Deep Cover Detective

Silver leaned back and raised her right hand as if swatting away a bug. The movement caught Eddie’s attention, as intended. His head swiveled her way, and his eyes widened. Silver made a gun signal with her pointer finger and thumb and pointed at Colton’s back. It didn’t seem possible, but the gun in Eddie’s hand started to shake even more. He nodded, and Colton snapped his head around to look at her suspiciously.

She dropped her hand from behind his back and gave him a nervous smile.

His eyebrows slashed down and he whipped his head back toward Eddie.

“Your jewelry, Silver,” Danny said, pushing the bag toward her.

She hesitated, glancing from Colton to Eddie. They were staring at each other like two gunmen about to have a shoot-out.

Do something. You have to stop this before someone gets hurt.

Silver started to pull her necklace over her head.

Eddie turned his gun away from Danny and toward Colton.

Colton started to bring his gun up.

Silver dropped her necklace and it clattered against the floor of the boat in front of Colton. “Oh, darn it. Sorry.” She braced her right hand on his shoulder and leaned across him.

“Out of the way,” he snapped.

“Sorry, sorry, oops.” She fell across his lap, slamming her right arm on top of his gun arm and trapping it between her breasts and his lap.

She jerked her head up and looked at Eddie. Go, she silently mouthed to him.

He whipped around and ran for the trees.

Colton swore and tried to yank his gun out from beneath her, but she clung to him like pine sap on a brand-new paint job. He looked toward the bank, then shook his head and looked back at her. His glare was so fierce she was surprised she didn’t turn into a human torch on the spot.

“I should arrest you right now,” he growled. “You let him get away on purpose.”

“I fell.” She blinked innocently and braced her hands on his thighs, pushing herself upright.

He swore viciously and let his gun slide back into the holster, then yanked his pants leg down over it. No one seemed to have even noticed his gun. The rest of the passengers were all chattering excitedly. And Danny had turned away to try to comfort a loudly crying woman.

Colton leaned down toward Silver, his face a menacing mask of anger. “Until I figure out my next step, you keep quiet. Not a word to anyone about me being a cop or I will arrest you. Got that?”

Bristling at his tone but understanding his anger, she decided to comply—for now—and gave him a curt nod.

He crossed his arms and looked away, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore.

A hand touched her left shoulder. The woman who’d been so excited by the egrets earlier looked ready to pass out. Her eyes were like round moons brimming with tears about to spill down her cheeks.

Her lips trembled as she whispered, “I can’t believe we were almost robbed. We could have been killed.”

Silver’s heart tugged at the poor woman’s fear. Her own anger at Eddie probably rivaled Colton’s anger with her. Thank God, no one had gotten shot, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been hurt. This poor woman, and others, would probably have nightmares and no telling what other lasting effects because of Eddie’s stupid stunt. Silver squeezed the woman’s hand and pulled her into a hug, rocking her and patting her back as she tried to soothe her.

“You’ll want to take the boat to the main dock where everyone’s cars are parked.” Colton’s deep voice cut through the conversations around them as he addressed Danny. “We’ll have cell phone coverage there and can call the police to report the gunman.”

Danny hesitated, then nodded. “Right. Of course. Um, ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for the fright you just had. The tour is over. We’re returning to the south dock.” He gave Colton another curious look before using the pole to push the boat off the mud.

Chapter Five

Colton switched his cell phone to his other ear and leaned against the police cruiser as he and his boss debated his next move. The airboat captain had brought the tourists to this main dock near the Interstate. This was where the tourists had parked their cars earlier this morning before being taken in the boats to Mystic Glades for breakfast.

Half a parking lot away, on the mini-boardwalk outside Buddy’s Boats Boutique, a team of four Collier County Sheriff’s deputies were interviewing the few remaining airboat riders. Most of them had already given their statements and had been allowed to go. Only Silver, Danny Thompson and a couple of others were left.

A different group of deputies had taken one of the department’s airboats out earlier, with Danny as their guide, to the spot where the gunman had been, in order to search for clues. But other than some muddy footprints that the soggy marsh had rendered useless as evidence, there wasn’t much to find. And no trace of the gunman. They’d brought Danny back and now those deputies were already on their way back to Naples.

As Colton listened to Drew, some of the store’s staff members came outside on another one of their rounds, checking on everyone and passing out bottles of water—at four bucks a pop. Colton supposed that was entrepreneur Buddy Johnson’s brand of Southern hospitality.

“Okay,” Drew said. “Since the B and B owner interfered and it’s unlikely the perp even saw your gun, what do you think had him spooked?”

“Miss Westbrook must have signaled him, warned him, just before she threw herself on me so I couldn’t draw my gun.”

“You think she interfered on purpose?”

“Yes. But I can’t prove it. When I drove into Mystic Glades and saw Eddie talking to her, I should have confronted her then and there. Instead, before I continued to the B and B, I waited to see what they would do. Eddie disappeared. And Miss Westbrook’s been playing cat and mouse with me ever since. Did she interfere on purpose? I’d bet my next raise on it.”

“All right. Then how do you want to play this?” Drew asked.

He’d already given it some thought and knew exactly what he wanted to do. Namely, get out of Mystic Glades. “Once all the passengers have been interviewed, the airboat captain is going to take Miss Westbrook and me back to the dock in Mystic Glades. Once there, I’ll arrest her and drive her to the station for an interrogation. And while I’m working on getting her confession, one of our guys can get a search warrant for the inn. My statement that I saw that blue vase should be good enough to get a judge’s signature.”

He kept an eye on Silver while his boss considered his recommendation. She seemed to have made it her personal mission to help the mostly older crowd of tourists after each one of them was interviewed by the police. She hugged them as if they were old friends, put her arms around their shoulders and helped them to their cars. Anyone watching her would think she was a saint and that she really cared about those people. And yet she was covering for the man who’d pointed a gun at them. It didn’t make sense.

“What about Rafferty?” Drew asked. “Can you peg him as the gunman?”

Colton thought about it. “My gut tells me it was him. But he had his entire face covered, and since he wore a ball cap, I couldn’t even tell you his hair color. No way could I swear in court that it was him. A defense attorney would hear me describe the guy as Caucasian, average height and build, and then he’d remind the jury that half the people in the country could be described that way.”

“All right. Then, basically, this is where I think we stand. Your cover as a tourist is still intact with everyone except Miss Westbrook. If we can ensure her silence, you can still hang around Mystic Glades and try to get in with the town gossips, or maybe listen in at the bar you mentioned. Someone is bound to know where Rafferty’s hiding and give him up. Then you can confront him, lie, tell him we’ve got his prints at one of the burglarized homes or something. Get him to roll over on the ringleader.”

Colton straightened away from the police car. “Hold it. What are you saying? There’s no way we can trust Westbrook.”

“Maybe, maybe not. You told her not to tell the other tourists that you were a cop. From what you’ve said, she’s kept her word.”

“Only because either I or one of the other deputies has been with her the whole time. She hasn’t had an opportunity to spill the truth. We have no way of knowing whether she’ll continue to keep quiet.”

“Then you’ll have to stay with her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Drew—”

“It’s not a request, Colton. You’ve spent months and plenty of resources on this case. Other than pegging a few minor players that we agreed wouldn’t have access to the man at the top of the food chain, we’ve got nothing. We were putting all our chips on Rafferty because he seemed knee-deep in this thing and might lead us to the higher-ups. But if he was the gunman today, then it’s a safe bet that he’s going to lie low for a while. I want you to try to flush him out, but we have to consider that the ship may have sailed. Which leaves us with Westbrook as our only link to the whole ring. That’s the angle you need to work.”

“I can work it by hauling her to the station and interrogating her.”

“Or you can go back to the bed-and-breakfast, threaten to arrest her for interfering with a police investigation if she doesn’t cooperate, then step back and see what happens. If she thinks the jig is up, she’ll want to warn the other members of the burglary ring. My guess is she’ll do that after she thinks you’re asleep. So follow her. See where she goes.”

Colton shook his head in frustration. Drew’s plan was too risky. Rafferty had already gotten away and might not be seen again. What if Silver slipped away, too? It would be far safer to take her into custody right now. And although he’d never admit it out loud to Drew, in spite of everything that had happened, he was worried about her.

He knew her type, how her creative mind worked, from growing up with a sister much like her. To Silver, the world was a fascinating, enchanting place full of interesting people and things to study and capture in some kind of medium. She judged people based on their faces, voices, maybe even the colors they wore. She put faith and trust where it wasn’t always warranted. To someone like her, “bad guys” could be hard-luck cases and she felt sorry for them. He doubted she saw true evil in anyone. And that made her particularly vulnerable.

In spite of how angry she’d made him by risking her life and throwing herself on him when he was pulling out his gun, he was also shaken that he could have hurt her. And damn it, he didn’t want her hurt. Even though she frustrated the heck out of him, and was likely involved with the criminals he was after, she didn’t strike him as a “bad” person. His instincts, honed from years of working with some of the worst excuses for humanity out there, told him that by most people’s measures she was probably a “good” person who’d gotten caught up in something and didn’t know how to get out of it.

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