The Bon Secour River flowed sluggishly off to the left side of the yard as Reid and Will Dixon headed to their SUV. Reid waved away a horde of mosquitoes buzzing his head. The bull alligator Will had named Brutus roared somewhere off to their right.
Reid caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror as he slid behind the wheel for a fishing trip with Will. Short black hairs were beginning to fill in the smoothness on Reid’s head. He actually was sporting a thatch.
He touched it, and his son caught the gesture. “Takes getting used to. Why are you growing it out anyway?”
Will wasn’t a kid who liked change, especially when it came to his dad, who had been the one steady support in his fifteen years.
Reid rolled down his window to breathe in the scent of early morning dew and newly mown grass. He started the car and pulled out of the drive while he thought about his answer. “I shaved it the day after we left the compound. I wanted to be a new person, the dad you needed. I wasn’t proud of my past and wanted to make a fresh start. It’s time to move beyond the guilt and shame.”
Will was sprouting like crazy, nearly Reid’s height now, and his muscles had filled out in the past two months. It would take a while for Reid’s hair growth to match his boy’s shaggy black mane.
“What did you have to be ashamed of, Dad? Your parents were the ones who took you into the cult. It wasn’t your choice.”
A complex question that had no easy answers. “I think back at how gullible I was and I’m ashamed, but I also deserted everything my dad worked for, and I’m not proud of that either.”
“But he killed your mom when you were ten.”
“No one ever said our emotions were easy.”
Will looked up from perusing his phone. “I got a text from Mom. She said to go fishing without her. She’s at a crime scene.”
Reid pulled into a parking spot by the Pelican Harbor marina. The first beams of daylight lit the bobbing boats with golden rays. Only a couple of months ago he’d owned one of the boats docked at a slip, but it had burned after an explosion meant to kill Jane. By the time the insurance came through, Lauren was skulking around demanding money, and he hadn’t dared spend a penny more than he had to.
He stepped out into the aroma of salt air mixed with freshly made beignets and lifted a hand in greeting to Alfie Smith, an old shrimper who had offered to take them out on his trawler today. Alfie was out on the pier fiddling with his boat. They’d thought to have a fun adventure on Jane’s day off, but plans for a law enforcement officer in a small town often ended up changed at the last minute.
“Cool, Alfie brought Isaac with him. Grandpa got a new drone, and I thought I’d see if Isaac wanted to come fly it with me.” Will slammed the truck door behind him. “Do you see Megan?”
Jane’s best friend and office dispatcher, Olivia Davis, had a pretty daughter a year younger than Will, and the two were as tight as clamshells. Alfie’s assistant, Isaac, was a handsome young man, and Reid would have thought Will wouldn’t want to share Megan’s attention.
Reid waved to the girl cutting through an alley toward them. “Here she comes.” He reached back inside the truck to grab the half bun of a sandwich he’d kept for the gulls.
The sun lit Megan’s brown ponytail with gold, and her smile was bright as she spotted Will. He walked over to meet her, but they didn’t touch. Reid grinned at the yearning on Will’s face. He knew the feeling well himself. A new relationship was as fragile as sea foam and just as beautiful.
He tossed bread crumbs to the gulls who squawked and hopped after them. “How’s your mom?”
Olivia had ALS, and her condition varied from day to day. Jane had hoped the disease was Lyme or something else, but those other tests had come back negative.
“She worked today. Did you hear about the fire?”
Will shook his head. “What fire?”
“Just out of town. I think there’s a fatality.”
“That’s probably where Mom is then.”
They were all part of the coconut telephone. One little snippet of information built on another until the whole town knew everyone else’s business. At least partly.
Reid dusted the crumbs from his fingers. “Do you know who died?”
“No, but it was at Gail Briscoe’s house.”
“I know that name,” Reid said. “She’s the one who found Nicole Pearson’s body.”
Had it only been a little over two months ago? It felt like an eternity since he’d come here to Pelican Harbor and made himself known to Jane. Since Will had met his mother. Since Reid had realized his feelings for Jane had never died.
Life would never be the same again.
“I think Alfie has Seacow ready to go out.” He led the way out to the old trawler.
Alfie had plied these waters over sixty years on his old boat, and the vessel looked its age in the same way the old man did with weathering from the constant exposure to sun and water. The hull boasted a fresh coat of paint, though the masts still creaked with age.
But it was a seaworthy vessel and a common sight in these waters. Everyone knew Alfie was the greatest shrimper ever to set sail from this port.
Reid clapped the old man on the shoulder. “Thanks for letting us tag along, Alfie.”
Alfie wore his long pants tucked into boots that used to be white. “It’s not going to be a picnic, son. I’ll expect you to work those muscles. You sure you’re up to it?”
He nodded. “I’m thirty-five, not a hundred. My ankle is healing, and I can work without injuring it more. It will be good for me.”
Alfie usually went out at night, but he’d made an exception for his passengers. He fixed his rheumy blue eyes on Reid, then motioned for them to come aboard. Once they were on deck, he stepped to the beam and loosened Seacow from her slip. She glided out into the bay’s smooth water.
A curl of smoke to the north as they exited the mouth of the river caught his attention. “I didn’t think camping was allowed there.” The small island was a wildlife habitat.
“Some folks got permission,” Alfie said. “Way I heard it, some survivalist group is staying out there.”
Reid’s breath caught in his lungs. “Know who they are?”
Alfie shrugged his shrunken shoulders. “Nope.”
It couldn’t be Liberty’s Children, could it? Reid wouldn’t put it past Gabriel to bring his hate to Reid’s doorstep. He had to find out.
* * *
Jane loved the little town under her protection. She drove along Oyster Bay Road past its quaint French Quarter–style buildings with lacy black railings. Apartments like hers were above the shops lining the brick sidewalks. Colorful flowers swayed in the hot breeze, and magnolia trees provided shade here and there in green spaces.
Once she hit the edge of town, she saw the smoke in the distance and headed that way. She parked behind her detective’s car and got out by a crape myrtle tree, blooming with profuse pink blossoms.
As she neared the smoldering ruins of a house, the stench of fire and smoke burned Jane’s lungs, and she coughed into the crook of her arm. The sun blazed down, turning the dew on the roof to mist. The heat from the fire tightened the skin on her face. She felt older than thirty this morning.
Her detective, Augusta Richards, exited the building, and Jane hurried to join her.
“What do we have, Augusta?”
Augusta had been part of the department a month, and she was married with two school-age kids. Augusta’s husband opened a sporting goods store downtown after they’d moved here from Mobile. The family had all taken to small-town life with gusto. Her tall, lanky figure was as placid as her soft brown eyes that missed nothing. Jane thanked God for her every day.
Augusta pulled off the respirator she wore. “Two bodies, Chief.” She reeked of smoke fumes.
“Two bodies?” Jane looked toward the low country shotgun house. She’d never been inside this one, but all those houses were the same—one room opened to the next and the next, right to the back of the house.
“We’ve got a dead firefighter as well as the owner, Gail Briscoe. An anonymous caller summoned the firefighters. They’d retrieved Gail’s body, then one of the firefighters rushed back inside without a word.”
“Who was it?”
“Finn Presley.”
Jane winced. Everyone liked Finn. About thirty and divorced, the young fireman could often be found at the hospital with his yellow Labs visiting the elderly and children. His loss would be felt by the whole town.
“Any idea who called it in?”
“Said he was a passerby and hadn’t seen anything. Just reporting the fire. I guess he didn’t want to get delayed with questions.”
“She’d been getting threatening calls, right?”
Augusta nodded. “And she had another one this morning. I talked to her right after it came through. This morning the caller said his usual, ‘I know what you did.’”
“What does that mean?”
“Gail claimed she didn’t know, but she was in such a panic, I suspect she just didn’t want to tell me.”
“I don’t like it. This could have been a homicide.”
“I think so too.”
Jane studied the house. A large V-shaped hole marked where the fire had been the hottest, and tendrils of smoke rose into the sky. The wind carried the strong stench of burned plastics, carpet, and any number of other items in the house. It was a smell not easily mistaken for any other kind of fire.
Movement caught her attention as two firemen exited with a gurney between them. The black body bag was a stark reminder of the tragedy.
Jane averted her gaze to gather her composure. “Finn?”
“Yes. Gail’s body is already en route to the morgue.”
They fell silent as the men loaded the body into the back of the ambulance. It pulled away silent and dark, with no urgency. No fast arrival at the hospital could save the young man.
The fire chief, Wayne Gardner, approached them. Jane jerked her head at the departing ambulance. “How’d he die?”
“A burning rafter fell on him. It broke his back, and he died instantly, as near as we can tell. Thank God.”
The crash of more falling timbers made Jane jump and take a step back. The crushing weight of two untimely deaths pressed down on her. This was her town and these were her people. Telling the loved ones was always hard.
Jane reached for her detective’s discarded respirator. “I’m going in.”
The fire chief stopped her. “It’s not safe, Chief. Overhead beams are still coming down. One barely missed me. The inside is still smoldering in places. I can’t allow anyone else to go inside until the fire is totally out. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to investigate.”
“A top arson investigator will be arriving in the morning from Mobile,” Augusta said.
Jane had been so used to doing everything on her own that she was still getting used to having quality help. “You’re good, Augusta.”
“Thank you, Chief. I didn’t want to take the chance of missing something important.”
“Signs of arson?”
“Burn patterns and an incendiary fluid of some kind. Smelled like kerosene to me, but the investigator will know for sure.”
Jane nodded. “Anything else?”
“Tire tracks in the dirt road to the house. Luckily, we’d had some rain before the fire, so we should be able to get good casts. Could be Gail’s vehicle, but could also be the arsonist’s.”
“Do we have next-of-kin information?”
Augusta shook her head. “Jackson’s working on it.”
Jackson Brown was Jane’s other new hire, an eager young black man just out of the academy. “I’ll head to the office and see what he’s found out.”
Augusta put her hand on Jane’s forearm. “It’s your day off, Chief. Let us do our job. When we have more information, I’ll call you. You work too much. Take advantage of your awesome officers.” She flashed a wide smile.
Jane glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she might catch the boat yet. After seeing the devastation here, she wanted to look at her son and revel in being with him. But being with Will meant facing what Lauren had told her.
Was she ready to hear that Reid had lied to her—again?