that morning, Kyra found Michael on the deck facing the Gulf. The blue water glittered as though thousands of shards of crystal had been strewn over its surface. “I didn’t know how much I misssed this until I came home.”
Gripping the railing, Michael hunched his shoulders and leaned farther into it. “I know that’s the way I felt when I came back here.” His look didn’t stray from the stretch of sea no more than a hundred yards away. “I remember once when I was twelve and found an old dinghy. I worked all summer to get it in shape. I had planned to go all the way to Key West in it.” He slid her a smile that vanished in a second. “I didn’t make it more than twenty or so feet offshore before I began to sink. I hadn’t repaired all the holes in the bottom, at least not well enough that they didn’t leak. That boat might still be out there somewhere.” He pointed in the direction of where it had gone down.
She came up next to him, fighting the urge to cover his hand on the railing with hers. The wistful tone in his voice made her ache for a time when they hadn’t had any real worries. “You haven’t swum out there to see it?”
“No. When I got here, I hit the ground running and haven’t stopped since. My partner and I are very busy.” A deep sigh escaped his lips. “I should know what was going on with Amy, too. I feel like I’ve let her down, and now she’s in trouble.”
This time she did touch his upper arm, drawing his full attention. Although her gesture was an act of comfort, she felt strange because she found herself attracted to a man who was a good friend’s kid brother—one she had dealt with as a young teenage boy with a crush on her. “Ginny was having problems with Amy. She hit sixteen, and according to your sister, Amy changed overnight.”
He shifted toward her, her hand dropping to her side. “Did you find anything on her computer to help find her?”
“The name on the email account of skullandcrossbones is a Kip Thomas. Do you know someone by that name?”
“No.”
“I’ve asked Gabe to see what he can find out about this person who supposedly lives in Naples. It could be a fake name and address. That’s not hard to do when setting up an email account.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“A journal she kept up until ten days ago. She deleted it, but I was able to recover it. Did something happen at that time?”
A faraway look darkened his blue eyes to a storm. “That’s when I grounded her for coming in two hours late from a date. She’d just gotten off from being grounded a few days ago.”
“Who did she go out with?”
“She told me Brady Lawson, a guy she used to date during the school year, but I’m pretty sure it was Preston. I didn’t see the car she came home in, but I heard it. It sounded like Preston’s GTO. Lately she has been going out with Preston, and she knew I didn’t think he was the right kind of guy for her.” He rotated around and sat back on the railing, folding his arms over his chest. “Did you read the journal?”
“Yes, a lot of angst. Brady and she broke up two months ago, then she met another guy she thought was hot.”
“Did she say who?”
“No. She called him Hottie. Apparently they spent time in the swamp, partying.”
“That Preston.” His features strengthened into a scowl. “But I don’t know for sure and that’s the problem.” A nerve twitched in his cheek.
“She talked a lot about a girl named Laurie. Do you know her?”
“Yes, Laurie and Amy were BFFs, or so she told me on a number of occasions.”
“Then I suggest we go talk to her best friend first.”
“Right now?”
“No, after Gabe searches the area with the bloodhound. I figure you’ll want to be here in case he turns up anything useful.”
“Yes. Maybe the dog will find Amy’s trail and lead us right to her.” Hope flared in his expression for a few seconds.
“If nothing is found to help us, we can go talk to Laurie. She might know something about where Amy would go if she was afraid.”
“Frankly the place I would say she would go was Laurie’s, but when I called earlier no one answered the phone.” Michael shuddered, his shoulders drooping. “This is a peaceful little town. A kid shouldn’t have to be afraid for her life.”
“No, but sadly that’s not the way it is in this world.”
“Yeah, there are two dead young men to prove that. I saw my fair share of gunshot victims in the emergency room in Chicago. Some were caught up in gang wars. Others in drug deals gone bad. I thought I had left that behind.”
“As a police officer, I discovered evil can exist anywhere.”
“Wilson told me he didn’t know who the other victim at the Pattersons’ house was. He appeared older than Preston. Do you think this has anything to do with drugs or something like that?”
“Maybe. When I talked to Gabe a few minutes ago, he told me the other person who died at the scene was Preston’s cousin from Miami, Tyler Stevens. His cousin had been visiting and hadn’t been here long. He had the same black dagger tattooed on his neck as Preston did.”
“A gang?”
“Gabe is checking with the Miami police. “
He pushed away from the railing. “I never thought of Flamingo Cay and gangs in the same context.”
“He said they checked where the man I chased ran into the undergrowth and saw another set of prints near his and mine. Looked to be about a size-thirteen shoe, Gabe said. Since it rained last night, he thinks either someone was standing there watching the house or waiting for Amy or someone else.”
A gray tinge to his face, Michael sucked in a shaky breath then slowly released it. “Let’s see what progress Harvey and his bloodhound, Boomer, have made. Maybe they’ve already found a trail that will lead us right to Amy.”
Kyra hoped so, too, but what she wouldn’t voice to Michael was her concern over how they would find Amy. When his gaze snagged hers as he moved toward his back door, though, she glimpsed the same fear in his expression as she had. Amy could be dead somewhere nearby. Like the two young men at the Pattersons’.
She halted Michael’s progress into his house with, “Amy came back and changed. She was alive a while ago and got away from whoever killed those boys because I chased him to the canal in the opposite direction from here. I don’t think she had time to come home, change and somehow end up in the swamp being chased by the assailant.”
Pain glazed his eyes. “Yeah, but what if the second person Gabe found the prints of followed her here and waited until she left again?”
“With all the police around here? Probably not.” At least she prayed he hadn’t. Kyra grabbed her damp tennis shoes and put them on.
Frowning, Michael yanked open the back door and strode through the entrance and continued
