cars could disappear completely, but it was deep enough to kill, especially if the driver didn’t have the presence of mind or the tools to free himself.
Keeping one hand on the car as a guide, he sucked in a deep breath and went beneath the surface, praying as he’d never prayed before that he’d find a broken-out windshield and no one inside.
Shining his flashlight he caught a glimpse of the car’s color, the same dark blue as Don Killian’s five-year-old sedan. Matt’s pulse kicked up a notch. He told himself it couldn’t be Don’s car. Don would never be out at this hour, not when he had to be up before dawn to do the baking at Flamingo Diner. Nor would Jeff or Andy have taken Don’s car. They both had their own, bought and insured with their own money at their father’s insistence. Matt had gone with Andy to look at pickups just a few weeks ago, right after he’d gotten his license.
Sucking in another deep breath, Matt dove back below the surface and made his way toward the front of the car. The beam of the flashlight cast an eerie glow through the water-filled interior. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the back seat, or even on the driver’s side, and for an instant a wave of relief washed through him. Maybe the car had been stolen and then ditched, he thought as he broke through the surface of the lake and gasped for air.
Even though his theory was a good one, Matt knew he couldn’t take chances that the driver of that car was still trapped inside, especially if there was even the remotest chance it was Don Killian. Even as he heard the wail of sirens in the distance, he dove back beneath the surface and shone his light slowly from back seat to front. Logic told him that if the driver had been able to free himself, he would be in the back, seeking the last little pocket of air as the car filled with water. Unfortunately the damn lake water was murkier than it should have been and all he could make out were shadows and the faint shape of something large and solid on the passenger side of the front seat.
Matt was a strong swimmer but his lungs were near to bursting when he made the discovery. As desperately as he wanted to take a closer look, he forced himself to the surface again.
By then the shoreline was swarming with policemen and rescue workers, including a team of divers.
“There’s someone in there,” he said, coughing up water. “Front passenger side.”
Not ten minutes later, the divers were back, hauling the victim out of the water, their expressions grim. At Matt’s questioning look, they shook their heads.
“Too late,” diver Dave Griffin told him. “We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner’s report, but I’d say he’s been down there awhile.” His expression turned sympathetic. “Sorry, boss. I know you two were close.”
Matt felt his heart clench. “Then it’s…?” He couldn’t bring himself to complete the thought.
“Don Killian,” Dave said. “Damnedest thing, too. He was all strapped in. It was like he never even tried to get out.”
Matt’s head shot up and he stared at the dive team leader. “He was strapped in?”
“Snug as could be,” Dave confirmed.
“I could have sworn he was on the passenger side,” Matt said.
“No. Driver’s side. It just looked like he was on the other side because of the way his body was leaning toward the console.”
Why the hell wouldn’t Don have made some attempt to free himself? “Could Don have been dead when the car went into the water?” Matt asked, knowing that Dave wouldn’t have the answer. It was something the ME would have to decide.
“No visible wounds,” Dave told him. “He was strapped in too tight to have hit his head on the windshield. Can’t rule out a heart attack or a stroke, though.”
What the hell did he have on his hands? Matt wondered. An accident? That seemed like the obvious answer, but given Don’s behavior lately and that secured seat belt, he couldn’t rule out suicide. Whichever the case was, he dreaded having to be the one to tell Rosa, Jeff and Andy that Don was gone.
One thing was for certain, until he had conclusive proof otherwise, he intended to give the family the small comfort of thinking that Don had died in a tragic accident.
3
Suicide was such an ugly word. Maybe that was the reason it was seldom spoken above a whisper, Emma thought as she arrived in Florida, still dazed by the call that had come in the predawn hours. The officer who’d called her in the middle of the night had been very careful to describe her father’s death as an accident. Emma wished she believed him.
In fact, she desperately wanted to be convinced that her father had somehow missed a curve that he’d driven every day of his life for thirty years or more. Ever since she’d hung up, she’d prayed that the medical examiner would find evidence of some sudden condition that had sent him careening off the road or that the police would find dents in the car to indicate he’d swerved after being hit by another driver. At the very least, she wanted the ME to find absolutely nothing to disprove the idea that her father’s death had been an accident.
But remembering Andy’s call only two days earlier made her think otherwise. She didn’t want to believe that the weird behavior her brother had described had anything at all to do with her father’s death, but she couldn’t dismiss the possibility, not as easily as she would have liked to.
So far, she hadn’t mentioned anything to the police about her concerns. She excused her silence by telling herself it wasn’t as if she actually knew anything. Besides, it would be better if they formed an unbiased opinion based on the evidence.
If only she’d been able to talk to her mother, but Rosa had been too distraught to take her calls. It was hours later and Emma still hadn’t spoken to her. Rosa had been sedated and Jeff and Andy were nowhere to be found when Emma had called to let her family know when she would be arriving. She’d been assured by Helen Lindsay, her mother’s best friend, that someone would be at the Orlando airport to pick her up and drive her to Winter Cove, but she had no idea who it might be.
The flight had been endless, giving her far too much time to sort through the scant information she had, too much time to twist the facts inside out and come up with theories about how and why her father had died.
An accident, she repeated firmly. It had to be. She was still telling herself that when she walked into the luggage claim area. With her gaze intent on the luggage carousel, she almost missed the tall, lanky man in faded jeans and a snug-fitting, white T-shirt who pushed away from a railing, but something about the lazy, sexy way he moved caught her eye. In fact, on any other occasion, she would have given his muscular body an appreciative once-over, noting the details to share with Kim the next time they talked. Now they barely registered and she tried to make sense of the fact that he was moving directly toward her.
“Emma?”
She took off the sunglasses she’d been wearing to hide her red-rimmed eyes to get a better look. Finally recognition dawned and with it came a vague sense of relief at finding a familiar face amid the crowd of strangers. “Matt Atkins? What on earth are you doing here? I thought you were working in Tampa.”
“I’m back in Winter Cove now, as the police chief, no less. I’m surprised your family hadn’t told you.”
“Who would have thought…” she began. A grin almost formed then faded as it dawned on her that he knew,
