Page 39 of Lethal Danger

“Did you inspect the boats first, like you’re doing now?”

Jaden nodded as he dismissed that boat for the next one. “I always check the boats, then do a quick walk-through inside before we open.”

“And that’s when you found Sam Ackerman?”

Jaden looked up at Hawthorne, his vanilla skin paling slightly. “Yeah. Laying by that rock. At first, I thought it might be one of the operators. We prank each other sometimes. But when I got close…I knew it was real.”

“How did you know?”

Jaden swallowed visibly. “All that blood. And the way his eyes were open. Staring nowhere.” Jaden gave his head a hard shake. “Freaked me out.”

“I can understand that. I’m sorry you had to find him.”

“Better me than a paying customer, right?” He gave Hawthorne a shaky grin.

“Good point.” Hawthorne smiled. “So you called it in?”

Jaden nodded. “I told security, and they came right away with one of the onsite cops. Then more cops came from outside pretty soon.”

“Were you surprised when they said it was an accident?”

Jaden lifted his shoulders and let them drop as he moved another boat into place. “Not really. Seemed pretty obvious to me. The kid must’ve been messing around and fell.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Oh, yeah. We tell people every ride to stay seated, but there’s always some joker who thinks it’s funny.”

“To stand up during the ride?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you see when they do that if you’re only here, outside?”

Jaden met Hawthorne’s gaze. “If they do it at the start or the end, we can see. Sometimes people complain after the ride that somebody was standing, or somebody brags about it.”

“I see. Have you ever had anyone slip and fall?”

“Yeah, Christy—she’s a nighttime operator, been here for like three years—she’s seen it all. She said somebody got their pants totally wet because they were messing around and fell in the water.”

“Interesting.” So Sam standing up wouldn’t be implausible. Sounded pretty common.

Jaden bent over a boat and pulled something out. A beer can?

“Are there often things left in the boats?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Anything left in the boats that night?”

Jaden plunked the can into a trash bag, then glanced up. “Probably.” He operated the lever again. “Oh, I remember.”

Hawthorne tried to see the kid’s eyes, but Jaden watched the next boat slide into place.

“I found four beer cans in one boat that morning.”

“Is that unusual?”

“There’s a max of three people allowed in each boat, so yeah. It was weird.”

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