Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The office building, owned by a local land and real-estate developer, had a smell all its own—old plaster and humidity, faint mildew baked into the paint, and the faint trace of furniture polish someone had used a decade ago.
It was the scent of things that had survived the Florida coast a little too long.
Buddy shifted the box under his arm, felt sweat start at the back of his neck even though it wasn’t nine a.m. yet.
The air inside carried the hum of window units that never quite kept up.
He passed a flickering fluorescent light and caught the sound of a voice up ahead—low, familiar, full of good humor.
“Hey, Decker,” Buddy called, stepping into the light. “Heard you’re finally getting married. Congratulations.”
Decker Brown, the owner of the building, turned from his office door with a grin so bright it made his face look ten years younger.
He wore a crisp shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie loose like he’d already survived one meeting.
Truth be told, he’d survived a lot more than that, and this town, especially Fletcher and Baily, owed him a bit of gratitude for his role in taking down a crime family and securing the future of their marina and the Crab Shack.
However, Decker didn’t see it that way. No, he believed this town saved him.
“Thanks. Be on the lookout for an invite. It’s not gonna be a big wedding. Or all that formal. Just the good people of Calusa Cove at the community center.”
“Silas will love that. He says that place doesn’t get used near enough.”
“He’s been doing a potluck dinner there every other month for the last six months. Seems to be working out. We’ve gone almost every time. It’s fun. I think this next one he’s trying to get a band, but knowing him, it will be swing music.”
Buddy smiled. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“I suppose, but I can barely move across the dance floor without tripping over my own feet.” Decker pocketed his keys.
“Got a meeting—redevelopment project for the old theater on Main. Whole place smells like mold and nostalgia, but we’ll make something out of it. Calusa Cove needs a little more hope.”
Buddy nodded once. “We all do.”
Decker pointed at the box in Buddy’s arms. “Looks heavy. You building your own theater?”
“Just rattling some old skeletons,” Buddy said.
Decker laughed like he hadn’t heard the truth in it. “Well, if you ever decide to trade security work for construction, I’ll put you on payroll.”
“Not my skill set.” Buddy shifted the box. “I break things. I don’t build them.”
Decker clapped him on the shoulder and headed out into the sunlight. “I see the beauty in broken things. And then I like to take the cracks and fill them with sunshine.”
Buddy tossed his head back and laughed. Hard.
“Yeah, I heard how corny that was.”
Buddy turned down the hallway, past an insurance agency that smelled like cheap aftershave and printer toner, until he reached his office. The frosted glass bore no name—kind of the point.
He pushed through the door.
Inside, the air was marginally cooler. The old ceiling fan wobbled as it rotated. The walls were lined with corkboards and whiteboards—ghosts of old cases still faintly visible where the marker hadn’t fully erased.
Sterling sat on the edge of the desk with a cup of coffee that smelled faintly of burned chicory. Dove perched on the windowsill, sunlight through the blinds cutting stripes across her arms. She was barefoot, hair tied in a knot that said she hadn’t slept, tablet balanced on her knee.
“Morning,” Buddy said, setting the box down on the table.
“Right back at you.” Sterling stared at the box. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah.” Buddy pried the lid open. “Simon Court. My own notes. The stuff I kept when I shouldn’t have.”
Dove raised an eyebrow. “Define shouldn’t have.”
Buddy gave her a look. “Let’s call it professional insurance.”
Sterling leaned forward. “You’re sure you want to dredge that back up? You didn’t exactly come out of that case whole.”
“I resent that statement.” Buddy stared at the papers, the curling corners, the black ink of names that still knotted his chest. “Besides, either this bastard is back, or someone wants me to think he is,” he said quietly. “Might as well face him on my terms.”
He started pulling out folders—his handwriting on half the labels, tight and precise, because somewhere down the pike, he’d learned the art of being a perfectionist. Drove Chloe crazy.
Drove everyone he worked half nuts. “These are my field notes. Cross-checks. Map overlays. Unofficial witness statements. Copies of images I really shouldn’t have snapped from FBI files. ”
Dove stood at the edge of the desk and stared. “I thought you were a rules man.”
“I am, until someone pushes me too far. Simon kicked my ass off the fucking cliff.” He spread the files across the desk like cards in a hand he hated holding.
Dove bent over, hands behind her back, and closed one eye like she was looking through the scope of a rifle. “You’ve got a hell of a system for a guy who hates paperwork.”
“I used to love it,” he admitted. “It helped me make sense of things. Only, how can you make sense of girls who vanish without a trace?”
They worked quietly for a while, tacking photos and notes onto the corkboard. The hum of the fan filled the silence, along with the faint sound of gulls over the water. Outside, Calusa Cove went about its routine — engines, distant laughter, the low moan of a boat horn cutting through humidity.
Sterling broke the quiet first. “Who’s watching Fallon?”
“Cullen,” Buddy said, not looking up, because he couldn’t. He needed to focus and thinking about Fallon would break that. Only, it had been broken the second she was out of his arms and out of sight. He’d wanted to tell her to call in sick. To come to work with him.
But that would make him look like a total prick, and he was on thin ice as it was.
Consequences were already playing out, except they weren’t the ones he’d expected. He thought he’d get squirrely. That he’d need more space. More room to breathe. That he’d want to sleep alone. Be alone.
But all he wanted was her, and that realization was more than he could handle.
Dove snorted. “Cullen Monroe? The guy with the twitch and the thousand-yard stare?”
“Yeah, that one.” Buddy’s gaze went from the files to the corkboard and back.
“I’m not sure he’s completely there,” Dove said.
Buddy turned, one corner of his mouth ticking.
“He’s earned the right to twitch. You’d have one too if you’d lived through what he did.
But he’s a good man. His dad is a native of Calusa Cove.
Cullen’s working on himself. And more importantly, he’ll protect Fallon.
He’s a Marine. And I’ve seen him in action. He’d take you down.”
“Still,” Dove said. “He stares like he’s trying to remember if I’m real.”
“He’s solid,” Buddy said, pinning up another photo. “Where it matters.”
Dove smirked. “So, you’re not worried he’ll try anything?”
Buddy stopped mid-motion. “What?”
“Come on. You spent the night at her place. Don’t play dumb.”
Buddy grabbed a tack and pressed it into the cork with more force than necessary. “That’s none of your business.”
Sterling let out a heavy sigh. “I’m apparently the only one not getting any in this entire town.”
Buddy shot him a dry look. “Heard you tried with the new owner of Massey’s Pub, Juniper. How’d that go again?”
Sterling groaned. “Not a total crash. She just said she was ‘rebuilding’ and not ready for distractions.”
“She meant you were the distraction,” Dove said.
“Funny.” Sterling pointed at her. “Says the woman who stayed at the hospital with Trent. Whole damn town’s gossiping about that one.”
“Let them gossip,” she said. “I like attention, but that’s over, although it never really got off the ground.”
“Not even a week, and yet, I’m not surprised.
” Buddy took a step back and stared at the board.
“You’re all exhausting.” And they were. But Timothy White, the head of the Jacksonville Division of the Aegis Network, had let Buddy pick his team to open this office.
It was his choice and as nutty and opposite as these two were, they were exactly who he wanted to have his back.
“And you’re deflecting,” Dove said. “Classic Buddy move.”
He ignored her and nodded toward the whiteboard. “Write this down. The words on the notes, and anything we know so far.”
Dove pulled the cap off the marker, her handwriting looping fast across the board:
MESSAGE:
—He couldn’t save them all.
—He won’t be able to save them all.
—Blue 42.
DETAILS:
—Marine epoxy resin + blue-gray silica dust
—Blue Heron Boat Tours, LLC—Possible Simon Court connection
Buddy leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. “Sterling, start calling manufacturers who use that compound.
There might be new ones since this case ended—distributors, boat builders, sealant suppliers—anyone in Florida who moves either compound, or both.
Find me someone off-book. Do whatever it takes.
They're not getting this stuff legally, and when I was with the FBI, my hands were tied way too tight. I had to go in with court orders and all that shit.”
“I know that feeling all too well.” Sterling nodded. “Got it.”
“Dove, find out what Blue 42 could be—call sign, boat name, coordinates, anything. Also, comb through the files and see if Blue and 42 come up in a combination that I might have missed.”
“On it,” she said.
Buddy rubbed a hand over his jaw, the scrape of stubble grounding him.
He hadn’t slept more than a few hours, and he could feel the edges of exhaustion in his bones.
But he couldn’t stop. The need to fix what was coming—it was the same impulse that had ruined his marriage and nearly killed him after.