Page 81 of The Sister's Curse

“Friends your age?”

“Um, yeah.”

“I’m gonna need names.”

The girls exchanged glances, then coughed up a list of five high schoolers.

“Okay. You and your friends were here, drinking and hanging out. What was the deal with these guys?”

“We didn’t know them. They showed up after. They were real gross, asking to take pictures of the girls.” Teresa made a face. “They were old.”

“How old?”

“I dunno…old.”

“Okay. Did either of them touch you or your friends?”

“No. We bailed.”

“Show me the video you took.”

I handed the girls their phones, and they showed me a video of two men, who looked to be in their late twenties, leering at the young women around a campfire.

“Can you send me that?”

“Sure.”

“What time did you leave?”

“I dunno. We left when it started raining.”

“Understood. I need to get your contact information for further questions.”

I scribbled that info down, and took the phones just in case there was more information on them than the girls had shared. I had Patrol escort the girls, in their car, out to the road to meet their parents, leaving me alone on the beach.

I took pictures of the debris there. There were dozens of beer cans, and maybe there was some DNA on the rims worth testing. I found one flip-flop, a broken bong, and a soggy sandwich covered with ants.

Next to the SUV, I found a duffel bag. With gloved hands, I opened it. Within were men’s shoes, jeans, and T-shirts. I was betting these belonged to the men on the water. There were cell phones and wallets, too. I cracked open the wallets and looked at the drivers’ licenses.

Amos Lister, twenty-nine.

Patrick Lister, twenty-seven.

My eyebrows lifted. There weren’t that many people with that last name in the county.

A Google search coughed up a social media picture of Mark Lister standing with the two men at a family reunion. Judging by the names and the resemblances, I was pretty sure they were at least cousins, maybe half brothers. I did some poking around on social media, and identified the men as Mark’s second cousins on his father’s side. I radioed the car’s plates in, and they came back registered to Patrick Lister.

Gravel crunched. Forensics and the coroner’s van rolled in. The coroner’s van stopped beside me, and the county coroner herself, Dr.Navarro, hopped out.

“Hi, Doc. I thought we kept you busy enough to keep you chained to your desk.”

Dr.Navarro sighed. “Everyone’s on vacation, so it’s all-hands-on-deck, Koray. Though that floater you sent me was interesting.”

“Anything you can share?”

She leaned against the side of the van. “Quentin Sims’s cause of death was drowning, though I noted a number of wounds on the body that weren’t consistent with the kind of accident he was in.”

“I did see some at the scene, and I wasn’t sure what to make of them.”