Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838) Read Online Free

me more about this kid you found,” Rick said, inviting Kit to sit down. “You found no identification?”
    â€œNone that we saw in the preliminary exam.”
    â€œYou figure he drowned?”
    â€œWe’ll know more from the autopsy.”
    â€œA Latino boy, about seven or eight.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    Rick pursed his lips and frowned. “Don’t know any kid that’s been missing.” He shook his head. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œYou can tell me about the crimes you deal with.”
    Rick laughed. He leaned back in his chair and propped the sole of his shoe against the edge of his desk. “Not much. Nothing happens here!”
    â€œHow long have you been stationed on Chincoteague?”
    â€œThree years.”
    â€œNo drownings?”
    â€œNot in the waters we patrol.”
    â€œDrugs?”
    He dismissed that idea with a wave. “We get a sailboat run aground about once a year, and a fishing boat runs out of gas now and then. Otherwise, the job’s mostly moving the channel markers and waiting for the big storms to come up the coast.”
    Kit studied his face. It was narrow, like a fox’s, and his blue eyes were quick. His laid-back persona seemed carefully constructed and maintained. Automatically, she glanced at his hand. No wedding band. “You like it quiet, I guess?”
    â€œI got divorced a couple of years ago. That’s all the conflict I’m going to need for a while.”
    Kit blew out a breath softly. “I hear that.” She wrote in the small notepad she’d brought with her. “So, you all have no maritime interdiction efforts going on? Nothing targeting drugs or illegals?”
    Rick snorted. “Around here? Look, there are people here who use, but we’re not a major link on a transport line or anything like that. It’s not that easy to negotiate the channel, for one thing. Lots of shoals where it meets the ocean.”
    Kit bit the inside of her cheek. “I haven’t been out there.”
    â€œYou’ve never seen Assateague from the water?”
    â€œI’ve been over to Tom’s Cove, but not out on the ocean.”
    â€œThen let’s go!” He stood up.
    â€œNow?”
    â€œIt’ll take an hour and a half,” he said.
    Kit checked her watch. Just 5 p.m. Dinner could wait.

    Rick pulled the Coast Guard boat out of the slip and into the Chincoteague Channel. The afternoon wind was dying down and the outgoing tide left the channel glassy and smooth. Kit looked across the broad reaches of water and marshland stretching toward the mainland. She saw egrets plucking minnows out of the shallows and a brown pelican do a dramatic dive after a fish. A couple of fishing boats dotted the horizon. On one of them, a woman held a bright pink umbrella as a shade from the sun. Kit inhaled deeply, savoring the comforting fragrance of the salt air and the marshes.
    â€œThe water looks so calm, but it’s deceptive,” Rick shouted over the roar of the Boston Whaler’s engine. “Underneath, the currents are treacherous.” He waved to a charter fishing boat coming back into port.
    â€œYou like being stationed here?” Kit asked.
    He nodded. “It’s all right.”
    They slid past a large marina and reached the southern end of the island, where Kit used to fish for flounder and sea bass. Rick pointed to the channel markers guiding them in an S-curve through the broad expanse between Chincoteague and Assateague. “These shoals are where people get in trouble.”
    â€œYou can’t just go straight?”
    â€œNope. You’ve got to stay in the channel or you’ll run aground.”
    They zigzagged through the shallow areas. As they rounded the southern tip of Assateague, the onshore breeze picked up. Kit saw the Atlantic Ocean stretched out before them, an endless sheet of wave-tipped blue-green sea. The Coast Guard boat took