“He’s seventy-nine. That’s old whether he’s in good shape or not. Don’t be an ass, Luke. We’re not here to hurt him. We’re only here to get the water kids and find out where Tate and Foster are,” Mark said.
“It’s okay,” Eve said softly, holding the gaze of each of her brothers, one at a time. She was the only mother the boys remembered, and she took full advantage of the soft spot they had for her. “We’re going to talk to Mr. Bowen. Talk. We aren’t criminals. We aren’t going to do anything wrong. Can we all please remember that it’s for the best that we find Tate and Foster, as well as Charlotte and Bastien. They could hurt themselves and others. That was already proven in Missouri. Once the old man understands that, everything will fall into place.”
Mark snorted again, but didn’t say anything.
Linus Bowen didn’t rush through his breakfast, but he didn’t dawdle, either. Less than forty-five minutes had passed when Eve told her brothers, “He just finished the last pancake. Time to pay and get to the car.” Then she put enough cash for a decent tip on the bill, and the four of them nonchalantly left the café and waited in their nondescript rental SUV for Bowen to exit.
“Is the old guy really getting into that Miata convertible?” Luke said, craning his neck around so he could watch Bowen.
“Looks like it,” Matthew said. “Old dude’s got style.”
“All right. Here we go,” Eve told Mark, who was driving. “Keep him in view, but hang back. He wasn’t hard to find by accident. He obviously values his privacy.”
Mark nodded and pulled out of the parking lot, following the quick little Miata. And then they drove for almost an hour as the Miata made its way from Galveston Island to the eastern part of the Bolivar Peninsula.
“Good thing traffic is fairly steady each way. I don’t like that we’re on this one road following this one car,” Mark grumbled.
“Mark, some rain would help,” Eve said. “Just a little. Just enough to obscure visibility. Matthew, some low-hanging clouds would help with that, too.”
Mark nodded silently again and Eve watched his expression flatten, like his mind was suddenly elsewhere, and then a light rain began—a rain that slanted directly across the highway, almost like the Gulf had begun spitting at them. Moments later clouds started to billow overhead. Eve heard Matthew whispering to himself, and the billowing clouds lowered and expanded, changing to fog.
The lights in the SUV came on automatically as they slowed and the Miata put on a right turn signal.
“There!” Eve pointed, though all of them were already watching the sports car. “He’s turning down that little side road. There’s only one house down there. See! That big yellow one on stilts. He just pulled the car into the garage.”
“I’m going to keep going down the highway for a few minutes to give him a chance to get inside and relax,” Mark said.
“Smart,” Eve smiled encouragingly at her favorite brother. “And he won’t think that we followed him.”
Mark nodded silently again. Eve suppressed a sigh. He’d been withdrawn on the jet to Galveston, and silent last night at the hotel. This morning he was barely communicating. Was it just because invoking water was wearing on him, or was there so, so much more to it than that?
“Okay, I’m turning around. That’ll give him about half an hour to get settled,” Mark said.
“Perfect,” Eve said.
“Should we send the fog and rain away now?” Matthew asked from the backseat.
“No,” Mark answered before Eve could respond. “If we need to force Bowen to come with us, it’s better that we have some cover.”
“Hey,” Eve touched his arm gently. “We’re not here to kidnap anyone.”
“Okay, Eve, answer me this.” Mark studied the road as he spoke in clipped sentences. “What if he won’t cooperate? What if Tate’s warned the old man and he says he doesn’t know anything or he refuses to help us? Are we just going to shake his hand and walk away?”
Eve felt herself harden like the crystals she had begun regularly summoning to her. “We’re not going to hurt him, but we need information and if that old man has it, we’re going to get it from him.”
“Which means the fog and rain stay,” Mark said.
Eve bit her lip, but didn’t say anything more. They retraced their way to old man Bowen’s secluded house in silence.
The small, single-lane blacktop that led from the highway to Bowen’s property was like the house and the grounds—well lived in and well cared for. They followed the blacktop, which led to a tall privacy fence and an imposing iron gate.
Mark stopped the SUV in front of the gate and turned to Eve. “Now what?”
Eve gave him an exasperated look. “There’s an intercom. Press the button. I’ll do the talking.”
Mark grunted and pressed the button. A tinny voice blasted through the little speaker. “Hello!”
“Hello, Mr. Bowen?” Eve said, leaning over Mark so that she could speak into the console.
“What can I do you for?”
“Mr. Bowen, we’re from the FBI and we’d like to speak with you about your grandson, Tate Taylor.”
“My grandson is dead.” The old man’s voice turned to gravel.
“Yes, sir. We have questions about his death,” Eve said.
Bowen’s answer was a buzzing sound and the gate swinging open.
* * *
The house was nice, Eve decided. Unusual, with lots of art—mostly charcoal drawings of gigantic, shaggy dogs like the one that was shadowing Bowen and glaring at them with distrustful yellow eyes. And the location was better than Eve could have hoped for. The old man had already told them that he owned a two-hundred-acre parcel, and he was the only inhabitant. Perfect.