But there had been plenty of other times when she’d been there for him, like the time he’d gotten into a fight with Jimmy Blakely. Like a she-bear, Livvy had swept in and clocked Jimmy in the nose with one blow. Taking up for her kid brother—that was the sister he knew and loved.
How could anyone back then have predicted this moment, this future turn of events, this hellish path to uncertainty? Reality meant he and his brothers were out here at this juncture looking at an ocean dump.
As he stretched on his wetsuit, Jackson remembered something Tessa had said. It was the not knowing part that tore her up on the inside, the idea that she might never know what really happened to her brother. They had that in common, a bond neither one wanted.
She’d handled this entire journey on her own, with no family nearby to lean on. Like him, she’d been determined not to give up.
He’d spent every morning for a week on the boat staring at the computer monitor, scrutinizing images, trying to find that one singular spot that might lead him to a body. All the while hoping like hell he didn’t find a single trace of anything on the bottom of the ocean floor.
He couldn’t do much more than rely on the wide range of technology Mitch had provided—an underwater remote-operated vehicle, a slew of state of the art cameras, the latest mapping software, and sophisticated sensors.
Utilizing the hardware, he’d pinpointed an anomaly a hundred and twenty feet below the surface. The object had gotten his attention the moment he spotted it. After dropping the rotating wand at several depths in various locations around it, he’d stared at the tinted screen focusing on what appeared to be an eight-foot-long object. It looked like a rectangular block that could very well be several bodies wrapped together in some kind of plastic tarp and tied with rope. If he wasn’t letting his imagination take over, it was the right shape and size for a body.
The spray hit his face, which caused Jackson to turn and check the dials on his tank. Under any other circumstances getting ready for a dive was always an exhilarating feeling, but not today. The anticipation of this terrified him.
“It’s the closest thing we’ve seen that resembled a likely prospect. It damn sure isn’t a natural part of the ocean floor,” Jackson explained to his brothers as they stood next to each other making sure the oxygen tanks were in perfect working order.
Neither Mitch nor Garret seemed convinced, though.
“I know it’s a longshot but…it’s definitely worth a look.”
“It seems too narrow for four bodies,” Mitch pointed out. “Shouldn’t it be…I don’t know, rounder, heftier?”
Jackson stuck to the facts as he shouldered his tank in place. “I’ve gone over the ocean currents on and around September 24th. I’ve done the math and the estimates for weight and drift, it all adds up to this spot.” He used his finger to circle the area in question. “And check out the length of this thing. Believe me, it’s long enough to contain…bodies.”
Garret winced. “At this point I’m antsy enough that I’m willing to go down and check out anything. At least we’d be doing something. We’ve been out here for days and what do we have to show for it? Zip. Nada. I say it’s about time we got lucky.”
Mitch loosened up his tense muscles by rolling his head from side to side. “Lucky? To find the bodies of our sister and her kids we call it luck? Doing this, I feel as though I’m in a surreal world that never ends.” He finished stretching his shoulders and added, “Are we really ready for this? Walsh offered to go down first and do the recon.”
“No,” Jackson muttered. At the railing, he spit into his mask, rubbed the lenses, and then dipped it into a bucket of seawater to rinse off. “It should be one of us who finds her.”
Garret went through the same ritual with his mask and said, “I agree with Jackson. But what do we do once we get down there? Do we haul up this thing and check it out on the deck of the boat, or do we see what’s what at the bottom?”
“Good question.” Jackson turned to Mitch. “Any ideas?”
“I say we play it by ear until we see what we’ve got. If it looks like it holds what we’re looking for, then we surface and bring it up slowly with a crane. If we’re unsure, we bust it open down there without the bother of dragging it to the top.”
Jackson glanced out to the horizon, watched the sun pop out behind the billowing clouds. It streamed down in a gilded ribbon across the sky turning the water into a sea of gold. “Makes sense. Let’s get this over with.” He checked the time on his diver’s watch, noted the readings on his wrist compass. With a nod of his head, he was the first to roll backward over the side of the boat and into the water, disappearing into its depths.
His heading was straight down into a cavernous, shadowy Atlantic. He swam like an agile dolphin, cutting a swath on the way to the bottom.
As he’d expected, at seventy-five feet below the surface, the water became a deep cerulean and with it, poorer visibility. That’s why each brother had clipped a light to his vest.
The light meant Jackson could get a better look at the organ pipe sponges and other soft corals with their delicate limbs fluttering to the tune of the drifting currents. A school of amberjack swam by and into an overhang where a stealth three-foot blacktip shark waited for his lunch.
At one hundred feet they used what air they had in the tank four times faster than they had earlier. At this point they were on the clock before they ran out of air completely.
Jackson cleared his mind and dived toward the limestone bedrock where the silt shifted and allowed him to study the anomaly that lay at a depth of almost one hundred and twenty feet. He ran his hand over what turned out to be a thick roll of carpet tied with fraying rope.
Up to this point, the brothers had communicated very little and only when necessary using hand signals. Jackson gestured to Mitch and took out his knife, snipped the binding.
Elation shot out like cannon fire when all three men realized it was nothing more than a bundle of carpeting that probably fell off a freighter a year or two earlier. Once he cut the twine from around the roll, the carpet shredded into huge chunks.
The trip to the top seemed to take forever. But as soon as they broke the surface, it was Jackson who had the most frustration stored up. “Why the hell can’t we locate them? Where the hell could they be?”
Yanking up his mask, Mitch reached to grab hold of the ladder and hoist himself over and onto the deck. “It’s one dive spot. It could take two dozen more tries before we find anything at all. Hell, they may not even be out here. It’s possible we aren’t even looking in the right spot. Do you know how many thousands of square miles of the Atlantic there are? And we haven’t even touched the west side between here and Tampa Bay.”
Jackson scaled the rungs behind his brother, swung onto the deck, scrubbed the water off his face. Anger raged inside him and he flung his mask against the railing. “Why aren’t we able to find them? I’m sick of the worry. I’m sick of the look in Mom and Dad’s eyes every day that goes by with no word.”
Garret followed him over the railing and crossed to where Jackson stood. He wrapped him up in a bear hug. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. We’ll get Mom and Dad through this.”
Jackson let himself hug back. But it didn’t last long before he got sentimental. “Tell me the truth. When we were ushers at their wedding, did it ever occur to either one of you then that Walker could ever do anything to hurt Livvy like this? All those times we were sitting around unwrapping Christmas presents, did you consider the possibility that he was enough of a lowlife to ever hurt his kids? Did he do away with her and the kids? Is he sipping a piña colada in Maldives with another girlfriend? I’m not so sure.”
“What are you saying?”
“That we played poker with the guy. We ate the burgers and steaks he cooked on the grill. We drank his whiskey. We tossed a football around at the beach. We all put up with his attempt at stupid jokes. Sometimes I got the impression he was trying too hard. Were there signs
that he was dangerous, violent, signs we missed?”
Garret bristled. “People have different sides to them. We never knew about the office he kept off limits or the affair, maybe affairs as in plural. If a guy cheats once, he’s likely to serial cheat. Isn’t that how the statistics read? If we couldn’t trust him to do right by Livvy then how do we give him the benefit of the doubt now? Where are you going with this, Jackson?”
It was Mitch who completed the thought. “I think what Jackson’s getting at is he thinks Walker is a victim.”
Jackson puffed out a breath. “Walker was certainly no saint. But he loved those kids.”
“When did you change your mind?”
“Seventy feet under water. A conversation I had with Blake last spring. It hit me about halfway down.”
“And?”
“It was after Nana’s funeral. Blake told me his daddy read to him and Ally every night when he was home. That he set up a telescope so they could take turns looking at the stars in the backyard. Like any eight-year-old Blake was looking forward to a carefree summer. Walker had promised to take him camping. To get him ready for it, Walker put up tents in the backyard so they could sleep outdoors. Does that sound like a guy who could do harm to his own kids?”
“Tessa thinks he killed her brother,” Garret reminded them.
“I know she does. That’s a possibility. However, I’m leaning toward the category that’s not what happened. I want to know if Walker could do away with his own wife and kids? That’s the thing I’m having the most trouble with. I go back and forth.”
“We don’t have anything definitive. That’s what’s so frustrating for all of us. Right now, it’s all speculation. Who knows what was going through Walker’s head? Who knows how deep his feelings ran toward this Ellerbee woman? Who’s to say he was even still in love with Livvy at all? Who knows what mess he got tangled up with in Royce’s schemes? If he was facing financial ruin, who knows what Walker was capable of doing on any given day?”
“So we’re chasing our tails?” Jackson said, rubbing his eyes.
“Jackson, we’ve been doing that since we picked up the phone and found Mom on the other end.”
Tessa stood behind the cash register at The Blue Taco taking the food orders. Unfamiliar with the menu items, she was having trouble with speed. Slow to ring up the customers, the line was out the door. There were even a few who left the counter grumbling, but most gave her time to peck the keys and get their orders straight.
It was early afternoon when Tessa glanced up and saw Dack Hawkins making his way to the counter. As soon as she looked into his face, she knew why he was there. The news wouldn’t be good.
In spite of all the talks she’d had with herself in preparing for this moment, she couldn’t prevent her lips from trembling as Hawkins delivered the blow.
“I’m sorry. But you already knew it was a grim possibility that the remains the boys found on the beach would turn out to be your brother. I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“I did. But… I need to call my dad, make arrangements to take Ryan back home.”
“It’ll be days yet before we’re able to release his remains.”
“That long? May I ask why?”
Hawkins cut his eyes down to the floor before looking back at Tessa. “The coroner hasn’t yet determined the manner of death. You should probably consider the possibility that you might never know how Ryan died exactly. I can tell you it wasn’t a drowning. There was no water found in his lungs. He was dead when he went in the water. But since we don’t have…all of the body…”
Tessa rubbed her forehead, the first signs of a headache forming. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“The medical examiner isn’t ready to give up yet.” Hawkins reached across the counter and took hold of Tessa’s hand. “I won’t give up on this either.”
When Tessa saw the sincerity on the cop’s face, her eyes welled up. “Thank you,” she muttered and meant it.
“If you need anything, call me,” Hawkins said, before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a business card. “I’m staying at the Mainsail Lodge so I’m able to answer any questions that come up.” With that, the detective turned on his heels and headed for the door.
Raine came up behind Tessa then and wrapped an arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Go back to the houseboat. Relax for the rest of the day.”
“There’s no need. I need to stay busy.”
“I’m not letting you hang around work with this kind of news. Where’s Jackson?”
“On The Black Rum. He’s in the middle of a dive. And you know what that means.”
Raine’s face went white. “Oh, no. We’re just now dealing with this and now we may have to face the reality of Livvy’s fate. This is a nightmare.” As the lunch crowd continued to stream through the door, she reached out to Tessa, took her hand. “Will you be okay? I’ll take over for you here.”
Stubborn to the end, Tessa plastered a smile on her face. “This is my second day on the job. I’m not…”
“For God’s sakes, this is a taco stand not a sickbay where you’re expected to stay at your post no matter what happens during a life and death crisis situation. You need to go call your dad.”
“You’re right. I guess I’m not thinking straight.” Tessa gathered up her purse and walked out to her Toyota, still in a daze. As she sat behind the wheel she punched in the number back home. The call lasted no more than fifteen minutes but drained her emotionally. After hanging up, instead of heading for the houseboat, Tessa decided to walk. She let the light breeze dance over her face to dry her tears as she made her way down to the shores of Sugar Bay.
She found a bench and sat there looking at the water. It was smooth as glass, the boats barely bobbing on the tides. Jackson was out there somewhere trying to locate a body, no, more like four of them. Even though she could’ve texted him to get an update, she wasn’t sure she could handle more bad news. She might not have known Livvy and her kids, wasn’t even certain Walker was the villain she’d made him out to be all these weeks, but she felt a kinship to the family. That connection made her unsure of everything.
Feeling vulnerable and dejected, she stayed glued to the same spot mulling over the last days of Ryan’s life. He’d come down here to this paradise to enjoy himself. Before he could leave, he’d crossed paths with his killer. How had he died? How long had it taken? Had it been quick and painless? Or had he suffered? Of course he’d suffered, she decided. Had it been a gunshot wound to the head? Or had he been beaten to death and his body thrown into the water?
Thank God she’d had the sense to check things out for herself instead of staying put in Nags Head.
She wasn’t sure whether she was angry or furious. How could Ryan have posed a threat to anyone, enough for the killer to take his life? He was always such an affable person willing to help out anyone who needed a hand. Had he been murdered over five thousand dollars? Jackson was right. The sum seemed measly now.
The more questions that whizzed through her head, the more she fumed. But did getting mad really do any good? She should turn the outrage into solid determination. After all, she wasn’t alone in this. She had friends with like-minded goals, friends who were willing to try for answers. Look how Jackson had leaned on Sinclair and how Anniston had pushed Hawkins into a corner to get his cooperation.
Tessa glanced up at the heavens. The sun broke out through billowy clouds streaking the sky with rosy orange stripes. The scene resembled an inspirational postcard she’d picked up for others back home when she’d been trying to comfort friends.
But it seemed there was no chance of comfort.
Sitting there she felt aimless. Staring out at the horizon she watched the sun drop slowly into the afternoon sky. The harbor was alive with activity. There were sailboats returning to port having tested the wind and currents. Yachts were motoring out with the sole purpose of taking advantage of dinner and a sunset. Fishing trawlers brought in their end-of-the-day catches,
their holds brimming with shrimp or crabs. Schooners were filled to capacity with vacationers anticipating trophy barracudas for their walls.
Life, it seemed, went on around her.
But not for Ryan. Never again for Ryan.
A burst of sadness swept through her. The sobs erupted and she couldn’t seem to stop the flow of tears.
As soon as he stepped off The Black Rum, Jackson spotted her like that, sitting forlorn and lost. Head tossed back, she looked like a fiery red-haired mermaid waiting to cast her spell over the nearest male.
Which would be him, he thought now. He sat down on the bench next to her, tossed an arm around her shoulders. “Raine called Mitch with the news. I’m so very sorry, baby.”
Her head dropped to the comfort of his shoulder. “Deep down I already knew.”
She wiped her nose on a napkin she’d stuffed in her jeans pocket from the taco shop. “What about you? Did you find anything?”
“Nah, just a roll of carpet that probably fell off a freighter a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Her breath hitched. “They don’t even know a cause of death. How is that possible? He could’ve been shot in the head, but…”
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Jackson pleaded. “Don’t think about how he died, not now.”
“No, right this minute my grief is so deep and wide, I almost feel as though it’s a living thing that I could reach out and touch, or hold this giant ball of heartache in my hands. I have something to ask you. I know it’s a lot, but…you can say no because the timing really sucks. But when I leave to bring Ryan’s remains back to North Carolina will you…?”
Jackson didn’t let her finish. “I’ll go back with you.”
“You will? I know it’s an imposition.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not doing anyone any good here. That’s a fact. Besides, I don’t want you having to go through this without me. Let me take you to the cottage. We’ll spend the night there just the two of us. I’ll pick up some more groceries and make you a meal. I want to be with you tonight.”
[Indigo Brothers 01.0] Indigo Fire Page 29