“My dad’s an asshole, but I guess having him around is better than nothing,” Devon said.

Brady filled his mouth with more smoke and held it a second before attempting a smoke ring.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, dude,” he said.

A beat later, the boys turned in the direction of the sound of a car’s ignition turning over.

“Finally!” Brady said. “She’s leaving. Let’s go inside.”

Devon flipped the latch on the door to the garden shed, sending a layer of smoky air outside. He looked over at Brady-alarm had suddenly filled his eyes.

“Jesus, someone is going to see the smoke.”

Brady ignored his friend; his eyes stayed fixed on Little Clam Bay.

“You sick or something?” When he didn’t answer right away, Devon followed his best friend’s sight line to the water. “What is it?”

Brady didn’t say so, but he wished right then that he hadn’t skipped school that day. He pointed at the water.

Devon ’s eyes widened. “Jesus, is that what I think it is?”

The boys walked closer, stepping on the frosty planks of the dock, their white and red Skechers slipping a little under their feet. Devon let his cigar fall into the water, making a sizzling sound as its hot cherry tip went black.

“We better call 911,” Brady said.

Devon tugged at his buddy’s hooded sweatshirt. “We’re going to be in big trouble, you know.”

“No shit.”

“Maybe we should just pretend we didn’t see it and just go inside and watch TV or something.”

Brady shook his head. “But we did. And we have to tell.”

His buddy was correct. In a morning of doing all the wrong things, they had to do what was right.

Chapter Twenty

September 18, 9:02 a.m.

Port Orchard

Kendall Stark has just eased into her preferred parking slot-close to the overhang that kept renegade smokers from the Sheriff’s Office and jail dry during the long drippy Northwest autumns and winters, when she saw Josh Anderson grind out a cigarette and approach. He had his cell phone stuck to his ear. The morning had been a difficult one, following one of Cody’s restless nights. After a week in his new school, there were doubts that he was adjusting, and she and Steven argued over it. Cody, who usually did not betray emotion, was always aware when his parents were at odds. Words or tears were not the barometer of trouble in the Stark family. A night without sleep was.

Cody, what do we do? How do we help you? she’d asked over and over inside her head as she sat in his room, by his bedside.

She rolled down her window.

“Some kids found a dead body in Little Clam Bay,” Josh said. “Female, they think. Didn’t want to get too close. Body’s still out in the water. Coroner’s en route.”

“Nice way to start the day, Josh,” she said, realizing that any hope for a better morning had been jettisoned.

“For the kids or us?”

“I was thinking of the woman,” she said.

“Well, the kid who called CENCOM was crying. Worried not only about the body but about the fact that he’d skipped school today.”

“Nice,” she said. “That’ll teach him a lesson.”

“Take your car?” he asked. “Mine’s in the shop again. BMWs are so damn touchy.”

“Get in,” she said. Josh never missed an opportunity to remind someone-anyone-that he drove an expensive car. Expensive, but always in the shop or the detail center. Josh Anderson practically needed a bus pass to get to work.

Kendall unlocked the passenger door and scooted aside some papers from Cody’s school, and Josh slid inside. He immediately cracked the window to let the air come in and suck away the condensation. Kendall always seemed to keep the inside too warm for his liking.

“Hey,” he said. “Did I say good morning?”

Kendall glanced at him as she backed out and turned onto Sidney Avenue. Rain pecked at the windshield, and she turned the wipers to the intermittent setting. “If we’ve got a dead woman, I’d say the morning’s not so good,” she said.

“You’re right.” His tone was utterly unconvincing.

Kendall Stark wasn’t one of the detectives who got an adrenaline rush from the news of death. She’d tracked killers before. Catching them was the rush. Never the pursuit. And never the start of a case. The beginning of a case only seemed to remind her how fragile life was and how, in an instant of someone’s choosing, it could all be taken away. She felt awash with sadness. Not Josh, though. He was nearly giddy. Kendall had seen that look on his face before. It was as if real life kicked in and stirred him only when it came with a measure of tragedy.

“Jesus, Josh, you don’t have to be so happy about this.”

He looked at her but avoided her eyes.

“Not happy. Just ready to get a little action going. We could use some around here. A homicide gets my juices flowing. Been boring around here all summer.”

If she hadn’t been driving, Kendall would have slapped him just then. “You don’t even know if it’s a homicide.”

“It is.”

“How can you be so sure without even seeing the body?”

“Because we’ve had no reports of anyone falling off a boat or off a dock. The only floaters we ever have in Puget Sound are drunk swimmers or kids who were left unattended. We know about those. This isn’t the season for that. If the floater fell off a boat, someone would have called it in. She’s a murder vic. Betcha a beer.”

Kendall didn’t bet.

“We’ll see,” she said.

In a very real way, the boys, the sheriff’s detectives, and the dead body were bound forever. The five of them would always be connected by what had transpired that morning. Forever. In the summers when he would finally have a girlfriend, Devon would lie out on the dock and think of the dead body. Whenever Brady came over, they’d probably relive the morning they found it. Kendall would never drive by Little Clam Bay without recalling what had been discovered there.

Even Josh Anderson would point it out to those he sought to impress-a lover or even a young officer.

A van with a deputy from the Kitsap County Coroner’s Office pulled in behind them and started to unload with the kind of speed that might have indicated a rescue rather than a recovery effort.

“You’re the police, right?” Devon asked Kendall and Josh after they’d parked in the driveway. “The 911 operator said for us to stay put until you got here. Are we in trouble?”

Brady spoke before either detective could answer.

“We’re supposed to be in school,” he stammered, although it was unclear whether it was due to the chill in the air or the dire circumstances of their meeting.

“We leave that to your folks,” Josh said as he watched a diver emerge from the black waters of the glassy bay. “You boys sit tight for a second, all right?”

“Where?” Devon said.

“Just stay here.”

“Yes, sir. Will do,” Brady said. The boys took a seat on a metal garden bench.

Kendall retrieved a pair of rubber boots from the back of her SUV and bent down to fasten them.

“Shoes are going to get ruined,” she said, drawing her gaze down the wet lawn and glancing back at Anderson ’s black leather lace-ups.

He shrugged. “No kidding. I might have to expense them. They’re almost new too.”

Kendall doubted that. Josh was many things, but despite his oversized ego and reputation as God’s gift to women, he was no trendsetter. He’d worn the same pair of shoes for the past two years. However, he never missed a chance to fatten his wallet at the county’s expense.

A shiny red Volvo lurched into the driveway, and Belinda Taylor scurried from the car to the water’s edge.

“What’s happening here?” she called out. She was a tall woman clad in a Burberry raincoat and leather boots that sank into the damp lawn like a gardener’s aerating tool.

Step. Squish. Pull. Step. Squish. Pull.