Page 2 of Risky Obsession

“Yes, that’s Gordon’s boat.” Her voice quivered. “Where did you find it?”

“It was found on Keyhole Island.”

She frowned. “That’s a deserted island.”

“Yes, about sixty miles away.”

Her chin dimpled. “And was . . .? Did you . . .?”

Anticipating what she was trying to say, I said, “We didn’t find Gordon.”

Her face crumbled and she sucked in a huge breath, fighting her emotions.

Gordon Sommers had left to go fishing by himself four months ago on a perfect summer day, but he had never come home. It had been assumed that Gordon had suffered a tragic boating accident.

However, I’d been working on a different theory. A month ago, Indiana Smith, a salvage expert, and my co-worker, Detective Tyler Kingsley, found a seaplane wreck on the bottom of the ocean. The unidentified man in the pilot seat had been shot and the person who shot him also remained a mystery.

Based on forensic testing on the sunken seaplane, it crashed about fourmonths ago, which was around the same time Carol’s husband went missing. And that was a coincidence that deserved investigating.

My theory was that the pilot’s murderer survived the plane crash and that Carol’s poor fisherman husband was in the wrong place at the wrong time and became the next victim.

“On the day Gordon went missing, do you know where he planned to go fishing?”

Nursing the cup in her lap, she huffed. “He never told me. I don’t think he knew himself half the time. He just went wherever the wind or currents took him.”

I had read the previous police interview about Gordon’s disappearance where she’d said the same.

“How well did Gordon know these waters?”

“He spent nearly every day of his life out there.” She swept her hand toward the view. “He knew that ocean better than he knew our kitchen. There is no way Gordon had a silly accident like everyone is saying. No way.”

“I agree.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I’m working on a theory that I unfortunately can’t—” A buzzing noise pierced the silence, and as I searched across the deck for the source of the noise, a drone lowered into my view.

“What the—” I jumped up and raced onto the deck.

The drone hovered at eye level for one heartbeat before it shot into the air and vanished over Carol’s roof.

“That bastard is always spying on us.” Carol stepped to my side.

“Who?”

“The creep at the top of the hill. I’ve reported him to the police many times, but they don’t care.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s an asshole.” She shrugged. “Sorry. Nobody knows his name. He’s been living in that eyesore he built at the top of the hill for about eight years, but I don’t know a single person on this island who has met the weirdo.”

Weirdo?

“What do you know about him?” I asked.

“Only that the bastard spies on us, and he never answers his door.” She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, Gordon and I tried many times.”

When Indiana and Kingsley had found that seaplane wreck, they’d been lucky to survive a drone attack that sunk Indiana’s boat. This drone was another coincidence I couldn’t ignore.

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