Page 35

Boy, am I glad to see you,”

I said to Jon as two young men lifted me out of the water and onto the boat.

Seconds later a foil blanket was draped over my shoulders.

I pulled it close around me, grateful for the warmth.

“Are you okay?”

Jon asked.

I looked toward Boyer Bluff and saw no sign of DNR Guy’s boat.

“I am now.

How did you end up here?”

Jon did that thing where he turned red from his neck up to his forehead.

“The cameras I installed at your store.

I have the feeds on my phone from when I set them up.

This morning I got an initial notification of someone at your back door.

I figured it was you letting Newt out like you do each morning and I ignored it.

But then I got a second notification for the same thing and that got me curious, so I checked it out. I saw it was you going back outside with a roll of bags, and I was about to close the view when I saw those guys charge at you.”

“You’ve been spying on me with the cameras?” I said.

He blushed and started to stammer but I stopped him by adding, “Thank goodness.”

Then I leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

I wouldn’t have thought the man could have turned redder than he was, but he proved me wrong.

“I couldn’t see where they took you once you went off camera,”

Jon said, looking away to hide his painfully obvious embarrassment.

It was kind of adorable.

“But I knew there were other cameras along the roads, including the one on your front door.

I saw a van that came out from the side of your building, and from there I was able to track it to the marina using CCTV cameras around town.

I couldn’t get to the mainland fast enough to step in, and the nearest sheriff’s deputy there was forty minutes away, but I was able to see the boat you boarded.

I called the Coast Guard and got them to come through Death’s Door to see if the boat went that way. They didn’t see it, and I met them at the marina in Detroit Harbor. That’s when we saw the boat go by, toward Boyer Bluff, so we took off after them.”

“Thank you,”

I said.

“Poor Newt must be losing his mind.”

Jon nodded.

“I could hear him on both cameras barking up a storm.”

A panicked thought came to me.

“What time is it?”

“Seven thirty-two,”

Jon said, glancing at his watch.

“I need to call Rita and let her know what’s up with Newt.”

“First, tell me what the hell is going on with those guys in the boat?” Jon said.

I shook my head.

“I need to call Rita first.

If I don’t cue her in, Newt might bolt when she opens the store.”

“Morgan, you were kidnapped and—”

“I need to call Rita now!”

Jon let his head loll back and he stared up at the sky for a moment.

Then, after letting out a weighty sigh, he took his phone from his pocket and handed it to me.

Rita was burning with curiosity about what was going on, but she accepted my sense of urgency and resigned herself to the bare minimum of facts.

She also promised to look after Newt.

When I was done, I handed Jon’s phone back to him.

We were bobbing in the water, not going anywhere, and the two Coast Guard guys were standing by, just watching and listening.

“Shouldn’t you go after those guys in the boat?”

I asked Jon.

“I’m pretty sure they were going to kill me and dump my body overboard.”

“We won’t catch them now.

My guess is they’re on their way to Canada to try their human-trafficking techniques there.”

“Human trafficking?”

I said, shaking my head, thoroughly confused.

“What are you talking about? They weren’t human traffickers.

They’re murderers who found Napoleon’s gold and are desperately trying to hide it while they squirrel it away.

They killed Oliver Sykes.

Marty, too.

That one guy shot him. They’re the explanation behind why you hired me.”

Jon blinked several times, staring at me as he processed that.

The two Coast Guard fellows straightened up, suddenly more interested in what was going on.

“Those guys came after me because I got too close to their secret yesterday when I was dumped out of my boat.

I saw them or at least the submersible they’re using to bring the gold up.

It’s just off the coast of Rock Island, underneath the wreck of the Plymouth.”

“You know all this . . . how?”

Jon asked, looking skeptical.

“DNR Guy told me.”

“DNR Guy?” Jon said.

I gave him an exasperated look.

“That’s what I called the guy with the gun because I didn’t know his name.

He was wearing a DNR uniform.

I can give you descriptions for both men.

You need to go after them.

Believe me, they aren’t headed for Canada, at least not yet. Not until they finish getting their gold.”

I’d allowed the foil blanket to fall off my shoulders while I was talking and a chill came over me, making me shiver.

“Take me into shore,”

Jon said to the Coast Guard guys.

“I need to get her someplace warm.

And get on the radio to see if anyone can spot that boat.”

The throttle was pushed forward, and within a matter of minutes, we were pulling into Detroit Harbor.

“Thanks, guys,”

Jon said to the Coast Guard fellows.

“I’ve got it from here.

Appreciate your help.”

The guys nodded and watched us disembark before heading out again.

Jon steered me down the pier to a parking area, where I saw his police cruiser.

“If it’s okay with you, I’m going to take you to my place to get you some dry clothes while I take care of some business.

I need to talk to you some more about what happened.

Besides, the next ferry to the mainland isn’t for another forty minutes.”

I nodded, feeling the morning chill more acutely now that I was up and moving with my wet clothes on.

It felt better once we were inside his car and out of the wind.

Jon cranked the heat up to full blast, but the drive was a short one and the car never had a chance to warm up much.

He drove along the western coast of the island on Green Bay Road for a couple of miles and then headed inland briefly before turning onto a gravel drive.

Jon’s house was at the end of that gravel drive on a small hill surrounded by trees, including several apple trees laden with fruit.

The cleared area near the house held a garden that was enclosed inside a tall, gated chicken wire fence—there are lots of hungry deer in these parts—and I saw squash, pumpkins, lettuce, radishes, peas, and beans growing inside.

The house, a sprawling ranch style with lots of tall windows, looked like new construction.

“Nice spot,”

I said as Jon stopped in front of a three-car garage, which I assumed held his personal vehicle.

What else might he have in there? A boat, perhaps?

He shifted the police car into park and turned off the engine.

“Thanks.

I’ve got almost six acres and a beach-access road along with fifty feet of shoreline about a tenth of a mile from here.

There are some hair-raising iron stairs built into the cliff leading down to my tiny piece of beach, but I have a pier there, where I can keep a small boat without having to pay a slip fee to a marina.

Come on inside and I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

Wrapping the foil blanket tight around me, I followed him onto a long front porch and waited as he unlocked the door.

The house smelled wonderful inside, a mix of cinnamon and other spices I couldn’t quite nail down.

It was surprisingly neat for a bachelor pad, and the furnishings all looked new and well cared for.

I wondered how much of it he’d brought with him from Colorado and how much he’d bought new.

Moving onto an island isn’t easy, what with the constraints imposed by the ferry schedules and the space limitations on the boats.

I vaguely remembered Jon making a comment about his furniture coming from Wally World the first time he saw my apartment, but this stuff was clearly higher end than that.

He led me past a living room that had a wood-burning fireplace, two leather chairs, and a leather couch, and stopped at the doorway to a bathroom.

“There are towels in the cabinet there,”

he said, pointing to a built-in cupboard on one wall.

“I’ll grab you some clothes of mine.

They’ll be too big but at least they’ll be dry.”

He disappeared into another room and returned a moment later with a T-shirt, a pair of drawstring sweatpants, and some heavy wool socks.

“You should drink something warm.

Would you prefer coffee or tea?” he asked.

“Coffee, please. Thanks.”

I took the clothes from him and shut the door.

I peeled out of my wet clothes, dried my hair the best I could, and, after a quick wipe down, pulled on the clothes he’d given me.

While the shirt and pants were loose and baggy, the socks fit like a glove and felt wonderful on my freezing-cold feet.

Carrying my wet clothes and shoes back out to the kitchen, I found Jon sliding a cup of coffee toward me on the counter.

He nodded at a square baking pan with a lid on it.

“That’s some coffee cake I baked yesterday.

Feel free to help yourself.

The washer and dryer are through there,”

he said, pointing to a door off the kitchen.

I went into the laundry room, tossed my wet clothes in the washer, and started it on a speed cycle.

The key to my place, which had miraculously stayed in the pocket of my shorts, I put on top of the washer.

When I came back into the kitchen, Jon said, “I just got a call from the Coast Guard.

They found the boat those guys had you on abandoned over near Jackson Harbor.

I’m going to head over there and have a look.

Will you be okay here for an hour or so? I’ll drive you back to the ferry and your store once I’m freed up, but I really want to get a look at this boat while the evidence is fresh.”

Part of me wanted to go with him; another part of me desperately wanted to get back to Newt, knowing he had to be anxious without me there.

Still another part of me felt exhausted and surprisingly cozy in my warm, oversized clothes, holding a hot mug of coffee, which I’d given a passing grade to with my first sip.

And I knew Rita and Devon would take care of Newt until I could get home.

“If you’re okay with me staying here alone in your house, I’m okay with it,” I said.

“Of course.

Call me if anything comes up.”

“I don’t have a phone,”

I reminded him.

“Right.

Well .

.

.

no worries.

I shouldn’t be too long.”

As soon as Jon went out the door, I checked out the crumb-topped coffee cake, which smelled divine.

I cut myself a healthy piece and carried it and my coffee into the living room.

The house was eerily quiet with only the faint hum of the washer to be heard, so I turned on the TV and flipped channels to a cable news station.

Then I curled up on the couch, pulling a thick, soft throw over me.

I considered my surroundings, figuring the house and its acreage must have been worth at least half a million dollars on today’s market.

Most of the furnishings appeared to be new.

The washer and dryer looked brand-new.

The kitchen had high-end solid-surface countertops and solid wood cabinetry.

How had Jon, someone who had supposedly made a policeman’s salary prior to moving here, managed to afford a place like this? And what had DNR Guy said about the money I’d been paid? That Jon had paid for it out of his own pocket.

A thousand bucks in cash. How was it he had that kind of money just lying around?

Past insecurities reared their ugly heads, and I felt the first vestiges of panic rise in my chest.

I mean, what did I really know about Jon Flanders? Not much, I realized.

He was stingy with information about his past life and relatively new to the area.

Yet he possessed an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about me and my past and had connections to all that awful business in New Jersey.

And he was spying on me!

Presumably he would have had to undergo a thorough and extensive background check in order to get a police chief’s job, even for a force as small as that one, but I knew how easy it was to hide things and deceive people if someone put their mind to it.

Look what David had managed to do.

Was I being naive and gullible? Again?

I gobbled down my coffee cake and then got up from the couch to carry my dish to the kitchen sink.

From there, I explored the house some more, looking for a home office or a desk with a computer.

I found what was obviously the master bedroom, a guest bedroom, and then a third door that was locked.

Why would anyone lock a door inside their own house? Was it because I was there? Was Jon hiding something he didn’t want me to see?

I heard the faint sound of a tune playing and realized my wash was done.

I went into the laundry room and switched my clothes from the washer to the dryer.

Then I went back to that locked door.

Warning bells niggled at the back of my brain, and after checking the most obvious places I could think of for a key, I took a closer look at the lock.

It was a basic door-handle lock, the kind with a button to turn on the other side, not a dead bolt.

“Okay,”

I said.

“This should be easy pickings.”

I went back into the kitchen and retrieved a dinner knife from the silverware drawer.

Carrying it back to the door, I went to work, trying to spring the latch enough to get the door open, trying to do so carefully so as not to damage the wood trim and leave evidence of my attempts.

I was diligently manipulating the knife when a loud knocking came from somewhere behind me, making me nearly jump out of my skin.

My first thought was that it had been the washer trying to spin with an unbalanced load, but then I remembered that I’d already put my clothes in the dryer.

The knocking came again, urgent and loud, and I realized someone was at the front door.

I shoved the knife into the pocket of my sweatpants and went to the door.

A woman in a sheriff’s uniform and a baseball-style cap stood on the porch.

“Are you Morgan Carter?”

she asked.

“I am.”

“Chief Flanders sent me to pick you up and take you to a safe location.

We need to hurry.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“He didn’t give me specifics, ma’am.

Just said I was to get you to the other location as quickly as possible.”

She held a cell phone in one hand and kept her head bent, staring at it.

I tried to see what was on the screen, but the sun and the angle were wrong.

With her free hand she did a come-on gesture at me, the rather large diamond on her finger catching the sunlight.

“Let’s move!”

she said, her tone urgent and demanding.

Without another thought, I stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind me.

Belatedly I wondered if I should have locked it but by then I was already halfway across the yard to a plain dark-blue sedan parked alongside the house.

“Get in the backseat,”

the officer commanded.

“And keep your head down.”

Now I was spooked.

What the hell had happened? Had DNR Guy and his pal somehow gotten away and decided to come after me? As I opened the back door to the car, climbed in, and stretched out on the seat, I wondered how they had known where I was.

Had they recognized Jon in the Coast Guard boat?

As I grabbed the armrest and pulled the back door closed behind me, something niggled in my brain, a warning bell that told me something was off.

The officer got in, started the car, pulled a fast U-turn, and then fishtailed out to the road.

I saw that even though the car we were in wasn’t marked as an official police vehicle, there was a metal grid separating me from the front seat.

I wanted to sit up to see where we were going and what might be around us, but I was afraid to.

Were there armed men out there looking for me?

As I hunkered down in the back, trying to make sense of it all, something underneath the front driver’s seat caught my eye.

I reached down, grabbed an edge of it, and pulled it out.

I cursed to myself, knowing then that I was not only an idiot, I was also in some serious trouble. Again.

It was a purple-and-orange athletic shoe, an exact match for the one that had remained on Will Stokstad’s dead foot.