by Tracy Sharp
“I’m at the Marina. I’ll wait for you.”
“Be there as fast as I can.” I ended the call.
“What’s up?” Logan asked.
“Another body was found.” I studied him carefully for his reaction.
He frowned. Shook his head, confusion on his face. “You’re kidding. Where?”
“I guess we’ll find out.” And I watched him for a beat longer, finding myself confused, because I believed, at that moment, that Logan really didn’t know anything about the body that had just been found.
Chapter 6
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally stepped onto the dock. Not long after Jackson called me, Logan’s cell went off. Surprisingly, his ringtone was the theme music for the movie Jaws.
“I thought you hated that movie because of what it did to sharks,” I said, just before he answered his cell.
He winked. “A friend of mine programmed it in and I keep forgetting to change it.” He answered the call, which ended up being the Bass Bay police department.
Since at least one shark had apparently attacked the victim, they wanted Logan’s opinion on the shark bites.
I was so happy to see Jackson standing on the dock waiting for me that I almost cried. I felt like a child who’d had a close call running to their parent for comfort.
“Have fun?” he asked me as we walked toward the bustle of police and media.
“About as much fun as a shark bite.” I widened my eyes for a moment, letting him know what I thought of Logan, and walked slightly in front of him toward Chris McCool, who came walking toward us.
“This one isn’t any better than the others,” he said, his face grim. His eyes moved to the area behind me where Logan’s boat docked moments before.
I felt my face flush, then felt my lips turned down in confusion. I’d never felt apologetic for spending time with whomever I felt like spending time with. But for some reason, I really didn’t want McCool to think there was anything going on with Logan. I let out a breath. I’d deal with it later. “Who is the victim?”
“A diver,” he said. “Apparently a drifter. She was sleeping on the beach.”
“On the beach?”
“She washed up pretty close to her camp. I’ll show you.”
“We’ll follow you,” Jackson said.
McCool nodded. “Okay.” He glanced at me and I thought I saw hurt in his eyes, then he headed toward his cruiser.
I didn’t look back at Logan, but heard him say, “I’ll be right behind you.”
I didn’t know if he was talking to McCool or to me.
***
“What happened?” Jackson eyed me before turning the key in the truck’s ignition.
“You’ll kill me.”
“I’m more likely to kill him. What happened?”
“I let him talk me into going in his shark diving cage.”
“What?” He stared at me, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I know. Crazy, right?”
“Leah, what if he’s the killer, and he decided to feed you to the sharks?”
“If he was going to do that, why invite me to go into the cage? Why not just tie me up and throw me overboard?”
“That could’ve ended very badly for you, you know that?”
“It could’ve,” I agreed. “But it didn’t. If Logan is the killer, I don’t think he’s crazy enough to invite me onto his boat, knowing that you know I’m with him. He’s got to know he’d have his hands full. And that he’d have to deal with you popping his head off with your bare hands.”
Jackson smiled. “I like that image. I might just do that for the fun of it.”
“Wait until the case is over. Creepy as he is, he might be useful. He is a shark expert after all.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah.”
“He really does give me the willies, Jax. There’s something wrong with that guy. While I was drip-drying on his boat after being surrounded by pissed off sharks, which I’m certain got him seriously chubbed—”
“I’m sure it did. Probably reached his peak a few times while you were down in that cage. And I bet those sharks know him and hate his guts.”
“Something was up with them. They were seriously agitated. I really had the feeling that I might not get off that boat.” My throat tightened and I turned my eyes to his face. “Jackson, I was actually scared.”
“That’s the last boat ride you take with that creep.”
For once, I kept my mouth shut.
***
The tent sat fifty feet back from a jagged cliff overlooking the ocean. It was a small, one man pop-up which converted to a sun shade. The kind people used on the beach all the time, which helped to camouflage the fact that she lived on the beach.
The tent was set up as a sun shade now. She’d converted it before she’d met her death.
Standing on the edge of the bluff, I turned and scanned the beach, my eyes sweeping over the shoreline. This was one of the last views she’d had; minus the media, crime scene techs, cops and medical examiner, who now walked across the sand toward the parking area. I didn’t envy his job. It was an honorable one, but it had to take its toll. Speaking for the dead. Especially when the deceased had come to a bad end.
“What do you think?” I asked McCool.
“I’ll tell you what I know.” The lines of his handsome face were strained. He clearly wasn’t used to seeing death. Apparently, violent crime wasn’t very common in the happy tourist town of Bass Bay. “According to the ID found in her backpack, her name was Margo Rudd. She was decapitated.”
My stomach rolled. “Oh, my God. He cut her head off?”
McCool shook his head. “Looks like the work of a shark. A very large one. Her head was severed from the tops of the shoulders up, only held on by a few scraps of skin.”
Jackson cleared his throat, took a few steps away from us, looked out at the water. He was still listening, but he needed a bit of space after that little tidbit of news.
“Does it look like she was bound?” I asked him.
“Can’t tell. Both hands were missing. One just below the elbow, one at the shoulder. Both feet. One just below the knee. One just above the ankle.”
I looked upward, to the sky, at the fast moving, steel grey clouds. A clap of thunder made my heart jump, and a shot of lightening reached toward the ocean. “Did you find a shark tooth?”
“No. Doesn’t mean she didn’t have one. If it was around her neck when she was attacked...” he let the sentence trail off and walked over to the crowd of cops walking the perimeter. “Where is the tarpaulin? Come on, guys. We’re going to lose evidence in this rain.”
On cue, the female detective from the day before walked over, unfolding a sheet of tarp. “Got it.”
“Thanks, Megan.” McCool helped set up the tarp as huge, fat drops began their assault on the scene. Within moments, an almost torrential downpour hit.
“Shit,” I murmured.
Jackson walked back to me, standing close, as if to shade me from the rain. He shook his head slowly; water running down his face in rivulets. I squinted up at him, my lashes barely keeping the raindrops out of my eyes.
He turned toward the beach. Watched as the covered remains of the girl were carried on a stretcher toward the parking lot. “This one scares me, Leah.”
Jackson and I have seen a lot of horrible things in our years together as private investigators. But we’d never seen anything like this.
“Me, too, Jax.” Another crack of thunder made me jump. I shivered against the wind and rain, and leaned against him. Lightening cut across the sky, brightening the bleak scene in quick flashes, and the heavens raged over us.
***
Exhausted, I opted for fast food and heading back to the beach house. Jackson agreed. So, with a bag full of deep fried seafood, we headed up the road to Bullfrog Beach.
“Beer?” Jackson asked me.
“Sure.” I felt chilled down to the bone. A cool wind ha
d blown in with the rain, sweeping away the humidity and leaving a raw feeling in the air. I went into my room and changed into fresh jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. Grabbing a couple of towels from the linen closet, I tossed one to Jackson, who was heading into his room to change.
I towel dried my hair as I sat on the deck, waiting for Jackson.
The air smelled of ozone, and watching as the rain drilled into the sea left me with an eerie sensation. I had never really bought into the idea that everyone had a purpose. That we are each put on the earth for a specific reason. But considering how the most horrible cases somehow found me, I was beginning to wonder. Somehow, the cases that shake me to the core are laid at my feet. How does that happen? Not everything can be a coincidence. Could it?
We ate in comfortable silence for a while, both lost in our own thoughts. The rain beat down on the roof of the patio, making me feel sleepy. I was drained. Sickened. Afraid for the next girl. We needed to find this lunatic before he grabbed another one. But who the hell was he?
Jackson finished first, placing his food back into the paper bag and taking a long pull off his beer. “Its spooky beautiful here, isn’t it?”
I nodded, mouth full of sweet potato French fries. My stomach was queasy but I needed all the energy I could get. “Mmmhmm.”
“I could seriously get used to this, you know?” He leaned back on the plastic chair and placed his feet up on the railing, crossing them at the ankles. He clasped his hands behind his head, but I knew Jackson better. All I had to do was look at the tight set of his jaw, and the slow burning fire in his eyes. He was frantic inside. The killings were twisting his guts. But he wouldn’t show just how much.
“Me, too. But without the whole murder thing.” I put my plate into the bag and placed my ankle booted feet up on the railing, bending my knees. I slouched low in the chair and leaned my head back against the plastic.
It took Jackson a long moment to respond. “Right. Without that.”
We sat like that for a long time, and I felt my eyes close.
I awoke to the sound of a car engine and tires spitting dirt and pebbles up against metal rims. McCool’s cruiser. I sat up, surprised that I’d actually fallen asleep. My neck was stiff, telling me that I’d slept for quite a while. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and I wondered if it would ever completely stop. The air smelled like damp earth and mold. I sneezed.
“Bless you,” Jackson said. He was still sitting in the same spot he’d been before I’d drifted off.
I bent my neck side to side, wincing. “What time is it?”
Jackson looked at his phone. “Four-thirty.”
“What? Why did you let me sleep so long? I’ve been napping for like, two hours, Jackson.”
“You seemed to need it. And you’re grumpy when I wake you up.”
I stood, stretching my legs as McCool’s engine died. Jackson tilted his head back, making no move to get up. We both watched as McCool climbed the stairs to the deck.
“Hey, Chris,” I said.
“Hey.” His demeanor was cooler than it had been earlier.
“Got something interesting?”
“Well, you’ll probably get the shark low-down from Logan, but from studying the wounds on the victim, he identified the bite marks from three different sharks.”
I stared. “Three?”
“Three. The bite marks of the shark that severed the victim’s head are indicative of a huge shark. It was made by the serrated teeth of a Great White he estimates to be about nineteen feet long, if not a bit bigger.”
“Oh, my God,” I breathed.
“Wounds on the arms and right leg are from the bite of a thirteen foot Mako shark. The left, a Bull shark.”
“Do you think they all fed on her at the same time?” I asked. “Because that would tell me that she was bound, and dangled in the ocean like bait on a lure.”
“I honestly don’t know how territorial sharks are with different types of sharks. One shark might’ve taken his bit, left the area, and then another might’ve taken his, and so on.” He tipped his head downward, gaze turned upward, to mine. “That would be a question for Dr. Logan.”
Okay. That was it. “Chris, follow me. Let’s take a walk.”
The drizzle continued, but it was almost just a mist in the air. Fog rolled steadily inland, and I wondered, standing on the beach wrapped in fog, if Jackson could even see us. But then, I knew that if he couldn’t, he’d be taking a little trip down to the beach to make sure I was okay.
Couldn’t be too careful with a serial killer on the loose. And this one seemed to be able to steal and kill victims like something supernatural. Nobody saw him. He was like the fog moving in. Silent.
Chris kicked the sand with his trooper boot like a little boy trying to hide his hurt feelings. “Creepy, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I kind of like it.”
He smiled, but didn’t look up at me. “Is this where you tell me that you’ve enjoyed our date but you’re seeing Logan exclusively?”
I laughed. “No. It’s where I tell you that there is nothing between me and Logan. He said he had something to show me, and this being a murder case, curiosity got the better of me.”
He lifted his brows. “Do I want to know what it was he wanted to show you?”
“If I’d thought it would be that, I wouldn’t have gone.” I thought of how to word it. I really didn’t want to admit that I’d actually gone on a date with Logan the night before I went out with Chris. For some reason, I felt embarrassed about it.
Could be that Logan demonstrated some traits that suggested he was bat-shit crazy. “He didn’t want me to think that sharks are the monsters that Hollywood and the media make them out to be. Given that this is a murder case involving sharks, he wanted to make sure that the blame was placed on the human monster behind the slayings.”
Chris watched me from beneath sandy hair falling slightly over his eyes. “And how did he proceed to do that?”
“He took me out on his boat and invited me into his shark diving cage, so that I could see how beautiful they are.”
“O-kay. Were you convinced?” He picked up a rock and threw it into the sea.
I paused a beat. “They are beautiful, majestic creatures. But also incredible, deadly predators. They’re wild animals. And as such, they’re unpredictable. You really don’t know what they’ll do, under any given circumstance.”
He nodded, thoughtful. “And what do you think of Logan?”
“He creeps me out, Chris. I’d venture to say, almost as much as the sharks do. Maybe even more. He’s obsessed with them, and he definitely values the life of a shark over that of a human being.”
“Yeah. I never really liked him much, either.”
“You’ve worked with him before?”
“There was a case about five years ago. Girl got chewed up by a shark.”
“Surfer?”
He nodded. “Just before a huge storm hit. Stupid kids, you know?”
I nodded. Remained silent.
“She took a spill into the drink. We didn’t find her for almost a week. Storm walked right over the coastline. Tail end of Tropical Storm Joe. Did a lot of damage.”
“I remember that one,” I said. We’d had heavy rains in upstate NY, but nothing compared to what was on the coast of New England. Jersey, Maine and Connecticut had been hammered.
“Damaged quite a few of the beachfront houses here. Some docks. The girl was wedged beneath a dock that had been torn up by the storm. Took six days to find her. She was pretty chewed up. Didn’t know if the shark damage was caused before or after the storm.”
“By then there would’ve been some decomposition.”
“Yeah. By then the temperatures soared into the high nineties for as long as it took to find her. Logan was a consultant on that case. Same shit. Defending the sharks. He just rubs me the wrong way.” He looked around us. “Jesus. I can’t see within a couple of feet around us. Can you?”
The fog
was so thick, if I didn’t know we were standing in front of the ocean, it would be easy to walk into it. Stumble, trying to find the direction of the beach. Fall into the water. The thought sent a quiver along my spine. “No.”
“Better get back. I know you’re a brave girl, Leah. But this fog freaks me out a little. You can’t see what’s coming. Not a big fan of that. Must be all those horror movies I watched growing up.”
I stepped in front of him, took both his hands, and stood on tip-toe, reaching my face up toward his.
For a horrible moment I thought he’d leave me standing there, puckered up like a school girl hoping for her first kiss. Then he leaned down and his warm lips touched mine, and I felt the kiss all the way down to the tips of the toes I was standing on.
It was a sweet, lovely kiss, and when we finally broke it, I actually sighed.
“Wow,” he said. “Just the mention of horror movies made you want to kiss me? I’ll tell you, in detail, about every horror movie I’ve ever seen, if you’ll kiss me like that.”
“I love horror movies. Maybe when this is all over you’ll take me to one.”
A boyish grin crossed his face. “We have a nice, old fashioned drive-in up the road a bit. It’s been nicely restored over the years. Been there since ’fifty-eight, I think. Sometimes they play triple features.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Sounds perfect.” And I couldn’t stop grinning all the way back up to the beach house.
***
It was getting chilly, so we brought the conversation into the beach house. There was an electric fireplace in the living room and I switched it on. Something about looking into a fireplace or a bonfire was extremely calming to me. The same as looking at a lake or an ocean. Hell, it’s calming to people in general, which is why people flock to beaches and build bonfires and fire pits. It relaxes the nerves. Unless you’re caught in a fire or drowning.
I pulled on a sweatshirt and sat on one of the big, puffy chairs, pulling my legs beneath me. I caught Chris watching me and felt a shy smile cross my face.
Jackson caught my smile and a small grin lifted a corner of his mouth. He shook his head and handed me a cup of coffee. I smiled up at him. “Thanks.”