Authors: Laura Griffin

Untraceable (31 page)

“Well, shit.” He let the motor stall and then jumped out of the boat and waded over to take a look. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

The boat drifted into the grass, and bumped against the bottom.

Troy gazed down at the thin yellow twine, but didn’t touch it. “They must not have seen this,” he muttered. “Or maybe they came in from the south.”

“Who came in?”

He looked up. “The crime scene guys. Breck, Maynard, Chavez. They should have collected all this. It’s evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

He trudged back to the boat and shoved it into the center of the narrow channel.

“Of your unsub.” He climbed aboard and got them moving again. “This marsh, it’s like a maze. I grew up all over this bay, and I get lost half the time. Looks like the killer used twine to mark the route so he could find his way out after dumping the body.”

Elaina stared at the twine, struck by the idea.

There went her theory that the killer had to reside on the island. Maybe he wasn’t local after all—he just used this trick to find his way around.

“And how do we know it came from him?” she asked. “Maybe Breck left it.”

“He didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because.” Troy gave her a hard look. “They found it in Gina’s case too. He leaves it every time.”

Elaina continued to look queasy, so Troy hugged the coast as he headed back in. He felt her behind him as she gripped the chair and stared silently off into the distance.

She hadn’t liked him poking holes in her profile, but that was too damn bad. Sure, the profile sounded good in theory, but given the demographics around here, it didn’t narrow things down a whole lot. Troy had never cared much for mind hunters. Most of them stayed holed up in their basement at headquarters and rattled off psychobabble while the real cops rolled up their sleeves and worked the cases. If criminal profiling was Elaina’s thing, she was going to have an uphill battle getting anyone around here to buy into it. Profiling and fortune-telling were first cousins, as far as Chief Breck was concerned.

But she’d figure that out soon enough.

Troy glanced back at Elaina and saw that she still had that uneasy look. Her nose was pink, too, and she’d forgotten sunscreen. She wasn’t from around here, evidently, but he didn’t know her background. He needed to do some digging and find out just how green a green-horn she really was.

She squinted at something up ahead, and he followed her gaze.

“What’s going on?”

“Dunno,” he said. But as they neared the marina, it became clear something had gone down during their little sightseeing cruise. Cars and news vans filled the LIPD parking lot.

“Breck’s holding a press conference,” Troy guessed, turning into the cove. They glided past the police station, and Elaina turned to gape at the crowd.

Troy pulled into his slip without touching the dock. He hopped out and tied the bow line to a cleat, then held out a hand for Elaina.

She barely glanced at it as she stepped onto the pier without help.

“I hope your police chief knows what he’s doing,” she said. “If he releases too much detail, he’ll compromise the investigation.”

“That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. The man hates reporters.”

“But he talks to you?”

Troy walked across the pier and surveyed the situation. Breck was talking to the media—or more likely, dodging their questions—from the station house steps. Cinco stood on the sidelines. Troy caught his eye, and he joined them on the lawn beside the marina.

“What’s up, Cinc?”

He glanced at Elaina. Then he eyed Troy’s muddy sandals and seemed to put it together where they’d been.

“Good news and bad news,” Cinco said. “We got an ID. Girl’s name is Whitney Bensen.”

Troy felt Elaina go rigid beside him.

“What about Valerie?” she asked.

“That’s the bad news,” Cinco told her. “Valerie Monroe is still missing.”