Made even less sense that they would threaten Trent to get it.
Unless they were tied to Sovereign Resources, and that land represented something that she hadn’t figured out yet.
So, she'd dug deeper. Pulled their travel records through a contact who owed her a favor and didn't ask questions. The Hendersons had visited Calusa Cove six times in the past two years—always staying at Harvey's Cabins, always for long weekends, always during seasons when the town was quiet and the tourists were elsewhere. They'd taken Trent's eco tour twice. They’d enjoyed the Everglades Overwatch airboat ride. They'd eaten at Massey's—which was about to formally become Juniper's—at least a dozen times, according to credit card records.
For people who supposedly just wanted a nice retirement property, they'd done an awful lot of reconnaissance.
But recon for what? That was the question Dove couldn't answer. The Hendersons had no obvious connection to Karl Simpson. So, she went down other rabbit holes, because that’s what Buddy had taught her. Look at everything, even if the threads weren’t the same colors.
The Hendersons had no ties to Sovereign Resources that she could find. No history with Gulf Coast Energy Partners or Jack’s case, except for their support of Dutton. They were just... there. Hovering. Wanting.
It made her teeth itch.
And what made her crazier was that Karl Simpson was even harder to pin down.
On paper, he was almost clean. A couple of minor poaching charges years back—fines paid, probation served, nothing that would raise flags outside the local wildlife officer's memory. The kind of stuff that happened when you grew up in the Glades and thought the rules were more like suggestions.
A couple of times, he and Trent were caught doing shit teenagers and young adults weren’t supposed to be doing. Underage drinking. Fishing where fishing wasn’t allowed or keeping fish that weren’t in season or were the wrong size. Nothing too erroneous. Nothing that would make her think he was a total criminal.
But the paper didn't tell the whole story. It never did.
The problem with Karl was that everyone knew he was dirty, but no one could prove it. He was the guy who always seemed to have cash when he shouldn't. The guy whose name came up in whispers at the bait shop but never in official reports. The guy who'd been "questioned" a few times about this or that but always walked away without charges.
The guy who knew enough to bury Trent.
What Dove couldn't figure out was the connection to what was happening now. Karl wanted Trent for his skills—that much was clear, and they had done some shady shit together in the past. But his "clients with deep pockets" remained shadows. No names. No trails. Just money supposedly flowing from somewhere, funding whatever scheme Karl was cooking up, and Trent was part of the recipe, whether he liked it or not.
And that brought her back to the Hendersons. Could they be those deep pockets? But why, and if they wanted Trent’s skills, why come after his property before asking him to do the deed?
She rubbed her eyes and stepped out of the SUV, her joints protesting the sudden movement after hours of sitting. It was moments like this when she actually missed the Army.
The marina spread out before her, docks stretching into water that glittered like scattered coins in the late afternoon sun. A pelican sat on a piling near the fuel pump, watching her with the kind of bored judgment that suggested it had seen plenty of humans come and go and found them all equally disappointing.
The air was thick with brine and diesel and sun-warmed wood, underlaid with the faint funk of fish guts and the sweeter note of honeysuckle growing wild along the fence line. A few boats bobbed lazily in their slips, halyards clinking against masts in an almost musical rhythm. Somewhere out on the water, a motor coughed to life, and a flock of ibis lifted off from the mangroves like white paper caught in an updraft.
Dove headed for the main building, hoping to find Cullen somewhere. He wasn’t always the easiest man to pin down, but his Uncle Silas mentioned he’d been out on the water helping Keaton Cole, the head of Fish and Wildlife, with a project.
The bell above the door chimed as she stepped inside, and a wall of air conditioning hit her like a welcome slap. Mitchell's Marina was a quaint old place with worn wooden floors that creaked, hand-painted signs advertising bait prices, and a warm, welcoming atmosphere that made it feel more like home than a boat storage.
The walls were covered with faded photographs of past fishing triumphs. Grinning tourists holding up tarpon, local legends posing with record-breaking snook, and one inexplicable shot of what appeared to be Audra, Dawson’s wife, wrestling an alligator while wearing a white shirt covered in swamp and a smile that expressed of pure joy.
Baily Dane, owner of the marina, stood behind the counter, her dark brown hair escaping its ponytail in about six different directions, and a smear of something that might have been axle grease decorating her left cheekbone. She was ringing up a purchase for Harley, the mangrove trimmer.
"—and I'm just saying," Baily was telling Harley with a grin that could only be described as shit-eating, "that's the third time this week you've managed to be here right when Cullen shows up. That's a hell of a coincidence, don't you think?"
Harley's tan cheeks flushed a shade of pink that clashed magnificently with her faded red ball cap. "I needed gas. My tank was low."
"Uh-huh." Baily's eyes sparkled with the special delight of a woman who'd spent her life in the same small town and had developed an almost supernatural ability to spot romantic entanglements forming. "And yesterday? When you needed gas and your tank was also low?"
"It's a small tank,” Harley said.
"It's a twenty-gallon tank. I filled it myself." Bailey leaned her elbows on the counter, settling in like she had nowhere else to be and nothing she'd rather do than watch Harley squirm. "And the day before that, when you came in for... what was it? A new fuel filter?"
"Which I actually needed, by the way. You can ask anyone who's worked with outboards?—"
"And the fact that you two made plans to meet up at Juniper's tonight has absolutely nothing to do with any of this."
Dove contemplated making herself known, but honestly, this conversation was too good to pass up, so she decided to hang back for a bit and enjoy. Certainly beat listening to Sterling talk about whether he should have a drink at Junipers, or to Buddy talk about buying a damn engagement ring.
