The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(34)

Shut up and do something, Sloan.

I start creeping back toward the trees. Each crushed blade of grass sounds like a crate of fine china being dropped onto pavement, but I keep moving.

The voices of the men carry as they talk while conducting their search. Boxes are moved around inside, and there’s occasionally metal clanging.

Keep it up, boys. The louder you are, the quieter I am.

I reach the back of the building and take a slightly relaxed breath, then realize I’m inches away from a window. It’s dirty, but I can see through it to the trucks parked out front.

The smoking man is a woman. Pretty, a few years older than me. She looks Hispanic and has a hard-looking face.

The tall man pushes some boxes back onto a counter and walks out of the building. Two other men join him. Neither is the man I stabbed. They’re all dressed in work casual, not flashy like drug dealers. They could be cops, lawyers, reporters, schoolteachers, anyone.

“Nothing. Same as last time,” says the tall man, his voice echoing around the empty yard.

“We were pretty thorough before,” says another.

“Maybe he had it on him,” the woman replies.

The tall man seems upset at this suggestion. “No fucking way.”

“Check,” insists the woman.

“You check,” he protests.

She leans back against the hood of an SUV, takes a puff of her cigarette, and replies firmly, “Check it, Sewell.”

Sewell? I lean in closer, trying to keep my body out of view of the window—as if my stupid head is invisible.

A thousand questions go through my head. What the hell are they looking for? Who is this woman? Who is this Sewell asshole?

“Jesus Christ,” the man replies, then walks over to the aboveground pool. He kicks his foot around the edge until he finds something—a long pole with a hook.

He reaches the pole into the water and starts dredging the bottom.

WTF?

“Ugh,” he says as the pole catches something. “Got it.” He yells to the other man, “Don’t just stand there.”

“For fuck’s sake. These are Varvatos shoes,” he whines.

“They’re going to be a dead man’s shoes if you don’t fucking help me.”

The other man reaches into the pool and pulls something up. With the help of the tall man, they drag a body out of the water and flop it onto the ground. A metal weight belt makes a clanging sound as it hits the concrete.

In the harsh illumination of the headlights, the body looks pale blue. It’s an older man with a beard dressed in a black shirt, utility vest, and pants covered in pockets.

It’s Winston. I remember that vest, how he seemingly kept every tool in the world on him. When I was a kid, it was comical how he could pull anything from its pockets. He kind of reminded me of Doctor Who—if Doctor Who had been a foul-mouthed American with a short temper.

Both men start to rifle through Winston’s vest and pants pockets, throwing Allen wrenches, screwdrivers, wire cutters, and other tools onto the ground. Part of me wants to shout at them to leave the poor man alone. But I’m days too late for that.

The tall man twists Winston’s head so the neck is prominent. A red gash runs across the throat—exactly like the one on Stacey.

“Your friend is fucking brutal,” he says to the woman.

She throws her cigarette to the side, kneels down, and starts looking at the tools. “You know what this shit is?”

“Yeah,” says the other man. “Not what we’re looking for.”

“Keep going,” she tells him.

The tall man undoes Winston’s belt and pulls the pants off him and shakes them out. Small fasteners and parts clatter to the concrete. Some were probably tucked away there since the last century.

“That’s all of it.”

“Is it?” she asks.

“Shoot me now. I am not sticking my fingers up a dead man’s asshole,” he replies.

“He prefers them alive,” says the other man.

“Fuck you. I’m already too far into this shit.”

“Tell that to Eddie’s wife,” the other man responds.

“Fuck off.”

Eddie. Is that the man I stabbed? These people don’t seem terribly broken up about it. Of course, they clearly tend toward the sociopath end of the spectrum.

“Look around the buildings,” the woman says. “Get flashlights.”

Damn it.

The mangroves behind me are even thicker than I first thought. I might be able to lose myself a few yards in, but I’d make a hell of a racket doing it.

The men come back from the trucks with lights and start on either side of the buildings. My exit to the ramp is blocked. The only route left is straight between the two structures and the road. The problem is, I don’t know where the woman is now. I could run right into her.

Damn it, Sloan.

Let’s kick ourselves later. Right now I need to act. The beam from the other man’s flashlight hits the trees in back of the far building and forces me to take action.

I bolt from my hiding spot and run around the corner, down the middle path. If I go fast enough, I might be able to make it past them before they know what the hell is going on.

Bam! My foot hits a bundle of aluminum pipes. Everyone had to have heard that. Christ.