Nate knocked, and it was a deputy that answered the door—to Laura’s relief. She recognized him as one of young men who had been standing around on the deck of the ship when she and Nate arrived at the crime scene. It was good to see that he was doing something useful now, although she would reserve judgement on exactly how useful until after seeing the state the family were in.

  Not that she expected them to be in a good place.

  “Come in,” the deputy muttered, avoiding their eyes. It was as though he got the murderous vibe that Laura and Nate were both emitting. Strange, since Laura hadn’t seen any talent for observational skills in the locals so far.

  Laura followed him with Nate behind her, and they moved through a narrow hallway lined with family photographs into a long, large room at the back of the house. It was clearly a modern extension, with glass walls on three sides and a glass roof, set up as a family room complete with a TV and sofas.

  “These are the FBI,” the deputy said clumsily, making Laura want to roll her eyes.

  She held her expression neutral, however. The family was sitting in front of her, or what remained of it. Just two sad, middle-aged people—a man and a woman—holding one another’s hands as they huddled on the sofa. Her parents. They looked devastated and in shock.

  Laura was glad that she didn’t have to be the one to tell them that their daughter was dead, but it was still always difficult to deal with the grief of others. Especially when you had a daughter of your own to imagine losing.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Grey,” she started, moving into the room. There was only one other seat in there—an armchair. Nate sat down in it, and Laura found herself perched on the edge of a sturdy-looking coffee table, facing them directly. “We’re so sorry for your loss. I’m Special Agent Laura Frost with the FBI.” A bit of repetition never hurt when people were lost in the fog of grief.

  “I’m Special Agent Nathaniel Lavoie,” he added. “We’ve been brought in to investigate your daughter’s murder. Are you aware of the other linked case?”

  Mrs. Grey nodded dully. “Everyone’s been talking about it, the last few days,” she said. Her voice sounded almost like an echo. Like the real thing should have been louder, bolder, clearer. “We even talked about how unfortunate they were. We never for a moment imagined…”

  Mr. Grey squeezed her tighter.

  “As you can perhaps understand, we’re trying to find out if there’s any link between Dina and Mr. Makks,” Laura said. She kept her tone as gentle as possible. This was a hard part of the job. Treading the line between being sensitive and knowing that you have a case to solve. “Are you aware of them knowing each other at all?”

  Both of the parents shook their heads slowly. “We knew she was sad about the news,” Mr. Grey said. “But just in the normal way that anyone would be, you know? This happened right on our doorstep, and we all thought it was terrible. But that was all. She didn’t say anything at all about speaking to him or knowing him.”

  Laura nodded. That was it, then. If they had any connection at all, it was buried so deep that it would be hard to find it. When a man you knew even in passing died, you mentioned it—said you couldn’t believe it because you’d just had a coffee with him that week, or just gone on one of his tours with your friends a year ago, or so on. Either she was hiding the connection from her family, or there was no connection at all.

  “What about Dina—did she express any concerns to you at all during the last few weeks and months? Particularly anything or anyone she found suspicious?” Laura asked.

  “Not that I recall,” Mrs. Grey said, looking to her husband for confirmation. He shook his head.

  “What about boyfriends?” Nate asked.

  “None,” Mr. Grey said, grunting it, almost too fast. Like perhaps Dina wasn’t allowed a boyfriend. She had been twenty years old, though. Surely, a little too old to be controlled by her parents and whether or not they wanted her to date someone.

  In Laura’s experience, parents who tried to control the dating lives of their children like that often failed miserably. In most cases, the child had a partner anyway—one that was hidden from the family and therefore complicated everything.

  If that was the case here, it could certainly be an interesting twist that would wrap the case up quickly. A young woman having an affair with a married father who should have known better—that was more than enough reason for murder in many cases in the past.

  “Friends?” Laura asked. “Dina grew up here, is that right?”

  “No, actually,” Mrs. Grey said. “We grew up here, Jerry and me. We got married in our mid-twenties and left the area. We moved back here last year after Jerry’s mother passed on and left us this house. We ended up renting out our place over in Connecticut and coming back here. Dina’s dealt with it well, but I think she feels a bit like a fish out of water.”

  “That’s understandable,” Laura said. “So, she’s working on the south beach as a lifeguard, is that right?”

  “Yes, it’s a new job since a couple of months ago,” Mr. Grey said. “Since she stopped working on that damn boat.”

  Laura and Nate exchanged a glance. “What boat?”

  The parents both stared back at them. “The boat,” Mr. Grey said.

  “The boat?” Laura asked. “The one she was found on?”

  Mrs. Grey looked over their heads, at the deputy. “Yes. I already told that to the Sheriff this morning.”

  “I apologize,” Laura said with gritted teeth. “Somehow, that didn’t make it into our briefing. So, she worked on this boat?”

  “Yes, as part of the tour crew,” Mrs. Grey said. “She was a waitress—or whatever you want to call it, I suppose. It’s not one of the ships that goes out into the harbor, it stays moored and they take people around it in full historical dress. Then the tourists all sit down for meals on the deck. Dina was one of the servers.”

  “What happened?” Laura asked. “I mean, did she quit or was she fired?”

  “Neither, really,” Mrs. Grey shrugged. “They let her go in November. Her last day was Thanksgiving. The tourist season drops off after that, so they go down to a smaller crew. They said she could come back again next year if she wanted to, but she needed something more stable, so she applied to become a lifeguard back at the start of November in preparation. She started that job on that Friday.”

  “She was very well-organized,” Laura noted, prompting the ghost of a proud smile from Mrs. Grey. “Were there any bad feelings between her and the owner of the boat, or any of the other employees?”

  “I don’t think so.” Mr. Grey shrugged. “It was last one in, first one out. The other servers had been working there for a few years. She was expecting it from the moment they hired her. It was always supposed to be temporary while she looked for another job.”

  “Thank you for that information,” Laura said. “Do you know the name of the person who hired her?”

  “It’s Theo Kelleigh,” Mr. Grey said. “He owns a lot of the boats around here. It was his father’s business back when we lived here before. He started with one tour boat and ended up with a whole fleet.”

  “Theo Kelleigh,” Laura said, making a strong mental note. “Thank you very much. We understand this is a terrible time, and that things might slip your mind just now. So, if you do think of anything else, please call us, alright? Any time of day or night. This case is our sole priority right now.”

  Nate slid a business card out of his pocket and over to them before Laura could, and Mrs. Grey took it. “We will,” she said, though her voice was a little distant. Laura recognized the look well. She was disappearing into her own grief. Realizing all over again in a slightly new way that her little girl was never coming home again.

  Laura shuddered at the thought.

  She nodded to both of them and murmured quiet goodbyes along with Nate before standing up and making their way out to the door. It was only once they were outside, and the door was closed behind them that Laura put off her gentle exterior in favor of hardness again.

  “Theo Kelleigh?” Nate suggested.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Laura replied grimly. “Let’s go check him out.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Laura ate the last bite of her sub while looking at the results on her cell phone, barely remembering the taste of the food once it was gone. When she was on a case, food became a secondary consideration. She had to focus on the task at hand.

  “Right,” she said. “Got it. He’s registered as the owner of a number of vessels in the area under this company—Jones Harbor Tours Inc.”

  “Imaginative name,” Nate snorted. “Let me search that.” He threw the last bite of his own lunch into his mouth and started typing, while Laura searched for Dina Grey’s profile on social media.

  She found an account easily: the young woman had set it up in her own name and with only a couple of symbols added to the end to make her username more unique, and the profile picture showed her beaming and smiling. Spookily, it was a photograph that Laura remembered seeing on the walls of the Grey family home. They must have had a family portrait session, and Dina liked the photograph so much that she used it to represent herself online.

  “Look at this,” Nate said, showing her his screen. There was a website open on it—the banner proclaimed JONES HARBOR TOURS INC with a graphic of an old-fashioned ship cresting a wave—and below were images of the various tours the company offered.

  One of them was a boat Laura recognized well. She’d seen it in the crime scene photographs they were given as part of their briefing.

  “That’s Elias Makks’s boat,” she said, grabbing his cell to bring it closer to her face.

  “Correct,” Nate said. “No one we’ve spoken to mentioned that he didn’t own it. The way they talked about him getting it refitted, I assumed that he was the owner.”

  “Me too,” Laura said. She looked down at her own screen and scrolled down only slightly—then paused. “And look at this.”

  She showed Nate a photograph from Grey’s feed, a picture of herself wearing a pirate wench-style costume and holding a tray in the air as if to demonstrate her waitressing skills. Beside her was an older man with an arm around her shoulders. His name was tagged.

  Theo Kelleigh.

  “I think we just found our first viable suspect,” Nate said, dusting the crumbs off his hands and stuffing the wrapper from his sub down into the sidepod. “His office is right over there. We going in?”

  “We’re going in,” Laura confirmed. There was no way they were going to let this one slip through their fingers. It could be the easiest solve they’d had in months—a man who so clearly provided a connection to both of the victims and had a good reason to feel a deep connection to the boats as well. Namely, that he owned them.

  “What’s our strategy?” Nate asked, getting out of the car.

  Laura got out, too, looking at Nate over the roof. “We go in talking about Dina first and see if he brings up Elias on his own. If he does, we can dig deeper into that. Casual information gathering at first. Then when he gives us what we need, or doesn’t, we can go harder and start asking for alibis and looking for motive.”

  Nate nodded. “I’m there with you,” he said. They walked across the parking lot and up to the front of the tour operator’s office together.

  It was small inside: three desks and a rack of brochures, each of them apparently pertaining to a different tour operated by the company. Two women were sitting at each of the desks near the front of the office, but at the back behind a much bigger desk, Laura immediately recognized Theo Kelleigh from his photograph.

  There were no other customers in the office, which was a stroke of good luck. He wouldn’t have any excuse not to talk to them.

  “Theo Kelleigh?” Laura said loudly, ignoring the efforts of the nearest worker to get her attention. The boss himself looked up immediately, then stood from behind his desk.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, doing up his suit jacket.

  Laura pulled out her badge. “We’re with the FBI,” she said. “Do you mind if we have a quick conversation?”

  It was a ploy, of course. He had no choice. If he said he didn’t want to talk, then he would quickly find himself at the Sheriff’s station in handcuffs.

  “Of course,” he said, all politeness and business, steadfastly retaining his smile and not looking at his employees. “Please, take a seat. What is this about?”

  Laura could almost see his racing thoughts. He was probably telling himself right about now to stay calm—that they hadn’t come to arrest him, but only to talk. He was probably thinking that he wasn’t even a suspect yet.

  “The two murders that happened in the last week here in town,” Laura said, sitting down and folding her hands in her lap with diffident confidence, staring him in the eye.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here,” Kelleigh said, lowering his voice and dipping his head. He dropped down into his seat and leaned forward, as though he didn’t want the other two in the room to hear. “What’s happening? Do you know who did it yet?”

  Laura was beyond puzzled by his reaction. He was acting like he was in fear for his life, like he thought he was going to be next. Why would he think that? Or was he just trying to mislead them?

  “We’re pursuing several lines of enquiry,” Nate said smoothly. “You seem very concerned about the attacks.”

  “Of course I am—I’m the target!” Kelleigh said, loudly enough to make his other employees look in his direction—and completely knocking Laura sideways. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “You’re the target?” she repeated, hoping it would prompt him to give more of an actual explanation.

  “They’re trying to sink my business,” Kelleigh said desperately. “I mean, targeting my ships? Both of my biggest earners? No one’s going to want to go on tours where people have died!”

  Privately, Laura had a different view of things. She knew well enough that people would pay good money for so-called ghost tours, seeing the places where people had died grisly deaths. But that wasn’t the point right now. “You believe that someone is killing people in order to victimize…you?”

  “Yes!” Kelleigh said. “Look, they’re going to put me out of business. It’s the off season as it is, and now no one’s going to book. We’re going to lose all our profits from the summer!”

  “Okay,” Nate said, sitting back in the chair beside her. “Let’s say you are the target. Why would someone want to do that to you? And why would they use such a drastic method?”

  “People around here have been against me since I started getting more boats,” Kelleigh said. His eyes were wide and wild. “They want to stop me from being so successful. They don’t see. It was just a bunch of ragtag cowboy operations before my father started taking over. Now it’s all coordinated. It runs smoothly. There are options for the tourists. I’m helping to build up this whole area!”

  “If your presence is so beneficial to everyone, then why would they be angry enough with you to want to ruin your business and undo all that good work?” Laura asked. She wasn’t getting it. Unless, of course, they weren’t getting the whole story.

  “Well, some people objected to the fact that I started to own more of the businesses around here,” Kelleigh said. “They didn’t like my methods. They wanted to stay independent.”

  “What were your methods?” Laura pressed. She had a feeling that they were getting to the meat of the issue now.

  Kelleigh looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I had more capital than the others around here, so I was able to set up my business however I wanted,” he said. “If people didn’t want to sell, I didn’t push it. I just moved in a different direction.”

  Laura was starting to get it now.

  “So, let me put that in other terms and you can tell me if I’m right,” Nate said. “You would offer to buy someone’s business, and if they said no, you would open a competing tour and run it yourself with lower ticket prices and a bigger marketing campaign so that they would go under. And when their business hit rock bottom, you could buy it at a fraction of the price. Am I close?”

  Kelleigh shifted in his chair. “It’s not illegal,” he said.

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Nate said, his voice halfway to a growl. “People here are pissed off with you for taking their livelihoods. Tell us about Elias Makks.”

  Kelleigh cleared his throat slightly. “He was one of my tour operators.”

  “We were under the impression that he owned his own boat, but he didn’t, did he? You own it,” Laura said.

  “I bought it a couple of years ago,” Kelleigh said. “Makks was a very reasonable man. He made a deal with me. I would own the boat, but he would run the tour. He was in trouble, you see. The boat belonged to his father, and he no longer had enough income coming in to support his family. He could have sold it to me and kept his tour running, bringing in a salary, or he could have sold it for scrap and gone somewhere else to get a desk job. He wasn’t the desk job type.”

  “You were able to increase the revenue of the boat tour enough that you could both pay him a living wage and make a profit?” Laura asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “I consolidated two of my tours,” Kelleigh said.

  Nate half-laughed, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “So, the start of the story is you first tried to run him out of business on purpose so that he wouldn’t be able to support his family. It didn’t just happen on its own.”

  “You had another pirate tour,” Laura said, picking up on that detail. “Who was operating it? Another one of your employees on one of your boats?”

  “No,” Kelleigh said. “I helped a local man start up his own business with an investment.”

  “And what does he do now?” Laura asked.

  “He runs pirate tours,” Kelleigh said, having the moral sense to at least look slightly abashed.

  “At a good profit?”

 

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