Icy Blue Descent (Book 4 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)

by JC Simmons

  "Little girls are sometimes like fragile flowers, Jay. They can be hurt very easy."

  "Well, Max tried everything, the best medical help money could buy, but it didn't do any good."

  Kathy got up, walked to the stern of Picaroon, and sat with her feet hanging over the boarding ladder. "Are you defending his actions with the child?"

  "I'm telling you what happened." Maybe I was defending Max Renoir. The ruined young woman lying on the slab in the Miami morgue, the dead people aboard the Sun Dog lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, all the senseless violence, came flooding back. I had to defend somebody.

  Walking over, I stood behind Kathy and put my arms around her. She leaned back against me. The sun sank into the haze, turning the sky a fiery orange, and the water around the boat faded to the color of molten lead. A redfish rolled behind the stern, showing the black spot on its tail. Further out, two dolphins worked a shoal of mullet.

  Kathy turned around and looked at me. "How did Rene get Lynn to come to Miami?"

  "She convinced her to come down and see her off on the voyage. Rene had healed from the plastic surgery by then, and she returned on the airplane back to Jackson as Lynn. Sanchez and his people took control of Lynn in Miami, even before the Stede Bonnet sailed."

  "How did you find out about the plastic surgery?"

  "When the fingerprints came back identifying the body as Lynn's, I remembered the photo that she showed me in my office, and the shape of Rene's nose. The FBI found the surgeon who did it."

  "So the whole scheme was foiled by love. That Barrel-chest person fell for the girl and couldn't kill her."

  "Calling it love may be a stretch, however it is what blew Rene and Sanchez's plan."

  "What was Sanchez getting out of it?"

  "The FBI thinks it was his entry to legitimate business, some place to launder the millions he was making from the Snowpowder business. Who knows, these type people are hard to figure, their personalities are so diffusive, enigmas to their own selves. I'm not sure Rene would have kept the relationship after she gained control of the company. She would have had him killed to get him out of the picture."

  The sun set, darkness came fast to Chandeleur Island. Venus glistened bright as the evening star. Soft ripples lapped against the hull of the boat. Light breezes brought the smells of low tide.

  "What happens to the Renoir estate now that all the family are either dead or in jail?"

  "The courts will decide, but I imagine Glossman and Moran will continue to handle it."

  "It's a shame, isn't it. So much evil, so much ugliness among all this beauty."

  I didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say.

  "I enjoyed getting to know Guy and Mildred. They are wonderful to be around."

  "It's people like them, and Joe Glossman, and Bill Moran, and Dave and Sally Billingsly, who keep me from giving up on the human race. There are more good than bad."

  "What about me? Am I one of the good people?"

  "You're going to be one of the good people."

  Darkness filled the silence of the island. The moon rose out of the water in the east, the birds settled on the sandy beaches, and a soft, caressing wind blew across the deck of Picaroon.

  It was a good time to be alive.

  THE END

  ****

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  Thanks for reading!

  Check out all 10 books in

  The Jay Leicester Mysteries Series by JC Simmons:

  Blood on the Vine

  Some People Die Quick

  Blind Overlook

  Icy Blue Descent

  The Electra File

  Popping the Shine

  Four Nines Fine

  The Underground Lady

  Akel Dama

  The Candela of Cancri

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