She gave him a reproachful look. “Now who’s speculating? You don’t think he had anything to do with Dr. Nance’s death, do you? Why would he? If he’s that new in town, I doubt they even met.”
“You said yourself, Dr. Nance spent a lot of time out here on the lake.”
That gave her pause. “You think he saw something?”
“I think I’ve said too much,” Tom muttered. “You’re right. I’m speculating. We need to wait for the autopsy before we start drawing conclusions.”
“What was odd about the shooting?” Nikki couldn’t resist asking.
Tom looked troubled. “The fact that it was so thoroughly hushed up, for one thing. Hardly a mention of it in the papers or even on social media. The man took two bullets in the chest. A third skimmed his scalp. By all rights, he should be dead. He was dead, from what I hear. His heart stopped beating before the EMTs arrived. That kind of event involving a cop ordinarily generates more than a passing mention.”
Nikki was starting to feel uneasy, too. “What are you saying, Tom?”
“Nothing. Just make sure Dr. Ramirez does a thorough job with the autopsy.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. He’s the best there is. He knows what to look for and I’ll be assisting. Two pairs of eyes, as they say. But don’t expect miracles. After this long in the water...” She trailed off as she glanced out at the lake and then over her shoulder. Adam Thayer watched her with deep, brooding eyes.
Déjà vu shivered up Nikki’s spine. Their paths had crossed before, she was certain. She still couldn’t place him, still didn’t know the why or when or how of a prior meeting. But even from a distance she could have sworn she caught the glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
The intensity of his gaze only deepened her foreboding. He was too far away to overhear their conversation, but she had a feeling he knew exactly what she was thinking. Even with state-of-the-art forensic equipment and the latest techniques, cause of death after that long in the water could be hard to prove.
No one would know that better than a homicide detective.
ADAM THAYER SLAPPED a mosquito at the back of his neck and inwardly swore. Damn swamp. He was being eaten alive out here. He moved into a patch of sunlight, but the bloodthirsty little bastards followed, buzzing around his ears before sinking their needles into the exposed skin at his nape.
Echo Lake was a beautiful place, a primordial paradise of sloughs, channels and open water, but the wildlife took some getting used to. He swatted and slapped and cursed some more. In the five days since he’d moved into his grandmother’s old house, he’d learned to keep the bug spray handy, especially on sleepless nights when he sat out on the dock or wandered down to the bridge. Of all the days to leave home without his usual dousing.
He still didn’t know what had pulled him all the way past the bridge to this particular spot. Gut instinct? The subtle waft of putrescence on the breeze?
He was no stranger to that smell. He couldn’t say he missed that particular aroma or the way it sometimes lingered in the nostrils for days. But the rest of it...the methodical processing of a crime scene, the interviews, the tracking down of leads and the adrenaline rush that came with the eventual unraveling of an alibi...yeah, he missed all that. He missed his job and the way his life had been before the shooting. He missed feeling normal.
Batting away the mosquitoes, he watched the Nance County sheriff huddle with the coroner at the edge of the lake. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he was familiar enough with death scene procedure to intuit the usual discussions about cause of death, time of death and the victim’s identity.
He also knew enough about human nature to assume that his status as a material witness might soon be elevated to that of person of interest. A stranger in town stumbles across a body, he’s going to be scrutinized regardless of the circumstances. If the sheriff suspected foul play, then said stranger would probably be questioned and maybe even surveilled if the manpower and resources could be justified.
Or maybe he was borrowing trouble. He’d been on the other side of enough interrogations to know how to handle himself. How many times had Stephanie accused him of having ice water in his veins?
Still, he didn’t like the notion of being put under a microscope, his every move and utterance examined and reexamined for inconsistencies. He’d had his fill of that after the shooting. Moving into his grandmother’s lake house, ostensibly to renovate and get the place ready to sell, was bound to generate talk. He’d prepared himself for a certain amount of idle curiosity and gossip. What he hadn’t counted on was the sudden death of his one and only contact in town.
Shifting his position to get a better view of the body, he ignored the dull throb at his temples. Pain had become an old friend. Weeks of recovery and months of physical therapy had left a lot of jagged nerve endings. He didn’t sleep much. He walked a lot and thought a lot. He pumped iron and mostly ate all the right foods. Gave up drinking. Spent time at the range. Except for the lingering headaches, he was in peak physical condition. Except for that damn psych evaluation, he would have already been reinstated. Worst mistake of his life, telling the shrink about his nightmares. Well, second worst. The first might have been trusting Stephanie.
But he couldn’t go back in time. He couldn’t fix all those old mistakes. He had a new concern now. Dr. Nance was dead, which meant the old man’s suspicions might have had a basis after all.
Adam’s gaze moved once more to the corpse as he reflected on the conversation that had brought him
