Page 78 of Murder in Calusa Cove

Dawson stepped into the shack, eyes sweeping the chaos like a man trying to file it all away. “Scene’s secured. Dewey’s gun’s accounted for. This is going to get messy.”

“No shit,” Chloe muttered, brushing sweat from her brow. “He had jars, Dawson. Jars of fingers. Twenty-five, maybe more. And that’s not even the worst part.”

Dawson tilted his head. “What could be worse than that?”

“He had Tripp’s journal. Tripp was on to him, but I bet there are some other things you might want to examine in there.” She swallowed. “Like I saw Ken’s name on a couple of pages.”

“Jesus,” Dawson muttered.

“And this.” Buddy handed her a Ziplock bag containing a folded piece of paper. “We found it tucked in a box labeled ‘for her.’ It’s a paternity test. He managed to have one done on Fedora a while back.”

“What?” Hayes managed with a shaky breath.

“About the time you came to Calusa Cove,” Buddy said. “I’m guessing he did his research. Put some things together, got a hair sample or something…anyway, that’s his kid out there.”

Hayes groaned.

She took the paper with a shaking hand, her gaze drifting toward where Fedora sat just outside the shack, wrapped in a blanket. She looked like a ghost—frightened, lost. A piece of the puzzle that none of them had seen coming.

“He was dying,” Chloe whispered. “He had cancer. He said he wanted to go out on his terms, to watch me work the case…to show me who he really was. I guess he also wanted to bring me and Fedora together.”

Buddy nodded slowly. “Yeah, and then what? What was the endgame?”

“We watched his endgame. We played right into it, only he thought we’d go out with him,” she said flatly.

Dawson placed a hand on her shoulder. “You did good tonight.”

Chloe shook her head. “No. I did what I had to. There’s a difference.”

A distant siren echoed through the swamp, growing louder.

Hayes stirred, his voice barely above a whisper. “Hey.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m right here.”

“You ready to hear those words yet?”

She chuckled. “I want a romantic dinner. I want you to pull out all the stops. I don’t want it like this.”

“I can do that, just so long as you know those three little words are true,” he managed in a faint whisper.

Chloe blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “You’ve got a lot left to do, Bennett. You better not check out on me.”

He closed his eyes, just for a second. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Behind her, the flashing lights of emergency vessels broke through the swamp’s dense shadows.

But even as they approached, Chloe’s mind wasn’t done racing.

Dewey was gone. The Ring Finger Killer case was closed.

But her life?

Her past?

Her identity?

That storm had only just begun.