HelenKay Dimon - Cornered

She looked at Holt. “It sort of was.”

Shane joined the group at the table. He sat across from Julia and looked her over with a frown on his face. “You okay?”

“She sprained her ankle.” He’d also scared the crap out of her and killed a man in front of her, which had to have her mind blinking, but the team knew that from his check-in, so Cam didn’t repeat it now.

This time she aimed her sigh at Cam. “ She twisted her ankle and she can speak.”

Shane barked out a laugh. “I like her.”

“She’s a talker.” Cam figured they might as well get that out of the way because Holt operated on the say-as-few-words-as-possible theory.

Shane’s smile faded. “Oh.”

With that done, Cam turned back to the case. “What do we have?”

“No identification on the deceased. Connor and Joel are working on it from the photos and fingerprints we sent.”

She put a palm on the table. “Who are they?”

Something about the way she held her hand out had them all quieting down. Cam had never seen anything like it. The team members tended to talk over each other when it came to handling assignments. Connor and to a lesser extent Holt and Davis, the leader of the Annapolis home team, could demand the floor with absolute certainty.

Before Cam could give a personnel rundown, Holt jumped in. “Connor runs the Corcoran Team. It’s his baby. Joel is our tech guy. Both are back in the Annapolis main office.”

She held up one finger. “Okay, one more question—”

Shane whistled. “I see what you mean about the talking.”

“—who or what is the Corcoran Team?” She ended the comment by glaring at Shane.

There was a long-winded answer about undercover, off-the-books work. Cam went with the easier response. “We are.”

“That doesn’t really clear anything up.” Her last word cut off before she looked at Holt. “And did you say you checked the deceased? I’m guessing that means you went back to the house, though I have no idea why you’d want to see that scene.”

Holt nodded. “Yes.”

“Have we figured out why these guys tracked Cam and kept shooting at him?” she asked as she leaned in.

“Not yet.”

Cam could have listened to her rapid-fire questions and Holt barely answering all day. It summed up their respective personalities. But he knew from experience Holt’s patience would expire, and that was reason alone to end this.

“We came here to talk to a witness who reported some concerns. Raised some questions about illegal drug running on Calapan,” Cam explained, trying to keep the intel as neutral as possible.

“Who?” she asked.

Shane shook his head. “I don’t think—”

“Rudy Bleesher.” Cam ignored the stunned stares from his teammates. He was surprised he’d shared that information, too, but nothing made sense on this job. They’d come here for an interview and ended up in a shoot-out. Not the usual assignment. “She’s from here. We aren’t.”

She snorted. “If it’s about drugs, Rudy will know.”

Holt’s eyebrows lifted. “Because?”

“We went to school together, and the guy knew all about drug dealing.”

Finally a piece of the puzzle that fit for Cam. If Rudy had started out using and maybe dealing and now wanted to turn in evidence to cut a deal or get out of trouble or whatever, that made sense. And they were talking about drugs in serious amounts.

Cam had been with the team for three years and had never gone after a run-of-the-mill drug user. But word was the operation on Calapan was serious business and served as a source for moving drugs up and down the coast and into Canada, which made it Corcoran business.

“You’re sure this is the same guy?” Shane asked.

She started drumming those fingers again. “The island is thirty square miles, and most of that is wooded and uninhabited. Yeah, I know Rudy.”

“We need to talk with Rudy and get Julia off the island.” Holt glanced down at her hand but kept talking. “The ferry isn’t an option until we clear these guys out, which means we need to find the real police chief.”

“You know about him?” she asked.

“They were there when I got shot at.” Cam thought that part had been obvious but he guessed not. “They were watching when everything fell apart.”

Julia flattened her hand against the table. “Which time?”

“The first, the time that led me to you, but you make a good point.” Back then Cam had called the scramble code and they’d scattered. At that point he’d still thought they could grab Rudy and be gone without trouble. Talk about a miscalculation.

Holt looked through the binoculars and Shane rechecked maps on his watch. Cam waited. He could tell something ran through her head. Maybe it was the way she gnawed on her bottom lip.

The quiet stretched on for a few more beats before she exhaled. “I can take you to Rudy’s house.”

“No way.” Shane clicked on the GPS function on his watch. “Give us the address.”

“You’ll never find it,” she said in almost an I-told-you-so offensive strike.

Cam sided with Shane on this one. “We’re pretty good at this.”

He wanted Julia long gone and far away when they tracked down Rudy. The man wasn’t where he was supposed to be this morning, and all hell had broken loose because of that.

“Fine.” She shrugged. “Go to the fourth turn past the group of willows by the water where all the kids went skinny-dipping in high school.”

Shane stared at her. “Maybe a street name?”

“There isn’t one, to my knowledge. Rudy lives in a shack.” She sent Cam that I-told-you-so grin she’d all but promised. “Getting mail is the least of his concerns.”

“You win.” Holt slapped a hand against the table and got up. He pointed at Cam. “You take Julia and look for Rudy. Shane and I will find the chief or at least clear the ferry area of suspects.”

She shifted to look up at Holt, who now towered over her. “How?”

He smiled for the first time since he had sat down. “We can be persuasive.”

“But first.” Cam eyed Holt.

“What?” She glanced around, looking more confused by the second.

“Right. Sorry.” Holt bent over and picked up a bag. He took out a bandage, then an ice pack. “Cam is going to set your ankle.”

Her gaze flipped to Cam. “You know how to do that, too?”

The woman needed to have some faith. “My skills are endless.”

* * *

RAY MINER STOOD in the ferry’s ticket-buying area, just inside the building, so he could get a good look at anyone approaching the marina. But he was looking for one person in particular—Cameron Roth. The guy was supposed to be some superstar pilot who was good with a gun.

Ray had some skills of his own and was pretty sure he’d impressed the guy by shooting the man he was holding from right under his arm. But now he was down two men and Ray didn’t like that at all. Cameron would pay for that.

Two more of his men returned from their search of the ferry decks after the most recent unloading. “There’s nothing and no one left on board, but the waiting passengers are getting antsy.”

“Tell them there’s a delay and to come back for the next one.” When his men stared at each other but neither moved, Ray saw the positives in eliminating a few of his guys without Cameron’s help.

Ned, the bigger of the two and the one who usually did the talking, cleared his throat. “They’re starting to have questions.”

As if Ray cared. “We have the captain tied up and the rest of the crew believing I had to come in from Seattle and commandeer the boat because of the transfer of illegal goods in one of the cars. Have the crew inform the passengers that there is a search ongoing at the moment.”