The Rogue Hunter (23 page)

A snort sounded, and the man growled, "The update is that she's still not at home. I still think she's off having fun somewhere, but I'm driving around looking for her instead of dealing with other things that need tending because your boss is gonna make trouble if I don't. So why don't you and all his other little assistants and junior this and executive that stop calling and wasting my time making me talk to you all and let me get on with my job?"

Sam frowned at the news that Mr. Babcock apparently had others from the firm calling. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. It was the way he worked, putting as many people on a job as possible and basically driving the other side crazy until they either gave up the case or lost their temper and made a mistake. This wasn't a court case though, and she didn't think it was a smart thing to be driving the sergeant crazy while he was trying to work. She would have actually apologized to the man for it, but apparently Belmont had done all the talking he felt he needed to. A sharp click was followed by the dial tone in her ear.

Sam made a face and closed her phone as most of her sympathy slid away. Truly the man had something of an attitude problem, and she had to wonder how he'd made it to sergeant.

"Judging by your irritated expression, I'd say that was Belmont," Mortimer commented as she stepped back into the cottage. "I take it the man didn't have any news for you?"

"No," Sam admitted unhappily.

"What are you going to do?" Mortimer asked.

She shook her head and then shrugged unhappily. "What can I do? As Madge said, I'm not a police officer."

"Madge?" Mortimer asked curiously.

"Mr. Babcock's secretary," she explained. "She pointed out this morning that Mr. Babcock only wanted me to keep calling the police and making sure they're on the case. She seemed to think that I should be having fun and enjoying my vacation in between calls."

He was silent for a moment and then said, "You don't look happy with the suggestion."

Sam shrugged. "I feel like I should be doing more to help find Cathy, but I haven't got a clue what that
more
could be. I mean, I have no idea where she's been taken, or by whom. And for all I know Belmont's right and she wasn't taken at all. Madge seems positive that's the case."

"Really?" Mortimer asked with interest.

"Yes. She reminded me that Cathy is a bit… er… well, her parents are kind of indulgent," she finished uncomfortably.

"You meant she's spoiled," he suggested with amusement.

Sam grimaced apologetically. "They're big clients at the firm. I would never say spoiled… but she is," she added heavily. "Very very spoiled. The kind of spoiled that has all the juniors and assistants at the firm fleeing the room when there's even a hint something has to be done involving interaction with her."

Mortimer smiled faintly, but then said, "Perhaps we could do both."

"Both what?" she asked with confusion.

"Perhaps we can satisfy both Madge's suggestion that you enjoy your vacation, as well as your desire to do more to help search for the girl."

Sam raised her eyebrows. "How?"

Chapter Twelve

"You were right. I see three of them in there," Mortimer said as he framed his hands around his eyes and peered through the window of the boathouse at the runabout, aluminum fishing boat, and three Sea-Doos inside. Glancing her way, he suggested, "Come look," and made room for her to squeeze up beside him at the window.

Sam hesitated, but then moved into the space allotted and peered through the window.

Mortimer watched her, smiling faintly as he inhaled her scent. Her natural smell was mixed with an outdoorsy scent from their excursion that morning. They'd spent the time since breakfast searching the grounds and some of the trails for the missing Cathy Latimer. The search had turned up exactly nothing. There was no bloodless body waiting on one of the trails, not even any sign of recent activity on the paths that he could tell; at least nothing other than animal droppings and such.

Now they were going to check around the lake a bit, not just the water itself, but the shoreline too. If Cathy Latimer's lifeless body was about somewhere, Mortimer wanted to be the one to find it in case his people needed to be called in to do some serious evidence tampering. He'd rather do so without Sam along, but since he was unable to control her thoughts or behavior, Mortimer saw no way to manage that. As far as she knew, he was just helping her and shouldn't even have any desire to find the girl. She thought he was in a band, for God's sake.

"The boathouse key must be one of these," Sam said suddenly, retrieving Cathy's key ring from her pocket. She started to sort through them and then suddenly paused and tried the doorknob. A frown flickered over her face when the door proved unlocked and opened for them. Mortimer was a little surprised himself. He'd come to realize that security could be pretty lax up here, but the door really should have been locked. These were expensive items to leave lying around for someone to steal.

He followed Sam inside and around the walkway to where the Sea-Doos rested, his eyes caressing one gleaming machine after another.

"I wonder why three?" he commented. "It seems an odd number."

Sam shrugged. "There are only three of them; Martin; his wife, Trisha; and their daughter, Cathy."

Nodding, Mortimer dropped to his haunches to examine one of the machines more closely. While they would be using the Sea-Doos to search the lake and shoreline, he was excited at the prospect of riding one of the vehicles. To him it was definitely a case of mixing business and pleasure. "Do you really know how to ride one of these?"

"Yes. We have two of them ourselves," she answered, and when he glanced at her with a raised eyebrow, explained, "We take turns on them, but we're thinking of buying a third this summer."

"I didn't see any at the cottage," he said with a small frown as he thought of the yard and dock at the cottage next door to Decker's.

"They aren't in yet. Well, actually, they probably are now," she added wryly. "Grant usually puts the boat and Sea-Doos in for us the first time we come up. He launched the boats last week and was going to put the Sea-Doos in when we got there."

"Grant?" Mortimer asked curiously.

"Our neighbor on the other side from Decker's," Sam explained. "He's a year-round resident. A writer or something. The starving-artist type. He's lived there for the last five years or so, and we pay him to do certain things."

"Things like what?" Mortimer asked, hackles rising at the idea of the "things" this Grant might do.

Sam shrugged. "At the beginning of summer he puts the boats and Sea-Doos in, lays fresh gravel on the drive, and brings in sand for the beach to keep the leeches away." She grimaced as she said that, and then rushed on, "Then through the summer he cuts the lawn if we don't come up for a couple of weeks and keeps an eye on the place. Once October rolls around, he pulls the boat and Sea-Doos out, winter proofs them, and stores them in the garage and then does any maintenance to the cottage that needs doing, and cuts down trees that start looking like they might not last the winter." She shrugged. "We had another fellow that did all of this before him, but he was getting older and decided it was getting too much for him."

Mortimer nodded. It sounded like this Grant was a glorified handyman for the girls, and he immediately lost interest in him and turned his gaze back to the Sea-Doos. "Do you think the keys to these will be on that set?"

Sam glanced down at the keys in her hand, but shook her head. "They usually have little floaty things attached to the keys to keep them afloat should you lose them in the water."

"Floaty things?" Mortimer asked with amusement.

"I don't know what they're called," she admitted, and turned to peer around the boathouse.

When a little "aha," slipped from her lips, he followed her gaze to see a panel of keys on the wall. The sight made him think it was even odder that the boathouse door had been unlocked. Anyone could have come in and stolen one or all of the watercraft. But Mortimer shrugged the thought away in favor of teasing her.

"Ah, the floaty things," he murmured, and straightened to follow as she led the way to the panel. There were six hooks, but only five sets of keys, and he wondered if there had been another Sea-Doo or boat at one time as his gaze slid over the row of offerings. Each key had a bright colored "floaty thing" on it, which turned out to be a long, skinny, oblong shape of Styrofoam. Each was a neon color of yellow, orange, pink, purple, or green, and was marked with permanent black Magic Marker, stating which vehicle each belonged to.

"So?" Sam turned to glance at him. "Are you ready for a lesson? Shall we change into our swimsuits and give it a go?"

Mortimer grinned and nodded, and she headed for the door. He paused just long enough to cast one last glance at the Sea-Doos before following.

The sunlight seemed quite glaring after the cool interior of the boathouse, and Mortimer did take a moment to wonder if he'd lost his mind. He'd spent eight hundred years shunning daylight to avoid having to consume more blood, and yet here he was planning to tear about under its punishing rays, half naked on a Sea-Doo. It wasn't the brightest thing he'd done, but felt sure he'd brought enough blood to manage the feat as long as he didn't spend too long out there.

When Mortimer had first brought up the subject of searching the lake, he'd been thinking along the lines of a nice ride around dusk. Of course, Sam had assumed he meant during the day. By the time he'd realized that, she was up and headed for the boathouse. He could have reminded her about his sensitivity to the sun and suggested they wait until dusk, but she would have just said that they wouldn't be able to see as well. He couldn't argue that point without revealing his special abilities and feared she would suggest he stay at the cottage while she searched alone, and he supposed he could have done that. Certainly Sam should be safe enough during the day and he could have watched from the shade offered by the boathouse, but this was his job. Besides, he'd enjoyed their hike through the woods that morning. He enjoyed Sam's company; just being with her was soothing… and he'd be damned if he was missing out on trying the Sea-Doos.

So Mortimer was going to change into his swimsuit, ingest several bags of blood from the cooler in his room, and then tear around the lake half naked on the back of a Sea-Doo in search of a dead Cathy Latimer. Should be fun.

Sam was laughing at Mortimer's antics as he raced around her in the middle of the lake when something caught his attention, and he tore off away from her with a shout she couldn't hear over the roar of her own engine.

They'd been riding around on the lake for the last hour or more. The first part of that had been spent scouring the shoreline for any sign of Cathy Latimer, but they'd finished that task quickly. The Latimers' cottage was on a smaller lake than Magnetawan. Once they had finished their circuit and reached the boathouse again, Mortimer had suggested they take the Sea-Doos out and see what they could do before putting them away. They'd been having a really good time racing each other about since then, but as she glanced over curiously to see what had caught his eye, Sam felt the laughter die on her lips and concern clutch briefly at her heart. Mortimer was heading for a pair of buoys bobbing on the water, and she suddenly realized she hadn't warned him what those were for.

They usually signified something under the surface, often a rock formation or something of that ilk that could damage a boat. The spot between the two buoys was a spot boats should stay away from. She doubted they would do a Sea-Doo any good either.

Speeding up to try to catch up to him, Sam shouted out a warning, but Mortimer couldn't hear her any more than she had him. Fortunately he wasn't a fool, and did slow down as he approached the buoys, and that was probably what saved his life, she thought as the Sea-Doo jolted as it hit whatever was below the surface and he took a header off the machine.

Sam felt panic clutch her as she watched him go under. He was wearing a life jacket, but that wouldn't save his head from hitting whatever was under the surface, she thought as she sped up and raced toward the now bobbing Sea-Doo. The breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding slid from her lips when Mortimer surfaced as she drew near and slowed. Sam sent a silent prayer of thanks upward as she urged her own machine as close as she dared. She was preparing to dive off and swim over to see if he was all right when he grabbed at his Sea-Doo and climbed back onboard. At first he seemed just fine, but then she saw the blood flowing down the side of his head and felt panic clutch her again.

"Back!" Mortimer growled before she could try either to swim to him or to get closer. He immediately pushed backward off whatever had stopped the Sea-Doo and shot away across the lake in the direction of the Latimers' boathouse.

Sam followed, grateful the Sea-Doo seemed fine, but more worried about Mortimer. She knew head wounds bled a lot, but the amount of blood she'd seen had been frightening, and he'd looked extremely pale too. She tried to catch up to get a better look at him as they rode, but he was riding all out. He was already off the Sea-Doo and straightening from tying it up when she steered her own inside the boathouse.

Sam quickly lashed her Sea-Doo to the dock and then—afraid they might need to call an ambulance for him—paused to retrieve her phone from the waterproof storage compartment on the Sea-Doo. She then clambered onto the walkway and hurried after Mortimer as he stumbled toward the door.

"Let me see," she said worriedly.

"I'm fine," he growled, rushing ahead and leaving her to chase after him the best she could. Mortimer could move when he wished to, and it seemed he was running away as if she were the Devil himself as he hurried toward the cottage.

Cursing, Sam moved as quickly as she could, but didn't have the agility or speed he did. Mortimer was inside the cottage before she was halfway up the trail.

She should have thought to explain to him what the buoys were for before they'd set out, Sam berated herself furiously. What kind of teacher forgot something like that? This was all her fault.