Troubled Waters by Rachelle McCalla Page B

from the cliff side and inside the cave. The DNA evidence came back two weeks ago. The blood belonged to Trevor. The body looked like Trevor’s. You can’t tell me that wasn’t him.”
    “I believe you,” Heath looked down into her eyes, and for the first time Tracie realized he had his arm around her again. Now she was glad for the support of his strong arm on her shoulder. “I believe that was Trevor who was shot, and whose body you saw. But his body was never recovered.”
    A chill ran down her spine. Tracie fought back the fear she felt at Heath’s suggestion. “He had multiple bullet wounds. I saw them.” She had to make him understand. Trevor had to be dead. The man was evil. He’d tormented her. He’d killed one of his cohorts in cold blood. If he was alive…no, he had to be dead.
    “I have a bullet wound,” Heath noted. “I’m not dead.”
    At that reminder, Tracie pinched her eyes shut. To think that Heath could have died, just like Trevor.
    “What was the nature of his wounds? Where were they located?”
    “Upper torso.” She closed her eyes and pictured the image that she’d never been able to exorcise from hermemory. “Two wounds, maybe three. There was a lot of blood in the water.”
    “How high on the torso?”
    “Pretty high.”
    “And Trevor was a big guy, right. Lots of extra bulk?”
    Tracie understood what he was suggesting and pulled away from him, as though she could hide from the possibility of what his words implied. He held on to her fingertips and met her eyes.
    “Is it possible the wounds could have missed major organs—that they could have been superficial muscle-tissue shots through the shoulder?”
    “Yes.” Tracie admitted with a shaky breath. “But he was floating facedown. Face d own , do you get that? You don’t float facedown in Lake Superior for more than about two minutes and still live, bullet wounds or not.”
    “Was he in the water that long?” Heath pressed. “Do you know for a fact he was floating facedown for more than two minutes?”
    And then Tracie felt it. A cold terror like she’d never felt before. Her grandmother would have said someone had walked over her grave. And maybe there was something to that. She felt as though the lid had been closed on her casket, as though her fate had been sealed. If Trevor was alive, if he was out to kill her, she didn’t know how she could ever evade him. She wanted to vomit, but she slowly forced herself to look Heath in the eye. “No. I only had one look at him before we went back around the other end of the island to get the boat to retrieve his body. When we got back around to this side, he was gone.”
    Heath rested a tentative hand on her back, his touch so welcome after all the time she’d spent feeling isolated by Trevor. She sniffled a few times, then gave in to the tears that poured down her cheeks. Trevor. Alive. Suddenly itall made sense. He’d been the one shooting at them, he’d killed his own brother. He was after them, and Tracie knew Trevor well enough to know he wouldn’t stop until he’d killed her, too.
    The job she’d started to dislike when Trevor had arrived now terrified her. What had begun as a challenging occupation now seemed impossible. How could she continue to do her job with Trevor on the loose? Her only hope was to somehow bring him to justice—but that task seemed insurmountable since they knew nothing of his whereabouts, their every lead had dried up and, if they got too close to him, he’d kill them.
    They needed another lead to go on, and the sea caves were their most promising option. She tipped her head up and looked into Heath’s face. At his tender expression, she nearly started sobbing again out of gratitude that he was with her. But instead she blinked back her tears.
    Heath cradled her face in one large hand and brushed away her tears with his thumb. “Ready to go on?”
    “Yes.”
    She followed him dumbly as he pulled close to the island and anchored the