Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,104
rusty water and a bleating alarm clock at four thirty a.m. This was why she schlepped her kayak to the dock all alone, slapping at mosquitoes before her first sip of coffee. Photography was all about light, and mornings offered the best chance of getting something useful. Not a guarantee but a chance, and it paid to play the odds. She couldn’t sell what she didn’t have.
Click.
Another careful step. Click click click.
The heron turned and took wing. She lowered the camera and watched him soar over the marsh, then swoop down into another clump of reeds.
Miranda sighed. Not bad for a day that had barely begun.
She shifted the camera under her arm and picked up the paddle, scanning the marshland for new possibilities. She had thirty minutes left. More, if the distant line of storm clouds lingered off the coast.
Her paddle snagged on something. She spotted a slim yellow cord stretched taut across the reeds. She paddled closer and spied something green tucked among the cattails. A canoe.
An explosion of feathers nearby made her heart lurch as a trio of white ibis flapped away. Behind her, something thrashed in the water. A fish? A cottonmouth?
Her attention snapped back to the boat. Her heart was thudding now as she drifted closer. The air felt charged, and all her senses went on high alert. Habits kicked in. She noted the direction of the wind. She noted the height of the sun. She noted the air, damp and pungent, pressing around her. Her stomach clenched tightly as she took a slow, shallow stroke, careful not to bump the canoe with her kayak as she peered over the side.
They looked peaceful, with their long limbs intertwined. His arm around her was protective. Tender.
Obscene.
Miranda’s vision blurred. Her brain recoiled from the sight in front of her, but she couldn’t turn away, couldn’t stop from registering every detail.
The man’s head was nestled on the woman’s shoulder just beneath her chin, and their pale skin looked rosy in the morning glow. An inch of water filled the bottom of the canoe. The woman’s dark braid drifted there like a snake.
She stared unblinking at the morning sky.
* * *
* * *
DETECTIVE JOEL BREDA pulled into the marina parking lot and slid his truck into a space beside a dusty police cruiser. He scanned the boats bobbing in their slips before turning his attention to the caliche lot. He recognized most of the vehicles, including the hulking old Suburban that belonged to the Lost Beach police chief.
Joel surveyed the two-story building as he got out. The marina occupied the first level, and a seafood restaurant with sweeping views of Laguna Madre occupied the top. Neither was open yet, but the weathered wooden bait shop near the boat docks would have been busy since sunrise. The shop owner stood beside his hut now, smoking a cigarette and watching a cluster of boats about a hundred yards offshore.
“Thought you were in Corpus.”
Joel turned to see Nicole Lawson trudging toward him. She wore a blue Lost Beach PD golf shirt and black rubber waders that were covered in muck.
“Not anymore,” Joel said. “Who’s here?”
“McDeere got here first. Then the chief. Still no sign of the ME.” Nicole turned toward the water, and Joel followed her gaze to the boats. An LBPD speedboat and several small skiffs blocked his view of the crime scene.
“What do we know?” Joel asked.
“So far, not much. Two victims, both shot in the gut. Randy called it in.”
Joel cast a glance at the bait shop owner as he flicked his cigarette to the ground. Randy chain-smoked when he was nervous. He’d probably gone through half a pack by now.
Nicole turned to face him. Her long red hair was tied in a messy bun instead of her usual braid, which made Joel think she’d been called out of bed.
“Male and female?” he asked.
“Yep. And they’re young, too. Maybe early twenties.”
Something in her tone caught his attention. He eased closer and lowered his voice. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, just . . . freaky crime scene.”
She’d been out there already, and Joel felt a stab of regret that he’d been off island when he got the call. He lived less than a mile away from here and should have been the first one on scene.
He studied Nicole’s tense expression. “Does it look like a murder? A murder-suicide? A suicide pact?”
“Don’t know.” She wiped her brow with the back of her forearm. “Could be any of those.