Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (29 page)

That was when she saw the hand. White knuckled, gripping the lower part of one of the railings.

You have to be kidding me
.

What? It was impossible, but she could swear that someone had followed her onto the vessel—almost successfully anyway—and was clinging …

Last she checked, this was not a James Bond movie.

Expelling a breath she slid forward, probably right into the line of vision of the person driving if he bothered to look back, and hoped she was making an intelligent decision. One swift glance back showed that the back window of the boat was indeed shattered, so she shoved herself upward in one swift move, leaned over the railing, saw just who it was—not a surprise—and grabbed his arm to try and haul him on board. She hissed, “Are you insane?”

“No, just infirm. God, he’s hauling ass out of here.” The words were almost inaudible, and Santiago was washed in spray, his features glistening, hair soaked, his face barely visible. She knew nothing about inboard engines, but his position seemed pretty dangerous. He shouted, “This sling, I can’t get out of it. Maybe I should just let go.”

The volume of his voice was loud, but there was no choice. And he was right, the boat was picking up speed, but at least right now they weren’t that far from the pier. There was no way she could pull him up, no way. Had they not been moving, maybe, but only maybe.

And no way he could swim
. Not with one arm.

But if she let him go, there was very little doubt in her mind that he might drown.

“I am going to kick your ass,” she said through her teeth, watching the waves froth up over his back as the boat picked up speed. “I mean kill you in your sleep, pillow over your face, poison in your coffee, bomb in the shower—”

“Does this mean we’ll be sleeping together?” His face was wet, frosted with spray from the wake, and she now had her feet braced against the rail.”

What would go first? Her hold or his? Right now she was only helping him hang on. If she had to take the entire burden of his weight, she had no doubt either she couldn’t do it, or his shoulder would dislocate.

Then he must have fought free of the sling because his other hand came up to grip the railing. She had a fair idea of the pain because of the expression in his face, but he yelled, “Go! Stop the damn boat. You can’t pull me on board.”

Ellie was still not sure he could swim, but at least he had both hands on the rail and he was right in that she couldn’t haul him onto the boat.

He was still an idiot, but he had a point. Ellie let go of his wrist and sprinted toward the cabin, drawing her weapon. Shattered glass crunched under her feet but she managed to keep her balance, the sound covered by the sound of the craft. Her hair whipped around her face.

They were headed toward open water.

Not good.

Any internal conflict over whether or not to shoot was resolved right there. Ellie did not know how to pilot a boat like this on one of the largest lakes in the world, and as far as she knew, her partner was still dragging along behind. She could see the silhouette of the man at the helm of the boat, his hands on the wheels, the eerie red sunset in the background …

She hefted her weapon in her hand, released the safety, and opened the door into the cabin. “Police.”

His head whipped around and he muttered something. Young, nice looking, but his face was pale, shell-shocked, and wet as if streaked with tears.

Not Henley senior … no way. Early twenties at the most, dark hair, and not surprised. It had been a hope only that he hadn’t seen her jump on board.

What was she dealing with at the moment? He stared at her gun, but his hand was still on the throttle. Ellie stood, feet braced, a panic she didn’t want tightening her throat. She ordered with harsh urgency, “You’re under arrest. Stop the engines please. Now. Or else we might add manslaughter to the charges. I’ll shoot you, I swear it.”

All she could do was hope Santiago was still holding on.

“My father is dead.”

Definitely Henley junior. “We can talk about that, but for now, halt. Or I will fire.”

Then she did. Not at him, but into the side of the cabin, the sound incredibly loud, a punctuation to the threat. The young man flinched and to her relief, with a push of a button he killed the motors and she almost lost her footing again as the craft abruptly slowed.

*   *   *

“I didn’t kill
him. I was going to … betray my mother … with
my
girlfriend … how could he? But I didn’t. She did.” He swiped his shaking hand across his face.

Ellie was going to have to make sense of the babbling later. For now she kept her weapon extended and advanced, grabbing him by the shirt. “Whatever you’ve done or not done, you
are
to help me now, got it? I need you to assist me to get someone into this boat.”

Chapter 26

The train pulled into the station and he handed over his ticket when the doors opened.

There was nothing left for him. He needed to go. Needed to start over.

“Headed?” The porter asked it briskly.

“Minneapolis.”

“That is what your ticket says, sir. Welcome aboard.
”

*   *   *

Carl found it
amusing to watch Santiago try to defend himself because he wasn’t sure who was more fuming mad, Metzger or MacIntosh.

At least MacIntosh tried to keep it under control, but Metzger was full-out furious.

“You could have compromised the entire situation. Do you realize your partner had to enlist the help of a murder suspect to haul your sorry ass into the boat?”

Santiago, drenched, shivering, still somehow managed to look unrepentant. Carl wasn’t sure how he pulled it off, but he did. Metzger had given him his coat and he pulled it tighter with his good hand. The other one dripped blood. He even argued. “She jumped on the boat. She jumps like a girl, by the way, so I thought I could manage it. Henley just happened to take off at that moment. Not a bad decision, just bad timing.”

“I jump like a girl?” MacIntosh waved a hand in evident frustration. She was also wet, a muscle in her cheek jumping. “Are you kidding me? For your information, I wasn’t the one being towed behind a speeding boat.”

“I missed a little.”

She said lethally, “I won’t miss when I take my sidearm and—”

“That’s enough,” Metzger interrupted, stepping between them.

“I was trying to help. Jesus.” Santiago actually did look a little sheepish.

Around them lights swirled and there was even a police boat from the harbor patrol anchored just offshore, though Garrison Henley had brought the boat back peacefully enough. He also sat on a bench, sans jacket, his head in his hands, under arrest but not cuffed yet. His face looked like it was carved out of marble.

“Yeah, you tell yourself that you were a lot of help when they treat you again at the hospital for the wound you tore open hanging on to that boat.” Metzger turned away, his gaze razor sharp. “Let’s clarify all this if we can. What happened?”

“I think he and his father finally had a frank discussion about that paternity test.” Carl was willing to step in and gestured at where a crime scene tech had drawn an outline of the discarded weapon on the pier. It had been bagged and taken away, but the white lines showed where it had been dropped before Garrison Henley had jumped into the boat to take off. “It is just a guess, but Joanne probably told him the truth.”

“It was two years ago.” Santiago might look like a drowned rat, but he was still thinking, shaking blood off his fingers. “What set him off?”

The kid could hear them. He looked over and Carl would swear he exactly recognized that wounded look. He’d had it himself. The disillusionment, the realization your parents had betrayed you, but in his case,
his
parents had not done it on purpose. The car accident had been just that, an accident.

Not so much with Henley.

Maybe that was why he’d liked Garrison the first time they’d met. A meeting of like souls.

“My mother told me.” Garrison Henley said it with frigid civility. “She knew about it all along, or suspected anyway. I wanted to vomit. Was I sleeping with my father’s mistress or was he just fucking my girlfriend? You know, it all starts to blur. Then she marries a cop and has a kid and it belongs to one of us, but no one knows who. I’m trying to decide who I should hate more, him or her. Then I finally talk to him about it, and he admits it. He doesn’t deny for one minute he urged her to go out with me so she could come with us on vacations and come over to the house and no one would think anything about it … that son of a bitch. He did it to me, but he did it to my mother too.”

“So you decided to kill him?” Ellie MacIntosh looked a little worse for wear too. Her hair was windblown and her jacket splattered with blood that probably came from Santiago. Someone had turned on spotlights by the boat slips and her expression was grim and unforgiving.

He shook his head. “I didn’t do it. I brought the gun, but I didn’t do it. Check it.”

Metzger said with a very fierce measure of authority, “Then who did, son, because someone killed your father.”

The dead body was undeniable. Carl had been the one to call it in, stuck with the corpse until the crime scene unit and medical examiner arrived. They were nearly done, and the body had been zipped into the bag no person ever wished to occupy, and loaded on a stretcher.

“It wasn’t me.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I did bring the gun, we were arguing, and … and I wanted to kill him, but someone else fired the shot. That’s why I jumped on the boat and tried to run. First off, I didn’t want to get shot too. Second, I didn’t want to be found standing over his body with a gun.” Garrison looked at all of them with disillusioned eyes. “My father does not always keep the finest company. I assume that is why you all are here in the first place, correct? Maybe it finally caught up with him.”

MacIntosh said, “You told me ‘she’ killed him. Your mother?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Joanne?”

“No.” The young man’s voice was a whisper.

And Carl knew Henley was telling the truth.

*   *   *

Morning after hangover.

It felt a little that way, like he’d tied one on with the best of them. Jason blinked and his eyes even felt scratchy, but the truth was, he hadn’t had one drink the night before. Grasso had driven him first to the hospital emergency room to have his wound stitched back together, and then to his apartment. He’d crashed like a dead person, which he was lucky he wasn’t.

He assumed MacIntosh had gone to wherever her boyfriend had chosen to remove himself from harm’s way. Probably a tender reunion. He didn’t want to think about it too much.

So now they were in Metzger’s office, rehashing his less-than-stellar performance the evening before. A botched rescue attempt that made it necessary for
him
to be rescued, when he wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place. Great.

And the chief was still pissed.

“This convoluted mess just keeps getting better and better.”

“Yes, sir.” Jason tried to be as polite as possible.

“Shut up, Santiago, before I suspend you.”

He sat up a little straighter to try and appear sincere, though honestly, he hurt all over. “Yes, sir.”

“I said don’t speak. It will remind me you are here, and quite frankly, you don’t want that. The only reason you are sitting in that chair in this room is because this is somewhat of a debriefing and you know what went down. Are we clear?”

Morning. The smell of doughnuts and coffee—not good doughnuts and good coffee, but it was familiar and somewhat comforting. Jason almost fell into the trap and answered, but at the last minute refrained.

“You see, you can be taught.” Metzger turned to the table. “Lieman says it was a sponsored hit from Henley’s questionable business partners, and the good news is, the DEA is moving in to make arrests. Being married to a drug cartel is lucrative, but dangerous. As soon as his partners saw him going down for the hits on Fielding, Brown, and Crawford, they did not need him testifying. Our lovely medical examiner did the autopsy this morning, and she confirms the bullet came from a rifle, not the handgun being waved around by Garrison Henley. His hands tested negative for powder residue also. The kid is telling the truth, and we let him go about an hour ago.”

Ellie, wearing a tan jacket over a white shirt and navy slacks, her blond hair in a straight shining fall around her shoulders, asked, “What about the two men in custody who fired at me and Santiago?”

“One is still in the hospital from the crash, and the other one is out on bail, which tells you a lot about who he works for since it was set extremely high. Ballistics can’t match their weapons to the other shootings, but we all know they were probably the team that did it, just professional enough to ditch the guns. At the least they will be deported. We don’t know who they are because their identification is falsified. We have to hand this over to the federals.”

Jason had to admit it frustrated him, but he managed to not make a caustic comment.

Grasso took a sip of coffee before he said, “Where is Joanne Fielding?”

“Being guarded by U.S. Marshals until we can ascertain the threat is gone.”

“Good idea.”

Metzger turned to stare at him and Jason wished he’d remember to not speak. “Since that comes from an officer of the law who has had some extremely questionable ideas on how to do his job lately, I am not going to take that as high praise. All of you, go home. Get some rest. I am going to say as far as we are concerned, this case is closed.”

“Are you kidding me? I liked Danni Crawford.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding, Santiago? Several investigations are colliding here. We’ve been told to back off.” Metzger’s gaze touched on everyone in the room, one by one. “So, back off.”

Carl thought about it long and hard on his way home.

Then he called.

Lindsey answered after five rings. He was a little surprised she hadn’t tossed the phone. “Lieutenant.”