Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  Boudreaux took a drink of his wine, then scratched gently at one eyebrow. “Maybe you should talk to Gray about that,” he finally said.

  She’d never worked up the courage to push her father for answers. If he’d lied to her, she would have known it, and that would have broken her heart

  “I suppose I will, eventually,” she answered.

  “Well, in the meantime, I believe Amelia has a presentation on the care and feeding of her mother,” Boudreaux said as he stood and held out a hand. “We were unable to put together a documentary on such short notice.”

  When Maggie arrived at work the next morning, a café con leche in each hand, she headed straight for Wyatt’s office. When she reached his open door, he was standing at his desk, talking on his phone. He smiled at her and held up a finger. She leaned in the door way and waited.

  “What time Monday?’ he asked. He waited a moment. “Okay. At the courthouse?” He grabbed a piece of scratch paper and a pen, wrote something down. “Suite 404. Okeydoke. Got it. I’ll be there.”

  He hung up his desk phone and turned to face Maggie.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Maggie pushed off from the doorway. “Hey,” she said back.

  He let out a big breath. “So, I’m going to Tallahassee Monday.”

  “What for?”

  “Meet with the FDLE guys and your new sheriff.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at the coffee in her hands. “Is one of those mine?”

  She held one out to him. He took it, and took a long drink.

  “How do you feel about it?” Maggie asked.

  “The same way I felt yesterday. The same way I felt last month.” Maggie stared at him, and he stared back. “It’s a change. But some changes are good.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said flatly.

  “Could you at least try to look like you believe me?”

  “I do. I’m just a little overwhelmed.”

  Wyatt sighed. “What would you do for me, Maggie?”

  Maggie blinked a few times. “A lot.”

  “There you go,” he said dismissively.

  Maggie felt the pressure of guilt in her chest.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” she said. “You won’t like it.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “I went over to Boudreaux’s house last night,” she said.

  He looked at her a moment, his expression unreadable.

  “Why?”

  “He asked me to. He needed a favor,” she answered.

  “Hold on,” Wyatt said. He put the coffee down on his desk. “What favor?”

  “His housekeeper’s ex-husband died, and Boudreaux’s flying with her to Louisiana for the funeral,” Maggie answered. “He asked me to take care of Miss Evangeline.”

  “The little old lady?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Wyatt’s jaw had tightened, but he kept his tone even. “Maggie, whenever your eyes start darting around my chest, I know you’re about to say something I’ll hate, so let’s go ahead and tell and hate.”

  “I’m staying at Boudreaux’s house.”

  “Hell you are,” he said quietly.

  “It’s only for one night, and it’s not like he’s going to be there,” Maggie said.

  “I don’t care if he’s gone and simultaneously dead,” Wyatt said. “No.”

  Maggie wanted to take umbrage, but even she knew she had no basis for it. Wyatt’s reaction was expected and justified.

  “I said ‘yes’,” she said quietly.

  “Of course you did,” Wyatt said.

  He opened his mouth to speak again, but Dwight popped his head through the doorway.

  “Hey, Wyatt, Burt needs—oh, hey, is this personal?”

  “Beat it, Dwight, and shut the door,” Wyatt said quietly.

  Dwight pulled the door closed. “Go away, Burt,” they heard him say in the hall.

  Maggie turned back around to face Wyatt. His arms were folded across his chest.

  “Evan called for you a little while ago,” he said. “I took it for you.”

  The change of subject threw Maggie. “What?”

  “The nurse’s kid didn’t graduate from Gainesville; he was asked to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “A complaint of date rape,” Wyatt said. “The mother convinced the girl and her parents not to press charges, but the school asked him to take off.”

  He reached behind him and grabbed a fax from his desk. “This is your scumbag, here.”

  Maggie took the fax, a copy of the kid’s driver’s license. His name was Stuart Martin, and he was twenty-years-old. Five-six and one hundred-thirty pounds, close enough to Zoe’s description. Maggie looked at the picture. He had dirty blond hair cut in a surfer boy style, and an insolent look to his hazel eyes.

  “He has hazel eyes,” Maggie said.

  “Hazel can look brown, especially in the dark. Especially if you’re terrified,” Wyatt said. “The history can’t be ignored, especially since his mommy got Zoe out of the house two weeks after he got home. Maybe she saw something hinky.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just mentioning.”

  “Evan’s gonna go with, since it’s out of our jurisdiction and this is just a look-see.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said again, as Wyatt walked around his desk and picked up Zoe’s file. “So, let’s go.”

  “No, you will go, and I will get out there and help Dwight look up some more of our local creeps.” He handed Maggie a scrap of paper. “Go call Evan back.”

  Maggie stood there, feeling stupid, as she watched him head for the door.

  “I thought we were working together today,” she said.

  “We were. We are,” he answered. “But not so close together that I can reach your neck.”

  He opened the door and held it open for her. It took her a moment, but she finally started moving.

  “You have a nice day, now,” he said as she passed him.

  Maggie set her coffee and purse on her desk, and dug her phone out of her purse. She stared at it for a while, trying to recover sufficiently before she had to sound normal to Evan Caldwell.

  Wyatt had every right to be upset, and she knew that he did. She had also known that last night, before she gave Boudreaux her answer. She knew he’d be angry and he was. Maybe hurt, but she hoped just angry.

  Even so, it gave her a clenching sensation in her stomach to have him unhappy with her, and she took a moment to resituate herself, focus on helping Zoe, and dial the number.

  “Hello?” Evan answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Evan, this is Maggie Redmond,” Maggie said.

  “Hey, Maggie. Wyatt give you the lowdown on your guy?”

  “A little bit,” she answered. “I was thinking I’d meet you at the station and we could go in one car or the other. That sound okay to you? You can fill me in on the way.”

  “Sounds good,” he answered. “I’m finishing up some things here, but I’ll be ready in about forty-five minutes if that works for you.”

  Maggie looked at her watch. It was a thirty minute ride to the Port St. Joe PD, more or less. “Okay, I’ll be there around nine.”

  They said their goodbyes, and Maggie picked her purse back up and headed out.

  As Maggie drove across the bridge that connected Eastpoint to Apalachicola, she composed conversations with both Wyatt and Boudreaux. She would tell Boudreaux she couldn’t do it. She would tell Wyatt she wouldn’t do it, and then try harder not to be so impulsive when it came to Boudreaux.

  She wasn’t willing—yet—to give Boudreaux up, and when she put it to herself that way, when she considered him as something to be given up, she worried about herself just a little. She had been drifting from herself since the day she’d first sat across the table from Boudreaux at Boss Oyster and found herself liking him against her will.

  She was softball and Scrabble, chickens and kitchen gardens, her parents and her kid
s. She was Wyatt. She was not a consort of criminals, or typically drawn to things and people that weren’t good for her.

  She’d known Boudreaux most of her life, but superficially, first as her father’s main buyer then as the Sheriff’s Office’s most wanted. Before June, they’d never exchanged more than ten words. How had he become so important to her in just five months? Would he have been so important if he hadn’t saved her life? If she hadn’t saved his?

  She would have loved to talk to somebody about that, but the only person she thought she’d feel comfortable discussing it with was Boudreaux, which helped her not at all.

  She drove across the bridge, through Apalach, and on to the Port St. Joe Police Department without coming up with any answers that she liked, so she put the questions out of her mind. When the Sheriff’s investigator got out of her Jeep, she left the woman behind in the car. At that moment, Maggie felt the woman was too stupid to be useful.

  Fifteen minutes later, Maggie and Evan Caldwell walked back out to her Cherokee.

  Maggie, with her long, dark hair corralled into an unenthusiastic bun and her jeans with the frayed hems, felt like a tired-looking frump compared to Evan, who looked like he’d just walked off the set of a TV cop show. His white button-down shirt was immaculate, and a green silk tie picked up the color of his eyes. He wore his shield clipped to a black leather belt holding up black trousers, and his black dress shoes were clean and polished to a shine that rivaled his almost-blue black hair.

  While Evan climbed into the Jeep, Maggie checked to make sure her navy Sheriff’s Office polo didn’t have any coffee stains in the boob area. She started the Jeep, then tapped Gina Merritt and Stuart Martin’s address into her phone’s GPS before backing out.

  “So, as I was saying,” Evan said. “The parents have been divorced for close to fifteen years. The father’s a long-distance trucker living in Kentucky. Apparently, he’s doing penance for something.” He looked down at a small notepad. “No other kids.”

  “Any luck with the juvie record?” Maggie asked as she pulled out onto the street.

  “Not without a warrant,” Evan answered. “Nobody in the department knows the family, so no anecdotal information to share there.”

  “How about the mom? What do we know about her?”

  Evan consulted his notes. “Fifty years old, no record other than some unpaid parking tickets,” he said. “RN since 1986. She was a nurse at Gulf Coast Regional for several years, then moved to Port St. Joe and worked at Sacred Heart until 2012. She started working for Harbor Hospice Care the same year.”

  Maggie turned onto Monument Avenue, and they made their way through a working class neighborhood, the street lined with neat but simple concrete homes in various tropical shades.

  “What’s the deal with the rape charge?” Maggie asked. “How’d the mother talk this girl’s family into not pressing charges?”

  “It sounds to me like the girl didn’t want to press charges in the first place,” Evan answered. “The parents were trying to pressure her into it, but she did agree to bring it to the school’s attention. It would have been a hard one. She didn’t even tell the parents; her roommate did. But it was three days after the fact.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t have all the details. They met at a frat party and left together. The girl had had a couple of drinks. He was supposed to be taking her to some club, but they ended up at a city park. She thought maybe he’d roofied her back at the party, because she didn’t remember much about the ride. The kid raped her in the car, then dropped her off at her dorm because he’s a gentleman. She couldn’t make it to the front door, just passed out on the sidewalk, so some other students helped her in.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah. At any rate, the mother whined at the girl and her parents about her son’s mental health issues—”

  “What mental health issues?” Maggie asked.

  “Depression, therapy since the age of twelve, we don’t care.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said.

  “The girl and the parents agreed not to press charges as long as the kid left school and went back to therapy. He’s not yet chosen to continue his career as a C student anywhere else, though the complaint is a matter of record and he probably wouldn’t get accepted anywhere anyway.”

  “Is he back in therapy?”

  “No idea,” Evan answered. “He’s working for a motorcycle parts place over in Panama City. Today’s his day off. I asked one of the patrol cars to do a drive-by just before you got to the office. His Nova was in the driveway.”

  “A Nova?” Maggie asked.

  “Compensating, no doubt,” Evan said.

  Gina Martin’s home looked like most of the other homes on her small side street: neat without having much curb appeal, painted a faded light green. There were a few small hibiscus bushes near the front walk, but the grass looked wan and crispy and could use a mow. An old Buick Skylark and a primer-colored Nova sat in the driveway.

  Maggie pulled in behind the Nova, and she and Evan walked to the front door.

  “I’ll just be window dressing,” Evan said. “It’s all yours, unless you need me.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said.

  Gina Merritt answered the doorbell. She was a plain woman, a good thirty pounds overweight, wearing lavender scrubs and flip flops. Maggie flashed her badge.

  “Ms. Merritt? I’m Lieutenant Redmond with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

  The woman’s facial expression changed from quizzical to worried instantly. “Yes?” She glanced over at Evan.

  “This is Detective Caldwell with the Port St. Joe Police Department. He’s just here as a courtesy,” Maggie said. “May we come in for a few minutes?”

  “What is this about?”

  “We’d like to speak with you and your son for a few moments,” Maggie said.

  “He’s asleep. What is this about?” she repeated.

  “I just need to clear a few things up, get some more information,” Maggie said. “We can do that now, or you and Stuart could come into the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office if that would be more convenient for you.”

  “I don’t understand. What does Stuart have to do with anything?” the woman asked, but her eyes were frightened.

  “I’d prefer to discuss that inside, with both of you, ma’am, if you wouldn’t mind,” Maggie said, her tone almost friendly. “It’ll just take a few minutes.”

  The woman hesitated, seemed to consider her options, then stepped back and opened the door wider for them. Evan followed Maggie into a combination living and dining room, clean and orderly, but decorated in early cat-lady. There was a glass of tea next to a small flowered recliner, and a home shopping channel was on the TV.

  “I—do you want me to wake Stuart up?” the woman asked.

  “Yes, thank you, ma’am,” Maggie answered kindly.

  The woman seemed to flutter for a moment, then picked up a remote from the arm of the recliner and muted the volume. Maggie and Evan watched her walk down a hallway, then stood there and waited, looking around the room.

  There were quite a few school pictures of Stuart Martin on the wall and perched on a small bookcase in one corner, but no other artwork. A gray cat sauntered into the room and commenced to scratch at the scarred corner of a faded floral couch. Then it jumped up onto the coffee table, scattering a stack of needlework and Weight Watchers magazines.

  Maggie and Evan could hear muffled voices down the hall, first Gina’s, then the tenor, slightly whining tone of her son. A few moments later, Gina walked back into the room, trying not to wring her hands. She was followed by a rumpled looking Stuart, who was wearing gray sweatpants and pulling a navy tank over his head.

  Stuart looked more irritated than worried, but the worry was there, too, as he looked from Evan to Maggie. Maggie got a quick up-and-down, with an extra moment spent on her chest. Evan didn’t. Maggie thought about shooting him, but introduce
d herself instead.

  “Mr. Martin, I’m Lt. Redmond from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, and this is Detective Caldwell from Port St. Joe PD,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “If we can all take a seat for just a moment, we’d just like to ask you a few questions,” Maggie said.

  The mother sat down hard on the couch, but the son remained standing, scratching idly at his unimpressive midriff.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “Zoe Boatwright,” Maggie said.

  “Zoe!” Gina exclaimed. “What about Zoe?”

  “Yeah, what about her?”

  “Could we take a seat, Mr. Martin?” Maggie asked. She gave him half a smile, but it wasn’t all that warm.

  “Yeah, whatever,” the kid said. He sat down next to his mother. Maggie sat down in the recliner. Evan sat down in an upholstered chair next to an open sewing basket full of yarn, and leaned his elbows on his knees.

  “What does Stuart have to do with Zoe?” the woman demanded, but her voice was trembling.

  “I don’t have nothing to do with Zoe,” the kid said.

  “What is going on?” his mother asked.

  “Zoe was attacked in her home early Sunday morning,” Maggie said.

  “Man, I was right here in bed Sunday morning!” Stuart said.

  “That’s right,” his mother said. “He came home early Saturday night, and he didn’t get up until late.”

  “Ms. Merritt, you said you asked Zoe’s aunt to take her in because the house was too small for the three of you, is that right?”

  “Well, yes,” the woman answered.

  “Or was it because your son has had some problems with girls?’ Maggie asked.

  Gina just stared back at Maggie. Stuart started cracking the knuckle of one finger.

  “Stuart was asked to leave the University of Florida because of a date rape complaint,” Maggie continued. “Isn’t that right, Stuart?”