Cold light of day, p.6
Cold Light of Day, page 6
He turned to find her watching him. She gave him a thumbs-up, presumably appreciating that he’d brought a camera. Then he led them away to search for the dive line.
“Grier, look.”
The dive line was coiled at the bottom in the sand.
NINE
On the boat deck, Autumn dropped to her knees and removed her face covering, cold water dripping from her body. She felt like she weighed three hundred pounds. “The orcas . . .”
“They’re gone. They probably got briefly tangled in the line, and that’s why it severed. Better than one of them remaining tangled.”
“Right. You’re right.” She gasped, sucking in air. She’d never experienced claustrophobia while diving, and it seemed odd, but with her oxygen levels diminishing, she’d felt trapped and feared she would run out of air. She’d been breathing too hard the entire time, and seeing that body hadn’t helped.
They’d made their way slowly upward, stopping in the cold and cloudy depths to decompress as they ascended. She couldn’t be more relieved to be out of the water. The image of the body trapped in the shipwreck was seared into her mind.
Grier hadn’t missed a thing, though—from her reaction to her near panic as they ascended. She had to get her act together.
Starting now.
A gust of wind and the rock of the boat brought her back to the moment. Grounded her.
“Let’s get out of this gear.” Grier’s voice sounded strong and sturdy.
Autumn climbed to her feet, and he assisted her out of the tanks as the rain lashed them, then she returned the favor. Free of the gear, they stowed it below in the forward cabin. After getting out of her dry suit and pulling on a sweatshirt, she helped Grier when the zipper stuck on his suit, then threw him a blanket to put over the thermal shirt he’d worn underneath. Even with all the layers, the cold could find its way through and seep into your bones.
Autumn sat on the cushioned seats in the berth. She needed . . . a moment.
Grier eased into the spot across from her at the table. “We should get going.”
“Not yet. No. We’re anchored. The storm won’t be that bad.” Of course, belying her words, the wind howled and the boat swayed.
Grier’s eyes turned the dark, mossy green of an eerie, forbidden forest. His commanding presence seemed to fill up the entire cabin. She wanted to know more about this stranger who showed up in Shadow Gap a few months ago. Without a legitimate law enforcement reason to look into his background, she had no business checking on him. That would not only be overstepping her authority, but it would also give Wally another item to add to his list.
All she knew about Grier was what she could find via the state database check for his driver’s license and any possible warrants. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her and she’d searched him on the internet but came up empty. He wasn’t even on LinkedIn. She would just have to find out more about him the old-fashioned way. Either he would tell her on his own, eventually, or she’d ask.
She needed to give Grier space to breathe, because that’s why outsiders came to Alaska. And like everyone else here, Grier had a right to his privacy.
Uncomfortable under his gaze, she got up. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate. Or would you prefer coffee?”
“I’ll have whatever you make.”
Giving herself time to think about their dive, she turned to the small kitchenette and focused on getting them something warm to drink. She’d seen plenty of grisly sights, mostly while on the job. No heinous murders had occurred near Shadow Gap. No serial killings, that sort of thing. Not yet. But what an animal could do to a man’s body wasn’t something she wanted to see again. She hadn’t looked at the body in the shipwreck too closely and had avoided even trying to get a look at his face. Sea critters had probably made him unrecognizable anyway.
Nausea rolled through her, along with a chill that crept into her soul. She put the teakettle on the small stove and started heating the water. Dad should put a microwave in here.
“Are you okay?” Grier’s question pulled her from her morbid thoughts, his gentle tone sending warm currents curling around her anxious heart.
“I think we’re both shaken.” Time to pull it together. “I’ve seen a lot, but usually when I’ve been searching for a missing person or called out to a situation for which I’m mentally prepared. I wasn’t expecting to see a body today, and it jarred me.” Too much. She was sharing too much. She should have been prepared for anything.
“Don’t beat yourself up. It means that behind that uniform and badge, you’re human. You’re not immune. Your heart hasn’t grown cold. It shocked me too, but to be fair, I knew to expect something gruesome after seeing your reaction.”
“So we weren’t able to confirm Sarah’s boat sank and instead we found a body in an old shipwreck. A body that wasn’t there when the boat went down.”
The water from the teakettle had to be hot enough by now, so she turned off the stove, then poured the steaming liquid into the cups, dumped in the hot chocolate powder mix, and stirred it with a spoon. She stepped to the table and slid Grier’s mug over to him, then sat and wrapped her hands around her own warm mug.
“What’s the next step?” he asked. “Are you going to call Alaska Dive Rescue?”
“Yes.”
Given the political pressure she was under, she didn’t want to make any mistakes. This was simple enough. Recover the body. Take one thing at a time. “Let me see the pictures you took.”
“Sure.” He got up and moved to his duffel, grabbed the camera.
“Smart thinking, taking your camera.”
“I take it on every dive.” He pulled up the images for her and showed her how to scroll through.
She found the pictures he’d taken of the fish swimming behind her and remembered that moment. She felt him looking at her, even now, and somehow had to ignore the heat surging through her.
When she found the images he’d taken of the body, that did the trick.
“About six weeks ago, I went diving here to see the shipwreck,” Grier said. “There wasn’t a body.”
“Makes me wonder what Sarah has to do with it, if anything. I don’t believe in coincidence. But if she’s somehow involved, it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It could be a simple case of searching for answers and landing in a new investigation altogether. Like when a search-and-recovery group goes out to find a body and locates remains, just not the ones they were looking for. It happens. Doesn’t mean the cases are related.”
Was this a hint into his background? “Were you a cop before you came here, Grier?”
His eyes widened, then narrowed slightly. “Me? No.”
“A volunteer on a SAR team, then?”
He stared into his cup of hot chocolate. “I’ve read my share of mystery novels, Chief.”
He hadn’t denied anything with his answer. Why so mysterious? It only made her more curious.
“If you want to confirm another boat, Sarah’s boat, you’ll have to use sonar.”
“That’s not in the Shadow Gap budget.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there’s probably not a boat and your instinct about Sarah lying is correct. Like a lot of law enforcement officers, you’ve got that uncanny sense about people.”
That forbidden forest green again. Was Autumn imagining it, or had fear flashed in his eyes? There one second, gone the next.
“Let’s talk about the body.” She grimaced. “You seemed to know a lot about the current surrounding the wreck, so I’m going to go with that. The current could have carried the body there, but I don’t know that it would have lodged in the wreck, in the helm, like that. What do you think?”
“It’s possible. Anything is possible. But you won’t know until someone gets a closer look.”
“Did you see anything that would suggest foul play?” She stood and stepped to the kitchen, then leaned against the counter.
He shook his head. “I saw what you saw. Is it a crime scene or a secondary crime scene? Was he murdered and stashed in a shipwreck, which . . . why would anyone do that? If you want to handle it as a crime scene, that’s your call. But since it’s recovery and not rescue, it could take the dive team a couple of days or more to get out here. They’re busy rescuing people all over Alaska.”
Autumn lifted her mug but stopped, pausing at Grier’s contemplative, distant look. “Why do you bring that up?”
“They’re all capable volunteers with the right check marks in the right boxes.”
And activated by the state search and rescue coordinator. “I know this, Grier.”
“It’s helpful when communities can have their own water rescue and recovery teams, that’s all.” He frowned and stared hard into his mug.
The boat swayed and rocked, and she tried to ignore the roll of her stomach. “You’re the only diver I know locally. I’d rather hand this off. Unless you know someone else who’s experienced in recovery and investigation, if this turns out to be a crime scene. But I’ll still contact Alaska Dive and run this scenario by them. They might defer to the Coast Guard, for all I know.”
His expression softened, and amusement surged in his eyes. “I see what you’re doing here. You’re trying to get me to put together a small dive recovery team.”
“Me? What?” You’re the one. She shifted forward, wanting to know more.
“I think it’s a good idea to build up your own resources, despite funding issues. Show them what you’re made of, with or without the state’s help. Maybe you feel the sting of betrayal, but you’re still in charge.” He drank from his mug, his eyes snagging hers over the rim.
Her heart spasmed at the connection. The emotion that flashed. The sting of betrayal. He’d said the words as if they meant something personal to him. Like he’d gone through something similar.
“What do you think? Should we keep this local?” he asked.
We? And then, suddenly she got the impression that he had his own reasons for wanting to keep this local. Or was it her imagination again? Maybe she dove too deep today and her brain was fuzzy.
She dumped the remains of her cup into the sink, then rinsed it out. Think, she had to think. “Let’s say I said yes, then who do you know who’s qualified for a recovery?” Because for whatever reason, she had no doubt Grier had resources. “I can’t afford any mistakes.”
Maybe asking Grier for help in this would be her next misstep.
But she didn’t think so.
“A friend in Haines is trained in underwater investigation and recovery. Tex is a volunteer on the Alaska Dive Rescue team, so I’d start with him.”
“Tex?”
“Yep. His real name is Blaze Johnson, but I just call him Tex.”
“I assume he’s from Texas.”
“He is.”
Okay, then. “And you think he’ll do this for us? Because I’d really like this taken care of as quickly as possible.”
“I figured you might not want to draw negative attention to the community.”
Or myself.
He hadn’t added that last part, but he’d pegged her motivations. And that was part of why she was talking it over with him first—someone who wasn’t in her police department. If possible, she wanted to keep politics out of it.
If only she could talk to Dad.
“Not that my opinion matters, but you can do this.” He rose from his seat and followed her lead, dumping the contents of his mug into the sink, then rinsing it out and putting it away. “You have the right people here locally, and you can keep it close for now. Really, the Alaska Dive group exists because communities don’t do this themselves. If it turns out to be more than a simple drowning, then you deal with one thing at a time. Not that you asked, but . . . I’m leaning toward criminal activity.”
“Because?”
His frown deepened and he hesitated. “I couldn’t recognize the face.”
Nausea erupted at the thought of the images Grier had captured. “Sea creatures, Grier. They pick and nibble away. But I hear you. This needs to be handled as an investigation in case it’s more than simply the current washing a body into a peculiar place. But we’re using an abundance of caution, that’s all. Let’s hope no crime was committed, and then once we identify the body, we’ll have one less missing person in Alaska. This will bring closure to loved ones.”
Closure was something she’d personally longed for since Mom drowned and her body was never recovered.
Grier nodded. “I’ll explain to Tex that this needs to happen quickly and quietly, and that we’re possibly building a community team. Another friend is out of Skagway. This could be the start of something great for you, Chief. I’ll make the arrangements.”
“That’s all good and well, Grier, but . . . who are you?” She stood entirely too close to him in the small space, but she wouldn’t step away as she looked up into his eyes. “Really?”
Because she was trusting him based on those instincts he’d mentioned earlier. But maybe he’d gotten on her good side, her best side, when he rescued her father from the bar that night and helped get him home.
Then yesterday he rescued Sarah. She knew deep down he was a good guy, but even good guys carried baggage.
“I’m the guy helping you build a local dive and recovery team.”
TEN
The next morning, Grier stood on the deck of Tex’s boat. The gray skies and relentless rain might get him down if he weren’t getting ready for yet another dive and setting some kind of personal record by diving three days in a row.
He’d never needed a reason to go for a dive. Didn’t want one now. Hadn’t wanted one yesterday, but for some inexplicable reason he couldn’t turn down the chief. He should have told her no when she’d asked him to dive with her. Another good deed for which he was suffering punishment. Hadn’t saving Sarah been enough?
No. Saving her had only led to the invitation to dive.
And while he enjoyed the occasional pleasure dive, this was a different scenario completely—and one of his own making. While he should keep his head down and stay in the shadows, instead he’d suggested she build her own local rescue and recovery dive team, led by him.
Brilliant, Grier. Brilliant.
He recognized when someone needed help, and he couldn’t stand by and watch her being pulled down by a bunch of nitwits on the city council.
So he’d been a nitwit yesterday too.
Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut and let her call the state dive team? But all she had to do was look at him, and he wanted nothing more than to please her. To spend time with her. He wasn’t sure if he could ever shake the power she had over him, but he would have to try.
So what if the recent loss of the chief’s certification coupled with finding a body in a shipwreck prompted a news story? It would be gone the following day, replaced by the next big story, and he wouldn’t need to worry about his face showing up in the news either.
He’d chosen Shadow Gap for a reason. Well, Krueger selected it, but for all the right reasons. Like so many towns that barely survived, Shadow Gap didn’t have surveillance cameras on every corner, which made it more difficult to find people using facial recognition software.
Whatever. He was here now and had to see this through because he’d gotten involved in a big way this time. That decision could come back to bite him. He couldn’t seem to think like a rational man when he was around the chief and was glad he would be with his diving buddy today instead.
Tex’s boat—the Black Pearl—was a nice Munson 36–8 dive boat with a dive entrance on the port and starboard sides, ladders, and dive bottle shelves. Tex had also invited along his friend Maggie King, whom Grier had gone diving with a couple of times. Maggie adjusted her face mask, ignoring Tex’s failed attempts at flirting.
“I never could understand what a former Texas Ranger was doing all the way up here,” Grier said. “I’ve never been to Texas, but the way I understand it, Texans love their state.”
“The great country of Texas, you mean. Nah, man. We love the salsa.” Tex’s eyes crinkled. “Okay, the state is great too.”
Tex winked and positioned his full face mask, then hopped into the water along with Maggie, in perfect sync as if they had practiced. Grier released a sigh of relief after he realized his mistake. He and Tex had never discussed what brought them to Alaska, and he shouldn’t have a conversation that could take them down that road.
He secured his mask and joined them in the cold water. Together they descended along the dive line, waiting at the proper intervals, and then Grier led them over to the SS Tate and the body.
He took more pictures while his friends carefully extracted the body from the shipwreck, then bagged the hands, head, and feet to preserve trace evidence. Finally, they secured it in a specially designed bag for underwater recovery before transporting it to the surface. Eventually the ME would identify it and a family would learn what had happened to their missing loved one.
People went missing all over the world, but Alaska set records when it came to missing people. And drownings were a big part of those statistics.
Either no one knew this guy had gone into the water, or maybe they did, but, like the chief had suggested, the current had carried his body miles away from the search area. His disappearance, his death, probably had not been intentional.
However, some people went missing by choice. Disappearing in Alaska was part of their grand scheme.
And others were forced into hiding to survive.
ELEVEN
While Grier and his volunteer dive team set out to recover the body this morning, Autumn remained in the office and worked through the stack of paperwork.
This morning she’d also checked on Sarah, who’d had to stay another night at the hospital until her lungs sounded good. Dr. Combs had been worried about pneumonia developing, but she would be good to go later today. Autumn wanted to talk to her more but was waiting to hear from the Shadow Gap dive team first.
