Wicked Dreams by Lisa Jackson

Author:Lisa Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zebra Books
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Lang stood outside the gates of Siren Song in a cool wind, remembering how he’d done much the same thing years before, the first time he’d attempted to meet Catherine and her charges. She’d ignored all his attempts. All of them had. Only when he’d shown up with Claire—Dr. Claire Norris, at the time—had Catherine deigned to let Claire, not Lang, past the iron bars.

Since then, things had changed, sort of, but he was pretty sure he still wasn’t welcome. No man was, except for Earl, a Foothiller who’d been Catherine’s go-to general handyman for years. Lang wondered how Earl felt about the creeping gentrification heading into the Foothillers’ village, with builders like Bancroft Development buying up property from the locals and taking down the small tract houses, replacing them with sprawling, two-story structures. Okay, Savvy had said Bancroft wasn’t one of the companies moving in, but Lang figured it was just a matter of time. He felt a pang of loss for what hadn’t even happened yet.

His cell rang, and he saw it was from Rhodes. He answered, “No baby yet. She’s still in labor.”

“Uh . . . yeah . . . I want to talk to you about something.” He sounded serious.

Lang pictured Neville Rhodes. Tall, lean, serious, a handsome guy with a gravity far beyond his years. Rhodes needed to lighten up a little, in Lang’s biased opinion, but the tragedies he’d lived through had probably made that an iffy proposition.

“I think we need to go to Echo Island.”

Lang’s brows lifted. Although he agreed with the assessment, had been letting a similar idea germinate, it was a surprise, given his history, that Rhodes had been the one to bring it up first.

“All right,” said Lang. The body could have been dropped from a boat and floated in, but it could have just as easily come from Echo. “You want to go?” he questioned.

“I told Earl’s son, Rand, that I wanted Earl to take me, unless we could get the Marine Patrol.”

“Echo’s far enough in the ocean to be out of range for the Marine Patrol.” And no one at TCSD wanted to go to Echo, including Lang.

“I figured. Rand said it’s too late in the year, and Earl’s too old.”

“Probably both true . . .”

“I’m not asking you to go with me,” said Nev. “You can if you want, but I’m going to check with Earl anyway. He knows that godforsaken piece of rock better than any of us.”

“Okay.” He tried not to sound relieved. “But are you sure you want to be the one to go, Rhodes?”

He expelled a heavy breath. “Sure. Why not. If Earl can’t or won’t do it, I’ll come up with something else.”

“This some kind of pilgrimage for you?” guessed Lang.

“It’s just police work.”

Bullshit to that. But Lang sensed Rhodes was determined, so who was he to talk him out of it? “Let me know what Earl says.” He glanced down the flagstone path that led to Siren Song’s front door. “And before you go, we should follow up with Ravinia and/or Catherine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.