Chapter 1 #2
The chopper came in low, noise hitting hard, then the rush of displaced air.
Buddy stepped onto the bow and windmilled an arm twice—here, here—and the pilot adjusted, hovering the disc of metal and rotors as close as they could. The wash picked up a mist of swamp water that salted Buddy’s lips and turned everyone into slow-motion ghosts.
Fallon and the men heaved the girl onto the airboat’s deck while the helicopter’s medic team lowered a basket.
Trent, Cullen, and Fallon secured the young woman in the basket.
Buddy’s chest clenched. That girl couldn’t have been older than fourteen.
Sixteen tops. He shoved the thought where it belonged—behind a locked door he refused to open in daylight.
This wasn’t his case. It wasn’t pulling a paycheck. It wasn’t his problem.
Fallon, Trent, and Cullen steadied the basket as the medic team pulled it into the chopper. Once secured inside, the helicopter banked right and took off toward the hospital.
Fallon looked toward the skiff. “Thanks for signaling them.”
“Anytime,” Buddy replied.
“It’s good to see you. Good to have you back in Calusa Cove,” she said, a smile breaking slightly. “Heard you rented Hayes and Chloe’s old place. Have you moved in yet? You know, I live right behind it. White house. Blue shutters.”
“Moved in last night, if you could call it that and yeah, I heard from Chloe that you were living there.”
A police boat nosed in. Dawson stood at the helm with Chloe standing beside him, hand on the rail, hair snarled by rotor wash. Their body language screamed all business. Tape would go up where tape never made sense, and someone would try to account for what the water wanted to hide.
Buddy didn’t miss this—most of it anyway.
Sterling tapped Buddy’s elbow. “We done?”
“Almost.” Buddy stepped across to Fallon’s airboat, careful of his boots and where they landed.
“You good?” He held her gaze. Same crisp blue eyes.
Same determined gaze. Same freaking everything.
She was not only beautiful but also intelligent, driven, and outspoken.
He liked that. Maybe a little too much. But he also knew a bit about her history and in part, that might’ve been why he was drawn to her. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
She wrung swamp water from the end of her braid with a quick twist and pointed with her chin toward the mangroves.
“I don’t believe she was in there long. If she’d been floating, the gators would’ve had her, and honestly, it looked to me like someone hung her shirt on the groves purposely.
Like they wanted her out here to die, but wanted someone to see her, which is strange all by itself.
Not many people come back here. Wouldn’t have found her had Trent and Cullen not been illegally fishing. ”
Buddy chewed on that thought for a moment. “What did you see on her? Notice any markings? Brusing?” He couldn’t stop his brain from going through the motions if he tried, especially when it involved dead bodies.
Fallon’s mouth flattened. “Wrist grooves. Fresh. Zip ties, wide. Ankles too. One sneaker. Mud on it that isn’t from here—grain is finer, lighter color. There was a smell…not swamp. Cleaner or fuel, maybe.”
Buddy glanced at Sterling, who’d taken out his phone and was tapping on the screen—taking notes, no doubt, he was good that way. “Okay.”
Dawson cut his engine and drifted in, his gaze tracking everything at once. He might be a small-town police chief, but he had big-city instincts. “Nobody moves until I say so,” he called. “We’re going to do this right. Fallon, you holding the line?”
“Copy,” Fallon said. She lifted her voice without raising it. “Trent, Cullen—I’m going to need you to stay put for a little while longer.”
Trent lifted both palms and smiled like a man who expected the lecture and might bring donuts later to make it square. Cullen didn’t smile at all. His eyes were on the water, dark and far away.
Chloe hopped down to Fallon’s deck and touched her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Fallon’s gaze slid back to Buddy and held it, like she needed… something, but he didn’t know what.
“Hey Buddy,” Chloe said. “I’m gonna need you to stay outside my chain unless requested.”
“Understood.” He meant it.
He also meant to be useful.
Dawson tossed a roll of tape to Chloe. “Box off the root line. Fallon, walk me through your approach and extraction, then start your report. Trent, Cullen, I’m gonna want to hear what you have to say now and then, statements at the station. Don’t make me chase you.”
“Yes, sir.” Trent using the word “sir” was new. But Dawson had earned the respect of all of Calusa Cove within the first few months he’d rolled into town, so it wasn’t all that surprising.
Cullen nodded once.
“Sterling,” Buddy said, keeping his voice low. “Grab three wide shots of the canopy gaps and the waterline. From our boat only. Nothing on her deck. No angles that step on their chain.”
Sterling raised his phone once, twice, three times—deliberate, respectful—and pocketed it. “Done.”
Buddy looked at the water where the girl had been, noticing how long it took the surface to settle at the edge of the roots. A faint, opalescent sheen winked there, almost invisible under shade.
“See that?” he murmured.
“Fuel,” Sterling said. “Or cleaner. Trace.”
“From where she came, not from here,” Buddy said. The current pushed left. The sheen drifted right, lazy, as if it had seeped from still water to moving water. “Fallon.” He pointed to the spot Sterling had noted.
“Already got it.” She turned her attention back to Dawson.
Fallon gave Dawson her sequence. She didn’t dramatize, didn’t soften, just laid it out in succinct lines that made Buddy’s admiration click into place. When she finished, she finally let out a breath that sounded like it hurt to hold.
Dawson flicked his gaze to Buddy. “You two done helping?”
“For now,” Buddy said. “We’ll get out of your way.”
“I’ll need statements. I’ll call when I’m headed back to the station.
” Dawson pointed a finger at Buddy’s chest. It wasn’t unfriendly.
They’d done the jurisdiction dance once or twice and always worked well together.
But that was when Buddy carried a badge.
He didn’t have that added layer anymore.
And honestly, he was damn glad about that.
“And don’t backseat the case from your couch. ”
Buddy did his best to put on an innocent face. It probably didn’t convince anyone.
They pushed off. Sterling took the tiller without being asked, and the skiff drifted back into the open water. Buddy stood with a hand on the rail and watched he could no longer see her.
They ran the skiff slowly until the channels widened and the air thinned. Buddy’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown local number. He opened it.
Fallon.
His heart did a little jump in his chest.
Thanks for the help. Would love to grab a cup of coffee or have a drink to catch up. It’s been a while.
Buddy stared at the screen for a beat, then tucked the phone away without answering. Not because he didn’t have words. But he didn’t think texting her back in the middle of a crime scene was appropriate.
Then again, his thoughts weren’t all that appropriate anyway.
He sighed. She was too young and not his type. Of course, neither of those things were really true. She might be ten-ish years younger, but they were both adults. And she was exactly the kind of woman he liked—in every way.
Which made her fucking dangerous.
“Let’s get back to work,” Buddy said.
Sterling nodded and fed the engine. The skiff lifted and slid forward, leaving the rot-stink and the secrets to ferment behind them.
Ahead, the channel widened to a bright scar of sun and Buddy reminded himself that his days searching for answers regarding murder, death, and missing girls were long over.
That’s not what he was paid to worry about, and he needed to focus on other things.
Not this case.
And certainly not Fallon Reeves.