Enter Evil

Book 4: Claire Morgan Thriller Series

by Linda Ladd

Genres: Police Procedurals; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

When The Mind. . . His doctors are the best in the world, his father one of the most powerful men in the state. But they couldn't stop Mikey from succumbing to his darkest demons--the ones inside his head. The ones who told him it was time to end it all. Plays A Deadly Game. . . It should have been an open-and-shut case, especially since detective Claire Morgan's lover, Dr, Nicholas Black, recognized Mikey as a former troubled patient. Then Claire finds another body in Mikey's home. Curled inside an oven, charred beyond recognition, the method of murder mind-boggling. . . Of Murder Claire's only lead is a beaded bracelet around each victim's wrist, believed to ward off the "evil eye." But by the time she discovers what the dead were afraid of, she's trapped in a mind game of her own--with a brilliant, sadistic killer. And this time, there's a method to the madness. . . "One of the most creepy, crawly and compelling psychological thrillers ever." --Fresh Fiction on Dark Places

Release date: August 4, 2009

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 401

Sample

Here Comes Trouble

The son was trouble. Some people suspected there was a little mean streak in him but no one said a word to the parents, of course, because most of the time he seemed so sweet and loving. But there was something that came out now and again, something unsettling, something they just couldn’t put their finger on. A tragedy was bound to happen one day but nobody at the big family get-together knew it yet, not even the kid himself.

As for the son, sometimes, not often, he, too, found himself doing truly horrible things, things he did not understand and could not explain when he asked himself why. Today, however, he was doing okay; nothing much weird was going on. Actually, he was pretty happy-go-lucky at the moment and having an awesome time with all his kinfolks. It was hot summertime; a real heat wave bore down on them. Lots of American flags were flying everywhere; everybody acting real patriotic and stuff. Flapping on the flagpole at the corner of the back deck was their big nylon American flag, and his mom had stuck tiny American flags inside her flowerpots full of yellow marigolds and red petunias, and just about everywhere else. She’d hung puffs of red, white, and blue bunting on the edges of the deck and the picnic table sitting out on the grassy lawn and some more around the pool house eaves. His mom loved holidays.

The afternoon was really sultry and humid, bringing sticky sweat rolling down people’s necks after a few minutes outside, and the sun broiled down and sunburned everybody. The concrete around the swimming pool was hot as hell, but the kid didn’t care. He loved being outside, loved summer the best, and tonight was the night he’d been waiting for a long time. Tonight his team was matched up against the number-one team in Park League baseball.

Yeah, him and his Bearcats, they were going to tangle with the Wildcats at seven o’clock for the big brass first-place trophy with the swinging batter on top, and they were gonna kill ’em because he was gonna get to pitch, and he was the best pitcher in the whole league, everybody said so, even the other team’s coach, Mr. Manning. The boy wanted to be number one more than anything, and he always got to be, in just about everything he did. Best yet, all his aunts and uncles and cousins were gonna sit in the stands and see how hard his fastball was and how far he could hit homers, all the way out over the left-field fence, lots of times. Yeah, he was real good, real good, and he couldn’t wait for people to pat him on the back and tell him how special he was, like they always did after his games. Because he was special. It was easy to see that.

Best of all right now, though, were the relay races and diving contests they’d been having in the swimming pool. Naturally, he was winning everything, and that was what was important. To win, every single time, every single place, always come out on top and get all the glory. Not that he was a bad loser or anything; he always shook the winner’s hand and stuff, if somebody should accidentally beat him. He didn’t like doing that, but nobody could ever tell how steaming mad he was inside his chest.

Right now, he was in the pool. It was way too hot to get out and put on his shorts and shirt for dinner. Swimming was his favorite thing to do when he wasn’t practicing his sports, and he was in the pool constantly when he was at home. He was the best athlete of all his brothers and sisters and cousins and could swim like a fish. That’s what his dad always was saying to people. He liked it when his dad and mom praised him like that, you know, went on and on about it, and they did it a lot. He was their favorite, big-time, hands down.

His mom told him that he was the best, the smartest, the most loved, even over the other kids. He always just beamed when she did that, ’cause she was right, he definitely was. Mom and Dad both whispered stuff like that in his ear, low enough so his brothers and sisters didn’t hear and start blubbering and being jealous. His mom was especially proud of his grades in school, and she’d come home from the end-of-the-year conference with his counselor and told him that he’d scored at genius levels in the spring IQ tests. He’d already figured out that he was smarter than nearly everybody else already, even her, but she sure was pleased. She said that with a keen mind like his, he could do anything and be anything he wanted when he grew up.

The younger kids in the family were okay, though, he guessed, especially Lyla. She was just four years old and had the most beautiful long blond hair. It hung all the way down past her waist and curled up in these little fat ringlets like his did and shone like golden fire in the sunlight. She was his favorite sister, way favorite, and he had a lot of sisters. For some reason, he just loved being around her and hearing that funny little giggle she was always spilling out. The other kids were okay, too, sometimes, but they weren’t like Lyla. He loved her so much, even more than his mom and dad loved her, so much sometimes that it expanded up inside his chest and hurt him and made tears well inside his eyes. Usually that was when he thought about how sweet she was and how much she looked up to him. He was her special hero, and he liked that. She always drew pictures of him wearing a red cape on the coloring sheets she brought home from preschool, like he was some kind of superhero or something. She always put his first initial on the chest of her superhero.

It was getting late, almost time to eat. All his dad’s relatives had brought lots of good food for the annual cookout. The kids had been in the pool, but they’d all gotten out now to play Wiffle ball with their dads and uncles and romp around the yard with the dogs. His family had three dogs: Cocoa, Puffs, and Cheerio, and at the moment, Cheerio, the little beagle, had six itty-bitty newborn puppies. Most of the kids were inside now, in the mudroom, watching the puppies frisk around and play inside the cardboard box with an old red and white patchwork quilt inside that his mom had made for their bed.

The boy liked to watch the puppies roll around, too, but right now, he was kinda glad to be alone with just him and Lyla. He was tired of shooting basketballs into the floating hoop, anyway. He rarely missed, and it really wasn’t much of a contest going up against his cousins. Now he and Lyla could be by themselves and dive after the shiny new pennies his dad had thrown into the pool. Just like him, she swam like a little fish. He taught her himself when she was just two years old and made sure she did it right, in case she ever fell in the pool or got a stomach cramp, or something, when he wasn’t around to save her.

“C’mon, Lyla, let’s go down in the deep end. I’ll hold you up high so your head won’t go under.”

Lyla was clutching onto the top step of the shallow-end ladder, and she took off and dog-paddled to him. She was really a pretty good girl to be so little. She was always belting out that funny laugh. She did it now as she reached him and grabbed him around the neck so tight that he nearly choked. He laughed, though, liking her little chubby arms around him, then he transferred her around and onto his back and started swimming them out into deep water with his perfectly executed breaststrokes. He had his junior lifeguard certificate and knew exactly how to perform every single stroke. He’d been the youngest member of his Red Cross Lifeguard class and the very best swimmer with all the highest scores. When he reached the heavy twisted white rope dividing the shallow and deep ends, he held on with both hands and peered through the thick red rosebushes to see if the grown-ups were keeping an eye on them.

His dad was busy cooking hamburgers and Cheesy Jumbo hot dogs on his fancy new grill. It was green and shaped like a big egg. Mom had bought it at some special store for his dad’s birthday, and his dad loved to cook on it. His dad had six brothers, and each of them had a bunch of kids, so there was quite a crowd milling around in the backyard. His uncles were all standing around and drinking beer and listening to his dad tell them all the fancy stuff his new grill could do. His dad was wearing a big white chef’s hat and an apron that said EMERIL, EAT YOUR HEART OUT. But none of the adults were watching them swim around in the pool, and the son was glad because his parents didn’t like for him to take Lyla into the deep end. But she loved it when he did, and it was their secret fun thing to do, and he was always extra careful and held onto her really, really tight.

After he’d flipped the rope over their heads and was treading water to keep their faces out of the water, he put Lyla’s fingers around the rope and made sure she held on with a tight grip. “Okay, there you go, Lyla, you hold on hard, got it? Real tight, you hear. You know the drill. Don’t let go for anything, okay?”

“I wanna dive after the pennies!” Lyla cried, and then she smiled that big wide grin that everybody loved so much. She was just the sweetest little thing ever. She had these huge blue eyes, just exactly the color the sky was high above them right now, but her eyelashes were real dark and long, even though her hair was blond, which was kinda odd, actually. He really, really loved her. More than just about anything, even some of his smaller trophies. Her hair looked darker now, all wet, and it was floating all around her shoulders on top of the water like a sleek, shiny cape.

“Okay, Lyla, I’m goin’ down to the bottom first. See all those pennies layin’ around down there? Hold still so the water’ll calm down and you can see where they are. Dad threw them in this morning and said he’d give us kids a dollar for each one we bring up. It’s supposed to happen tonight after we eat dinner, but we’ll get a jump on the other kids.”

“I wanna dollar, I wanna dollar!” Lyla was holding on to the rope, but she was yelling pretty loud, so he glanced up at the deck again, but nobody was paying a bit of attention to them. They trusted him alone in the pool with his younger brothers and sisters, anyway; sometimes they even called him their own personal Junior Lifeguard. He liked it when they did that, because it made him feel all grown up and important. And now he was trained to be one; that’s how good he was.

“Okay, Lyla, I’ll take you down with me, but you gotta help me kick, ’member? And if you run outta breath you gotta pull on my hair and I’ll swim you up as fast as I can, okay?”

“Let’s go down deep, all the way to the bottom, I want to, I want to!”

The boy laughed at his little sister’s excitement, and that brought out her funny little squeal. She always wanted to be with him, constantly, every day, all day. And he usually didn’t mind having her around, except when all his buddies came over and wanted him to go down the street and Rollerblade in front of Kevin’s house. Then Lyla was a big pain, and his mom would have to hold her and make her stay inside the house so she wouldn’t follow and get herself lost in the woods along the road. But she always cried and threw a little hissy fit until he was out of sight.

“Okay, you ready, Lyla? You gotta hold your breath a real long time, but if you want to come up, remember, tug on my hair, okay? Not too hard, though, okay?”

“Okay! Let’s go down and get the dollars. I wanna new Barbie!”

He laughed some more. “The dollars aren’t down there, goofy, just the pennies. Dad’s gonna give us real dollars when we bring up the pennies.”

“I’m gonna buy us some suckers. The kind with the chewy good stuff in the middle. I’m gonna get a red one.”

“Those’re called Tootsie Roll Pops. Okay, ready? Take a deep breath and let’s go down!”

He made sure she took a good one and held it, because sometimes she forgot to hold it and got to coughing, and that always scared him. This time she got it right, and they dove down together, Lyla holding tightly to his shoulders. But her eyes were open, and he could see her face clearly through the yellow swimming goggles he wore. The pennies were scattered all around the bottom, but most of them had landed near the drain, so he headed there first. They began to pick them up, and he had to keep batting Lyla’s long hair out of the way because it kept getting in front of his goggles and he couldn’t see where the pennies were. Lyla had managed to pick up three, and he got about five more real quick because he was running out of breath. Her hair was waving out toward the drain, and he pulled it back because his mom had warned them about hair getting caught in swimming pool drains.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he took the wad of hair he had in his hand and wound it around the edges of the drain. Lyla was still grabbing up pennies, but after a second, she turned to him and pulled on his hair. He stayed where he was a moment, then he let go of her and rocketed back up to the top. When he broke the surface, he gulped air, but all the adults were crowded around the picnic table and bringing big platters of food out from the kitchen. Nobody was paying any attention to him at all.

So he dove back to the bottom and grabbed hold of the drain to keep himself down. Lyla was struggling desperately now, and her big pretty eyes were open real wide and looked all panicky and stuff. She grabbed him, jerking his hair frantically in their signal to surface, and he held on as long as his breath lasted, waiting for her to run out of air. A few seconds later, Lyla gave up and let go of him. He watched her mouth open and then she swallowed water, and then a bunch of bubbles came rolling out of her mouth and nose and she didn’t struggle anymore but drowned right in front of him until she was just staring at him out of those great big blue eyes that looked so surprised at what he’d done to her. Then she was quiet and dead, a long strand of her hair caught tightly to the drain, the rest of her pretty hair waving around in the currents left over from her struggles to get loose. Gradually, her feet began to drift upward and she floated upside down, and he thought she looked beautiful and peaceful, just floating there like that, dead and gone forever.

When his air ran out, he surfaced and filled his lungs again. He went down several more times to stare at her, for some reason enjoying the way she looked. He wondered why he had done such a terrible thing. He really didn’t know why. He loved her. He was gonna miss her a lot, but he did have lots of other brothers and sisters and cousins to hang around with, so it probably wouldn’t be that bad without her. Mom and Dad were gonna be really upset, though. She was their baby.

Oh, well, he was their favorite, after all, so they’d get over it, even if they did blame him. And they probably wouldn’t blame him; they’d probably feel sorry for him for having to be there and see her when she got caught at the bottom and got her little lungs all filled up with water. And now, after it was all over, it had been a pretty bad thing to watch; he was glad his mom hadn’t had to see it.

Once he got tired of watching Lyla float around upside down, he swam underwater to the nearest ladder and climbed out. He could still see her down on the bottom, and he wanted to watch her float around some more but knew he couldn’t waste any more time.

“Mommmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Daddddddddddddddddd! Lyla’s hair’s caught in the drain! Help, Mom, Mom, hurry, hurry! I can’t get her loose!”

The adults standing around the table all froze for a second, and then they dropped what they were doing and ran hard to the pool. The men dove headfirst into the water, all of them at once, and so did his mom. A couple of his aunts ran to him and held him tightly against them, holding his face into their red American flag T-shirts so he wouldn’t have to see, and he thought that was a nice thing for them to do. So he started bawling, real hard. He’d learned early off that he could fake tears, any time he wanted, to varying degrees, without anybody suspecting that they were false. He could make himself look so pitiful. He’d practiced the look in the mirror lots of times. His mother always fell for it, his dad, too, but sometimes it took longer to get his dad to feel sorry for him.

The men in the water kept resurfacing, gulping air and plunging back to the bottom, trying to get Lyla’s hair loose, and the women were all screaming and crying and saying oh God, even the ones trying to comfort him. Several of his aunts ran back into the house to keep the other kids from coming out and seeing how Lyla looked dead and drowned. He kept up his weeping and yelling, impressing even himself this time with the amount of tears he managed to pour down his cheeks.

But the funniest thing, suddenly the fake tears turned into real, honest-to-goodness tears. Because he did love Lyla! So much! She was his favorite person in the whole wide world. And now she was drowned and lying all limp and dead on the concrete at the other side of the pool, while his youngest uncle, who was a paramedic and rode in ambulances, was pressing on her little chest while his dad wept and blew air into her mouth. But it was too late, way too late. She was deader than dead. He sobbed louder. He was gonna miss her so much. And now he wouldn’t get to pitch against the Wildcats tonight! None of them would get to go to the game and see him play. Why did he have to go and tie her hair to the drain? It just wasn’t fair!

Okay, my name is Claire Morgan, and I’m a homicide detective with the Canton County Sheriff’s Department right here at the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks in mid-Missouri. At the moment, I’m on a undercover surveillance assignment for probable drug dealing in a lovely cove cradled by the most beautiful green wooded hills you can ever imagine. Unfortunately, the idyllic spot is marred a bit by about fifty runabout boats full of practically nude young college coeds and their horny boyfriends. Various and sundry other underage kiddies are also out in the hot summer sun, drinking and flirting and trying their best to hook up with the next good-looking thing that happens by. Ah, Party Cove, the place to be on a sultry summer day. There is plenty to watch, believe you me, some of which could definitely be called X-rated, or even in the triple Z range.

In fact, as I lie here on my stomach in the prow of Nicholas Black’s shiny and magnificent Cobalt 360 cruiser, training a high-powered, telescoped digital camera on yon distant shore, I’m getting quite an eyeful of boozed-up, sex-crazed kids in action. My own very special honey, the aforementioned Black, who is also a filthy rich shrink to the stars and all manner of other celebs, is sitting in the pilot’s chair behind me talking psychobabble to somebody who’d called from his posh London clinic. No doubt there’s a Brit in a straitjacket on the loose in Piccadilly Circus.

It’s late August, and the lake is dark olive green with not a breath of wind to ripple the glassy surface. Calm as death, as they say. Not that I want to think about death at the moment. I’ve had enough narrow escapes with the Grim Reaper of late, so many in fact that the Dreary Dark Man with the Scythe probably has my name tattooed on his palm for easy reference. Nope, I sure don’t want to think about my last case, or the one before it, or any of them, actually.

So instead, I fixed my attention on my partner, Budweiser D. Davis, a good-looking, silver-eyed Southern drawler from Atlanta, Bud for short. He is hiding in a honeysuckle thicket on the nearby shore, no doubt enjoying the fragrance and buzzing bumblebees, while similarly scoping out the wild goings on all around us with a video camera running, the incriminating tape of which we someday hoped to share with a judge and jury.

Although a charm-meister extraordinaire for sure, Bud hasn’t done a lot of that sort of thing lately, not since our last case when his girl, Brianna, got herself in some very deep trouble. She’s gone away now and nobody knows for how long, to live in Europe, Rome to be exact, where she’s trying to get over the injuries she sustained and the severe psychological trauma she suffered. Truth is, she’s doing pretty good under the circumstances, and Bud thinks she’ll be back one of these days, and they can start up where they left off.

Frankly, I have my doubts about that one, but who knows? My world’s a strange, dangerous place, and it has a tendency to rub off on my friends. Actually, a lot of us went through a pretty hairy ordeal along with her and still have our own ugly scars to prove it. Bud took her departure pretty hard at first, still has his sad moments of guilt and depression, but he is coming out of it slowly. How do I know? He’s once again ogling good-looking women and making wisecracks and telling me the origins of phrases from a book I bought him, the latter being pretty annoying. A sure sign of healing, however. His appetite has picked up, too.

“Nabbed any bad guys yet?”

That was Black, now off his private line, but trust me, it’ll ring again, give it three minutes. He is an important man, a buyer of five-star hotels and owner of exclusive psych clinics, a writer of best-selling self-help books, even, and last but not least, one helluva good lover and good-looking guy, to boot, with that black hair and those bluer than Montana sky-blue eyes. He actually drives a Humvee, believe it or not, and has a motor yacht moored mid-lake that is so magnificently apportioned it could earn its own article in the July issue of Yachts Only Aristotle Onassis Could Afford. He calls it the Maltese Falcon since he’s such a big Dashiell Hammett fan. That’s probably the reason he’s spending so much time with me, my being a so-called primo homicide detective, and all. But I do enjoy his company and vice versa, it seems. In fact, things are pretty hot and heavy between us and have been for quite a while now. Indeed, we’re from vastly different social and economic levels, but we rarely talk anymore about how we met, that being when he was my prime murder suspect and I was out to get him, come hell or high water.

I said, “We’re not trying to nab, Black. We’re trying to surveil and identify who’s doing what. So far I’ve seen lots of drunk college kids playing loud music and making out, but no blatant drug exchanges. More like spring break at South Padre Island meets Girls Gone Wild.”

Black did some looking around, no doubt for the girls gone wild in question. “How much longer is this going to last? I’m getting hungry.”

“Did I not see a big fridge down in the galley? Filled up with all your favorite gourmet foods? Make yourself a caviar sandwich or something to tide you over until we get done here.”

Black lounged down beside me, all six foot three, deeply tanned hunkiness of him. He’s part of my cover today, you see, we’re yet another drunken couple playing loud music and getting touchy-feely at Party Cove. Only problem is, Black has his top-of-the-line satellite radio set on some kind of rhythm-and-blues station. I daresay we’re the only kids today at Party Cove blaring Koko Taylor’s “Piece of Man.”

Otherwise, however, Black is playing his part exceedingly well indeed. With one hand, he took a drink from his icy longneck Dixie Lager, imported by the truckload from his hometown, the Big Easy, no less, and groped my bare flesh a bit with the other. When he stopped the massage long enough to hand me an icy Wild Cherry Pepsi in a frosted crystal goblet, I decided that, yep, this guy knows my weaknesses. All he forgot was the frozen Snickers bars that I usually request, preferably the miniature kind.

Leaning back and resting his head on a dark blue boat cushion, he adjusted his aviator sunglasses that he bought when last seen skiing in St. Tropez. Not by me; I’ve never been there, of course, but somebody on those frosted venerable slopes must’ve seen him, I’m sure. He shut his eyes and said, “Forgot to order your Snickers. Sorry.”

See what I mean? This guy’s hard to resist. He’s wearing black swim trunks and nothing else, so I removed my eyes from my camera viewfinder long enough to admire all that sun-brown skin and nicely ridged six-pack. I’m on duty, right, but I’m not comatose and unresponsive. Later would come soon enough, but a quick peek doesn’t hurt to tide me over.

I said, “Something gone awry at Buckingham Palace, I take it?”

Black kept his eyes closed but smiled, dimples galore, I tell you, the man’s smile gives me tremors in the solar plexus, not to mention other delicate places. “They’ve got a problem with a patient. He’s waking up from some very bad nightmares screaming bloody murder.”

“Oh, yeah? I can relate.”

“Right, but you’ve usually got me in bed to calm you down. This guy gets up and attacks the nearest woman.”

“I see your dilemma.”

That was true about him being in my bed, or lately, we’ve been waking up in his Sealey Posturepedic mother of all beds, custom designed, and I mean huge bed, over at his big lake resort called Cedar Bend Lodge. At least we sleep there together on the nights Black’s at home and not off gallivanting around the globe doing very important things as he’s wont to do. Truth be told, I’m glad to have him nearby when I wake up, all sweaty and shaky, or I might get up and attack some woman, too. The handguns we both keep handy under our pillows are a mite reassuring, too. Yessiree, our bed’s a veritable shooting gallery waiting to happen. But better safe than sorry, I always say. That’s why I have my big Glock 9 mm and .38 snub-nosed revolver right here on the deck beside me, mere inches from my right hand. I would’ve strapped them both on over my bikini, but that might give me some strange tan lines and my drug targets might notice.

Getting down to work again, I returned my attention to the myriad of drug-peddling suspects guzzling every imaginable kind of booze and raising hell all around us. “Keep down, Black, and put on your cap. You’re too well known around the lake. If any of these guys recognize you, you’ll get me made.”

Unperturbed, Black lifted his head and snugged on his black fiber-optic cap. It had a gold New Orleans Saints logo on the crown that lit up at the touch of a tiny switch. Bud gave it to him as a thank-you for a great big life-or-death favor Black had done for him a couple of months back. He said, “They’ll recognize you before they do me, Claire. You’re the one whose picture keeps popping up in the papers for getting the bad guys.”

“Ergo, that’s exactly why I’m down here behind this rail with this nifty visor hiding my face.”

“That visor’s just about all you’re wearing, too. Maybe you ought to keep down, just for modesty’s sake.”

Black, Black, getting a bit possessive now, yes, he is. I didn’t care for that remark much, but he didn’t push too hard about that kind of stuff, so I swiveled my camera back to where Bud was hiding with the departmental video cam. He was still hunkered down in the bushes, and I wouldn’t be able to pick him out if I didn’t know his location. I just hoped to hell he didn’t rub up against any poison ivy. He’s allergic, big-time, but never sees it soon enough. I addressed Black’s crack about my skimpy apparel. “If I recall, Black, once upon a time you bought me this very string bikini and insisted I wear it day and night.”

“That was at my private beach on Bermuda when you had casts on your arm and leg. It’s different out here with a hundred guys on the lookout for visual stimulation.”

More psychiatrist talk there. I felt his hand enjoying itself on my lower back, then farther down into my bikini bottom, what there was of it, also looking for stimulation, which it found pretty damn quick. After an enjoyable minute or two, I pushed his hand away, but not because I wanted to. “Later, Black, I’m working, remember.”

His sigh sounded annoyed, almost reached the grumble level, but he relaxed back beside me with nary a profane mutter. “You’re getting burned. Let me rub some lotion on you. Your skin’s too white to stay out in the sun this long.”

“Cut it out, Black, I’m slick as a seal, already. We can get our jollies tonight after Bud and I get this surveillance over with.”

This time Black did mutter a low oath in the dialect of his New Orleans Cajun youth, which he didn’t usually reveal but frustration sometimes brought out in him, then he got up and headed back into the square of shade thrown by the black canopy over the pilot’s chair. When one of his three cell phones chirped softly, he carried it down the steps into the galley, no doubt looking for Beluga and French baguettes to munch on while analyzing a new batch of bizarre British dreamscapes.

Fully concentrated on my job now, I zeroed in on one boat that I found a trifle more suspicious than the others. Three Caucasian males lounged around, two young guys, one older, and by that, I mean late twenties/early thirties. All wearing knee-length swim trunks and baggy white T-shirts with American flags on the front. They had Old Glory on their baseball caps, too. How patriotic can drug dealers get? Or maybe that’s how their strung-out clients recognized them.

All were drinking Budweiser beer and ogling half-naked women flaunting their stuff along the rocky beach and in the nearby boats. They were lounging around in a sleek black-and-white Tahoe Q8i with a MerCruiser 5.0, plenty fast enough to outrun most police boats but couldn’t hold a candle to Black’s Cobalt. Their craft was floating near a flotilla of about twenty boats tied together in the middle of the cove. College kids home for the summer and looking for action aka public nuisance citations. Our suspects had not tied on with the rest of the crafts. No doubt ready for a speedy getaway, just in case any cops such as myself and Bud were lurking around, just waiting to catch them when they whipped out a bag of crack cocaine to entice scantily clad beauties aboard. Of course, they could do that with beer, too, and probably already had. I clicked five or six photos, zooming in on their faces, tacky tattoos of various patriotic eagles and naked women holding lightning bolts, and one with the name of their boat. Siren’s Call. How appropriate is that.

After that, I relaxed my tense shoulder muscles, rolled them around a bit, took a deep breath, then wiggled into about a two-inch spot of shade cast by the railing, where I did have an excellent position from which to observe. I swung the camera to the other end of the flotilla. A busty, half-naked girl was doing some kind of hoochie-coochie dance on the prow of her boat. She had on tall red cowboy boots with black fringe and a ten-gallon red cowboy hat with a black leather hat band about the same size as her bikini bottom. She whipped off her bikini top as I watched and swung it around like a rodeo porn star. I guess she forgot her lasso at home.

I restrained myself from taking a picture, then changed my mind and snapped a couple of her, just in case. But I do declare, what’s the matter with these gals? Other than the fact that she was obviously drunk out of her mind, which could be a considerable factor, she wasn’t breaking the law, other than an indecent exposure charge, maybe, which would break my cover if I busted her, so I guess she’s gonna get to show off her wares. Which she did with a great deal of abandon and jiggly mammary pride.

I was a bit surprised, however, that the young man in the boat with her, obviously a boyfriend of sorts, was blatantly encouraging such behavior in his own personal girlfriend, but he seemed to be enjoying her gyrations as much as everybody else. Or maybe he was just her brother. I daresay Black wouldn’t be so obliging if I flung off my top and did a jig, considering that jealousy thing he flares up with now and again. All around, I began to hear male catcalls floating in from every direction and boat horns honking with the old, approving “Oh yeah, take it off!” message. My, my, this girl must work at Hooters. If not, she should. And Bud, no doubt, had gotten it all down on film for posterity or to share in the squad room with the other guys, probably the latter.

I continued to surveil, not impressed with the size of her breast implants in the least, but now the sun was slowly dropping behind the tree line, ready for some downtime while the moon did its thing, I guess, but this party on the water was not going to break up until the wee hours of the morn, trust me. The boats might change their order, some kids might untie from the flotilla and speed away to barely make Mom and Dad’s curfew, but just as many others would show up, dock on, and join in the fun. Nope, Party Cove was just getting started, and the longer it went into the night, the drunker and rowdier everybody got. That’s why the sheriff had some of our deputies on undercover duty here each and every night all summer long, and I was just glad it wasn’t me. I prefer the afternoon surveillance any time.

I spent a few minutes perusing the two honky-tonk bars inhabiting the cove, trying my best to luck upon a drug deal in progress. There were two bars, side by side, Manny’s and the Kangeroo Trapeze, and let me tell you they sold more beer than Busch Stadium during the World Series. With dusk quickly approaching, it didn’t appear as if we were going to get lucky and bust any criminal types, so I shifted a little, sat up, and drained the rest of my Wild Cherry Pepsi. It tasted sweet and cold, really good going down my dry throat. It was still humid, despite the fading day, and Black was right, I was sunburned all down my backside. That was gonna be great tonight in bed. Guess we’d have to get creative. What I really needed to do was hang it up for the day, jump off the stern platform, and cool off my bright red skin in the water.

I stretched cramped neck muscles a few seconds, then regained my position and refocused on my targets. The boat with the three white males had now picked up the cowgirl with the red boots and naked breasts, knowing something classy when they saw it, I suppose, and had just slid their boat into the sand directly in front of Bud. They were stowing gear and getting ready to jump to the beach and head on foot to the nearest bar. The girl was . . .