Fallon didn’t look back. “You’re welcome to watch, but stay off my scene,” she said, perfectly calm, like she had breath to spare when she didn’t. “Actually, if you want to help, float near the open water, signal medivac, and don’t touch anything that bleeds.” Her tone carried the crisp edge of authority Buddy had always respected.
“Copy that.” Buddy leaned over and took the bag with flares off the skiff’s floor.
“Chopper’s coming from over there,” Sterling said, already moving to the bow, pointing north. “I can hear it, but I can’t see it.”
“Keep looking for it.” Buddy handed him the flares. The helicopter thump was still distant, a heartbeat through wet air, but coming fast. “I’ll keep an eye on the water. Too many things in this muck that will come out of nowhere and take you under.” Buddy looked back through the green. Fallon had the girl halfway free of the mangrove roots, legs dead weight, head lolling. Fallon was a professional. More than good at her job, something Buddy had witnessed firsthand when they’d crossed paths four years ago while he worked the Ring Finger case.
He also had to admit—he’d been interested. But she was too young. It wasn’t so much the age gap, just her age. Although she was an old soul, he found himself in this weird space between attraction and friendship.
For four years, he chose the latter.
Mostly because he lived an hour away for the first two years, and then because his job shifted within the FBI, not only changed his location, but it literally changed his life. However, he’d maintained friendships over the years with people in Calusa Cove, including one with Fallon, though theirs was mainly through texts and phone calls and sometimes danced on the side of flirtatious.
That was an understatement. But it was a necessary lie he told himself because the truth tugged at places in his heart he’d long ago buried.
Trent bore the brunt of the victim's weight without complaint. Cullen moved like a man who knew failure and wasn’t about to repeat it. Fallon’s jaw was set, her eyes all focus. She spoke to the girl in a tone that made room for surviving.
“Almost there. Keep breathing. That’s your only job,” Fallon said in a voice that rolled across the air like honeysuckle.
The rot stink thickened—predator breath, old meat—and for a tight second, the water outside the roots went flat as glass.
“Gator,” Buddy said loud enough for them to hear, but not so loud it would freak the gator out.
“Already handled,” Trent called back, easy like he was discussing beer. “I hurt his feelings, now he’s just watching because he can.”
Buddy didn’t smile, and he certainly didn’t find Trent’s off-handed remark amusing. He kept his focus on that gator, and the path between him, the girl, and Fallon.
The hum of the chopper grew as it appeared and banked along with the twists and turns of the main channel.
Sterling sent a flare into the air.
The chopper came in low, noise hitting hard, then the rush of displaced air.
Buddy stepped onto the bow and windmilled an arm twice—here, here—and the pilot adjusted, hovering the disc of metal and rotors as close as they could. The wash picked up a mist of swamp water that salted Buddy’s lips and turned everyone into slow-motion ghosts.
Fallon and the men heaved the girl onto the airboat’s deck while the helicopter’s medic team lowered a basket. Trent, Cullen, and Fallon secured the young woman in the basket. Buddy’s chest clenched. That girl couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Sixteen tops. He shoved the thought where it belonged—behind a locked door he refused to open in daylight.
This wasn’t his case. It wasn’t pulling a paycheck. It wasn’t his problem.
Fallon, Trent, and Cullen steadied the basket as the medic team pulled it into the chopper. Once secured inside, the helicopter banked right and took off toward the hospital.
Fallon looked toward the skiff. “Thanks for signaling them.”
“Anytime,” Buddy replied.
“It’s good to see you. Good to have you back in Calusa Cove,” she said, a smile breaking slightly. “Heard you rented Hayes and Chloe’s old place. Have you moved in yet? You know, I live right behind it. White house. Blue shutters.”
“Moved in last night, if you could call it that and yeah, I heard from Chloe that you were living there.”
A police boat nosed in. Dawson stood at the helm with Chloe standing beside him, hand on the rail, hair snarled by rotor wash. Their body language screamed all business. Tape would go up where tape never made sense, and someone would try to account for what the water wanted to hide.
Buddy didn’t miss this—most of it anyway.
Sterling tapped Buddy’s elbow. “We done?”
“Almost.” Buddy stepped across to Fallon’s airboat, careful of his boots and where they landed. “You good?” He held her gaze. Same crisp blue eyes. Same determined gaze. Same freaking everything. She was not only beautiful but also intelligent, driven, and outspoken. He liked that. Maybe a little too much. But he also knew a bit about her history and in part, that might’ve been why he was drawn to her. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
She wrung swamp water from the end of her braid with a quick twist and pointed with her chin toward the mangroves. “I don’t believe she was in there long. If she’d been floating, the gators would’ve had her, and honestly, it looked to me like someone hung her shirt on the groves purposely. Like they wanted her out here to die, but wanted someone to see her, which is strange all by itself. Not many people come back here. Wouldn’t have found her had Trent and Cullen not been illegally fishing.”
