That was as much as I was willing to count on at the moment.
A murmur swept through the bar. Something about the wave of it, building and flowing across the room, had the hair on my arms standing straight up. Astrid and I both looked around as Bree hollered, “Everybody quiet!”
All the patrons went silent as she pointed a remote at the big TV in the corner of the bar that usually played some variety of sports. I was out of my seat, trying to get close enough to read the headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen, even before the volume got loud enough to catch the newscaster’s voice saying, “—ends in violence on the Outer Banks.”
I couldn’t make out the words until I’d reached Rios.
KIDNAPPING SUSPECT KILLED IN SHOOTOUT WITH POLICE
My brain began to buzz so loudly, I barely registered the rest of the report. Rios pulled me into him as the reporter continued to talk about how Wes Mullowney had fired on police after being cornered on his boat earlier in the afternoon.
Carson came on screen, looking appropriately sober. “The suspect was wanted for questioning in connection to the kidnapping of a local grad student recovered last night. The student is safe and recovering with family. The suspect’s residence showed evidence of a planned abduction. There is no indication he was working with anyone else.”
“It’s over.” The words swept through the crowd inside the Brewhouse, becoming another of those waves that rose to a crescendo of applause and jubilant cheers.
Rios and I only looked at each other. This was the nice, neat solution. An end that the public could cling to.
But he and I knew better. This was only one end to a much, much larger story.
Thirty-Seven
RIOS
Sometimes, it was easier to let the rest of the island pretend it was finished. The papers called it closure. Carson played hero for the cameras—though Priya herself had made it clear in interviews that it was Madden and me who’d rescued her. But in the living room at Sutter House, none of us bought the neat and tidy resolution for a second. The air all but vibrated with everything we couldn’t prove, and couldn’t afford to ignore. While we’d celebrated Priya’s safe return, we knew it wasn’t finished. Not even close.
Madden sat beside me on the leather couch, one foot tucked under the other leg, fingers hovering over the laptop she’d seldom been without over the past week. Without Priya’s case to work on, she’d dived back into the files Grant had given her, tightening up connections, highlighting patterns. To what end, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps just to keep busy, to keep feeling as if she was doing something in the face of this insurmountable threat.
The rest of the crew were close, coffee table and every flat surface covered in mugs, notebooks, takeout boxes, the debris of a meal nobody remembered eating. Not a party, not a wake—a war council, every eye turned in, every back to the walls. A heaviness had settled, a tangle of hope and dread.
Nobody here was eager to move on, and nobody tried to force relief. I’d never been more grateful for these people and their refusal to look away. In their presence, I felt less alone—reminded that the urge to do something, even in the face of systems designed to grind us down, was its own kind of hope.
Daniel cleared his throat, the signal that whatever was coming wasn’t gossip. “I did some diggin’ in the wake of Mullowney’s takedown. Somethin’ about his name rang a bell. Turns out his name had come up in connection with a few boats we have our eyes on for drug running.” He shrugged. “Nothing concrete, just chatter. Maybe nothing, maybe not. But his name’s in the mix, and it’s got the higher-ups glancing our way.”
Sawyer leaned in, brow furrowed. “So he was mixed up in something?”
Daniel’s mouth gave a wry twist. “Might be. Or might’ve just been there when they needed a hand. Nobody’s sayin’ he ran anything. Could be he just worked with the wrong crew.”
Ford made a rough sound, his jaw tense. “Damn. Figures.”
Something clicked in my head. Investigator’s muscle memory. The wrong crew, the wrong time. Sometimes that was all it took, especially when the network was bigger than anybody wanted to admit. My frustration simmered, sharp as salt on a wound.
“So we’ve got a guy who might or might not be involved in drug running, who kidnapped Priya Shah for reasons unknown.” I turned the pieces over in my head. “Ostensibly, he didn’t physically hurt her, and she said herself he kept saying he’d done it to keep her safe.”
“Where are you going with this?” Ford asked.
“Stay with me for a bit. If you’ve got channels to move product, it’s not a leap to think you could move other cargo too. Drugs, guns, people. It’s all the same to the folks at the top. And the ones who disappear are the ones nobody notices. We already had reason to believe Priya wasn’t the intended target. If she was nabbed by mistake and was too hot to move, as it were, logic dictates they’d simply kill her and be done with it. But instead, we have Mullowney, who took her. Kept her. Because she was a face he knew. Someone he’d played pool with. Someone he had a human connection to. Harder to see someone you have a connection with—no matter how tenuous—as cargo.”
Sawyer ran a hand through his hair, voice uneasy. “You think he was in over his head, realized it, and couldn’t go through with it?”
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s a better explanation for why he took her but never assaulted her. If he was involved, I doubt it was anywhere higher on the food chain, or him removing her from the pipeline wouldn’t have been such a problem for him. No real way to verify since he’s dead.”
Daniel nodded, face set. “If he was involved and bucked the orders from his higher ups, they’d have wanted to cut their losses. If the police hadn’t killed him, someone else likely would have.”
The silence took on an almost physical weight as the group collectively processed that new edge to the story. I glanced at Madden—her face was grave, her hand steady on the laptop, but her shoulders were tight, like she was bracing for an aftershock.
“What if—” Willa bit her lip, hesitant.
“What if what?” I prompted.
