Ball & Chain (Page 41)

“I don’t think they found what they were after,” Kelly concluded with another experimental squeeze. It made a wet, squishing sound.

“What is wrong with you?” Ty cried. “Put that down! Jesus Christ!”

Kelly looked from him to the gore in his hand. “What? I’m wearing gloves.”

Ty gagged and had to turn away. “I can’t,” he said pitifully, and made his way to the stairs to follow Nick’s retreat.

“Why don’t you think they found what they were looking for?” Zane asked Kelly as soon as they reached the top of the stairs.

“They cut open his stomach, which is probably where anything he swallowed in the last day would still be. Then they started on his intestines. But I can tell you right now, it wouldn’t have made it that far. I think they stopped because they were interrupted by the cook, not because they found anything.”

Zane curled his lip in disgust.

“Unless we’re dealing with a straight-up psychopath who likes playing with people’s insides,” Kelly added. “I mean, low probability, but it is you and Ty, so anything’s poss—”

Zane held up a hand to get Kelly to stop talking.

Kelly patted his shoulder in sympathy.

After Ty and Nick had both vacated the kitchen, Zane sent Kelly to go find Stanton. Night was falling, they now had two bodies on their hands, and one of those was the wife of the head butler. Deuce had been forced to sedate the man when he’d been told. The staff was a shambles, the members of the wedding party had all locked themselves in their rooms for the night, and the Stanton family was beginning to eye the Gradys like this was all somehow their fault. The Gradys, for the most part, were carrying on like it was business as usual. Two dead bodies at a family get-together hadn’t caused many of them to blink.

One thing he knew with certainty was that this would continue to spiral and more people would get hurt if they didn’t figure out how to get to the mainland somehow. He wasn’t even sure that getting to the bottom of it and finding out the whys and hows would help at this point.

Until they could get help from the mainland, though, they would have to handle this on their own. Zane asked Marley to video the scene, and the blond Snake Eater Ty had gotten friendly with, Frost, was taking photos. Every inch of the kitchen from top to bottom was being recorded as John English supervised. He had a solid alibi—he’d been watching Amelia and the other kids swim—and he was the only man on the island who could have lifted Milton’s body onto that hook alone. Zane wasn’t sure he necessarily liked the big Snake Eater, but he was an effective leader and his team all seemed to respect him. That said a lot about a person.

English was now treating Zane like his counterpart: the leader of the Grady/Sidewinder band. Zane wasn’t sure how that had happened, but he supposed with Nick and Ty both upstairs throwing up, and Kelly more interested in blood-spatter patterns than motive, Zane was the only one left.

He was fairly certain they’d lost Nick as the lead on the investigation, and he would probably have to take it over now. He’d have to sit down with Nick and find out what he’d learned, but it wasn’t his first priority right now. None of this was his first priority.

“Nick going to be okay?” he asked Kelly.

Kelly shrugged. “That was a new one for me. He’s never reacted like that to blood, not in front of me. Means whatever that was happened while they were gone this time. I don’t know. I’m beginning to understand why he refused to go back to work, though, and it wasn’t because he has a f**king tremor in his hand.”

“Ty’s been doing the same thing. Not to that extent, but . . . what happened to them over there?” Zane asked, voice hushed and edging toward desperate.

Kelly stopped walking and peered through the glass doors of the back patio, where Ty and Nick were both sitting on a bench in the garden. Nick had his head down, holding it in both hands. Ty sat with his hand on Nick’s back, rocking to and fro.

“I have no idea,” Kelly answered. He stared at them for a few moments longer. Then he squared his shoulders, and his lips moved like he was giving himself a silent pep talk. Then he nodded and marched toward the patio doors.

Zane took a deep breath to bolster himself, then followed. They made their way to the bench in the garden where Ty and Nick were sitting. Zane wasn’t sure how to handle this, because he knew Ty always seemed embarrassed after he panicked. He covered it with jokes, making fun of himself and hoping anyone who’d witnessed it would simply pretend it had never happened. Zane had a feeling Nick would handle it a bit differently.

Ty and Nick raised their heads at their approach. Ty looked grim, the lines around his mouth tight and his brow furrowed. Nick, on the other hand, struck Zane as simply being humiliated. He returned his gaze to the ground. Kelly sat on his other side, their shoulders brushing. He waited a beat before gently resting his hand on Nick’s back. Ty removed his hand, letting Kelly take over. When Nick didn’t protest, Kelly slid his arm around him and hugged him.

“You okay?” Kelly asked.

“Caught me off guard, is all,” Nick whispered.

“I want to give you something to knock you out for the rest of the night,” Kelly said to Nick. “You’ve pushed yourself too far with all this.”

“Give him something?” Zane asked. He winced, remembering the one time he’d tried that tactic with Ty. It hadn’t gone well, but then Nick and Kelly had a lot more history and trust behind them than Zane and Ty’d had at that point. And Kelly was asking first instead of just slipping it into Nick’s drink.

Kelly glanced up at him. “Yeah, I have my kit with me. And I bet Deacon has something with him if I don’t. Whatever he used on the butler, if he has enough to put Nick out. I kind of doubt he does.” He looked back to Nick, who was watching him. They sat staring at each other in silence for a few seconds before Nick nodded.

Kelly patted Nick’s knee and stood. “I’m going to go see what I can find.”

The rest of them remained where they were as Kelly jogged off into the house. Zane turned his attention back to Ty and Nick.

“What now?”

Nick sat back, taking a deep breath. “Everyone has a shaky alibi. The couple you two saw on the beach are the only anomaly, and I can’t figure out who the f**k they could be.”

“No one fits?”

“A lot of people fit. That’s the problem. Then there’s the broken watch, which is wrong every way we look at it. Whoever came back and cut him open, they took that watch, so it’s got to be important for some reason.”