What?” Lindsey cried. She held the binoculars up to her eyes, moving the wheel with her gloved fingers to focus on the white blob in the distance. It came into sharper focus, and it was definitely a boat, a really nice boat, seemingly adrift on the outskirts of the islands. “Are you sure it’s his?”
“I was with him when he bought it,” Sully said. “I’m sure.” He glanced back at her parents and raised his voice to be heard over the hum of the engine. “I’m sorry, folks, but we’re going to have to take a detour.”
“Is something wrong?” Christine asked.
Sully and Lindsey exchanged a look. She hadn’t mentioned that the man officiating their ceremony had been murdered, not wanting to cause them any stress. Now she had to explain that they’d found his boat, which had been missing and which everyone believed he might have taken out on the night of his death. Oh, boy.
“Not wrong so much as complicated,” Lindsey said.
Her parents exchanged a look and stood up, coming to join them in the front of the boat.
“Explain,” her mother said.
Lindsey did. It began with the party and then the next day out at the Sullivans’, where they’d found Steve Briggs. She told them all about Jamie Briggs, Tony Mancusi and the woman in black.
When she was finished, her father adjusted his hat and said, “Well, it seems to me we need to call this in to the police.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Sully said. “Also, I need to catch that boat before it hits the current. Otherwise we’re going to be chasing it out to the Race.”
“Isn’t that all the way over by Fisher’s Island?” Jack asked.
“At the mouth of the Sound,” Sully said. “But if that boat gets out into the middle of the Sound, anything is possible.” He glanced behind him and said, “You all may want to grab a seat. This might get bumpy.”
Jack moved to the back to sit with his parents, giving Lindsey the seat next to Sully’s. He maneuvered through the remainder of the islands, and soon they were out past the last big red buoy and headed for the boat that was clearly adrift, seemingly with no one on board. At least no one that Lindsey could see with her binoculars.
Sully called Emma and told her what was happening. He listened as she spoke, his mouth drawing down in the corners.
“Emma, I don’t think you want me to wait until the police boat can get out here,” he said. “This boat is soon to be on the move in the current. We could lose it. Also, I have the horsepower to tow a boat and the ropes if need be. Your police boat doesn’t.”
Sully held the phone away from his ear as Emma lectured. No one could lecture quite like the chief of police. When she finally wound down, he said, “I have Lindsey’s parents on the boat. I am not going to do anything that would put them in harm’s way.”
“Of course, if there is anyone on the boat, I’ll get out of there immediately,” he said.
Lindsey raised her eyebrows. It hadn’t occurred to her that someone might be on the boat. She lifted the binoculars and studied the boat as they drew closer.
“Yes, I’ll call you as soon as I have it secured,” Sully said. Then he ended the call and focused on catching up to the larger vessel.
The wind was whipping at her hair, and she pulled a hat out of her pocket and yanked it on to hold it in place. Then she raised the binoculars back up to her eyes. She scanned the boat. She didn’t see anyone. As they got closer, Sully switched on a searchlight that was mounted on the bow of his boat. He trained it on the other vessel, illuminating it beneath the cloudy gray sky. There were no immediate signs of life.
Using his VHF radio, he switched it to channel sixteen and spoke into the microphone. “This is Captain Mike Sullivan, requesting permission to board.”
There was no response.
“Now what?” Lindsey asked.
“I’m going to board,” he said. He glanced at Lindsey. “How do you feel about taking the controls?”
“I can do it,” she said. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Her nose was cold. The sight of Steve’s boat filled her with the worst sort of dread. And she didn’t like deep dark water on her best days, never mind when her groom-to-be was going to step onto an abandoned boat, putting himself at all sorts of risk.
“I’ll go with him,” Jack said. This did not make Lindsey feel any better.
“Why you?” she asked. “I should go.”
“I don’t know how to drive this boat,” Jack said. He shrugged as if to say, So sad, too bad.
As Sully slowed the boat down, he used his radio to call for permission to board again. As before, there was no reply. He switched off the searchlight and cruised up to the boat. Lindsey studied it through the binoculars. The interior was dark. It looked abandoned.
“I’m going to pull up alongside it,” he said. “Normally we’d maintain speed side by side, but it’s drifting, so Jack and I may have to jump for it. Just try to keep us close.”
Lindsey took over the controls as the two men climbed up on the side of the boat. Her hands were shaking, and she was desperately afraid of dumping them both into the water. It would take no time at all to develop hypothermia out here, and even with the heat the boat was kicking out, she didn’t think they’d make it back to shore without losing a few fingers or toes.
She swallowed. Then she felt her parents come to stand, one on each side of her.
“You’ve got this,” her father said. “Steady as she goes.”
His voice was just the right amount of calm, and Lindsey remembered being nine years old and completely paralyzed in a haunted house. Then her dad had appeared beside her and talked her through the whole zombie-infested, screaming nightmare. That was the thing about dads, they could talk a girl through the scariest of moments. She kept the boat within feet of the bigger one without hitting it. Like two big cats, both Sully and Jack stealthily jumped onto the drifting vessel. Sully gave her a thumbs-up while Lindsey felt her heart pound in her chest.
She waited for shouts, gunshots, the boat’s engine to fire to life as it zoomed off with her fiancé and her brother. None of that happened. The boat kept drifting. She kept pace with it. Sully and Jack circled the outside, and then they disappeared into the lower decks. After a few tense minutes in which she was certain her heart would stop, Jack reappeared, followed by Sully.
Sully gestured that he was going to the bridge, and she nodded. While she kept pace with the boat, he fired up the engine, which started with a churning noise before slowly coming back to life. The lights switched on in the interior, and Jack gave a shout of triumph.
Lindsey felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, and she pulled it out. It was Sully.
“I’m going to drive the boat in,” he said. “It appears to be in working condition, and this will be easier than trying to tow it.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll follow you since I’m not as good at navigating the islands.”
“All right,” he said.
She could see him studying his surroundings.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Jack and I spotted what appears to be blood on the bow. I’m no forensic expert, but the blood looks like spatter, as if it came from someone dripping blood, not from whacking their head on the bow. I think Steve might have been murdered on his own boat.”
Lindsey gasped. She knew that for a sailor like Sully, that was the worst possible thing that could happen on a boat. His boats were his life. She knew that if his theory proved true, it would haunt him forever.
“Let’s just get it back to the pier, where the police and the crime scene unit can determine what happened,” she said.
“Right,” he agreed. “Stay close, but not too close.”
“Got it.” She waited for him to pull ahead, and then she followed in his wake all the way back to the islands. When they passed the big red buoy, Sully cut his speed to a no-wake crawl and Lindsey felt all the tension in her shoulders and back release. Being this close to shore again filled her with such relief. All they needed to do was turn the boat over, and they were done. She couldn’t wait.
Navigating the islands was a painstaking process, but she followed Sully exactly, and in no time they were pulling up to the pier, where Emma and a crime scene unit were waiting for them.
Lindsey docked the boat, grateful when her dad scrambled out to tie up. Sully took the larger vessel to a different dock on the pier, the one he used for his larger tour boat. She switched off the engine and followed her parents out of the boat and up the ladder to the pier above to see what was happening with the Briggs boat.
Sully and Jack were already there, talking to the chief of police. Sully described Jack’s spotting the boat and then their adventure in catching up to it. He praised Lindsey for being able to maintain his boat while he and Jack climbed aboard, then he lowered his voice to tell Emma about the bloodstain. Lindsey directed her parents’ attention toward the view of town, hoping they didn’t hear about the grisly findings. This was supposed to be her wedding weekend, and she didn’t want her parents to have to worry about anything more than whether or not to have seconds on wedding cake, assuming there was enough cake.
“It’s all right, Linds,” her father said. He put an arm around her and pulled her into his side. “We know what’s happening. We saw the blood.”
“You did?”
“Yes, and in full disclosure, we already knew about Briggs’s murder. Joan and Mike called us from the bed-and-breakfast they were staying at,” Christine said. “They weren’t sure if they’d be allowed home in time to host us, so they wanted to let us know what was happening and that there was room at the bed-and-breakfast if need be.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“We didn’t want to upset you by mentioning it,” John said. “We figured if you wanted to talk about it, you would.”
“Now can we talk about it?” Jack asked. He left Sully with Emma to join them. “I have so many questions.”
“You and me both,” Lindsey said. She glanced at her brother. “Hey, off the subject but still relevant—you haven’t been ordained as a minister, become a justice of the peace, or a notary public have you?”
“Sorry, still just an economist,” he said. “Why?”
“We’re sort of lacking a person qualified to marry us,” Lindsey said. At the interested looks on her parents’ faces, she added, “But we have a line on someone, so I’m sure it will be fine, perfectly fine.”
“Joan did mention her uncle Carl,” Christine said.
“So, you knew about this, too?” Lindsey asked.
They nodded.
“Well, I don’t even know what to say here,” she said. Honestly, what was the point of trying to protect her family from bad news if they were just going to hear it from someone else?
“We could call your cousin Alice. She’s a minister in upstate New York, but I’m sure she’d come down and officiate,” John said. There was a pause. “Of course, you’d have to apologize for pushing her into the creek when you were kids.”
“I didn’t push her. She fell,” Lindsey said. Her parents didn’t say anything, while Jack stood there, clearly trying not to laugh. Lindsey felt compelled to repeat herself. “She did fall, I swear.”
“As you have sworn for thirty years,” Christine said.
“Which should lend veracity to my side of the story,” Lindsey said.
“And it would if Alice hadn’t been holding the book you were reading when she fell into the creek,” Jack said. “If you’d tried to save her like you did the book, she might have let go of her grudge.”
“If she hadn’t snatched my book in a fit of mean, she might not have lost her balance and fallen,” Lindsey said.
“So, that’s a hard pass on Cousin Alice?” her father asked.
“Yes.”
“Lindsey, can I have a word?” Emma called to her from across the pier where she stood with Sully.
Lindsey excused herself and hurried across the pier. Emma was dressed in uniform, with her thick coat on over her navy blue dress shirt and slacks. Her fleece-lined hat covered her head, but the tip of her nose was pink, and she sniffed against the cold. Lindsey realized she couldn’t feel her toes and stomped her feet a few times, trying to get the feeling back.
“I won’t keep you long,” Emma said.
“It’s fine.”
“Can you just tell me everything as you remember it?” Emma said. “I’ve got Sully’s description, but I’m thinking maybe you saw or heard something else.”
“All right.” Lindsey told Emma everything she remembered about seeing the boat and bringing it ashore. She knew she didn’t have much more to say than Sully—less actually, since he’d gone aboard the vessel and she hadn’t.
When she finished, Emma interviewed Jack and her parents. Once they were done, they were all half-frozen, and as the crime scene unit towed away the Briggs boat into the marina for safekeeping, Lindsey and Sully took her family out to Bell Island. With an advance call from Sully, Joan had a spread of food and hot cider at the ready.
As they told Sully’s parents about the events of the day, Lindsey noticed the frown on Mike’s forehead. She nudged Sully in the side with her elbow and tipped her chin in his father’s direction.
“What is it, Dad?” he asked.
Mike turned toward Sully and said, “It just seems awfully convenient, doesn’t it? That you just happened to be coming out to the island when Briggs’s boat was drifting by?”
“Possibly, which means that whoever killed Steve and took his boat was hoping we’d find the boat and assume it was an accident,” Lindsey said.
No one said anything. They didn’t have to. It was clear that Mike was right. Someone wanted them to find the boat. Just like someone wanted the wig and veil to be found. The question was who? And why?