“Don’t go soft on me, Madelyn.”
Madelyn scowled. “I’m not.”
“You’ve got a job to do. I expect results.”
Madelyn pinched the skin between her eyes. “I understand.”
“Don’t disappoint me.”
The words echoed in her head. But who did Madelyn fear disappointing more? Paula? Herself? Or how about God? Because whatever decision she made, she was the one who’d have to live with it for the rest of her life.
* * *
Zach bumped down the road the next morning, Madelyn beside him. He was going to one of the regional marinas this morning. The state police had taken Ernie’s boat there to be inspected by one of their mechanics. Zach wanted to see for himself what had happened to the watercraft.
Since all of this crime had started happening in town over this past week, Zach couldn’t stop wondering if there was any connection with what had happened in Baltimore. He had to get to the bottom of this before he lost everything—again. His job, his reputation and the people who trusted him.
All he’d had since then was his faith. His faith was enough; he knew that. But he wanted to make things right.
Madelyn sat beside him, a laptop on her lap as she worked on her story.
“How’s it going?” he asked, glancing over at her. Her glossy brown hair gently fell in her face. She wore crisp, professional black pants with a striped blue top. He could stare at her all day. “Have you gotten everything you need for your article?”
She nodded. “Yes, I told Eva I didn’t need any more tours today. She wanted to introduce me to some artists and let me see their studios. I guess there’s a vineyard on the outskirts of town and another restaurant farther up the bay. I’ll get there eventually. I want to use the information I have first.”
Zach stole another glance at her. Despite his better instincts, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all night. Especially about their near kiss. Why was he letting her have this effect on him?
Madelyn was coming with him today purely for safety reasons. Until he knew more details about what was going on, he felt better knowing she was with him, that she was safe. It had nothing to do with his rapidly growing feelings for the woman.
Finally, they pulled up to the repair shop. After asking a couple of guys on the dock, they ambled toward the man who owned the place. Washington was his name, and he was an older man whose face was full of wrinkles, wrinkles that could probably tell hours worth of stories about life on the water. He was thin, wore overalls, but somehow still appeared spritely. The state police claimed he was the best in the area.
The man looked up from a clipboard as they approached. “Can I help you?”
Zach introduced himself and flashed his badge. “I’m looking for information on a Tracker that was brought in here by the state police yesterday. I’m the police chief from Waterman’s Reach.”
Washington nodded and led them into a bay. Ernie’s boat was there.
“Yep, I spent yesterday looking at this girl. Definitely tampered with. There were pry marks near the engine. Someone loosened it up just enough that it would cause a crack as the boat got moving faster.”
Zach nodded, his thoughts churning. “How about the radio?”
“Two wires were cut. It was simple but effective. This situation could have turned out a lot worse. It’s a good thing the people on board were able to get to dry land before that storm came.”
Zach nodded. “I agree.”
There were no other questions he could ask. Washington had simply confirmed what Zach already suspected: someone was out to harm Madelyn. The thought disturbed him.
As they started home, Zach glanced into his rearview mirror. He blinked at what he saw. Was that...the white truck?
He stared harder, straightening in his seat. It was. The truck was behind them again!
“You see it, too?” Madelyn asked, her gaze flickering to the side-view mirror.
“Unfortunately.” Zach suddenly jerked the steering wheel, and they swerved into a U-turn. “It’s time to end this. Hold on.”
When his cruiser stopped, they faced the white truck head-on. The driver opposite them threw on the brakes.
Without hesitation, Zach charged toward him, lights and siren blaring. The truck turned and gunned it. Zach raced down the road. But the truck was just as fast and didn’t let up.
It turned off the main road onto a side street. Zach stayed on its tail, determined to end this once and for all. There was still too much distance between the vehicles to easily catch up.
The rural road was narrow, surrounded mostly by farms. The landscape blurred around them as the chase continued.
“I can’t let him get away this time,” Zach muttered.
Ahead there was a small bridge crossing over the river. The structure looked low and old.
Madelyn gasped as they headed toward it.
Suddenly, the truck flew off the bridge. The vehicle seemed to remain suspended in the air a moment. Zach couldn’t look away as he waited to see what would happen next.
The truck landed with a huge splash in the water. A moment later, a man wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and an oversize leather coat scrambled from the vehicle. He trudged through the water toward a nearby pier across the river.
Zach raced to the opposite side of the river and threw his cruiser in Park. He rushed out. But it was too late. The man jumped on a waiting Jet Ski.
He’d obviously left the watercraft there, keys in the ignition. Because once he got on, he zoomed off.
Zach knew just as well as anyone that, without a boat, there was no catching this guy now.
They’d been close. So close.
SEVENTEEN
As Zach and Madelyn headed back to Waterman’s Reach later that day, Zach’s radio beeped. They’d been at the bridge for the past two hours, talking with state police and neighbors after the chase involving the white truck. The state police were running the license plate numbers, but, as of now, they still had no answers.
Madelyn hoped once the truck had been recovered from the water and dried out that it might offer some clues. But, until then, she just had to be patient.
“Chief, it’s Rod at the marina,” Madelyn heard Lynn say over the radio. “They’ve found something in the water he said you’d want to see immediately.”
“Something I want to see?” Zach questioned.
“That’s all he said, Chief.”
“Can you send Tyler?”
“Tyler is tied up with a traffic accident on the highway. He said he’s at least fifteen minutes out.”
“I’ll be right there.” Zach glanced at Madelyn. “You may have to wait a minute on that ride home after all.”
Madelyn didn’t argue. Her curiosity was spiked. “I understand.”
Zach flicked the lights on and raced through town toward the marina. As he traveled, his phone rang. He frowned when he looked at the screen.
“It’s the mayor again.”
Her thoughts traveled back to Zach’s rather gray demeanor after his conversation with the mayor that day she’d snooped in his desk at his house. He’d tried to brush it off, but the conversation must have been more intense than she realized.
“One minute.” Zach answered the phone, his Bluetooth broadcasting the conversation throughout the car. “I apologize in advance that you have to hear this.”
“Chief Davis,” the mayor started, his voice hard and without any trace of friendliness. “In case I haven’t made this clear, I’m concerned about everything that’s been happening in town.”
Zach frowned, keeping his eyes on the road. “I have been also. I can assure you that I’ve been working on it nonstop.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. But there’s more. I u
nderstand some of these crimes that have occurred are linked directly to you. That’s what the talk of the town is.”
“Directly to me?” He remained calm despite the implications of the mayor’s words. “What do you mean?”
“I heard there was blood in your kitchen. Gunshots fired at you. Now you’re trying to place the blame on Levi Watson?”
Madelyn cast a sharp look at Zach. Small town politics were coming into play here, and if the mayor knew that Madelyn was listening to this conversation, she was sure he’d change his rhetoric. So much for making a good impression.
Zach continued to race toward town. “I’m following every lead. That’s my job.”
“There are a lot of people in town who don’t trust outsiders. You’re giving them reason not to. Levi Watson is a hero to most. People think you’re deflecting attention from yourself by focusing on Watson.”
Zach let out a soft sigh. “Mayor, with all due respect, you’ve got to know that I wouldn’t do these things. And if I did—and that’s a big if—I wouldn’t leave the evidence anywhere that’s connected with me.”
“If word of everything that’s happened gets leaked, tourism will essentially shut down in this town before it even starts. You need to bring an end to this crime spree. Now. And stop throwing out accusations.”
Was that what this whole conversation was about? Tourism? Madelyn knew it was important to Waterman’s Reach, but she had no idea it was this important. No, she’d assumed the risk on people’s lives would be greater.
Zach clenched his jaw. “I’ve brought the state police in to help. I’m using all of the resources available to me to figure out what’s going on.”
“Do you have any ideas? Any clue as to what this is all about?”
“I wish I could say I do. I’ve wondered if someone’s trying to run me out of town.”
“These measures seem a little extreme for that, don’t they?” Mayor Alan asked.
“Perhaps. But I’ve seen people go to great lengths to get what they want.”
Was Zach hinting about what had happened in Baltimore? Madelyn’s pulse spiked.
“I expect you to keep me in the loop,” the mayor continued.
“Of course. You’ll have a full report by the end of the week.” Zach hit End and then glanced at Madelyn. “Sorry you had to hear that.”
“That was pretty intense,” Madelyn said. The whole interaction seemed odd. It was too full of politics and assumptions and strong-arming. Though Madelyn had initially had a good impression of the mayor, that was starting to change. “I can’t believe he’s so closed-minded.”
Zach frowned. “This is what happens in close-knit communities sometimes. No one can believe one of their own might be guilty. It’s easier to blame an outsider.”
He stayed quiet for the rest of the ride, and Madelyn didn’t press him. She sensed he needed his space.
Anyone would after a conversation like that.
* * *
When they pulled up to the marina, Zach spotted a group gathered around one of the piers. Madelyn walked beside him as he approached them. The crowd parted to let him through.
Zach peered down into the water. His stomach tightened when he saw the body of a man floating facedown.
A body. There was a body in the water. That was a little more than “something he’d want to see.”
The man wore a flannel shirt, jeans and work boots. So unless he’d changed, he wasn’t the man from the white truck they’d seen earlier. That had been his first thought. Did this man have anything to do with the fiasco taking place around here this week?
“We’re going to need the state police out here,” Zach mumbled. “Everyone, please take a step back.”
He radioed Tyler before pulling out his camera and snapping some pictures. With the initial scene documented, Zach used a pole to flip the body over.
An unfamiliar face stared back. Zach stood, his hands on his hips as he studied the body. A bullet hole stained the man’s chest, dark red liquid lining the edges.
The man had been shot.
This hadn’t been an accidental death. The man hadn’t fallen off a pier or been thrown from a boat or any of the other ways people might meet death around the water. This man had been murdered.
Zach turned toward the crowd. “Anyone recognize him?”
All around him, people shook their heads. There were fishermen present—hobbyists and professionals—as well as boaters and dockworkers. None of them knew the man.
“Who found him?” Zach continued.
“I did, Chief.” Rod stepped forward. “I was helping dock a boat when I saw something floating beneath the pier. I thought someone had dumped something in the bay—that’s what it usually is. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realized it was a body. I called you right away.”
“Anyone touch him?” Zach continued. He observed everyone’s expressions, looking for a sign of deceit.
Again, the men around him shook their heads.
No one in particular looked uncomfortable. Most everyone at the marina was here, though there was another boat at the end of the docks unloading what appeared to be oysters. That crew continually looked over at the gathered crowd, as if wondering what was going on. Yet they continued to work.
Petty crimes had turned into violent crimes, and now there appeared to be a murderer at large.
It took an hour for the state police to show up and pull the body out of the water and onto the pier. Crime-scene tape had been pulled round the perimeter of the area, though Zach suspected there was little to preserve. Most, if not all, of the evidence had probably been washed out to sea at this point.
Not only did Zach have the mayor breathing down his neck, but now they had their first homicide here in Waterman’s Reach in decades. Decades. Could things get any worse around here?
After slipping on some gloves, Zach reached into the man’s pocket. A drape had been set up around the body to stop gawkers. Zach needed to see if he could find any identification. He pulled out a wallet, but there was nothing except a picture in the folds. Zach carefully pulled out the photo.
He sucked in a deep breath at the familiar face there.
Madelyn.
Only this wasn’t an ordinary photo. She wasn’t smiling at the camera. No, in this photo Madelyn was climbing in her car, totally unaware the picture was being taken. It definitely appeared she was in the city. He spotted a parking meter in the corner of the photo. It had probably been taken in the summer based on the thin straps of the dress she was wearing.
This man was somehow connected with Madelyn and all of the eerie events that had been happening since she arrived in town. Had this man been watching her? Following her? Had he been hired to get rid of her?
Zach glanced up. Madelyn stood there with the rest of the crowd. When their gazes connected, she flinched. Did she sense that he’d discovered something of significance? Did she somehow know that she was connected with all of this?
Someone either wanted to kill Madelyn or to seriously hurt her. Neither option made him comfortable.
Zach glanced at the picture one more time before sliding it into a bag. He told Tyler to keep an eye on the scene while he pulled Madelyn aside.
“I know we’ve had this conversation before, but you might want to rethink staying here in Waterman’s Reach,” he told Madelyn. “This town isn’t safe for you right now.”
He had mixed feelings on the subject. At least when Madelyn was here, he could keep an eye on her. If she went back, Zach would be too far away to be much help. Truth was, he wanted her close. He didn’t want her to leave. But her safety came first, before anything else.
“I’ll be going back soon.” The fading sunlight hit Madelyn’s hair and made her look even more lovely than usual. But her eyes narrowed in curiosity and
concern. “Why? What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid that as long as you’re here, you’re in danger.” Zach locked gazes with her, trying to drive home just how precarious things had become. “Madelyn, that body we found—”
He stopped, not wanting to finish. Up until this point, everything had simply been a threat. A dead body brought this investigation to an entirely new level.
“Yes?”
He shifted, rethinking how he wanted to word this. “That man we found in the water. Did you recognize him?”
She shook her head, looking surprised at his question. “I couldn’t see him that well, but no. Why would you ask?”
“Think carefully.” He studied her face, searching for any sign of deceit.
She squinted, as if Zach’s questions were confusing her. “I’m positive that I don’t know him. Why are you asking? Do you think I’m connected with him?”
He pulled out the photo and held it in front of her. “Your picture was in his pocket.”
“What? That can’t be right.” Her voice rose in pitch. “Why in the world would my picture be in the man’s pocket? I’ve never even seen him before.”
Zach nodded solemnly, his expression remaining troubled. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Madelyn bit down on her lip and looked deep in thought. “I can assure you that I’ve never seen him before. I don’t know how everything has turned into such a nightmare.”
Zach squeezed her arm. “I’m going to be here a while. Why don’t you go back to the bed-and-breakfast? There’s nothing else you can do here.”
She looked almost reluctant as she nodded. “I’ll do that. I’ll walk. I need the time to think anyway.”
Zach watched her walk away, realizing the intricate web of clues surrounding this case grew more tangled by the moment.
EIGHTEEN
“Bad things are going to happen in life,” the pastor said from the pulpit. “But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you. In fact, the hard times should remind of how much He loves us. He can cover us with a peace that passes all understanding in the toughest moments of life.”
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