She sped off in the Subaru, watching Megan in the rearview, a tiny shadow draped in deeper shadows of the house and the moonless night. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she didn’t feel a pang of regret or fear by letting her daughter out of her sight.
Megan would be fine. She was a smart girl—no, not a girl, not any more. A smart young woman. Brave and strong and she had her father’s intuition about people and her mother’s pig-headed stubborn refusal to give up and her own savvy, sly instincts that combined the two.
Lucy smiled. God help anyone who dared to go up against her daughter. Megan’s black belt would be the least of their worries.
***
“Don’t tell me you’re getting squeamish now,” a woman’s voice pierced the haze surrounding Mateo. He couldn’t stay awake; the drugs were still messing with his mind. They’d returned him to the boat’s storage compartment, a wide cupboard with a door that opened out. He tried kicking at the door but his legs were asleep and he couldn’t pull them back far enough to get any leverage. At least he’d been able to see that Pastor Fleming was still alive.
They had to get out of here, soon. Pastor Fleming had looked awful. He wasn’t going to last much longer.
“When you called me for help, it didn’t include murder,” a second woman answered. They were moving about up on the deck, making the boat shimmy and shake.
“It’s not murder if it’s natural causes. Diabetic ketoacidosis. That’s what the autopsy will show.”
Mateo froze. They were talking about killing Pastor Fleming. Funny, part of him had imagined that the man he’d heard earlier was Pastor Fleming—that he was the one who’d given Mateo the drugs and dragged him onto the boat. He still wasn’t sure how he’d been drugged; he remembered a glass of iced tea and nothing after that, but even that memory was foggy. Was that iced tea something he’d drunk with Megan? Or maybe with his family during lunch? Time was all confused. It was like looking through a crazy kaleidoscope, hard to tell what was real with so many fragments that didn’t fit together.
“I’m not talking about Robert and you know it.”
“Kid’s own damn fault, meddling where he had no business.”
There was a pause and the sound of something heavy being dropped with a thud. A body? Was Mateo next? He squirmed, trying to push against the cupboard door.
“Tell me one thing. Robert faking his death, that was his plan. Was killing him yours from the beginning?”
“Fool expected me to wait until the courts declared him dead so I could collect the life insurance. While he took the money and ran. This way I get it all—”
“Except you’re not. Can’t you see how wrong it’s all gone? Technically, you haven’t broken any laws since it was Robert who took Mateo. Let me call it in. We’ll be the heroes.”
Pastor Fleming had brought Mateo here? Impossible—or was it? Mateo strained to remember, but the only thing he was certain of was the blood he’d found at Pastor Fleming’s house.
“And the money?” The first woman’s voice had turned sharp, demanding. It was tantalizingly familiar but between the drugs and the way the voices were distorted by the wall separating Mateo from the women, he couldn’t place it. “I’m giving you a lifeline, your chance to save your home, clear all the debt Jack’s illness racked up. But what’s in it for me?”
“I don’t care about any damn money. We need to stop this before it goes too far. While I can still salvage my career and you can stay out of prison.”
“No.” The other woman’s voice was determined. Mateo felt as if a death sentence had just been passed. “The kid’s seen too much. And if Robert lives, he’ll figure out that I swapped his insulin for water. He loves me but not enough to forgive me for trying to kill him. We need to get rid of them both. Tonight.”
Chapter 20
“Fleming’s pump is at the nature preserve on the west side of the island. According to the satellite maps,” Taylor told Lucy as she drove toward the location. “The reason why that area is uninhabited is because it’s basically a maze of inlets and tidal marshes. Perfect place for a boat to hide.”
“And faster for a boat to flee from, disappear into another section of the marsh or vanish out to sea.”
“Especially Fleming’s boat. Only has a fourteen inch draft, so the tide’s not much of an issue.”
Damn. Could nothing go right tonight?
“How long for the sheriff’s men?”
“They’re about forty minutes out.”
The sign for the nature preserve appeared on her right. She slowed and turned into the parking lot. There were two other vehicles already there: Shelly Fleming’s and Chief Hayden’s. “I’m here now.”
No answer. Lucy glanced at the phone. No Wi-Fi signal here in the nature preserve and the cell tower was still down. Guess she was going it alone.