Page 125 of One Last Promise

“Cool.” The boy held up his fist.

She bumped it.

Trust her training.

The thought settled into her head as she walked back out onto the street and over to her bike. She’d driven to Miami Beach out of impulse, a tug from her conversation with Flynn. But she’d first trained in Hollywood, north of Miami.

The original Fight Factory.

She pulled on her helmet. If it’d started there, it could end there.

A1A, the highway along the beach, was just as clogged as she remembered, but she followed traffic all the way along the shoreline, past the high-rise resorts and along the cruise ports, past Surfside and North Beach and through Hanover Park. Somehow, being on the road loosened the stiffness inside her, the breeze off the ocean cool.

She passed the Newport Fishing Pier, more resorts on the water, and finally slowed as she reached Hollywood Beach.

Clean and bright, with towering beachside condos and overflowing bougainvillea along tall creamy-white walls. Shaggy palm trees against a crystalline blue sky. Convertibles pumping out a different kind of music—no more hip-hop, more Adele and Celine Dion.

She turned off from the barrier island and headed back over the causeway on the 820, reconnected with Highway 1, past the massive Hollywood Golf Club, and finally slowed as she came into the old neighborhood.

She took a left on Arthur and drove past two-story apartment complexes with tiny yards, a few multiunit single-story buildings, and as she turned onto 19th, tiny flat-roofed homes sitting on mini lots, painted orange or white, awnings over the windows to keep out the sun. She slowed in front of an adobe-looking townhome with a clay tiled roof and a tiny plastic kiddie pool in the yard. They’d had one when she lived here too.

“C’mon, we’ll pretend we’re at a resort.”Pearl, putting her entire lawn chair into the pool.“All we need is a hot guy with an umbrella drink.”

They had needed a lot more than that, but for a minute there, they’d been happy.

Tillie’s gaze went to the back deck area. She didn’t see a camera. Just a couple of metal lawn chairs and a snarled, dry hibiscus.

She turned at the end of the block, and there, across the street from the Romanian church, sat the original Fight Factory, with the hanging bags across the front windows and the three central sparring rings, the weight sets, and the wall of champions. Probably, hopefully, Rigger had taken down their picture together.

A few cars sat in the lot, and she drove by, not seeing Rigger’s Dodge Charger, but then again, that had been five years ago.

He probably drove something a little slicker now.

Still, she needed a place to hunker down and wait, so she pulled into the church lot, got off the bike, and sat under a palm tree.

She tucked herself in and waited. Tried not to think about Moose and the look on his face when she’d left him at the hospital.“This is goodbye.”

Wiped her cheeks.

Two hours later, as she debated finding another taco truck, a Lexus pulled up. And under the late afternoon sun, Rigger climbed out, wearing a pair of suit pants and an oxford, pressed and neat. Not a hint of a man who would run someone off the road and steal a little girl out of the back seat. But she’d listened to Donna’s account, and in the pit of her soul, she knew it’d been him.

He wentinto the building.

An hour later, as the sun sent shadows into the late hours, he came out. Got in his Lexus. Drove away.

And so did Tillie.

She stayed a ways back, weaving in and out of traffic, hiding behind trucks and cars, but always an eye on him, and followed him out of Hollywood, north to Fort Lauderdale and then—she justknewit—out to Las Olas Isles, with the multimillion-dollar estates, the canals, the tall palms, and gated yards. Driveways paved with cobblestone, where shiny Escalades parked for security alongside Ferraris and Astin Martins.

Rigger pulled into the driveway of a sleek-looking, flat-topped midcentury modern mansion that sat on a corner lot, with a wall of windows and a deck that wrapped around the entire top floor. On the main floor, slatted wooden privacy walls secured a walkway around the house, and beyond that, the entire yard of fake grass was gated with wrought iron. The wide-tiled driveway held at least two Escalades along with a massive garage. She drove around the block and spotted an expansive patio area under a rounded balcony that jutted from the house. Thick pillars held it up on either side.

Beyond that, a forty-foot three-story yacht sat at anchor at the canal dock. Men stood on the yacht, talking amidst armed guards stationed at the bow and stern.

As she watched, Rigger walked out of the house to the yacht. A dog followed him out, barking, and behind him, a little boy ran out, then cannonballed into the pool. The dog—a boxer, from the look of it—barked, worried, as the boy splashed to the edge. Then it turned to warn off the men on the boat as Rigger now glad-handed them.

A woman came out, tall, shapely, and bronzed—Courtney Baker. She wore a bikini and a wrap and sat down on the edge of the pool, splashing the little boy with her feet.

Aboard the boat, Rigger laughed, his hand on the shoulderof one of the men.

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