that. Here; let me take the helm.” Sam slid over toward the helmsman’s seat. “You want some lunch? There’s stuff below. Help yourself to whatever you can find.”
Molly took the hint and headed below. She found a half-eaten bag of chips, some pretzels, and an apple. She also pulled two waters out of the refrigerator before coming topside and offering the lot to Sam.
“So what do you think Lee found out?” It was Molly’s turn to fish for information.
“Whatever it was, it was hot. His desk at home got searched, and whoever was after it must have thought I got it because my boat got tossed on the same night Lee was killed.” Sam pointed to the slashed cushion covers. “He was making a matrix of some kind. I just haven’t had a chance to sift through it yet. That may have something to do with this mess.”
“Where is it?”
“Tucked away,” Sam said as he stuffed a handful of chips in his mouth. “What do you know about the fire at the Golden Sun Hotel?”
“What makes you think I know anything about that?” Molly sounded defensive.
“Because you seem to know a lot about what goes on in this town. Your friends, you know.”
“I don’t know all that much. I just focus on stuff that matters.” She turned away and watched the horizon.
Seeing that he’d hit a nerve, Sam apologized. “Were you and your brother close?”
“Yep.”
“Look, Molly; I think we got off on the wrong foot. We obviously have common information about certain things. Your brother and Lee were both into something they shouldn’t have been into, and they both got waxed. Assuming it was a set-up, we might be looking for the same person.”
“We?” Molly looked directly at Sam, her eyes flashing, but her mouth curling into a smile. “You mean ‘we’ should work together on this case? Like partners?”
“Don’t get carried away, Molly. Let’s just start with what we’ve got. If I find out anything more, I will let you know, and I want you to do the same. But you don’t need to go find trouble for yourself. Understood?”
“Whatever.”
“Let’s start with why you were in Southport last night.”
“I told you, I wasn’t in Southport; I was delivering a boat for some guy on Bald Head Island from Wilmington. He got fresh with me on the ride home, so I decked him. He had a glass jaw, I guess, because when he hit the deck, he didn’t get up again. I tossed an anchor overboard for him and then jumped overboard near Brunswick. I swam ashore and was looking for a ride when the guy with the deer lights came screaming by.”
“And that’s it?”
“Well, almost.”
Sam got in her face. “Look; if we’re going to work together, you have to tell me everything you know about this, or I can’t help. What’s worse, if you don’t start being honest with me, you could get us both killed!”
“Well, don’t get your boxers in a knot. I was getting around to telling you. I got to the marina on Bald Head earlier than the new boat’s owner expected me, so before I met up with him, I did a little sightseeing. I walked over to the lighthouse. I wanted to see the view, so I climbed the stairs. Pretty spectacular, if you haven’t been up there. You can see out to sea for quite a ways, something like twenty nautical miles.
“As I walked around the inside reading the signs about the structure and the history, I noticed a memorial plaque on the wall that commemorated the service of a woman cop who died on the grounds there. It reminded me of the story I had heard a few months earlier. There was little information about it in the article because, of course, it’s the island and nobody ever dies over there. Anyway, that happened about the same time my brother got involved with the wrong crowd.
“I started thinking about that, and thinking there might be a connection to the guys who killed my brother. So this morning, I dug up the article in the newspaper’s archives.” Molly pulled from her shirt pocket a computer-printed copy of the article. She read the first paragraph to Sam:
Melinda Southerby thought her new gig on Bald Head Island would be a peaceful change from her stint as a police officer in Miami, Florida, but the job cost her dearly: she lost her life while off duty. After only two months on the force of the coastal