Ball & Chain (Cut & Run 8)

When Earl Grady entered the room, he was carrying a plate and a steaming mug. “The wife said to bring you this,” he said as he placed them at Nick’s elbow. “I saw the dead man at dinner. He kept checking his watch like he had somewhere to be. And he was on his cell phone the whole time. Figured it was a sat phone since everyone seems to have shit for service out here.”

“There isn’t a damn bar of service on this stupid island,” the maid of honor told him. She was a pretty woman with copper-colored hair. Her eyes were drawn to Nick’s notepad. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Nikki Webb. I hate being here, okay? My entire body itches and I can’t get it to stop, and my hair is frizzy as hell because of all the rain, and I can’t even have phone sex with my boyfriend because we’re out in the middle of damn nowhere. I mean I love Livi, but so help me God this marriage better last forever.”

Nick had already met one of the bridesmaids, Catalina Cruz, at the dinner last night. She was a looker, and she had the kind of fire that Nick enjoyed. He’d spent a while talking with her, and if not for Kelly, they probably would have been each other’s alibis last night. “Let me guess, Nikki spent ten minutes complaining about the phone service? I’m rooming with her. She spent at least an hour last night wandering the halls, desperate for a bar of service. She almost fell over the balcony railing holding it up to the sky. No one should get that wrapped up in a guy, you know what I mean?”

The next bridesmaid to sit across from him spelled her name for him. “Miyoko Mason.” She was tall and possibly too thin to be healthy, with an exotic look that spoke of an Asian ancestry. “I talked to him for a while. He could quote Sun Tzu. That’s The Art of War, in case you didn’t know. He was very smooth, like a spy in some novel. He kept saying he had to meet with someone and checking his watch. He didn’t say who.”

The groomsmen weren’t as impressed with Milton. Christian Orr, Deuce’s oldest friend, was tall and lanky, and his handshake was firm. “Yeah, I saw him at the party. He was pulling some sort of spy con on two of the bridesmaids. It was kind of funny to watch. I didn’t see him after he left the party. Thought he got lucky, but . . . guess I was wrong. I switched rooms when Matt hooked up with that brunette bridesmaid. I spent the night with the Asian chick, Miyoko? Read her a f**king poem and she’s yours, man.”

“I mean, how do you pretend you’re some sort of damn secret agent at a wedding for a psychiatrist and a yogi?” Matthew Ferguson asked Nick. He was short and athletic, with dark hair and a playful smile. “I spent most of the party with Ashlee. Have you seen her yet? Ashlee Knight? I mean, Goddamn. I was with her until around four this morning. She woke me up when she left my room.”

Nick had started out making a chart of who had been sleeping where and with whom, but it had begun to look like a spider’s web. He shouldn’t have been surprised by that, but the bedroom machinations of the staff caught him more off guard.

“Well . . . it’s a small island,” Maisie Ross told him. “Jockie and I grew up together, so of course we’ve been together. There are only a handful of year-round staff, and I’m one of them, even if I am just the nanny when the family’s here. I work as a housekeeper as well, and I help Jockie with the gardening. But when Amelia’s on the island, she’s my only job. I was with her that night, asleep. I have to sleep when she does or she runs me ragged.”

Most of the staff and wedding guests were cooperative. Others were so nervous they could barely remember their names when Nick asked, and a select few were irritable or downright combative about being there. The Snake Eaters, especially, were irate when they were questioned.

Nick put the latter guests in a special list, which included all five of the Snake Eaters, to question them again. Just to irritate them.

“My men wouldn’t kill someone by bashing their head in with a rock,” John English insisted. “That’s just insulting.”

“You’re damn right it’s insulting,” Lenny Hardin sneered. He was around Nick’s size, with dark hair and a receding hairline he tried to hide by keeping his head nearly shaved. “If I was going to kill some snot-nosed little bitch like that Milton guy, I sure as damn hell wouldn’t use a rock. Come on. I bet even you Recon bitches know how to snap someone’s neck.”

Solomon Frost was one of the Snake Eaters Nick actually liked. He was lanky and laid-back, with close-cropped blond hair and a hard face that seemed at odds when he smiled. “I was doing my rounds. The beach wasn’t part of our territory; we stuck close to the house. I’m just here to do a job. Are you getting paid for this shit? Because you should be.”

The one female Snake Eater, Avery Kline, was even more irritated at being questioned than the others had been. “Do you know what it’s like being the only woman on a team like this? I have to work twice as hard to prove myself, and I still get the shitty assignments. They kept me inside the house the entire night, said it would make the female guests feel more comfortable. Do you know how much bullshit that is? Half those girls weren’t even in their own beds most of the night anyway!”

Riddle Park, the silent Korean Snake Eater, had nothing to say about the night before. Nick was searching his memory for the few bits and pieces of Korean he had learned to ask if the man spoke English when Park leaned closer to him and peered over the sunglasses he wore. One eye was a milky-white color. “I saw nothing,” he said, and then got up to leave.

Hours into the day, after over thirty questionings, a picture of everyone on the island in his iPad, and an entire notepad full of notes, charts, and scribbles, Nick was ready to bash himself in the head with a pool cue.

He glanced up when the door clicked shut, and he sighed in relief when he saw that his next interview was Kelly.

“Good afternoon, Detective,” Kelly drawled. He pulled up the stool opposite Nick and sat.

“This is f**king exhausting,” Nick said. “Anyone out there look nervous?”

“Everyone out there looks nervous. What the hell are you doing to people in here?”

Nick shrugged helplessly.

“On the plus side, no one else has shown up dead.”

Nick rubbed at his eyes, fighting the throbbing that had started up about an hour ago.

“You okay?” Kelly asked, his voice going softer.

Nick met Kelly’s multicolored eyes, and warmth spread through him, easing the stress. He reached across the bar top and took Kelly’s hand in his, kissing his palm without a word.