P. Alderman - A Killing Tide

She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the heat creep into her cheeks. Then she busied herself pouring the shake into two glasses, holding one of them out to him. With any luck, his portion had some metal shavings in it.

He rinsed the spoon off in the sink, using the towel lying on the counter between them to dry his hands. Taking the glass from her, he set it on the counter, then removed a long tube containing a cotton swab from his jacket pocket.

She backed up a step. "What's that?"

"The lab techs found a possible DNA sample on the boat this morning. I'll need yours to rule you and your brother out."

She thought rapidly. Anyone would tell her that she was crazy to comply without consulting a lawyer, but she doubted she could find one on such short notice. The only lawyer she knew in town was the one her parents had used as executor of their will, and he'd retired years ago. Not that he would know anything about criminal law anyway.

She could call Phil, the lawyer she'd been dating for the last couple of years in San Francisco, but that would take a day or two—Phil wasn't known for returning calls he considered a low priority. And ever since she'd told him she wasn't ready to commit to marriage, she'd definitely been a low priority.

"I can go get a court order compelling you to give me a sample, or we can get this over with right now," Chapman said, apparently reading her thoughts.

She hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged.

He moved closer and held up the swab. "Open up." She complied, and he ran the swab expertly along the inside of her cheek.

His hand paused, the swab resting lightly on her lower lip, and she looked up, right into his heated gaze.

She could hear his heightened breathing, sense the strong, steady beat of his heart. His shoulders blocked out the light coming from the window behind him, creating a zone of intimacy around them.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and her breath hitched. Bad sign.

They both took a cautious half-step back.

His expression curiously grim, he put the swab inside the tube, sealing it and replacing it in the pocket inside his jacket.

She slowly released the breath she'd been holding and picked up her glass, taking a sip of it. Her hands were shaking. "When can I get access to the Anna Marie?" she asked, trying for a normal tone of voice. "I need to get her dry-docked."

"Soon. I'm almost done processing her for evidence." He drank a couple of sips out of his glass, probably out of politeness, then set it down on the counter. Walking over to the table, he picked up the envelope of photos. "You might want to think about the fact that someone who has killed once usually doesn't have a problem with killing again."

She cocked her head. "Does that mean you think someone other than Gary did this?"

"Anything is possible," he conceded. "And one of those possibilities is that you could be in danger. Why don't you let me tag along, help you find your brother?"

She tsked. "That was smooth, but I'm not quite that gullible. Or that rattled."

He merely shook his head. "Then I'll be on my way. Thanks for the coffee and…everything," he said, smiling slightly. "Where do you buy your coffee, by the way?"

"My partner mails it to me from California."

"Figures." He gave Zeke a hand command and turned to leave, then stopped. "Do you keep a space heater on board the Anna Marie?"

She barely kept herself from reacting. "No, why?"

He shrugged. "Just thought I'd ask—it's not important."

After the two of them left, Kaz stood for a moment in the silence of her suddenly empty kitchen, waiting for her system to level out. Okay, she needed to reassess. She'd been ambushed by the strength of her response to him. But it was just a little unwelcome chemistry, that's all. She could handle it. Handling men on a personal level had never been her strong suit, as Phil was always quick to point out. But she'd deal with Chapman.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. And maybe, just maybe if she repeated that to herself enough times, she'd start to believe it.

She had no illusions that she'd seen the last of Chapman—he'd probably made it only as far as her curb and would hound her every move. Or simply sic his dog on her.

He'd been more accurate than he knew. She did have a good idea of where Gary had probably gone to ground. Well, at least, the general area. And she knew whom to ask—if he had a phone, she already would've called him.

After he'd ducked out of her view the night before, Chuck must've stood at the back edge of the crowd, watching. She'd recognized him in the photo and was still a little surprised he'd allowed himself to be seen. Someone had had a hand on his shoulder—a hand that bore a ring she'd know anywhere. The gold, embossed signet of Astoria High School, Class of '88. Gary had been there, watching from a distance.

How long did she have before Chapman showed the photos to Lucy, who'd have no trouble identifying that blurred image? Or before he asked Lucy about the space heater, which she knew that Gary regularly stored in his truck and used in the wheelhouse on long drag-fishing trips?

An hour, maybe two.

Picking up Chapman's glass, Kaz downed the other half of the protein shake. She could use the boost, and right now, a few metal shavings were the least of her worries.

~~~~

Chapter 6

After stopping for gas, Kaz drove west on Marine Drive, then veered off along the north shore of Young's Bay. The tide was out, exposing deeply carved, milk chocolate-tinted ridges of mud at the bay's edge. Tufts of bright green grass and burnt-orange reeds topped each ridge, and where water had drained away, silvery lines etched the shiny surface of the mud. The lines deepened into gullies that eventually dumped into the section of the bay where calm water could still be found, reflecting the gray sky above. As Kaz drove, she spotted at least a dozen great blue herons wading in the shallows. Eagles, plentiful in the winter months, fished from the ends of old logs and rotted piers.

She kept an eye on her rearview mirror, hoping to spot anyone tailing her. A mile back, she could've sworn she'd glimpsed Clint Jackson in a patrol car. All Gary needed, at this point, was for her to lead the cops right to him. There was no one behind her now, though.

Chapman remained her biggest worry. She thought she'd lost him, but maybe not. She could kick herself for not noticing what make and model of car he drove.

Crossing the Wallooskee River, she drove through farm country until the highway started winding into the foothills toward its ultimate destination, the old logging town of Mist. After another ten minutes, she came to the Elk Preserve.

People who wanted a lot of privacy and very few visitors had homes near the preserve, well hidden in the forest. The foothills of the Coast Range had been logged at least twice in the last century, and some of the more recently clear-cut areas resembled pastures full of nothing but dead stumps—stump farms, the locals called them. The older cuts, which had happened before logging companies had been obliged to replant, had grown stands of mixed, native forest as nature had intended.

Chuck Branson had eighty acres of older forest, up a now-defunct logging road on the southeast edge of the preserve. He'd moved out there after Desert Storm, buying the land out of the money he'd earned fishing in Alaska. For the first two years, he'd lived in an army tent while he, Gary, and Ken had built his cabin from the trees on his land. The sign at the entrance to his property read, if i don't know you, you shouldn't be here .

He meant it.

His gate was chained shut with the kind of padlock that would take C-4 to breach, so Kaz parked her SUV in front of it and climbed over.