“Like a year. At least. We were both competitive. We made a good team.”
“Did you see each other outside of tennis?” Jeremiah asked.
“After matches we’d sometimes grab a drink or a meal with the team.”
Then head to a hotel together?Jeremiah wondered. There was something about Kelly that read as shifty. He didn’t trust him.
“Do you keep a calendar on your phone?” Jeremiah asked.
“Yeah.”
Jeremiah pulled out his phone and double-checked the notes he’d jotted down based on Kimley’s investigation into Alexis’s second affair. “Can you do me a favor and give me a sense of what you were doing on the following dates?” He read off the dates of Alexis’s mystery trip to the Outer Banks.
Kelly blinked at him. Asking without words why he wanted to know.
“Again,” Jeremiah said evenly, “I’m just trying to get closure.”
Kelly checked his watch—a silent signal that they were going to make him late for his drill. He pulled free his phone and flicked its screen with impatient expertise. “I was here that weekend.”
Jeremiah read off the dates of the mystery trip to New York.
“I was visiting college buddies in Boston on those dates. Look, I’ve got to go.” Kelly hauled the tennis bag over his shoulder and backed away. “I wish you all the best.” Turning, he jogged away.
“I don’t like him,” Anton said.
“Me neither.”
On the ride home, Jeremiah found Kelly on social media. As far as he could tell, he was single. And very much into beautiful women.
On Tuesday afternoon, Remy followed Jeremiah along Groomsport’s dock toward where theCamdenballwas moored. Eleanor, the freelance forensics expert he’d hired, plodded alongside.
Light sleet pinged against the wooden boards and crackled against the hood of Remy’s jacket. The ocean frothed steel gray and forbidding. But even if there’d been a hurricane afoot, she wouldn’t have missed this outing because—and she hadn’t told this to Jeremiah yet—it was likely the final thing she’d do for him.
Her work on Wendell’s house was, at long last, very close to completion. Plus, she’d finished setting up systems for Wendell that gave her faith that he’d be able to keep things organized after she left.
She’d go back to the simple life she’d lived before Jeremiah. Where she could protect her time and energy. Where she felt safe.
So how come preemptive grief tugged at her whenever she thought of how little time they had left?
The three of them stopped before theCamdenball. It looked like a relic from the glamour days of the 1950s—the type of boat Marilyn Monroe and Cary Grant would’ve taken out for a spin. It had been exceptionally restored, though at the moment it looked dirty and parched by the sun thanks to its weeks of drifting.
Jeremiah stepped back to allow her and Eleanor to precede him onboard.
Eleanor's stout, rectangular head topped a stout, rectangular body. She’d donned a navy windbreaker, khaki pants, and sturdy black tennis shoes closed with Velcro straps. Her prematurely gray bob had been parted straight down the middle. “How do you theorize that your attacker boarded?” Eleanor eyed the deck critically through large glasses.
“Remy and I have two theories.” They’d talked through this at length. “One, that the attacker hid himself on the boat before I arrived.”
“How long of a trip had you planned?”
“One week.”
“For a week-long trip, wouldn’t you have used every storage compartment large enough to accommodate a hiding person?”
“I don’t remember that day so I’m not sure. But my brother told me that on trips like this, I typically pack light and pick up more food and water in various ports.”
“Hmm.” She turned in a slow circle. “If someone did stowaway, where did they go after they attacked you?”
“My guess is that they stayed with the boat until someone came and picked them up.”
