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“Don’t worry,” Rutledge said with another smirk. “It’s a calm day. There shouldn’t be too much roll.”
Easy for him to say.
The elevator doors opened, and they exited through the lobby where they met Casper, on the way in. “What’s up?” he asked as he stopped in front of them.
Rutledge grimaced. “You need to check your phone.”
“It’s dead. I forgot to charge it last night, and you know I can’t charge it in my car. It’s a classic. No way to plug in.”
Mac was sure she heard Rutledge grind his teeth. She knew it drove him crazy that Casper was so cavalier about things. She also knew it was an act. Rutledge hadn’t seemed to cop on it yet, which surprised her, but the team had only been together six months, so maybe Rutledge was still settling in.
Casper ran a hand over his white hair, which he had pulled back into a ponytail and his forehead crinkled. “So, what’d I miss?”
Mac knew as sure as she was standing there that Casper was lying. His raised eyebrows when he was lying was his tell. He was telling the truth about not being able to charge his cell in his old Mustang, but he knew about the call, and if she had to guess, he’d been sitting in his car waiting for them to come out. Why he was doing this type of shit, she didn’t know, but Casper liked to play games, and this was his court, so she tried to keep her head down and her mouth shut. She’d been burned before, and she wasn’t going through that fuckwittery again.
“Body out on the water. Was a leader of a special operations team. MSRT. We gotta go see what’s what.” Rutledge moved around Casper. “We’ll all take our own cars if that’s okay. We might be out there a while.”
“God, I hope not,” she murmured.
Casper winked at her. “Don’t worry, it’s calm today.”
He turned, and she followed him out to her little BMW convertible. She slid behind the wheel, putting her coffee in the cup holder and her bagel on the seat. They were only going down the street to the jetty, but if they came back late, walking across the parking lot at night was not so fun. The container pier next door was brightly lit at all hours, but it gave her the creeps to walk alone around Sand Island at night. Too much clanging and banging from the off-loading of ships and too many weird shadows cast by all the bright lights.
Since they were only going across base, she didn’t bother to put down her roof. She smiled to herself. She loved her car. It had been a splurge, but she’d decided to treat herself when she’d arrived in Oahu. She’d been through hell and was starting a new job, a new life. She deserved something fun. The car was silver and about seven years old. She didn’t care; she loved the BMW, and the convertible part made sitting in traffic worth it.
She pulled into a slot by theAids to Navigationbuilding and grabbed her baseball cap off the passenger seat. She tugged her ponytail through the back and adjusted the fit. She needed to keep the sun off her face and her head. That was something that she’d learned when she moved to Hawai’i. Her scalp had burnt a couple of times. Now, she always had a hat with her.
She was about to get out but paused to eat half of her bagel, toasted with cream cheese and bacon. She needed sustenance. She took a sip of her lukewarm black coffee and mused that she also needed a break from Casper. He’d caught up with her after the meeting and asked her to talk to a couple of CIs. It had been a colossal waste of time. She had told him she didn’t want to be involved in the search for the missing weaponry. Not her jam. He could go look for it while she did the paperwork he was supposed to do from their last case. He’d finally relented.
She ate one more chunk of bagel, took one more swig of coffee, and walked across the parking lot to the jetty. Rutledge and Casper were already on board the RHIB, which would be taking them out. It had a silver cabin with seats, one captain’s chair behind the pilot’s steering wheel and navigational instruments. It also had a silver deck and orange hard rubber sides. It was low in the water, and Mac knew the moment they hit the throttle, the bow would pop out of the water, and they would cut through the waves. Her stomach rolled again.
After Rutledge gave her a hand getting on the craft, she immediately went into the cabin and sat down. With her blond hair and pale skin, being out on the water would fry her like an onion. She’d put on sunscreen this morning as she did every morning, but if she’d known she’d be out on the water, she would have used the SPF one-hundred sunblock.
The boat left the dock, and in seconds, they were speeding out of Honolulu Harbor. She closed her eyes but then quickly opened them again. Watching the horizon was better for her rising nausea.
“You okay, ma’am?” the man driving the boat asked her. He was tall and lean with dark hair and eyes.
She smiled at him. “Yes, Petty Officer…”
“Victors, ma’am, John Victors.”
“Yes, Petty Officer Victors, I’m fine. Still trying to find my sea legs.”
He smiled at her. “Took me a while, too, but you’ll get used to it and, soon enough, you won’t even notice when you’re out on the water.”
“Hopefully,” she said.
“Now I tend to get land sickness after I’m out at sea for a longer period.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry…what?”
“Land sickness. At least, that’s what I call it. It’s when you’re back on solid land, but it feels like you’re still swaying. Takes a day or two for that to go away, but it’s all good.”
She gave him a halfhearted smile and tried not to panic. She could think of nothing worse than getting over her seasickness to suddenly acquire “land sickness.”
“Mac,” Casper called and waved her over to where he was standing just inside the door. “When we get there, I want you to interview the guys who found the body. Rutledge, I want you to talk to the medical examiner and see what he says. It’s Cadaver Dave, so he’ll fight you on it, but see if you can pin him down.”
He had to speak loudly over the sound of the engines and the wind, but his voice was giving Mac a headache. She groaned at the mention of the medical examiner. Cadaver Dave Mortenson. He was tall and reed-thin. His bald head was sort of egg-shaped, and his pale skin only emphasized the dark circles under his clear grey eyes. In short, he looked like he was dead, hence the nickname Cadaver Dave.
