Beneath the Surface

by Lynn H. Blackburn

Ryan ignored Anissa’s speculative look. Nothing romantic had ever happened between him and Leigh. He’d be willing to bet Leigh didn’t know Kirk had made it clear to anyone and everyone that she was off-limits.

  “She’s a nurse, right? How can she afford a place like this?” Anissa turned in a circle on the dock. It was a beautiful home on a prime piece of lakefront real estate.

  “Nurse practitioner. And she’s not a suspect.”

  “I’m not saying she is. I’m simply asking a question.”

  It annoyed him that Anissa was so logical about this, but she didn’t know Leigh and her question was valid. “Her dad was a lawyer and then a judge here in town. Both parents were in their late forties when they decided to adopt. Kirk from Bolivia. Leigh from China.”

  “Was?”

  “Mr. Weston passed away five years ago. Heart attack. Mrs. Weston passed last year. Cancer.”

  “Leigh lives alone?”

  “I assume so. I haven’t heard anything about a roommate. She moved back to town around Christmas. Kirk called and asked me to keep an eye out for her.” Leigh probably didn’t know that either. Or that Kirk had told him about the stalker that had prompted her move back to Carrington.

  Anissa nodded. “How well do you suppose she knows the security system here?”

  Based on her motivation for moving home, he’d guess quite well. “Why?”

  “Looks like there are a few security cameras pointing in this direction. Wondering if we could get some footage of a boat out on the lake.”

  “It’s a long shot,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “What’s with you? It’s like you’re looking for the most remote possibilities and we haven’t even explored the most logical ones. Are you ticked Captain Mitchell gave me the case?”

  He was on call, so the case should have been his anyway, but he’d caught the last couple of big cases and there’d been some speculation that the next big one would go to Anissa regardless.

  “No. Not at all.” Her quick denial seemed genuine. “I’ll be happy to handle the underwater aspect of the investigation and leave the rest of it to you. It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  She sighed. “This one feels like it could go cold in a hurry.”

  He bristled at her remark. It was too soon to go there. They’d found the body only a few hours ago.

  “We’ll find the killer.” He had to believe that.

  Anissa didn’t respond. Just checked her watch and turned her gaze to the lake.

  “Who’s under?” he asked.

  “Adam and Lane. They should be coming up soon.”

  “Have they found anything else?” They’d already found weights, chains, and a piece of plywood, all stuff that could have been used in the dumping of the body.

  Anissa’s face darkened. “No.”

  The helicopter made several passes over the lake. Probably the news crew getting some B-roll for tonight’s newscast. Or maybe they were live. He tried to ignore them as he waited for Adam and Lane to resurface.

  It had taken a while to return the body to the surface. Recovering someone from that depth was something all of them had practiced but had never done with a real body. Their training and adherence to procedures had paid off. The recovery had gone smoothly and safely.

  The body was missing not only his head and hands but also his feet. The depth and cold temperature of the lake water had slowed decomposition, but the medical examiner, Dr. Sharon Oliver, was going to have a forensic anthropologist come out on Monday to take a look at the body anyway.

  The good news was Ryan liked the anthropologist. She was a brilliant woman who had a great working relationship with the sheriff’s office. The bad news was that it meant he wouldn’t have any sort of identification until Monday afternoon at the earliest.

  Adam and Lane resurfaced, and the team assembled on the end of Leigh’s dock.

  “What do we have to do to make the chopper go away?” Gabe asked no one in particular. Ryan patted him on the shoulder. “Just keep your head down, man.” Gabe had issues with having his picture taken. Working undercover would do that to a man.

  “Fine.” He stared at the dock. “I’m game to go back down, but I’m not sure we’re going to find the rest of this guy. Why bother cutting off his extremities if you’re going to dump them nearby?” Gabe said. “The murderer tossed them somewhere else.”

  “Or kept them,” Adam said.

  A collective groan rose from the group.

  “What?” White-collar crimes investigator Adam Campbell refused to back down. “You may not want to say it out loud, and I know”—he held up a hand toward Anissa as she was about to interrupt him—“I know we don’t have any evidence yet. But if someone goes to the trouble to cut everything off, then truss him up with that much weight and throw him overboard in one of the deepest parts of the lake? That takes planning. We can’t ignore the possibility that the killer might be a collector.”

  No one argued the point.

  Because no one could. It didn’t take an FBI profiler to know whoever did this was seriously messed up.

  But a collector? Could they have a serial killer running loose in central North Carolina?

  “Could be a gang,” Gabe said. “I can think of at least three that could be behind something like this. Although I didn’t think they’d gotten a foothold in Carrington.”

  Vicious gangs or serial killers? Either way, something bad was going on in his town. Ryan reined in his thoughts. All of this was conjecture. They needed proof. “We’ll start with the facts and follow them wherever they lead.” He looked at each person on the team as he continued. “We’ll explore every possibility. For now, let’s finish searching the grids we laid out earlier. I don’t want to find out later that there was a clue and we missed it.”

  The huddle disbanded, and Ryan and Gabe prepared to descend.

  “How was Leigh?” Gabe asked.

  “Fine.” He checked the gauges on his tanks.

  “I bet she was,” Gabe said under his breath.

  “Wait a minute. How do you know Leigh?”

  “I’ve seen her around.”

  “Where?”

  “Emergency department. Church. She’s exquisite. Especially if you like girls with long black hair who move with the kind of confidence and grace she does. She patched me up a few times. Her hands are quite delicate.”

  Ryan didn’t respond.

  “Your silence only makes me think that not only do you agree with me, but you don’t like me talking about it.”

  “She’s my best friend’s little sister.”

  “She’s Kirk’s younger sister. She’s an adult now, and I’m sure she’s capable of making her own decisions. I bet he would love to have you as a brother-in-law.”

  Gabe chuckled at his own joke as he settled his mask over his face.

  Ryan tried to keep his focus on his own pre-dive routine. Diving was fun, but it was also serious business. He couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of Leigh’s brown eyes and full lips . . .

  No. No. No. He was not going there. Not with Kirk’s little sister. Not with anyone. He was willing to face many different dangers—diving, solving crimes, babysitting his niece and nephew—all perilous and all worth the risks.

  But not relationships. No way. Nohow.

  That was a pain he intended to stay as far away from as possible.

  He took a slow breath and descended into the lake. He didn’t expect to find anything, but their dead body deserved his best efforts. Somewhere someone was wondering where that man was. The least they could do was try to find the rest of him.

  Leigh balanced a tray of sandwiches in one hand and grabbed two bags of chips from the kitchen counter. A rather pitiful offering, but it was all she had. It wasn’t like she’d been planning on feeding a bunch of police officers tonight. Hopefully the dessert would make up for the meager meal.

  She wouldn’t have had even this much food if she hadn’t been pla
nning to take a meal in for her coworkers. Most of them brown-bagged dinner for their twelve-hour night shifts in the emergency department, but sometimes it was nice to have something in the break room to grab as they ran from one room to another.

  She took her time as she made her way down the grassy steps to the dock. She could walk this path with her eyes closed, but given her luck, tonight would be the one time she’d trip. She’d always been awkward around Ryan Parker and if this morning was any indication, that hadn’t changed.

  Why did guys have to get so much better looking as they aged? It wasn’t fair. As a boy Ryan had been cute. The man? The man was . . . Her stomach clenched. It wasn’t just his face or his physique, although neither were anything to complain about. But with Ryan, it had always been about his personality. His expressiveness. His laugh.

  How many nights had she sat in the darkness, listening to him and Kirk cut up in the room next to hers? She knew way more about Ryan than he realized.

  She pulled her mind back to the present. Memory lane was a lovely place to visit, but she lived in the real world. And in the real world, guys like Ryan Parker didn’t make it to their thirties without getting married unless they had major commitment issues.

  Not that it mattered. She wasn’t looking for a relationship.

  “Let me help you with that.” A deep voice broke through her reverie.

  In the split second it took for her mind to realize this was a friendly voice, another part of her brain scrambled to stop the scream that had become her knee-jerk reaction to being surprised. What came out was more of a strangled squeak than a scream.

  Heat flooded her face and neck. She hadn’t always been a screamer. Squeaker. Whatever. Her therapist had said it would pass with time. Liar.

  Ryan grabbed the tray of sandwiches from her arm. “You okay?” he asked in a low voice.

  She took a few calming breaths and nodded. “Great.”

  Then he spoke louder. “What have we here?”

  She didn’t know why he wasn’t giving her the third degree the way he had earlier, but she was thankful he wasn’t grilling her in front of his coworkers.

  “It’s not much. Just some sandwiches. Pimento cheese and chicken salad.”

  “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “You’ve been here all day and I haven’t seen any of you leave.”

  “We have a few snacks.”

  “Now you have a few sandwiches.”

  He laughed. “Where do you want these?”

  Leigh pointed to the picnic table near the edge of the lake. “That okay?”

  “Sure.” He set the tray on the end of the table, then took the chips from her.

  “Thanks.” She turned to go back to the house.

  “Where are you running off to?”

  “I’m not running anywhere,” she said. “I have more to bring down.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  She didn’t argue. She probably should have, but she didn’t make wandering around outside a habit. Especially as the day faded into twilight.

  She used to. Sitting on the dock in the dark had been one of her favorite pastimes growing up. She’d listen to the sounds of the night—the water lapping on the shores of Lake Porter, chatter from the homes around them, the faint whir of boats. She’d spent hours out here, dreaming about the future, praying about the decisions she needed to make.

  She’d felt closer to God on her dock than anywhere else. She wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong, but somewhere along the line he’d stopped answering. Or maybe he’d stopped answering when she’d gotten too busy to talk?

  Either way, the dock was no longer her sanctuary. When she wasn’t at work, she spent her evenings inside. Doors locked. Security system on. Cameras running. Gun loaded.

  This was the first time she’d ventured out this late since she’d moved back into the house in December. She’d forgotten how much she missed it.

  One more thing her stalker had taken from her.

  She pushed the melancholy memories as far away as she could. Maybe she could take advantage of the police presence to enjoy a few evenings on the dock. Although the whole “dead guy in the lake” thing didn’t make that scenario likely.

  “What are we going back to the house for?” Ryan asked.

  “Lemonade. Tea. Dessert.”

  “Should I call for backup?”

  “I think we’ll be able to handle it.”

  “If you say so.”

  She smiled at his skepticism as they walked up the hill in silence. She scrambled to think of something to talk about. She didn’t want him to have a chance to ask her any deep questions. “Did you come back to Carrington straight out of college?”

  “Yep. Knew I would. Never wanted to be anywhere else.”

  She could understand that.

  “Why did you stay in Durham?” he asked.

  Oh boy. She chose her words with care. “I did an oncology rotation in nursing school and loved it more than I expected to. They offered me a job after graduation and I took it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be here. It was that the work I wanted to do was there. Then I decided to go back and get my master’s, so I worked while I was in grad school and stayed on after I became a nurse practitioner.”

  “I get that. I guess. I’m not sure I could ever do that kind of work though. What was it about oncology that drew you to it? Most people would think it’s a depressing field.”

  “It can’t be any more depressing than your job,” she said. “By the time you get to them, your victims are all dead. At least my patients had a chance. A lot of them went on to live long lives.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. She couldn’t help but join him. “Point taken,” he said as he held the door open for her and they entered the kitchen.

  She pulled the lemonade and tea from the refrigerator.

  “You still haven’t answered my question about why you chose oncology. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important work. I’m just not sure how anyone could say they love it.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I can probably follow along.”

  “You’re annoying.”

  “I’ve been told that before.”

  Leigh leaned against the refrigerator door. “I think what drew me to it was the sense that it really mattered. That regardless of the outcome, I could make a difference in people’s lives by either helping them live longer than they thought they would . . . or by holding their hand as they died.”

  She heard Ryan’s whispered “wow” and the awe in his tone as he said it, but it was time to lighten the subject.

  Leigh pulled the chilled cake from the fridge and set it on the counter in front of him.

  Ryan’s eyes widened. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Her mom had called it “better than anything” cake, and Leigh hadn’t forgotten that it had been Ryan’s favorite.

  “I can’t believe you made this.” He looked around the kitchen. “I spent a lot of happy days in this house.”

  “So did I,” she said. “It was a great place to grow up.” She wished she could figure out how to make it a great place to be an adult.

  “I miss your mom,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

  Leigh swallowed. “Thanks. She was ready. Wanted to be with Dad and Jesus. Didn’t want to go through any crazy treatments, and by the time we knew what we were dealing with, there wasn’t anything to be done.”

  “Is that why you came back? To take care of her?”

  “No. I did take some time off, but she passed away before I could even consider moving back.” But he already knew that, didn’t he?

  “So . . .”

  He wasn’t going to let it go, was he?

  “I needed a change. And we needed someone to live in the house during the summer. Neither Kirk nor I were ready to consider renting it out to tourists, but we also couldn’t imagine it falling into disrepair.”

  “Makes sense,” he said. His wo
rds said it made sense, but his expression remained speculative.

  He took the beverages, she tucked the cake and paper products into a basket, and they headed back outside.

  She paused to close the door and a soft chime accompanied the click as it closed.

  “Anissa wanted me to ask you about your security system,” Ryan said.

  “What about it?”

  “Do you have access to the cameras or is it all done off-site?”

  “Both,” she said. “The cameras keep about two weeks of footage. Some run all the time, some are motion activated. Why?”

  “Do any of the cameras cover the lake area?”

  “Not much of it,” she said. “There are cameras at the dock and along the perimeter of our property line. During daylight hours you can see halfway across the lake at most.”

  “Would you be willing to let us look at what you have? And maybe see if we can avoid deleting anything that’s currently available?”

  “You think you might see something on my cameras that would help you with your dead body?”

  “Honestly? I doubt it. But I’ve learned not to ignore any possibilities. Sometimes you find things you aren’t looking for and they are the very things you need to break a case wide open.”

  “Okay. Do you need to see it tonight? I go in at eleven . . .”

  Ryan jerked to a stop and she had to turn back to see him.

  “You’re working? Tonight?”

  What was the big deal? “Yes. I do have a job.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I thought you worked twelve-hour shifts.”

  How would he know her schedule?

  “I mean, I assumed. Most of the nurses I know do. Do you have different hours as a nurse practitioner?”

  No way he was getting off the hook. “Kirk called you, didn’t he?”

  “Hmm?” Ryan took off down the hill at a quick pace.

  “Don’t run away from me, Ryan Parker.”

  Ryan stopped but didn’t turn. When she caught up, she let him have it. “Did my brother call you? Tell you to keep an eye on me? Have you been watching me?”

  “No! Yes! I mean, not like that.”

  She stomped past him. She should be mad. Furious. But if she was going to be honest with herself, she wasn’t surprised. Even though it was unnecessary, it was exactly like Kirk. Always looking out for her. Or trying to, anyway.