Page 87 of Five
“You wanna tell me whatever the hell that fiasco was at Conch?” Captain Johnson demands. He’s an African-American bull of a man who has literally clawed his way up through the ranks, and he does not take any bullshit from anyone.
He’s also one of the fairest guys I know.
“I’m sorry, sir. I take full responsibility. A few of my friends and I were here to join the search parties looking for the missing girl. When I took the call about the break-in at Conch marina they were all with me and at the time it made sense to bring them along since we were only a mile away, and I didn’t want to waste any time.”
“So, what the hell went wrong?” Johnson growls.
I run my fingers through my hair and rub the back of my neck. “What the fuck didn’t go wrong!”
Blowing out a breath, I condense it for him. “Somehow word got out. There were reporters there, tourists, all of them crowding the scene. You know how aggressive people get with this kind of case. It’s like they lose all reason.”
My captain grunts his acknowledgment. “I heard there were a couple of civilian casualties, one a friend of yours.”
“Yeah, Gabe Copeland. I made him stay outside while I co-opted the others to help me search the premises.”
Johnson narrows his eyes, and I raise my palms, hurrying to do some damage control because I know there’s no way I should have gone in without the proper backup. “The guys I took in were all military trained, some of them men I served with. I made an executive decision that there was no time to waste if the perp was still inside.”
The captain rubs at his temple with one hand. Luckily, he’s a retired Navy man, so understands their unique skills, even if they aren’t police. He sighs. “Okay, I’ll back you on that decision if it goes any higher. We both know it’s not protocol, but I appreciate you needed any hands you could get at that point. How’s your friend, and how did he get hurt if he wasn’t in the thick of it?”
“He sustained an upper nasal break to his nose, trying to stop a suspect who was trying to steal a car at gunpoint. He foiled the first attempt.”
“Which was more than the police were able to do,” Johnson mutters, darkly. “Why didn’t anyone give chase?”
“We tried, sir. Both myself and the uniforms. There were just too many tourists. Too many people to move before we lost sight of the car.”
The captain curses. “Fucking hell! With the main islands all connected by bridges, the suspect may not even be on Key West anymore. Is there any good news in this clusterfuck?”
“Actually, sir, there is. The suspect dropped a backpack. Inside was Neve Murray, the daycare owner’s laptop. It was pretty battered, possibly ruined, but it’s been sent off to forensics, so we might have a break there.”
“Better than nothing, I suppose. Write it up, Oz.”
The rest of my day consists of leads that end up at dead ends and paperwork, so much fucking paperwork.
But at least we’ve been assigned a troop of cadets from the Naval Air Station two islands over who volunteered to help with the search and, if need be, the recovery. We need all the resources we can get.
It’s coming close to twenty-four hours now.
I just hope we aren’t out of time.
It’s late when I head home. The plan was to get a few hours of sleep and then get right back to business, but as much as my job has distracted me today, the solace of the boat ride back to our island allows all of those thoughts to steal back into my mind.
We’ve just found Neve.
In such a short space of time, she’s become important, and somehow, despite all our precautions, we nearly lost her, today.
Five of us, all looking out for Neve, and that son-of-a-bitch almost got her.
I feel like I failed today. I was too rash, too caught up in the moment, and I already know that’s going to cost me my peace of mind.
Sleep is going to be a long time coming thinking about what happened. What might have happened.
And that poor little girl.
The pattern’s been broken and there’s no telling what this guy might do to her.
The interior lights are low when I pull McQueen up to the dock. I doubt anyone is awake, so I circumvent the main entrance and head straight for my cottage.
But when I get to the fork in the footpath that branches off toward the main house where Neve is, I find myself detouring.
