Lord, I tried. I really tried. What am I supposed to do now?
12
Gabe stopped around the corner,notebook tucked inside his jacket pocket and let the air clear his head.
Cara Sweet was lying.
Not about everything. The fear in her eyes when she'd handed over the notebook had been real. The shame too. But the story about the controlling ex was pure fiction. Well-constructed. Emotionally resonant. Completely false.
He'd interviewed enough liars to know the difference.
His jaw tightened as he crossed to his SUV. If her secrets slowed his search for David, there would be nowhere for her to hide.
Lord, give me patience. And wisdom. Because I'm running low on both.
The prayer came automatically. Rough around the edges.
He climbed into the driver's seat and headed back to his rental. The ocean stretched out to his left, gray and restless under late afternoon clouds. Waves rolled in with the kind of relentless rhythm that should have been calming.
It wasn't.
David had been missing for three weeks. Marco Ruiz was dead. And the only person in Haven Cove who seemed to know anything useful was lying to his face.
The cabin was exactly as he'd left it. Sparse furniture. Ocean view wasted on someone who didn't care. His laptop sat open on the small dining table next to a half-empty coffee mug and the case files he'd been reviewing since yesterday.
Gabe pulled out Ruiz's notebook and spread it open.
The handwriting was neat. Dates ran down the left margin. Times. Meeting locations. Observations about boat traffic and police patrols.
And there, on the third page: DS. David Sawyer.
Gabe's chest tightened.
His brother had hired Ruiz. That much was clear. Multiple meetings documented. The overlook. A warehouse near the docks. Coordinates that Gabe would need to map later.
He flipped through more pages. References to "cleanup teams" that made his skin crawl now that Ruiz was dead. Notes about corrupt police activity. Patterns of suspicious boats arriving at odd hours with no logged cargo.
David had been investigating something big. Something dangerous enough to get a PI killed.
"What did you walk into, bro?" The words came out as a whisper to the empty room.
His phone buzzed against the table.
Price's name lit up the screen.
Gabe grabbed the phone. "Talk to me."
"Got a potential lead. Woman up in the woods claims she saw a man matching Ruiz's description three weeks ago. Says she has information." Price's tone carried that careful neutrality that meant he wasn't sure how solid the tip was.
"Address?"
Price rattled off directions to a cottage a good way Northup Highway 101, then into the forest on a logging road. Remote. Isolated. Exactly the kind of place someone conducting surveillance might use as a base.
Or the kind of place someone might lure a federal agent into an ambush.
Gabe grabbed his keys. "I'm heading there now."
"Watch yourself."
