I shake my head.
No, I’m not.
Macon shouts to the group of detectives. “Ruiz!”
He comes running over to us. “What’s up?”
I show him my empty wallet. His cop brain figures it out quickly.
“He took your license.”
I nod.
The killer knows who I am.
The killer knows where I live.
CHAPTER THREE
DOCK LINE
When I think of my father, I think of sharks, and oddly enough, it relaxes me. Right now, he’s sitting on the stern of his boat with a concerned look on his face, and I’m the one trying to calm him.
My earliest memories are of Dad teaching me to swim. My most vivid is my first time snorkeling in the ocean.
I was six, and we were paddling over a shallow wreck, the Copenhagen, off the coast of Pompano Beach. I was still adjusting to the taste of salt water and the burning sensation it made in my nose when I didn’t clear it properly while my older brothers free dived down to touch the ship’s rusted anchor.
That’s when I saw the hammerhead shark. My mind’s eye remembers it being twenty feet long. In reality it was probably less than half that.
I’d seen more schools of beautiful fish than I could count, but this was something else . . . something alien.
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react. My brothers had been teasing me, calling me Shark Bait. Sharks were scary and mysterious. I looked to Dad to see how I should respond.
He had a broad smile on his face and gave me the okay sign.
I smiled back. From then on, I never feared sharks or anything else in the water. Respected them, yes, but did not fear. If Dad wasn’t worried, then I didn’t need to be.
Of course, I hadn’t been thinking about the scar on his leg left by an angry bull shark. Or the dotted welts on his forearm from a sea anemone. They seemed more like tattoos than physical proof that the ocean isn’t a petting zoo.
Being a cop and a student on a college campus that doesn’t have a criminal-justice program, I’m looked upon as a bit of a curiosity. I’m often asked if my father was law enforcement as well.
Usually, I simply answer, “No.” If they don’t recognize my last name, then explaining that Dad’s a treasure hunter who spent our last dime in his crazy pursuit is more effort than it’s worth.
I’d hold a grudge against Dad like my brothers do if I didn’t love him so much.
I’ll never forget the look Harris, my oldest brother, gave Dad when his Mustang was repossessed because we could no longer afford the car payments. The fury, the hate.
I was only nine, but the expression on my dad’s face broke my heart. He was a lousy businessman, and his quixotic ambitions caused us plenty of suffering, but never for a moment did I doubt how much he loved us.
Money came and went, but Dad showered us with love.
I realized that I cared more about the people around me than about going to private school in North Miami or living in a house with more rooms than extended relatives. All that mattered was my family and the water.
After leaving the crime scene, I drove straight over to talk to Dad. He was sitting with Robbie Jr., my thirteen-year-old nephew, in the tiny kitchen on his boat, repairing a sonar system—one of the ways he makes money nowadays.
Robbie bolted around the table to give me a hug while Dad looked up from a circuit board and asked if I was the one who’d pulled the body from the water. I was confused until I saw the small television perched on the counter with the volume muted. Local news had been teasing a six o’clock report about a possible murder victim found in Palm Beach.
Dad and I went up on deck, and I gave him a quick summary while Robbie worked belowdecks.
The lights of the Fort Lauderdale skyline twinkle in the background as Dad peels the label from his beer bottle, something I’ve seen him do a thousand times when he’s stressed. It’s a habit I picked up too.
Some of my best memories were made on the stern of one of Dad’s boats talking to him while the waves gently rocked us.
His boat, the appropriately named Fortune’s Fool, is docked off the Intracoastal behind a large, one-story house that belongs to Freddie Kleinman, a physician who owns a chain of medical clinics. He’s an old friend of Dad’s who helps him by investing small sums in expeditions and letting Dad dock here rent-free when he can’t afford the marina.
“You were in the water when the girl was killed?” Dad asks.
“Yeah. I was about fifteen feet down.”
“In a canal?” Leave it to my father to get hung up on a hydrological detail.
“It’s an old sinkhole that got absorbed by an oxbow.”
He nods. “How did Nadia react?”
I still haven’t told him the part about not having my dive partner there or the fact that my driver’s license is missing. “I was alone.”
His face turns cross. “What have I told you about doing that?”
I point to the row of oxygen cylinders and the single regulator near his legs. “You do it.”
“That’s different,” he says. “You’re . . . you’re a mother.”
I laugh. “And you’re a father. And a grandfather.”
“It’s not the same.” He pauses for a moment. “You’re all grown.”
“Uh-huh. That’s it. Great comeback.” I flick my bottle cap at him.
He catches it midair. It’s a family game I learned before I could talk. He makes a theatrical sigh. “My daughter the solo-diving police officer who pulls corpses and assault rifles from the water. If I’d known having daughters would be this stressful, I’d have only had sons.”
“Daughters aren’t all bad,” I reply, thinking of Jackie.
“The runt? She’s too smart for her own good.” Runt is his pet name for her. It’s a joke because she’s the tallest girl in her class and can outrun the boys.
“Hard to believe she’s a McPherson,” I add.
“Even harder to believe who her father is,” Dad shoots back.
My father and Jackie’s father, Run—aka Scott, his given name—have what you’d call a complicated relationship. Half the time Dad’s dive buddies with Run; the other half he’s harping on him for not making me an honest woman—even though the choice wasn’t his.
Dad’s worried look returns. “So, they killed this girl while you were underwater?”
“Yep.”
“And they don’t know who she is?”
“Nope. Although . . .” I stop myself.
“What?”
It’s been nagging at me since I pulled her from the water. “There’s something familiar about her. And not like someone I just saw once. Like she was a friend of a friend.”
“That’s depressing,” Dad replies. “No idea who?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure they’ll ID her soon. I’ll ask around tomorrow at the office.”
I know he’s imagining if this had happened to me. It’s instinctive. I’m not sure if I should tell him the other part. My stomach’s in knots, but that’s the reason I came here.
“There’s something else you should know . . .”
“Last time you told me that, you were pregnant.”