Page 51 of Poison Evidence

She shuddered. “You swam through an underwater tunnel to find this?”

“With scuba,” he said. “It’s a hard without scuba, but possible.”

She didn’t want to know how he knew that. The idea of swimming through a tunnel of rock gave her shivers. She was a decent swimmer and had learned scuba due to the need to ground-truth CAM’s results, but she was far from experienced enough to try underwater caving. That would be every nightmare come true.

“When I first found this place,” he continued, “I was sure this would be it, where the Chechen had hidden the AUUV. It wasn’t, but I realized this would be a good base camp for you.” He turned toward the steps. “Follow me.”

She reached for two of the cases.

“Leave them up here. This is your office. Below are the living quarters.”

Bemused and strangely enchanted, she followed. She’d known these caves existed and expected to find more like it with CAM, but she and Ulai hadn’t done an aerial survey of these islands yet. As far as she knew, this particular cave wasn’t on any map or mentioned in any historical account.

The flight of stairs took her into a lower second chamber. Larger than the one above, it had an irregular kidney shape, the whole space being about four hundred square feet, with a ceiling that ranged from four feet high at the edges to ten feet in the middle above a pool of still water.

Light shone through a skylight in the ceiling above the pool, while dim illumination filtered through a hole in the east wall. “Is that a window cut by soldiers?”

“Yes. It’s hidden by vegetation and too small for anyone to climb through.” His voice echoed off the walls as sound did in caves. “I could clear it for more light, but instead I installed these.” He flicked a switch, and a floodlight came on, illuminating even the dark corners.

Supplies were stacked in an alcove she hadn’t seen in the dark. Food. Water. A camping stove. Propane. Sleeping pads and blankets.

Relief flooded her. She’d feared they’d be fishing for every meal and sleeping on rocks, and she’d wondered where they’d find drinking water.

She snapped open the lid of a bottle of water and took a long drink before passing the bottle to Dimitri. The water was cool and refreshing after being stored in the dark, damp cave.

He took a drink, then nodded toward the stairs. “We have everything we need. The latrine is in the jungle to the south of the cave entrance. We can bathe in the pool. Salt water, but better than nothing.” He handed the bottle back to her. “There are chairs if you want to rest while I go up and cover the entrance again.”

She nodded toward meter-tall rolls of paper tucked in with the supplies. “What are those?”

“Charts. Places I’ve searched. All the information I have. We’ll go over them together.”

She gripped his shirt and pulled him to her for a quick, soft kiss. “Yes. Yes, we will. Go hide the entrance while I get started.”

Luke set down the phone, shaken to his core.

Parker was an assassin, an enforcer for the hardest criminal edges of the Russian government, and Luke had let him go.

Luke had told Curt he didn’t believe Parker would hurt Ivy. Did he still believe that, knowing the man was a killer?

Jesus, that night on the ferry, Parker had claimed he’d never fired his gun in the line of duty before. That may well have been true as far as the Coast Guard was concerned, but…the way he said it, he’d been so utterly convincing that only now did Luke accept that likelyeverythingParker had told him was a lie.

Even the part about not returning to Russia. Or that he hadn’t killed the kind tribal member who worked at the museum.

God. What if Parker had killed Annie?

Dimitri, he corrected himself. Easygoing Parker Reeves didn’t exist. He was Dimitri Veselov and an assassin.

“It’s not your fault, Luke,” Undine said softly.

He met her gaze. His Undine. She’d been livid with him after he’d told Curt that Parker wouldn’t hurt Ivy, and now she offered comfort when she could be sayingI told you so.

She wrapped her arms around his waist. “It’s. Not. Your. Fault. Parker—Dimitri—fooled everyone. You had reason to trust him.”

He closed his eyes as she tucked her head under his chin and held him. “What if…what if he killed Annie?” There. He’d said it aloud. The question that turned his gut and sent cold chills up his spine.

“Parker had an alibi for Annie’s time of death. The tourist boat on the Pacific that got in trouble when the storm rolled in. Parker was in the helicopter that rescued the tourists.”

His eyes burned with relief at the reminder, and he squeezed her tighter. He’d forgotten. Parker Reeves’ last months in Neah Bay had been reconstructed with meticulous detail, to make sure he’d had no connection to Yuri and his crew. Part of that had included clearing him of Annie’s murder.

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