Page 20 of Light of Day (Sea Smoke Island #1)

Heather held her breath as a hulking young man in a bulky denim jacket climbed out of an old Buick station wagon. Like many of the cars on the island, it was one step away from its last chapter—a junkyard somewhere, or maybe the bottom of the ocean.

“Stay here,” Luke murmured. “I want to talk to him myself first.”

“Stay safe,” she said, though he showed no signs of being worried about this encounter.

Luke swung out of the truck and called out to Andy, who paused on his way up the flagstone walkway. When the young man turned around, the light from the porch illuminated his expression—pure wariness. Not one bit of happiness to see his buddy the constable.

Heather rolled down the window partway so she could hear what they were saying.

“Hiya bud. Do you have a couple of seconds to chat? I wanted to ask you about a photo I found.” Luke’s friendly tone seemed to put Andy at ease.

“What kind of photo?”

“Someone took it on the wharf waiting for the ferry boat. Don’t worry, it’s nothing scary. I wanted to ask you about it because of Denton. You know Denton, right?”

Even in the moonlight, Heather could see Andy’s eyes glaze with tears. “He’s dead.”

“Yes, exactly. I’m trying to find out what happened to him. When’s the last time you saw Denton?”

“I…I…I didn’t see him fishing.”

Strange phrasing, Heather thought. Maybe Luke did too.

“Oh no?”

“No. Definitely not. He doesn’t hardly fish anymore. He’s too sad because of his wife. Maybe he’s not sad anymore.”

That wistful comment sent a chill down Heather’s spine. Had Andy wanted to help Denton not feel sad anymore? Had he pushed him off a cliff to end his grief?

Don’t be ridiculous. On Andy’s boyish face, she saw genuine emotion for someone he cared about.

“Not sad anymore,” Luke agreed. “Will you take a look at this photo?”

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket to pull out the Zip-loc bag in which he’d stored the photo.

Every movement he made was nice and slow, giving Andy plenty of time to see everything he was doing.

Next came a penlight, which he aimed at the photo.

Andy stared at it, but Heather couldn’t read his expression from her position in the truck.

“Do you remember when this was taken?” Luke asked gently.

What happened next came so fast that Heather almost thought she’d imagined it. Luke reeled backwards, his head swinging to one side as he hit the ground. Andy let out a squeak of shock and then wheeled around and bolted toward the woods at the edge of the property.

Heather jumped out of the truck and ran to Luke. He was struggling to sit up, blood dripping down his face, though she couldn’t tell where it came from. “I’m okay,” he managed. “He surprised me, that’s all.”

“I’m going after him.”

“No.” He grabbed onto her arm, but she shook it off.

“He knows something, obviously. If you’re okay?”

“Heather! Damn it!”

She was already on her feet and halfway across the lawn. She’d seen Andy run, and knew she could catch up with him easily. The problem was, what would she do when she caught him? She was faster, but he was much bigger.

On the other hand, she had surprise on her side, and also anger. How dare he run away instead of helping her find Gabby? That mother-effing twerp.

She dashed into the woods, using one arm to shield her face from the prickly lower branches of the evergreens.

Having grown up playing in woods like these, she knew to watch out for roots lurking under piles of pine needles and granite boulders appearing out of nowhere.

She didn’t bother with a phone light, knowing that it was better to let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

Andy was making lots of noise up ahead as he thrashed through the trees. That made it easy to follow him, and even easier to sneak up on him. Keeping her footfalls nice and light, she managed to catch up to him in a matter of minutes.

Now what? He was much bigger than she was, at least half a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. The only things she had on her side were surprise and her soccer skills.

Andy was slowing, running out of breath. This was her chance. Now or never. This is for you, Gabby. She took in a long inhale and released it with a roar— throw him off, surprise him— as she hurtled toward him, arms waving, making herself look as big as possible.

It worked. He shrieked and stumbled over a tree root in his scramble to escape the terrifying figure in the night woods. As he collapsed to the ground, she pounced on him. He whimpered in fear, curled in a fetal position, arms over his face.

Honestly, she felt sorry for him—as long as he answered her questions.

Hoping her body weight would be enough to keep him pinned, she straddled her legs on either side of his prone body. “I’m not trying to hurt you,” she told him. “I’m just trying to find my friend. Are you okay?”

He turned his head to look at her. She could tell the moment he realized she was just a human being and not a Sasquatch trying to eat him for dinner. “No,” he said weakly. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry. Like I said, I just want to find my friend Gabby. My name is Heather. You’re Andy, right? It’s nice to meet you.”

“What?”

She could understand his confusion. Tackling someone to the ground didn’t usually end in a polite introduction. “Gabby is my friend and also my podcast partner. I know that you met her when we came out here in March. Why did you run when Luke showed you that photo?”

“It hurts.” He twisted under her. She allowed him to adjust his position, but hooked one foot under a tree root to make sure he couldn’t dislodge her completely.

“Just answer the question and I’ll get off you.”

The sound of footfalls interrupted them, and a moment later Luke arrived. He crouched next to the two of them. Heather raised her chin to let him know she wasn’t going anywhere, not yet. “Andy was just about to tell me what he knows about Gabby.”

“Good. If you do that, maybe I won’t charge you for assaulting an officer.” Luke growled as he felt his jaw. Blood trickled from a cut on his eyebrow. “I had no idea you could throw a punch like that, Andy. It makes me wonder what else you would do.”

Heather tightened the grip of her thighs around the young man. “If you hurt Gabby?—”

“I didn’t hurt her! She’s okay!”

An electric jolt of relief charged through Heather’s nervous system. She’s okay. After that came a surge of rage. “Where is she, you?—”

Luke cut her off with a quick gesture. “That’s good, Andy,” he said in a soothing voice. Heather wasn’t convinced he deserved such kid-glove treatment, but she decided to trust Luke on this. “That’s good news that she’s okay. But we really need to find her. Can you help us?”

“I just want her to be safe.”

“So do we. That’s exactly what we want. Andy, you do know that keeping all of us island folks safe is my job, right? That’s what people pay me to do, just like Gary pays you to be his deckhand. Do you understand?”

Heather felt his body tremble between her thighs, and his face twisted with confusion. “Yes, but…”

“But what? You can trust me, bud. We’re friends, remember? Weren’t we just feeding the ducks at Mussel Cove the other day? You, me, and Izzy? I know how caring you are, how protective. Are you trying to protect Gabby from something?”

As farfetched as that sounded to Heather, Andy slowly nodded. “People wanted to hurt her.”

“What people?”

“I didn’t see. I just heard them.” His body began to shake more violently. Heather shook her head at Luke, who instantly switched gears.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about that right now. It sounds like you thought Gabby was in danger, so you took her somewhere to keep her safe. Is that right?”

Andy wrestled with himself, then gave in, like a balloon losing air. “Yes. She’s my friend. If I take you there, will you keep her safe?”

“You have my word.” Luke held up his hand in a Boy Scout gesture.

“I will too. So that’s two of us.” Heather climbed off his body, allowing him to sit up. “Let’s go.”

“Now?” He rubbed the back of his head, where he’d hit the forest floor.

“Yes, now!” Heather wanted to shake him. “Before someone else finds her.”

That lit a fire under him, and he scrambled to his feet, accepting a hand from Luke. “We have to row there.”

Shit. All this time, Gabby had been on a boat? Heather could have kicked herself for not having thought of that.

“We can do that. Lead the way.”

While they followed Andy in the general direction of the shore, Heather put a hand on Luke’s arm. “Are you really okay?”

“Yeah, the cut is from my penlight hitting me in my own fucking face.” He used his sleeve to wipe the blood away. “My jaw hurts like hell, but I can move everything. No real harm done.”

“I can help fix you up if you want. I volunteer at a homeless shelter and they gave me basic EMT training.”

“All I need is a Band-Aid and maybe some Bactine.”

Clearly he wasn’t getting her drift here. “If you need someone to hold your hand while you apply it…”

“You know I will,” he said, finally getting it. “Bactine stings.”

She smiled to herself, feeling a lot more warm and tingly than she ought to, considering she still didn’t really know what was going on with Gabby. But pinning Andy to the ground had given her a good feel for his character, and she believed him when he said Gabby was fine.

Unless his master plan was to dump them overboard from his dinghy, she thought, as they emerged from the woods onto a small rocky cove, barely twenty yards across. A wooden skiff lay upside down just above the line of seaweed that served as a high-water mark.

Luke helped Andy carry the skiff to the water, while Heather assumed the self-appointed role of making sure Andy wasn’t fucking around with them.