Or was it something to do with Chris—the anxiety she was feeling there, the guilt about not telling him the truth? He’d heard of mental afflictions like guilt or stress causing symptoms in the body—like headaches, phantom pains, even rashes or ulcers. Was it possible for guilt and stress to also suppress her psychic abilities, an attempt by her unconscious brain to get rid of the thing that was troubling it the most?

  Whatever it was, he knew that she was stressed out by it. That meant two things. First, that she needed a win, and getting one the normal old-fashioned way would help to make her feel better even if it didn’t solve the issue of her visions. And second, she was more likely to take stupid risks right now, which was why Nate needed to do everything he could to make sure she didn’t put herself in danger.

  Again.

  “Looks like a show starts soon,” Nate muttered over his shoulder, getting close enough to see a large board attached to a pole near the boat. It offered a list of show times, the last of which was only half an hour away—an evening tour. That was mostly bad news. It meant their suspect would be much less open to a chat, particularly one that would take place down at the station. On the other hand, it made him more likely to be on the boat, meaning they could find him easily.

  “Let’s get in fast, then,” Laura said and sped up, which left Nate with no choice but to speed up as well to make sure that he didn’t lose his advantage.

  He made it to the boat first and glanced around, immediately spotting a man dressed in what had to be a pirate costume—though he was missing the wig and the overcoat, working in his shirtsleeves to move objects around on the deck.

  “Matt Wendell?” Nate asked, shouting up to him.

  The man on deck paused, looking down at them. “Hello?” he asked. “Are you here for the tour?” There was a level of uncertainty in his voice that foretold he wasn’t convinced by his own guess.

  Nate reached for his badge, but he didn’t even get so far as opening it up before Wendell ran.

  Nate swore and began to move, trying to figure out where Wendell was trying to go. It looked like he was rushing for something at the other side of the deck of his ship. Nate raced up the gangway, trying to get to him before he threw the evidence or whatever it was overboard—

  Only to watch in horror as Wendell leapt from the railing of the boat to the walkway below, landing not far from where Nate had been only a moment before, then racing off up between the other boats toward the sea.

  There was nothing for it but to go after him.

  Laura was already on the ground level and already starting to run, but Nate wasn’t going to be beaten. He would have liked to take the time to stop and utter a prayer, but instead he just did it. He ran to the railing and jumped, following in Wendell’s footsteps but trying to push himself out farther, getting more of a lead.

  He put on a burst of speed as soon as he landed, ignoring the way the impact seemed to vibrate through his legs, focusing on catching up. The momentum helped him outpace Laura, who had been going from a standing start. But Wendell had even more of a start than either of them, and he seemed to be getting farther and farther ahead.

  Not on Nate’s watch.

  “Stop!” he yelled at the top of his voice, which was enough for one of the workers a few boats down to step back from the gangway he had been about to walk up and see what was going on. That caused Wendell to have to swerve, slow down a touch, and then regroup, getting Nate closer to him. He doubled down in determination, ducked his head, and pumped his arms faster as he gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let this suspect get away.

  Just where did he think he was running to, anyway? There was only so far that the wooden boards of the walkway extended. On either side, there were boats, but eventually he was going to run out of options. The route they were on twisted away from the shore, away from a close enough distance to leap from a ship onto the land. Wendell had already gone too far for that—or at least, Nate hoped he considered himself too far from that. If he didn’t, they might both be in trouble.

  As if reading his mind, Wendell suddenly jolted to the side, turned, and ran right up a sloped gangplank leading right up into a nearby ship. It was a tall ship with a tall upper deck, an old-fashioned style like the other tour boats, with a vantage point that might just look like it was tall enough to let him jump to shore, if he was a madman.

  Nate cursed in his head and put on another burst of speed, giving it absolutely every bit of strength he had. He raced up the plank after Wendell, having the slight advantage of not having to break his speed as he angled directly for it and carried on running, using his long legs to propel himself up higher.

  Wendell was climbing up a ladder to the next deck. Nate grabbed onto the bottom rung and launched himself upwards in a jump, grabbing the guy’s leg. It was enough to drag him downwards, but the lack of solid grip on the ladder made Nate fall back, too, dropping to the deck even as Wendell did. The two of them both rolled for a moment, trying to get their footing on a surface that bobbed and dipped on the surface of the water.

  Wendell was used to it, and he recovered first. He got to his feet and lunged forward, making for the railing of the ship. Nate watched him as he wrenched himself upward, with no idea of what Wendell was intending to do or where he was intending to go. He’d moved right to the edge of the railing, then hesitated for a moment.

  Nate saw the bunching of the muscles of his legs as he prepared to make his move, and he had no choice.

  He jumped first.

  They connected in the air, and for a brief moment that felt like an hour, Nate knew he was falling. Both of them were, their bodies tangled, Nate instinctively grabbing onto Wendell’s arm to stop him from getting away.

  Then the moment was over, and they both plunged into the cold water of the harbor, for a moment stealing Nate’s breath completely.

  They bobbed up to the surface almost as abruptly as they had gone in, both of them throwing their heads back and gasping for air. It was freezing in the water, the winter cold even worse under the waves. Wendell was trying to move, to swim, but Nate couldn’t go through all of this just to let him get away.

  “Nate!” He heard his own name yelled from nearby and looked around to see Laura standing on the wood of the walkway still, leaning forward, reaching out to him. She was holding a flotation device, no doubt yanked from the nearest available safety point, preparing to throw it. Nate stretched up a hand and caught it in the air, grateful for the fact it allowed him to get his breath back as he hung onto it with one hand and Wendell with the other.

  “Matt Wendell,” he said, panting for breath and starting to shiver. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.”

  He hooked an arm around Wendell’s shoulders—meeting no resistance now as he seemed to give up under the pressure of the cold water—turned toward Laura and began to swim back to her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Laura looked up as Nate approached, still holding a towel against his head and rubbing his hair dry.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Much,” he said, dropping the towel onto a desk in front of her and hugging his FBI windbreaker closer around his body. “Man, am I glad we hadn’t yet gone to the motel and my spare clothes were still in the trunk of the car.”

  Laura chuckled. “You’re much luckier than him,” she said, nodding toward Wendell through the one-way glass. He was sitting in the interview room with his arms folded over his chest—a chest which was covered in the unflattering and uncomfortable white all-in-one garment they offered to suspects whose clothes needed to be taken for forensics. It was true that his own clothes in this case actually had no forensic value left, or likely didn’t, thanks to being in the water, but he’d needed something dry.

  The troubling thought that he might have wanted to go into the water to erase the evidence had crossed her mind, but that was something they would have to deal with. There had been no question of simply letting him get away. If he’d managed to escape, he would have destroyed any evidence he could get his hands on anyway.

  “You haven’t spoken to him yet?” Nate asked.

  “Of course not,” Laura said. “I was waiting for you. What do you take me for?”

  Nate grinned. “I take you for a great partner,” he said, holding out a fist for her to bump.

  Laura chuckled and did it, then beckoned him. “We’d better go in and get started. No point in wasting time.”

  “Is that what I’ve been doing?” Nate complained, tugging at his new white shirt as if to indicate that he’d been doing something very important.

  Laura laughed. “No, so let’s not start now.”

  She led the way into the interview room, glad Nate was in good spirits. She wasn’t sure she was as happy as he was—sometimes, she felt like there was always a cloud of doubt hanging over everything. Maybe it was the trouble she was having in her home life and with her visions, or maybe it was just experience telling her not to count her chickens before they hatched. Whatever it was, she knew now not to get too excited about arresting a suspect.

  Because even if he’d done it, there was still a chance that he would manage to weasel his way out of it, somehow, and give them more work to do.

  “Alright,” Laura said, starting as soon as she opened the door. Wendell reacted immediately, unfolding his arms from over his chest and hanging onto the sides of the table as if bracing himself. That was interesting. Laura wondered whether he was taking a strong position, or whether he was thinking he could get up and go soon. “Matthew Wendell. You’re the owner and operator of Captain Matt’s Pirate Tours, correct?”

  “That’s right,” he said, his hands relaxing a little. So, he’d been thinking he would be able to leave. That was good to know. “I don’t know what’s happening. You said I was arrested for murder.”

  “Correct,” Laura said, as she and Nate took their seats opposite him. “What part of that is confusing to you?”

  “The part where I didn’t kill anybody,” Wendell growled.

  Laura took the opportunity to get a good look at him, studying him. Staring at people made them feel uncomfortable, and she wasn’t against trying that to get him to talk. Besides, he looked different now that he was out of his pirate gear.

  He was perhaps in his late thirties or his forties, a little younger than Elias Makks had been. There was no wedding ring on his finger, which fit with the story his record had told: an unattached man who had come here to start his life again after getting out of prison. There was a tattoo half-hidden at his collar, faded and old. His hair, having been washed out of its previous style under the water, had dried half-curly, fanning out around his face.

  He didn’t look like a hardened criminal. More like a man who spent his life on the sea. Then again, Laura had read his file.

  “Let’s talk about what you have done, shall we?” she asked, raising a file and opening it. “Let’s see. We have a conviction for violent assault. Several cautions for small quantities of drugs that you alleged were for personal use, and one larger quantity which appears to have been thrown out of court on a technicality. And a few arrests for assault before the big one too.”

  “Those are all in the past,” Wendell said. One of his hands scratched the other, as if talking about it made him itchy. “That’s not who I am today.”

  “Changed, have you?” Nate asked, leaning back in his chair. Laura knew he was setting him up, and she enjoyed the show.

  “Yes,” Wendell insisted. “When I was in prison, I got clean. I decided to turn my life around. As soon as I got out, I left and came out here, far away from the people I used to hang around, so I could get out of that lifestyle.”

  “You got clean in prison?” Nate lifted a brow. “Isn’t that normally the opposite of how it works?”

  “They had a good education program in the place I did time,” Wendell insisted. “I got some practical qualifications, learned how to do stuff I couldn’t do before. I taught myself all about boats so I could come out here. I wanted to turn my life around, so I did.”

  “You changed and turned your life around,” Nate repeated, as if considering the concepts in his head. “Well, I guess I would agree it’s a big change. Going from minor assault and drug use to murder is a huge step.”

  Wendell’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “I haven’t murdered anyone!”

  “Okay,” Nate said, leaning back in his chair again casually, crossing one leg over the other knee. “So why did you run?”

  Wendell opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He was evidently wrestling with something internally. After a moment, before either Laura or Nate could press him again, he finally spoke. “Because I know I have a warrant out for my arrest.”

  Laura cocked her head to one side. “For what?”

  Wendell scrubbed his hand over his face. “For theft,” he admitted. “Back in New York. I thought, with you two being Feds…”

  “You assumed that we were here for a theft charge and not a murder?” Laura asked. She was mentally kicking herself for not doing a more localized search of his name with different police departments in the states he had lived. “Just how big is this charge, then?”

  “It’s not that big,” Wendell shrugged. He looked ashamed and kind of resigned. Now that he had admitted it, he must have known they would be calling the right authorities to get him sent back over there. “I just…I didn’t have anything when I got out of prison. I thought, just one more thing to get me started. But I was rusty, and they got me on camera. That was when I ran.”

  “What were you doing last night?” Laura asked, cutting to the chase. If they could come at this from a different angle, maybe he would realize that he was caught and admit this too.

  “Last night?” Wendell looked around, his head spinning across to her so fast it looked like it might fall off his neck. “I thought this was about Elias Makks. What happened last night?”

  Laura narrowed her eyes. Was he playing dumb? “Answer the question, please.”

  “I was in Augusta,” Wendell said. “I had a funeral to attend. We all stayed late at the wake, and I got a hotel. I only just got back in town about two hours ago.”

  Laura looked at Nate. That sounded like an alibi.

  “I’ll need the name of the hotel and your room number,” Nate said, picking up his pen.

  “It’s the Atlantis Augusta Inn and Breakfast,” he said. “I was in room two-oh-three. I was in the bar there until early—like three in the morning.”

  “We’ll be checking out the details with them to make sure you’re telling the truth,” Nate said, which Laura recognized as a little extra pressure to make him admit it if he was making it up to waste their time.

  “Of course,” Wendell said. “But you’ll find me on the cameras, and you’ll see that I checked in using my credit card. I ordered room service at like half past three in the morning. They’ll remember that I bet.”

  “What about the night Elias Makks was killed?” Laura asked, because it was always worth checking.

  “That night, I was at home,” he said. “With my girlfriend. Maybe you won’t consider her a good enough witness, but we were together all night. And yes, she would have noticed if I got up. She’s a very light sleeper.”

  Maybe he was protesting too much, but on the other hand, maybe he was just stressing the details because he was telling the truth and wanted to prove his innocence. With the warrant being a good enough reason for him to run, Laura had a terrible feeling that it was the second option.

  He wasn’t the killer.

  Which left them in a difficult position—without any leads at all.

  “Alright,” Nate said, closing the file he was holding. “We’ll need you to remain in custody here while we chase up that alibi of yours and make sure it’s legit. If it is, you’ll be released. And if it isn’t, we’ll be charging you formally. Understood?”

  “I understand,” Wendell said, ducking his head. “But I’m innocent. There isn’t any chance you can let me go back and run my tour? I sold some tickets already.”

  “I’m sorry, but we can’t let you go until we’ve completed our enquiries,” Nate said, standing up. Laura followed him, with one last glance behind at Wendell who was sinking his head into his hands.

  “I think he’s telling the truth,” she said as they walked around the corner into the observation room again.

  “Hmm,” Nate hummed. “So do I, unfortunately. We should still follow up on that footage.”

  “I agree, but I think we’ll find it corroborates his story.” Laura sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. A dead end, again.

  “We should get some rest,” Nate said.

  “What about the footage?” Laura asked.

  “We’ll send a deputy to get it,” Nate said. “Seriously, it’s late. I doubt we’ll be able to get the footage, watch it, and get him released before dawn anyway. Let’s let someone else take care of it and get some sleep so we can tackle this better in the morning.”

  Laura sighed again. “I guess we don’t exactly have any new leads to go on right now.”

  “Exactly,” Nate said. “So, let’s go to a motel, check-in, and do what we need to do. I know we don’t trust the locals, but we can at least expect them to be able to obtain and watch footage properly.”

  Laura nodded. “Let’s go, then.”

  ***

  Laura looked at her cell phone, biting one of her fingernails as she thought. It was late. Lacey would be in bed already. She’d wanted to give her daughter a call, but she’d missed the chance.

  It was a real shame. The sound of her little girl’s voice would have cheered her up a lot right then.

  She scrolled through her phone’s gallery, looking for videos. She found one where Lacey was playing and laughing and loaded it up, watching it with a smile. Her daughter’s laughter, even if recorded in the past, was a good enough tonic for now.

  The camera panned over to Amy, reminding Laura that she’d taken the video on one of their many playdates. Not ten seconds later Chris walked into frame, giving her an unexpected pang. She was missing him, too, not just Lacey. Before the last case she’d been distancing herself from him on purpose, trying to put him off so he would never come into contact with Zach. With that, their disastrous last meeting, and then going off on a case again, she felt like she hadn’t seen him properly in a long time.

 

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