Kitabı oku: «Hidden In The Everglades», sayfa 3

Standing, he studied the ground around him a long moment, then ambled behind Boomer and Harvey. The bloodhound went to the side deck.

“That’s probably the way the assailant went into the house,” Kyra said while the trio made their way to Gabe’s patrol car.

“By the time DNA testing comes back on the cigarette butts, Amy could be dead.”

“It can take a while even with a rush on it, but it could help make a case against the guy when he is found.”

“That might be too late for my sister.” When Michael emerged from the undergrowth onto the road near the Pattersons’ house, he saw Gabe on his cell. Harvey was pulling away in his old pickup truck with Boomer in the back, looking at Michael.

“Officer Connors just called to tell me he’s checked all Amy’s usual haunts and found nothing. No one has seen her.”

“How about Laurie?” Kyra asked, looking down at her muddy tennis shoes for the second time that day.

“Connors said no one answered when he called her house about an hour ago. He even drove by and didn’t see Mrs. Carson’s white Chevy out front. Since she works evenings, he thought she might be there and was sleeping or something.”

“If anyone knows where Amy is it would be Laurie. Where one goes the other usually isn’t far behind.” Michael stuffed his hands into his front jean pockets, his shoulders slumping forward. He needed to do something. He couldn’t sit around and just wait. He’d never been good at doing that. He looked for solutions to problems and carried them out—or at least he had until he hit an emotional wall with Sarah’s death. “What can I do to help?”

“Gabe, maybe Michael and I could go to Laurie’s and see if she or her mother are home yet. That way you can use all your men for the search.”

“Fine. As I told you before, I can use any help I can get. Call if you find out anything.” Gabe opened his car door and climbed inside.

“I will.” The sun’s rays tinted Kyra’s cheeks a rosy color.

“You said something about expanding the search. Are you going to search the swamp?” Michael glimpsed a patrol car coming down the street.

“I haven’t heard back from Wilson yet. If Amy’s kayak is gone at the Main Street dock, yes. If not, we should concentrate on the town and the surrounding area. Since someone most likely picked her up in a car, that’s probably how she’s traveling.”

“Laurie has a car. Amy’s Camry is still in the garage.” He prayed it was Laurie who had come and picked Amy up. The alternative could mean his sister was dead like the two young men.

“If Laurie isn’t there, at least check with Mrs. Carson to see if her car is gone.” Gabe kneaded the cords of his neck. “Or look into the garage. If I remember correctly, there’s a window that allows you to see inside. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Kyra chuckled. “I never heard a word.”

Michael kept thinking about the swamp, the lure of the slow-moving water. “What if she didn’t use her kayak but someone else’s?”

“We’ll explore the swamp even if her kayak is at the dock, but that kind of search requires a lot of manpower and coordination. I couldn’t get it together before dark. If nothing turns up, we’ll start tomorrow morning. I’ll put the call in to the sheriff’s department about the possibility. Maybe they can spare a few people to help.”

“Fine,” Michael said between gritted teeth.

Gabe ambled over to Nichols, who had parked and was getting out of his car. The police chief spoke to his officer, then the young man got back in the cruiser and left. Gabe took his cell out and made a call.

Michael pulled out his car keys. “I’ll drive.”

“Maybe I should wash my shoes again or change.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll clean the car after this is all over with.” He pointed down at his boots. “I feel like the clock is ticking on this.”

“Fine, I understand.” Kyra slipped into his car as he did. “Is it just Laurie and her mother?”

“Yes, Laurie lives with only her mother. If Laurie is anything like Amy in the summer, she’s sleeping in. Usually Amy isn’t up until ten or eleven.” He started the Saturn’s engine. Before backing out, he twisted toward Kyra. “Should I call Laurie first? See if she’s there. It could be a wasted trip, like Officer Connors’s.”

“No. If she’s home, I’d like to see her reaction when she finds out about Amy going missing. I might be able to tell if she knows anything and isn’t saying.”

FOUR

“Let’s just hope we find Laurie at home and she can lead us to Amy.” Slowly over the course of the past few hours, the muscles in Kyra’s shoulders and neck had knotted until now pain streaked down her back. She didn’t have a good feeling about this but didn’t want to worry Michael any more than he already was. “Tell me about Amy. The last time I saw her she was a little girl. When my dad died and I came home for the funeral, she’d been at church camp.”

“I don’t think she has stepped foot in a church in the past year, which distressed Ginny to no end.”

“But not you?”

His hands about the steering wheel tightened, his knuckles white. “Let’s just say I have my own issues with the Lord.” He inhaled a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “In a few weeks she’ll start her senior year at Flamingo High School.”

“How are her grades this past year?”

“Good. Mostly Bs with a few As.”

“So, no problems at school?”

“Ginny told me there were a couple of girls harassing her at the beginning of her junior year, but by the time I’d arrived here in April, everything seemed to be taken care of.”

“How about her friends? Do you approve of them?”

“That’s been the main problem. Preston’s reputation isn’t—wasn’t good. He was wild, always partying. He graduated this year and has been picking up odds jobs this summer. He lived with his older brother—actually not far from where Laurie’s house is.”

“Has Preston lived here all his life?”

“No, he moved here from Miami at the beginning of the school year. I was trying to give Amy room to see what kind of person he was. I remember when Mom told Ginny she couldn’t date that guy in high school.”

So did Kyra. She’d helped Ginny sneak out of the house to go out with Danny. Ginny had been determined to date him in spite of what her mother had said. She was seventeen and should be able to pick her own boyfriends. “You knew about her seeing Danny?”

“Yeah. I saw her one night climbing back into the house.”

“And you didn’t say anything to your parents?”

“I’d grown out of my tattle-telling stage. I didn’t want Amy to sneak out against my wishes and look what has happened.” He turned onto Sunshine Avenue. “Preston’s is the third house on the left. Laurie lives several down from there.”

As they passed Preston’s home and the police cruiser parked out front, Kyra studied the plain, white place with a yard that was mostly dirt and dead plants. One eight-foot crepe myrtle with dark pink blooms draped all over it stood sentinel at the side by the driveway, the only color in an otherwise drab setting. A Harley Davidson motorcycle sat close to the sidewalk near the porch.

As Michael came to a stop at the end of the block, he closed his eyes for a few seconds, his hands opening and closing around the steering wheel. “The past few months haven’t been easy for me or Amy. Getting to know each other. Learning to live together. She hasn’t wanted to accept my authority as her guardian. I had no experience at parenting when I arrived. I feel I have even less now. Amy has blocked my attempts every step of the way.”

“That can be typical. Challenging authority isn’t uncommon. According to Ginny, you did your fair share as a teenager. I seem to remember you going with some friends to Tampa against your mother’s wishes.”

“Yeah, I was grounded for a month when she found out.” Climbing from his car, he peered at her over the top of the gray Saturn. “It’s disconcerting to have someone know all about my childhood pranks.”

“Just wanting to get you to remember how it was.” Although Michael had his share of childhood antics, he’d become a doctor who’d changed his plans to help Ginny when she was given an opportunity to fulfill a lifetime dream of serving as a missionary overseas for two years. So far she liked what she’d seen of Ginny’s kid brother.

“So when I find Amy, I won’t ground her for the rest of her life?”

Kyra laughed. “Something like that.”

When Michael reached the porch, he rang the doorbell while Kyra assessed the surroundings. Laurie’s house needed a coat of blue paint, but otherwise the place was kept up, the lawn mowed and the weeds pulled. Several minutes passed, and Michael pressed the bell again.

A white Chevy parked in the driveway made Kyra suspicious. The hairs on her nape prickled. She swiveled her attention toward the front picture window and glimpsed a curtain fall back into place.

“I guess no one’s home.” Michael swung around and frowned at the white car. “That’s Cherie Carson’s car,” he said in a low voice. “So where is she? At a neighbor’s?”

Kyra opened the screen and banged on the door. “Someone is home.”

Thirty seconds later, a petite woman with medium-length brown hair peeked out from a crack of no more than a couple of inches and said, “Yes?”

“Mrs. Carson, we’re here to talk to your daughter. Is she home?” The overpowering scent of roses assailed Kyra’s nostrils.

The lady’s mouth pinched together, her eyebrows slashing downward. “Who are you?”

Before Kyra could show the woman her identification, Michael stepped forward, his shoulder brushing up against Kyra’s. “Hi, Cherie. It’s important that we have a word with Laurie. Amy is missing.”

Cherie Carson’s eyes grew round. “Laurie isn’t here.”

“Where is she?” Kyra asked after a few seconds’ silence.

The woman clutched the edge of the door, still only open a few inches. “She’s at her aunt’s in Tampa and won’t be back until the weekend.”

“We need to talk to her.” Michael grasped Kyra’s hand and held it. His tension conveyed his tone.

“I can call Laurie later and let her know. But I don’t know when I’ll be able to get hold of her. My sister and her were going to do some shopping today. I’ll have her call you, Michael.” Cherie started to close the door.

He reached out to stop her from doing it. “Please. This is important. I think Amy is in trouble, and if Laurie knows anything—”

“I’m so sorry to hear about Amy, but Laurie has been gone. Knowing your sister, she’ll show up soon with some wild story. Goodness me, she certainly has dragged Laurie into enough escapades. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a splitting headache and was lying down.” The woman’s grip on the door tightened so much her fingertips reddened.

Michael took a half step forward. “Laurie may know where she would have gone.”

Pain blinked in and out of the woman’s expression. “Check with her other friends. Laurie doesn’t know.” She moved back quickly and slammed the door shut, the lock clicking into place.

Michael squeezed Kyra’s hand, transmitting his tension, before releasing his hold. “She’s never been very friendly but this is …” His words grounded to a halt.

“It doesn’t look like we’ll get anywhere. Maybe Gabe can.”

He let the screen bang closed. His glare drilled into the wire mesh.

Kyra descended the porch stairs. “Is she that way with everyone?”

Michael pivoted and accompanied her toward the car. “Amy assured me after my first run-in with the woman she was that way with all men and not to take it personally. It seems her husband left her a few years back. Didn’t come home from work but called her the next day to tell her it was over.”

What was it with married couples? First her mother walked out on her dad when she was ten. Her father had been devastated. She had been too, but she’d spent the next year consoling her dad. He was never the same after her mother left. “Something like that happened to my older sister who lives in Boston now. Except thankfully she didn’t have any children to worry about.” And that was why she wouldn’t marry. She had seen too many broken marriages to want one for herself. Her job was her life and that was the way she wanted it.

After Michael settled in the front seat and started his car, he pulled away from the curb. “Why didn’t you ever marry?”

“Who said I didn’t?”

“I assumed since Ginny never said anything about it to me that you hadn’t.”

“Do you two make it a habit of talking about me a lot?” The fact Ginny and Michael might have made Kyra feel strange. When his attention zeroed in on her face, she grinned. “Don’t you know it’s not good to gossip?”

A smile touched his blue eyes, sparkling them. “We never gossiped about you. I inquired about how you were doing from time to time. That’s all.”

She wouldn’t tell him that she’d asked about him once. After his older sister kidded her about robbing the cradle, she’d never asked again. Ginny was right. There was five years’ difference between them. Kyra fastened her gaze on his strong jawline, wanting to know about this man. Did he feel like she did about marriage? Was his job his whole life? “I didn’t want to marry. Being a cop would have been hard on a marriage. How about you? Did you ever marry?”

For a few seconds a shadow flittered in and out of his eyes. “You mean Ginny never told you about me? I’m crushed.”

Didn’t Ginny mention that Michael was getting serious with a woman in Chicago, even thinking about marriage? What had happened? Her curiosity spiked. Did he marry the lady? Were they divorced?

He turned onto Pelican Lane, and all evidence of a smile vanished as he stared at the house at the end of the road.

She noticed Gabe’s police cruiser was still at the Pattersons’. She’d thought he would have left by now. “You okay?”

“What am I supposed to do? Go back to the house and twiddle my thumbs?”

“Do people do that anymore?”

“Okay. Wear a path in my floor pacing.”

“What do you want to do?”

He parked in his driveway. “Go looking for Amy. If the police are covering the town, then I’d like to go into the swamp. I know a couple of places where Amy has mentioned she’s gone. I’d like to check those out. I’ll have enough time before dark.”

“No, we’ll have enough time. I’m coming with you.”

“Are you sure? Aren’t you the lady who doesn’t like swamps?”

“Swamps are fine. It’s the snakes that inhabit them that I don’t like.”

“Alligators are all right, then?”

“Sure. They’re big, and I can see them coming.”

“Not always. They can hide under the water and surprise their prey.”

“Are you trying to scare me away?”

“No, but I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to you.”

Weariness infused each of his words and something else that Kyra couldn’t quite grasp. Possibly regret? Guilt? As a police officer she’d had to deal with both those emotions quite a bit. “Oh, nothing’s going to. I’m very capable of taking care of myself. I’m taking my gun.”

“You carry a gun all the time?”

“When I think it’s necessary, and it might be necessary in this case.” She began to stroll toward her house. “I’ll just be a sec.”

Kyra ran up the stairs to the front porch and let herself into the house. Rock-and-roll music blasted from the speakers in the great room, pulsating the air. Kyra smelled the faint odor of something burning. Aunt Ellen was cooking again. She did that when she was upset. With all the patrol cars on the street today, she couldn’t blame her aunt for being agitated.

She hurried and washed her feet then grabbed a clean pair of shoes and popped into the kitchen to tell her aunt where she was going.

“Oh, dear, I’ve burned the cookies again. I was so looking forward to them.” Her aunt donned her hot-pink mittens to take the baking sheet out of the oven. When she opened the door on the stove, dark gray smoke poured into the room.

“Aunt Ellen,” Kyra called out over the noise of the music. “I’m going with Michael Hunt into the swamp.” Her gaze glued to the charred pieces of cookies, she added, “Don’t wait dinner for me.”

Aunt Ellen opened the window above the sink and turned on the vent over the stove. “He’s such a nice young man. I just hate what he’s going through right now. I was going to make a second batch for him.”

“Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to go to the trouble.”

“Oh, no. I am.” Aunt Ellen pitched the burned cookies into the sink and ran water over them, then reached for the mixing bowl. “It’s no trouble. Keeps my mind off what’s been happening on our street. In the very house next door to us.”

She crossed the kitchen and hugged her aunt. “Are you worried something will happen to you?”

“No, dearie. At the last Founder’s Day shooting contest, I bested Gabe, and everyone knows he’s the best shot in the area.” She grinned. “Well, until that day.” She slipped her hand into the large pocket on her hot-pink-and-white apron and pulled out a pistol. “I’ll be all right. You go help Michael.” She patted Kyra on the arm, then twisted around and began measuring flour. “You know, Michael is single. It’s about time you got married.”

Not in this lifetime, Kyra thought and hurried from the house. Her partner in the Dallas Police Department had struggled with his marriage for years. When his wife had asked for a divorce, he’d nearly lost his job over it because he’d started drinking heavily. She never wanted to be that emotionally connected to another person that her happiness depended on him. Her father had taught her to stand on her own two feet and protect her heart at all costs.

As she hurried toward Michael’s house, he emerged from the front entrance. Anger shot out of his eyes. His gaze zeroed in on her and beneath the fury lurked fear.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone has been in Amy’s bedroom while we were gone.”

“Amy?”

“I don’t know.” He reentered his house and strode down the hall toward his sister’s bedroom. “The window wasn’t open like that when we left.” Michael gestured toward the one across the room. “She has a key. Why would she come through the window? It’s not like I was here and she would have to sneak in.” His eyes stinging from lack of sleep, he rubbed his hands down his face. Not knowing what to think was putting it mildly. His head pounded with each attempt to make sense out of what was happening.

“Other than the window being open, do you see anything else out of place? Something gone?”

He slowly made a tour of Amy’s bedroom, noting the usual disarray. When he came to the desk, he stiffened. “The laptop is gone.” Hidden behind a stack of books on wildlife, the space where her computer usually sat was empty. “You left it in here, didn’t you?”

Kyra closed the distance between them, a frown lining her forehead. “Yes. I was going to work some more on it later, then see what Gabe wanted to do with it.”

“Why would someone take it?”

“Maybe there’s something on it the killer didn’t want us to see. There was a folder of photos she deleted I wanted to go through as well as another one still on her hard drive.”

“Or maybe it was Amy and she didn’t want us to see something.” He plowed both hands through his hair. “But that doesn’t make sense. None of this does to me.”

“As you said, she could have used her key. Why come through the window? I hadn’t had time to check all Amy’s files when Gabe called about the ID of the second dead person at the Pattersons’. I tried tracking the IP address of skullandcrossbones from one of the emails the person sent Amy, but it led me to an internet café in Naples, which could mean a dead end.”

“So our one lead has been stolen?” He turned, closed the window and locked it, then headed for the hallway. “We need to let Gabe know about this.”

As Michael and Kyra traversed to the last house on the road, he couldn’t shake the feeling he should have been able to prevent this somehow. If he hadn’t had to deliver the baby last night, maybe Amy wouldn’t have snuck out of the house and gotten caught up in whatever was going on. The pressure behind his eyes intensified. If anything happened to his little sister, he would never be able to forgive himself.

Memories of Sarah intruded into his mind. How long had he been unconscious at the wreck? If he’d awakened sooner, could he have somehow saved her from dying? Why hadn’t God helped him? Michael had pleaded with Him to give him the ability to keep Sarah alive. If only he …

He shook his head, trying to rid his thoughts of the same what-ifs he’d been going over for the past year. A doctor dealt with death—especially an emergency-room physician. He’d been contemplating resigning his position as an E.R. doctor when Ginny asked him to come back to Flamingo Cay to be Amy’s guardian until she graduated from high school. The town had been without a doctor for a while and needed another one. He’d thought returning home had been an answer to his dilemma, that it would give him the time to reevaluate his life. Now he wasn’t so sure. Now he’d added more emotional baggage on top of what he already carried.

Kyra approached Gabe in the Pattersons’ backyard near the beach where the first victim had been found. “Someone was in Michael’s house while we went to talk with Laurie. Amy’s laptop is gone.”

“Did you get anything off it?” Gabe chewed on a toothpick.

Kyra told him about the journal and their visit to see Laurie. “The IP address for the message from skullandcrossbones leads to a place called Kava Net in Naples.”

After removing the toothpick from his mouth, he snapped it in two and stuffed the pieces into his top shirt pocket. “We can check it out if we don’t find Amy today. If it’s okay with you, Michael, I’ll have Nichols check the window and desk area for fingerprints.”

“Sure.” He unsnapped a key from his keychain and gave it to Gabe.

“Amy’s kayak is still at the Main Street dock where she keeps it. Right next to yours, Michael. So your sister isn’t likely in the swamp,” Gabe said.

“Kyra and I are still going to check some places in the Glades. I can’t shake the feeling when Amy has been upset with me or someone, she often went into it.”

“Fine. I’m not gonna stop you.” Gabe shifted his attention to Kyra. “I seem to remember it wasn’t your favorite place to be.” Amusement laced his voice.

Kyra grinned. “I seem to remember rescuing you from a wasp in your office once.”

“Hey, they sting and I swell up like an overinflated ball. Let me know if you find anything.”

Kyra turned to leave, paused and glanced back. “Aren’t you through with the crime scene?”

“Something’s been nagging me. I thought another walk-through would jiggle my mind.”

“Has it?”

“Nope.” Gabe ambled toward his car and slipped behind the steering wheel. “But it’ll come to me, probably in the middle of the night.”

Kyra walked beside Michael as Gabe waved and drove toward the end of the block.

“I never bothered to ask, but do you have a boat? Please tell me you do, that we aren’t hiking into the swamp and that the boat is bigger than a canoe or kayak.”

Michael chuckled as he opened the passenger door for Kyra. “I’ll borrow my partner’s boat. It’s an airboat, and it can cover a lot of ground.”

“That’s great,” she said, climbing into the front. “Being several feet above the water is better than in the water. Do you know how to drive one? I seem to remember they aren’t easy, and people have accidents when they don’t know what they’re doing.”

“You would never know you grew up on the edge of a swamp, and yes, I know how to drive one.” Michael turned the ignition key, backed out of the driveway and headed toward Bay Shore Drive. He thought of her aversion to snakes. He had enough guilt to carry around, first with Sarah and now Amy. He didn’t need to add Kyra to his baggage. “Are you sure you want to go with me? I can do this alone.”

She twisted around and captured his attention. “I’m sure. If Amy is in trouble, two people are better than one.”

A vision of Amy running for her life took over his thoughts. A tremor shimmied down his length.

“I’m kinda surprised you don’t have an airboat since as a kid you spent a lot of time in the swamp.”

Kyra’s comment lured him away from the disconcerting direction his mind was taking him. “My two-man kayak is all I need. I’m usually not in any hurry when I do get to go into the Glades. I like to park it somewhere and watch the birds and animals. An airboat scares the wildlife away.”

“How often do you get to do it?”

“Not nearly enough. A lot of my older patients need special care. More than a ten- or fifteen-minute office visit allows.”

The care she heard in his voice gave her a glimpse into the man Michael had grown up to be. She wanted to know more. “You enjoy working with older patients?”

He pulled up into a driveway of a large house that backed up to the main canal. “Yes. I didn’t realize how much until I moved here. I saw my share in the emergency room, but managing an older patient’s health on an ongoing basis is so different.”

“Then it looks like you came to the right place since a lot of people retire here. What made you go into emergency medicine?”

“I liked the challenge, trying to figure out what was wrong, often quickly, and do something about it.” A terse undercurrent threaded through his voice.

Kyra studied his face, wiped of all expression as he stared straight ahead. “I imagine that can be quite hectic at times.” She could identify with that. Going into a situation where a suspect might have a gun. Having to make a spur-of-the-moment decision on the person’s intent. “You must still have challenges with your patients.”

He dragged his gaze to hers. “Yes, and even some decisions that have to be made quickly.” His features still were neutral except for a sadness in his eyes. Fleeting before he masked it. “This is Ken’s house. He told me where he keeps the key to the boat out back off his dock.”

“Let’s go.” She exited his Saturn and strolled next to him to the patio where he retrieved a key hidden in a frog.

Michael was wrestling with something beyond his sister missing. Something that happened in Chicago? Something to do with the woman he’d thought of marrying? She’d learned to read people well in her line of work, and this man beside her was struggling with a problem beyond what was going on in Flamingo Cay. The curiosity that had aided her as a police detective surfaced.

He boarded the boat first, then turned to help her. Placing her hand in his, she stepped onto the craft bobbing in the water.

Instead of immediately releasing his grasp, she squeezed his fingers gently, looking up into his eyes. “We’ll find her.”

A few seconds passed, their gazes bound, before Michael cupped her hand between his two. “Thank you for coming. This means a lot to me.”

His attention totally directed at her cleared all words from her mind. Her attraction to him grew. She swallowed, tried to come up with something to say and settled on giving him a nod. He was Ginny’s little brother. What was she thinking? She couldn’t rid her mind of a nine-year-old kid hiding under his big sister’s bed, listening to Ginny and Kyra talk about boys. He only got caught because of his snickers, then for weeks he kidded both of them about the guys they liked.

A fleeting half smile graced his lips. “We don’t have a lot of time, but we should be able to check out her favorite haunts, at least the ones I know about.”

He let go of her hand and moved toward the driver’s seat. Leaving her to deal with myriad sensations rolling through her. The one that overrode all others was that her attraction to Michael Hunt had come at the worst possible time.

As the sun sank toward the horizon, the shadows crept farther out into the water. Sitting in front of Michael, Kyra hugged her arms to her. In spite of the warm, humid air, coldness embedded itself in her from the moment Michael had left the dock and grown to encompass her whole body the farther away from Flamingo Cay they had traveled.

A memory, buried for years, overwhelmed all thoughts. She remembered the sensation of falling through the air into the murky swamp. The sound of the splash as she hit it. The frantic flapping of her arms tangled in the lily pads on the surface of the stream. The dirty taste of the briny water. Her father’s shouts to move fast. A large snake—later identified as a water moccasin—headed straight for her. She hadn’t recalled that until she saw a snake slither across the canal and disappear among the overhanging branches of the mangrove island nearby.

After an unsuccessful search, Michael directed the boat back into the main canal that led to town. A scowl etched deep lines into his tan face. Over the noise from the huge fan, he shouted, “I don’t know of any other places to look. She hasn’t said much lately about where she likes to go in the swamp.”

“At least we’ve ruled out those areas. Gabe’s probably right. She isn’t in the swamp.” What person in their right mind would be? Kyra scanned the growing darkness and quaked.

“We’re almost back to Ken’s.” Michael steered the airboat around a sharp bend.

Houses came into view, and Kyra began to relax some. But the coldness still clung to her. She’d come back to Flamingo Cay to lie on the beach, soak up some sun and relax. Not go into a place that created nightmares in her mind.

Gabe strode across the yard toward the pier as Michael pulled up to it and tossed the rope to Kyra to tie the boat to the mooring. When she finished, she rotated toward the police chief covering the short length of wooden planks to the end.

“What’s up?” she asked, realizing by the steely glint in Gabe’s eyes and the rigid set of his shoulders that this wasn’t a social call.

Michael hopped off the boat. “We didn’t find anything. How about you?”