He wasn’t surprised.
He started scrubbing at the fingerprint powder and made the mess worse. The fine powder simply smeared, unwilling to detach from any surface.
The bell on the office door jingled, and he went out front, happy to step away from the mess in the back. He was pleasantly surprised to see Jane Sutton.
“Morning, Ms. Sutton. Are your hands still bothering you?”
“Oh, no. I just stopped by to see if you needed any help cleaning up.”
Am I more surprised at the offer of help or the fact that she knows I have a mess?
“Do you know everything that happens on the island?” he asked in full seriousness.
“Of course not.” She brushed aside his question with a hand. “I just know how pesky that fingerprint dust can be.” She held up a spray bottle. “I brought this for you.” Her eyes twinkled. “My special mixture.”
“You deal with fingerprint dust often?” he asked dryly, reaching for the bottle.
“Cate was fascinated with law enforcement when she was younger. She went through a stage where she was lifting fingerprints from all over the house. Took me a while, but I put together a recipe that works.”
“You didn’t tell me you were Cate’s grandmother when you were here the other day.” Henry gestured for her to follow him into the back of the clinic.
“You didn’t ask.”
He snorted, liking the woman more and more by the minute. “She was always into crimes, huh?” he asked as he sprayed a light-switch plate.
“Not until her friend Samantha vanished. Then both she and Tessa started talking about careers in law enforcement.”
Henry wiped the light switch and was astonished as the black dust seemed to jump onto his paper towel. “What happens in someone’s past can guide their future,” he said, thinking of his sister.
“She didn’t have to go all the way to the mainland to be in law enforcement,” Jane stated.
Henry glanced back at Jane. She was watching him closely. “Cate told me she’d been shot.”
Jane’s face fell. “She was,” she said softly.
“What exactly happened?” Cate had avoided details at lunch.
“A routine visit. Low threat. She and another agent went to interview a potential witness. They were on the porch, knocked, and when the door opened, the man fired on both of them.”
Henry slowly turned to Jane, horrified by the image in his mind. “I’d never be able to knock on another door.”
Jane nodded. “The other agent died. They were close friends.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Three weeks. I convinced her to come to the island. She has a few more weeks of medical leave.”
“She looks good. I would have never guessed.”
“The island heals,” Jane said simply. “Hurting people come from all over the world. Chronic illnesses, broken hearts, cancer survivors. Many never leave. They find peace. A serenity.”
“Some say being near a body of water will do that,” Henry found himself saying. Am I validating her claim?
“That’s a big part of it. Now Cate and Logan have returned, both damaged inside and needing to heal. The island is in their blood; it pulls at them, but their mother moved away when the children were young. She didn’t belong here.”
“Wait.” Henry was confused. “How can your own daughter not belong here?”
“Believe me, it broke my heart and the hearts of her children. But the island will gently expel those who don’t belong.” He must have looked aghast because she held up her hands in reassurance. “They’re meant to live somewhere else in the world. They have a home, and they’ll find it.”
“And Cate should live here,” he said flatly. This is a bunch of crap.
“Yes.”
“You’ve told her this?”
“No. Of course not. You can’t force anyone to stay. You just know.”
Henry studied the older woman; she looked completely serious. “Is this more island hazing or tales?”
Her smile was sad. “No.”
“Why are you telling me this? I just got here.”
“Because I see and feel it in you, Henry. You’re meant to stay.” She tipped her head to one side. “Right? How did you feel when you first stepped off the ferry?”
He didn’t speak, remembering the sense of relief and peace that had pervaded him. He’d believed it was because he hadn’t taken a vacation in years.
She took his silence for affirmation. “You know. Cate knows too. But like any stubborn islander, she’ll continue to fight it for a bit.”
“Sounds like a waste of time.”
“Maybe. I have faith she’ll listen to her heart this visit.”
What have I gotten into?
11
After leaving Jerry’s shop, Cate walked back to Henry’s clinic, intending to pick up her car and drive to Bishop Bay to continue following Becca Conan’s last twenty-four hours.
Henry stepped out of the clinic’s front door, a garbage bag in his hands, and waved at her as she stopped near her vehicle.
She paused, wondering if he’d discovered anything else about his break-in.
“You just missed your grandmother,” he told her.
The dimple in his left cheek caught her attention, and she forced her gaze to his brown eyes. “Uh-oh. What did she tell you?”
Her cell phone rang, and she checked the screen. Tessa. “Hang on, I need to take this,” she told Henry as she accepted the call. “This is Cate.”
“Cate, Rex Conan just called in a fire and a shooting on Ruby’s Island.”
Alarm shot through her. “A shooting? What happened?”
Henry stepped closer. “Shooting?” he asked.
“His nephew, Dustin, was shot while investigating the fire. Rex said he sent him to the south end of the island because he’d spotted smoke. He figured it was teenagers building a fire on the beach, but Dustin called him saying he’d been shot and that the lighthouse was on fire.”
Leaving Henry, Cate ran across the road from the clinic and stopped at the fence to get a view of Ruby’s Island across the bay. Sure enough, a faint stream of smoke rose from the far end. She clutched her phone to her ear. “I can see the smoke. Is Dustin okay? Who shot him?”
Henry appeared beside her and stared out at the smoke. “Who’s been shot?”
“Dustin Conan,” she whispered. “On the island.”
Tessa continued. “Rex says it winged his upper arm, and all Dustin knows is that a man shot him.” Tessa paused. “Cate . . . Dustin told Rex the man had a bin of bones.”
Shock stole Cate’s breath. “Did you tell Rex the bones had been stolen?”
“No. It didn’t seem like the right time.” Tessa sounded grim. “Why do you think this man brought the bones back to the island?”
“I have no idea.” Cate’s mind raced. Why?
“Bruce and I were in Bishopton when the call came, and now we’re headed to the marina to take out the sheriff’s boat. I called the fire department, and they’re pulling together a crew to take the fireboat to the island.”
Cate’s heart sped up. Too much time. Tessa is over a half hour away. The fire department was made up of volunteers. It’d take even more time to get to the fire.
“I’m closer,” Cate said. “I’ll drive to Harlot Harbor and get the water taxi—wait!” Cate ducked under a fence rail and darted down the steep bank, stepping carefully on the big, rough rocks until she reached the tiny, dirty beach and could see south to the pier. Adam is still here.