Текст книги "The Starboard Knife"

Автор книги: Ernie Lindsey

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 5 страниц)

Alex cleared his throat and threw the bag of melting ice down at his feet. Water splashed on his deck shoes. So low that she could barely hear him over the waves slapping against the hull, he said, “It wasn’t me.”

“I know,” she replied. “It wasn’t me either. You believe that, right, that I could never do anything to hurt her?”

“I believe you,” he answered, but there it was, that accusatory tone, the one she knew she’d have to get used to until she could prove her innocence. He’d tried hard to mask it. Maybe it wasn’t there. Maybe she was already projecting. No, it was, but she pretended it wasn’t.

“Who do you think it could’ve been? We know it’s not either one of us, and with Sharon and Laura’s video…”

Alex stood and walked to the edge of the ladder. He glanced down below, trying to see where everyone had gone, and Jenn followed his stare. Not a single person had left the middle deck. None of them wanted to be accused of tampering with Erica’s body. They sat in small cliques; Sharon and Laura up near the bow, huddled together. Mark and Terri stood at the stern, arguing, while Chet and Karen tried to ignore them where they sat on one of the nearby benches built into a bulkhead. Wade leaned over the railing on the starboard side, looking down into the water while the breeze lifted the wide brim of his hat.

He said, “And you’re positive about her and Laura?”

She nodded. After Mark had punched Alex, and Alex had subsequently stormed off to pout, alone, Sharon and Laura insisted they had proof of their innocence, an undeniable alibi, but they’d been reluctant to share it. When pressed, they were absolutely insistent that they wouldn’t say what or how, only that they had proof and that would have to be enough until they could speak to the authorities.

The bickering and protesting reached a cacophonous crescendo with Mark finally making the point that sealed the reveal of their evidence.

“You have to explain yourselves. If the two of you have absolute, rock-solid proof, then we have two fewer people to worry about, okay? What are you so worried about? If I were innocent, I’d want everyone to know.”

“Me, too,” Chet said.

Karen wasn’t so agreeable. “If you were innocent?”

“Oh for the love of God. You know what I meant.”

Karen cocked a hip and flipped her curly locks over her shoulder. “Do I?”

“I meant if I had bona fide proof, you self-righteous asshole.”

Chet stepped between them, held his hand against Mark’s chest. “Hey, now, hey buddy, none of that.”

“Well, she’s—”

“I know, I know.” Chet turned to his wife. “Let’s be done with that.”

“Why’re you defending him?”

“Because you’re losing focus, that’s why. One thing at a time. If the ladies will show us this big, dark secret they have and prove themselves, we can mark them off the list and move down the line. Process of elimination. Ain’t that right, Wade? That’s some good detective work right there, huh?”

Wade said it was, and they all took a breath.

Defiant, Sharon said, “We’re still not telling.”

Laura tilted her head toward Sharon, then calmly reached down and took her hand, intertwining their fingers together. “We might as well tell them. They all know anyway.”

“Know what?” Chet asked.

“No, they don’t,” Sharon protested. “They don’t. It’ll be the end of—oh, uh. Oh no.”

“The end of what?” asked Terri.

“I know,” Jenn admitted.

“See, Sharon. Let’s just get it over with, okay? Please? I’m tired of hiding. We’ve known these guys for years. They’ll understand.”

“But what about Ralph and Arnold?”

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. We can show them, and we’re clean.”

“Show us what?” asked Mark.

Sharon huffed and pinched the bridge of her nose, finally relenting. “Okay. Okay. Tell them.”

Laura held up her hand, the one holding Sharon’s, and squeezed it tighter in full view of everyone. “We’ve been, um, together for two years. Ralph and Arnold have no idea, and I know we don’t seem like the type, but we just sorta fell into it. The guys were always gone to Asia for work, for weeks on end and we were… We were…”

Sharon finished the sentence for her. “Lonely.”

Terri made an exaggerated gagging sound. Everyone ignored her.

Wade said, “Congratulations, but how’s that supposed to mean you’re innocent?”

Sheepishly, Laura broke eye contact and nibbled on her bottom lip, toeing a crumpled napkin at her feet. “We—so, we were drunk and horny and wanted to get adventurous, and well, we made a video.”

“What kind of video?” Chet asked. He leaned toward them. Jenn imagined him as a cartoon wolf, eyes bugging out, tongue wagging, saliva dripping from his jaw while a giant horn blared, “Aaaahooooguh!”

Karen slapped his shoulder. “You know damn well what they mean.”

“That may be so,” Wade said, “but we’ll need to see it for proof. Somebody will, at least. The possibility of proof doesn’t cement your innocence until evidence is presented as fact.”

“Yeah,” Mark added. “Whatever you two do in your own time is fine by us—”

“Not me,” Terri said, shaking her head. The others nodded, agreeing with Mark, almost to spite her it seemed.

“—but, a couple of hours recorded on a camera doesn’t mean you couldn’t have, you know, finished up and then left your room later.”

“You people are ridiculous,” Sharon said. “How long have we known each other, huh? Five years? Some of you longer? The fact of the matter is, and I don’t know how many times we can say this, somebody here murdered that poor girl downstairs, and you all want to stand here and claim, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!’ without a damn shred of evidence. But when we say we’ve got proof—private, intimate proof—you all want us to show you like we’re watching some funny cat video on YouTube. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“Finally. A voice of reason,” Karen said.

“We can prove it wasn’t us,” Laura said. “Sharon’s digital camera was still recording when we woke up this morning. It was sitting right there on the tripod, little red light blinking. We watched it before we came up for breakfast, if you want to know the truth. Can’t I just explain to you what’s on it? There’s fifteen minutes of us smiling and making out in front of the camera, then ten minutes of an awkward, drunk sixty-nine until we passed out. That’s it. The rest is five hours of us sleeping.”

Wade shrugged. He’d poured himself another cup of coffee while she was talking. He lifted the mug to his lips and gingerly took a sip. “Laura, honey, I’d love to take your word for it. We all would, but if we’re checking you two off the list, it’s gotta be done. Somebody’s gotta see it. Doesn’t have to be all of us. Would you—would you feel comfortable with Jenn watching?”

Jenn hadn’t been listening, not fully, anyway. She’d heard the words, yet they hadn’t registered until her name was mentioned. In her mind, she’d been revisiting the night before, loaded, dancing in the nude on the tabletop, caressing Erica’s perfectly tanned and toned body. She’d imagined Sharon and Laura becoming aroused, using the show to enhance their libidos, however awkward the ending may have been when she yanked her best friend to the ground.

She sputtered, “W-what? Me?”

“Yes, you,” Wade said. “You can be objective, and maybe it won’t be as uncomfortable for them, instead of letting Chief Wagging Tongue over here get his jollies.”

Chet puffed out his chest. “Wait just a minute, there, buddy. I never said—”

“Chet,” Karen interrupted, tugging his arm. “Leave it alone.”

“That’d be okay,” Laura said. “Sharon?”

Sharon said yes, reluctantly.

“We’ll just fast-forward through it. You’ll see. It’s time-stamped and everything.”

Wade said, “I’ll escort you down to get the camera—Terri, don’t roll your eyes at me. This is settled. I’ll escort Sharon down to get the camera, and then they can show Jenn. Privately, somewhere. That work for you, Jenn?”

She felt warm underneath her windbreaker. Not because she was about to watch two of her ultra-conservative friends engage in not-so-conservative behavior, but because it would prove their innocence, which meant two fewer possibilities, which increased the odds of everyone else believing she was the culprit. “That’s fine,” she said, even though it wasn’t fine. Not at all.

The video had been exactly as Laura had described. Drunken fooling around, two bodies in awkward, drunken positions, arched backs, and shuddering, but perhaps the latter was because they skimmed through it at three times the normal speed. Then it was over.

“Here,” Laura said. “Watch. Look at the time.” She pressed the play button and the video slowed to normal speed.

At 6:18 a.m. Laura groggily climbed out of bed, stretched, took a second glance at the camera, and then padded over to it, dressed now in an oversized t-shirt and maybe quite a bit hung-over. Her face appeared close to the screen when she leaned down.

“See right there?” she asked, pointing in the upper right of the small screen on the camera. “Six eighteen.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Jenn agreed.

On the screen, Laura frowned and leaned closer, then the screen went black.

***

Alex repeated himself. “You’re absolutely sure about Sharon and Laura?”

“Yes,” she insisted. “I told you I watched the video.”

“When?”

“While you were up here pouting. They’re clean, Alex, which means it has to be one of those other five people down there.”

“Your friends.” His tone was stark and full of accusations.

She had no argument to refute it. “I thought they were.”

PART NINE

Alex had moved down to the main deck after Jenn convinced him that he would seem less suspicious if he were among the others and not keeping his distance. Unwillingness to be a part of the unsteady coalition could be seen as a symptom of guilt, and he reluctantly agreed to make himself visible.

If anything had the potential to be more shocking than the fact that one of Jenn’s so-called friends had murdered one of their own, it was the fact that they all hadn’t totally devolved into savage, bestial creatures fighting to save themselves.

They weren’t necessarily calm—more agitated and guarded than anything—but each appeared remotely convinced in the fact that he or she hadn’t done it. Only Sharon and Laura were explicitly clear of any wrongdoing, but the rest professed their innocence with such vehemence that an unspoken understanding had settled over them.

You believe me about as much as I believe you, but you keep your distance, and I’ll keep mine until someone else can figure this out.

Alex suspected that it was pure disbelief, perhaps a light state of shock that kept The Harlot from becoming a rebirth of Lord of the Flies. They had known each other for years, a ragtag group of people from different stations in life, meeting through random circumstances. Book clubs, wine-tasting groups, Wade the shared contractor, all eventually gravitating toward one another the way people with similar interests tend to do.

All except Mark and Terri, who were something of an outcast couple and got invited for God-only-knows what reasons. It seemed like every collection of friends had someone like that, and if you didn’t know who it was, chances were, you might be the one.

Alex decided it was total disbelief and a refusal to accept the truth.

How could someone who had shared birthday cake at a toddler’s party, someone who had shared their favorite meatloaf recipe, someone who had borrowed an evening gown for a black-tie event, so coldly commit murder when the remainder of their trusted group slept a couple of doors away?

He could see the reasoning behind their denial, somewhat, though he couldn’t quite identify with it. Money, particularly the kind with many, many zeroes behind it, never came with many legitimate friends. People flocked to him not because he was a good guy, not because he was charming and handsome and generous—things Jenn always took for granted—but because they thought he could give them something. It was freedom, fun, a better life and in return, promises of, “Hey, I’ll laugh at all your jokes and tell you how smart you are, I may even let you put your hand up my skirt or in my boxers, whatever your fancy might be, just as long as you invite me along to parties or romantic countries I’ll never see on my own.”

Alex spat in the ocean and watched the glob of white float away.

None of it was ever genuine, but it might be nice to have at least one person he could trust.

He thought he had that in Jenn. He’d begun to see it in Erica.

And now one was dead, and the other may have done it.

The suffocating realization that there was a dead body on his yacht hurtled back and doubled him over.

He hadn’t loved Erica, far from it. Instead, she’d been an insatiable outlet when she was in town. Anyway, how could he say no to a licentious supermodel? Especially after Jenn’s constant emotional ebb and flow had gotten him nowhere closer to what he wanted from her?

He hadn’t loved Erica, but he’d grown attached to her, and now her body was stiffening on the bed they’d shared many times, clothed and unclothed, mostly the latter. Sometimes handcuffs. Sometimes melted candle wax. Always fun.

Droplets of rain began to fall. He checked the sky. Lightning flashed to the west. It would be upon them soon, and then what? Ride it out? It looked worse than a squall, much worse, and they were far enough off the coast for it to be a problem. The Harlot was sturdy, but not a floating tank.

How long had it been since he’d told them he’d radioed the Coast Guard and then tossed the keys overboard? An hour? Two? With the sun behind the thick, roiling, black clouds above them, it was hard to pinpoint the sun. He could guess the time if he could see it. He never wore a watch—damn Jenn for suggesting a weekend without cell phones—and he didn’t dare go below deck to find a clock. My God, let the accusations fly if he got anywhere near Erica’s body without an escort.

Both Mark and Chet had asked if he’d heard any reports from the Coast Guard. How long now, they’re on their way, aren’t they?  He’d waylaid them with blatant lies while Wade looked on and nodded his approval.

Both Mark and Chet had also demanded to use the radio.

He informed them that without the keys, without power, it was useless. They didn’t need to know that it had a failsafe backup connected to a gas-powered generator. Nor did they need to know that he had two handheld radio units in the emergency kit stored in the wall of the cockpit.

They had gone away, grumbling and cursing about how useless a twenty-five-million-dollar yacht was. “A shitpile of bells and whistles,” Chet said, “and right now the goddamn thing is nothing but a canoe without paddles.”

Rather than bliss, in this case, ignorance had given Alex extra time.

Since he’d come down from his perch above, he’d had one brief interaction with Wade that amounted to nothing more than the former detective informing him, “Hold steady. I’m going to ask some questions. I’ll figure it out.”

Alex looked over his shoulder, watched Wade listen while Mark and Terri spoke with animated features and insistent motions with their arms. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold steady. The wait was maddening.

He decided that he would almost rather head back to port and take his chances than keep Wade’s constructed ruse alive. He was innocent. There was no evidence, whatsoever, that would tie him to Erica’s murder. Everyone saw him go below deck with her. He was the last one to see her alive. All true.

There could be a couple of damning things that would lift eyebrows. He’d fixed the wound on her head, so if blood turned up on his clothes, that was the reason. He’d volunteer to take a polygraph.

He checked underneath his fingernails. Clean, as he knew they would be.

There was no chance he’d be convicted on such flimsy circumstantial evidence.

He was tired and emotionally wrecked. He wanted to go back to his beachfront home and drink himself into oblivion. That seemed like the best idea he could think of at the moment.

The Harlot was well stocked, but he didn’t dare allow alcohol to take the last remaining vestiges of control away from him. He needed to be sharp and prepared with a murderer on board.

Home, though. If Wade can’t find out who did it, the longer you wait, the worse it’ll look once we do go in.

Should he do it? Should he magically produce the extra set of engine keys? “Hey, look what I found!” Or had he let it go too long? Would the others come after him with torches and pitchforks for making them wait?

He said, “This is ridiculous,” to no one in particular, and pushed himself away from the railing.

“What is?”

Alex hadn’t heard anyone approach over the waves churning against the hull, and Wade’s voice, inches from his ear, spooked him, spun him around.

“H-huh?” he sputtered.

“What’s ridiculous?”

“Nothing, just…” Alex put his hand to his forehead, held it there. He took a deep breath. “You find out anything?”

Wade clasped his hands behind his back, stuck out his bottom lip and covered the top one, shaking his head.

“What were Mark and Terri saying? They seemed awfully, uh, what’s the word?”

“Adamant?”

“Yeah, adamant.”

“That they did. Proclaiming their innocence, just like the rest of them. I gotta tell you, bud, from what I’ve seen, none of these people are showing any of the classic signs. Their body language is fine. Not hints whatsoever that they’ve got something to hide. So, either every single one of them is in the clear or we’ve got one seasoned professional on board.”

“Now what?”

“I’ll make another round. The one who did it will slip up eventually.”

“We need to go in.”

Wade cocked his head to the side. “Not until we figure this out, we don’t.”

Alex stepped closer, checked to see if anyone had wandered near, and then lowered his voice to say, “Earlier, Mark and Chet were bugging me about when help is coming.”

“I saw them.”

“It’s been a couple of hours, and pretty soon, the rest of them will start asking questions, too. Matter of fact, I’m surprised they haven’t already, and when that happens, I’m not going to stand here and lie anymore. The more lies we tell, the bigger this gets, and the worse it’ll look when there’s a flippin’ murder investigation on my yacht. I’m done, okay? You say they all seem innocent, then I say you’re out of practice. My boat, my rules. We’re going in. I’ll tell them I found the spare keys and we’re out of here.”

“I’m on your side here, man, but if that’s what you want. Your yacht, remember? I think I’d rather have my name bleached clean white before I had a pissed off detective getting me under a bare light bulb.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Alex turned and marched away before Wade could protest further. He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder. He already knew what Wade’s face would look like. Disdain, confusion, disbelief. He no longer cared.

He was innocent. He had nothing to worry about. He wanted his feet back on dry land, far away from these people who weren’t even his friends to begin with. And besides, who needed friends if even the best of them got you into a situation like this?

***

Alex climbed the ladder into the cockpit and threw himself down into the white leather chair. He slung open the small door embedded in the wall to his right, yanked out the emergency kit, and found the spare set of keys dangling from the rabbit’s foot keychain, so ridiculous, so trite.

Yet it brought up a golf ball in his throat. Erica had given it to him a few weeks ago, saying, “I got this for you. Every boat has to have something lucky on it, right?”

“I don’t know if that’s a thing,” he’d said, but he’d taken it anyway, smiled and then buried his tongue in her mouth.

He moved to slam the lid closed but a thin, navy blue rectangle caught his eye.

It was his old phone, the one he thought he’d lost a month back, the last time he had taken Erica out on The Harlot, just a couple miles offshore. A memory flashed by. Erica wearing nothing but a g-string that would’ve been better served as floss. She had on those gold-tinted aviator shades that reminded him of a bug’s eyes. A cocktail glass in her hand with some kind of electric blue liquid. She was threatening to throw his phone overboard if he didn’t pay attention to her. “Just one second,” he’d said. “I’m, like, two emails away from buying a minor league baseball team.”

Later, when he woke up, naked, limp, and looking for Erica to remedy that, his phone was gone. She’d claimed it had gone overboard, just like she said. Instead, she’d hidden it from him.

He felt the weight of it in his hand and wondered if it was dead, or simply off. If she had turned it off before hiding it, in theory, the battery should be able to last for months before the charge faded.

Maybe I should call it in now. Get out in front of Wade. He means well, but I’ve got the most to lose here. They’ll question Jenn, and they’ll question me. Jenn overreacted right in front of their faces, but I’ve been making love to—making love? Screwing? How should I phrase it when they ask?

He held down the power button and hoped the iconic apple would pop up on the screen. When it did, he allowed himself a brief smile. Good girl, Erica.

While he waited on it to come to life, he risked a peek over the cockpit’s wall.

Below, Mark and Terri sat with their backs to each other, staring out to sea with their arms crossed. Karen laid her head on Chet’s shoulder, resting in his caring embrace. Wade was near the stern, listening to Jenn talk, nodding here and there. He had to look over the port side to find Sharon and Laura. They had moved below him and were cuddled up on the breakfast nook’s couch.

Thank God he hadn’t taken the time to disconnect this number from this phone. With three more numbers as backup—home, business, fun—the cell in his hand used only for calls with Erica, just in case Jenn ever got nosy with his others, it hadn’t been necessary.

He bent over in the seat so the others couldn’t see him. If they looked up and saw a working cell phone, he didn’t have a stick big enough to knock them away.

He glanced in the upper left corner of the screen. “That’s odd,” he said.

No service.

PART 10

Alex found Jenn sitting in the hot tub near the yacht’s stern. Back when he first purchased The Harlot, he’d made sure to pick a yacht specifically with a hot tub, and specifically for her. He knew she’d love it.

Now, she sat in the warm, bubbling water curled into a ball with her legs pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on her knees. She wasn’t relaxing, enjoying a glass of chardonnay like he’d seen her do so many times before. She stared absently into the pool, as if trying to read her future in the white, frothy foam like tea leaves.

She noticed him and seemed embarrassed to be found in the hot tub. “Oh, hey,” she said, sitting up straight. “I was just… I was cold.”

“We need to talk,” Alex said. He tried to keep the edge in his voice delicate.

“About what?” Curious, hopeful, Jenn put her arms on the ledge, leaning up to him. “Did you find something?”

Alex glanced around nervously. None of the others were within hearing distance. He’d wanted to get her somewhere more private, but with the group spread out as they were, and if they tried to go below deck, there would be too many questions. Here would have to do.

They were safe enough; although, he couldn’t see the person he was looking for.

“Where’s Wade?”

“He said he wanted to go check for more evidence around Erica’s body.”

“Jesus, Jenn, you let him go down there by himself?”

“Me? I’m not his babysitter. I didn’t know I was supposed to stop him.”

“We all agreed. Nobody downstairs without a witness.”

“What’re you freaking out about? He’s conducting an investigation.”

“He’s not even a cop anymore.”

“But he knows people, and let me remind you, Alex, you’re the one who called the Coast Guard, you’re the one who threw the keys in the ocean, and you’re the one who said we weren’t going anywhere until this is solved. What else are we going to do while we’re waiting on them to get here, huh? And for that matter, where are they?”

Alex pinched his lips together and sat down beside the hot tub, crossing his legs. There had been too many lies already. It was time for some truth. After what he’d discovered, he needed someone to trust, someone on his side, and Jenn would have to be it. “They’re not coming. We never called it in.”

“You what?” Jenn slapped the water’s surface, splashing Alex, splashing the deck. “Are you kidding me? Why not?”

“Please, please don’t say anything to the others. Not yet. It was Wade’s idea, back when we first discovered the bod—I mean, when we found Erica. He said if we told them the Coast Guard was coming it might calm the innocent people down and freak out the killer.”

“And look where it’s gotten us. Nowhere. Nobody knows anything, nobody’s admitting anything, and as far as I can tell, only Sharon and Laura have proof, but the rest are pretty damn convincing.”

“Convincing doesn’t mean innocent.”

“These people are our friends, Alex.”

“Your friends,” he reminded her.

“Whatever. All I’m trying to say is, I can’t imagine any one of them doing something like this. Erica is dead, I know that, and God it hurts, but I can’t. I don’t want to. I don’t know how to think of one of them as a murderer.”

“Maybe this will change your mind.” He held up the spare set of keys and left the rabbit’s foot dangling in the wind. On the way down from the cockpit, he’d almost made up his mind to tell her about the affair with Erica and decided against it. One more little lie to keep the story clean, for now, wouldn’t hurt much. Over Jenn’s shoulder, he could see a wall of rain coming on the forward edge of the front. It wouldn’t be long.

He jiggled the keys. “I was looking for the spare set—”

“You’ve had those the whole time?” she interrupted. “Alex!”

“Sssshh, please, just listen. I’m trying to explain. I was looking for these, and I found this.” He held up his cell phone. “You said no phones on the trip, but this is an old one. I’d forgotten it was on board and when I checked to see if it still had any charge left, there was no signal.”

A heavy rush of wind drove raindrops into their skin—water needles pricking relentlessly. Jenn dipped lower into the warm water of the hot tub. Alex zipped his windbreaker and pulled the hood over his head, then shoved the cell phone into a dry pocket.

“So what?” Jenn said, scowling. “You’ve got a useless phone.”

Alex pointed at her. “Exactly. Think about it.”

“I don’t get what you’re—oh, my God. Wade said he…”

Alex nodded.

Jenn quickly pushed herself up and out of the hot tub and wrapped a white terrycloth robe around her body, tying it at the waist. The rain had dampened the outside, but the interior was soft and comforting. “But, wait. Is it possible he had service? I mean, just maybe?”

Alex lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “Possible? Not very. I mean, I can’t say for sure, but I think he’d especially have a hard time if he were down in one of the rooms. You’d think a signal would already be weak enough, and then with all the electronics on board…I don’t know. I doubt it enough that I’m questioning his truth, or what he says is truth. And besides, think about it, he was the one who told me not to call in the Coast Guard right away.”

“Yeah, but what if he was up here?”

“I was in the cockpit. I would’ve heard him or seen him.”

“You were passed out, weren’t you?”

“Not the whole time. I remember waking up and looking around to make sure everything was okay. Last night’s full moon made it look like daylight out here, and he said he talked to her until, what, four in the morning?”

“You know what you’re saying, right? That Wade… Are you sure it’s not possible?”

“If it’s even remotely possible, there’d be like a one percent chance, possible, but not probable.”

“What if we got his phone off of him somehow and checked his calls?”

Alex shook his head. “Battery is dead, remember?”

“He could be lying about that.”

“If he’s lying, he’ll accuse us of trying to blame him and just throw it into the ocean or something. If he’s really a killer, he might even do something worse.”

“What if he shows us, and it’s fine?”

“Jenn, I’m positive he didn’t have service.”

“But not a hundred percent.”

“No, not a hundred percent. Ninety-nine.”

“We can’t just accuse Wade. I feel…bad.”

“Sweetheart, listen to me. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Sharon and Laura are fine, you said you were on Chet and Laura’s floor all night by yourself listening to them snore. Mark and Terri can—I don’t know, I guess they can reasonably account for their whereabouts because you heard them arguing for so long. I know I didn’t do it, and I believe that you didn’t, so who’s left? Wade. Wade’s left. He was by himself all night, and we can assume that he’s lying about being on the phone.”

“What possible reason would he have to murder Erica? It doesn’t make any sense. None. We can’t assume anything.”

“We have to. We have to assume it’s him until we can get back.”

“Say we do, then what? If he suspects you know, he’s never going to let you take us back in, Alex. He’ll kill us all. He’ll make up some story about how everybody on the boat went mental and he killed them in self defense. If he’s the only one left, it’s his story against the evidence that he’ll know how to clean up since he used to be a detective. It’s lose-lose, all the way.”

“That’s stretching it.”

“But not entirely impossible.”

Alex cycled through a number of options in his mind and all of them led to nasty outcomes. Wade was dangerous, but was he also armed? Had he brought a gun on The Harlot? Had he planned to do this ahead of time, knowing that they would be miles out to sea with no escape? Was it a crime of passion? Was it something in the moment? Had he been so turned on by Erica’s display that he’d approached her, and she’d rejected him?

That had to be it. It had to be. If Erica had said no when there had been so many stories of her loose morals and even looser panties, Alex could see how that would flick a switch of insanity. He himself had never gotten to the point of wanting to actually murder Jenn for her constant rejections, but he had gotten frustrated enough to envision holding her against a wall and shouting his dissatisfaction in her face. He’d done it just yesterday morning when she’d waffled about where she was sleeping.