She strode away, leaving Megan behind. Even with her limp and bare feet—leave it to her mom to run to help and forget her shoes—Lucy appeared imposing. Hard to do when you were only 5’5”, but when her mom was on the job, no one messed with her.
Megan watched, shifting her weight as the desk clerk helped the arriving couple with their luggage. She debated for a moment. What if Lucy did find Mateo, hurt, and needed someone to do first aid? And who knew how long the police would take in a small town like this on a Sunday afternoon? Did a tiny island like Harbinger Cove even have its own police force? The closest real town was almost twenty miles and four bridges away, back on the mainland.
Or—the thought she was trying to deny punched through to the surface—what if whoever did this was still inside the house?
It made no sense—she hadn’t been quiet when she’d entered earlier. Actually, she’d screamed like a silly girl in a horror film, the one too stupid to live. There was no way if someone was still inside that they hadn’t heard her. They had plenty of time to flee the scene while she went to get Lucy.
That was the logic of the situation. But every horror story turned stupid-criminal joke she’d ever heard from her mom’s cop friends crashed over her. Crooks weren’t just stupid—that’s why they were caught, after all—they could be maddeningly blind to the obvious and do what they damned well pleased despite any consequences.
Including not fleeing a crime scene before someone’s mother walked in on them.
Megan followed Lucy, hesitating at the open gate at the end of the drive, then going through, waiting a few feet away from the front door, clutching her phone as if it were a lifeline.
Chapter 5
Lucy called 911 and explained the situation as she entered the Fleming house. She kept her phone on speaker and slid it into her shorts’ pocket to free both hands to hold her Glock.
The house was silent. She paused in the foyer, the slate floor cold against her bare feet, and surveyed the bloody scene in the living room. The room faced the ocean and had high ceilings, three walls filled with windows, slate floors, large white leather couches, a TV bigger than a school chalkboard, and a rainbow of orchids flowing from shelves, hanging from wall sconces, and draped along the few tables that were still upright. Most of the furniture had been knocked out of place or turned over along with books and knickknacks that had been scattered throughout the room.
No sign of a body. No sign that any injured party had been stationary long enough to allow blood to puddle. Instead, blood streamed like confetti across the otherwise pristine white surfaces.
As she stood, allowing the house settle around her, random sounds cut through her adrenaline. The clack of an icemaker coming from down the hall. The whish of the overhead ceiling fans with their large, palmetto-shaped blades. The stir of air slipping cold from the vents. Nothing human.
She cleared the first floor; the blood appeared to be confined to the living area, culminating in a chef’s knife lying in a pool of smeared blood as if dropped, a clear thumbprint visible on its stainless steel handle.
There was no blood in the hall or on the steps, the family photos arranged on the stairwell wall were undisturbed and revealed a couple in their late forties or early fifties, both trim and smiling. Several photos of them on a cabin cruiser, him wearing a captain’s cap and looking bashful about it. Wedding photos, photos of the wife when she was young with an older girl blowing out birthday candles, shots of the husband and wife with friends and family at celebrations on the beach and around the pool in their backyard, and photos of the husband preaching and hugging grateful parishioners. Two lifetimes collected for display. With no clues as to what they might have done to invite bloodshed and violence into their home.
On the second floor, she found three bedrooms, none with any signs of disturbance, and a fourth that was a home office. Here there were more signs of a struggle but the only blood was a palm print on a piece of paper lying below an empty wall safe. On the paper was a set of scrawled numbers. The combination?
Okay, then. Quite a story to tell, it seemed. She reassured the dispatcher that there were no victims on scene, and slowly retraced her steps. In the kitchen she noted that the bloody knife was part of a set. She double-checked the pantry and utility closets, making certain no one was hiding or had collapsed inside. Still nothing.