12:47 PM…
“Jeez-oh-Pete. Remind me never to witness a crime again. I almost feel likeIwas the one who tried to steal the treasure.” Dana plopped down into one of the plastic chairs lining the hallway outside the interrogation room.
She’d expected a police station, even one on a little island like Key West, to be buzzing with noise and activity. That’s always the way the movies made it seem. But other than the distant ring of telephones, the only sound to break the silence in the hallway—besides her own words, of course—were the tapping toes or the rustling clothes of the four people who’d gone in to give their statements before her.
John, who sat in the chair to her left, handed her his cup of coffee without a word. She sent him a grateful smile and chugged down half the contents. She didn’t care that it was strong enough to walk out of the paper cup on its own or that it was barely lukewarm. She needed the kick of caffeine after the day she’d had.
Scratch that. After theweekI’ve had.
Flying down to Wayfarer Island to witness the raising of a lost treasure would’ve been enough excitement to last her a decade. But add on the hurricane, the hostage-taking, the shootout, the field medicine, the cleanup, and the time she’d spent yesterday evening helping Cami make sure neither the state of Florida nor the federal government could lay claim to the Deep Six’s cache of riches by filling out an exhaustive affidavit, filming herself swearing before a judge that none of the riches had been raised while the reef was above the waterline, and basically leaping through every legal loophole Cami could think of, only to hop a puddle jumper first thing this morning so she could fly to Key West to give her statement to a detective named Dixon, and she was ready tosleepfor a decade.
Maybetwodecades. Just call me Rip Van Winkle.
“Dixon is tough.” John laid an arm across the back of her chair. “But that’s what makes him good at his job. And, hopefully, if what he says is true, these statements could be the last of it for us.”
“I was in the bathroom when he came out to talk to the group after your interview.” She turned to search his face and, not for the first time, found herself suffering butterflies when she looked at him. He was just so darnedhandsome.Earlier, when she’d walked into the police station to find him standing by the front desk, she’d nearly swooned. Seriously. Her knees had buckled, and she’d felt so light-headed she’d had to steady herself against the doorjamb. “So I only caught the end of what he said. Will, Jace, and Brady are going to plead guilty? Which means there won’t be a trial?”
“They’ll plead guilty to the attempted grand larceny and two of the lesser chargers,” he explained, “ifthe prosecutor takes the felony murder charges off the table.”
“But?” she asked when she heard a particular tone in his voice.
“But Dixon warned the prosecutor likes to bring down the hammer when he can. Says he takes that wholetough on crimeschtick to heart.”
“Ugh. A trial.” Her shoulders slumped, but she was instantly gratified when John moved his arm from the back of her chair so he could pull her close. She reveled in the solid feel of him along her side and the coconutty smell of him that would always remind her of the beach. A dozen memories of the two nights they’d spent together after the storm flipped through her mind like a naughty slideshow, and she felt that telltale pull low in her belly.
“I’m sorry,” Cami whispered from Dana’s other side, dragging her thoughts from the delicious past to the not-so-delicious present. It was like walking out of a steam shower only to have a bucket of ice water thrown in her face. “It’s my fault you’re all going through this.”
Dana sighed. She was dog-tired, but Cami looked likedeath. And Dana had lost count of the number of times she’d heard Cami apologize.
“You’ve got to let it go,” LT said from Cami’s other side. “We’re not holdin’ it against you, so don’t go holdin’ it against yourself. Those menchoseto rob us. Theychoseto hold us hostage. And if they’d had their way, they would’ve killed us.”
Instead of agreeing, Cami simply leaned back until her head rested against the wall. When she closed her eyes, Dana knew she was holding back tears.
Camilla D’ Angelo was suffering something awful. And even though she’d been nothing but professional during the legal wrangling the day before, Dana had winced every time she’d found herself looking into the pretty lawyer’s eyes.
There was such devastation there. Such…loss.
Dana was tempted to grab Doc by the shoulders and shake him silly the next time she saw him. He’d been too hard on Cami, and his condemnation was why Cami was being so hard on herself.
Life-threatening situations and the trauma that came with them stripped away people’s veneers and forced them to get to know each other real quick. What Dana had learned about Camilla D’ Angelo was that the woman wasgood.Plain and simple. She was good-natured, good-humored, and good-hearted.
A rare combination, in Dana’s experience. And for the hundredth time, the wordsDoc, you dumbassdrifted through her head.
Aloud, she said, “It’s okay,” and reached over to give Cami’s arm a squeeze. “No matter what happens, whether the prosecutor pushes for the felony murder charges or not, wewillbe okay.”
Before Cami could respond, Detective Dixon shoved through the door of the interrogation room. His hair was even messier than when Dana had left him. His suit pants were rumpled from the hours he’d spent sitting and taking their statements. And his scuffed-up loafers made squeaking sounds on the tile floor.
When she’d first met the man, she’d thought his wrinkled shirt and ketchup-stained tie meant he was as bumbling and inept as a character on one of those ridiculous buddy cop movies. But as soon as he’d started taking down her account of things, she’d been disabused of that notiontout de suite.
Dixon was as sharp as they came. His mind was a steel trap. And his questions had been as honed and precise as one of Doc’s scalpels.
He was followed out of the interrogation room by the prosecutor, a guy whose slicked-back hair and Italian leather shoes pegged him as a mainlander and made him look like Dixon’s polar opposite. But Dana knew what the men lacked in physical similarities, they made up for in other ways. They both had hawkish gazes and rare abilities to cut to the chase.
“We’ve got everything we need.” Dixon bobbed his head. “Thank you all for coming in.”
Everyone mouthed theiryour welcomesandof courses, and then the prosecutor said, “William White is here at the station. He’d like a word with all of you if you’re willing.”
“Who’s—” Dana started to ask, but then she quickly realized. “Oh, you mean Will.”
