Page 3 of One Cry Too Loud (Coastal Crime Unit #9)

“ W hat are you doing here anyway?” I asked as I followed Nathan VanPelt into the completely empty pottery shop.

There were two lights on, one in the main area of the shop and one shining from an adjacent door.

If either of them had been on when Kat and I pulled into the parking lot, I didn’t notice.

“Lock the door, please. The crime in this area is pretty minimal, but you can never be too careful.” He shrugged. “Look at who I’m telling. You’ve seen more crime than you’d like. Haven’t you, Jack?”

“Any crime is more crime than I would like, but I get what you’re saying,” I answered, locking the door behind me.

“And I’m here because I want to be,” Nathan said, moving toward a pottery wheel at the far end of the room. Atop the wheel, sat a perfectly formed vase with intricate lines and a wide bottom. “This might come as a shock, but even a man like me has hobbies.”

“A man like you?” I asked. “You mean rich?”

“I mean busy,” I corrected. “You’re not exactly shy about telling me how many jobs you have.”

“Ventures,” he said. “When you own the jobs, they’re called ventures.

” He settled behind the vase, looking it over with a tactful and discerning eye.

“But you’re right. I’m more busy than not these days.

Not the least of which involves your Unit, Jack.

That doesn’t mean I don’t set aside time for myself.

” He knelt, looking at the vase even closer.

“This recharges me. It keeps me clear, keeps me going.”

“You made this yourself?” I asked, walking toward him.

Nathan stood and allowed himself the slightest crack of a smile. “That surprises you?”

“I don’t know you well enough to be surprised. As far as I’m concerned, you’re capable of anything.”I eyed the vase. “Even beauty.”

“Eh.” Nathan rolled his eyes and swatted his hand at the still wet vase, knocking it sideways and ruining it.

“Why the hell would you do that?” I asked, shocked as I saw the misshapen lump that used to be the vase.

“Because it isn’t very good. It’s certainly not perfect,” he said.

“I just called it beautiful,” I reminded him.

“Try not to take this the wrong way, Jack, but you have a rather homey idea of beauty. In fact, you have a rather homey idea of everything,” he said.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I answered.

“Not bad. It just doesn’t push me,” he said. “I don’t have time for things that don’t push me.”

“What happened to making time?” I asked. “What happened to recharging?”

“Perfection recharges me,” he said flatly.

“A smart man once said that perfection is the enemy of progress,” I replied.

“Churchill?” Nathan asked, his eyebrows arching.

“My grandfather, actually,” I said. “Though maybe he lifted it from Churchill. He was kind of homey himself.”

He chuckled, albeit slightly. “Do you know I used to want to do this when I was young?”

“You’re still young,” I said. “And I told you, I don’t know anything about you.”

“My father loved to travel,” he said, his eyes glazing over as they seemed to move backward in time.

“He’d take my mother and I all over the world.

It was silly. We had barely had money to keep the bills paid back then,m but it didn’t stop my father from overspending to take us to Rome or London or Tokyo.

He wanted us to be cultured. He wanted us to be worldly.

He used to say that there was so much beauty in the world.

Most of it came naturally, but the things that he loved the most came from man. ”

“Man?” I asked.

“The Mona Lisa. The Pieta. The Great Wall. The Taj Mahal. He loved them all. He respected them all. He valued them. He called them wonders.” Nathan shook his head. “All I ever wanted to do, ever since I was a little boy, was make something like that. I wanted to make a wonder.”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked.

He motioned to the mound of clay that was once a vase. “That’s not where my talents lie. Mine are in finance. They're building businesses.”

“I thought it was a pretty damn nice vase,” I said honestly.

“It’s not a wonder,” he muttered. “Your family, your grandfather, he was in law enforcement?”

“He was.” I nodded. “Served almost his entire life.”

“Do you think we even stop doing this?” He asked, shrugging as his eyes met mine. “Do you think we ever stop working to make them proud?”

“I sure hope not,” I said. Taking a deep breath, I continued.“Why did you bring me here, Nathan? I’m sure it wasn’t to show me your pottery or tell me about your father.”

“It was not,” he confirmed. “Though something tells me that, by the end of this, you’ll wish it was.”

“Just tell me what’s going on,” I said.

“Twelve days ago, a five year old girl on the southside of Miami named Cindy Masters was taken from her home. Her mother, Alice Masters, was knocked out by intruders, and when she woke up, the girl was gone. Local authorities were informed and they went to work quickly, but they have-as of yet, not managed to find the child.”

“And you want me to do that?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.

“I do,” he said.

“Alright. I’ll look into it,” I said. “Get me whatever information you have, and I’ll start. I’m confused, though.”

“Confused?’ He asked.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy this is the kind of case you want the Coastal Crime Unit to take on, but why not let us do it? Why exclude Kat from this?”

“Because of me,” a voice said from behind me. “Because I asked him to.”

I turned and saw Holly standing behind me. The blonde Englishwoman wore a band of bracelets up either arm and pulled at her hands nervously as she spoke. She had just come out of the adjacent room, the one with the light on, and I could tell from her face that she’d been crying.

“Holly?” I asked, taking her in. “What are you doing here? Why don’t you want Kat involved?”

“Because I don’t want her to know the truth,” she said, sighing loudly. “I don’t want her to know that Cindy Masters, the little girl who was taken twelve days ago, is actually my daughter.”