Page 61 of Nightshade

“Everything in an investigation is kept confidential, Duncan.”

“You mean until it isn’t.”

“Look, I told you. You want my help with the warrant, you gotta help me. I’m asking you, was it just you and Colbrink on the trip back to Marina del Rey?”

“No. He had a lady friend who went back with us.”

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know. I’m just the hired help. He didn’t make any introductions. I heard him call her Bree, I think. Or Breezy. I think both, maybe.”

“And she had stayed on the boat with him over the weekend?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I got there Monday, and so I only know about Monday.”

“How old is Bree or Breezy?”

“At least forty.”

Forbes had confirmed information Stilwell had gotten from Colbrink during the ride from the mansion in Malibu to the boat in Marina del Rey. But the confirmation served to raise Stilwell’s confidence in Forbes’s truthfulness.

“I want to show you something,” Stilwell said.

He typed a few commands into the laptop and opened the video Tash had emailed him of the skiff moving from theBMC to theEmerald Sea,then turned the screen so Forbes could see it.

“Who do you think that is?” he asked.

Forbes watched the video to the end of the clip before responding.

“I don’t know, man,” he said. “That’s weird.”

“Is it Mason Colbrink?” Stilwell asked.

“I doubt it. That time stamp right? This on the eighteenth?”

“Yes, the eighteenth.”

“But you were just asking me about this past weekend.”

“I’m asking you about both weekends. Look at the video. Could that be Mason Colbrink?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think he was on the island then.”

“Okay, well, whoever the guy is, what do you think he’s doing?”

“No idea. Probably trying to steal shit.”

Stilwell turned the computer back around and closed it. He hadn’t considered that the man on the skiff might be taking things from the boats in the harbor. It was a reminder of how easily tunnel vision could hijack an investigation.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“Well, because there was some shit missing.”

“From where?”

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