after we did, and snacking on the occasional cheesy tortilla chip filled what little room remained in my stomach.