“What’s your second theory?”
“That my attacker flagged me down while we were both at sea, maybe pretending a crisis.”
“You’re suggesting that person was lying in wait for you with the intention of boarding this boat and causing you injury?”
“Yes.”
“Then they must have known your plans and where to intercept you.”
“Or,” Remy said, “were lying in wait for anyone with an expensive-looking boat. And Jeremiah happened along.”
“Hmm,” Eleanor said again.
“I think it’s more likely,” Jeremiah told Eleanor, “that I was their intended mark. And I think what happened to me is somehow connected to my wife’s death fifteen months prior.”
“In this second scenario, are you supposing that your attacker then got away on their craft?”
“Exactly.”
She nodded, her lips an almost invisible line. “Take your time, both of you, and look at everything carefully. Does anything look wrong to you? Off? Tell me what you notice, no matter how small.”
In silence, they studied their surroundings.
Remy's attention kept going renegade and returning to Jeremiah. He’d dressed in all black today—track pants and his snowboarder-style jacket. Water was darkening his hair, and a few droplets were suspended like crystals in the strands. The cold had brought color to his hard cheeks.
Though she remembered their kiss often and with startling clarity, she also found it hard to believe that had actually happened.
“Nothing looks off to me,” Jeremiah said, startling her out of her reverie.
“Nor to me.” Remy tried to look like someone who’d been giving the area a proper amount of study.
Eleanor slipped on plastic gloves, then opened the door leading to the area below. Pausing, she pointed to a smear of rusty red high on the right side of the jam. “At first glance, this resembles blood.”
Remy’s eyes widened. “Jeremiah had a head injury the day I found him. It had been bleeding.”
“If you please, Mr. Camden, will you stand next to the jam so we can approximate whether this blood might have come from your head injury?”
He moved to do so.
“Do not touch anything,” Eleanor cautioned.
He was careful to stand close without touching.
“That stain lines up with where his injury was,” Remy said, “on the back of his head.”
“Good to know.” Eleanor tugged three sets of paper booties from her bag. They put them on and descended the stairs. The dim cabin smelled of sea salt and new carpeting. Immediately to her right was a dinette followed by a tiny kitchen. On her left, a built-in sofa gave way to a bathroom. A bedroom occupied the bow of the boat.
“Anything here look wrong or off?” Eleanor asked.
“There’s a spilled bottle of something near the berths.” Jeremiah pointed.
Remy made her way deeper into the interior. “There’s food on the floor of the kitchenette. It looks like he was interrupted while making a sandwich.” Two slices of bread stood upright in the toaster. Closed containers of mayonnaise, mustard, deli ham, and cheese had fallen to the floor. A head of lettuce, now wilted, remained in the sink.
Eeriness brushed like a feather down the insides of her arms. This setting held gravity, just like at Maiden’s Cliff. Both sites had witnessed brutal things and the echoes of them remained.
Jeremiah squatted close to the small, spilled bottle. “‘Clean all-day energy,’” he read. “Native Vitality is the brand name. Blackberry.” He straightened. “There’s its top.” The screw-top had rolled into the bathroom. “I recognize the bottle. Some of this flavor and a few other flavors were in my refrigerator at the house.”
Eleanor opened the fridge. “You stocked them here, too.”
