Free Fallen King: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 6) by Wayne Stinnett

was my actions that had put her in danger. “All it takes is one lucky shot. I’m just glad you’re alright.”
    “They’re turning!” Linda shouted.
    I looked where she was pointing and saw that the boat had turned and was heading straight for East Cape Sable.
    The men in the boat reached East Cape before we could reach the plane and untie the anchor lines from the pontoons. A couple of minutes later, we heard a single gunshot as we were climbing aboard. I skipped the preflight, and a few precious minutes later we were skimming the glassy surface as Rusty called the Coast Guard on the emergency channel. I could see the boat’s wake as it headed due south, away from the Tolivers’ camp. A part of me wanted to give chase, but we had to stop and check on the Tolivers. The flight lasted only a few minutes and I brought the Hopper down smoothly on the water, then turned toward shore.
    “Coasties are putting a bird up out of Boca Chica,” Rusty shouted. “They’ll be here in thirty minutes. They said to stay put.”
    I came in a little too fast and was still at planing speed when I felt the port pontoon skip off the bottom. As I quickly cut the throttle to idle, the plane jerked to the left and the other pontoon grounded.
    Great , I thought, run aground in shallow water with an outgoing tide .
    I climbed out of the pilot’s seat and splashed into the water, yelling back over my shoulder, “Stay in the plane, Kim!”
    Linda was already halfway to the Tolivers’ camp as I splashed through the water behind her. She had her own handgun out, held straight out with both hands as she moved toward the camp. She came up short at the water’s edge and I was beside her a moment later. Gene Toliver lay face down in the sand fifty feet beyond their camp, a pool of brown sand around his head.

Chapter Six
     
    Linda had grabbed a blanket from the Tolivers’ tent and covered Gene’s body after first checking his pulse. Both were futile gestures. She told us to be careful and not disturb the crime scene. Rusty took Kim down the beach, away from the carnage, but she’d already seen him lying there in a pool of his own blood.
    I followed Linda’s lead. After covering the body, we walked wide around the camp back to the water, following the shoreline until we found the footprints coming out of the water. From there, it was easy to see what had happened.
    There were two sets of tracks that came out of the water, where the two shooters had probably beached their boat. Following the tracks, Linda pointed out where they went from a walk to a dead run around the curve of the cape.
    Passing the Tolivers’ tent, she pointed again. “There’s where Gene and Nancy tried to make a run for it. Running inland might have been a better idea. Maybe he was trying to get to the creek.”
    It was obvious the Tolivers had run from their camp as the two men approached. Knowing there was strength in numbers and we would be coming back out on the tide, maybe they were trying to get to us, not knowing it was me doing most of the shooting. Having heard the gunshots and being unarmed themselves, it was hide or seek help. Gene chose wrong.
    “If they’d bolted into the brush, they might have been able to hide long enough for us to get here.”
    Linda looked at me for a moment. “It happens most of the time,” she said. “Victims in a panic rarely make good choices.”
    Same with trained Marines , I thought.
    We arrived to where Gene’s body lay about halfway between their camp and the first creek. We kept to the water, reading the tracks. I was good at following tracks. In the Corps it wasn’t “what is the quarry doing and thinking?” as much as “where is he?”
    Linda pointed to a patch of sand just past the body that was churned up with many prints. “This is where they split up. Gene stopped to face his attackers. Nancy realized it and stopped as well. He must have told her to keep running and hide in the mangroves around the creek