“Um, accident with a knife,” she said as she slid the withdrawal slip across the veneered counter.
“You should be more careful….”
Kresley tuned her out, not to be rude but because she was relieved at not being interrogated. She’d been so terrified of not being able to answer questions, she’d actually written her address and birth date on the palm of her good hand.
“Here you go,” the teller said with a wave and a broad grin. “One money order, a receipt and a hundred dollars.” The teller set them out as if dealing a hand of cards.
“Thank you,” Kresley said, sticking it all inside her empty purse and stepping away from the window.
Her next stop was the phone store where she bought a cell phone. Then, as the sun was setting, she walked the short distance back to her apartment complex, in search of her landlady. She knocked on the door and the landlady yelled to come in. She’d supplemented her central air conditioning with a large window unit that made a strained rattling sound. Her apartment was the same floor plan as Kresley’s, though instead of a living room, she had it set up as an office.
“What now?”
“I brought back your phone and I want to clear up my back rent.” She reached into her purse and handed over the money order.
Scowling, the woman pursed lips that were poorly outlined in an unnatural orange-brown. “I’ve been hounding you for months. How come you can pay now?”
“Does it matter?” Kresley asked.
The woman shrugged and her dull brown eyes narrowed. “Need something else?”
“I want a copy of the rental agreement and background checks on me and my roommates if possible.”
“Sure,” the landlady shrugged and rolled a cheap office chair over to the filing cabinets and took out a file marked 1B. She rolled over to a copy machine, managing to do everything without ever leaving her chair. Kresley thanked her.
Her response was, “Yeah, well, just remember next month’s rent is due in sixteen days.”
Returning to her apartment, Kresley heard a car pulling into the lot. The sound spooked her, so she jerked her head to see if it was her thick-necked bodyguard.
It was Matt’s Jeep.
“Before you get mad,” he began before he even cut the engine. “I’m here on Kendall’s orders. She said with the concussion someone should check on you. I’m just—” Matt stopped in mid-sentence to answer his cell. “DeMarco.”
“It’s Gabe. The Coast Guard just found the Carolina Moon.”
“And?”
“Lots of blood and lots of bodies.”
“Janice?”
“Sorry, all I got from my contact was two female victims and three male victims.”
Chapter Four
He probably should have told Kresley that the yacht had been found, but since he didn’t know her involvement or lack thereof, it seemed prudent to keep her out of the loop.
Finding the rental applications on the coffee table was something of a bonanza. He’d been fully prepared to show his badge and get them from the landlady, however, Kresley had apparently saved him the trouble. This whole thing had already blossomed out of control and he needed to get a grip on it before it got any worse.
Since it would take at least four hours for the Coast Guard to tow the Carolina Moon into port and then process the scene, Matt sat on Kresley’s sofa until she fell asleep. Before he left for the dock to see what he could find out, Matt took Kresley’s cell to make a clone of it. Not ethical but it was for her safety, and might help him get a solid lead on Janice, and what she was involved in.
Then he went over to the laptop, tapped the touchpad and brought it to life. He logged into the FBI database. Emma Rooper and Abby Howell appeared to be normal young women. Abby was a waitress at a restaurant called The Grille in Summerville. Emma worked for a pawn shop. He accessed their tax returns and found that in the past three years, neither of the women had made more than twenty grand. Matt typed in Kresley’s information.
Eyes Only.
“What the hell?” Matt said, reentering his password and again attempting to access her file. Same result.
Sitting back in the chair, he raked his fingers through his hair trying to figure out why a grad student in South Carolina would have an Eyes Only FBI file.
Using his cell phone, he called Gabe. “Can you check to see the last time Kresley’s phone was used?” Matt asked, then gave him the number.
“Day before yesterday at 7:20 p.m.”
“What number was called?” Matt asked.
Gabe read it off, then had Matt hold while he called it. “Nothing. My guess is it’s a prepaid. It’s going straight to voice mail.”
“I’ll swing by and get you,” Matt said.
He checked on Kresley. She was fast asleep and his sympathies went out to her. He was fairly certain sure that she was hip-deep—whether she knew it or not—in whatever Janice was up to now.
The only illumination in the room was a small sliver of moonlight slicing through the room. It gave Kresley’s pretty face a soft glow. Absently, he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then he left to meet up with Gabe and get an up-close look at the 135-foot yacht, the Carolina Moon.
“Do you know any more yet?” Matt asked as Gabe squeezed his six-foot-four-inch frame into the passenger’s seat of the Jeep.
Gabe shook her head.
The short ride felt like it took forever. Matt steeled himself, half expecting to find Janice zipped into one of the body bags.
“What took them so long to bring the yacht in?” Matt asked.
“It drifted into international waters. Usual governmental jurisdictional bullshit. Present company excepted.”
If Janice wasn’t on the boat, then where was she? What had happened? The only person who could answer that, he suspected, was Kresley. Even though he felt a clock ticking away the minutes, he had to wait out her trauma-induced amnesia.
When they reached the dock, banks of high-power floodlights shone down on every nook and cranny. The yacht was a Heesen—worth from eight to eighty million, depending on the accessories. Matt parked and, thanks to Gabe’s friendship with Gary Ross, one of the detectives, they were welcomed beneath the yellow crime-scene tape at the end of the dock.
He was a good ten feet from the boat but Matt could easily see the blood on the deck, splattered everywhere. It even ran down the sides of the white hull.
The medical examiner’s minions were unzipping five body bags. Gabe quietly said something to Detective Ross, then they were given paper booties and allowed aboard. Ross came over to Matt and asked, “Is this the woman you think was on the boat?”
He shook his head. “That’s not Janice.”
Ross led him to the second corpse. “How about her?”
“No. Not her, either.” Matt felt a weight lift off his shoulders.
“Recognize this?” Ross asked, holding a small sealed bag with a single earring in it.
He recognized it all right. It belonged to Kresley. She’d been wearing its mate when he found her.
Matt was trying to find a way to equivocate without actually lying outright when Gabe spoke up.
“You IDed the men?” Gabe asked, steering the detective toward the male victims.
Ross nodded.