Chapter 5
Five
RIOS
Noise spilled out of the open windows of the Brewhouse onto the outer porch.
Fans whirred overhead, stirring the heavy air.
The smell of fried fish and malted hops drifted in lazy waves.
This time of day, it was mostly locals, who’d emerged now that the lunch wave of tourists had gone off for a nap or back to the beach to bake themselves all afternoon.
Sawyer spotted me first and waved from the back deck. “’Bout time, man. We were starting to wonder if you’d decided to steal Hoyt’s boat and make a run for Aruba.”
I slid into the empty chair. “I considered it.”
Ford snorted, one corner of his mouth quirking. “You always did like to make an entrance.” The tattoos on his forearms shifted as he leaned back, sunlight catching on the edge of his tea glass. “You eat yet?”
“Not since breakfast.”
I’d put in my obligatory appearance at Caroline’s first thing.
She was still giving me The Eye—something she’d perfected since her offspring had been born—and I was gonna have to actually tell her the truth about my presence here, since, by everyone’s expectations, I should still be deployed.
But I wanted to talk it over with my brothers first, so here I was.
Ford flagged the waitress with two fingers.
I put in an order for the blackened fish of the day and a Coke.
Once she’d left, the three of us fell into the kind of silence that only happens when you’ve spent years earning it.
No pressure to fill the gaps, no need to pretend.
Just the hum of conversation around us and the creak of the boards under our boots.
Ford was the first to break it. “So, you gonna tell us what’s really going on, or do we get to guess?”
I huffed a quiet laugh. “That obvious?”
Sawyer leaned back in his chair. “You’ve been back for near to a week. Not like you to hang around this long between deployments. We figured something was up.”
“Yeah.” I let my fingers drum once against the table before flattening them. “Something’s up.”
Ford’s gaze sharpened. “You taking a new posting?”
“No, nothing like that.” I took a breath and let it out slow. “I’m out.”
That earned a synchronized blink from both of them.
“Out as in—?” Sawyer prompted.
“As in done. Separated. Or will be once the paperwork is done processing.”
Ford sat forward, forearms braced on the table. “What the hell happened?”
The waitress came with our food, and I waited until she’d walked off before answering.
“There was a case. Someone who’s been preying on female sailors.
One of them was a friend of mine.” My mouth flattened as I remembered how I’d found Bridget brutalized because she’d fought back.
“I started an investigation. Gathered enough statements and evidence to show a pattern going back a decade or more. A senior commander who believed his position entitled him to do any damned thing he pleased to whomever he wanted. But when I tried to run the case up the chain of command, I hit a wall of brass and old favors. They shut it down.”
Ford’s jaw tightened. “You pushed anyway.”
“Yeah. And they pushed back. Made me an offer—early separation with full honors, clean record, and a quiet exit. The alternative was a long, ugly fight that wouldn’t end with me in uniform or the son of a bitch behind bars where he belongs.”
Sawyer’s eyes darkened. “So you took the honorable route.”
“If you can call it that.” I picked up my fork, stabbed a piece of fish, didn’t eat it. “I took the route that didn’t end with me losing everything I’d built since I was twenty.”
“The route that forced you to walk away while a predator is allowed to go free,” Sawyer observed.
My teeth ground together at the reminder. “Yeah. They strongly encouraged the officer to retire, and so far as I’m aware, he took it. But it’s cold comfort.”
“That’s bullshit,” Ford said.
“Welcome to the military justice system.”
For a long moment, none of us spoke. Somewhere inside, a blender started up. Somebody laughed too loudly at a bar joke. The ordinary sounds of life moved around us like nothing had shifted, even though everything had.
Ford finally said, “You did the right thing.”
I kept my eyes on the distant sparkle of Pamlico Sound. “Doesn’t feel like it. I had six women who trusted me to protect them, and they got to watch the bastard walk away with a handshake and a pension. And I got to pack my life into two duffels and pretend like it was mutual.”
“Hell of a thank you,” Sawyer muttered.
“Yeah.” I jerked my shoulders, wishing I could banish the images that still haunted my nights. “So now I’m here. Trying to figure out what the hell comes next.”
Ford leaned back again, processing. “You thinking about staying?”
Once the answer would’ve been an unequivocal no.
But despite the pain this place had caused me, my family was here.
My friends were here. A part of me would always feel like Hatterwick was home.
“Haven’t decided yet.” I chased a drop of condensation down my glass with my thumb.
“Feels different this time. The island, I mean.”
“I mean, it is different now,” Sawyer said. “Now everybody knows Miles is the reason Gwen disappeared.”
“Folks are still clutching their pearls over him killing David Galef last year,” Ford added.
Yeah, I knew all of that. And yet. “People knowing our illustrious former mayor was more of a shit than they were aware doesn’t automatically make them ready to rewrite the story. It’s one thing to know the villain wasn’t me. It’s another to look me in the eye and admit it.”
Ford’s expression softened. “Most people know better now.”
“Most people,” I repeated. “Not all.” Some would always look at me and see a brown man from the wrong side of the island. Someone less.
The waitress came back with refills. Sawyer thanked her; Ford tossed a few fries onto my plate like I needed moral support in the form of carbs.
“Hey, you could do worse than staying here awhile,” Sawyer said. “Plenty of work. I can always use another set of hands on construction sites. And the marina is perpetually short staffed this time of year. Plus, you’re half local legend. Some people actually like you.”
I smirked. “You and Ford don’t count as a majority.”
“That’s debatable,” Ford said. “We’re the two loudest.”
The easy laughter helped bleed off the edge. For the first time in weeks, my chest didn’t feel like it was caught in a vise.
Then I said the thing I hadn’t planned to. “Madden Reilly’s back.”
Sawyer froze mid-bite. Ford’s brows shot up.
“You’re serious?” Ford said.
“Yeah. She’s on the boat next to mine.”
Ford sat back hard enough to make his chair creak. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. She came over yesterday.”
Sawyer’s tone went skeptical. “Why?”
“To apologize.” I took a sip of Coke. “Said she was sorry for what she said. For believing the rumors. For piling on.”
Ford let out a low whistle. “That’s… rich.”
“It’s something.” I hadn’t known what to think or say about it, so I’d said nothing, watching her walk away to the slip next door. “She looks like she’s been through hell.” Whatever her story was, it was written all over her.
I’d taken one look at her and seen the fragility that sat on her shoulders like a mantle of glass, and I’d wanted to step in and do… what? Protect her? Comfort her? Some asinine heroic bullshit that was an absolute no go even before I realized exactly who she was.
“Something about getting fired from her prosecutor job, according to the gossip mill,” Ford said. “Maybe she got what she deserved.”
“I’m not sure about that. No matter what she said to me back when, I can’t take satisfaction in the fact that she looks like she’s emotionally had the shit kicked out of her.”
And damned if those earnest hazel eyes didn’t still pull at me.
Sawyer leaned back in his chair. “Means you’re still a better man than a lot of this town.”
“She was right about one thing—it doesn’t change anything,” I said. “But it’s more than most people have ever said.”
Ford shook his head. “I’d have paid money to see that conversation.”
“Wouldn’t have been worth much. She spoke for thirty seconds. We stared each other down for a few more. Then it was done.”
But apparently she was going to be next door, and I had to figure out what to do with that.
The sun had shifted enough that the awning’s shade crawled across the table. My fish was cold, but I picked at it anyway.
Needing a subject change, I glanced up. “Anybody heard from Jace beyond what he said in the group text about Ford’s proposal?”
“Not for a few weeks,” Sawyer admitted. “Last I heard, he’s still somewhere classified. Willa’s hoping he’ll make it home sometime this fall for a visit.”
“Think he’s a lifer?” Ford asked.
Sawyer leaned back and considered, now Jace’s brother-in-law as well as brother-in-bond, as we all were. “Maybe. The guy doesn’t exactly know how to do normal.”
Ford snorted. “None of us do. You forget how to when half your adult life’s been lived by orders.”
Sawyer tipped his chair back, squinting toward the parking lot through the slats of the deck rail. “That or we just get used to the noise in our heads.”
He wasn’t wrong. The silence after structure had a way of turning on itself, filling up with the ghosts of should-haves and what-ifs. That static had followed me since the day I packed out of base housing.
I caught movement at the edge of the parking lot. A woman moving too fast for the heat, head down, stride clipped like she was chasing something she couldn’t quite catch. Astrid Thompson. She blew past the line of parked bikes and tourists, eyes on her phone as she furiously tapped at the screen.
Ford followed my line of sight. “She’s on a mission.”
“She’s worried.” Even from here, I could see the tight set of her shoulders.
Astrid didn’t even glance our way as she cut through the entry toward the main bar. A moment later the door swung shut behind her, muffling the burst of sound from inside.
“What do you suppose that’s about?” Sawyer asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing good.” Over the course of my career, I’d seen the faces of too many people who were close to their wit’s end to dismiss it as something benign.
When Astrid emerged a few minutes later, her mouth was set in a hard line. She moved to the nearest table, speaking to the occupants and flashing her phone as if showing a photograph. Looking for someone or something.
I was already out of my seat headed for her before I’d consciously made up my mind. “Astrid? Something wrong?”
She exhaled a breath. “Hey, Rios. I hadn’t heard you were back on-island.”
“Haven’t been for long. What’s going on?”
Her gaze shifted as Ford and Sawyer joined us. “One of my grad students is missing.”
She angled her phone so we could see the screen. An early twenty-something girl with wind-blown dark hair and a shy smile.
“She didn’t show up for work this morning, and nobody’s seen or heard from her. I feel like I’ve looked everywhere.”
Another missing girl.
For just a moment, I flashed back to that long ago summer, when we’d combed every inch of this island looking for Gwen. We knew now why we hadn’t found her. If we’d started sooner, right after the party, would it have made a difference? I had no idea. But I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
“When did you last see her?”
“Last night on the beach during hatching observation.”
“And what time was that?”
Astrid scrubbed a hand down her face. “Um… it would’ve been around eleven-thirty, I think.
I don’t know for sure since I don’t have her paperwork documenting.
I didn’t think anything at first. Kids oversleep.
But when she didn’t show by ten, I got worried and called.
No answer. Then I went by her apartment. No answer there either.”
My brain was already running scenarios as I continued asking questions. “Does she have a roommate? A boyfriend? Somewhere else she might’ve spent the night?”
“No roommate. It’s just a teeny studio rental. And no boyfriend that I’m aware of.”
“Could she have picked somebody up at a bar?” Sawyer asked. “Some of them are open ’til the wee hours this time of year.”
“I suppose anything is possible, but she’s never struck me as the type.”
“And she’s never done something like this before?” I pressed.
“No. Never. She’s the one who keeps all my other students in line.”
“Have you spoken to the police?”
“I tried to file a report before I came here, but they said since she’s an adult and it hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, and there’s no obvious sign of foul play, they can’t do anything.”
There were dozens of entirely valid reasons for the girl not to show.
But after my years as a military cop, I had even more horrific scenarios in my head.
The twenty-four-hour rule existed procedurally for a reason, but I well knew that a fuckton could go wrong in that span of time.
If it had, time would be of the essence.
I exchanged a look with Ford and Sawyer and got nods from them both. One corner of Ford’s mouth hooked into a wry smile. “You can take the cop out of the Navy…”
Astrid brightened faintly. “You’re police?”
“I was naval police, yes.”
She set a hand on my arm. “Will you help?”
“I’ve got no jurisdiction here, but I can absolutely help you ask around. I’m gonna need some more information.”