With Deadly Intent Read Online Free

footprints to cast.
     As she worked, she tried not to dwell on Oren's reasons for coming to the inlet. Yet,
     all the while, she knew the direction the prints headed and what lay around a rocky
     projection blocking her view. The dingy had to be at the usual tie-up—it just had to be.
     But it wasn't.
    The small, wooden craft she had dubbed Rosinante, after Don Quixote's horse, had been
     tied up at that particular spot for a number of years—a fact Oren knew well.
    She slumped down on a piece of driftwood, kneaded a stiff muscle in her back and began to
     theorize. If a person had intended to use the ketch and couldn't because of the storm,
     would he be foolish enough to brave the sea in a rowboat? She shivered—a desperate man
     would.
    With her satchel in hand, she ascended wooden steps leading up the embankment and headed
     north along sandstone cliffs fringed with Scotch broom and gnarled pine. She knew the
     ocean currents surrounding the island, and where a body would likely wash ashore. Each
     time she peered over the edge, she dreaded what she might see below.
    The area to the north proved unrewarding. Wisps of fog tagging her weary feet, she
     retraced her steps and started south. The roar of surf grew quieter at Orca Narrows.
     Here, the sea swept into a broad channel created by a series of colossal sea stacks
     called Satan's Boot. When the tide poured through, the water became a mass of eddies and
     choppy, froth-tipped waves.
    Along the rim of the bluff, she stooped to examine broken Rose Bay twigs and crushed
     patches of bush lupine. In some sandy areas, fleshy-leafed succulents had been mashed to
     a pulpy greenish-gray mass. She studied them thoughtfully for a moment, then chose a
     more circuitous route.
    Brush-clad hillocks made traveling difficult and the weight of the satchel made her
     shoulder feel as if her arm might pull from the socket.
    She checked her watch and groaned. In another hour, daylight would be gone, and only a
     fool ventured along the cliffs at night. Damn! This whole day had been one frustration
     after another—this senseless search included. The dinghy might not have any connection
     with Elise's disappearance. Besides, it had probably come loose all on its own and been
     swept out to sea. She braced herself on a jagged boulder and took a half-hearted look
     over the edge.
    The boat! She dashed along the verge until she found a slope. Slipping, sliding,
     snatching shrubbery to slow her descent, she made her way to the bottom and scrambled
     atop a pile of driftwood. At her noisy approach, a pair of tattlers gave a flute-like
     call and skittered away on yellow, matchstick legs.
    Forty feet away, waves lashed the shingle, grinding black rock against black rock in a
     gigantic tumbler. Down the beach a couple dozen yards, good old Rosinante perched high
     and dry.
    Her pulse beating loudly in her ears, she unslung her camera and took several distance
     shots. Nothing must be overlooked. By tomorrow the sand could be swept clean.
    Choosing a half-buried cedar log that extended past the rowboat's resting place, she
     walked along its broad top. Dry mouthed, she jerked her head from side to side, peering
     into all the places where a body might—She grimaced and booted a chunk of wood out of
     her way. Murder took on a whole new meaning when it got close to home.
    She studied odd striations between the log where she stood and the dinghy. Frowning, she
     knelt and snapped a number of views, then scooped sand samples into labeled vials. In
     the shelter of a rock, she discovered a saucer-sized patch of fine lines undisturbed by
     the wind. She poured a cast and inched closer to her main objective.
    By some fortunate happenstance, when the sea had disgorged Rosinante she'd snagged her
     bow on a hunk of tree root. Bottom side up, she tilted at a precarious forty-five degree
     angle, but aside from an ugly two-foot gouge in the hull, she appeared sea worthy. Amy
     set