The Night Charter (29 page)

S
HE WAS ON
the flybridge of the
Annabel
when she saw Ignacio coming down the pier. It had been three days. He waved to her when he saw her, but she did not wave back. Ignacio stopped beside the boat and looked up at her. “Pardon my language, but you look like shit.”

She lowered herself down the ladder gingerly, her leg and hip stiff. She had tape across her nose. “It's just my day off,” she told him.

“So you're not taking any passengers today?” he asked.

“No,” Camaro said. “I don't have any charters booked for the week.”

“I went by your house, but you weren't there. I didn't think I'd find you.”

“I was just waiting to say good-bye,” Camaro said.

“Taking a long trip?”

“Something like that,” Camaro said. She looked Ignacio over. He seemed relaxed. There was no sign of cuffs.

“I'm glad we got to see each other first,” Ignacio said. “I wanted to tell you how things went the other night. I thought I knew the whole story, but now that I see your face…”

“You found Chapado. You found Alpha 66.”

“Good guess. We found Matt Clifford, too. Unfortunately, his Cuban friends had already made sure he wasn't in the mood for talking by the time we got there. Or maybe it was the other six guys we found lying around the place that killed him.”

“Sounds like a bad scene,” Camaro said.

“It's not all bad. Turns out we matched prints off two of the dead guys with a double homicide where a man and his wife had their throats cut. And with Señor Chapado telling me all about how Matt Clifford and his buddy Sandro Soto kidnapped him and shot a few Alpha 66 members while they were at it, I'm closing cases all over.”

“That's good,” Camaro said.

Ignacio took off his hat and fanned himself with it. “You got anything cold to drink? This day's killing me.”

She thought a moment, then she nodded. “Come aboard.”

They went inside the cabin, and Camaro took water bottles from the refrigerator. Ignacio wiped his brow with the cold plastic before cracking the seal and drinking deeply. He exhaled and sat down. “That's just what I needed.”

Camaro took a drink. “Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

“Only that I got a call yesterday from a man named Richard Story. He's Lauren Story's uncle. Lives out in Texas. He says she took a bus there to see him after her father got killed. So I guess I was all wrong about you taking off with her. Funny how that works out.”

Camaro didn't answer. She drank again, waiting.

“There are a few other things, of course,” Ignacio said. “I almost hate to bring them up. We pulled a lot of bullets out of a lot of bodies in that warehouse. Got a lot of 9 mm, like you'd expect, but there were some .45 lugs, too. Took both out of Matt, in fact. And then there were the .45 GAP casings. I seem to recall you telling me your piece was a .45 GAP.”

“I don't have that gun anymore.”

“That's too bad. I know some people who would have loved to get their hands on it. Did you sell it, or did you just forget where you put it?”

“I sold it.”

“Oh, well. We don't really
need
it, because we can still pull partial prints off cartridge casings. Which we did.”

Camaro put the water bottle on the counter. “What did you find?”

“It's weird, but there was some kind of mix-up, and they weren't ever put in the database. And then the print evidence ended up getting lost between the Florida City PD and Miami. The casings, too. So now we'll never know who fired that gun. It's a real shame.”

“Yeah,” Camaro said, and something dark inside of her went away.

Ignacio drained his bottle and put it down on the seat beside him. “I guess what I'm saying is: if you don't want to run, you don't have to run.”

“What about New York? Aren't they going to want to talk to me?”

“I told you before: taking care of other cities' business isn't really high on my list of priorities, even if it is my hometown. They'll have to get in line.”

Camaro collected his empty bottle and put it in the wastebasket. Ignacio's eyes were on her. She looked back at him.

He got up from the seat and went out of the cabin, with Camaro behind him. When he was back in the sun again, he put on his hat and shaded his eyes. “Did I ever tell you this is a really nice boat?” he asked.

“You might have mentioned it.”

“I might like to try fishing off a boat like this one. How much does it cost?”

“Rates start at forty-five dollars a person, and I can take up to ten,” Camaro said.

“That sounds real fair,” Ignacio said. “See you around, Camaro.”

“See you, Detective.”

He looked at her and smiled. “Call me Nacho. It's what my friends do.”

“I'll remember that.”

Ignacio stepped onto the dock. Camaro cast off fore and aft and clambered back up to the flybridge to stoke the engine. She gave the
Annabel
some throttle, and the boat eased forward into the slow rise of the water. She didn't look back.

A quarter mile offshore she was still getting a cell signal. Her phone chimed for a text message, so she dug it out of her pocket. She didn't recognize the number.

There was a picture attached to a line of text. In the picture, she saw Lauren standing somewhere dry and hot with a horse looking sidelong into the camera.

His name is Gomer,
said the attached message.

Camaro nodded at the phone and smiled only a little. Then she put it away.

Today she had no calling but the sun and the sea. The morning air stirred her honey-brown hair. She laid on more throttle and headed for deep water.

I would like to thank a few people for their help in bringing Camaro to the world.

First and foremost, credit must go to my wife, Mariann, and my agent, Oli Munson. Without either of them,
The Night Charter
would not have made it into your hands. Thanks also go to the readers who bought the first Camaro stories in the summer of 2013 and convinced me the character had real potential. And finally I'd like to thank everyone at Mulholland Books for taking such good care of Camaro right from the outset. May she go far.

Sam Hawken is the Crime Writers Association Dagger-nominated author of
The Dead Women of Juárez, Tequila Sunset,
and
Missing
. He makes his home in Maryland with his wife and son, and is represented by Oliver Munson of AM Heath Literary Agents.

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