Across the Sound: (Coastal Justice Suspense Series Book 3) Read online

  Copyright 2017 by Mark Stone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without written consent from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.

  Lost in the Storm is a work of fiction. All events, dialogue, and characters are a work of the author’s imagination. Therefore, any similarities to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  Chapter 1

  “You sure this is a solid lead?” I asked , looking over at Boomer from across the front seat of my truck.

  My best friend in the world and the Collier County Chief of Police just nodded at me. Being halfway through a spoonful of his wife’s beef stew, which he had packed into thermoses for both of us, he wasn’t in a position to talk right yet.

  I turned my attention back to the ramshackle house in question. A tan house with white shutters and a front porch that wrapped around the whole north side of the house, I could tell this place had been somebody’s pride and joy back in its glory days. With the paint peeling and the grass grown over to unruly lengths though, it was clear those days were long gone.

  “As good a lead as we’ve got,” Boomer finally answered, twisting a lid back on the top of his thermos and saving the rest for later. We had already been here for two hours and there was no telling how much longer we’d have to sit here, parked on a backroad at the edge of the swamps, looking at a house that—for all intents and purposes—seemed to be abandoned.

  We knew it wasn’t abandoned though. Two separate tips had come in saying a girl matching the description of Daphne Osmond, a sixteen-year-old girl who had up and vanished nearly a week ago, was seen walking into this place.

  Those tips couldn’t be taken as gospel, of course. This area was indeed overgrown and, as such, the only people who really came out here were junkies looking for a fix in one of the makeshift meth labs out here or hormonal teenagers looking for a little privacy with the person they’re sweet on. I hoped the tips had come from the latter and not the former. Hormones or not, those kids would be more reliable than meth heads.

  “Any idea how much longer is this going to take?” I asked Boomer, my eyebrows arched. I had something special planned for tonight and, though the party involved would understand if I had to push it back in order to bring home a missing girl, the truth was I was excited.

  What’s more, this would have been a much quicker process up in Chicago, where people go missing like this all the time. A couple of anonymous tips wasn’t a great foundation to lay a case on, but I had little doubt I’d have had a search warrant by now had I gone to the DA up there with my concerns. As it was, Ethan Sands (our resident DA) had kept us out here for hours as he laid the information out in front of a judge.

  “Just waiting on the text, Dil,” Boomer said, putting his thermos back in his bag and looking over at me, a wolf’s grin on his face. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get you back in plenty of time to play doctor with the doctor.”

  I shook my head, somewhere between amused and aggravated. I didn’t have many secrets when it came to Boomer. So there was little doubt I was going to tell him about Dr. Rebecca Day accepting my invitation to dinner after it happened a couple of weeks ago. Still, that didn’t mean I wanted to be teased about it. Not everybody was liked Boomer, lucky enough to stick with his high school sweetheart for the rest of his life.

  “Very funny,” I answered. “I’m actually more concerned with this girl. The longer we’re waiting out here, the more time she’s spending away from home.”

  “She was seen entering this house of her own free will,” Boomer said, setting his jaw in an unamused fashion. “Teenager going into a place like this. We both know what that means.”

  He was alluding, of course, to the very real possibility that Daphne might have gotten herself involved in some of the drug related activity that seemed to have permeated—not only the swampland down here—but a lot of Naples altogether while I was away. To say it broke my heart to realize the place I loved so much had been saddled with this kind of destructive garbage was a massive understatement.

  While I was up in Chicago, fighting the good fight and braving winters that people down here would have thought only existed in storybooks, I used to think about my hometown. I used to think that, no matter how bad things looked or seemed up in Chicago, at least there was a place that I knew was untouched by this sort of stuff.

  Looks like the drug crisis had a longer finger than I imagined.

  “Doesn’t mean she’s not in danger,” I answered.

  “Didn’t say it did,” Boomer responded. “There’s just a difference between the kind of danger someone puts themselves in and the kind that comes from outside forces.”

  “Not sure I agree with you on that,” I said, thinking of all the ways I had seen people put themselves in just this kind of danger up in Chicago.

  “Be that as it may, Hot Shot,” Boomer said, holding up his phone to display a text from Ethan. “We just got ourselves a warrant.”

  Normally, we would have to have the paper. People like to see the warrant when you tell them you’re going to forcibly go through their home. This was a different circumstance though. A girl was in danger and, though going in without having the paper on our persons might prove sticky when it came time to procedure whoever was at fault here, saving a missing girl was far more important. I’d let Ethan Sands work his way through the legal red tape of it all later. That was his job. I was about to go do mine.

  Boomer and I made it to the wraparound porch. Even from here, I could smell the thick stench of marijuana smoke. Okay. This would make things easier. I hadn’t been to law school, but I had gone through training to do this job and I knew that, if it had to be, that smell could serve as probable cause for entry. So much for the red tape.

  “Police. Open up!” Boomer said, pounding his fist against the door. I could see the fire in his eyes as he moved and I wondered how long it had been since he had done something like this. As chief of police, this sort of thing really wasn’t in his job description anymore. Still, he was always a heart cop at heart, and having me around must have been all the permission he needed to give himself permission to be able to revert to this kind of activity.

  “Open up!” he repeated.

  He gave me a look, telling me he wouldn’t say it a third time. I pulled my firearm from the holster and held it at the ready. Boomer reared back and kicked the door hard. It flung open, popping as it tore at the hinges.

  Smoke flew from the open doorway as I entered, my eyes scanning the area in accordance with my training in this sort of situation. I didn’t need to wonder if the house was empty. Unless someone had lit a bong on fire and left the damned thing going, it wasn’t. And, call me crazy, but I doubted the inhabitants of this place were the type to waste good weed.

  “I’ll take the upstairs,” Boomer said, motioning to the set of stairs to his right. I nodded and he took off toward them.

  Looking around the living room, I found this place to be a model of neglect. Half eaten pizzas lay in the open boxes, mold and insects covering the scraps of food. The carpet in the living room was burned in spots and stained in others, and the couch was flipped over, the bottom cut open in a way I had seen before as a method of hiding drugs.

  Looking over at the fireplace and mantle, I saw a photograph. A sweet old la
dy with her hair in an updo and bright red lipstick on smiled with her head tilted to the side. A safe story wove itself in my mind. She had likely lived a good life, had a nice family, and left that nice family this nice home.

  And this is what they’d done with it.

  I heard a crash from the left and turned.

  With my gun raised, I moved toward the closed door, which had been the source of the noise.

  Kicking it open, I found a set of legs dangling from an open window. They fell threw as their owner ejected himself from the house.

  Putting my gun back in its holster, I followed suit, throwing myself through the open window. I hit hard on the ground and tucked and rolled. Regaining my composure and standing, I saw a blond guy with scraggly hair in waves on his neck running away from me.

  “Freeze!” I said which, of course, he didn’t do. Knowing I couldn’t shoot him, I took off after him, damned grass squishing under my feet.

  My eyes went toward his hands as he ran. They were empty, meaning that he might have been unarmed. That was a good thing. It meant that, when I caught him (and I would), I could overpower him and bring him down without having to hurt him too much.

  I gained on the man easily. I guess continued drug use didn’t do much for your lung capacity.

  He did that thing that all stupid criminals do when you’re chasing them. He turned back for just a second to see if I was gaining on him. I was, and that little move slowed him down enough for me to catch up with him completely.

  I crashed into him, knocking him to the ground.

  As his slammed against the ground though, he threw an elbow into my face. It connected with my chin, knocking me backward.

  Squirming himself out from under me, he began to crawl away. I grabbed his foot and pulled him back toward me. He turned forcefully, throwing a fist toward my face. I grabbed his hand and noticed a weird tattoo along the front of it. Three stars inside of a diamond. He swung at me with the other hand, but I grabbed it too. With all four of our hands occupied, I decided to do things the old fashioned way. Throwing my head forward, I butted him hard in the skull. It thudded as his head hit the ground.

  “Where’s the girl?” I asked, my breath ragged. “Tell me where she is.”

  “She loves me,” he answered, out of breath. “We’re in love. That’s not wrong!”

  “She’s sixteen,” I answered. “You’re, what twenty five?” I scoffed. “Seems wrong to me.” I stood quickly, slamming a foot against his chest before he could move.

  Boomer sounded across my walkie as I pulled the handcuffs from my belt.

  “Found the girl, Dil. She’s a little out of it, but I think she’s okay.”

  “Good,” I answered, looking down at the man on the ground. “I got the perp.”

  Blinking at him, I leaned down and cuffed his hands.

  “Perp?” He asked. “I’m not a—”

  “Criminal?” I asked, pulling him upright. “I suppose that’ll be for a judge to decide. Though, if I’m being honest with you, I don’t think the odds are in your favor, seeing as how you brought a kid into a crack den. Level with me, guy. Am I going to find drugs when I search this house? Am I going to find a meth lab?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Figures,” I muttered. “This better not take too long. I’m going to be really pissed off if I miss my date.” I shook my head at the still silent man. “Oh, you’re under arrest, by the way.”

  Chapter 2

  I never liked this part of things. First dates had never been my strong suit. Sure, put me up against a kidnapper or home invader and I’d go running at them with all the delicacy of a bull bouncing through a China shop. I wouldn’t even flinch. But this, for whatever reason, made me as nervous as a turkey the day after Halloween.

  I walked into the restaurant, a fancy place with lit candles and lace tablecloths, scanning the room for Rebecca. To say this wasn’t the kind of place I was used to coming to would be an understatement of criminal proportions. I was more at home in one of a dozen or so oyster bars, fish shacks, or burger joints that littered Naples’s more casual side. Anything that needed a reservation more than fifteen or so minutes in advance was definitely not my speed. In fact, I’d brought up one of the many oyster bars in town when I asked Rebecca Day out.

  When she accepted, I figured that was where we would end up, with me slurping goodness out of a salty shell and schooling the former Yankee turned Florida doctor on why you didn’t need things like cocktail sauce or Frank’s Red Hot when the oysters were this fresh.

  Life didn’t work out that way though. Scheduling is a hell of a thing when you’re a doctor. Even more so when you’re a cop. A cop trying to get together with a doctor was like wishing for snow during barbecue season. It might happen every once in a while, but you’d be stupid to hold your breath for it.

  Once in a while happened tonight after three entire weeks of putting it off. Rebecca had performed heart surgery on some celebrity chef she was shocked I had never heard of and, as a thank you, he invited her to an all expenses paid feast at his restaurant which, judging from the sheer amount of overdressed people in the waiting area, was probably insanely hard to get into.

  “Can I help you?” a snooty man asked from behind a thin podium as he caught sight of me. I didn’t have the sort of designer suits and expensive shoes the people waiting to be seated all seemed to be decked out in, and that didn’t look like it sat with this guy very well at all. If his nose had been stuck any higher in the air, he’d have been sniffing ceiling panels.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said flatly, looking past him at the sea of tables, all full.

  “I’m afraid waitresses aren’t allowed personal visits while on their shifts, sir,” he said, clicking his tongue at the end like he was talking to a dog or something.

  “I’m not here for a waitress,” I said, my eyes darting over to the man. He was nearly as thin as the podium, with a shock of red hair hanging over his left eye and a smirk on his face that begged to be punched. I wouldn’t, of course, even if he had just made some pretty gross assumptions about both me and the waitstaff at this establishment.

  “Waiter?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “I’ll find her myself,” I sighed, nodding at the man and walking out into the dining area.

  My mind had been racing most of the day. Luckily, it had all been worth it, seeing as how we'd brought Annabelle back home. More than that though, we found a meth lab and enough drug paraphernalia to put Mason Clark (the kid with the shaggy blond hair and poor choice of hand tattoos) away for a very long time. I should have been patting myself on the back, but this was all in a day's work. Besides, I had a much more pressing (and pleasant) issue to let my mind rest on right now, and she was a beauty.

  I found Rebecca pretty easily seeing as how she was the only person sitting alone at a table in a restaurant that looked custom made for couples. Wearing a red dress that hugged her in all the right places with a smile on her face that lit the room up where candles failed to do the job, I couldn’t help but remember what my grandfather had said about the tiny doctor after he’d first met her.

  Natalie Wood with seafoam eyes.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show,” she said as she caught sight of me, running a hand through her short, dark hair and grinning. “I can’t tell you how embarrassing being stood up would be.”

  “I’m sure you couldn’t,” I said, pulling off my jacket, hanging it on the back of the chair, and sitting down across from her. “Who in their right mind would pass up dinner with you?”

  "I wouldn't have been upset you know," she said, smiling at me. "I heard about the girl, the one you found and brought back home. I didn't know I was going to be eating dinner with a hero tonight."

  "Really?" I asked, looking at her from across the table. "Because I've saved a couple of people already. I was wondering when it was going to catch your eye."

  She chuckled loudly and brought an
already nearly empty glass of what looked like club soda to her lips.

  "No wine tonight?" I asked, remembering her drink of choice from the dinner we'd shared back at Boomer's place.

  She shrugged, a delicate move that made her look even smaller than she already did somehow. "I'm not on call, but Dr. Adams is on vacation. So, the hospital is already short staffed. I'm not rooting for a tragedy, but you never know what might happen."

  Something about that sort of dedication, that kind of heaviness being forced to exist in the back of her mind struck me as familiar in a way I would have never been able to explain to anyone who hadn't experienced it.

  I knew what it was like to have to be on guard though, to always need to be prepared because, otherwise, people might die.

  “Been here long?” I asked, instinctively leaning a little forward in my chair. The candlelight bounced off this woman, and I found myself drawn to her like a moth dancing around a flame that was—without a doubt—too good for it.

  “I finished up early today, earlier than I thought anyway,” she said, looking around and most likely realizing that her early was everyone else’s late. Well, everyone but me. “I figured I’d better get over here before something else came up and—”

  “Forced you to postpone again?” I finished, not even bothering to pick up a menu.

  “I am sorry about that,” she answered, setting the glass against the fancy tablecloth and blinking at me.

  “You’ve got nothing to apologize about,” I responded. “You save people’s lives. I’m certainly not going to be mad at you for doing that. Lord knows my grandfather isn’t.”