The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(30)

Run puts his arm around her. “Baby, it’s complicated. Sometimes people just aren’t meant to spend their whole lives together.”

“Is that what you really think?” She glares at me. “If Mom asked you to try being together, what would you say?”

Run makes a half laugh, trying to think of how to answer the question.

It seems my daughter has learned ninja-level manipulation tactics. I want to blame that on time spent with Run’s mother.

“Things are complicated,” I reply.

“The C word. Your favorite excuse. Dad loves you. I know he goes out with other women and all, but did you know you’re the last one he . . . touched butts with? I heard him tell Uncle Gunther that. He loves you. But you don’t love him. I get it.”

“Jackie . . .” I’m at a loss for words. I want to tell her how I really feel about Run. I want her to understand that our situation’s more about how I feel about myself. Run is perfect in his way. Me . . . ? I . . . I’m just trash that floated into his path.

I’ve always wondered if Run only stuck around because I got pregnant. The reason I turned down his hasty marriage proposal was because I hated the way it looked—like I got knocked up to trap him.

That’s what his mother thinks every time she looks at me. That’s what Run’s yachtie friends say behind my back.

It’s what I secretly think about myself.

I knew I’d never be able to hold on to him, so I did the next best thing—got us drunk, fooled around to the point we didn’t know how to spell condom, much less use one, and got pregnant so he could never really leave my life.

I don’t think that’s really why it happened, but I can’t convince myself it’s not at least partially true.

I got pregnant so he wouldn’t leave, and I refused to marry him because I couldn’t admit to myself why I did it.

Ten years of denial, and now it has a face. A beautiful face covered in tears, looking at me, begging me to tell the truth: I love Run.





CHAPTER TWENTY

SHOALS

Raul Tiago’s address from the magazine label leads to a one-story white box in an older part of North Miami. The lawn is well kept, and a small row of stunted palm trees lines the circular driveway. Although his car is missing from the carport, there’s no pile of newspapers or leaflets by the door to suggest there’s a decomposing body inside.

On the way over, I stopped at a Wendy’s, texted with Jackie, and did a little internet sleuthing. I found five Raul Tiagos in South Florida. None of them had this address.

Oddly, one of the addresses was in downtown Fort Lauderdale, fairly close to the marina. If I had to guess, I would have pegged that one for his place, not this house.

It’s possible that he had two homes—which also makes it possible that the police went to the other one and not this one . . . which means I could be about to find a decomposing body after all.

I have no plans to break and enter. But I’ve smelled enough decomposing flesh to get a pretty good idea if a dead human is nearby. The trick is to walk around the house and smell the air-conditioning vents, pet doors, window seals, or anywhere else air escapes. I took a whole seminar on this subject. That was a fun experience. Our inspector, a retired forensic specialist, had all kinds of samples in plastic containers for us to smell. Some things can never be undone.

My nose twitches a little when I approach the front door and get a whiff of a semisweet scent. The door is open a few inches behind a screen door, and I feel a slight gut flutter at the thought of pushing it all the way open and seeing Raul’s body.

After what happened in the canal and on my own boat, I’m fairly certain I haven’t seen my last dead body.

“Hello?” I call out before pulling open the screen door.

From somewhere inside there’s the noise of a television and rapid-fire Spanish. To my out-of-practice ear, it sounds like a telenovela.

“Anyone there?”

Footsteps.

I pull my hand back from the handle, suddenly concerned I’ve startled Raul’s murderer. What if it’s one of the men from the boat?

The door opens, and I’m greeted by a short Hispanic woman in a house gown.

“Hello?” she says, eyeing me suspiciously.

Okay, probably not an assassin, but don’t be too sure.

“I’m looking for Raul,” I reply.

“He doesn’t live here.”

Tremendous apprehension laces her voice. I have a feeling I’m not the first person to come around asking about him.

“I’m a friend of Stacey’s.”

“Oh . . .” Her face softens, and she opens the door a little wider. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too. Could I come inside and talk to you for a moment?”

She still seems wary and looks past my shoulder, then studies me a little more closely.

“She and I grew up together. My family used to have our boat worked on at her father’s boatyard.”

This seems to be the credential she was looking for. She opens the door and gestures me inside her living room.

Two new navy-blue couches fill the room, along with a glass coffee table and a television unit supporting a massive flat screen.

She excuses herself to go turn off the television in the kitchen, then comes back and sits down on the sofa next to me, placing two water bottles on the table.