Page 11 of The Last Grift
“See you soon, then.”
“Thanks.”
Casey ended the call, his attention still focused on the overflowing dumpster. Who the hell had decided it was okay to cart their trash out to the park instead of disposing of it properly? He had half a mind to pick through the stuff and see if there was anything with a name on it, but it was raining, the wind was doing its thing, and the temperature was hovering in the low forties. And his stomach was complaining about missing lunch.
If he was going to be cold and hungry, he’d rather be cold and hungry and at the beach with Bowie. One last glare and he climbed back into his banged-up service truck and started the engine.
Fort Hood Park—justone of the locations Casey and his coworker Greta Harris were responsible for around Heartstone and the peninsula—had once been part of the defense system for Washington State, back when politicians had real concerns about an invasion by sea. Unlike the other three forts in the region, Fort Hood had been mothballed early on, but the state had kept stewardship of the acreage. A long and wide swath of the peninsula had then been protected from further development, a completely unintended consequence but one Casey was glad for.
This tiny sliver of the Olympic Forest was Casey’s sanctuary.
Some folks thought Casey liked the woods more than people—and they were right. Frankly, he didn’t see anything wrong with that. Humans were generally untrustworthy, and most of them talked too much. This time of year, when Greta traveled to Thailand or Peru, he was happy to spend his days mostly alone or with Bowie.
Casey hung a right onto the access road outside the closed camping area and heading toward the beach and picnic area, a nice flat piece of land that jutted due north into the Salish Sea. All year long, RVers could be found camping at the year-round sites there. In winter, it was often bitterly cold, but it was also beautiful, which was why people came and stayed.
Bowie sat up so he could see over the dashboard, his tail wagging and then stilling as he spotted something in the distance. Casey spotted it too.
“Goddammit, can people not read anymore?” Casey fumed. “And if they can’t, is the big red circle with a line through it somehow misleading? Pretty sure it means the same thing worldwide.”
Bowie did not have an answer for him.
Where the road ended, a silver pickup truck with a loaded trailer was backing up to the boat ramp. The closed boat ramp.
He stopped his Jeep a few feet away. Lunch was going to have to wait a little longer.
“Stay. You’ll get your turn in a minute, I promise.”
Bowie huffed his displeasure and continued to stare out the windshield.
Patting Bowie on the butt, Casey climbed out. The driver of the silver truck watched him warily.
“Ramp’s closed.” Casey indicated the signage he could see from where he stood.
“Um, yeah,” the driver replied.
Casey thought he recognized him, but with the knit cap pulled low and a heavy beard covering most of his face, it was hard to be sure.
“For a reason,” Casey said before the guy could come up with some excuse. “The ramp was damaged by the king tides earlier this month. You might not be able to get the boat back out of the water. I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck out there.” Casey looked out at the dark, choppy water; a water rescue would be cold and difficult. And push his lunch to dinner.
A crunching sound alerted Casey that another person was making their way around from the trailer. A low growl came from inside the Forest Service truck. This was someone Bowie did not like.
“Hey, Richie, I told you to put the fucking boat in the water!”
The driver—Casey now recognized Richie Weiss, who also lived on Heartstone—winced, a wary expression on his face, as Casey stepped around the side of the truck to meet his partner in crime.
For fuck’s sake, Deter Nolan was a sheriff’s deputy; he should know better. But, alas, Deter liked to think he only had to follow the laws that suited him.
“The ramp’s closed, Deter. You know that.” Casey kept the gusting wind at his back. “The sign is right there,” he couldn’t help but add.
Deter Nolan’s hand was clapped on top of his head in an attempt to keep his grubby cap from blowing away down the rocky beach. His already grim expression darkened further as he moved in Casey’s direction. Deter wasn’t huge like Richie or the Perkinses, but he was wiry and strong, and his unpredictable temper made him scary to most of the residents of Heartstone.
Casey wasn’t one of them. He refused to be intimidated by the likes of Deter Nolan.
A wave, larger than the previous ones, rose and smashed against the shore, violently rocking the trailer and the boat that still sat on it.
“Is your boat secure?” Casey asked. The angle it canted at had him suspecting it wasn’t.
Deter’s attention snapped toward the water and the aluminum fishing boat. The bigger waves weren’t finished. Another rolled in and over the lightweight craft, which, as Casey had suspected, was not fixed to the trailer. The vessel lifted up and started to slip further into the water.
