A vehicle pulled up on the outbound side of the guardhouse. The guard stepped out to the curb and leaned down to talk to the person in the car. Don’t leave, I thought, willing the guard to stay put. I couldn’t make out the whereabouts of the security man anymore, but when the car nosed out to check on the traffic, I saw that it was a black El Camino.

“B.J.!” I yelled. “Hey, B.J.! Hold up!” I leaped the center divider and rolled over the side and into the El Camino’s truck bed. B.J.’s face jerked around in the window, looking fierce, but he arched his eyebrows and shook his head when he saw me. He obviously thought it was all a big joke. I sat up in time to see Big Guy and Shorty no more than a hundred feet behind Ely, who was just crossing the grass divider. Then she jumped at the truck and crooked one leg up over the top.

I banged on the roof of the cab. “Go, go, go. Move it. Go!”

B.J. burned rubber taking off toward the north in front of the oncoming traffic, nearly getting in a wreck in the process. For the first fifty feet he drove on the wrong side of the road. Horns blared. I looked behind us and saw the broad backs and shoulders of Big Guy and Shorty. They both wore tank tops, and under the fluorescent streetlights, their enormous sculptured arms were pressed against their knees as they struggled to catch the only thing left to them: their breaths.

VIII

B.J. turned the El Camino inland at Sunrise Boulevard, and after crossing the Intracoastal Waterway, he pulled into the parking lot at the Galleria Mall. He stopped under a light, far from the boxy building, and parked amid the empty rows of painted white lines. When the engine stopped, he slowly opened his door and climbed out of the truck. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt tucked into navy cargo shorts. He leaned his back against the door and rested his head on the roof staring up at the stars.

“I’ve never driven like that in my life.”

“It showed,” I said.

He lifted his head and looked at me, ready to be angry.

I grinned at him, and he started laughing out loud. Then Elysia started laughing, too.

“You should have seen your face when you turned around and looked through your window,” I said, gasping.

He rested his arms on the top of the vehicle. “What about you? Flopping around in the back of my truck like a boated bass?”

“Seychelle,” Ely said, “did you see the look on that guy’s face when I got him with my shoes?” She rolled onto her back in the truck bed and kicked her feet in the air laughing so hard she got the hiccups. And that set us all off again.

“Whooee,” B.J. said finally, getting himself under control. He pressed his forehead against his bent arms for a few seconds, then looked straight at me. “What was that all about?”

I ignored his question. “I was so glad you hadn’t left yet, B.J. I was looking for the Chris Craft, and when I saw she was all buttoned up, I thought you’d gone.”

“Seychelle, are you ready to explain any of this to me?” he asked.

I stood up, straddled the side of the truck, and sat just behind the cab. “Okay, okay. You know, I’m not sure I understand what happened myself.” At that moment, the full impact of what the two muscle men had been asking finally hit me. It sobered me up fast. “I came by the restaurant to see Elysia, and we went for a walk on the beach. And then when it got dark, these guys came up and grabbed us.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No. But this wasn’t just random violence, B.J. They started asking me where Neal is.”

He didn’t say anything right away. “Those guys knew who you were?”

“Apparently.”

He rubbed his hand across his chin. “They must have been following you. You didn’t notice anything?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe they don’t know about what happened on the Top Ten. Maybe these guys just wanted Neal for something else,” he said.

“I don’t think so. The big guy who had hold of me did most of the talking, and he said something about not believing in disappearing acts. They think he’s alive, B.J., and they seem to think I know where he is.”

We all three crammed ourselves into the truck cab with me in the middle, Elysia by the window. I tucked my shoulder down so B.J. could reach over me to shift.

“Where to?” he asked. His breath smelled like spearmint gum.

“Let’s take Ely home. Harbor House.”

We doubled back along Sunrise Boulevard to A1A and turned north at the beach. B.J. swung left on Bimini Lane, next to the Flamingo Motor Lodge. One block back from the ocean stood Harbor House. Once upon a time it had been a typical dumpy little beach hotel, but when they turned it into a house for runaway girls, they actually made it look better. There was an elegance to the place, with its whitewashed walls and teal trim. The windows were covered with heavy, wood Bahama shutters. The mirrored glass front door and the classy carved wood sign made the place look more like a high-tech firm than a halfway house for runaway teens.

We dropped Elysia off at the curb out front.

“God, I’m exhausted,” she said, opening the truck door. “At least I don’t have to work tomorrow. I’m going to sleep in till noon and then go apartment hunting.”

“Some people have all the luck.” I reached around and gave her a swift hug. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m always fine, you know that.”

“Ely, I know you’re tired, but I need to know anything more you can tell me about Patty.”

She glanced over at the mirrored glass door. “Seychelle, don’t ask too many questions, okay? Take it from a survivor. Know when to leave things alone.”

“Hey, worrying is my job. I’ll call you. Take care of yourself. Now”—I pointed to the house—“to bed.”

“Bye,” she called. She waved goodbye, barefoot, swinging her sandals, then she turned and walked into the house. I watched through the back window as B.J. pulled away from the curb. Ely practically bounced up to the door. The buzzer sounded, and she passed inside. I saw her bending over talking to the person behind the counter as the door swung closed.

I settled myself on the seat next to the door.

We drove up Sunrise, past the strip malls and the fast-food joints. Groups of men loitered outside the convenience stores drinking out of paper bags in the glare of the fluorescent lights. Young women in skintight miniskirts stood talking in groups outside a package store. In the very next block, a brilliantly lit showroom displayed dozens of exotic Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, and Maseratis. I’d grown up in South Florida, and most of the time I loved my home, but there was a squalor, a tackiness that lived right next door to the palatial homes of the rich and famous. Just down the street from the oceanfront million-dollar condos we were passing prostitutes, drug dealers, adult bookstores. The neon lights bathed the street-level ugliness with a day-bright glow and lit the overhead tangle of telephone and electrical wires. I imagined for a moment that if alien spaceships ever hovered over this part of South Florida, they might think the earth’s inhabitants were a mutant form of spiders waiting to catch them in their wire webs.

“Where’s your Jeep?”

B.J. startled me with his question.

“It’s still down by Bahia Cabana.”

“Would you rather I take you back to pick up Lightnin’, or straight home?”