But when she was alone…
Governor Fallow had had his men break into her home once. It wasn’t safe there, even as much as she wanted to believe it was. Nowhere was truly safe.
“I panicked,” she said, dully, hoping he would sense that she was already feeling bad enough about it herself and not try to chastise her any further. “And Chris saw me point the gun at him. He saved Zach’s life anyway, and then we all went to the hospital. I’ve been in the waiting room almost all night. I haven’t slept.”
“You can rest on the plane,” Nate said sympathetically. “How did you explain this whole thing to Chris?”
“Badly,” Laura said. “I tried to tell him that I was just stressed and tired from the case, but…”
“But he probably thinks you’re losing it,” Nate said.
“You’re the second person to point that out,” Laura glowered.
Nate chuckled. “Just tell him you’ve been seeing the FBI-mandated shrink and everything’s going to be fine.”
“Lie to him?”
Nate shrugged. “You lied to me for years.”
That stung. But he was right. And she was still lying to Chris now about her powers and about who Zach was to her. He still believed that Zach was a neighbor.
Laura bit her lip, looking out of the window. The familiar scenery of D.C. was flashing by, the route to the airport that the two of them knew so well already.
“The case, anyway,” she said, as if waking up from a sleep. She grabbed the folder from her lap where she had left it. “We should look into the case.”
“If you’re ready,” Nate said mildly. It was his way of telling her that he was there to talk some more if she needed, Laura supposed.
“We should get acquainted with the facts,” Laura said. The fact that Rondelle had given them absolutely nothing to go on in his office was unusual, and Laura wanted to get it done now so that she really could take a nap on the plane.
“Go on, then,” Nate shrugged.
“So, we’ve got a couple of murders that have already taken place,” Laura said, opening the file and skimming down the first page. “The location is Jones Harbor, Maine. It’s a coastal town with a thriving dock area. Which, apparently, is the problem.”
“How so?” Nate asked, glancing over.
“Because the victims were found lashed to the figureheads of ships,” Laura said. She shook her head in wonder. “This is a weird one.”
“Aren’t they all weird ones?” Nate smirked.
“Well, yes,” Laura said. She sighed. “Rondelle did say this was the kind of case that we’ve made a name for ourselves in. You know, one day I just wish he would hand us an open and shut case to work on.”
“You know we don’t get open and shut cases,” Nate said with a smile and a shake of his head. “Those are for regular cops.”
“Oh, to be a regular cop,” Laura said. “Alright, looks like we have two very different victims. One male, one female. Not sure if there’s anything connecting them so far, but we’ll work on that, I guess. Our first victim is Elias Makks, who was found at the docks in the early hours of the morning last Wednesday. He was lashed to the front of his own boat. It’s not a real old-fashioned ship, you know, with the masts and everything, but it is a tour boat. He had recently had it refitted with an imitation figurehead as a point of entertainment. Apparently, the tour was themed around pirates.”
“Anything come up in his background?” Nate asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he took the information in.
“No, nothing flagged,” Laura said. “The second victim was found only a few hours ago. It looks like the local police were already on alert and they brought the case up the ladder to the FBI as soon as they knew it was related. We’re going to be pretty hot on the ground by the time we get there.”
“That’s good,” Nate nodded. “I guess Makks’s family will be tired of talking to the police already, but we might get first contact with the second family. Or, I mean, first questions. I’m sure they were told right away.”
“Right,” Laura agreed. “This second victim is Dina Grey. She’s another local, but she wasn’t anything to do with the boats. She was working as a lifeguard at a local beach. We’ve got two ends of the spectrum here—a man in his fifties who runs his own business, and a young woman just twenty years old who was only starting out. Nothing to connect the two victims at first glance, at least on paper.”
“And she was on the front of a ship too?”
Laura flipped the page. “Yep. This one was a historic ship replica. It’s set up in the harbor and just sits there, it doesn’t move. Tourists go on it to look at what a historic ship would have been like, and then they gather on the decks for a meal in good weather. Early this morning one of the employees arrived to start cleaning and found her on the figurehead.”
“Grim,” Nate said, shaking his head. “Well, alright. Looks like we’ve got plenty to get going with. We’ll hit the ground, check out this morning’s crime scene, and then try to talk to the families, right?”