“It’s nice to meet you, Agent Matthews,” Nick said from beside Owen, interpreting Ms. Hunter word for word. Only, neither of them knew Owen didn’t need an interpreter. He understood her signs fine.
Owen turned away from Nick for a pointed look at his so-called friend. He could tell by Wes’s prolonged stare and slight shake of his head that he wanted Owen to keep his sign language knowledge under wraps. A little heads-up would have been nice.
“I’ll explain later,” Wes said. “For now I would like you to get acquainted with Ms. Hunter and her staff so we can start the investigation.”
Then it clicked why Wes had brought him there. Owen would be able to spy on what was said between these two when they thought no one else understood. If they really were the smugglers, then Owen stood a chance of solving the case pretty quickly.
Owen fisted his hands at his side. “You, too, Ms. Hunter,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nick translate his words to sign language. Owen continued, “It’s my hope we can work together to get to the bottom of this problem on your island and in your school. I appreciate your help.”
She visibly relaxed and her lips quirked up at the edges as she signed, “I want that more than anything.”
“Grea—” Owen started and stopped, almost forgetting to wait for the interpretation. He deserved a swift kick for nearly giving himself away already.
“I hope you mean that,” Nick translated.
I hope you mean that? What? Owen tilted his head and tried to figure out what he’d done wrong. He thought for sure she’d said she wanted to work together more than anything. Maybe his skills were rusty for lack of use. God knows he rarely used them. Having Nick might be a good idea, Owen decided.
He shrugged off his misinterpretation. “I understand I will be a teacher undercover. My goal is to find a leak that will lead me to the source of the drug supplier and then to the person smuggling the drugs to the island.”
Nick signed as Owen spoke, staying at about three words behind him. But Owen noticed Nick signed more than what was said. Owen recognized the extra signs as, “Don’t forget. This guy is here to investigate us. Not to help us.”
Ms. Hunter’s lips twisted and a flash of humor sparked from her eyes. Then she signed to Owen, “I’ve made preparations for you to teach English in Mrs. Standish’s classroom. She’s out on maternity for another three weeks, so you’ll be her substitute teacher. I’m hoping we won’t need more time than that. Nick, stop translating. This is between us. I met Agent Matthews out on the rocks yesterday. He came to my aid when he thought I was hurt. I think he can be trusted.”
Even though Nick stopped translating her final words, Owen kept on reading. He honestly didn’t fault her for sharing their first encounter with her interpreter. He supposed he used secret codes in his line of work, too.
But never had he taught an English class in his line of work.
“Would there maybe be a gym class I could teach instead?” Owen asked. “Shakespeare never made much sense to me. Plus, teaching a class like that would take up too much of my investigation time.”
“You and lifeguards,” Nick signed to Ms. Hunter, ignoring everything Owen had said. “Just because a man comes to a swimmer’s aid does not make him trustworthy. Your breakup with Lifeguard Andy should have taught you that lesson. Although I’m glad to see you’re keeping the investigator busy and out of our hair. Your plan is brilliant. He’s not too happy about teaching English, but he said fine.”
Owen jerked. That’s not what I said at all. Owen now knew he was not misinterpreting Ms. Hunter’s signs, and he needed to inform her that her boy Nick was not translating correctly. But to do so would blow his cover and ruin any chances of “listening” in on these two and their conversations.
Wes believed Ms. Hunter guilty of covering up something. If sticking him in an English classroom had been her idea, Owen thought Wes might be onto something.
It was no wonder his friend had asked him to come all the way up from Texas instead of going with an agent from the Bangor field office or even Boston. These two were probably talking circles around him. Poor guy.
“It’s a good thing, then, Agent Matthews isn’t a lifeguard,” Ms. Hunter signed. “Or I would be in trouble for sure.” Her lips twitched again as she cast a glance at Owen. “Because he is not hard on the eyes.”
Owen clamped his teeth together. It took every ounce of strength for him to pretend he didn’t understand.
“Ms. Hunter says the English class is all she has available, and I’m to show you to your classroom,” Nick translated.
“Did she, now?” Owen bit the inside of his cheek.
“You can follow me,” Nick mumbled.
“I was kind of hoping Ms. Hunter would join us so we could go over the plan of action in more detail.” Owen directed Nick to ask.
Instead Nick signed to Ms. Hunter, “He’s not your type. And you better be careful what you say around him. I think he’s going to be harder to fool than the sheriff.”
Interesting. So Ms. Hunter was in fact fooling the sheriff about something.
Owen searched her eyes. A mischievous twinkle relayed that she definitely found something humorous. Owen now understood what Wes meant when he’d said she laughed at him. He was starting to feel like the butt of a joke, too.
The lights flickered overhead.
“That’s my TTY phone,” Ms. Hunter signed to Nick for him to translate information about her teletypewriter phone. Owen knew all about a TTY from calling his son, but he kept quiet as she explained through her interpreter. “It could be a parent trying to reach me. No one on the island has a TTY machine to type their message into, so they have to use a TTY service operator—a real live person standing by to take the caller’s message and transcribe it for me onto a screen. I can’t keep them waiting, but you go on,” she signaled with a wave of her hand and then turned the machine to face her, pushing the button to answer.
Miriam hit the button to read the message as they were about to leave. When her pleasant eyes iced over, their steps halted.
Owen zoomed in on the screen, but she hit the end call button before he could read it.
Nick raced forward.
“What did it say?” Nick’s signs demanded an answer.
Ms. Hunter shook her blanched face. “Not now.”
“Tell me.” Nick’s refusal to take her lead had Owen paying closer attention to their words. His signing secret already proved to be beneficial.
Ms. Hunter’s jumpy glances passed between Wes and Owen before she signed to her interpreter, answering his question. “Get off the island if you know what’s good for you. Now go. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Another crank call? That’s the third one this week!” Nick’s hands slapped out, seemingly unconcerned with cutting the two hearing people out of the conversation...or so he thought.
“I said not right now.” Ms. Hunter tilted her head toward Owen as she signed to Nick. Owen read the silent message loud and clear, but apparently Nick didn’t. The guy’s inability to keep his emotions at bay suited Owen just fine.
“It’s got to be someone with a TTY so they can send you the message directly,” Nick signed. “Using the operator service would be too risky. I’d give my right hand to know who on this island has one.”
“Yes. Me, too.” Ms. Hunter signed, then cringed. She studied her hands before continuing. “Well, maybe not my right hand. That would be like cutting out my tongue.”
Owen understood Ms. Hunter wasn’t worried about the pain of losing