Page 49 of Tangled Past
JT clapped his hand lightly on the doorframe. “This could be big. Malbern is important to this case in some way. We just have to figure out how.”
???
The wind at the docks hit harder than in town, laced with salt and diesel and the faint, sour hint of bait.
Will parked his cruiser two blocks up, partly shielded by a row of stacked crab pots.
JT eased the SUV in behind a pile of pallets across the way, giving them a sliver of sightline without making them obvious.
Asa sat in the back beside Maya once more. From there, he could see the squat outline of the bait shop, its peeling blue paint and rusted metal awning hunched against the weather. Inside, a man paced in front of the counter, one arm chopping the air. Troy Malbern.
“You see him?” JT asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Asa said. “Big guy. Beard. Tan jacket. Looks like every guy who’s ever yelled at a ref on TV.”
Maya leaned just enough to catch a glimpse. Her breath went shallow.
“Anything?” Asa asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t . . . I don’t know him. But—”
“But what?” JT asked, looking back at her.
Maya seemed to search for the words. “The way he moves,” she said finally. “It’s not the same. The man in the barn—the onein my head—he was calm. Like he didn’t care how long anything took. This guy feels twitchy.”
Asa watched Troy slam his palm down on the counter and jab a finger at the clerk.
“Twitchy’s generous,” JT muttered. “I’ve seen more self-control at a toddler’s birthday party. Troy’s temper is the least suspicious thing about him. But body language is still useful. If you had said ‘that’s him’ without a doubt, we’d be in a different ball game.”
Maya exhaled a shaky breath. “I can’t say that. I don’t recognize him.”
Asa thought about what Maya remembered. The man in the barn had spoken with clinical calm. Someone who treated horror like paperwork. However, Troy Malbern, from all appearances, treated minor inconveniences like personal war crimes. Different flavors of broken.
Over the radio, JT conveyed what Maya had said.
“Copy,” Will said. “We keep watching.”
They did.
For the next twenty minutes, they watched Troy argue over a crate of bait, stomp outside to take a phone call, stomp back in to demand a discount, and finally stomp his way down the dock toward his boat, muttering under his breath.
Will joined them in the SUV. “Anybody else underwhelmed by our potential mastermind?” he asked dryly.
“Underwhelmed doesn’t mean uninvolved,” Asa said. “He had opportunity, history with the property, and a vehicle that matches the dispatcher’s memory.”
“That dispatcher’s memory is twenty-plus years old,” JT pointed out. “Half the island drove white SUVs back then.”
“Which is why we’re not cuffing him today,” Will said. “But I’m not crossing his name off either.”
Asa watched Troy’s back recede down the dock.
Maya’s fingers crept toward his on the seat between them, not quite touching. He turned his palm up. She let her hand settle into his, their fingers curling together in the shadowed back seat.
“You shaking?” he murmured, holding her gaze.
“A little.”
“Want to call it adrenaline?”
