“You can’t let it drive you crazy.”
“I can’t stop it,” he admitted.
She let him be.
The following morning, she woke early, kissed Jake and told him she had to run back to her room to get ready for work. He mumbled something, and she left him, pausing to switch on his coffeepot before she left. Just then his phone started ringing, and she heard him pick up. She was curious who it was, but she had no time to waste.
She let herself out and sprinted across the lawn to her room, then quickly showered and dressed in the browns that were her forensics wear.
Her hours were later now, but it seemed that she was always running a few minutes late anyway.
Maybe they should set the alarm a few minutes earlier.
They…
She liked that concept. It was very nice being they.
She hurried into the house, wondering if Nick had risen yet.
No. He and Sharon were sleeping later, too. She smiled, thinking it would be fun to tease Sharon about it being natural for old pregnant people to sleep late.
In the kitchen, she switched on the coffeepot, wondering why they didn’t just buy a pot that turned itself on automatically. She drummed her fingers until the coffee began to drip, then moved the pot and slid a cup in its place, shaking her head at the mess she made but determined to have a quick cup of coffee anyway.
It was light. For a moment, all she saw was a figure in the doorway, eerily reminiscent of the black-robed figure she had seen standing on the other side of the highway at the scene of Stuart’s accident. The figure moved, and she gave her head a shake. It was just Sandy, and he was actually wearing a pair of trousers, a polo shirt and a jacket.
“Hey, Sandy,” she said, “I’m running out. Nick and Sharon are sleeping. Help yourself to coffee, and make sure you lock the door on your way out. I’m running late, as usual.”
“It’s love,” he told her.
She shrugged. That’s what happened when you lived at a marina. Everyone knew your business.
“Hey, did Jake ever get anything back from that fingerprint fellow the other day?” Sandy asked.
“No, just prints of people he’d known had been there. You really do know everything that goes on here, don’t you? Were you down at his boat when Skip got there? Did Nick have you let him in?”
“Naw. I just saw the guy from my boat. Well, too bad for Jake. It must be driving him crazy, knowing he’s still missing a piece of his puzzle.”
He’s still missing a piece of his puzzle.
That wasn’t common knowledge. Of course, around here, people talked. Sometimes, too much.
“It is. See you, Sandy,” she said, and headed out the door. As she started to close it, she looked toward the water. From where she stood, she could see Sandy’s boat. Jake’s was much farther down, across from her wing of the house.
Sandy couldn’t possibly see the cabin door of Jake’s boat from his own. Of course, he might have seen Skip leaving with his oversized briefcase. And he might be lying, he might have been down by the end of the docks, just being nosy.
Suddenly she remembered standing just where she was now, talking about cops.
I listen to the cops in Nick’s place, he had said. He knew them all. Jake Dilessio hadn’t come around all that much until he had moved his boat, and yet Sandy had been able to tell her all about him.
Air seemed to escape from her lungs in a whoosh. Sandy? Impossible. He was a fixture. He was…ancient.
I listen to the cops in Nick’s place.
Right. He talked to them all the time. He was always with one of them. No one would ever notice if he spent time talking with Marty Moore. No one would ever realize he was listening because he needed to know what was going on with the Miami-Dade force.
As the thoughts crossed her mind, she became uncomfortably aware that he was behind her. She stiffened, then started to turn, but stopped when she felt a gun against her ribs.