The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(21)

The sky turned gray as the sun slipped behind the clouds, and the water turned a dark, impenetrable blue. Ballard liked turning the paddle blade sideways and watching it slice a thin line down through the water until the white tip on it disappeared in darkness. She would then turn the blade and power through a full stroke, the board and paddle making barely a mark on the surface as she moved. She called it stealth paddling.

She made a wide loop that took her at least three hundred yards offshore. She checked her tent every few minutes and saw no one approaching or disturbing it or the dog. Even from a distance she could identify the lifeguard in the station seventy-five yards down the beach. Aaron Hayes was one of her favorites. He was her backup to Lola. She knew he would be watching over her things and would probably visit her later.

Her mind wandered as she worked and she thought of the confrontation earlier with Chastain in the detective bureau. She wasn’t happy with herself. She had waited two years to say what she had said to him but it had been the wrong time and place. Ballard had been too consumed with his betrayal to remember what was important in the present—the murder of five people, including Cynthia Haddel.

She turned the board and paddled further out. She felt guilty. It didn’t matter that Haddel was a peripheral victim— Ballard felt that she had let her down by putting her own agenda with Chastain first. It went to the sacred bond that existed between homicide victims and the detectives who speak for them. It wasn’t Ballard’s case but Haddel was her victim and the bond was there.

Ballard bent her knees sharply and took several deep digging strokes as she tried to move on from the Chastain loop she kept playing in her head. She tried to think about Ramona Ramone instead and about Officer Taylor saying that she had been at the upside-down house. Ballard wondered what that meant, and it worked on her, becoming the new loop that played in her head.

After an hour on the water, Ballard had a layer of sweat building between her skin and the wet suit. It kept her warm but she could feel her muscles tightening. Her shoulders, thighs, and hamstrings ached and it felt like the point of a pencil had been pushed into a spot between her shoulder blades. She turned back toward the shore and finished with a sprint of deep, long pulls on the paddle. She came out of the water so thoroughly exhausted that she tore the leash off her ankle and dragged the tail of the board in the sand all the way back to the tent. Even as she did it she knew she was violating the first thing her father ever taught her: “Don’t drag the board. Bad for the glass.”

Lola had not moved from her position as sentry at the front of the tent.

“Good girl, Lola,” Ballard said. “Good girl.”

She put the board down next to the tent and patted her dog. She unzipped the entrance and grabbed a treat for Lola out of a pocket on the inside flap. She also pulled her backpack out. After feeding the dog the treat, she told her to stay and walked across the sand to the row of public showers behind the paddle-tennis courts. She stripped off the wet suit and showered in her bathing suit, keeping a wary eye out for the homeless men who had started to wake and move about the nearby boardwalk. Her late start put her on their schedule. She was usually finished paddling and showering before any life even stirred on the boardwalk.

When she was sure she had all the salt out of her hair, she cut the water and dried off with the large beach towel she removed from the backpack. She pulled the straps of her bathing suit down over her shoulders, then wrapped the towel around her body from armpits to knees. She dropped the wet bathing suit to the concrete and brought her underwear up her legs and under the towel. She had been dressing on beaches this way ever since she used to surf before classes at Lahainaluna High School. By the time she dropped the towel, she was dressed again in her jeans and hoodie. Using the towel to dry her hair, she went back across the sand to the tent, patted Lola on the head again, and crawled into the nylon shelter.

“Easy, girl,” she said.

Lola dropped down into a resting pose but maintained her spot on top of where the key was buried. Ballard got another dog treat out of the pocket on the tent flap and tossed it to her. The dog ripped it out of the air with her teeth and then quickly returned to her stoic pose. Ballard smiled. She had bought Lola off a homeless man on the boardwalk two years earlier. The animal was emaciated and chained to a shopping cart. She had open wounds that looked like they had come from fighting other dogs. Ballard had simply wanted to rescue her but a bond quickly formed and the dog stayed with her. They took training classes together and soon it seemed as though the dog had a sense that Renée had saved her. She was unfailingly loyal to Ballard, and Ballard felt the same way.

Ready to sleep, Ballard pulled the zipper on the tent flap down. It was eleven a.m. Normally she would sleep until it was almost sunset but this time Ballard set her phone to wake her at two p.m. She had plans for the day before starting her official shift at eleven.

She hoped for three hours of sleep but barely got two. Shortly after one o’clock she was awakened by the low growl Lola projected when someone invaded her no-fly zone. Ballard opened her eyes but didn’t move.

“Come on, Lola. You don’t love me anymore?”

Still coming out of interrupted sleep, Ballard recognized the voice. It was Aaron Hayes.

“Lola,” she said. “It’s okay. What’s up, Aaron? I was sleeping.”

“Sorry. You want some company in there? I got my lunch break.”