Ball & Chain (Cut & Run 8)

“Do you have the pictures you took?” Zane asked.

Nick nodded and pulled his iPad out of a pocket inside his jacket. He handed it over.

Zane looked at the iPad with a frown, brushing his fingers along the edge of it. Nick had been carrying it with him since this morning, but the screen was spotless. Maybe Nick cleaned obsessively like Ty did when he was bothered by something. Zane glanced at the two of them again, sitting side by side like two little boys who’d been sent out of class for misbehaving. Nick’s head was down, his shoulders slumped. Ty was staring off into the horizon, watching the last rays of the sun disappear.

“I think we should call it a night. Let you two recover,” Zane said.

Ty nodded in agreement. He absently raised his hand to Nick’s back again. Zane didn’t know if Ty did it to comfort Nick or himself.

“These islands have a reputation for being hit with rogue waves,” Nick said without raising his head.

Ty and Zane locked eyes, both of them frowning in confusion. They both looked back to Nick, waiting for him to connect rogue waves to anything that had happened today. Nick raised his head, glancing at them both. Then his eyes fixed on the cliff not far off.

“Ships would dock at these remote islands where nothing but lighthouses stood and find them completely deserted. Food still on the plates. Fires nothing but embers. Clocks not wound for weeks. Everyone on the island vanished. They called them the Ghost Isles, no one would go near them because they were cursed.”

Ty began to run his hand over Nick’s back in slow circles. “Nick,” he whispered.

“The theory of anyone who didn’t believe in curses was rogue waves. Ninety, sometimes a hundred-feet high or more, just sweeping in out of the blue and taking everything on the island with it.”

“Nick,” Ty said a little more forcefully. “You’re not going to die in Scotland.”

Nick turned to meet his eyes, and they sat there simply staring at each other for several moments. Zane shifted his weight, realizing he was a little unnerved by the monotone of Nick’s voice. He was seriously beginning to wonder just how messed up Nick’s mind was, but then Nick leaned closer to Ty, narrowing his eyes.

“How many places do you think we swept through, leaving people to wonder where the rogue wave came from?”

Ty blinked rapidly, obviously taken aback by the direction Nick had gone. “What?”

Nick glanced at Zane, then stared out at the cliffs again. “Nobody’s safe on this island as long we’re out of touch with the mainland. Everyone’s going to die in Scotland if we don’t stop this.”

Ty couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from Nick, but Zane turned and glanced into the house. “Where the hell is Kelly with those f**king sedatives?” he said under his breath. Nick was starting to make even him nervous; he didn’t need Ty losing his shit, too.

“Irish, you have to look at this as just another case, okay? Just another murder. That’s all it is,” Ty was saying, keeping his voice low as he leaned closer to Nick. “You have to take the island and the boats and the phones out of the equation.”

“Why?” Nick asked pointedly.

Ty opened his mouth to respond, but then snapped it shut again.

“Why would you discount all that? Why, when it makes for the perfect backdrop to wipe out a company with defense contracts? To take out a team of mercenaries? Target a family whose wealth fuels Philadelphia? Why would you think that storm destroyed those boats when it could just as easily have been a person?”

Ty was left with a frown of consternation, and Zane was left even more unsettled than he’d been.

Nick was still shaking his head when Kelly returned, a canvas bag with a red cross sewn onto it slung over his shoulder. Nick stood and waved him off. “We don’t need that,” he mumbled. “I’ve got stronger shit in my suitcase.”

He walked off toward the house, shoulders hunched and head down. Kelly gave Ty and Zane a mystified glance before turning on his heel to follow.

“He’s insane,” Zane finally said to Ty once they were alone, horrified by the realization. He’d always been under the impression that Nick was the sane one, the only sane one, the one who kept the others all in line, the one who kept Ty from going for rides on the loco coaster. Now it looked like Nick was driving the damn thing.

Ty nodded. “He always has been. He controls it well. It’s part of his charm. The hell of it is, he’s right, too.”

“Right about what? Rogue waves and dying in Scotland? I mean, I’m no goddamn psychiatrist, but even I can see he’s under way too much stress. He’s rambling, Ty. He’s cracking.”

“So what if he is?” Ty said heatedly, standing to face Zane. “He deserves to after what happened! How many times have you seen me crack and you still listened to what I was saying, even if it sounded like I was losing my mind?”

Zane sighed and squeezed Ty’s arm to calm him. “You’re right.”

Ty stared at him like he’d been expecting him to argue.

Zane pulled him closer, tightening his grip on Ty’s arm. “What the hell happened to you guys?” he whispered. “Whatever it was, it’s driving you both over the edge.”

Ty blinked and licked his lips, trying to speak and failing. He finally swallowed and managed to say, “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“You need to tell someone,” Zane said gently. “You both do. Before it eats you up inside.”

The haunted look in Ty’s eyes returned briefly before he turned away. “Can we just deal with one thing at a time here?”

Zane nodded. He knew when to stop pushing Ty, and he’d reached his limit. “There’s not much else we can do tonight. Let’s go to bed.”

Ty shook his head, glancing up at the house. “Nick was right. We didn’t even look at the boathouse. I want to go down to the dock.”

“Now? Ty, it’s dark, what do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know,” Ty said with a frustrated shrug. “But it’s time we start looking at this as the perfect location to massacre a group of people instead of a few freak accidents.”

Zane had been looking at it that way all along, but he realized he’d also been looking at it as strictly Not His Problem. This wasn’t their jurisdiction. The victims were strangers to them. And since no one Zane cared about had been accused of the murders, he’d simply been shrugging his way through, waiting until help came from the mainland. Ty had, too, to an extent, until Nick’s words had sparked something.