Page 76 of Building Courage

Collin took a moment to regain control. “If you could be here for breakfast on Thursday around nine, we’d appreciate it. We’d like to see you. We’re staying at the Del.”

“I’ll be there, sir.” He ended the call and moved to stare out the sliding glass door while he waited for the ache in the pit of his stomach to ease.

Brynn’s arms came around him from behind, and she laid her cheek against his back. They stood like that for a few minutes. She didn’t say anything, just held him. He’d inspired lust in quite a few women, affection, anger, irritation, and impatience, but he couldn’t remember a time when anyone other than his grandmother had offered him comfort.

He turned to slip an arm around her and hold her. “I’m going to go do some yard work while you work.”

“Okay.”

*

While she worked, the sound of the lawn mower running was a low-level buzz. She did some update work to a website and filmed a podcast, sharing some of the pictures she’d taken and talking about her second ocean dive experience.

She wouldn’t talk to Tucker about the possibility of having a picture of the cabin cruiser. It seemed unimportant compared to what he was going through. He’d been so close to losing his composure while talking on the phone. She hadn’t asked who he was talking to, but she hadn’t needed him to tell her. It had to be Jordan Toliver’s father.

Tucker was hurting, and he didn’t need to worry about anything but getting through the funeral on Thursday.

She went through the files she stored in the cloud and found the photos she’d taken to commemorate their first ocean dive. Then, she went through the marina pictures she’d taken for the brochure and found two shots of the same boat from a closer perspective.

Next, she went through photos she’d taken on board the Aurora, where the cabin cruiser edged into the background, and downloaded them. She remembered she’d taken some the day she’d photographed the sea lions and went through searching by date for those photos as well.

She chose the best image from the day of their dive. She copied it and then cropped it to focus on figures on the vessel’s deck. She started the program. It multiplied the pixels using intelligent image mapping.

She watched the program work.

After a few minutes, she could make out three people standing on the deck, but the image wasn’t clear enough to identify them. One looked to be a woman, and one of the men was standing close, but she couldn’t see how they were positioned.

She tweaked and toyed with the image, increasing the pixels to try to improve clarity. The image improved and became less blurry. She continued to save and tweak several times. The figures on board became clearer. There were two men and a woman, and one man appeared to be restraining the woman. Her dark hair whipped through the air as her body bowed away from him.

Brynn went back to the other image from the day of the dive and went through the same process several times. In this one, the woman was falling, and the man’s body was bent toward her, his arm drawn back as though he meant to strike her or had just done so. He was obviously pushing her down onto the deck.

A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Ahmad thought they were transporting drugs, but this was something else.

She saved both images to a folder on her desktop while she debated what to do. It had been fourteen days since they’d done that dive. She opened her browser and typed in news from that date. She ran through local news stories for that day and two days after.

A breaking story about an unidentified woman’s body found washed up on the beach gave her pause. It was believed that the woman of Mexican descent had fallen off a boat and drowned. But no one had reported an accident. Plus, no one had come forward to identify her after an artist’s rendering had been published in the paper.

She thought about that man’s cocked fist, ready to strike. The woman might have been thrown off the boat on purpose.

Would the police accept this as evidence? And how would they figure out if the woman had come from the cabin cruiser after the body had been in the water for hours or days?

The woman’s face was obscured in both pictures…. It might not be her.

She could send the photos to the police and let them sort it out. But she’d have to print them out first. She’d have to wait until she got back home to do it.

She moved around the kitchen restlessly. She needed to tell Tucker, but not right now. He was outside working on the yard to get his mind off his grief.

She finally fixed a glass of tea and went back to work on other projects, and was almost caught up with everything by the time Tucker came in. His cheeks were flushed from the heat, and his hair was glued to his head with sweat. He moved to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. His throat worked as he drank thirstily. He rolled the bottle over his forehead.

“I’m finished with my work for the day,” Brynn said as she closed the laptop. “Do you need help with anything in the yard?”

“No. It’s done, too.”

“I thought I’d take a shower, and then a nap sounds good.” She pulled loose the ponytail holder, and her hair swung forward over her shoulders.

He raised one eyebrow. “I thought we were going to work on your directional issues.”

“We have plenty of time for that—after a nap.” She unbuttoned her cotton shirt and slipped it free as she turned and walked toward the hallway.

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