Page 84 of Shallow Remains

On the drive back to town, he got a call from Mae. Only a handful of people outside of work had his personal number. “Morning, Mae. What can I do for you?”

“It could be nothing, but I wanted to mention it to you just in case with everything that’s going on. You know how quiet it is up here at my place with the dead end street. Maddy’s at Lachlan’s, but her car is still in the driveway at Willow’s place. Late yesterday afternoon I saw a car drive past my place and stop for about twenty seconds in front of the cottage. It was just the driver, and it went past too quick for me to get a full plate, but I got the first three letters, make, model and color.”

Mae was the unofficial matriarch of Whalebone Cove, and her word carried weight. If she was suspicious of something, he needed to take notice. “That’s great information. I’ll have someone look up the car.”

“Thank you, Rafe. It could be I’m just a paranoid old lady, but it just didn’t sit right with me.”

“You did the right thing.”

“When’s that detective coming over from the mainland?”

“This morning.” Thank God. “I’m headed into the station right now.”

“You’ll be glad for the help.”

That was a hilarious understatement. “You know it.”

“I’m having a dinner here tonight. Willow and Tripp are coming. Are you free?”

He opened his mouth to politely decline because he wanted to read over the Edgerton case file after work.

“Oh, and I think Willow’s friend is still in town. Bronwyn. Of course she’s invited too.”

“What time?” he asked, suddenly keen on accepting the invite.

“Six. Don’t bring anything but yourself.”

“I’m not sure when I’ll wrap up tonight, but I’ll keep you posted. Thanks, Mae, hope to see you later.”

He made the turn onto the main highway that led south back to the coast where Whalebone Cove nestled on the hillside leading down to the harbor, thinking about Bronwyn. And Mae.

Garrett Edgerton had murdered her grandson Carson in cold blood here on the island in a homophobic attack a few years back, stabbing him multiple times and leaving him to bleed out on a back street in town. He’d been arrested, charged, found guilty at his trial, and sentenced to prison.

Through a travesty of the justice system, for some damned reason he’d been paroled. Then the asshole had come straight back to Skelly to rub it in the locals’ faces. Soon after that, he’d disappeared. No one had seen or heard from him since April, and now his mother was pushing Rafe hard to have his missing person case reopened.

Rafe and his incoming detective had to decide quickly if they now had the time and resources to focus on the investigation or not. The last known sighting of Edgerton was by passengers on a ferry from Skelly to the mainland.

Rafe arrived in town with time to walk down to Seas the Day Café and grab a latte. On his way back, he spotted Earl coming down the sidewalk toward the station. “I guess it’s that time, huh?” he called out. Their weekly Monday morning briefing.

“Yup.” Earl held the door for him, raindrops glistening on the brim of his Marine Corps ballcap and neatly trimmed beard. “After you.”

Rafe greeted his staff on the way through to his office at the back of the building. Earl closed the door behind them and sat in the chair in front of Rafe’s desk. “This won’t take long today,” the older man said. “Not much to report. I was over on the mainland for a couple days on the weekend.”

Rafe stared at him in surprise. Earl never went to the mainland. He considered himself Skeleton Island’s guardian and took that self-imposed responsibility seriously. “Good for you, Earl. Hope you had some fun over there.”

“Not really, no. I’m glad to be back.”

“Ah.” Okay, moving on. “What’ve you got for me?”

He pulled out his notebook that contained his daily log. “I first noticed a few small boats leaving from a private dock between here and Cedar Point a couple weeks ago. Didn’t think much of it at first, but I made a note of it in my log anyway.”

Rafe took a look at the notes when Earl turned the notebook toward him. Bullet points. Marked with various colored highlighters. Pink signified the most important parts.

“They sail out around the point and come back in within an hour or so. Two guys. Always two guys, and they always carry backpacks. It seems to happen around dawn and right around sunset. I wouldn’t have mentioned it except the pattern is consistent enough to stand out, and it’s the exact same route of the boat that got into trouble and our SAR team responded to.”

The one where Rafe had subsequently arrested the two survivors with a shit ton of cash.

“It looks to me like they’re meeting up with someone out of sight around the point. There’s nothing up that way. No access road to the shore, no one to see or report anything.”