Page 71 of Wild Tempest

The sheriff joined us in the hallway. He was mad. We all were. "I want you to find the bodies of those kids and his mistress. I want this scumbag underneath the jail.”

"We've searched all over that island."

"Well, they’re obviously not on the island. I don't care if you have to dredge the entire Atlantic, I want something solid that ties him to the murders."

“We’re on it,” I said.

Brenda buzzed my phone.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I think you need to get over here and see this,” she said.

42

“Look at this,” Brenda said when we caught up with her at her office. She showed us an image on a tablet. "This is an oil painting of Doña Elena de la Cruz.”

The portrait depicted a beautiful young woman with long raven hair, tawny eyes, elegant bone structure, and porcelain skin.

Brenda pointed to the enameled gold heart-shaped locket around the woman's neck. Encrusted with jewels, it was the spitting image of the locket recovered with the skeletal remains from Whistler Cay.

Brenda showed us the locket. She opened it up, and inside were two portraits painted on ivory. One was a handsome gentleman, the other portrait resembled the one of Doña Elena de la Cruz that Brenda had shown us. Likely painted by the same artist. "I ran the DNA through the ancestral database, and this is a familial match with other descendants from the same bloodline. She had a sister.” Brenda paused. "I can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it's reasonable to say this might very well be the remains of Doña Elena de la Cruz.”

I shared a look with Jack.

"Since these remains are clearly more than 75 years old and not involved in an ongoing investigation, I'm going to transfer jurisdiction to the state archaeologist and recommend the remains be treated as historically significant. They will do more research and documentation and arrange final disposition."

"It's important that she receives a proper burial in a consecrated cemetery,” I said.

I wasn't exactly superstitious, but it was the right thing to do.

“I’ll inform the state archaeologist, and they will handle all of those arrangements. I'll keep you posted," Brenda said.

We thanked her, then left the Medical Examiner's Office and headed back to the Avventura.

"I'm thinking maybe we should look around that island again," Jack said.

"We've been over that island with a fine-tooth comb," I said.

"Maybe we missed something. Martin probably dragged all of those bodies into his boat and dumped them offshore. I can’t imagine he went too far. We can drop a towfish behind the Raptor and use side-scan sonar to map the seafloor. Who knows? We might stumble across something.”

I cringed. "About the boat… We don't have it anymore.”

Jack's brow knitted. "What do you mean we don't have it any more?”

"You know, in the grand scheme of things, we never really own anything,” I said, getting philosophical. “It's just ours for a short time, then it passes on to the next owner. We should live in gratitude for the time we had.”

Jack sniffed bullshit. “What happened to the boat? And who is this next owner?”

I told him the story about our encounter with the cartel.

"The boat was practically brand-new!”

"It was old, and there's a new model that's even better," I said.

Jack sighed. "I'll call Zach Forrester and order another one.”

"I think that's wise.”