Finished with the instructions, she helped him pull the machine into an outdoor supply shed. It was only ten feet away from the building, hidden behind some trees.
She waited in the doorway as he spread a tarp over the generator and used bungee cords to fasten it. That’s when she noticed the battered white stainless-steel cooler. It was huge. The lid had been left open, leaning up against the wall, and Liz noticed the fish-measuring ruler molded into the lid. A tie-down hung from the cooler’s handle, a rope made of yellow-and-blue strands.
Liz felt a little sick to her stomach. This cooler looked exactly like the one she had pulled out of the Gulf.
CHAPTER 43
Liz couldn’t believe her dad would loan Scott a generator. He was fussy about his possessions and he didn’t seem to like Scott much. But what did she know about her father? She’d been surprised to find him downing free martinis, one after another, at the Tiki Bar on the beach. Liz reminded herself that a lot had changed since her mom had died, and she hadn’t been here for most of that time. If her dad had learned to set the table and drink martinis, perhaps he’d changed in other ways, too.
“Hey Liz.” Scott was out of breath but didn’t seem embarrassed, and he didn’t stop what he was doing. “Do you have any idea where your dad is?”
“I just brought him and the canteen home. Free drinks on the beach.”
“Is he okay?”
“Sleeping like a baby. I have half a mind to leave him in the canteen for the night. So what are you doing?”
“Just picking up one of Walter’s generators.” He slammed shut the rear door of the SUV. “I’ve been waiting for him the past couple of hours.”
“He probably forgot.”
In the shadows Liz couldn’t see Scott’s face. After last night’s run-in on the beach, she realized that she didn’t know her brother-in-law very well, either, despite the fact that he thought he knew her. It looked like Trish had finally gotten him to prepare for the storm.
“You know how to hook up and start one of those?” she asked him.
Scott shrugged. “Not really. I was hoping Walter would show me.”
Instinctively Liz looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the canteen where she’d parked it on the street.
“Tell you what,” she told Scott, “you help me get my dad into bed, I’ll help you with the generator.”
“Really? You’d do that?” He sounded like a little boy, suspicious that he might be tricked.
“Sure. If you throw in a ride back to the beach to get my car.”
Walter proved more cooperative than Liz expected. He seemed to think Scott was an old navy friend of his. He kept mumbling something about Phillip Norris’s kid. But once they got him inside his bedroom, he clicked into his routine. He mumbled and shuffled as he took off his shoes and put them where they belonged in the closet. Then he emptied his pockets into the valet tray on his dresser. Liz kissed him goodbye on the cheek and he waved her out of his bedroom.
At the funeral home Scott rolled the generator out the back of the SUV like a pro. Liz helped him fill it with gasoline. He talked too much, either because he was tired or because he was uncomfortable being alone with her. Or—and she hated that she jumped to this conclusion—because he’d been drinking. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to finish here, get her car, and catch some sleep. The storm’s outer bands were predicted to kick up winds and the downpour would start sometime tomorrow afternoon.
She showed Scott all the basics—how to choke the generator and how to calculate the wattage of each appliance he connected. All the while he rambled on about the new air-conditioned walkway he’d installed between the two buildings and his huge walk-in refrigerator.
“I added all this stuff only to find out none of it is connected to a backup generator. Can you imagine not having a backup for the cooler? In a funeral home?”
Finished with the instructions, she helped him pull the machine into an outdoor supply shed. It was only ten feet away from the building, hidden behind some trees.
She waited in the doorway as he spread a tarp over the generator and used bungee cords to fasten it. That’s when she noticed the battered white stainless-steel cooler. It was huge. The lid had been left open, leaning up against the wall, and Liz noticed the fish-measuring ruler molded into the lid. A tie-down hung from the cooler’s handle, a rope made of yellow-and-blue strands.
Liz felt a little sick to her stomach. This cooler looked exactly like the one she had pulled out of the Gulf.
CHAPTER 44
“Oh my God, that feels good,” Maggie told Platt as he settled beside her on the edge of the bed.
“You’re going to have to stop talking about this case so you can relax and enjoy this.”
What Maggie couldn’t tell Platt was that she had to keep talking because as soon as she thought about his hands on her bare back she felt herself getting aroused.