Page 50 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
“Last night, a bunch of idiots, group of about twenty, were partying down on the beach. They had their zoom-zoom fast boat tied up against the rocks. They had a fire, they were smoking weed, drinking I don’t know what. A lot.”
Bertha called, “Commander, you want something?”
“The usual.” Luis kept talking, his dark eyes fixed on Kateri with all the fiery excitement he had once displayed in his courting. “If I’ve got this right, this guy stopped in for a drink before he made his move. Then he went over and untied the boat.”
“It was John Terrance?”
“Description matches. The group was laughing at him, teasing that he didn’t know how to drive that thing.”
Bertha placed a cold beer with a tequila chaser at his elbow. “I’ll bet that pissed him off.”
He took a long swallow of the beer. “They’re damned lucky that vicious sonofabitch didn’t kill a few before he drove away.”
Bertha retreated, but not far.
Incredulous, Kateri asked, “They watched him drive their boat out into the Pacific Ocean? What time?”
“You know drunks aren’t good with time.”
Kateri most certainly did.
He continued, “They reported it to the Coast Guard this morning when it was finally clear the boat was not coming back either with the guy or on its own.”
“Did he hot-wire it?”
“Of course not. They left the key in the ignition.”
Kateri found herself shaking her head back and forth, back and forth like a bobblehead doll. “No sign of him or the boat?”
“I’ve got a cutter out looking, but the man has been manufacturing meth for years. He knows this coast as well as we do. He could be anywhere.”
Kateri thought of the dead girl. “He could be back on land. If we had any idea of the correct time, we could figure if he’s a suspect in the murder.”
Luis knew about the murder; all of law enforcement in this part of the state knew about the murder. It made everyone itchy, and they were starting to squabble, to place blame.
Kateri was first in line for blame. “I’ve done so much wrong with this case and yet—I don’t know what I’d do differently. Except keep an eye on the Terrances while we were arresting the school board and the city council.”
“Sometimes there’s no right. You know that. You’re doing what you can. We’re all doing what we can. It’s just not enough.” Luis finished off the beer, picked up the shot.
Kateri couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand to see her friend so frustrated he was drinking in the middle of the afternoon and while on duty. She put her hand over his.
He froze in place, staring down at her fingers.
“Luis, for so long, you’ve been one of my best friends. After all we’ve been through, can’t we salvage a remnant of that affection?”
He traced one of the myriad of scars that crossed her hand, reminders of the tsunami, and the frog god, and broken bones and pain and recovery that would never end. “I don’t see how that’s possible. You know what I wanted from you.”
He was pouting. A very handsome pout, but a pout nevertheless. “And you would have won me, if not—”
He pulled his hand away. “Are you going to nag me about that forever?”
Kateri’s grasp on her temper was usually good, but he was being a pig. “You were dating me and you slept with Sienna.”
“Only once!”
Bertha edged closer. Sienna had come to Virtue Falls as an ambitious young graduate. She had quickly opened a sandwich shop, then a pizza shop, and now it seemed she owned all of Virtue Falls. That was, of course, totally untrue. But she did own Luis, in ways Kateri did not choose to imagine.
Kateri said, “It’s not a matter of degrees, Luis. Once is unforgiveable.”
