Page 80 of Light of Day
Her arms cramped and she swung herself back inside the cave.
But instead of feeling despair at still being trapped here, a sense of hope filled her. She knew where she was—just past the northernmost tip of the island. She pictured the map of the currents that Luke had shown her to pinpoint what had happened to Denton’s body.
Getting into the icy Maine water wasn’t something to do lightly. But if she swam with the current and with the receding tide, she could probably make it to the North Point. If she could grab onto the rocks there, she could climb up the same slope that Denton had tumbled down. If she got lucky, a passing lobster boat would spot her before then, or maybe a sailboat. Or possibly a much nicer kayaker, one who didn’t want to kill her.
Some factoid tugged at her memory then. The Carmichaels were all excellent kayakers. John Carmichael III had made sure of that. Some of them had competed internationally.
Had she just encountered Carson Carmichael, the “dick,” the one who despised Luke? That would explain why he looked vaguely familiar from the back.
Next question—if he hadn’t put her in that cave, who had?
36
Luke calledin Marigold to fill out the paperwork required to put Amy Lou in the lockup, and to keep an eye on her. It was a lot to leave in Marigold’s hands, but they still had at least one other arsonist at large, as well as a murderer.
He checked his phone again. After he’d arrested Amy Lou, he’d texted Heather to let her know.
Heads up…Chen believes our suspect is a woman. Think scarves and big feet. But not Amy Lou.
But Heather still hadn’t answered.
As they were heading out of the constable’s office, Chen’s phone buzzed. A moment later she put it on speaker so they could both listen. “The toxicology results just came back on Simms,” the police chief told them. “They found Rohypnol in his blood. He was drugged as well as strangled.”
“Okay then. Text me the report, would you?” After Chen hung up, she said, “This is puzzling. If Denton was drugged, why would he need strangling?”
Luke decided to play out the scenario. “Okay, you’re Denton. I’m the killer. I’ve already drugged you somehow.”
“You must be someone he’d accept a drink from.”
“Right, so you trust me enough to share a drink. You get drowsy, but you haven’t drunk quite enough to make you unconscious. You’re a big guy, after all.”
“So at some point the killer improvises. You say, look at that view, or whatever.” Chen turns around, her back to Luke.
“And I grab my scarf and wrap it around your neck until you pass out. Then I roll your body off the cliff.”
“You’re a real jerk, you know that?” Chen joked.
“Haha.”
Chen’s phone buzzed, and she clicked on the incoming text. “Nope. That theory’s out. This amount of Rohypnol would knock out an elephant. Not only that, but it was probably injected. It would be hard to ingest this much.”
“Did they find a needle mark?”
“With all the saltwater damage to the corpse, it might not be possible.”
Luke paced back and forth across his office. “New scenario then. The strangulation didn’t work. Denton fought back. That’s when the killer brought out the hypodermic loaded with Rohypnol.”
She shook her head. “If they had that ready, why not lead with it? A drugged victim would be easier to strangle.”
And then it came to him. “It was two people.”
Chen snapped her fingers. “That’s it. One of them went for the strangle, and when that didn’t work, the other stepped in with a hypodermic. Then they both rolled him off the cliff. Boom.”
Jesus. The number of killers on the island had just doubled.
“So we’re not just looking for a woman anymore.”
“No, I’d say we’re looking for two people, both of whom have reason to want Denton out of the picture. It’s possible they didn’t intend to murder him, maybe things got out of hand. But we know for sure they wanted to silence him. Have any other possible motives surfaced in this mess?”
