“Were there any TV crews out there?” Baxter asked.
Harper gave her a significant look. “Not a single one.”
The editor gave a thin smile. “Call the island cops—find out what kind of search they’re doing. If they’ve got boats out looking for him, we run it on the front page. I’ll pull some images from the wire. Let’s put together a package—who he is, his music. What’s his story? Was he an alcoholic? A druggie?”
DJ, who had been pretending not to listen, couldn’t take it anymore. He spun his chair around. “His new album is all about his dad,” he informed them, eagerly. “I think he was shot to death in Savannah when Xavier was a kid.”
Harper made a mental note to look through the old files.
Baxter pointed a finger at DJ. “Drop whatever you’re working on and help Harper with this. I want a front-page spread ready to go by ten o’clock.”
As everyone got to work, she headed to her office, her last words floating across the rows of empty desks: “I’m going home to get some rest. I’ll be back at ten. Call me if a body turns up.”
This was the system that had been developed since she took over for Paul Dells. She came in at nine, worked all day, went home for a quick break, then returned to work until midnight.
DJ rolled his chair closer to Harper’s, not bothering to hide his eagerness. “How should we divide this up?”
He covered education, but often got roped into helping her on bigger stories. He rarely objected. His own beat wasn’t, he freely admitted, as sexy as hers.
“You know Rayne’s music better than I do—why don’t you write about that: his career, his new album. Anything you don’t know, ask Miles,” she told him. “I’ll handle all the cop stuff.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He spun back around as she logged into her computer.
There was something that had been bothering her since she first saw Admiral’s Row. Opening an internet map, she located the lane—a tiny dash, next to the sea—and traced the island’s edge until she located Cedarwood Drive, where she’d first run into Tom Southby.
She stared at the map for a long time, and then she picked up the phone.
The Tybee officer who’d tipped her off about Rayne’s disappearance answered on the first ring. “Tom Southby.”
“This is Harper McClain,” she said. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m checking in on the Rayne case—is there any news?”
“Nothing so far. We’ve contacted family and friends, checked with hospitals and all the morgues in the area. No sign of him, dead or alive.”
Harper tucked her phone under her chin and picked up her pen. “You got people out there looking for him—the Coast Guard?”
“We’ve had boats out all day. They called it off an hour ago when we lost the light. We’ll pick up the search in the morning.”
“I’ve got one more question,” Harper said. “Those gunshots people reported last night. Are you still certain those two things aren’t related?”
“I can’t find anything to connect them,” he said. “Besides, Cedarwood’s a good distance from Admiral’s Row.”
“It is by road.” She glanced at the map still open on her screen. “By beach, it’s much closer. No more than a few hundred yards. And if the wind was blowing the right way, it could have carried the sound down there easily.” She drew a breath. “I just think it’s a hell of a coincidence that he disappeared when people heard shots.”
There was a long pause.
“Now look, I know why you’re thinking this.” His tone was placating. “Over there in Savannah, you’ve got a lot of crime. You hear gunshots, you’ve got yourself some trouble. We hear gunshots out here? We’ve got duck hunters out in the marshes. We’ve got a boat with a bad mix in its fuel line. We don’t have a murder.”
“Duck hunters at two in the morning?” Harper couldn’t keep the skepticism out of her voice, and Southby obviously noticed it, because when he spoke again his voice was noticeably cooler.
“Miss McClain, if he was shot, where’s the crime scene? I’ve got no blood, no viscera. I’ve got no body. I’ve got nothing, Miss McClain, except a man who went for a walk and didn’t come home. Speculation is entertainment. I am not in the entertainment business. What I know for a fact is that riptides off that beach kill people every year. And sound carries strangely over water. Are we clear on this?”