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Eddie is a lug now he’s dead and wrapped in feather down. I never liked the guy, but I’m somewhat sorry it came to such an unruly goodbye. Perhaps I should have drugged him and tossed him off the pier.
“Wow, guess I’m not the only scientist. What did you say you were doing all those years in the Bronx?”
“Selling ice cream,” I tell her with a wink. Kat crosses her arms and furrows her brow. “And Italian Ices.”
“Heath, come back for me,” she says, her voice cracking with emotion.
“I’ve never left you by choice, Katelyn Shaw.” I stalk to her and deliver a chaste kiss on her full and worried lips. And with that, I walk out of her house, her dead husband balanced carefully on my shoulder.
Donovan sends an unknown man who pulls up to the pier in Wainscott Hollow in an old cigarette boat that looks like it’s been around since the rum-runner days. Old man Shaw had the floating docks installed in the cove, and they’re still functional, although I doubt Henry does any fishing and has probably sold off his father’s boats to pay for his accumulating debt. It’s a shame this whole estate has gone to waste. I drop Eddie on the dock with a solid clunk and shine my blue laser across the water, so he’ll know where to steer the boat.
Instead of speaking, the man gives me a salute. He wordlessly takes one end of a blanket-rolled-Eddie-cigar and gives me a hand entering the boat. Water slaps against the side of the vessel and rocks it gently as we work. The man is tall and haggard-looking with pockmarked skin and a chewed cigar hanging from his mouth.
“How deep and how far?” the man asks as he starts the motor.
“Deep enough and far enough. Better if I don’t know coordinates.”
He nods again and picks up speed. The boat slices through the dark water until we’re swallowed by the blackness.
The ocean at night is a whole other beast than the ocean during the day. It’s not scenic or vacation vibes, it’s a profound absence of light, a real and present danger, an easy way to die if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. We drop the package overboard at an undisclosed location, which hits with a glug more than a splash. The white bedsheets and covers are momentarily visible against the dark water, like a ghost floating to its watery grave.
Eddie seems to sink more slowly than I’d imagined, but maybe it’s because I’m so eager to be rid of him. I instinctually brace myself in case Donovan’s henchman wants to send me in after him. But of course, he doesn’t.
When he’s good and sunk, we speed another ten minutes in the opposite direction, and I toss the Glock out into the dark sea, where it’s swallowed up like a single plankton in the mouth of a great whale. The waters of Wainscott Hollow have always been a graveyard of secrets.
I suddenly find myself anxious about returning to Kat and ask Donovan’s man to take me back as fast as he can. He obliges, and the rum-runner juts halfway out of the water as we tear through the darkness back to the small pier in the cove below the estate.
I find my phone where I left it on top of the fuse box on the dock. Blipping from Wainscott Hollow is expected. Twenty miles out into the ocean, however, is not. It’s safe to always cover one’s bases.
I cut the lights back on and check my messages. Nothing seems amiss, but I bang out a quick text to Kat, knowing I won’t feel any relief until I have her in my arms again.
Did you do what I told you? I’m on my way.
Trudging back to Eddie’s house through the sand, I curse myself for walking, which seemed like the most discreet plan at the time. But my shoulder and back scream from having carried Eddie so far, and my pulse thrums unreasonably fast, worrying about whether Kat ran into any problems with her assignments. I was dumb to leave her alone but taking her on a dumping job didn’t seem prudent.
The lights are on in Eddie’s beachfront mansion, looking warm and inviting like a beacon from these dark beaches. Wainscot Hollow is as dark as a haunted house, with Henry likely passed out in a pool of his own vomit. Henry’s next, but I like to do a neat job and take one thing at a time. A hit cannot be namby-pamby, no matter how short you are on time.
I veer left and stride down the path back to the Lind residence, where I hope to be greeted by the love of my life.
I find the back door open, and music blares from inside the house.
