Page 38 of Crash and Burn

Having him staying here should keep her safe, but it was still far too easy for anyone to find out what nights he was out of the house. Waking up and finding her gone had been petrifying.

Luckily, he’d found the text before he fully panicked. Hitting the link, he’d headed out the back door and was now following the trail she'd left behind. According to the dot, she’d turned around a while ago and he was about to run into her.

“Maggie?” he called out,

“Sebastian!” He heard her from far enough away for her voice to sound small. But she was up ahead, exactly as the system said and he breathed easier.

As she emerged around a corner in the trail, appearing healthy and sound between two trees, he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was safe, happy, and motioning him to come forward. “You have to see what I found!”

He didn’t have the time. The chief had called him in for the follow-up on the house and he needed to get going. He’d only come out here to be sure that Maggie was safe and let her know that he was leaving. But he didn't say that yet.

“What did you find?”

“Look.” She’d come all the way up to him, reached out for his hand, and was now pulling him along. He wished she was holding his hand for some other reason, but he would take the feel of her hand in his for what it was. Something about their fingers laced together simply feltright. When was he going to say something? Would it ever be the right time?

He couldn’t go on wanting her, but if he made her uncomfortable … who would keep her safe?

“Come with me.” She turned and tugged him back the way she’d come, but didn’t explain further. He didn’t have time, but he didn’t say no.

She took a short side path and they emerged near a paved boat ramp and small parking lot. A rickety looking dock jutted out into the water. She was pointing at the river. “The lake is here.”

He frowned. Had she not known it was back here? “It's a tributary of the Platte River.”

“I know.” She turned to look at him, her eyes bright with wanting him to catch on to something he wasn’t catching. She gave him a hint. “It's a public dock.”

“Okay?” He let it hang in the air like a question. Still not understanding.

“It took me about twenty-five minutes to get here from the back gate. Well, give or take, because I passed it the first time. I needed to be coming from this angle to really see that the water was right over here. And I had to take a side path.” She pointed back behind them to where it joined up with the main trail that went on until the woods ended.

They walked further, down onto the old blacktop, near the water’s edge. And he confessed, “I'm missing the point.”

He needed to get back.

“The point is,” she explained gently, “You can walk out my back gate, and come here, and get in a boat.” She waved her hand toward the water again. “A boat that you've docked and kept here.”

“It’s always been that way.” He was still missing something.

“Exactly. You could leave by boat from this dock anytime day or night, and no one would really notice. It’s always been here. In fact, there are more docks than just this one around town, right? But this one is a quick walk from my back gate.”

“Oh shit.” He saw what she saw now. It wasn't a guarantee that it had happened this way, but it was even more plausible that the killer had been a boarder in Sabbie's home. While he lived there, he could easily have walked out the back gate, come here unnoticed, and taken a boat he had tied up.

“How much do you want to bet that the city doesn’t charge for the boats kept here?” She looked at him as if she knew she were right.

“I’m not taking that bet. We don’t even keep track of who has a boat tied up at the main dock. The town is too small for the city to bother with it. There’s never been an issue.”

She looked a little surprised that he knew that.

“We had a boat at the main dock catch on fire about seven years ago. No one claimed it. And there were no records to track down who it belonged to.” But now that her eyes narrowed at him, he wondered if maybe the boat hadn’t belonged to the killer and he’d had to get rid of evidence.

Maggie was talking again. “All of the victims’ bodies were found in the water. How easy would it have been to take a boat from here?” She waved her hand again a little too excited. “He leaves the scene from the water, not the land.”

Shit. She was making too much sense given what he knew of the cases.

“It explains how he vanished without a trace from the scenes. I wonder if the FBI has thought of this?”

“I can't imagine they haven't.” Surely the FBI hadn’t released all the information they knew, but the information she was spouting convinced him that she'd spent all night up reading. She hadn't had this knowledge when he had left for his shift the day before.

“It's not mentioned in any of the newspaper articles I found,” she confirmed his suspicion. “So either the FBI is sitting on the information, and they have managed to keep it quiet foryears, or the FBI doesn’t think this is the case.” The irritation in her voice didn't suit the danger of the situation, he thought. She should be more on guard, but she was just angry. Still, now wasn't the time to point it out. “Also, I need to show you what I found.”

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