Page 11 of Off the Hook

“I’m going to West Marine for some hydraulic fluid,” I said, trying to change the subject and get the fuck out of there. I was too distraught to pretend I felt okay around my dad and brothers. And I needed to see for myself what the fuck had happened to Kylie. ”The tilt trim motor on the flats boat is acting up.”

My father’s head cocked, his brows scrunching together. “Seemed fine when I ran it a couple of days ago.”

“It’s lagging at the top,” I lied. It seemed as good an excuse as any to get out of the house so I could go check Kylie’s apartment.

Turning down Stromboli Drive, the sight of the yellow police tape in the distance made the coffee in my empty stomach threaten to come back up. Aside from the police tape, the first thing I noticed was that Kylie’s cherry-red Jeep Wrangler was not in its spot on the right side of the driveway. My mom had scoffed at the car when Kylie graduated, saying Doreen couldn’t afford to give her a car like that. But Doreen had an old Wrangler when she was young, so she’d found a way to buy Kylie’s dream car for graduation. Kylie had driven it ever since. I still had my Dad’s old pickup that I drove back then, too. Some things hadn’t changed.

The reality that Kylie was gone washed over me like a cold wave as I scanned the driveway.If she was home when she died, where was her Jeep?

I parked on the street in the shade of the Royal Poinciana we’d climbed as kids, its bare, bone-like branches stretching wide above the asphalt. Come spring, it would be full of dark orange blooms, but Kylie wouldn’t be here to see it.

I choked up as I stared across the yard toward the baby blue stilt house with white storm shutters I’d helped Doreen hang when I was in high school. Kylie shook the ladder when I was at the top, teasing me because she knew I hated heights. I laughed at the memory, but then the tears came as more memories rushed back with a vengeance. The mailbox that Kylie hit when she was learning to drive. The Key lime tree we’d planted for Kylie’s doberman, Rosco, when he died. Our first kiss, Kylie giggling at me in her pink room that she’d outgrown, in front of the open balcony doors, while I stood there terrified her mother would come bounding in and catch us.

My hand trembled as I shut the car door. I could barely walk, my knees weak as I stepped over the police tape across the driveway. I gazed up at the balcony outside her old bedroom, where she’d returned the diamond ring I’d saved for over a year, and told me she didn’t want to get married. She’d ripped my heart out in the very place where we’d shared our first kiss.

I walked around the house, which looked exactly as it always had. It felt like she might dance out the door at any second and wake me up from this nightmare. A pit opened up in my stomach as I neared the water. I scanned the edge of the dock, searching for any trace— blood, a scuff mark, anything— that might hint at where she had fallen. The centerconsole boat, that I’d taught Kylie how to dock, floated silently in the canal.

I stepped onto the boat and looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. From the stern, I eyed the dock edge again. Behind the boat, a school of small grunts hung motionless in the shade, almost as if they were guarding the secrets of her death in the crystal clear water.

“There is no way you just fell in here, Kylie. What happened to you?”

I stepped back onto the dock and headed to the door of her downstairs apartment. Locked.So she locked up her apartment before she ended up in the canal?Something felt off.

Before Kylie moved into the apartment, it was their guest house. Doreen let my parents' visitors use it several times over the years, since we had such a full house. “There used to be a key,” I muttered to myself, as I walked toward the familiar spot. There it was, hidden beneath the third conch shell in the border encircling the palm tree beside the door.

CHAPTER 7

FAITH

Grabbing the camera from my passenger seat, I cocked my head at the rusty blue pickup parked on the street. The old Ford couldn’t be what Kylie’s mother drove home from Texas.

I rounded the corner of the house and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a shaggy-haired man, dressed in board shorts and flip flops, bent over fiddling with the lock on Kylie’s apartment door.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” I hollered. “This is a closed crime scene.”

When the man looked up, I immediately recognized his face. Coulter fucking Rodman stared back at me with eyes as big as saucers. A chill ran through me.WTF is he doing here??!!!Not only had the jilted ex entered my taped-off crime scene, but he was breaking into the victim’s apartment!

“Detective Pierce,” he stammered.

My free hand moved to rest on the gun in my holster. “Mr. Rodman. Step away from the door please.” I could kick myself for the empathy I’d felt for him yesterday. I had interrogated him relentlessly because I couldn’t afford to show weakness. But I’d actually felt a little sorry for him. Now, though, he looked guilty as sin.

His gaze flicked nervously to my hand on my firearm. “I just came to see if there was anything here that would explain how Kylie ended up dead.”

“So you decided to break in?”

Coulter’s face twisted in shock. “No, of course not.” He pointed at the key in the lock. “I have a key.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Your ex let you keep a key?” This guy was unreal.

“They always kept spares for upstairs and downstairs hidden there,” he said, nodding toward an overturned conch shell. “Always have. The other one is still there.” I kept my eyes on him but stepped into the pea gravel to inspect the shell. Sure enough, a weathered brass key laid nestled among the rocks.

It was no excuse for him trespassing in a crime scene, but his explanation of the key seemed plausible. “Is it unlocked?”

“I was trying when you scared the crap out of me,” he said, reaching to try to knob. He jiggled the key until it turned, and the door swung open. Stepping aside, Coulter gestured for me to enter. I slipped on a pair of latex gloves from my pocket before pulling a flashlight from my belt.

“Light switch is on the right inside the door,” he said, clearly familiar with the crime scene. I flicked the light on and scanned the room. When Coulter followed me inside, I wavered between kicking him out and wanting hisperspective. He knew Kylie intimately and had potential insight into her life, so he might notice something out of place. I decided he could be valuable and grudgingly let him stay.

“Don’t touch anything, Mr. Rodman,” I warned, staring him down. “I meananything. You got it?”

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