A Killing Tide (29 page)

Outside, she broke into a run.

~~~~

Chapter 25

After losing a battle with herself, Lucy walked back toward the interrogation room to talk to Gary one more time in the hopes of getting him to cooperate. She needed to stay out of it, let Sykes handle it. But where Gary was concerned, well, she might as well get used to it—she had no objectivity.

As she reached out to open the door, she glanced out the window at the end of the hallway. And froze her in her tracks.

Sykes was standing in the parking lot next to a police cruiser, talking to whoever was inside. He said something, threw his head back and laughed, then reached inside the window to clap the cop on the shoulder. Then the cruiser backed out of the parking spot, turning and giving Lucy a clear view of who was driving.

Clint Jackson.

She leaned against the interrogation room door, closing her eyes. Sykes hadn't believed her. She made a sound of self-disgust. And why would he? She was the rooky detective, the one who had no experience. The one with the rep for jumping to conclusions.

She stood in the hallway, debating. Gary was in grave danger, she wasn't wrong about that. She
had
to buy him some time.

She glanced toward the squad room. Ivar was sitting where he'd been for the last two hours, still working on Kaz's computer. Should she tell him what she was up to?
No
. She didn't need to take his career down along with hers.

Squaring her shoulders, she opened the door to the interrogation room and told Brenner, who'd been standing guard, to leave. Gary looked down at the floor, refusing to acknowledge her presence, just as he had since they'd brought him in. She had only minutes to get through to him. Once he was arraigned and locked up for the night…

Pulling up a chair, she sat down, her knees touching his. "So," she said with a casualness she wasn't feeling. "I'll bet you don't have any way of knowing, since you haven't spent a lot of time in our cool new police station, that the men's room is right by the back door."

Gary's head slowly came up. He stared at her with his good eye.

"The back door that leads directly to the parking lot, and beyond that, to those old warehouses," she added.

He shook his head. "What…are you doing, Luce?"

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "I don't think you'll be alive, come morning. Am I wrong?"

He just stared at her, his expression giving nothing away.

Anger bubbled up, edged with panic. "And I don't think you resisted arrest. They beat you, just like they beat Ken. Didn't they?"

No response.

She kept going doggedly, determined to get through to him. "You know, rumor has it that you have a weak bladder."

After a long moment, he reluctantly nodded.

Relief flooded through her. "Then you'll need to go to the men's room after all that water Kaz just let you drink." She stood up and took hold of his elbow. "Let's go.
Now.
There's no time."

#

He shuffled along beside her docilely enough. To anyone glancing her way, it looked like it was supposed to look—that she was escorting the prisoner to the restroom. Once inside, she quickly checked the rest of the stalls, then took a key out of her pocket and unlocked his hand and leg cuffs.

"Okay," she said, standing back and assuming a fighting stance. "Make it look good."

Gary shook his head. "Can't…hurt you."

She rolled her eyes. "It has to look like you overpowered me. That is, if I'm going to stand a chance of keeping my job when this is all over."

He shook his head again, and glanced at the closed door. "Find…another way."

She blew out an exasperated breath and angled her chin at him. "Just knock me out, dammit. I've taken worse on the mat at the gym. Do you want to live, or not?" She glared at him, then went for the taunt that might make him angry enough to do what was necessary. "Or is that it? Wouldn't want you acting out of self-interest, now would we?"

He growled and reached for her, placing his hands on her shoulders, cupping the curve of her neck. His thumbs caressed the sensitive skin behind her ears. She tried to control the shiver that went through her at his warm touch but wasn't quite fast enough.

One corner of his mouth quirked. "So I…still…get…to you."

"Oh, just shut up—"

His hands tightened just slightly. The darkness came quickly, swamping her.

The last thing she remembered was being gently lowered to the floor and the whispered words, "Sorry, love."

#

"Like you thought, the accelerant was gasoline," the lab technician confirmed.

Michael stood in the basement lab at the State Police facility in Warrenton, glancing through the paperwork the technician handed him.

"And it matches what was found on the rags in the back of Jorgensen's car." The tech pulled out the report, then pointed at the two gas chromatograph readings. "That's not definitive, since most of the gas around here comes from the same refinery, but along with everything else…"

Michael glanced at his watch, worried about the passing time. He needed to get back to the station and pick up Kaz. He wouldn't put it past her to get impatient and strike out on her own. The woman needed a keeper. And so far, the tech hadn't given him any reason for his demand that Michael drop everything and drive out there. "Why the hell—"

"And I've got a match on the DNA," the tech interrupted. He rummaged around on his desk, then held up two DNA diagrams which, sure enough, looked identical. He was shifting from one foot to the other, acting nervous.

Michael's heart sank. It had to be either Gary or Kaz. Which didn't prove that either one of them had committed the murder, but it left him with no way to prove that they
hadn't
, either. When would he catch a break on this damn case? "Whose sample matched?" he asked, resigned.

The tech shuffled his feet again. "That's just it. I re-tested two times, because I thought I'd made a mistake. Then I checked your labels again, and I was wondering if you'd mismarked the samples—"

Michael ground his teeth. "I didn't screw up the fucking samples! Just spit it out. Which one matched?"

"The cigar."

Michael froze. "Pardon?"

"The cigar's a match to the hair follicle. Where'd you find the cigar, anyway? We didn't find anything like that on the boat, or…
hey
!"

The paperwork fluttered to the floor as Michael sprinted for the door, taking the basement steps three at a time.

Sonofabitch!
Sykes had been playing him all along. And Kaz was at the police station. Surely Sykes wouldn't try anything in front of the other cops—he wouldn't be that brazen. But who knew how many of them were working with him?

Racing across the parking lot to his car, he used his cell phone to dial the station. Ivar answered Lucy's phone. "Where is she?" Michael shouted.

"In the interrogation room with Gary," Ivar answered. "Why?"

"No time to explain. Tell Kaz not to move. I'll be right there."

"Kaz isn't here." Ivar sounded confused.

Michael skidded to a stop at the car door, one hand in his pocket, reaching for his keys. Zeke barked at him from inside the car, jumping up and down. "
What
?"

"Yeah, she left about half an hour ago."

"Fuck! Where was she headed?"

"She said something to Lucy about heading to the mooring basin and then to the tavern."

"Is Sykes there?" Michael asked, terror's grip making it hard for him to form the words.

"Hold on." Ivar put the phone down for a few seconds, then came back online. "He must've gone home already, I don't see him in his office."

"Keep me posted." Michael disconnected and yanked open the car door. He started to toss the cell phone on the front seat when he saw that he had a message. Why hadn't it come through? Because he'd been in the basement at the time, dammit. No coverage. He started the car and pulled on his and Zeke's seatbelts, listening to the message from Kaz. Then checked the time stamp.

#

Kaz cut the
Kasmira B's
running lights and stayed back so that Karl wouldn't notice her in the approaching darkness. With the wind picking up and conditions becoming choppier, she found it hard to keep him in sight. If he crossed the river bar faster than she did, or if she made any navigational mistakes, she could easily lose him on the ocean side. Then her only option would be to head for the location he'd given out over the radio the day before and pray that she was right.

Once out of the Redemption, she'd driven along Marine Drive, keeping Karl's small skiff in sight as he took it upriver to the mooring basin. By the time she'd gotten there and parked, he was fueling up at the pumps and hadn't seen her sneak down the docks and onto her own boat.

The
Kasmira B
bounced harder than usual, sending alarm skittering along her nerves. The weather report coming across the marine channel wasn't good—a storm surge of up to fifteen feet was predicted just offshore, with more than thirty feet out at sea. Add to that winds up to thirty knots, and it would be a hell coming back across.

If she made it at all.

Being caught out for the night wasn't an option. Whatever she learned out here she
had
to be able to communicate back to Lucy—she didn't believe Gary would survive until morning. And that scared her far more than crossing the river bar under the wrong conditions.

Keeping closer to shore, she paralleled Karl, staying as far back as she dared off his port stern. Only half an hour after turning south, he cut his engines to an idle and ran alongside a buoy. His location matched the position he'd given out on the radio yesterday. He'd employed the fishermen's habit of broadcasting false locations, but his intent all along had been to inform the drug suppliers which crab pots he'd used as the drop location. She had to admit, it was a clever idea. Someone had once said that the best place to hide something valuable was right in plain sight. This was just a fisherman's variation on that theme.

Karl's running lights provided just enough illumination so that with binoculars, she could watch him pull the crab pot out of the water, open it up, take out a package, and then drop in the plastic wrapped package he'd taken from the office back. He lowered the cage back into the water.

Grabbing a pen and paper, Kaz noted the longitude and latitude, as evidence for later. Karl had brought himself down by following every ship captain's habit—writing down everything in the ship's log. With her notes as corroboration, they had him. Now all she had to do was follow him back to port and then on to his meeting with his in-town contact.

"Gotcha," she murmured out loud. She was one giant step closer to proving Gary's innocence.

"No," the voice behind her said. "We've got
you."

~~~~

Chapter 26

As Michael's car skidded onto the wharf, his cell phone warbled. He picked it up and flipped it open. "Talk."

"I found Lucy," Ivar said. "Knocked out cold in the men's room. Gary's escaped."

Michael started swearing. "Were you able to revive her?"

"Yeah, she says Kaz planned to observe the hand-off of the cash at the Redemption and then follow Karl Svensen from there."

"Follow him where?"

"That's not clear, but I'd bet out on the water somewhere. Makes sense."

Michael got out of the car and searched the boats on the docks below. "Both boats are gone, Svensen's and Kaz's.
Goddammit
! What did she think she was doing, taking this on by herself?"

"My guess is she didn't have a choice. They both were at the mercy of the tides," Ivar pointed out.

He was right, but that didn't make Michael's heart pound any slower. "Yeah, okay. Listen to me. It's Sykes."

There was momentary silence on the other end.

"Sykes is behind this, dammit. You and Lucy notify the Coast Guard, have them put a rescue boat out on the water."

"You're wrong, man. Lucy says it's Clint Jackson. And Steve called from the Redemption just now, worried about Kaz. He didn't say a thing about Sykes."

Michael told him about the DNA samples. "I don't know whether Jackson is in on it, and I don't know what Steve knows, but Sykes is the killer." He could hear Lucy shouting in the background. "I can see Bjorn from here—I'll convince him to take me out. Let's just hope to hell we're fast enough. Sykes' Lincoln Navigator is parked a block from here, locked up tight."

He threw the phone onto the car seat and locked the door, leaving Zeke whining unhappily inside with the windows cracked for air. He cleared the ramp down to Bjorn's trawler in one leap.

#

Kaz stared at Jim Sykes, who stood on the top step of the stairs leading to the engine room, pointing a large, black handgun at her. His smile was humorless. "You Jorgensens. You never did know when to mind your own business."