Chapter 55
FIFTY-FIVE
M addy stared in disbelief as Rafe marched Samantha past the gaping crowd to where he’d left his vehicle. Blaine and Xanthe followed.
Blaine glanced over at her. “You wanna come with us?”
“No, it’s okay. You guys go ahead.” They’d have to go down to the station to give statements. This was bananas. She’d just get a taxi. “I’ll see you at the house when you’re done.”
Please let this be the last piece of this nightmare. She loved Blaine like the older brother she’d always wanted and never had. And she kind of loved Xanthe already, too, a strong, assertive and intelligent woman Maddy admired a lot.
“I can drive you back,” a deep voice said behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder. Shit. Lachlan. She’d been avoiding him since waking up in his bed. He looked gorgeous in his navy suit, his short beard freshly trimmed, eyes the same green as the Salish sea. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
“Never a dull moment here on Skelly,” he said with a shake of his head, staring after Samantha and Rafe.
The crowd turned away, headed back to the house. “Doesn’t seem like it, no.”
A heavy beat of silence followed. “You are eventually gonna look at me, right?”
She drew in a steadying breath. Turned to face him.
Immediately wished she hadn’t.
Every time she saw him, he was better looking than the time before. And that quiet, calm thing he projected drew her on a powerful level that disturbed her almost as much as her attraction to him.
She didn’t trust any of it. For all she knew, this was a calculated act on his part. People had manipulated her to get close to her before. To use her for her skills, or to try and get closer to Blaine.
She was smarter now. More cynical. Because after what happened in Syria, she’d vowed to never be fooled like that again.
“There we go.” Lachlan studied her with calm green eyes. “Hi.”
She cleared her throat. Reminded herself that it was okay to be cautious here. Xanthe might know him, but Maddy didn’t. “Hi.”
“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” She hadn’t been caught up in any of the danger.
His gaze seemed to see right through her. “Nothing happened.”
She blinked at him, confused. “What?”
“Nothing happened that night.”
Wait. “It didn’t?”
“No.”
“So we didn’t…”
“No.”
“Oh, thank God.” She slumped a little in relief. Assuming he was actually telling the truth, that is.
His eyebrows shot up.
“No, I mean…” She sighed, hating that she was making a fool of herself, all awkward and socially defective. “Look, I’m not in the habit of getting drunk in the first place, and I definitely don’t go home with a guy I just met.”
“So you kept telling me.”
Had she? She frowned. “Then what did happen? Because I don’t remember anything other than being at The Skelly with you and Grey and then getting to your boat. House. Boathouse,” she stammered, flushing. Whatever they were called. Houseboat?
“You were drunk and kept saying you didn’t want to go home because Blaine and Xanthe needed privacy. So I took you home with me to crash. That’s all.”
She measured his expression and answer. Searching for clues as to whether he was telling the truth. It sure seemed like it, but again, she was hardly an expert on that. “I woke up in your bed.”
“Alone.”
True. “Was I alone in it the whole night?”
Amusement crept into his eyes. “Yeah. Because I slept on the couch.”
She faltered, flushing. “I was wearing your shirt and nothing else.”
“That was all you. I had nothing to do with it.”
Oh my God, had she stripped her drunk ass buck naked in front of him?
He laughed at the look on her face. “I didn’t see the show. I shut the door on my way out.”
She wanted to believe him. He seemed sincere enough, and he was a good friend of Xanthe’s. That carried some weight with her.
Still. She trusted her instincts with men as much as she would trust a coiled rattlesnake.
“Well, that’s… Thank you. I appreciate you looking out for me.” She couldn’t believe she’d let herself be that vulnerable with him. That had been stupid. She was lucky he hadn’t taken advantage.
“You’re welcome. And for the record, I’d been planning to make you breakfast before you left.”
“Oh.” Her face went hot. But no way she would’ve stuck around for that. Way too awkward even if she’d known then that they hadn’t slept together. “I’m not really a breakfast kind of person.”
He frowned. “Who doesn’t like breakfast?”
She fought the smile trying to creep across her face. “Me.” Lies. She loved breakfast. She just usually worked so late that she slept through it. “I’m a brunch girl.”
“Okay, note to self. I owe you brunch.”
“You don’t owe me anything. And I’ll be leaving soon anyway. Speaking of which, I need to go. Bye.”
She hurried away before he could say anything else. Before he could soften her enough to make her change her mind.
Because something about him tempted her way too much. And she would never allow herself to be betrayed by a man again.
“Sugar,” Blaine repeated dumbly, to make sure he’d heard Rafe right. “Samantha put fucking sugar in the oil tank?” It was so amateur. So stupid. And yet effective. He and Xanthe were lucky to still be here.
Rafe sighed over speaker phone. “Yeah. That’s right. Don paid her to mess with the plane. That’s why he was at the dock that night.”
“How much?”
“Forty grand.”
Forty grand. Was that the going rate for three murders these days? “She confessed to everything?”
“This morning. In a plea deal to avoid a longer sentence.”
Next to him, Xanthe set her laptop aside and shot up to stalk toward his office window.
She’d been looking at video footage she’d gathered from various sources on the west side of the island, looking for any evidence that might explain what had caused the members of K Pod to strand on the beach that day.
“I wish I could walk into that cell in Seattle and have five minutes alone with her,” she muttered.
“I’ll go with you,” Maddy said from the other desk they’d set up for her across from his, picking at a tray of sliced fruit Xanthe had put together for them.
She was helping them conduct their own investigation, digging deeper into financials, tracking the flow of the dirty money involved, and reviewing any video footage they could get from around the research station and Xanthe’s cabin.
“I’ll stand watch outside while you’re in there, then wipe all evidence from the security feeds on the way out.” She popped a piece of banana into her mouth.
“It fits,” Blaine said, thinking it all through.
He’d never believed Don had the skills or knowledge to tamper with the plane himself. But Samantha had been in the hangar dozens of times, and she was a scientist. Wouldn’t be hard for her to research what to do.
“The oil tank in that plane was easily accessible,” he added. “It wouldn’t have been hard once she got into the hangar. Pour enough sugar in, and it would eventually clog the line. Seize the engine.”
Which it had. The plan might have been sloppy, but it had worked.
“Charlie didn’t notice anything during the pre-flight check,” said Rafe. “The investigators will test for traces of it in the recovered wreckage, but yeah. Exactly.”
Xanthe shook her head, rage pulsing off her in waves. “She killed Charlie, almost killed both of us too. I can’t believe she would hate me enough to do all of this…”
“Bitterness, jealousy, and don’t forget the money,” Maddy said. “I doubt she would’ve risked getting caught tampering with the plane without the money Don paid her.”
Blaine finished the call and went over to stand behind Xanthe. He slid his arms around her middle, pulled her to his chest. “She’ll go to prison for a long time.”
Xanthe nodded, relaxed against him.
He nuzzled her temple. “Love you.”
She squeezed his healed forearm in response. “So things have to go up from here, right? No more death and chaos.”
“No more,” he whispered.
She nodded again. “Maddy. Please tell me you have some awesome piece of intel for me to start the climb out of this mess?”
Maddy pushed out a deep breath. “I think I might have something, yeah.”
“Really?” Blaine asked. “Since when?”
“Just now.”
He and Xanthe hurried over to look at her monitor. “What is that?” Something under the water.
Maddy squinted, tried to tighten the focus. The image was already zoomed in as far as it could go, but the dark shape under the water was still hazy.
It wasn’t a whale. Too big. Were they just seeing things?
“I thought there was no reported military activity in the area that day?” he said to Xanthe.
“That’s what I was told. Lachlan confirmed the same after talking to his contacts.”
“Well, I don’t know about you,” Maddy said as she looked up at them, “but that sure as hell looks like some kind of a submarine to me.”