“You went into the water?”
She looked down at her battered hands. “The current was incredibly swift and swept me downstream. I remember debris striking me. Finally I heard Nicolas screaming and somehow managed to grab his hand. But I didn’t know how badly I was injured. I was terrified I would pass out. That the cop would find us and finish what he’d begun.”
“How did you end up here?” he asked.
“After a while the current slowed. I managed to grab a tree root as we passed a bridge not far from the Lighthouse Point marina. I remembered Angela telling me to bring Nicolas here, to the island. I knew she kept a boat there.”
“So you stole it?”
“I did what I had to do to stay alive.”
“What about the gun?” he asked.
“Angela’s,” she replied. “I found it here.”
“That’s convenient as hell.”
“There’s nothing convenient about any of this.” She nodded toward the door where Nicolas slept. “I made her a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
“Or maybe you wanted her child for yourself.”
Anger swept through her with such force that she broke a sweat. “That’s an absurd assumption.”
“That’s the chief’s theory.”
“He’s wrong.” She contemplated him for a moment, looking for some emotion that would tell her what he was thinking, what his agenda was. But his face was as unreadable as a stone. “I didn’t kill her. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I haven’t decided what I believe yet.”
She had. She didn’t trust this man.
“You can count on one thing,” he said after a moment. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to find the person who killed Angela. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make them pay.”
Chapter Three
“How in the name of God did an unarmed woman and a little boy manage to elude four men armed with shotguns, two bloodhounds and a chopper equipped with infrared?” The man in the Italian-made suit and shiny wingtips paced as he snarled the words.
The rotund man standing opposite his desk shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “The terrain was rugged. It was dark and raining.”
“Don’t hand me excuses, damn it! Your men are supposed to be trained professionals. How do you explain this catastrophe?”
“We had a lot of ground to cover in a very short period of time.”
“That doesn’t change the problem we’re facing.”
“We believe Atwood was hit. We found blood…”
The suited man’s eyes blazed with a volatile mix of fury and disbelief. “I don’t want her hit! Hit people can still talk. I want her dead. And I want the child dead! I want them dead yesterday. Do you understand?”
“With all due respect, another death so soon will raise questions—”
“Atwood shot and killed a Lighthouse Point police officer. She kidnapped an autistic child. She is armed and dangerous with nothing left to lose. Believe me, her death at the hands of a police officer will not be questioned.”
The man standing opposite the desk didn’t look convinced.
“If Atwood talks to the wrong person she could blow this entire operation sky-high. I will not spend the rest of my life in prison because your men are incompetent.”
The other man felt a drop of sweat slide between his shoulder blades. “I have four men looking for them around the clock.”
“Look harder. No one disappears without a trace.”
“She could have drowned in the river.”
The man in the suit spun and crossed to his lackey. Sweat glistened on his face. A vein in his temple looked as if it might burst. “Do not make the mistake of assuming she drowned. She is a walking time bomb. If she talks, all of us will be going to prison for a very long time. The flow of money will come to a grinding halt. I will do whatever it takes to keep both of those things from happening. Am I clear?”
The rotund man wiped sweat from his brow. “Yes, sir.”
The man in charge turned away and paced to the wall. “Use your resources to check all the local hospitals to see if any bullet wounds have been reported. Find out who her friends are. Check with family members. Pay them a personal visit. Make sure they know she is a fugitive and the full force of the law will come down on them like a ton of bricks if they do not cooperate.”
“All right.”
Grinding his teeth, the man crossed to the topographical map pinned to the wall. He glared at the area circled in red. He studied the river. “There’s a marina at the mouth of the river.”
“That’s correct.”
“Have you checked with the harbormaster?”
“I’ll take care of it personally. Right away.”
He reached out and put his hand on the other man’s beefy shoulder. But the ice in his eyes belied his serene expression. “We’ve been good to you.”
“Yes, you have.”
“The benefits have been rewarding?”
“The benefits have exceeded my expectations.”