Her cheeks warmed as she watched him in the candlelight, wondering what he was thinking.
The distant buzz of a phone broke the spell, and he looked over his shoulder.
“That’s you,” she said. “Mine’s in my pocket.”
They got up and cleared their dishes, and she followed him into the house. He set his plate by the sink before going to check his phone. She started rinsing the dishes, but he came over and bumped her out of the way with his hip.
She dried her hands on a dish towel and offered it to him. He tossed the towel on the counter and took her hand instead.
Her heart skittered as she looked up at him. I won’t kiss you unless you ask me to.
He tugged her closer, and her pulse sped up. She wanted to say something but couldn’t think of the right words.
His phone buzzed again. Cursing, he dropped her hand and stepped over to grab it.
“Breda.”
Miranda watched his face, and she could tell it wasn’t good news.
“Where?” His jaw tightened. “When?” Pause. “No, I’ll be there.” Another pause. “Ten minutes.”
Miranda put the plates in the dishwasher as he hung up.
“I need to go in,” he said.
She turned around. “Anything big?”
“Probably not, but I won’t know till I get there.”
She grabbed her purse off the counter and hitched it onto her shoulder.
“I’ll walk you down,” he said.
“No need.”
“Just hang on, okay?”
He went to the bedroom and she waited by the door. He came back wearing his badge and holster and the boots he’d had on earlier. He stepped over to the coffee table and scooped the photographs into the folder.
“Thanks,” she said as he handed her the file. “I’ll let you know if I see anything.”
She followed him out, slipping on her shoes at the base of the stairs. He opened the door to her Jeep with his usual manners, and she slid inside, precluding an awkward good-bye moment.
“Sorry to cut our evening short.” He sounded frustrated, and she knew exactly how he felt, having been summoned into work at night more times than she could count.
“No worries, I get it.” She smiled. “Duty calls.”
* * *
* * *
Emmet answered the phone, but Nicole could barely hear him over the background noise.
“Did you talk to your brother?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“Calvin,” she said louder. “Did you talk to him? He was going to follow up on that slug for us.”
“Yeah, he—” Whatever Emmet said was drowned out. “—at the latest.”
Nicole pulled into the parking lot in front of her apartment building.
“Where the hell are you?” she asked. “I can hardly hear you.”
“We’re at Finn’s.”
She didn’t ask who “we” was because she already knew. It would be Emmet, Owen, and probably Calvin and some of his firefighter friends, all hanging out at their favorite bar on the strip.
“Did you hear what I said?” Emmet asked.
“No.”
“Calvin’s contact should have something possibly by tomorrow, Monday at the latest.”
“Monday? Seriously?”
“He’s doing the best he can,” Emmet said. “They’re really jammed up. Hey, are you still at the station? I thought you were off tonight.”
“I just got home.”
“You want to come meet us?”
“Not tonight. I’m beat.”
Nicole crossed the parking lot, scanning the rows of cars for any suspicious shadows. She’d always been cautious, but the double homicide had ramped up her vigilance.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Later, then.”
Nicole stopped to get the mail from her box and then mounted the steps to her second-floor unit. The building was old and kind of dumpy, but it was four blocks off the beach, so she couldn’t complain.
Her neighbor’s kid had left his electric scooter on the breezeway again, and Nicole knocked on the door. She heard a television on inside as she waited. Finally, the door opened, and four-year-old Olivia stood there in a lavender nightgown with a unicorn on the front.
“Hey, Livvy. You should ask who it is before you answer the door, hon. Is your brother home?”
She scrunched up her nose. “What happened to your face?”
“I forgot my sunblock.”
Olivia stepped aside as Drake got up from the carpet, where he was playing a video game.
Nicole held up his scooter. “You’re gonna lose your scooter, Drake.”
“Oh. Thanks.” He took it from her and parked it by the door.
“Is your mom at work?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t let your sister answer the door by herself, okay? Lock up now.
“I know.”
Nicole waited until she heard the lock click to walk two more doors to her unit. She stepped inside and flipped the bolt.
For a moment she simply stood there in the quiet darkness before switching on the light. It felt good to be home, and she was glad she hadn’t let herself get roped into going to Finn’s tonight. Even if she didn’t look like a tomato, the last thing she felt like doing was listening to a bunch of guy talk.
She crossed her living room and dumped her mail on the kitchen counter. A cat jumped down from the refrigerator, and Nicole’s heart lurched.
“Shit! What are you doing up there?”
The cat mewed and pranced across the stove to the breakfast bar. She stood beside the mail and made another pitiful sound.
“All right. Geez.”
Nicole grabbed the bag of cat food from the pantry. It was the same brand she’d seen in the camper. Lucy sprinted over as Nicole poured a serving into the bowl on the floor.
Lucy. Nicole only knew the name because Elizabeth had posted captions with her endless cat pics. Based on the posts, she’d only had the cat for seven months, and she was still practically a kitten.
Nicole watched her chow down, purring noisily while she ate. That was what had done it. Nicole wasn’t a cat person, and if not for the purring, she might have taken her back to the shelter when her neighbor said she couldn’t adopt any more strays. So now, after years of resisting, Nicole was officially a cat owner, and she had the outrageous vet bill to prove it.
She opened the fridge and immediately regretted her decision not to stop on her way home. She was out of almost everything. She grabbed the second-to-last beer and pressed the icy bottle against the back of her neck as she checked out her freezer.
“Hot Pocket or Lean Cuisine, Lucy. You decide.”
Lucy didn’t glance up from her bowl.
“Yeah, me, either.”
She walked to the bathroom, still pressing the ice-cold bottle against the back of her neck. It was the best thing she’d felt all day. In her bathroom she set the beer beside the sink and stripped off her clothes. Standing before the mirror, she blew out a sigh. Her entire face was bright pink. Ditto her arms. The back of her neck was the worst of all, bordering on magenta.
How had she let this happen? She’d conducted all her interviews in the shade, but somehow she’d still managed to get burned to a crisp walking around the parks. She twisted the top off her beer and took a sip as she surveyed the backs of her arms. She was going to blister, no doubt about it.
Her phone chimed, and she dug it from the pocket of her crumpled pants. It was Emmet.
“What’s up?” she asked. The music in the background seemed to have gotten louder.
“We just snagged a pool table,” he said over the noise. “Come meet us. We need a fourth.”
“I’m making dinner.”
“They have food here.”
She glanced in the mirror again. It felt weird to be talking to Emmet naked. She opened the cabinet beneath the sink and rummaged through the bottles and medicines. No aloe, damn it. She knew she should have stopped at the store.
“Come on, Nik. We need you.”
“Sorry.”
“Calvin’s coming.”
She felt a dart of annoyance. He seemed to think she had a thing for his brother. Joel did, too. Men could be so dense.
“So, there’s your fourth,” she said. “What are you calling me for?”
“Because. We need your skills.”
“Not tonight. I’m beat.”
“Your loss.”
She got off the phone and sat on the edge of the tub, setting the water to lukewarm. No aloe, but she had a bag of Epsom salts, which was her grandmother’s cure-all for everything from bug bites to bruises. She dumped about half the pack in the bathwater, then grabbed her beer and stepped into the tub.
Even the tepid bathwater stung. She stirred the salt with her foot and carefully lowered herself. Slowly, cautiously, she leaned back against the cool slope of the tub and let out a sigh. She closed her eyes. Even her damn eyelids burned.
She pictured Emmet and Owen standing around the pool table at Finn’s. She pictured Calvin with them, and maybe Kyle or Reese from the fire department. What did they need with her? Even if she hadn’t looked hideous, she wouldn’t have felt like going out, especially not with Emmet. Not that she and Emmet were romantic or anything, but there had always been something simmering beneath the surface. Neither of them had ever acknowledged it, and probably never would, but she definitely didn’t enjoy watching him slip into bar mode and pick up other women.
Nicole dipped her toes under the faucet, letting the rushing water soothe her tired feet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so whipped, both physically and mentally. This case was getting to her. Only four days in, and she felt overwhelmed. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for detective work. Emmet and Owen could put in a full day investigating and then kick loose at a bar. Nicole was different. She couldn’t turn her thoughts off. Ever since Monday morning, she’d done nothing but think and even dream about this murder case.
The crime scene photos haunted her. They seemed to be stuck in her head, like a slideshow on a continuous loop. She couldn’t even imagine what it was like to be Miranda. After years as a CSI in a major city, she must have countless gruesome images lodged in her brain. How did she manage to sleep at night?
Nicole’s phone chimed again. She glared at it on the counter. Muttering a curse, she leaned over and grabbed it. It clattered to the floor, and she scooped it up.
“What now?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“I’m calling for Nicole Lawson.”
She checked the screen, and her heart skittered. The caller ID said US GOV.
“This is Lawson.”
“I’m Special Agent Meacham with the FBI. I have the results of a query you submitted.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She checked the time. “I didn’t know you guys worked this late.”
“This request was marked ‘urgent.’”
“It is. Thanks.” Nicole reached over and tugged a towel off the rack. “Tell me what you found.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Emmet crossed the bullpen toward him, and Joel knew his plan to slip out this morning without getting sidetracked was blown.
“Hey, I heard the team meeting got bumped,” Emmet said. “Where is everybody?”
Joel finished off the last of his lukewarm coffee and tossed his cup into the trash. “Owen’s working the gas station robbery and Nicole’s on the mainland following up on something.”
Emmet leaned his arm on the top of Joel’s cubicle. “So, listen, I interviewed that biker kid,” he said.
“You’re talking about the cyclist?”
“Yeah, the one Miranda saw Monday morning when she was driving to the marina,” Emmet said. “Alexander Kendrick, twenty-three years old. Works at the nature center front desk.”
“Yeah, I talked to Tom Miller, the groundskeeper. He told me he goes by Xander.”
“Whatever. After you got us his name, the chief had me go interview him. McDeere and I tracked him down at his apartment last night. He said he didn’t see or hear anything suspicious when he was riding home Monday, which would have been shortly after the murders.”
“Is he credible?”
“Yeah.”
Joel sighed. Another dead end. “What was he doing on his bike so early? Doesn’t sound like he’s a serious athlete, riding around without a helmet like that.”
“He told us he was coming back from his girlfriend’s. He crashed there after hitting the bars and wanted to clean up before his shift. Said he was pretty hungover when he left her place.”
“Any chance he could have—”
“Nah, we checked with the girlfriend. She backed up his alibi.”
The cyclist lead had always felt like a long shot, but it was frustrating to have another lead eliminated.
“Hey, I thought you were off today,” Emmet said.
“I am. Just finished my report from last night. A lady in Saltwater Glen reported her husband missing. We were about to put out a Silver Alert on him when someone found him asleep in his car in the parking lot of his favorite restaurant.”
“Alzheimer’s?”
“Dementia.”
“Well, at least they found him.” Emmet looked over Joel’s shoulder. “What’s Miranda here for?”
Joel turned around, and his pulse gave a kick as he saw her. She stood in the reception area talking to Denise at the front desk.
“I don’t know,” Joel said.
Miranda glanced over and caught his eye through the glass partition that divided the bullpen from the reception room. Joel walked over and leaned his head out the door.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I’m looking for Nicole,” she said.
“She’s off island.”
“So I hear.” She held up a file folder. “You have a minute? It’s about the case.”
“Sure.”
Joel held the door for her and ignored Denise’s interested look as he ushered Miranda back. She wore dark snug-fitting jeans and a loose white shirt. Her hair was back in one of her messy twists that told him she’d left the top off her Jeep today.
“You said she was looking into the social media angle,” Miranda said. “I wanted to show her something interesting I found.”
“Come on back.”
Joel led her to the nearest conference room, where many of Miranda’s crime scene photos had been taped to the whiteboard. Joel had drawn a timeline, and different members of the team had added dates and other details as the victims’ movements became clearer.
“Whoa.” Miranda set her file down and approached the board. “It’s weird to see it laid out like this.”
“Helps us to visualize things. And make connections.”
She stepped up to the photograph of the victims intertwined in the canoe. Joel had spent hours analyzing that one picture, either in this room or in his head. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the pose meant something—he just hadn’t figured out what.
“So, what’d you find?” he asked.
Miranda turned around. Instead of taking a seat, she propped her hip on the edge of the table. She smelled good again today. Yesterday the scent of her perfume or her shampoo or whatever it was had lingered in his truck after he’d dropped her off, distracting the hell out of him.
“Well, you gave me those photographs last night,” she said, “and one of the first things I noticed was their matching tattoos. That design appears on the social media pages of
some of Elizabeth’s online followers.”
“Nicole noticed the same thing. You think that’s relevant?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.” She flipped open the folder and pulled out a stack of papers clipped together. “I was up late combing through her posts and her commenters’ posts. Check out what I found.”
She unclipped the pages and fanned out three across the table. Joel didn’t recognize any of the pictures. Two were cat pictures with the snake symbol on the lower right-hand corner. One picture showed a beach scene with a surfboard stuck in the sand. Again the symbol, this time in the lower right corner.
Joel pulled the beach picture toward him. “Weird.”
“I know, right? I spent hours going through this stuff and found a total of fifty-three images with this symbol somewhere, either in a post or in someone’s profile picture. Several of these photos were taken here on the island.” She tugged a paper from the stack and slid it in front of him. Joel recognized the landscape instantly.
“This is in White Dunes Park.”
“Exactly.” She tapped the corner where the serpent symbol had been superimposed on the picture. “This was photoshopped. And this picture was posted a week ago today, which is three days before the murders.”
Joel looked down at the fan of pictures. Then he thumbed through the stack. “Fifty-three images with this snake thing?”
“Those are just the ones I found last night. She has more than a million followers, so who knows how many of them have posts with this symbol.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” Miranda said. “I know someone who would, though.”
“Who?”
“Mike Conner, one of my colleagues. He teaches cultural anthropology at the college, and he’s an expert in symbology. In fact, he wrote a book on the subject: Symbols through the Ages: Hieroglyphics to Emojis.”
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