A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(39)

Chapter 10


Eyes only: data that shouldn’t be discussed without explicit permission.





Sid slowly steered the small aluminum boat across the private lake. The sun had only been up for an hour, and even though this lake was on private property and there weren’t any homes around for miles, he still liked to dispose of any bodies before sunrise.

It was much easier to be invisible in the dark. But he’d gotten a late start and he hadn’t been willing to speed on the way here. Hell, he almost always went exactly the speed limit. He couldn’t risk getting pulled over with a dead body in his trunk. No way to talk himself out of that. He would have been arrested and would never see the outside of a cell again.

Even if something went down and he wanted to turn on the people he worked with, he’d be dead before anything went to trial. Of that he was sure. Not that he wanted to turn on anyone; he liked the money too much. He’d been eyeing a vacation home down in Walker’s Cay. That wouldn’t come cheap.

At least the body drop was done. The lake was deep enough for their needs. One woman dead and now a new one to replace her. Had to keep that money train going. It was so fucking brilliant he couldn’t stand it.

A bird squawked in the distance. He looked over his shoulder as the boat glided slowly. His heart rate kicked up at the unexpected noise. There weren’t any ripples along the lake other than his boat. He could see to the other side easily. Thick foliage surrounded most of the lake except for one long stretch of sand where whoever owned this spread of land and the lake must have had it cleared off. It was where he docked his unregistered boat.

If the lake had been attached to a chain of lakes, he’d have registered the boat under a bogus name, but there was no point, since no one knew about this place and there wasn’t a possibility of someone stumbling on it through an attached canal. The lake wasn’t man-made, but just one of the many thousands of Florida lakes that dotted the state. The perfect dumping ground, though he had others. He liked to spread it out. Gators should get most of the women, if not all.

When he neared the dock, he felt a tingling sensation at the back of his neck. As if he was being watched. He’d been feeling that way more and more lately. Just nerves, that was all. Because if someone was watching him, he’d be in fucking prison by now.

He rolled his neck once, trying to ease the growing tension that always came when he dumped a body. It was only natural that the more he risked, the more nervous he’d be.

With a slightly trembling hand, he grasped the wooden dock and turned off the engine. Without the low hum of the engine, the only sounds were the birds and crickets chirping and a faint wind rustling the trees and overgrown grass.

He tugged at his gloves almost self-consciously. It wasn’t cool enough to wear them this time of year, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Before moving the body he and the doctor had cleaned it and wrapped it in plastic. He wasn’t worried about his DNA being found anywhere, but just in case he was going to spray the boat down with bleach.

Moving quickly, he secured the rope to the metal latches on the dock, then jumped onto it. Other than the chains to weight down the body and a spray bottle of bleach, he hadn’t brought anything else.

After a quick spray-down of the boat, he headed back down the dock to where he was parked. Feeling foolish, he nonetheless scanned the foliage along the lake once again, looking for any signs of life. He wore a hat and sunglasses and he was far enough away that if someone had been watching him they wouldn’t be able to identify him. And hell, he’d be burning all his clothes as soon as he returned to their main base. No matter what, he disposed of everything when he dumped a body.

Still, he couldn’t risk that someone had seen what he’d done. The body had been wrapped up, but if the cops got wind of it and decided to search the lake, they’d find more than one damn body. If he didn’t know that this area was so damn deserted, he’d spread the dumps out more, but this was simple and he had a smaller chance of getting caught on this property, since he was so familiar with it.

Suddenly a flock of birds burst into the air from the bank, their flapping and squawking making him jerk back a step. Immediately he cursed his jumpiness.

He needed to just get the hell out of here. No one was here; no one had seen him. He’d been doing this for a while now and he had to stop letting his nerves get the best of him.

Even though he wanted something to take off the edge, he got in his truck and took off. He’d crack open a brew as soon as he got home. But first he had to see the doctor in person, let him know the job was done. He hadn’t brought any electronics with him for this, never did. Maybe he’d check in on the new girl, Tessa. He hated that he wasn’t allowed to touch the girls, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t mess with her. His boss didn’t know, but he liked to fuck with the new girls’ heads. Mentally torture them about what was to come. Small pleasures, he thought, his mood brightening as his vehicle rumbled down the road.

Amelia moaned in agony but pushed herself up off the dingy floor. Even in her hazy state, some part of her subconscious knew this was a dream, a memory—a freaking nightmare. But she was unable to drag herself out of it. It just replayed as it sometimes did, without warning.

Her fingers slipped in her own blood, but she managed to grab onto the peeling bathroom countertop and pull herself to her feet.