P. Alderman - A Killing Tide

Gary nodded, then sucked in a breath. "Svensen takes out…to be swapped for drugs." He tried to wet his lips with his tongue, and she rose to get him some water out of the cooler. She held it to his battered lips and trickled it into his mouth. He gave her a grateful look as he swallowed.

"Who is Karl's contact?"

Gary shook his head abruptly, then winced. "No…no way….Too dangerous."

Kaz let that go while she paced and thought it through. So how did Karl get away with regularly meeting someone out on the water and not being seen by the other members of the fishing fleet? The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was the obvious solution, and she'd even heard Karl say it herself. She hadn't put it together until now. And, she realized, no one else would've either. It would've escaped everyone's notice. Only a fisherman would've caught on, and only over time.

"You said you found notations in Karl's ship's log. Did any of them match to this?" She repeated what she'd heard Karl say over the radio when she and Michael had been out. Gary nodded.

She resumed her pacing. Okay. So she had the list of drop-off locations, and she also knew which one was for the next rendezvous. She had to find Svensen, follow him. If they could catch him in the act, they'd have enough leverage on him to get to whoever was in charge. Was today a day that they'd make a drop? It was Friday—a day most fishermen were superstitious about going out on the water. Which made it ideal—less people would be out there to observe what was going on. She'd bet Svensen was going out tonight.

She hugged Gary again, carefully, trying to will some of her strength into him. "I want you to rest, and to not worry. But most of all, I want you to stay alive until we get back."

"Sure."

Kaz frowned at him. Something wasn't right. She opened her mouth, but just then, she heard a commotion outside the door.

The door opened, and Sykes strode in, trailed by Lucy. He leaned over the table, his expression angry, one eye showing bruising underneath. "What the hell is going on in here?"

"Why hasn't he been treated?" Kaz demanded right back, not answering his question. "He could have internal injuries."

"That's a damn good question. McGuire?"

Lucy stared at Sykes, speechless.

"Do you mean that you didn't know about this?" Kaz asked, confused.

"Of course not. I've been out of the office since we apprehended him, putting ice on this black eye," he said. "You shouldn't be in here, Kaz. There's no way I'm giving you an opportunity to tell the judge that we compromised the legal process. Gary can see a lawyer, and that's it." He turned to pin Lucy with a hard look. "Was this your idea?"

Kaz deflected him, answering for her. "I was concerned about Gary's condition and demanded to see him. Clearly, he's in no shape to be making his own decisions. I will be immediately calling a lawyer to represent him, and I'd like you to delay arraignment until he can arrive."

Sykes shook his head. "We'll temporarily assign him a public defender. The DA won't agree to bail, anyway, not after the fight he put up when he was arrested. So all he has to do at the hearing is plead 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty.'"

Kaz didn't like it, but she knew she couldn't stop him. "Why do you have him on suicide watch?"

Sykes stared at her for a long moment. "This is the first I've heard of it—I'll check it out." He came around the end of the table and gripped her elbow hard enough to leave bruises. "You're leaving, now."

Lucy, who was standing slightly behind Sykes, cocked her head toward the squad room, indicating that she wanted to talk.

Kaz glanced at Gary, who was watching the exchange with intense concentration. When he realized she was looking at him, though, he immediately dropped his gaze back to the floor. Something was horribly wrong, she could feel it.

"Go." Gary said, the word almost a whisper. He had slumped back in his chair, pain clouding his expression.

She jerked her elbow out of Sykes' grasp, walked back over to him, bending down. "What?"

Gary drew a long, shaky breath. "I'll be all right," he said, his voice stronger. "Just… go ."

Back in the hallway, she walked over to Lucy's desk to retrieve her jacket. "I'm headed for the marina, then the Redemption . I'll call Michael on my cell phone—"

Lucy was already shaking her head. "You know he wanted you to wait for him."

"There's no time, he can catch up with me." Kaz glanced at her watch. Slack tide was in just under two and a half hours. She turned to leave, then stopped. "Wait—was there something you wanted to tell me?"

Lucy hesitated, then shook her head. "Not yet. There's something I need to check first. But Kaz—be careful."

#

At the fire station, Michael stapled the last of his notes together and placed them in the arson investigation file. His cell phone rang. Dropping the file folder on the desk in front of him, reached for the unit, flipping it open. Recognizing the Caller ID, he smiled. "Mac. You ship me those coffee beans yet?"

"Sent them out yesterday. Tasha at the coffee shop sends her best. How the hell you keep them sniffing around when you don't put out, buddy, is a mystery to the entire staffs of the fire and police departments of the Greater Boston Area."

"Right." Michael's smile widened, remembering the events of last night. Mac didn't know that he'd finally broken his long run of celibacy.

He'd forgotten that making love to the woman you'd fallen in love with was a completely different, shattering experience. He felt like he'd been turned inside out, that he'd crossed some invisible threshold and was now looking at the world with an entirely new perspective.

"Yo, buddy. You still there?" Mac's voice held a note of curiosity.

Michael forced his mind back to the present. "Any word back on who's been checking me out?"

"The mayor of your cute little burg called a few of the higher-ups, including your surrogate papa, but that's no surprise. And someone from the police department evidently talked to Geoff Whitford who, as we all know, loves you just the way you are. The sonofabitch probably blabbed everything, out of spite."

Michael wouldn't be surprised. Mac was right—Whitford had resented Michael for more than a decade, stemming from an incident during Whitford's rookie years. Michael had been the one to write him up, and to point out to the brass that Whitford wasn't good management material. If Geoff could make Michael's life difficult, he'd leap at the chance. "You know who placed the call?" Michael asked.

"Couldn't ferret that out. So, when are you moving back?"

"Not in this lifetime."

"Says the person with the addiction to quality caffeine."

Michael's phone beeped, indicating another incoming call. "Gotta go. Say hello to Sharon for me."

"You're behind a little, pal. That's what living in the boonies gets you. This week, it's Susie."

Michael shook his head, smiling, and ended the call, picking up the next one. It was the state lab. "Tell me what you've got."

The lab technician, for once, sounded dead serious. "You'd better get over here. Now ."

~~~~

Chapter 24

Lucy watched Sykes go down the hall to his office, enter, and close the door. She stood and wandered over to the vending machine against the far wall, fed quarters into it, punching the button for a can of soda with more force than was necessary.

Okay, think. Something wasn't adding up—what she'd just overheard didn't compute. And dammit, if she just had more caffeine in her system, her fuzzed-out brain would be able to sort through this mess.

Clint Jackson had told her that Sykes had been the one to put Gary on suicide watch. But Sykes was acting as if this was news to him. So someone was lying. And when she put that together with Gary's refusal to talk to the cops all along, then the way he resisted arrest... hell . Somewhere, there was a dirty cop. And the obvious choice was Jackson.