A missing person case is nothing new to a private detective.
I guess that - next to cases of adultery or insurance fraud - they’re probably the stock in trade of most PI’s.
But this case was strange for two reasons.
First off, I’m no private eye; second, the person missing would turn up dead - however quickly I discovered his abductor.
Didn’t matter to me; I was going to bring Jamie home whatever.

I was in SoBe; that part of Miami Beach that rebelled against decline in the early 1980’s, hitched up its trousers and marched towards the new millennium with renewed determination.
South Beach was now affluent - or at least most of it was. There were still the occasional blocks that were decrepit, awaiting renewal - the poor relatives of the nearby moneyed population.
On the surface these areas didn’t seem so bad, but scratch at that surface and you could detect the cancer lying beneath.

Standing outside McKenna’s garage, I paused to study my surroundings; the way a predator does with all its senses.
McKenna’s closed a long time ago. Still, the sign hung above the roll down door told me I was at the right place.
The roll-down shutter was partly open.
The sounds of voices filtered out.
Shadows moved in the light-spill that bled from beneath the shutter onto the pavement. They reached for the toes of my boots and I stepped back fractionally, as though the reaching fingers of shadow were sentient and groping for me.
Beneath my heels I felt grit and perished engine oil. The smell of gasoline and corroded metal wafted on the air.
All ghosts of when this garage was a vibrant servant to the neighbourhood. I detected something else; the strong smell of perspiration: whoever was inside had been working hard.

Touching the SIG Sauer P228 where it was nestled against the small of my back, I had second thoughts, deciding to leave the gun where it was.
Those inside had taken seven year old Jamie Lopez, but they did not deserve to die.

Not yet.
That depended upon whether or not they were prepared to give him back.

I ducked under the roller shutter, one hand grabbing the door and tugging it closed behind me.
The angry protest of the mechanism announced my arrival far more effectively than any words.
The three men in the workshop turned to stare at me.
Their eyes darted nervously, awaiting confirmation of my intent.

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