by LENA DIAZ,
Even when he was mad at her, she wanted to see his handsome face, listen to that rich baritone soothe her troubled spirit. That was it really, the reason she was so drawn to him, and why he seemed like the yin to her yang. It was because he understood her and made her feel comfortable in her own skin. That was such a rare gift, and she’d never experienced it with anyone else.
And, of course, after that practically out-of-body experience of making love with him, she couldn’t exactly discount the physical part of their attraction. It was almost as though her soul recognized a kindred spirit in him, and her body recognized it, as well. Making love with Colton had changed her forever. She just wished she knew whether he felt the same.
“You mentioned you don’t see many cars,” he said, apparently deciding to let her Mustang comment go. “Why is that?”
“There aren’t many cars around here to see. The residents who live in apartments above the businesses on Main Street generally walk to get where they need to go. Others walk if their homes aren’t too far back in the woods. Cars are for those who work outside town, so they don’t tend to drive down the main street. They go down a side road that heads into the trees. The few who do drive cars into town tend to park them behind the businesses that have parking lots, like Swamp Buggy Outfitters. And still more use canoes, kayaks or ATVs to get around.”
She pitched her pencil down. “Maybe there’s no point in even looking at these. Maybe Garcia’s right and I suck at being an agent. I was going to quit anyway, start a new career as a bed-and-breakfast owner. So I must have known, subconsciously, that there wasn’t much point in my continuing as an agent.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet and then gently tilted her chin up. “Whatever Garcia said is irrelevant. That man couldn’t find his own socks if they were sitting right in front of him. Forget him.”
She laughed, some of the tightness easing in her chest. “I think you have him pegged.”
He stepped back and bent down, scooping up the pictures. “Let’s see if we can’t figure this thing out before we go notify Mrs. Jones this evening.”
He held the drawings up and motioned toward the table in the eat-in kitchen that was really just an alcove off the main room. “We might be more comfortable in there.”
“Good idea. Have you eaten lunch? It’s getting closer to the dinner hour than lunch but still too early for me to wait that long. I’m starving. I could check the fridge and see what Jake and Faye have in there. I’m sure I can whip up something decent.”
“I could eat. Maybe sandwiches or something light. We can work on them together. And while we do, you can tell me who Jake and Faye are—and why you’re in their apartment.”
While they worked in assembly-line fashion putting together two rather impressive ham-and-cheese subs with all the fixings, she told him about the owners of the Moon and Star, Jake and Faye, and how they were out of town on a second honeymoon trip along with friends of theirs, Dex and Amber. Dex was paying for the trip because Jake and Faye had cut their honeymoon short to help him when he was in trouble.
“Sounds like you like Faye and her husband very much. I can hear it in your voice.” He set their plates on the table. “Chips? I saw some in the pantry when I got the bread out.”
“Sure.” She opened the refrigerator. “Want a soda? Or beer?”
“Water. Beer would be my preference, but I want a clear head for the case.” He stepped into the walk-in pantry. “You were going to explain why you’re in this apartment instead of in your room at the B and B.”
“Isn’t it obvious? There are a ton of people over there right now. I needed peace and quiet to concentrate.” She grabbed two cold water bottles.
“Tell me about it. I was over there earlier looking for you.”
He moved her drawings to the counter before setting a bag of chips on the table. The almost reverent way he treated her work, even if it was just quick, throwaway-quality sketches, had her feeling all funny inside. She might not know squat about his past, but everything he’d done from the moment he met her had been designed to protect her and others. And he always treated her with respect, never looking at her as if she were crazy or flighty, the way so many people in her life did. Instead, whenever she spaced out, he found it amusing. So many people had gotten exasperated with her, or had mocked her for what she really couldn’t help.
If her boss had seen her sketching suspects, he’d have told her to stop wasting time. But Colton respected her methods even if he didn’t understand them. He hadn’t even batted an eye at her drawings. And his questions were spoken with genuine curiosity, not disdain.
“Earth to Silver,” he teased, waving a hand in front of her face. “Where did you go there?”
She shrugged. “Nowhere important. Let’s eat, and try to narrow our list of suspects.”
She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she took the first bite of her ham-and-cheese sandwich. Then she practically inhaled it.
“Hungry much?” Colton grinned, with over half his sandwich still left.
Her face heated. “I didn’t have breakfast.”
“And I did. Totally understandable.” He leaned to the side and pulled a knife out of a drawer without having to get up in the tiny kitchen. After cutting off the part of his sandwich that he’d eaten from, he set the rest of it on her plate. “Be my guest.”
The half sandwich did look tempting. But she couldn’t possibly eat it when the incredible male specimen in front of her had barely eaten anything. She’d be embarrassed.
He tilted her chin up again. “Hey. I can tell you’re still hungry. So eat. As tiny as you are, it’s not like you have anything to prove.”
Her stomach chose that moment to growl.
Colton laughed and shoved her plate closer to her. “Go on. You eat while I ask a few more questions.”
“About what?” she said, holding a hand up in front of her mouth, since she’d already taken a bite.
“Charlie Tate and Ron Dukes, the young men you first saw with Eddie the day you found that kilo. I noticed you didn’t draw them.”
She chased her bite of sandwich with a quick drink from her bottle of water. “That’s because they aren’t around anymore. Charlie’s family had been going to therapy and jumping through hoops with the Department of Children and Families and were finally approved to take him home. So they did, in Naples. And I haven’t seen Ron in a couple of weeks.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“That Charlie moved, no. Ron? Yeah. I wondered if something had happened to him. I followed up as best I could, but he didn’t really have any friends in town. And nothing came up in any missing persons databases. No crimes or unsolved homicides that involved anyone fitting his description. My boss told me to keep my focus on our most promising—and remaining—suspect, Eddie. Even before Ron disappeared, I pretty much spent every free moment when I wasn’t working on the B and B keeping tabs on Eddie. But I was limited in what I could do because of using the B and B as my cover. There were big gaps in the day when I was stuck at the inn and couldn’t say where Eddie was. But as to where Ron is right now, I couldn’t tell you.”
He sat back in his chair, seemingly lost in thought as he looked past her.
She quickly finished the rest of her sandwich, giving him the time he needed to think things through. But when she started clearing the dishes, he got up and helped her. They worked together in a comfortable silence until everything was put back the way it should be. And then they attacked the guest room, changing the sheets and putting everything to rights. Silver couldn’t bear the teasing if her friend somehow figured out that she’d slept there with Colton. Faye would be thrilled for her, of course, but Silver was more private than Faye and preferred to keep things, well, private.
They returned to the living room and straightened up in there, too, before Silver headed back into the kitchen.
“I’ll have to remember to take out the garbage when we leave,” she said. “F
aye and Jake get back in about a week. I wouldn’t want them to come back to a smelly kitchen.”
He braced his shoulder against the kitchen wall. “What do residents of Mystic Glades do, just set the garbage out back and someone picks it up?”
“No, there’s a collection of Dumpsters a quarter mile back in the trees, northeast of the entrance. Everyone hauls their trash there. It’s picked up three times a week so it won’t smell too bad.”
“It’s hard to imagine a garbage truck making that tight U-turn on I-75 to go down the road by the culvert to get here, let alone drive the five or six miles past the fence. And three times a week? We don’t even get that kind of service back in Naples.”
“It’s more like eight miles from I-75,” she said absently as she leaned back against the counter. “And you’re right, the county doesn’t send a truck. Our town purchased its own special truck years ago that we keep parked in the woods. The truck is used to unload the Dumpsters and carries everything to a garbage-processing facility several miles out of town, way back in the woods.” She stared up at him. “It all goes out on a small barge every week, down the canals to a collection point. The county takes it from there.”
He grew still and returned her stare. “A barge. Every week.”
She slowly nodded. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That our drug dealer doesn’t need the airboats to deliver his drugs? Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. Who owns the barge operation?”
“The same person who runs everything else around here. Buddy Johnson.”
“No surprise there. He probably charges everyone here for trash collection, and gets a check from the city, too.”
“I think so, yes.”
“And who does all the work?”
“High school kids take turns running the truck from the Dumpsters to the facility. It’s a quick trip, probably takes no more than an hour to empty the Dumpsters, haul the contents to the site, then park the truck back by the Dumpsters. A different kid does it each time so it doesn’t infringe on their homework time. And Buddy pays them pretty well. It’s quick, easy work. The truck takes care of all the lifting.”
“I’m guessing Eddie was one of the kids doing that.”
She nodded. “Yes. And Charlie, and several others.”
“What about the processing of all that garbage into bales and loading it onto the barge once a week? Who oversees that?”
“It used to be Ron Dukes. But after he disappeared, someone else took over.”
He braced his arm on the countertop. “Who?”
“Cato Green. It’s his weekend job now, to supplement the money he makes at Callahan’s during the week. Colton, I think you need to make another call to your boss. We need to find out where Ron Dukes went, and see if Drew has found out anything else about Cato.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I think we both know where Dukes probably ended up.”
She swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. “The county dump, after taking an involuntary ride on a barge full of garbage.”
“It’s a perfect setup. Anyone who crosses the boss, or makes a mistake, can be hauled out with the trash. No one would have any reason to search through a barge full of bundled-up garbage thinking there’d be a dead body. And what do you want to bet that the kilos are in one of those bundles, and they get off-loaded onto another boat right before the barge reaches the collection point? Mystic Glades could be a distribution point for all of south Florida. But if that’s the case, why kill Eddie on the side of the highway and leave him there for others to find when they could have just taken him out on the barge? You think the killer was sending a message?”
“I do. Unfortunately, in my job—or former job—investigating drug dealers,” she said, “that’s not uncommon. Whoever killed Eddie wanted him to be found. It was a message, maybe a warning to others who knew Eddie, others who were working with the same boss, not to cross him. Drug dealers are known for sending messages like that. But where does the burglary ring fit in with all this?”
“It doesn’t, not at first blush,” he said. “I can’t imagine a drug dealer running a ring like that out of the same place as his base of operations, his distribution point. Why risk bringing any scrutiny that could destroy his whole operation? The drugs have to be raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, depending on how many kilos he’s funneling through here. Burglary, even from wealthy homes, isn’t nearly as profitable. At least, not based on the lists of stolen goods I’ve been working with. And the logistics, the location of buyers and the risks are completely different.”
“Maybe the two aren’t related?”
He shook his head. “What would be the odds of two major crime hubs in one tiny town that aren’t related? There has to be something else that explains the link. The note that Eddie left certainly made it sound like the burglary ring and drug ring were connected. I didn’t have the kind of proof to go to court and build a case against Eddie yet for the thefts, but I had enough to know he was deep into it, even before we read his pseudo-confession. That’s why I wanted to use him, to get him to turn against his boss and make a deal. But I never got the chance. As for the drug part, you saw him with a kilo. Even if that was the first, it obviously wasn’t the last.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “We can speculate on that later. You said the barge won’t run until the weekend. What about the Dumpster pickup? When is the next day that’s scheduled?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Good. We can check it all out now while there’s no one around, and look into that barge operation, see if it really makes sense that it could work the way we’re thinking. If our suspicions seem feasible, then we’ll head out to Alligator Alley, where I can get cell phone coverage and call Drew.”
“Right,” she said, fisting her hands at her sides. “So he can investigate Cato. And send someone out to the county dump, with cadaver dogs.”
Chapter Twelve
Silver wrinkled her nose as Colton drove his Mustang down the narrow dirt road past the Dumpsters and toward the barge operation. “I can see why they have this place so far away from town. No one wants to smell this every day.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine Buddy wanting the aroma to interfere with his tourism plans for the town.” The trees opened up ahead, revealing patches of blue sky. “Let’s assume someone could be here even though we think it’s deserted.”
“My pistol’s loaded.” She patted her jeans over her ankle holster. “And I don’t ever intend to leave home without it again.”
He pulled the car over into a patch of gravel that appeared to be for parking and cut the engine.
They both got out and surveyed the huge clearing. There wasn’t a lot to it. Just a metal building on the right with enormous containers hooked to the outside of it—probably where the teenagers emptied the trucks. And there was a steel conveyor belt coming out of the building leading toward the swamp. It looked a lot like what she’d seen at airports, the metal rollers she pushed her suitcase on, along with the plastic containers that held her shoes, so it could feed the X-ray scanners.
“Looks fairly automated,” Colton said as they crunched through the dirt and gravel to where the conveyor ended.
A small barge, a miniature version of what would normally be seen on a river carrying boxcars to a dock, was tied up to a bulkhead. It appeared to be designed to keep the swamp from encroaching on the land, ensuring deep enough water for a heavily loaded barge to not get stuck.
“There’s a small crane on the barge,” she pointed out. “I guess they dump the garbage into the large containers, and then the trash feeds into the building to be bundled. All they have to do is run the bundles down the conveyor and use the crane to load it. What do you think? A two-man operation?”
“Easily. One person could do it if he had to. And it wouldn’t require anyone with much skill.”
“That explains why Cato was hired. He’s not the brightest bulb in the box.” She put
her hands on her hips and scanned the area again. “It looks amazingly clean around here. Far more kept up than I’d expect of a garbage facility.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Stay alert. Let’s check out the building.”
He drew his pistol and she did the same. Better safe than sorry. They kept their weapons pointed down toward the ground as they approached the opening. There was no door. The building was more like a small aircraft hangar, open on one side. The smell was worse inside than out by the containers. But underlying the familiar odor of garbage was...something else. She sniffed, trying to identify the smell. It was familiar, too, and not unpleasant, just...not what she’d expect here.
They performed a quick search of the building, but it was clearly empty except for the baling machine hooked up to chutes on the container side of the facility.
“What is that?” she asked, sniffing again. “It seems like it’s coming from—”
“Over here.” He crouched beside the baling machine and picked up a piece of gravel from the ground. He sniffed it and jerked back, holding it away from his nose. “This is the source, for sure.” He pitched the rock down and stood, pointing at the base of the machine. “Someone splashed it all over the ground here, and the bottom of the machine. See how the paint’s peeling there?”
When she reached him, she nodded in agreement. “Bleach.”
“Yep. And what do criminals use bleach for? Especially this large an amount?”
“To destroy blood evidence.”
He kept his back to the walls, his gun at the ready as he scanned the clearing, visible through the opening to the building. “Let’s get out of here.”
Her mouth went dry as she followed him to the entrance. Living in a remote area like Mystic Glades, being surrounded by woods and trees and hemmed in by acres of saw grass and marsh had always seemed like a mecca, a blessing. It was like living inside an extraordinary painting that one of the masters had left for lesser artists like her to soak in and enjoy. But right now, realizing how far away from town she and Colton were, isolated—and suspecting that someone could have been murdered in the building behind them—had her hands going clammy and her heart racing as if she’d just run a marathon.