“I’m not sure she was wrong,” Lucy finally said. “I think he’s innocent.” There. She’d put her money where her mouth was.
This time Nick’s silence was different. Less judgmental, more consideration. How many times had she trusted her gut instinct about a person and been right?
More importantly, how many times had she been wrong? Not many.
The silence lengthened but wasn’t uncomfortable. “Okay,” Nick finally said. “If you believe he’s innocent, so do I. But what can we do about it? Not like murder in a small resort town is any business of the FBI. Last thing we want is Megan to try to play Nancy Drew because she thinks Mateo is getting railroaded by the locals. After all, she gets her patience from you.” Translation: lack of patience.
“Guess I’ll just have to work behind the scenes myself. Figure out a way to prove his innocence.”
“Without letting Megan get involved.”
“Right.” That was going to be the tricky part.
“You’re the one there. I trust your call,” Nick said. “Want me to come down?”
“I’m not sure what you could do to help—other than provide distraction. I think sheer frustration at how slow a case like this can progress and the reality that we might never find all the answers are going to be the toughest things for her to handle.” For Lucy as well, but that was part of the job.
“Let me see if I can get someone to cover for me.” His tone was doubtful—if it had been that easy, he would have made the arrangements to start with.
Before he hung up, she had one more request. Something had been nagging at her ever since she’d seen the crime scene. “Can you give me Don Burroughs’ home number?” Burroughs was her Pittsburgh Police Bureau friend who used a pump just like the one Pastor Fleming had lost. “I need to ask him about insulin pumps.” Used to be she’d memorize all the contact numbers she needed—now they were all at her fingertips stored in her cell, except of course, when it was out of commission.
“I’ll try my best to get down there,” Nick assured her after giving her Burroughs’ number. “In the meantime, watch out. For both of you.”
“You know I will.”
***
When Mateo woke again, the boat had come to a stop, the lurching motion replaced by a gentle rocking. He felt sick but his mouth was so parched he couldn’t even bring himself to throw up. There was the sound of a small engine then the boat’s rocking grew stronger as someone climbed on board.
“How could you be so stupid?” a woman asked. Her voice was muffled by the fiberglass walls between Mateo’s prison and the deck. He’d decided he was locked inside a storage compartment, either below deck or inside a cabin. “One simple little job, that’s all you had. And you had to go and turn it into a kidnapping? What were you thinking?”
“I don’t feel well.” A man’s voice. Not as loud, harder to make out. “Did you bring it?”
They moved away, only scattered words reaching Mateo. “FBI” was one of them—Megan’s mom, was she looking for him? Or had she and Megan gone to the house to meet him and gotten hurt?
Who did all that blood belong to? Why would anyone want to hurt the Flemings?
“Thank God for my sister. I’ve convinced her—” The woman must have moved closer to the cabin because her voice was clear again.
“You mean blackmailed her.”
“Her fault for letting all those medical bills pile up. She should be grateful we’re cutting her in, letting her help us out of this jam you created. We have one chance to get this right and the timing has to be perfect. They can test for things like that.”
“Like what?” The man sounded exhausted, his voice dragging.
“Time of death.”
Chapter 13
Megan waited impatiently for her mom to finish talking to her dad. She sat on her bed on the other side of the room, but didn’t need to hear a word to know how things were going.
First, Dad was mad—with Megan and with Lucy. As her mom calmed him down, Lucy’s body relaxed as well, until at the end, she was practically curled around the phone as if she wanted to reach through it to be with him. Which meant everything was all right.
Megan bounced to her feet and gestured to Lucy. She finally hung up and came back inside.
“What’s the rush?” Lucy asked. “You know, as busy as they are, we’ll just be sitting and waiting at the police station for the rest of the night.”