Chapter 34
Those squiggly lines…they reminded Jack of something. They had a nostalgic feel, as if they were an echo from the past calling to him across the decades. As Tina drove away from the strip mall, he closed his eyes, summoning the image again.
It brought to mind a sense of adventure, of daring. Exploration. The tang of salt air. Kneeling on the porch floor staring at a…
“It’s a map,” he said suddenly.
“Excuse me?”
“The piece of paper in Jessie’s pocket. It’s a coastline.
There was one summer when Jessie and I wanted to walk around the entire shoreline of Sea Smoke Island, and my grandfather made us study the map first. We never did it, but I remember how intricate the coastline was. It looked exactly like that map.”
“You think it’s Sea Smoke Island?”
He shrugged. “I can’t say that I recognize it. Maybe it’s a different island, or even the mainland. But I’d bet anything that’s what it shows.”
“That fits in with our smuggling theory,” she said thoughtfully.
“Sure does. If we could superimpose this map over the outer islands, we could probably ID it.”
“Here.” She handed her phone to him. “Send the photo to Marigold. She’s lived on Sea Smoke her whole life. She might recognize that topography.”
As he was pressing send, her phone lit up with a call from Marigold herself. Tina nodded at him to answer.
“Officer Chen’s phone, Jack Finnegan here,” he said, putting it on speaker.
“Hi Jack. Where are you guys? Some shit just went down out here and I can’t get to the hospital to question Adam.” Her usual cheerful calm had been replaced with pure stress. “Can you go?”
Damn. Two strong leads pointing in two different directions. “We’re on our way to an address where Jessie might be.”
“Yeah, I get it. Your sister comes first. But what if she isn’t there, and Adam knows where she is, but he checks out of the hospital before anyone can interrogate him? Put Tina on.”
“I’m right here,” said Tina. “What’s up?”
“Benny Clyde was found dead today. It looks suspicious.”
Tina exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Jack. Shit just got even more serious. “Any more details?”
“Not that I can share. We got booted out of the investigation before it even started.”
“By who?”
“Folks with federal badges, that’s about all I know. But Luke doesn’t want me to go anywhere right now. Can you get to that hospital where Adam was taken? It’s not about me and my hurt feelings anymore. What if he’s connected to Benny’s death?”
“What makes you think he might be?”
“I saw them exchange a few words on the dock once. It didn’t look casual, but Adam brushed it off when I asked what they’d talked about. I can’t believe Benny’s gone. He was a hell-raiser, but he was ours, you know?”
They heard the sound of a soft sob.
“I’m sorry, Marigold. Listen, what do you know about Benny having a house in Harbortown?”
“Harbortown? No way. The Clydes hate Harbortown. They always crash at the Motel Six after a night out drinking.”
“Any chance that could have changed?”
“Well sure, I’m not their babysitter. I can ask Sandy, but she might slam the door in my face this time. She’s sick of me by now.”
“It’s okay, you have enough to juggle. Listen, I’ll see what I can do about Adam. I’ll be in touch.” She jabbed the “end call” button and swung the car in a wide curve so they were now going the other direction.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jack demanded.
“I saw an Avis back that way. You can take this car, I’ll rent another one.”
“You think we should split up? Seriously?”
She shot him a level look from behind the wheel. “Can you think of a better plan? If Seth Baker is connected to murder, I want to be on his ass. And I know you don’t want to wait any longer to see if Jessie’s in Harbortown.”
But…but…a million objections ran through his head. He wasn’t a police officer. What if Jessie was being held by people with guns? He had no idea what he was going to encounter. What if he made things worse?
“Hey.” She put a hand on his knee. “Just don’t do anything reckless. Scope it out. Let me know what you see and we’ll go from there. If there’s any need for backup, I’ll call it in for you. You’ve got this.”
She sounded a whole lot more confident than he felt. “Do I, though? I’m just an actor.”
“That is completely untrue.” She pulled into the lot of the Avis rental agency and jerked the car to a stop. “You are a smart, intuitive, empathic, creative man and you’re quick on your feet. Maybe too quick sometimes, so that’s my one warning. Don’t be reckless.”
She opened the door and hopped out.
He felt a sense of panic at the thought of parting ways—not because of what he would encounter, but because he liked being by her side so much. He didn’t want that to change. Being with her was…everything. “Wait a second.”
He slid out of the car and came around to the driver’s side. He cupped one hand around the back of her head. Even though she was substantially shorter than him, it always felt as if they stood eye to eye. “All those compliments, but I notice you left out handsome, charming and sexy.”
She flashed him a grin. “I guess some things go without saying.”
“Maybe. But maybe some things need saying. You be careful, promise? I don’t want…well, it turns out that you’ve become pretty important to me. I’m starting to feel like we’ve stumbled into something big.”
“Exactly.” Her eyes gleamed, and he detected not an ounce of fear in those beautiful black depths. She was in her element, a detective on the hunt, all her bloodhound instincts fully in charge. “I agree, there’s something huge going on here.”
“I mean, with us. You and me.”
“Oh.”
Damn. Had he called this all wrong? Was he the only one feeling sort of emotional in this moment? Hadn’t they formed a real connection, or was he completely off?
She lifted herself on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. “You might be right. Or it could be one of those crisis bonds. We won’t know until we’re on the other side of this. Can we talk about it then?”
“Yeah. Of course.” He felt a little foolish that he’d brought it up when he should be on the road to Harbortown. He started to turn away, but she yanked him back with a quick tug on his arm.
“Hey. You be careful too. Call me the second you get there. Whatever you do, take no action until we talk. Got it?”
“Got it.”
She kissed him then, and he caught her against his chest, and wished with every bone in his body that he didn’t have to let her go. He thought of Jessie, and how happy she’d looked with Seth. Happier than he’d ever seen her. Was this how she’d felt?
Something came back to him then, something Celine had said on the yacht. Does your sister always look this happy?
But Tina was already pulling away, focused on her next move in the investigation. So he smiled and gave her a salute and got into the beige Sentra and drove away from her.
It was strange to feel this inversion of how things were “supposed to be.” Wasn’t the woman “supposed” to be more sentimental?
The man more action-oriented? Maybe the concept of “supposed to” didn’t apply to Tina Chen.
She was her own unique person, and if he wanted to be with her, he’d have to understand that.
And maybe the concept of “supposed to” wasn’t helpful to anyone.
Maybe it was best to take things as they were and not try to force them into another shape.
In fact, he was pretty sure that was something he’d learned from Jessie, who was her own very unique person.
The drive to Harbortown only took two hours, but it seemed much longer since his damn brain kept going through every possible scenario—a truly special kind of torture, especially since he had ten seasons of Dark of Night episodes to give him plenty of nightmare material.
Women had been held captive in at least nine episodes, and had been rescued alive in only six of them.
He didn’t like those odds even if they were based on a TV show, not actual reality.
To distract himself, he turned on the radio and found a news station out of Portland.
Maybe the Benny Clyde story had made its way to the media by now.
Only really big island news got any attention from the local media.
It cost money to send reporters out to the islands, so it rarely happened. But if it was murder…
At the top of the hour, the local news headlines came on.
“Was it murder on the high seas? A Sea Smoke Island fisherman was found dead today,” said the newscaster.
“The body of Benjamin Clyde, known as Benny, was discovered by a lobsterman in a large holding tank used for temporarily storing lobsters. Authorities say foul play is suspected, but so far have made no arrests. The outer islands have historically been notorious for long-running feuds over lobstering territory, with the Clyde family often in the midst of those disputes. But up to this point, those conflicts have stopped short of murder. We have a reporter on his way to the scene, and will have more details as they develop.”
Jack thought about the rough-edged boy he’d known, with his metal band t-shirts and shoes that were always too small because he kept having growth spurts.
In the Clyde crew, he’d been the funniest, a real clown.
Jack had thought he was hilarious. He remembered laughing until he peed at Benny’s imitation of a lobster on weed.
Who would dare to attack Benny Clyde—or any Clyde? Everyone knew he’d have a whole posse of cousins backing him up. It would be like going after a mob boss. You’d best not miss.
He’d bet his next contract that no islander had done this, or even anyone from a nearby island.
The Clyde family was feared, sure, but also respected.
They often spoke up on local fishing issues.
Their input held real weight. And then there was the issue of retribution.
No one would want that smoke coming at them.
He called Luke, surprised when the constable actually answered.
“I just heard the news about Benny Clyde.”
“Yeah, it’s a shocker. You heard it on the news? Everyone and his brother’s been calling.” Luke sounded rushed, and no wonder.
“I don’t want to keep you, but I just wanted you to know that I think there might be a connection to my sister’s disappearance. She left a message for me that could implicate the Clydes.” He didn’t mention that the message was in the form of a plastic toy gun.
“Look, I appreciate it, but this entire investigation is out of my hands. I’m not in any kind of loop. They barely told me they’d ID’d the body.”
“Who is they?”
After a long pause, Luke said, “I probably shouldn’t tell you, but they’ve pissed me off, so here goes. It’s a joint task force. ATF is involved, and also some Canadians. It’s cross-border.”
“Cross border…so, smuggling?”
“It’s a good guess.”
“Smuggling what? You know Benny Clyde. What sort of thing would he get involved with? Guns? Drugs?”
“The thing about the Clydes is they’re hard to predict. I don’t see them being interested in transporting either guns or drugs. It would have to be something unusual.”
“Unusual…” That struck a chord with Jack. The idea that he and Tina had discussed, hard-to-get pharmaceuticals, maybe that was it.
“What are you thinking?” asked Luke. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Hey, I’m just a bystander. A TV actor. A bystanding TV actor.”
Luke snorted. “Don’t undersell yourself. Something tells me you and Tina Chen are in this up to your elbows. Gotta go. My ex-stepmother just showed up in the harbor—like I have time to deal with her.”
What was Celine doing there? Surely that couldn’t be a coincidence. “Just a heads up, Luke. We’ve dug up some information about Celine that—”
“You mean that she’s seeing Hendrik de Vries? Yeah, I know. She sure knows how to land on her feet.”
“Not that. Celine’s brother is the man who was engaged to Marigold, and also the man my sister was seeing.”
“What?”
“But I’m pretty sure all of this is connected. My sister’s disappearance, Celine showing up now, this task force, Clyde’s death…just keep your eyes open. And if you find out anything you think I should know…”
“You got it. We’ll have our own damn task force.”
“Exactly.” Jack spotted the exit sign for Harbortown. “Gotta go. Following up on a lead.”
“Listen to you. If you ever want to leave show biz, we might be able to use you here. So long as you don’t want to get paid.”
Jack laughed, and ended the call.
Following the directions given by his maps app, he soon found the house listed on the car’s registration.
He parked across the street and pulled out his phone as if he was making a call.
In case anyone got suspicious of a stranger loitering on this quiet street lined with maple trees.
Some of their leaves were starting to turn, and when the sun hit them, they shone a deep crimson red.
The neighborhood was all single-family homes, many in a classic Cape style with gables and white clapboard siding.
The house in question, 2268 Berwick, had shiny black shutters and a front door painted forest green. He could just go up and knock on it, pretend he’d gotten the address wrong if someone answered. He’d be able to tell a lot just from that type of interaction.
He was about to call Tina and tell her his plan when the door opened. A young woman stepped out. The sun slanting through the maple leaves lit up her hair in a collision of auburn and scarlet and he gasped out loud.
It was Jessie.
And yet, not Jessie.
She wasn’t moving like Jessie. His sister had a way of carrying herself that he’d recognize on any street in any country—one shoulder slightly raised to protect herself, her head tilted to take in any absurdity that caught her notice.
This woman walked as if she was lost in a dream.
As she walked down the front porch steps, she didn’t look in any direction other than straight ahead.
Was she sleepwalking? Would she even see him across the street?
He moved to roll down his window, then paused. Don’t be reckless. He could practically hear Tina’s warning. What if someone was watching her? Someone with a gun?
He stayed still, phone to his ear, as if he hadn’t even noticed the young woman walking down the street. Every nerve ending tingled with the urge to jump out of the car and grab his sister. But something else, even more powerful, was telling him not to move a single muscle.
As Jessie made her way down the sidewalk, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Why did she look so…off?
He pulled his key fob from the ignition and pressed the lock button. The sharp beep caught her attention and she looked his way.
And right through him. Completely indifferent. As if she’d never seen him before in her life.