Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(37)

I shake my head. ‘I’ll find my way.’ And then I remember. My bike. He is one step ahead of me.

‘I’ll take you down to the Town Dock. Maybe you can rent a bike.’

I hate the idea of renting a bike that isn’t mine. But I have no choice. ‘Thanks, Steve.’ I pause. ‘For everything.’

When Steve drops me at the dock, he gives me a little worried wave. But I see a ferry coming in, packed with tourists. It’s starting, and I am comforted by the fact that Steve will be busy for at least the next couple of hours. Busy enough to leave me alone and let me do what I have to. He has given me Mike Burns’s address and has called ahead, telling him to expect me.

I find my way to the bike rental shop where I do my business. The bikes are lined up in a row, like soldiers, but I balk at their ordinariness. I need something more powerful, something with more speed.

Like the mopeds that are lined up next to them.

I have no driver’s license, though, nothing that would allow me to rent one. For the first time, I decide to use my relationship with Pete in a way that’s not altogether honest.

I put on my best smile and walk into the shop. It is a big garage with bikes hanging on walls, helmets filling shelves, baskets tucked inside each other in the corner. It is a mess, and it smells like rubber and gasoline. I drink in the scent.

‘Hey, Pete,’ I say to his back.

Pete Marley and I struck up our partnership just a week after I arrived on the island. He is overweight, but his fingers are nimble and he can fix anything that’s wrong with a bike.

‘Nicole. I heard. Are you OK?’ His voice is laced with concern. I am not surprised he knows. The island is small.

‘Yeah, I’m OK.’ But I see there is something else.

‘A guy was here, asking a lot of questions about you.’ He pauses. ‘Not that guy,’ he adds, and I know whom he means.

I feel a flutter in the middle of my chest. Carmine has been busy visiting my friends. ‘What sort of things is he asking about?’

‘Like, when do you do your tours, that sort of thing. He wanted your phone number. Something funny about him, though. Didn’t feel right. I had him leave his info for you.’ Pete reaches under his counter and pulls out a book, flips through it and turns it around so I can see.

Tony M is all it says. And a phone number. With a Miami exchange. ‘Thanks, Pete. You did the right thing. I appreciate it.’

‘You familiar with him?’

‘Yeah. I am.’ I say nothing more, and in true Yankee tradition, Pete merely nods.

‘OK, then.’ He seems to know that I am not going to take down the number for myself. He slips the book back under the counter.

‘I need some transportation,’ I say as calmly as I can. It is not as though I have not expected Carmine to start tracking me all over the island. It just makes me feel as though I have to move more quickly, although to what end, I am still not quite sure. Again I think of Ian and wonder where he is. Despite the way we’d left things, I am worried about him.

Pete waves his arm across his body. ‘Any bike of mine is a bike of yours.’

‘Until I can replace mine,’ I assure him. ‘But I was wondering if I could take a moped. Just for a couple hours.’

His eyebrows rise slightly. ‘Never took you for a biker chick,’ he teases.

I remember my chat handle and then push it aside. ‘Just for a couple hours,’ I say again, then wait for him to give me the contract and ask me for my license.

But instead, Pete reaches around to the board behind him and plucks a set of keys off it. He doesn’t ask for a driver’s license. He may not even know that I don’t have one, which makes it easier.

‘Number four. It’s out front. The number’s on the gas tank.’ He pauses. ‘You’ve driven one before?’

I remember the wind in my hair as I sped down the Rickenbacker Causeway. It had been Zeke’s bike, the real Zeke, and he was behind me, his arms wrapped around me as he whispered instructions in my ear.

‘Absolutely,’ I assure Pete, taking the keys. He doesn’t have to know it was so long ago.

But somehow he does know, and he follows me outside to the line of mopeds. Despite his girth, he slips between them and pulls one out. It is nondescript, a dull midnight blue. He climbs over the seat and twists the handle as he pushes down on the pedal. The engine roars to life, and he climbs off it, handing it to me. I straddle it, but then he holds up his hand to tell me to wait, runs back inside and comes out again with a helmet, which he fits over my head. It is bigger than a bike helmet, and perhaps it will disguise me a little more. No one will think to point me out on a moped to a stranger.

‘Be careful,’ he says loudly as I teeter on the moped, but I soon have my wits about me and remember how it’s done.

It’s different riding a machine than a bicycle. It’s more clumsy between my legs, and I begin to think that I could have gone just as fast on a bike. My bike. But the damage is done, and I’m here, now, making my way toward Great Salt Pond and Mike Burns and his refurbished computers.

I am trying to be aware of my surroundings, possible strangers – or not – but instead I am remembering Zeke; the moped is bringing it all back.

Every once in a while, FBI agents would show up at the house in Miami and puff up their chests and let my father know they were watching him. By the time it was Zeke’s turn, my father had been out of prison for eight years and I had stolen millions and transferred the money to accounts all over the world.