Scott and Phoebe gaped at him. "You mean you're just going to go all the way there by yourself?" asked Scott.
"I have no other choice! I can't just sit around here while Tamara and her family are being tortured by the Mob!"
"But Taylor, it's so dangerous!" Phoebe whispered. "You don't know what you're getting into!"
"I have to go! I love Tamara and I can't live without her! I have to find her!" Taylor said. "And I'll find her no matter what happens to me."
"Wow," said Scott. "I'm impressed. I wouldn't do all this for you," he said to Phoebe. She rolled her eyes.
"Thanks a lot."
"Don't tell anyone where I'm going," Taylor said. "My parents told me to come home after two days, but it's going to be longer than that. Just tell them not to worry about me."
Scott shrugged. "Whatever you say."
"Oh, do be careful!" exclaimed Phoebe, giving him a hug. "We can't afford to lose you and Tamara!"
Taylor gulped. "We'll be fine. Trust me. I'm going to go back to the airport and try to get a flight tonight. I'll call you when I get there, okay?"
"If there's anything else we can do..." Scott started. "Good luck."
"Thanks," Taylor said as he grabbed his suitcase from the hall. "See ya then." He first walked down the street to his own house and found some money that he had left in his room. He also grabbed some more clothes and supplies. He called a cab from his house and sat on the steps outside to wait. He was lucky when he got to the airport. The last flight to the Caymen Islands was leaving in an hour, so he bought a ticket and waited.
It was a long flight and was 4 in the morning when the plane touched down in the Caymen Islands. There was nothing Taylor could do except find a hotel and go to sleep.
He awoke the next morning at 11:00. Disgusted that he had slept in so late, he quickly got dressed and went down to the resteraunt for breakfast. As he was helping himself to the buffet, he overheard to men talking quietly.
"....goin' to Johnny's house this afternoon," said one of the men.
Taylor strained to hear and pretended to be interested in the bacon.
"Second hit in a week!" exclaimed the other. "Cops are going mad trying to arrest someone."
"...now that Johnny is here, everything will be good."
Taylor's ears perked at the name Johnny. They might be talking about Johnny Azkaban. He tried to listen for more information, but the men had noticed that he was eavesdropping and they moved away, glaring at him. No longer hungry, he ran back to his room and got out the phone book. First he looked up the name 'Souder,' but realized that they wouldn't be listed so soon. Then he looked up the name 'Azkaban' and he got lucky. There were two listed, one 'L. Azkaban' and one 'J. Azkaban.'
"J. Azkaban," he said to himself. "Johnny Azkaban. Wah-la." He wrote down the address on a slip of paper and decided to see if it was within walking distance. He walked out of the hotel, tentivley, looking for the two men from inside. He saw them up a little ways and decided to follow them. Maybe they would lead him to Tamara. They walked along the crowded streets for a while. As small as the Island was, there were tons of tourists and natives. They walked out of town and into the residential areas of the Island. They had been walking for about 15 minutes and Taylor was beginning to think that they were leading him out to the middle of nowhere. He noticed that the houses were getting a lot bigger and almost all of them had signs out front that read 'No Entry: Private Drive." Finally, the men, who were about 100 yards in front of Taylor, turned down a long driveway and Taylor watched as they talked into an intercom at the front gate. The gate opened and the men walked through and up to the enormous mansion that overlooked the ocean. Taylor knew that there was no way he would be able to get inside the grounds; it was too heavily gaurded. He stood by the edge of the driveway, deciding what to do. Finally, he walked around the edge of the property until he was at the back of the house. There was a large patio and swimming pool, along with a dock into the ocean. He peered through the bushes and saw a woman sitting on a pool chair, drinking an ice tea. He looked more closely and reconized her as Tamara's mom! That meant Tamara had to be in there somewhere! The only problem was getting to her.
Tamara's mom was soon joined by Richard Souder, her husband and Tamara's dad. He was wearing an expensive suit and dark sunglasses. He said something to her and she just shook her head and turned away, an expression of contempt and nervousness on her face. A thought just popped into Taylor's head. Tamara's family isn't in the Mob, are they? It was too far-fetched to be true. He quickly shook that thought out of his mind. Suddenly someone else walked outside to the patio. Taylor's heart lept as he reconized Tamara walking over to her parents. He felt overjoyed knowing that she was still alive and okay. She had her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and was also wearing sunglasses. Taylor tried to get closer to hear what she was saying. It looked like she was arguing with her dad and her mom was trying to make her stop. She threw her hands up in the air and glared at her father, saying something else to him.
"...WANT TO!" Taylor made out. It was the only thing he could hear. It looked like her dad gave in and the two men that Taylor had seen before came outside to join them. Mr. Souder said something to them, motioning to Tamara. The men looked reluctant to agree to what he was saying, but eventually they left the patio and Tamara followed them, looking upset. Tamara's mom said something to Richard and and he just shook his head.
Taylor figured that Tamara was going somewhere with those two men and he wanted to follow them. He ran around the side of the fence until he was back in the front of the house. After a few minutes, a dark sedan pulled out of the garage and the gate opened up. The windows were tinted, so he couldn't see inside, but he was positive that Tamara was inside it. The car pulled out of the driveway and Taylor ducked in the bushes so they wouldn't see him. He watched the car start down the road and he was at a loss of what to do. Luckily, a taxi-van came along the road a few minutes later and Taylor flagged it down.
"Where's this one going?" he asked the driver.
"Downtown, mon," said the driver with an accent. Taylor got on quickly and he could still see the car with Tamara up ahead, stopped a light. The taxi pulled up behind it and Taylor strained to see where it was headed. It turned right, as did the taxi, to Tay's relief and continued down the busy road to the main shopping area downtown. The sedan pulled over to the side of the road and Tamara and one of the men got out, while the car drove away. Taylor asked the taxi to stop and he got off as fast as he could. It was so crowded that he lost sight of Tamara and the man. He spotted her going into a shop and he decided to wait outside for her. He didn't want to scare her and he didn't want the man with her to see him. After a few minutes, Tamara came out of the store, with the man in tow. He looked at his watch and Taylor heard him say, "He should be here soon."
They walked over to a bench and the man turned his back to look for the other person he was waiting for. Taylor took the chance and pretended to throw something away in the trash can next to the bench. There were a lot of people around, so the man didn't see Taylor approaching them. Tamara was facing the other way, checking her purse for something and Taylor walked up behind her and touched her shoulder. She flipped around and her mouth dropped as she saw him. Her eyes filled with tears and she almost started to say something when Taylor put his finger over his lips, motioning to the guy.
"Meet me at the bathrooms," he whispered. She nodded and Taylor slipped away. The man with Tamara turned around.
"What was that?" he said gruffly.
"Nothing," said Tamara. "I just said that I have to go to the bathroom."
"Oh, alright. Come back here right away though," he said as he checked his watch again.
Tamara ran for the bathrooms, her heart beating. She thought that maybe she had just imagined that but when she reached the bathrooms, Taylor was outside, waiting for her. She sprinted over to him and threw herself in his arms. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
"Taylor," she gasped. "Taylor, how did you..." She started crying on his shoulder. "I love you."
He kissed her softly and said, "I love you too. I thought I'd never see you again. I...can't lose you, Tamara."
She started crying again and took his hand and led him over to a outside cafe. She wiped her eyes and tried to catch her breath. "I'm so glad you found me. I hoped the clues were easy to understand. But you can't stay here long, Tay, it's too dangerous for you."
"What do you mean?" he asked confused. He reached out for her hand. "Now that I found you, I'm not letting you out of my site ever again." She gave a small laugh and smiled at him. "What's going on Tamara? Why did this happen?"
She looked down at her hands and was silent. "It's a long story," she said, looking around worriedly. "Someone might hear me."
"Please Tamara, I came all this way to find you. Who's Johnny Azkaban?"
She took a deep breath. "Johnny Azkaban...is my father." Taylor looked at her, confused.
"But your dad is Richard Souder... I don't understand."
She sighed. "It's very confusing. I only found out all this a couple weeks ago. My dad's real name is Johnny Azkaban. He's been going under the name Souder as a alias. He's one of the leaders in the Chicago Mafia family."
"But you never knew about this? How is that possible?"
"My mom didn't even know. He had thought he was through with the mob, so he changed his name and started a whole new life in Oklahoma. But for some reason, there were favors that he owed to people in Chicago and he found himself working for the mob again. Supposedly my dad has a dirty past, and the government just found out. We had to get out of our house with one day's notice and come here to escape. My dad is stuck back in the mob because it's the safest place for him now. We're trapped. If we leave here, he goes to jail. Or they'll kill us. I couldn't tell anyone we were leaving and...oh Taylor! It killed me to not say goodbye to you! I missed you so much and I just want..." she started to cry again.
"Shhh, shhh," he comforted. "I'm here now. It's okay." She took another deep breath.
"Those men I was with- they work for my dad. We own practically this whole island. There's so much I never knew...my own father...heck, we're richer than you are," she said bitterly. He smiled a little, but was worried inside.
"So you're not even really Tamara Souder? Tamara Azkaban?"
She shook her head fervently. "NO! Never! I will never go under my father's name! I will never be like him!" she cried. "Taylor, I can't live like this...you've got to help me."
Taylor looked at her in shock. What he had learned in the last five minutes changed everything he had ever known. But she was still Tamara Souder to him, his girlfriend, the first girl he had ever really loved, the girl across the street. All his memories of him and Tamara came flooding back to him and he choked down the lump in his throat.
"Of course I'll help you."