Dead Drop

by Emma Rose Watts

  DEAD DROP

  A Coastal Suspense Series Book 4

  Emma Rose Watts

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Also by Emma Rose Watts

  Copyright © 2018 by Emma Rose Watts

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Death Drop: A Coastal Suspense Series Book 4 is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For my Family

  Prologue

  Franklin County, Florida

  Death awaited but he was blissfully unaware. The occupant in the Ford truck flicked out a fourth cigarette into the blackness that swallowed everything. Hot embers bounced as it hit the ground. “C’mon, c’mon,” the driver repeated, growing tired of waiting outside Ruby’s Bar. It was a seedy shack on the edge of town that attracted the unfaithful and bottom feeders of society. The beer was cheap, and the women were easy but that’s why that lowlife was there.

  In the distance, a figure emerged from beneath the glow of the bar’s doors, staggering, fumbling with keys as he headed over to his green sedan. Nick Hammond had his arm slung over some tramp who looked like she was three sheets to the wind. They both stumbled, and the driver heard them laugh.

  The driver clenched the steering wheel tighter.

  She wasn’t meant to be with him. Oh well, collateral damage.

  Everything would still go as planned. Nick made it to his sedan and opened the back door and motioned to the woman but for some reason she didn’t want to get in. Who would? A moment of arguing back and forth and the woman slapped him across the face, turned and strode back to the bar.

  For a second Nick looked as if he was going to follow but instead he opted to get into the driver’s side. His overly expensive vehicle grumbled to life, kicking out a huge plume of white smoke before reversing out and taking off.

  Perfect.

  The driver in the truck smiled and waited a few seconds before following.

  Nick headed north on Begonia Street before hanging a left onto US-98. He was heading home, home was Apalachicola. A few minutes’ drive and he would pass over the Big Bend Scenic Byway. It was a long stretch of road that separated Eastpoint from Apalachicola — a connecting highway that cut through the bay. The occupant of the following truck knew the timing had to be just right. There couldn’t be any mistakes. As they cut through pine forest and near unspoiled seashore, they passed several vehicles heading in the opposite direction. The driver of the truck swept the mirrors checking for vehicles from behind. There couldn’t be any witnesses. The closer they got to the byway the more excited the driver became. The truck roared forward stealing the moment before it was gone. Flooring the gas pedal, the driver took off closing the gap between the truck and the green sedan. A few tense seconds then the truck slammed into the back of the sedan, causing it to swerve all over the road. Nick managed to get control of it, so the truck veered around the sedan as if to take over — just as the rear wheels aligned with the front of the truck, the driver yanked the steering wheel hard and collided with the car. A sudden clash of metal, sparks flying and a shattered taillight and the sedan spun out of control. Brakes screeched and the truck driver watched as Nick lost control, left the road and dropped over the edge, crashing down against the rocks and water.

  The driver brought the truck to a crawl and looked out the rear window. The driver waited, searching for signs of life. Then, a door cracked open.

  “Damn it!”

  Nick was still alive. The driver watched him crawl out the side of the vehicle gripping his chest. The driver backed up the truck with the intention of finishing the job using a single round fired from a Glock laid on the passenger seat.

  Just as the driver was about to get out and bring an end to his pitiful life, a set of headlights blinked into existence. A vehicle was approaching from behind and fast. There was no time to finish him. The driver banged a fist against the doorframe, hit the gas and took off at a high rate of speed.

  Chapter 1

  Skylar Reid shifted uncomfortably in her seat waiting for Sam Walker to emerge from the house. Ben, her psychiatrist and now close friend, had asked her to stay at his place for two nights to look after his thirteen-year-old son while he was away in Miami taking a course to update his skills. Of course she said yes but it was only after she agreed did she think it might have been a bad idea. She wasn’t a mother. What on earth was going through his mind to ask her? She’d originally tried to wiggle her way out of it by telling him to contact Sam’s grandmother who lived in Tallahassee but unfortunately she’d taken a nasty fall and was in no condition to be looking after a kid. She honked the horn for a third time and glanced at the clock. At this rate she was going to be late to the scene, all of which would give Harvey another reason to shine his knuckles.

  Finally, Sam came out of the Mediterranean-style home, one hand clutching a piece of toast, the other dragging a backpack. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses. He took after his father in the looks department. Good looking, blue eyes, swept-back hair and clothes that screamed they had money. While they looked alike, when it came to communication they were worlds apart. In the few hours she’d been there she had barely got a word out of him beyond yes, no, and it’s over there when she asked for where things were in the house.

  Sam hopped in and cut her a sideways glance.

  “What took you so long?” Skylar asked as she threw the gearstick into drive and peeled out of there breaking a few speed limits in the short distance to Carrabelle High School. Instead of answering her question he glanced around the floor of her beat-up truck. “You know, you should really consider cleaning this up,” he said. “It’s a hazard.”

  “You sound like Harvey,” she replied while keeping her eyes fixed ahead.

  “Who’s that?”

  “My partner.”

  Sam took another bite of his toast and wiped some of the crumbs that fell on his leg onto the floor. As they drove in silence, Skylar looked at him.

  “You know, you don’t talk much,” she said.

  He shrugged. She noticed he was turned ever so slightly and leaning against the door as if trying to keep his distance from her. As he reached into his bag to get out a drink, he dropped his toast and well, anyone would have thought someone had cut his leg off or killed a pet. Out of nowhere he burst into tears. As he bent to scoop it up, Skylar noticed a dark circle behind his sunglasses.

  She swerved to the side of the road, a few minutes away from the school.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s just toast.”

  He replied but she couldn’t make out what he was saying through all the sobbing. Skylar reached over and placed a hand on him and the very second she did, he flinched.

  “Sam. It’s okay.” He continued sobbing. “Do me a favor, take your glasses off.”

&
nbsp; He shook his head, so she snatched them away from his face to reveal a large purple bruise around his left eye.

  “What the heck? How did that happen?” she asked.

  “I had an accident at school,” he blurted out taking his sunglasses back from her and placing them on again. She recalled him coming in the previous afternoon and not saying a word to her. He’d retreated to his bedroom and only came out to collect his dinner and even then he was wearing sunglasses.

  “How?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Your father told me to look after you while he’s away. Now he returns tomorrow and the last thing I want to do is hand you over with a black eye.”

  “I told you it was an accident, I fell over.”

  “Interesting. Were you wearing gloves at the time?” she asked looking down at his hands which didn’t have a single mark on them. Skylar wished she hadn’t said anything because after that he completely shut down. She peppered him with a few more questions but got nothing out of him. She would have pressed him for more information but a text came in from Harvey asking her where she was. She sighed, glanced at Sam and then pulled away heading for the school.

  When they arrived and stopped outside, Sam was quick to hop out.

  “So I’ll pick you up—” Before she got the rest out he slammed the door and strode away into a crowd of students.

  “Right,” she said. Skylar took a quick second to text Harvey back to say she was on her way. They’d got a call early that morning of a jogger finding a dead body down by the Big Bend Scenic Byway. Harvey had already headed down there and was working with Hanson and Reznik to process the scene.

  Just about to leave, Skylar glanced over to the school and saw three kids around the same age as Sam shove him into a door before walking off laughing. He dropped his bag and several of his books fell out. Skylar hopped out to go and give him a hand but before she crossed the road he’d already scooped them up and disappeared inside. Standing there with a hand on her hip and her thoughts far from her work, she couldn’t help think back to her own school life. It wasn’t easy. And the more awkward or quiet a child was, the greater the chance of being bullied.

  She was starting to think that Sam wasn’t telling her the complete truth.

  Skylar ducked under the yellow crime scene tape that was looped around a few trees to prevent curious onlookers from getting too close. It was always the same. A small crowd would gather to gawk, and gossip. Harvey was on the phone when she arrived. Hanson was taking photos while Reznik and one other officer were getting statements from lingering bystanders. As she pitched sideways down the green embankment heading over to the large rocks that were positioned on either side of the road, Hanson noticed her.

  “Glad you could pull yourself out of bed, Reid.”

  “Had to drop a kid off at school.”

  “A kid? I never took you for the mothering type. Did I miss the last nine months or have you adopted some poor soul?”

  “Hilarious. What have we got?” she asked looking down at the body that was still covered.

  “Forty-five years old, Nick Hammond, a local to the area of Franklin County. From what I’ve been able to glean it was some kind of hit and run.” Hanson guided her around to the back of the vehicle. “We’ve got a smashed taillight, tire tracks all over the road up there and some red paint on the rear and side,” he said pointing it out.

  “So he died in the crash?”

  “No, his body was found outside of the vehicle. While he had a nasty gash on the forehead it doesn’t look like that’s what killed him but we should know soon enough. My money is on internal injuries.”

  “Where’s Jenna?”

  “Haven’t seen her but Harvey has contacted the ME office.”

  Skylar walked back to the body just as Harvey ended his call.

  “Reid, glad you could…”

  “Don’t even say it,” she said cutting him off. “Already heard it from Hanson here.” She pulled back the cover and took a look at the victim. Nick Hammond was around six feet tall, with a dark tan and horseshoe-shaped hair. He was dressed in a white shirt with two palm trees on the breast pocket. She took out her phone and took a quick snapshot of his face.

  “My initial thought was robbery but there was a large amount of money still in his wallet, his gold wedding band and Rolex watch weren’t taken so that rules that out.”

  “Anyone see anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing. No reports last night of a crash. Though going on where the vehicle landed… at night it would have been hard to see it. Most folks would have driven right by it. A jogger this morning found the body around six.”

  “And you’ve had the body here this long?”

  “You can’t rush these things, Reid.”

  Skylar nodded getting up and walking over to the green Jaguar XJ sedan. It was a nice-looking car, high end, with black leather interior and all the trimmings. The airbag was deflated. There was a fine layer of white powder, which came from the airbag covering the seat, but beyond that there were no noticeable prints, which might have been visible because of the dust. The front end had smashed into the large boulders, preventing it from sinking into the bay. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves and snapped them on before looking inside the vehicle for anything suspicious or out of place. Then she stepped back and walked around the vehicle. “So our victim gets knocked off the road, he survives, gets out of the vehicle and then drops. Nothing was taken, at least that we know of. So does anyone know where he was coming from?”

  Reznik made his way over. “Found a receipt for Ruby’s Bar from last night in his wallet.”

  “All right, well I’ll head over there to see what I can dig up, in the meantime, let’s process those tire tracks, get in contact with his wife. Harvey, maybe you can head over there with me and deal with that.”

  “I handled the last one,” Harvey said.

  “What about the body?” Reznik said.

  “Why are you asking me? Speak to Jenna, oh and check CCTV in the area.”

  “Cameras? Around here?”

  “You’ll be surprised at where folks have them nowadays,” she said.

  Reznik put a hand on his hip and shook his head in confusion before walking away. Skylar started climbing back up the embankment to her truck, her mind already lost in thought.

  “Skylar!” Harvey said trying to catch up. He panted hard as he made it to the top. “Where were you this morning?”

  “Dealing with Ben’s kid.” He gave her a confused expression. “I’ve been taking care of him while Ben’s away. He’s in Miami at the moment and returns tomorrow.”

  She continued on to the truck. Several seagulls wheeled overhead screeching.

  “Wait up. What’s the hurry?” Harvey yelled.

  She pulled open her door and hopped in, fired up the engine and brought the window down. “No hurry. I just have a few things I need to get done today before he gets back and well with all of this now on my plate…”

  “Skylar?”

  She sighed then blurted it out. “I think someone’s bullying Sam.”

  “Sam?”

  “Ben’s kid. Come on, Harv, catch up.” She put the gear into drive and kept her foot on the brake.

  “Catch up? I don’t have to remind you that…”

  “Yes, yes. You were here first. Look, are you coming with me to Ruby’s or not? We can talk to the family after that.”

  He thumbed over his shoulder. “Yeah, but I brought my SUV. I’ll follow you.”

  Skylar pulled away before he could say any more. It wasn’t like her to speed through a crime scene but then again she’d never been made responsible for someone else’s kid. It also didn’t help that she’d suffered through abuse at her own high school. It seemed to come with the territory when you were a cop’s kid. Still it was all hitting a bit too close to home. As she drove the short distance to Ruby’s Bar she thought back to those days. The afternoons sh
e came home from school with no sneakers because they’d stolen them from her and cut them up, or the day she was sporting a cut lip and a shiner. Her father had torn into her like it was her problem. Everything was backwards in her home. When her mother wasn’t drinking like a fish, her father was having a go at her. How she managed to rise out of the ashes of her past was a miracle in itself. She didn’t want to see what had happened to her happen to anyone else, especially not Ben’s kid.

  Chapter 2

  Ruby’s Bar was a cesspool. Why a health inspector hadn’t closed the place down was beyond strange. It was located halfway down Begonia Street. It was pushed back from the road, nestled into the surrounding pines and shrubs overlooking a small pond. The structure itself was made from bamboo and palm tree branches, and resembled one of the many tiki huts that could be found throughout Florida — except this place looked like a stack of cards just waiting to be blown down by the next hurricane.

  Skylar didn’t wait for Harvey to arrive. Heck, she didn’t even see him in her rearview mirror when she drove away. Dealing with murders had become old hat to her. Even though most were solved in the fine details, the rest was routine, run-of-the-mill police procedure.

  Outside there were several motorbikes parked, and tables full of sunburnt locals. Few tourists made it down here and those that did obviously hadn’t read the reviews online or they had a death wish. It wasn’t that the area was seedy but like any small town it didn’t take much to draw in the wrong crowd. Skylar glanced at a dilapidated wooden sign that advertised twenty cent wings, and one dollar fifty beer. How on earth did they make a profit with that? She knew about loss leaders, all businesses had them but a dollar fifty for a beer? Was it beer or water? A few heavyset fellas with tattoos and sleeveless shirts gave her an unsavory glance as she made her way in. She wasn’t sure if that was their way of checking her out or if it was because she stood out like a sore thumb in her suit jacket. Everyone in there was wearing the least amount of clothes possible. Some sweaty biker put his feet across the gangway as she tried to make her way to the bar.