Missing Person

by Matt Lincoln

  It was full of drugs. I carefully pulled one of the five plastic-wrapped bricks free and sat back on my haunches, holding the prize up for all to see.

  “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing with these?” I asked the man.

  “Those aren’t mine,” he said quickly.

  I shared a laugh with my companions before I let the mirth fall from my face and turned a cold stare back at the man. “Yeah, we all know that’s not true. Come on. Fess up.”

  The man looked between us one more time, mouth fluttering soundlessly. Linda slowly continued to squeeze her hair out and somehow managed to make the gesture look threatening.

  “Alright, alright,” he said. “I’m moving it for my boss. Distributing it to our sellers. That’s all.”

  “That’s all,” I repeated mockingly. “What is it?”

  “Heroin.”

  I shared a look with Lex. Maybe this guy was connected to the heroin dealer Ramirez had been trying to track down.

  “Who’s your boss?” I asked.

  “I’m not saying another word without a lawyer,” the man said, sticking his nose in the air as if proud of himself for remembering that right. He probably should have recalled it before he admitted to moving the drugs.

  “That’s fine,” I said with a shrug. “We’ll have to bring you in, anyway. Linda, can you get us back to the marina?”

  “Easily,” Linda assured me.

  “Let’s get going then,” I replied.

  Linda nodded and ducked out into the rain to head back to the other boat. Meg went after her to unhook the two vessels and then came back inside, nudging me out of the way so she could reach the console.

  “I’ll go keep Linda company,” Lex suggested. I nodded, and she swung out into the rain, hopping between the boats before they could drift too far apart.

  The storm was starting to lighten. It was barely noticeable, but the rain thrummed against the canvas covering with slightly less intensity, and the sky seemed lighter, more gray than black. Thunder still rumbled every so often as Meg started the motor and got us turned around to face the marina, but it sounded further away, and there was more space between each crack and its accompanying slice of lightning.

  “Who are you people?” the man demanded. He squirmed in his seat, trying to find a more comfortable position, but the handcuffs stopped him from having any real success. “You aren’t police.”

  I gave him a look that made him quail and swallow his tongue. “We’re with MBLIS.”

  “What’s that?”

  “None of your business right now. I thought you didn’t want to talk without a lawyer present?”

  The man gulped and shut up.

  I sat down on the plastic bench by the wall of the cabin, molded out of the same plastic as the rest of the deck, shucking my jacket since it was cold and heavy with water. Meg sat easily in the swivel chair, her blue uniform dripping onto the floor, her hands lightly holding the wheel in place as she opened up the throttle a little more, her eyes on the boat ahead of us.

  “Thanks,” I said to Meg. “You and Linda really helped us out.”

  “Happy to.” Meg glanced over her shoulder and winked at me. “It’s been a while since I was in a good boat chase.”

  “Car chases, count me in, but boats, man, they’re a whole other story,” I said. I shifted my feet and felt water squish within my shoes. “You’ve got to keep your balance and fight the water… There are a lot more things to think about.”

  “You don’t fight the water. You work with it,” Meg corrected me. “You just need to know how to read it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said, and she laughed.

  “You didn’t do too bad,” she told me. “You only fell on your ass a couple of times, and I think we can blame that on the storm.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” I agreed with a grin, and she turned her head again to give me a bright smile.

  I glanced at our prisoner. He had a sick sort of look on his face, and he’d worried at his lip until it had started to bleed, a single bead of red oozing up between the crack. His nose had stopped gushing, but with his hands bound, he hadn’t been able to wipe any of the blood away, and so he looked like he’d walked off the set of a horror movie during a break. He kept his eyes on his lap, shrugging his shoulders every so often in an attempt to relieve the pressure of having his hands bound behind his back. He looked up just once, paling when he realized I was watching him, and quickly returned his gaze to the ground as if he might disappear if he couldn’t see me.

  The storm had lightened to a heavy drizzle by the time we reached the marina, and a few fingers of sun made it through the cloud cover. I was startled to remember that it was barely noon and not late in the evening, like it had seemed in the dark. I could still see the main bulk of the storm in the distance, pushing over the lake and into the rest of the state.

  “Almost there!” Linda called from the front boat.

  I stood and stretched, my muscles seizing with cold off my damp clothes. I stepped out of the cabin onto the deck and then stood by the railing so I could watch the approaching marina with the drug dealer still in my line of sight. The rain was warmer now, wrapped with a deep humidity, and it worked to leech the chill from my skin.

  We were only a few minutes from the marina, and I could see several police vehicles parked close to the docks. I thought I spotted Barrett amongst them, though we were still a little far to make out any details on their faces.

  Two uniformed officers and the man I thought was Barrett hurried up the dock as our boats drew in closer. Linda bypassed the first open slip and headed off to return her boat from wherever she’d gotten it from while Meg angled us toward the spot.

  “Get us tied up, would you?” she called.

  “Sure,” I replied. That couldn’t be that hard, right?

  I found a length of rope with one end attached to a metal cleat on the side of the boat and gathered up the slack in my hand. Once we were close enough to the dock, I stepped over the railing and down onto the wooden slats, locating a matching cleat to wrap figure-eights around until I thought the rope was secure enough.

  “Jace,” Barrett called, and I raised a wet hand in greeting. “What did you find?”

  “Drug dealer not working for Simon Ward,” I explained as I climbed back onto the boat. I ducked into the control area, and while Meg worked on shutting everything down, I hauled the man to his feet and prodded him out onto the deck.

  “That’s a shame,” Barrett said. “Well, not a shame that you caught. Always good to get drug dealers off the street, but a shame that you didn’t turn anything up on Ward.”

  “Yeah.” I gave the man a push toward the railing. “Get off the boat.”

  The man raised his bound hands behind his back, turning to make sure I could see them properly.

  “How?” he demanded.

  “Figure it out,” I snapped.

  The man wisely kept his mouth shut and carefully stepped one foot over the railing and then the other while Barrett reached out and grabbed his arm for support. Luckily for him, the waves had calmed down, and he didn’t have any trouble getting down to the dock.

  “Do you have an evidence bag or gloves on you?” I asked Barrett. “There’s a bunch of heroin in here.”

  Barrett waved me away. “Let my guys handle it. I’ll have them bag it and bring it on over to your office. You look like you could use some dry clothes and a coffee.”

  “I appreciate that.” I gave him a tired smile.

  Meg finished shutting down the boat and came out to make sure I’d properly secured it to the dock.

  “Good work,” she said once she’d jumped to the deck to inspect the rope I’d wrapped around the cleat. “Not that it’s hard.” She winked, and I rolled my eyes at her, a small smile on my lips.

  I jumped off the boat so that the uniformed officers could take my place and get the heroin tagged and bagged. Barrett had his hand wrapped around our drug dealer’
s, and I took over custody with a nod of thanks.

  “This guy might have something to do with Ramirez’s open case,” I explained. “But if not, we’ll send him your way, yeah?”

  Barrett gave me a thumbs-up. “Tell Rachel we’ll keep looking for that car and that I’m sorry this didn’t pan out.”

  “Thanks for the call anyway,” I replied. His words dragged at my heart and took my mood down with it. Suddenly, I could feel every bead of water dripping down my skin, the weight of it in my clothes, my hair, the constant oppressive patter of the rain against my head. It was too much sensation for me to hold at once, and I just wanted to get under cover, get dry, do something to distance myself from the failures of the day.

  Not that they were even really failures. We’d caught a drug dealer. That was an accomplishment in and of itself, but I still felt like we’d failed Rachel by not finding a lead on Ward. Failed Malia, too.

  Linda and Lex met us by the parking lot. Linda had a couple of towels in her arm with the Marina’s logo embroidered at the end, and she handed them out to Meg and me. Lex already had one wrapped around her shoulders, and Linda draped one over our suspect, though I would have left him damp.

  “Whose boat was that, by the way?” I asked her.

  “The marina’s boat. They let me commandeer it.” Linda gestured to the many little pins on her lapel. “I think it was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to them.”

  “We wouldn’t have caught this man without you,” I said, nudging our prisoner with my foot. “Even if he can’t help us find Malia, we’ve still done a good thing. Thank you.”

  Linda clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s what we do. Besides, it’s been rather quiet since I transferred here. It was fun to see a bit of action.”

  “That’s what your XO said.” I nodded at Meg, who was in the process of toweling off her hair.

  “Do you need any help to get this one back to your office?” Linda asked, giving our sopping suspect a look.

  “I think we can manage,” I answered.

  Linda nodded. “We’ll keep looking for any suspicious boat movement in the area. If you learn anything new, make sure to let us know, and we’ll adjust our search parameters.”

  “Will do,” I said, and I held my hand out to her. She shook it and gave me a reassuring smile, like she knew how down I was feeling.

  “Bye,” Meg said to Lex and me, giving us a little wave, and then she and Linda headed toward their car, still trying to dry themselves off with their towels.

  “Do we have extra clothes at the office?” I asked Lex as I patted my pockets for my keys, suddenly very worried that they had slipped out and landed in the water during the chaos. I found them in my jacket pocket, and I pulled my phone out of my pants as well to make sure that it hadn’t gotten too saturated in the rain. The screen burst to life when I touched it, and it seemed alright, but a dip in some rice probably wouldn’t hurt.

  “I think so,” Lex nodded. “I believe we’ve got a box of extra gym clothes somewhere.”

  “Sweet.” We didn’t have time to run home and change, and I didn’t fancy spending the rest of the day wet.

  13

  The rain lightened into a sprinkle as we reached my car, and I tucked the drug dealer in the backseat, then turned my face to the sun as it began to peek out more fully from behind the clouds. Every breath felt like a wet blanket, and there was a haze in the air as the remnants of the storm coated everything and began to steam in the rising heat.

  I laid a towel down on my seat before I sat down, though I figured it was somewhat of a lost cause given how soaked we all were. We immediately began to steam up the windows, so I messed with the air until I could see again, driving up the marina’s road partly blind.

  “Where are we going?” the man in the backseat asked. We probably should have asked his name by now, but I also couldn’t quite find it in me to care.

  “The MBLIS office,” I answered, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. Bruises bloomed under his eyes and along his broken nose. We’d have to get that set sooner rather than later, but maybe we could use that as a bit of leverage.

  “Again, what the hell is MBLIS?” he demanded.

  “A federal agency,” Lex said, glaring at him through the mirror.

  The man swallowed whatever he’d been about to say and went very pale as the true gravity of his current situation hit him.

  “Oh,” he said quietly and then turned to look out the window, his lips pressed together so tightly they turned white.

  Glad for the quiet, I focused on the drive back to the office, trying to come up with a suitable story to spin for the marshal. My stomach grumbled, reminding me that it was lunchtime. Maybe we could order something in. It wasn’t like I could make a pit stop with a slightly bloody man handcuffed in the back of my car.

  I counted the other vehicles as I pulled into the MBLIS parking lot, wanting to gauge who was in the office. It looked like the whole gang was there. Ramirez’s Jeep took up the spot at the back, near Marshal Graham’s rental. I’d hoped that she, at least, would be gone while we dealt with our drug dealer, but it looked like that was too much to ask. Rachel’s car wasn’t there, but if I remembered correctly, she’d gotten a ride from Ramirez today, feeling too on edge to drive safely.

  “Any ideas to explain what happened to the marshal?” Lex asked as we climbed from the car. I opened the back door and helped the man out. He squinted in the sun but studied the brick building before us with wary eyes.

  “I think so,” I shrugged. “Follow my lead.”

  Holding the man’s upper arm, I urged him toward the door. Lex dug her key card from her pocket and swiped it over the reader, opening the door for the two of us.

  “In you go,” I said to the man and pushed him into the hallway ahead of me.

  I could hear the sound of raised voices the moment I stepped through the door, growing louder as we made our way up the short hall to the wide-open main room of the office. Graham and Rachel stood in the very center of the floor, shouting at each other while Cal and Ramirez watched, half-hidden behind the cluster of desks. Well, Rachel was doing most of the shouting. Graham stood like a brick wall before the onslaught, awaiting her moment to let loose a barrage or scathing remark.

  Graham heard us enter and glanced over, disengaging from the argument despite Rachel’s attempts to keep it going. Graham’s eyes landed on the man in handcuffs, and suspicion overtook her expression as she made what was no doubt a very accurate assumption about what we’d been up to.

  “Who is that?” she demanded. “Where have you been?”

  “Hey, Ramirez,” I said, locking eyes with the other agent and telepathically trying to beg him to go along with what I said next. He just looked confused. “We tracked down that drug dealer you heard about. The one dealing heroin.” I put a little emphasis on the word, and his eyes widened, though he didn’t look like he’d quite put two and two together on my plan yet. “You know, the one you’d thought might be operating out of a nearby marina.”

  “Right,” Ramirez said, slowly warming up to the lie. “Thanks for that. Shall I take him off your hands?”

  “That would be great,” I said, and Ramirez stood, rounding the desks to cross the floor and walk toward me. “Find him some dry clothes, yeah? And get him something to clean his face off with. I’ve got his gun. Here you go…” I pulled the confiscated pistol out of the back of my belt, safely sealed within an evidence bag, “and Barrett’s sending someone over with the heroin we found on the boat just as soon as they get it tagged and bagged.”

  Ramirez’s eyes widened, though his back was to Graham, so she couldn’t see his confused expression.

  “Very good,” he said, and then dropped his voice to a whisper. “What the hell is going on?”

  I turned my head to the side, hiding my mouth as I passed the man off to him. “I’ll explain later. Thanks.”

  Ramirez grabbed the man’s arm and raised his voice again for Graha
m’s benefit. “Come on, then. Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”

  Ramirez gave me one last look, demanding that I tell him everything as soon as I had the chance, and then led the man toward the stairs to the third floor where our interrogation rooms were.

  “So you weren’t off looking for Simon Ward?” Graham demanded once the two of them were gone, an accusation in her voice.

  “We were not,” I lied smoothly, even as my heart thundered within my chest. “Do you mind if we change first? We’re very damp, and it’s starting to itch.”

  “Not quite yet,” Graham said, her sharp hand motion cutting off my attempt to head for the stairs and go searching for that box of dry clothes Lex had mentioned. “I want to know what happened.”

  I sighed but shrugged, acquiescing. “Alright then. Ramirez asked us to look into a lead he had about a drug dealer operating out of the Seabrook Harbor and Marina with suspected ties to the kingpin he’s been trying to track down. So we went to check it out with the help of our contact in the Coast Guard. The guy shot at us, we gave chase, caught him, and found a bunch of heroin in his boat. Pretty cut and dry.”

  “Well, not dry,” Lex added, and I nodded, snapping and pointing a finger gun at her.

  “Very true.”

  Graham eyed the two of us, weighing our story. Rachel stood just behind her, worry writ plain across her face as she bit at her thumbnail. She realized what she was doing and forced her hand down, wrapping her fingers around the opposite arm. Graham finally nodded. But her expression was guarded, and I couldn’t tell whether she fully believed us.

  “Go change,” she said. “Then I want to have a chat.”

  I did not like the sound of that, but I nodded, and Lex and I hurried upstairs to the still little used training area and evidence lock-up on the second floor. Lex took the lead as we stepped into the room, and I followed her over to the room blocked off from the rest of the space by a grated door.