Page 27 of Deep Tide

She glanced at him, startled. She’d known she recognized him from someplace, but she’d assumed it was work-related.

“You know Joel, then?” she asked.

“We go way back.”

“I see.”

But she didn’t see at all. Joel had grown up on the island, and this guy wasn’t from here. Maybe they knew each other from Houston, where Joel had started his career.

Interesting that he’d been at Joel’s wedding and he happened to be working a case down here in south Texas. Coincidence? Somehow, she doubted it. Maybe they had worked together on the task force Joel was on, which was going after drug and sex trafficking in the region. The team included deputies from the sheriff’s office, as well people from an alphabet soup of federal agencies.

She passed a pickup truck with a trio of teens in the front and a pair of surfboards in back. The waves were up today, and lots of people were hitting the beach.

She glanced at Sean Moran. It wasn’t lost on her that he still hadn’t answered her question.

“So, you are with Brownsville or—”

“I’m down from D.C. But I’m coordinating with several agents in Brownsville.”

Washington, D.C. Of course. Because everything about this case wasn’t already giving her an ulcer. She’d dealt with the FBI on a case last summer, and it had been a major pain. They were territorial, pushy, and they hoarded information. It wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat.

She turned the AC down and glanced at the man beside her. He didn’t look quite as uptight as the feds she’d met last summer. And he was younger, too, probably midthirties.

“What exactly are you looking for at the apartment?” she asked.

“Honestly?” He sighed. “I’m not sure. I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.”

She appreciated the glimmer of honesty, however faint.

“Well, what exactly put this case on your radar?”

He glanced at her, and she wondered if he was going to give her something, anything, that might be useful. The agents from last summer had considered information “sharing” to be a one-way street.

“You don’t get a lot of homicides here,” he said.

“Thankfully, no. Although, that seems to be changing with our recent population boom.”

“This one isn’t your garden-variety street crime.”

“No.”

Although, what was garden-variety in a place like Lost Beach? Until a few years ago, they’d had very little crime at all. They mostly dealt with drunks, property crime, and a fair number of assaults. But the population growth had brought all sorts of problems to the island. And their homicide rate, as low as it was, had spiked over the last three years.

She glanced at him, wondering how much he knew about her case. “What in particular caught your attention?”

“Well, her hands were bound, which is somewhat unusual. No sexual assault. And it seems the stabbing occurred inside the store, but the cash register wasn’t hit.”

Nicole’s shoulders tensed as he rattled off all the elements of the case that she found most disturbing.

“We recovered her purse from a dumpster near the body,” she said. “No cash or credit cards. And no cell phone.”

He shot her a look. “You don’t really think this was a robbery, do you?”

She fixed her gaze on the highway. No, she didn’t. She had been having trouble with that theory even before they knew the victim had had her hands bound and that she’d likely died inside the building, and not in the alley where her body was left.

“The outdoor crime scene seems staged, don’t you think?”

She glanced at him. “Yes, but why?”

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