Page 79 of The Awful Truth

Oliver finally managed to go to his cabin to change out of his blood-stained clothes. He’d wrenched his back pulling his boss up out of the water. His muscles were aching and he longed to go soak in the hot tub for a couple of hours, but that was not going to happen, so he would have to settle for a quick shower instead.

The yacht was en route to Mali Losinj, the closest town with a police presence, along with both a police and coast guard escort. The police boat had picked Ted up. He had been hiding just inside one of the caves and had probably been handcuffed by now, once they heard Charlotte’s account of what had happened.

Oliver stood under the spray of the shower, shocked. Travis Bishop was dead. He had no idea what that meant for him, but he assumed it wouldn’t be long before Mercy would sell the yacht. Not that it mattered. Not when a family had been torn apart. Now that he thought about it, it was actually two families. At least Charlotte wasn’t going to go back to the bastard.

A few minutes later, he was dressed in a fresh uniform. He hung up his towel and hurried off, setting aside his sore back along with his own feelings and worries about the future. He was a professional. Here on duty. He was going to continue serving and caring for the guests until the job was done. He hurried to the bridge to check in with Captain Ben, who was sipping a tea at the wheel.

“You all right, young Oliver?”

“Fine. I’d like to stay busy. What can I do right now?”

“Go see if anyone is hungry or thirsty.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” he said, turning to leave. Stopping himself, he said, “Hey, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that today is the one exception.”

Ben narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“Today’s bad day at sea is considerably worse than a good day on land.”

The captain shrugged. “Is it really?”

THE DAY AFTER THE INCIDENT

“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.” ~ Mae West

5:23 P.M. — THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

PETRA

Petra waited until the last person had left the office, including the sergeant, who had stared at her for a long, uncomfortable moment before he walked out, presumably to go home to his wife and two troublesome teenage sons. Her heart pounded as she made her way into The Director’s office and sat at his desk. She opened the top drawer where he kept a little sheet of paper with all his passwords on it. He once told her he didn’t believe that whole thing about not writing down passwords. Who was going to come into the most secure building in the entire country and rifle through his desk for a little piece of paper?

As it turns out, his assistant would. She took a photo of the sheet using the phone Luka had given her, then shut the drawer and hurried back to her desk. A few minutes later, she was using his login information to access the databank of case files. And there it was, everything Luka would need, including the name of the deceased, the other passengers, and a report of the details as given by the yacht’s captain and all the witnesses.

She started skimming them, only to stop when she got to the interview of a woman named Dr. Antonia Dawson, who told the detective her husband had been trying to kill her. Petra gasped and picked up the phone to call Luka, only to put it back down again. She couldn’t do that here. What if someone walked in?

She grabbed a USB stick out of her desk drawer and started to upload everything onto it while she read through the rest of the interview.

Husband of intended victim having affair with assistant, Charlotte Evans (also a witness interviewed earlier).

She opened the next interview document. It was the chief steward on the yacht, who claimed the victim and the shooter were out to hunt a monk seal. Petra made a loud tsking sound and muttered, “Monsters.”

There was a video file as well. She opened it and watched. It was taken underwater, and Petra almost shut it off because it was just of a turtle, but then it panned over to a man with a spear gun. She sat, frozen on her chair as the scene played out. When it was over, she was breathless. She had just watched someone get killed. It was too much to take in, and Petra was momentarily at war with herself. On the one hand, this proved the story was much bigger than even Luka could have hoped for. On the other hand, a real human being had lost his life. Someone walked past the office, and she decided she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Her adrenaline was so high, she could only catch tiny, quick breaths, and she felt a little light-headed. As soon as the upload finished, she logged off and shut down her computer. Gathering her things, she hurried out of the building, ignoring a call from her mother who would be wondering where she was.

Petra’s sister, brother-in-law, and their children were coming over for supper and Petra had promised to pick up a loaf of pogacha bread at the ‘good bakery’ near her office on her way home. Her niece and nephew always gobbled it up, and her mother, who was locked in a constant competition with their other grandmother over who the children loved the most, insisted on having it on hand whenever they came over. Although in Petra’s mind, the children should love her for the bread appearing on the table every week when they came over, not their baka for ordering her to bring it home.

She waited until she was in line at the bakery to text her mother back. I’m just picking up the bread now. I had to work late on a huge case. All very hush hush.

There, Mother. I’m important too.

6:36 P.M.

PETRA

“Finally!” Petra’s mother, Hermina, said as soon as she walked into the kitchen. Hermina had her almost-black hair up in a bun that was falling out. The color was too dark for her skin now that she was nearing seventy, but she balked at the idea of going lighter to blend the grays. “What grays?” she would ask. “I don’t see any grays, do you, Henrik?” Her husband would dutifully answer in the negative so they could all go on pretending she was somehow, magically, the same age as her daughters.

Hermina was wearing an apron that was splattered with grease spots from the hundreds of meals she’d cooked in it. Under the apron, she wore one of her many house dresses—tonight’s was an autumn print with yellow, orange, and red leaves that appeared to be drifting down from the sky onto the cotton-polyester fabric. She hurried over to her daughter and took the loaf from her hands. “We’re going to eat. Go get washed up.”