CHAPTER 4

PENSACOLA BEACH

Liz Bailey would have rather stayed out in the Gulf and be battered by the waves and the wind. But they were grounded for the rest of their shift and for the last five hours had been battered by the sheriff of Escambia County, the director of the Santa Rosa Island Authority, the commander of Air Station Pensacola, a federal investigator from the Department of Homeland Security, and the deputy director of DHS via speakerphone.

It was crazy and Liz couldn’t help wondering if they might have gotten off easier if they had never looked inside the cooler. If only they’d just handed it over and headed back out. Too many of the questions seemed more about containment of information rather than gathering the facts.

“Who else have you told?” the sheriff wanted to know.

“We followed proper procedure for finding human remains at sea.” Lieutenant Commander Wilson no longer bothered to hide his impatience. Keeping a cool head was a skill Wilson hadn’t learned yet.

Liz wondered if he was sorry that he’d asked Kesnick to open the cooler. Seeing him defensive and irritated by the consequences of his actions was almost worth the detainment. Almost.

Earlier, the look on Wilson’s face had convinced Liz that their pilot had never seen a severed body part before. At first she thought Wilson didn’t believe Kesnick. But she saw his eyes and glimpsed what looked like fear—maybe even shock. With his visor pushed back to get a better look at the contents inside that cooler, there was no hiding his expression. At least not from Liz, who had been in a position in the helicopter to see it, to catch it straight on. Normally it may have garnered sympathy. Instead it simply reinforced her lack of respect for the guy.

Finally dismissed for the day, the four of them wandered out into the sunlight.

“Beer’s on me,” Wilson announced. “It’s early. We can get a good seat on the Tiki Bar’s deck. Watch some bikini babes.”

Someone cleared his throat. Liz didn’t look to see who.

“Oh, come on,” Wilson said. “Bailey doesn’t mind. Not if she’s one of us.”

Always the edge, the challenge, putting it back onto Liz.

“Actually it sounds like a good idea,” she said, putting on her sunglasses, still without looking at any of them and not slowing her pace.

“Only if we can get a couple of hot dogs.” Tommy Ellis was always hungry.

“Geez, Ellis. Can you stop thinking about your stomach? We’ll get them later,” Wilson insisted.

“What if the hot-dog man isn’t there later?”

“He’ll be there,” Liz told them, now leading the way to the Tiki Bar. “And he’ll probably talk us into going out again for another beer with him.”

“Yeah, how can you be so sure?” Ellis demanded.

“Because the hot-dog man is my dad.”