Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,66
quit again. Go back to the beach and bum around for the rest of my life.”
“Then why don’t you? As long as you leave an email address this time, I won’t kick your arse.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the job won’t let me quit.”
Emmy’s cocky expression faltered, and a second later, it was replaced by a sad smile. When she spoke, her words were so soft Alaric could barely hear them.
“Welcome to my world, Prince.”
CHAPTER 26 - ALARIC
“WHERE’S BLACK?” ALARIC asked on the way to the lake on Saturday morning. “Any new leads on Ridley?”
Emmy took a sip from her family-sized mug of coffee. “One of Mack’s alerts pinged. Ridley got a speeding ticket on the way to Memphis two days ago.”
“Memphis?”
“He’s got family there, but so far, he hasn’t shown up near any of their homes. We’re watching them.”
“We’re watching them, and they’re watching us.”
The onlookers had been up by the road again yesterday, hovering from dawn till dusk. A local reporter had approached the dive team after lunch, wanting photos and an interview for a story on local ecology, and a fisherman complained they were scaring the bass away, but apart from that, their unwanted audience stayed silent. At times, it felt as if Piper’s spirit were watching them too. Alaric got the same prickly feeling every time he looked at Dominique in Red After Dark.
Had Ridley’s men been among the crowd? Dan had mingled, taking photos for Mack to analyse. If Beth had been on the shore, Alaric wouldn’t have wanted to leave her alone, just in case, but Dan could take care of herself, as could Emmy and Nick. They knew the score. He had to take comfort in that.
“Mack hasn’t identified any known adversaries so far, and she’s good at what she does.”
“I know.”
Still, having Ridley lurking in the background was concerning.
“Maybe we should get a couple of extra people here? To keep an eye on things?”
“You think we need bodyguards?”
“No, but…”
“I already thought of it, okay? But the Kentucky office doesn’t have any spare manpower at the moment. There’s some sort of virus going around, and everyone’s busy puking.”
“Just watch your back.”
“I always do.”
That’s what Emmy said, but if Alaric had known what was to come, he’d have handcuffed her, thrown her into his trunk, and driven them both far, far away.
What was the time? Alaric’s stomach said one o’clock, but his watch said eleven. Why did tiredness always make you hungrier? He checked his air—down to forty bar. They should head up soon, but since Knox still had sixty bar left, Alaric was willing to push the envelope a bit.
Then he saw it.
Just the faintest outline to his left at first, a line too straight to be organic. The roof of a vehicle. He turned on his flashlight. For the most part, they’d been diving without lights because the beams reflected back off the silt and blinded them, but as he got closer, the glow illuminated a dark car, filthy from years underwater and covered in detritus. He tapped on his air tank with a metal clip to alert Knox.
It was a car, but was it Piper’s car? The shape looked about right for a Honda Civic, but in the gloom, it could have been brown or grey or blue or burgundy.
Twenty bar left.
Alaric and Knox swam around the rear of the car, and even with the build-up of sediment around the bottom, the dent on the left-hand panel was clear to see. Knox used one gloved hand to rub at a patch in the centre of the trunk. A silver H gleamed back at them.
Who would break the news to Piper’s grandma?
Alaric didn’t want it to be true. He didn’t want this car to be a vibrant young woman’s final resting place. To be sure, he wiped a clear patch in the slime on the driver’s side window and peered inside. He’d expected to see a dead girl, but he still jumped when empty eye sockets stared back at him, the tattered remains of a blouse still floating around bony shoulders.
They’d found her. They’d found Piper Simms, and now Kyla would pay.
He gave a thumbs up to Knox—not signifying good news but rather a diver’s signal to ascend. Together, they started the slow trip to the surface, pausing for a three-minute safety stop at five metres to reduce the risk of decompression sickness. Nobody had time for a trip to a hyperbaric chamber right now.