No more gunshots. He looked toward the castle, but couldn’t see what was happening behind the terrace walls.
Keeping Sam locked in a cross-chest hold, Jason tried to see if he was breathing. Sam’s eyes were closed. His lashes looked dark against the pallor of his face. The water had washed the blood away, but scarlet continued to well from the crease across Sam’s scalp. A crease, not a hole. The wound didn’t look that deep, in the opinion of someone who’d been shot three times, but head wounds were tricky.
A wave sloshed over them, and Jason kicked to keep them both afloat. The sound of a boat’s motor was like the answer to a prayer.
Jason turned, still treading water, and spotted Daisy on slow approach. He waved to her—he didn’t have the breath left to yell--and she waved vigorously back.
The boat put-putted toward them. “I thought I better hang around,” Daisy called, after killing the boat’s engine. “I saw you go off that terrace.”
“Thank God you did.”
“Yeah, it’s my lot in life to rescue handsome men from this island.” She was grinning as she threw Jason an orange ring buoy.
Together they managed to haul Sam’s sodden body onto the boat.
“Is he breathing?” Daisy asked, as Jason rolled Sam onto his side, and bent over him.
Jason listened tensely, but he didn’t need to. Sam’s chest was rising and falling in perfect relaxed rhythm, like he fell into rivers every day.
He sat back on his heels, wiping his face. It wasn’t all river water, though he was about as cold and wet as he could ever remember being in his life.
“Oops,” Daisy said. “Look at that. That lucky bastard’s still alive.”
Jason looked down, and Sam’s eyes were open. So blue. Bluer than the St. Lawrence. Bluer than the sky. Bluer than once-in-a-blue-moon. He frowned at Jason and then a funny smile crossed his face.
“Don’t I know you?” Sam whispered.
Jason bent down, and Daisy murmured, “Oh my. You will by the end of that kiss.”
* * * * *
“Hey,” George was saying, “I’m his supervisor, and I still don’t know what the hell was going on out there.”
Everyone within earshot at the table laughed. That was more about the quantity and quality of the alcohol being served. One thing about Sophie and Charlie. They knew how to throw a birthday party.
George raised his glass in a semi-toast to Jason. Five days earlier he had not been so amused.
You told me you were interviewing a witness in your forgery case. You never said a damned thing about a witness to a homicide cold case!
True, the cases had turned out to be one in the same, and saving the life of a BAU Chief did go some way to mitigating Jason’s transgressions. He would play hell getting permission to travel anytime soon, though.
Russell, who had been the one to finally nail Greenleaf, had come out of the incident on Camden Island with a commendation, which Jason found funny. Less funny was the news he and Russell were to be permanently partnered.
Anyway. Though Jason’s case had flatlined, the BAU had their man. When Eric Greenleaf had learned Shepherd Durrand was on the run, he had started talking, and as far as Jason understood, had not shut up yet.
Greenleaf admitted to killing Earnst, Lapham, and Kerk, but claimed it was under duress from Shepherd, who had feared their multi-million-dollar forgery scheme was about to come crashing down on them. He adamantly denied killing Havemeyer, whose body had been discovered in the Native American burial ground on Camden Island. That, he insisted, was all Shepherd’s doing. Yes, he had been working as a chauffeur for his cousin at the time, but had not been present when Havemeyer—a willing victim, by his account—had met his accidental death at the hands of Shepherd during some rough sex play.
Greenleaf had admitted to killing Shipka, but claimed it had happened during a mental blackout. He had no recollection of the crime itself. He stated that after learning Shipka was back on the island and re-interviewing neighbors, he had snapped. He had gone to see Shipka in a panic, just to talk. After realizing Shipka was dead, he had taken his laptop and thrown it in the river.
“It’s all bullshit,” Sam had told Jason. “This guy is nobody’s puppet. Besides, who goes for a chat while carrying an ax? The Havemeyer kid died from a bullet to the back of his skull. Greenleaf killed them all, and he enjoyed killing them. But this is where we start. We work from here, negotiating for each piece of the truth.”
Greenleaf admitted to painting the fake Monets—had seemed proud of them—but again insisted the paintings had been Shepherd’s idea, an attempt—as Sam had speculated—to trick law enforcement into believing they were dealing with a deranged serial killer.
“Which we were—and are,” Sam had commented.
Sam had been meticulous about keeping Jason informed on everything they learned from Greenleaf, but very little of it helped Jason’s investigation. Greenleaf insisted he had not painted the forgeries sold by the Durrands, insisted he did not know who had painted them, and—this had been the real death blow to Jason’s investigation—insisted Barnaby had nothing to do with any of it. His animosity was all directed at Shepherd, his partner, sometimes pal, and co-conspirator. The fact that Shepherd had fled the country, hadn’t endeared him either. Greenleaf was eagerly cooperating with the Bureau’s attempts to locate the fugitive.
“Barnaby had to suspect,” Jason protested. “How could he not know what was going on?”