A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(44)

“My three guys are all trained in evidence recovery and are all PADI dive master–certified. All we want is to find . . . if there are more bodies. We’re willing to help, so use us.” Nieto’s expression flashed with anger as he glanced over at the still lake.

Good, Nathan couldn’t work with novices on something like this. Everyone needed to be able to do the job and keep up. “Let’s break up into teams, then,” Nathan said. “Do we have a map of the lake?”

When Burkhart nodded, Nathan felt a small measure of relief. He also needed to find out what kind of wildlife they could expect, though he figured gators and potentially water moccasins would be on that list. Some days he hated his job.

Hours later, Nathan pulled his regulator from his mouth and tugged his face mask up before climbing over the edge of the inflatable boat. The sun was about to set, and even though a team had put up floodlights along the shoreline an hour ago, it was time to head back in. They were already working in murky conditions; it’d be pointless and, more to the point, dangerous, to continue now.

“I’m calling it a day,” Nathan said to the three guys in the boat. Detective Sinclair was climbing in after him, his expression as grim as everyone else’s.

Sinclair simply nodded, slightly breathless as he took off his own face gear. The driver wordlessly headed back to shore where two other boats were already waiting.

“You know how many remains yet?” Sinclair asked. They’d been so busy diving and marking off spots as clear or not, none of them knew except Nathan.

He’d radioed Burkhart for the official count an hour ago and got thirty-five. Thirty-five dead women.

Murdered women.

Someone was going to fucking pay. He shoved his rage back, locked it up tight. Now wasn’t about that. “Thirty-five,” he said quietly.

One of the men cursed, but the others were silent. Today had been long and depressing and he was thankful for the silence. There were color-coded little flags floating all over the lake, weighted down near where bodies had been found or marking areas as clear. Some of the bodies still hadn’t been recovered, but they’d be brought up tomorrow.

All he wanted to do was go see Amelia. Just get in a vehicle and drive straight to her place. Hell, he didn’t even know if she’d be at work or home, but he needed to see her. To hold her.

Once they reached land, they waded to the shore. There was a team of guys waiting to take care of the boat for them. Nathan was running on fumes and wasn’t going to argue. Let someone else take care of it.

“The media need to know about this, get the word out,” Sinclair said quietly as they trudged up the sandbank.

The low hum of voices, rumbling engines of the boats, and some vehicles and crickets in the nearby woods created a cacophony of noise. More locals and more of Burkhart’s guys had been brought in over the course of the day. The dive teams had remained the same, but they’d needed others to help organize the remains. And even though he’d hated to stop working for even a few minutes, they’d all needed to eat to keep their energy up. Two men were in the process of breaking down some of the food tables. Right now Nathan wanted to get the hell out of here, but he wasn’t done tonight. Not by a long shot.

He just lifted a shoulder. “Not up to me.” He didn’t have the authority to make those decisions, something the detective knew. Neither did Sinclair. The only thing Nathan really knew about the guy was that he was friendly enough with Amelia, had a solid record with the police department, and was now aware that Burkhart and his team weren’t actually with the FBI. It had been pretty damn impossible to hide the fact with Burkhart on-site.

Sinclair muttered something under his breath about bullshit politics before stalking off in another direction.

Nathan wasn’t sure if the guy would actually leak anything to the media—and expose his lie about being FBI to Amelia—so he did a quick search for Burkhart. When he saw him standing next to a foldout table with mostly empty food platters, he headed that way.

Talking on his cell phone, Burkhart nodded once as Nathan approached. It took another twenty seconds before he ended his phone call.

“You guys did good today,” Nathan’s boss said quietly, moving away from the table as two officers started clearing it off. “We covered a lot of ground.”

Nothing about today felt particularly good. “I wish we could keep going.”

“You need rest. All of you.”

“What’s the media situation?” Nathan asked, jumping right into it.

“Nothing yet, but we’ll start leaking information soon. I want more positive IDs first.”

Even their private lab wasn’t big enough for all the remains they’d found. Well, the lab was, but they didn’t have enough staff on-site. “What are we doing about jurisdiction of the bodies and the case?”

“The locals are going to get all the credit and we’ll let the media know that the Miami PD is working in conjunction with a federal task force. We won’t get specific about which agency. And we’re going to take half the remains as of now for ID purposes. The locals will take the other half. Nieto’s received the authority to set up a special team for this. There won’t be a backlog for his guys or ours. And we’ve already got a head start with the names.”

Which would make it easier to identify the women if they were indeed the missing ones from their list. Nathan’s gut said they were. “Does Nieto trust his guys not to leak anything until we’re ready?”