Ball & Chain (Cut & Run 8)

Nick nodded and took the shirt. He leaned forward and slipped it on, realizing that he’d been freezing and hadn’t even noticed. His fingers were shaking when he tried to button it up.

Kelly covered them with his own, lowering Nick’s hands into his lap. “It’s okay,” he whispered. Then he took both sides of the shirt and pulled Nick toward him. He buttoned the shirt in silence, only meeting Nick’s eyes when he was done. “We have another night on this island. And there are still a lot of lives in danger. You did what you had to do.”

Nick stared at him. “We’ll keep telling ourselves that, huh?”

Kelly nodded. Then he took Nick’s hand and helped him off the ground. “Get out of those pants.”

Nick managed to huff a laugh.

“Because they’re wet! Pervert.”

Nick shed the remainder of his wet clothing and changed into the dry garments Kelly had brought him. He hated to admit it, but it felt better just being dry and warm. Kelly took the cuff of Nick’s soaked jeans and wiped at his hands for him, holding the flashlight between his cheek and shoulder so he could see the dirt and blood.

Nick remained quiet, even when Kelly held his hand and watched his fingers trembling for a few seconds. There was nothing further to say about any of it.

“Come on,” Kelly murmured. “Zane had an idea about the computer files. He said he wanted your help.”

When they reached the study, they found a fire blazing and giving off enough light to see the darker corners of the room. Zane was seated behind Milton’s laptop. He and Ty were having a heated discussion, one that cut off sharply when Nick and Kelly entered the room.

“You found something?” Kelly asked.

“Fraser’s still talking,” Zane told them. “He said he met with a man in a pub on the mainland a month ago who offered him a million US dollars to do this. He was to recruit Maisie as well. Neither could turn down that kind of money for something they thought would end with a ransom job and everyone returned safely.”

Nick sat in a chair by the fire, beginning to shiver. Kelly hovered near him, the fire casting odd shadows over the lines of his frown.

Ty was watching both of them, his expression unreadable. “He said he didn’t know who killed Milton, just that it wasn’t either of them. They had nothing to do with buying his information; their sole purpose was to get to either Stanton or Amelia.”

“That’s where Nikki comes in?” Nick guessed. “Milton was her mark?”

“We can only assume.”

“What about Kline?” Kelly asked.

Nick glanced up at him. “Who?”

“The hot, kickass lady you shot in the face,” Kelly provided.

“The back of the head, really,” Zane added.

“Yes, thank you!” Nick snapped.

“She was a backup to make sure the others got the job done,” Ty said. “I guess. I don’t know. She thought she was the last man standing and panicked.”

“Burns does like his backups,” Nick said.

Ty narrowed his eyes.

“But!” Zane said loudly. “Fraser said that the morning Milton’s body was discovered, he did stumble over Maisie and the body. But Maisie told him she’d been slipped a handwritten note under her door in the middle of the night. It told her to go find the body, break the watch, and change the time. If that failed, she was to take it and dispose of it.”

Nick scowled hard enough that the bruises on his face hurt. “Why?”

“Presumably to destroy what they thought was stored info about his past movements. Jockie didn’t know, and he didn’t ask. But he said that before Maisie could change the time, they were interrupted by other staff.”

“Wow,” Kelly whispered. “That means if Nikki was in the walls and Maisie was the one who wanted the watch, they were probably the ones who cut Milton open. Dude, talk about nightmare nannies.”

“Focus. You have no proof of any of that,” Nick said.

“Oh, excuse me Mr. I’m Not a Cop Anymore.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “So if Maisie just broke the watch but didn’t change the time, why is it wrong? Did Milton do it?”

“We can only assume the time on Milton’s watch is something he wanted us to know,” Zane said. “The question is what does it mean?”

“It’s the file number,” Nick realized.

Zane grinned and nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Milton left it as a hint in case he didn’t make it. He knew that watch was special, something connected to Burns and even Ty. He knew they’d know that type of watch wouldn’t show the wrong time unless it was set wrong. The only reason it didn’t ping was because Maisie broke it.”

“Speaking of Burns, where the f**k is he?” Kelly asked.

“Dad has the villagers out with their pitchforks looking for him,” Ty said.

“It wasn’t the killers who left that note for Maisie, or they’d have just done it themselves. That was the big kahuna. Burns would sure as shit know to tell Maisie to get rid of that watch, though.”

“Burns isn’t masterminding these murders, Irish,” Ty snapped.

“Our job is to get into that file,” Zane said with a pointed look at Ty. He turned his attention to Nick. “I think the file number he used for this information was also the code to his part of the DOD info. What was the time?”

“3:48,” Nick answered.

“They’re six-digit file names.”

Nick’s eyes widened. “You want me to remember the seconds?”

“Do you have your iPad with the pictures?”

“I . . . I don’t know what happened to it.”

“Then yeah, I want you to remember the seconds,” Zane said.

Nick glanced at Kelly, incredulous. Kelly shrugged and tapped his temple. “You were obsessing about it. You know what time it said.”

Nick snapped his mouth closed and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. “It looked like a smiley face,” he finally said. He stood and took a clock off the mantle. “Ten, maybe. Give or take five seconds.”

“That, I can work with.” Zane turned back to the computer, stretching his shoulders before beginning to type. He was at it for almost ten minutes, long enough for Ty to get twitchy and start pacing, for Kelly to lay himself out on the couch, and for Nick’s mind to travel back to the sound of a billiard ball cracking ribs and a man begging for mercy.