Chapter Twenty-One
EMERY
I AM SO fuming mad at Reid that I am barely out of the lot before I have to pull over and calm my nerves.
He showed up—of course he did—but not until I was halfway through.
He didn’t stand there with me. In fact, the only time he stood was when they shut me down, and he still didn’t say anything.
All of that shouldn’t make me mad. He told me not to do this; he told me it would fall on deaf ears.
I guess I’m mad because the only time he really spoke up for me was when that slimeball hit on me on the way out.
He was so jealous he couldn’t see straight.
Like some scum bag matters more than what I came here to say tonight.
I tap the CarPlay button on my car’s center screen and call Lena. She answers immediately.
“Hey there, my long-lost best friend,” she coos, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Just hearing her voice soothes my nervous system.
“I’m sorry,” I whine. “I know I’ve been a terrible friend.”
“Not terrible…” Lena drags out the word. “I just haven’t heard from you in way too long. I’m codependent.”
A laugh slips out of me, and it gives me the calm I need to start driving again. “Things here have just been kind of crazy.”
“Crazy?” Lena sounds disbelieving. “I thought you said things were boringly quiet.”
“Ordinarily, I suppose they are but…”
“Okay, sis, start at the beginning. I’m getting comfortable,” Lena says.
I turn the Prius onto my little driveway. Much as I want to unload on her, I don’t have time to explain because there, parked in front of my little cottage, is a familiar navy-blue pickup truck. I pull up alongside him and put the car in park.
“Ugh,” I groan, hitting the steering wheel with my palm. “How did he beat me here?”
“Uh…Em?” Lena asks uncertainly. “Did you forget I’m here?”
“No,” I grumble, pressing my head back on the seat and closing my eyes. “I just…have to have it out with someone now. That I wasn’t planning on dealing with tonight.”
“Oooh, a fight? Leave me on speaker.” Lena sounds downright gleeful.
“Um…no. It’s either going to be a knock down drag out or it’s going to be super-fast when I show him the door.” I instinctively reach for my lip gloss. The kind that makes my lips tingle and plump up. I don’t know why I do it. I’m annoyed at myself for it.
“Oooh…him? Is he hot?” Lena asks excitedly. I imagine her curled up in the recliner, feet tucked under her with her glass of wine and smutty romance novel, and suddenly I miss her so much it aches. “I feel like you could use a hot fisherman rebound.”
I let out a laugh, and it loosens the aggravation weighing heavy in my chest. “You’re insane, you know that? I’ll call you back.”
We hang up, and I move toward my screened porch. Reid is already out of his truck, leaning against the front bumper.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, crossing my arms with a glare.
“You don’t have to be so hostile, Doc.” Reid meets my eyes and steps closer to me, the corners of his mouth twitching like my anger at him is funny. “Trust me, you don’t want Dale showing you around his docks.”
I shove his hard chest, so he stumbles back up against his bumper. “That’s not why I’m mad at you.”
“Then why are you mad?” He frowns, as if the reason is really lost on him.
I bound up the steps and unlock the door, pushing it open. He follows me inside, shutting the door more forcefully than I’d expect. I whirl on him, ready to give him a piece of my mind.
“I’m the one who should be mad at you.” He beats me to it, crossing his arms. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
I hold my chin higher and meet his angry gaze. “I was thinking that they need to know what’s happening out there. That if they saw the data—”
“Trust me. They know and they don’t give a shit about your data, Emery,” Reid growls. “All you did was paint a target on your back that says, ‘Look at me, catching you in a crime!’ Guess what? Now they’re looking.” His tone stings.
I swallow, refusing to flinch. “You don’t get it. They were already looking. They were already targeting me. Probably Dr. Young, too.”
He jerks his head like he doesn’t believe me.
“What are you talking about? No one pays any attention to the marsh. Except that it gets them where they need to go. No one knew about you and your turtles until you brought it to their attention tonight. So yeah, you called attention to yourself. Now if they’re really running drugs through there, and you get in their way… ” He doesn’t finish his sentence.
I grab my notebook off the counter and shove it open between us, showing him the pages filled with maps and pings.
“Look at my data, clusters of turtles in one place for too long, pings that have just dropped off. And then Trixie and her missing tag.” My voice catches.
I have to make him see why this matters.
“Trixie?” Reid’s brows knit together.
“The turtle we found. Kayla named her.” I sigh, plopping into a dining chair. “They know what they’re doing and I’m a threat to them.”
Reid shakes his head. “Why would they even bother messing with the turtles? It’s not like they’re smuggling them.”
“They don’t care about the turtles,” I snap. “They care about the tags.”
He freezes, eyes narrowing.
“Every transmitter logs movement,” I press on, voice sharp with adrenaline.
“Locations, times, routes. The turtles are living GPS markers, Reid. They can’t lie.
They swim the same channels every night.
When an obscure boat starts cutting through at two a.m., their paths shift.
They dive. They scatter. Sometimes they’re dead the next morning.
When I plot it out, it shows a heat map of abnormal activity. ”
Reid looks skeptical, and it’s taking every ounce of resolve I have not to shout in his face.
The words come faster now, all the fury and fear boiling over.
“Sure, ordinarily they’d pay no mind to the wildlife.
But if they see a tag, they care. They don’t need to know why they’re tagged.
All they see is a device glued to a shell and it looks like surveillance.
For all they know, they could think the DEA put them on the shells.
So, they rip them off. Erase the evidence.
” My throat tightens. “They think of the turtles as spies.”
The cottage goes silent, Reid’s jaw ticks. He drags a hand down his face, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he looks shaken.
“Jesus, Doc,” he says, softer now. “You just made this a hell of a lot more dangerous.”
Silence hangs in the air between us, both of us lost in our own thoughts. It’s me who speaks first.
“What do I do then?” My voice is quiet.
“Lay low,” Reid mutters, with a shrug. “You don’t have to quit. Just…change how visible you are. No more obvious traps. No more routines they can track. Stay out of their way.”
I scowl at him. “And just let these innocent animals be trampled on?”
“Emery. This is your life. You are worried about the turtles now, but what’s going to happen when they figure out that it was you who saw the murder in the marsh?” Reid paces, angrily running his palm over his buzzed head. “This is serious.”
His tone startles me, and I curl my legs up to my chest. “Okay. I’ll pull my traps. For now. Just until things quiet down.”
“Give it a day or two,” Reid suggests. “Let them think they scared you off.”
“Okay.” I nod, sucking in a breath. “I’ll do that.”
“Thank you.” Relief washes over his face. “I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I know,” I say with a sigh. “I was just trying to protect them.”