Page 63 of Troubles in Paradise
Colette says, “The police were wondering if we had any leads, which we didn’t, but here’s the thing: the girlfriend admitted that Oscar actually went missing on January first. She said they were at a New Year’s Eve celebration and that Oscar left the party between two and three a.m., saying he had ‘work’ over on St. John.”
This gets Huck’s attention. He thinks about the black Jeep with the tinted windows—but no, it wasn’t Oscar driving, and that woman didn’t seem like a girlfriend of Oscar’s. She was old enough to be his mother and, as Huck had learned, Oscar preferred his women much younger. “Did she say what kind of work?”
“She wasn’t sure what he did exactly, but in the police report, she used the word ‘investments.’”
“So Oscar Cobb disappears the same day that Rosie and Russ die in the crash. Could be a coincidence. Rosie doesn’t mention Oscar again in the diaries and I haven’t seen him around here. Believe me, I would have noticed.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Colette says. “But I also don’t have anything that ties Cobb to Croft. I’ll follow up with the girlfriend—she said she didn’t report it earlier because she was scared, and I guess Oscar had a habit of disappearing for weeks at a time…”
Of course, he did, Huck thinks. He flashes back to the first time he laid eyes upon Oscar Cobb—at the Rolex Regatta in the late nineties. Rosie had been so young, only fifteen, and infatuated, completely blind to the fact that Oscar Cobb was bad news.
Though “bad news” is all relative.
“If I don’t get anywhere with the girlfriend, I do have one last hope,” Colette says. “Someone left a message at the field office saying she wants to talk to me about Croft. It was all very mysterious; she didn’t leave a name, only a number. She might be a crackpot. Or she thinks there’s money in it for her. The only thing is, she asked for me specifically. So she might be for real.”
“You’ll follow up?” Huck asks.
“I’ll follow up,” Colette says. “That’s enough talk about work.”
Huck has another beer and buys Colette Vasco another painkiller, and then he can’t wait another second. He has to have a cigarette. He says, “I’m going out to smoke. I’ll be right back.”
“We share a vice,” Colette says. “I’ll come with you.”
Huck tells Heidi they’re coming right back and the two of them go stand in the grass past the back patio. There are a few crooked palm trees, then the lip of Coral Bay. Huck lights Colette’s cigarette. It feels a little weird; the last woman he smoked with was his first wife, Kimberly.
She points to his left hand. “What happened to your finger?”
“Barracuda,” he says.
“I love a man with scars,” Colette says.
Huck lets that comment slide, though it’s starting to feel like she’s flirting with him, maybe more than flirting, which he can’t deny is good for his battered ego. How old is she? Maybe closer to forty than he’d thought. “How did you end up in the Caribbean?” he asks.
She tells him she’s originally from New Jersey, around Manasquan, Brielle, Belmar. Springsteen territory, she adds, because he’s never heard of any of those places. Colette’s father was a policeman; she went to Rutgers. The FBI recruited her. She spent years working the ports, fell in love with her boss, got married, and when he was transferred to the field office in Puerto Rico, she went with him. She got promoted, they split (it’s unclear to Huck if these two things are related), he went back to New Jersey, she stayed in Puerto Rico. The FBI acknowledged the need for a bigger white-collar crime investigative team in the territories.
They’re dangerously close to their original topic.Huck is still trying to process the news about Oscar Cobb.Investments? By “investments”the girlfriend must have meant “dealing drugs,”because what kind of investments needed to be tended to at three o’clock in the morning on St. John?
“Time for me to call it a night,” Huck says. They wander back inside and Huck flags Heidi for the check. “I have a charter bright and early.”
“I should go too,” Colette says.
They end up walking out to the parking lot together. It’s dark and unpaved so Huck does the gentlemanly thing and offers Colette his arm.
“You didn’t drive the Suburban out here, did you?”
“I’m staying out here,” she says. “Company digs. I can’t disclose the exact location but it’s close enough to walk.”
Huck is relieved. He’s spared having to offer her a ride home. “Well, this is me,” he says, nodding at his truck. He lifts his arm in an attempt to reclaim it from her and Colette grabs his hand, then winds her arms around his midsection and hip-locks him.
Whoa! Huck isn’t sure what to do but he has to make a decision right now. Colette Vasco is pretty and there can be no mistaking her body language. She’s ready to go—all the way.
Kiss her!Huck thinks.Take her home. What’s stopping you? She’s divorced, you’re single, you’re both lonely, and admit it, there’s been something between you from the beginning.
He places his hands on Colette’s shoulders, then cups her face and bends down. He kisses her once, gently, and is overcome by a strong wave of the worst emotion that exists in the world: guilt. He pulls away.
She presses farther into him. “Huck.”
“Agent Vasco,” he says. He reaches behind his back and unclasps her hands, holds them in both of his. “You’re a very attractive woman. But I’m…involved with someone else.” He stops. Is he doing the right thing? Is he? “And although it is quite tempting to take you home and let things unfold as they may, that wouldn’t be fair to her. Nor would it be fair to you. So I’m going to say good night. Please get home safely.”
