Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6) Read Online Free

stepped out of the woods onto the road, she saw Wyatt getting ready to cross the street from Zoe’s back yard.
    Wyatt Hamilton was her boss, the Sheriff of Franklin County, for a couple more weeks, anyway. His Sheriff’s Office cap was pulled low over his brow, his brown hair peeping out around the edges. At six-four, he was more than a foot taller than Maggie; his legs reaching to her stomach.
    Wyatt was wearing a tee shirt and jeans, but had thrown on a navy department windbreaker, either to look more official on his day off, or to ward off the slight morning chill. Close to fifty, he was as lean and hard as any of the younger men in the department, and easily the best-looking man Maggie had ever met.
    As Maggie met him in the middle of the street, she got a faint, familiar whiff of Nautilus. She would have smiled, but she wasn’t feeling smiley. Apparently, neither was Wyatt; his mouth was set in a grimace beneath his thick moustache and there was no sign of his usually disarming dimples.
    He put his fists on his hips and sighed. “Hey,” he said.
    “Hey.”
    “Anything?”
    “Yeah. He left the butter knife,” she answered. “I’ll let Jake know.”
    “He’s taking elimination prints from the girl and her aunt,” Wyatt said. “The EMTs checked her out and she’s okay. As okay as we’d hope. They’re ready to run her over to Weems Memorial once Jake’s done.”
    “Okay,” Maggie said. “I’ll go with her.”
    “I figured.”
    Wyatt frowned down at her, his eyes concerned beneath his clenched brows. “Why don’t we let Terry take this?” Lt. Terry Doyle was Maggie’s counterpart. Together, they made up the entire Criminal Investigator staff.
    “No,” Maggie said sharply. “She called me.”
    “I understand that. I just think it’s got potential to be upsetting.”
    “It’s already upsetting, Wyatt,” Maggie said flatly. “It’s supposed to be upsetting.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    Maggie jammed her own fists onto her hips. “In my twelve years with the Sheriff’s Office, I’ve handled nine rapes, Wyatt. And handled them well.”
    “How many were teenaged girls?”
    “Five,” she answered without having to think.
    “How many were teenaged girls assaulted in the woods in November?”
    Maggie was irritated, but not too irritated to be touched that he remembered what month she’d been attacked twenty-two years earlier. “None,” she admitted, her tone sharp anyway. “But it doesn’t make any difference.”
    “Sure it does,” he said.
    “No. The only difference is that now you know what happened to me,” Maggie said. “Stop trying to protect me, Wyatt.”
    “No,” he answered quietly.
    Maggie glared up at him. He’d been her boss for almost seven years, her closest friend for two. In the last six months, they’d moved on to something else entirely. They were still figuring out how that worked.
    “Are you taking me off this?” she asked him.
    Wyatt took off his cap, ran his hand through his thick hair, then slapped it back on and sighed. “No. But I’m advising you that you should take yourself off of it,” he said.
    “No.”
    “Well, then hell.” He rubbed at his moustache. “So how well do you know Zoe Boatwright?”
    Maggie made a conscious effort to unwind herself, took her fists off her hips and tucked them into her jacket pockets.
    “Not very well,” Maggie answered. “I coached her one summer, about seven or eight years ago. The last time I saw her was at her father’s funeral five years ago.”
    “You must have made an impression.”
    “I’m a female cop.”
    “So’s Brenda,” he countered. “Where’s her mother?”
    “She died last year. Breast cancer. I just found out.”
    “Crap. Poor kid.” Wyatt said quietly. “She doesn’t have any idea who this guy is?”
    “No. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know him,” Maggie said. “Maybe she just doesn’t know she knows him.”
    They started back toward the house.
    “Butter knife.