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  “You’ve talked with him more than I have,” Martin said, glancing over at Muñoz. “But he seems to be cooperative. I’d wager he’s just a scared kid who got caught up in a get rich quick scheme and doesn’t know what to do with himself now that it’s crashing down around him.”

  “That was my impression, as well,” Muñoz confirmed when I turned to her. “He’s from Key West originally, I think. Seems pretty ignorant of everything other than petty street deals, but maybe you two can get something out of him that I couldn’t.”

  Martin turned to open the door, but I held out a hand to stop him first.

  “Wait, does the name ‘Daniels’ mean anything to you?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t asked this in front of Rollins and the other officers, but for some reason, I trusted that Martin would have a better read on the situation than they did.

  “No, I don’t think so,” the detective said after considering this for a moment, shaking his head. “I don’t think I know anyone here by that name. Why?”

  “The guy we found in that cave, Dante. He said that he was supposed to meet someone on the south shore of the island named Daniels when he delivered the goods he was carrying,” I explained.

  “You’re burying the lede, Agent Marston,” Martin chuckled, raising his eyebrows at me. “Very interesting. I’ll take a look through our files for you while you’re talking to this guy, but that name doesn’t ring a bell for me. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, nodding to him and lowering my hand, allowing him to open the door for us.

  Behind the door were one long cell against the back wall, a small desk off to the left-hand side of the room where I imagined an officer sometimes sat to keep tabs on the prisoners, and a long desk in the center of the room for interrogation purposes.

  Inside the cell was one young man who looked like he needed a shower. He had blond hair and was wearing a long white t-shirt that looked several sizes too large for him, and looked to be in his mid to late twenties. He was skinny, and his cheeks were hollowed, but it struck me as if this was just his build, not that he was unhealthy in any way.

  He glanced up at us when we walked inside.

  “Come to transfer me to bigger and better places, Detective?” he asked sardonically.

  “Not yet, Derek,” Martin sighed. “These agents would like to talk to you some more.”

  “Haven’t you already talked to me enough?” the kid complained, his gaze landing on Muñoz, who was no doubt familiar to him at this point.

  “Not quite,” she said dryly, casting him a wry smile as Martin walked over to the cell, grabbed a set of keys hanging on the wall, and moved to unlock it.

  “You know the drill, Derek,” he told the guy, and the young man stood with his hands against the wall until the detective could come in and put him in handcuffs, leading him to the interrogation table and tying one of the handcuffs to the table itself.

  “Please, sit down,” the kid said, sneering up at us. “I don’t want to be a bad host.”

  I chuckled and took my seat across from him at the table, with Holm and Muñoz joining me on either side.

  “Derek, is it?” I asked him, and he nodded.

  “Derek Matthews,” he said. I’d half expected him to say ‘Daniels,’ but I supposed I couldn’t be that lucky.

  “Hi Derek, I’m Agent Marston,” I said, nodding to him. “This is my partner, Agent Holm. And I believe you’ve already met Agent Muñoz. We’re all with the Military Border Liaison Investigative Services. MBLIS for short.”

  “Oh yeah, we’ve met,” he said, winking in Muñoz’s direction, and it was to her credit that she didn’t visibly recoil, opting instead to just roll her eyes at him.

  “Right,” I said, narrowing my own eyes at the kid. “So, Derek, how about you tell us how you ended up here?”

  “Don’t you know that already?” he asked in the same whiny tone that he had used before.

  “I’d like to hear it from you,” I said coolly. “So, how about it?”

  “Okay, okay,” he relented, holding up his hands the best he could around the handcuffs. “Look, I was just trying to get a job. It’s hard, you see, ever since I got in some trouble a while back.”

  “Trouble?” Holm repeated. “And what was that all about?”

  “I just took my uncle’s car for a joyride, okay? No harm, no foul,” Derek said, shaking his head vigorously.

  I glanced over at Muñoz.

  “His estranged uncle,” she clarified, just like I’d suspected. “And he didn’t return the car when he was done.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, turning my attention back to Derek. “So you were saying?”

  “So I just wanted a job, is all,” he said. “Then, I met Chris.”

  “Chris?” I repeated, turning back to Muñoz.

  “He neglected to mention this before,” she said dryly as she arched a skeptical eyebrow in Derek’s direction. “What gives?”

  “Well, you see, I did some thinking last night, after you came and told me what happened to that other guy who was in here before,” Derek explained, laughing nervously under his breath.

  “That would be my missing partner,” Muñoz said, deadpan.

  “Right,” he said, giving another, even more manic, laugh. “So I was thinking—there’s no reason for me to get caught up in all that. I didn’t do anything violent, after all. I just sold some stuff to some people.”

  “Illicit drugs,” Holm pointed out. “You sold illicit drugs. To minors.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Derek said, vaguely pointing in Holm’s direction through his handcuffs. “I’m in enough trouble as it is, the way I see it. I’m not getting out of here anytime soon, the way things are going with your friend.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Muñoz snapped. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Derek whined, ducking his head a little to put some more distance between himself and Muñoz. “I’ve been stuck in here the whole time, remember? I couldn’t have done nothing. I just mean—I mean, look at yourselves. You’ve got three agents from your embel-whatsit now, four if you count the other guy, all on this little island. Must be serious.”

  “It is,” I assured him, my eyes boring into his. “So, you’ve decided to be a little more forthcoming now, is that it?”

  “See, this one gets it,” Derek said, making the vague pointing motion in my direction now. “That’s what I’m trying to say, though not quite so fancy.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him and sighed.

  “So who is this Chris person?” I asked.

  “Chris. He’s my boss,” he said quickly. “Guy from back on Key West. A friend of a friend introduced us, and he said I could make some money if I came down here and moved product for him.”

  “Illicit drugs. To minors,” Holm pointed out yet again, determined not to let this little sleazy character forget the seriousness of what he’d done for a single second.

  “Right,” Derek said, laughing nervously again and averting his eyes from Holm’s. “So, you follow my meaning.”

  “Oh, I follow,” I said quietly. “So who is this Chris person? What’s his last name?”

  “Daniels,” he said quickly. “Or at least I think that was it. I only met him a couple of times, and never here on Little Torch.”

  I exchanged a look with Muñoz. There it was. The elusive Daniels that Dante had told us about in his feverish stupor back in the cave.

  “So he’s not staying on the island?” I asked, and Derek shook his head. “Did you know if he had any plans to come to the island, maybe to help out with a new shipment or something like that?”

  “I don’t think so, man,” Derek said, shaking his head and shrugging in a motion that was exaggerated by his oversized shirt. “Not that he would tell me if he was.”

  “What makes you say that?” Holm asked. “Weren’t you his guy here? His head honcho? The big fish in this small pond?
”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Derek said, shaking his head vigorously to the point that he pretty much shook his whole bony body along with it. “No way, man. I’m just supposed to stand in that parking lot and sell product.”

  “Illicit drugs. To minors,” Holm reiterated yet again, and I had to stifle a laugh at the panicked expression on the kid’s face. He really did not like Holm at this point, not that I could blame him.

  “Right, right, I think we all get that,” Derek said quickly, looking away from Holm yet again. “But don’t get it wrong, I was just a small-time dealer. I wasn’t even close to the head honcho around here, as you called it.”

  “So who was?” I asked. “Who did you talk to about how to get set up here?”

  “Chris,” he said, blinking at me as if this was obvious. “He told me where to go and what to do, and he set me up in an Airbnb. Nobody else.”

  “But you said that Chris doesn’t come to Little Torch much,” I reminded him. “So who’s in charge here?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Derek said with a shrug, but he stared down at the table, avoiding my gaze.

  “I think you do,” I said, leaning forward on the table and looking down at him. “And just like you said, you’re in big trouble here, Derek. So it’s time to talk.”

  Derek sat up and looked back at the empty cell, biting his lower lip as if he was trying to decide something.

  “Fine,” he said at long last, turning back to me. “You’re right. But look, I don’t know much.”

  “As long as you tell us everything you know—for real this time—we’ll be the judge of that,” Muñoz assured him.

  This seemed to make him feel a bit better, and he met my eyes again.

  “Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath. “So I know they use these rental properties on the south side of the island. I don’t know a lot about that. I just picked up product there every once in a while.”

  “And who was there?” I pressed. “Who gave you the drugs?”

  “I don’t know, man, they didn’t seem to speak much English,” he said with a shrug, and I exchanged a knowing look with Holm. That was probable cause right there.

  “You didn’t talk to them at all?” Muñoz asked, sounding a little skeptical about this.

  “Look, I don’t like to ask questions,” Derek said. “In my line of work, that’s a bad habit. You’re probably gonna end up dead or in jail that way.”

  “Seems like you ended up here anyway to me,” Holm chuckled, and Derek shot him a scathing look.

  “Obviously,” he sneered before looking away again, his fear of Holm only abated for long enough to make his displeasure known.

  “This rental property on the south shore, what’s the address?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, I put it in my phone,” Derek said with a shrug.

  “And where’s that?” I asked.

  “I confiscated it when we brought him in,” Muñoz answered. “The police should have it, though it’s locked.”

  “We’re going to need that passcode,” I said, peering over at Derek.

  “Fine,” he sighed after a period of some hesitation. “I guess there’s nothing on there I haven’t already told you.”

  “There’d better not be,” Holm said, narrowing his eyes at the kid.

  “How about you go get that phone?” I asked, turning back to Muñoz. “Holm and I will keep chatting with our new friend Derek here.”

  “Now, now, don’t get too hasty,” the kid said quickly, giving yet another nervous laugh.

  “Don’t worry, we won’t tell your old buddies how chummy we are,” Holm chuckled, and that just seemed to scare the guy even more somehow, perhaps at just the mere idea of us talking to the gang members.

  “So, what do you know about these guys staying in this rental property?” I asked him.

  “I just told you, I’m not high up enough to be in on any of that stuff,” Derek said, sounding a little annoyed now.

  “Yeah, but you’re a smart kid,” I said, doubting this mightily even as I said it. “You’ve probably been paying attention to the environment since you got here, overhearing different things, maybe noticing little changes that other people might not.”

  Derek thought about this for a minute, too, as if he wanted to have something to say to prove that he was, indeed, a smart kid. That was the desired effect of this line of questioning, after all.

  “I don’t know, I guess I’ve noticed that they go camping a lot,” he said at long last with a shrug. “But that’s all I’ve got for you.”

  I exchanged a bemused look with Holm and remembered what Penny had said about these guys looking like they came over to the Little Torch Key from one of the more camping focused islands. I also couldn’t help but remember what Bonnie and Clyde, our lab techs, had told us about finding deer hair near where Birn was last seen at the dock.

  “Camping?” Holm repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, I’ve seen a few of them come home covered in mud and stuff like that, with fish and stuff they caught,” Derek explained with another shrug. “Seemed weird to me since there isn’t much camping around here. Any, really. It’s a beach town. But as I said, I was never there long.”

  “So, they were actually camping?” I asked. “They didn’t just look like they’d been camping?”

  This seemed to confuse Derek, and he shook his head slightly.

  “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, man,” he said with a shrug. “Why would they look like they were camping if they weren’t actually camping?”

  I exchanged another look with Holm. Penny had thought these guys only looked like they were camping to blend in more and provide an excuse as to what they were doing there on Little Torch. But if they were actually camping, that threw another wrench into this whole thing. What on Earth could these guys be doing out in the forest, where there wasn’t anyone to sell drugs to, as far as I knew? Except maybe Boy Scouts, which I wouldn’t put past Derek, here, but I doubted the rest of this Chris character’s team was quite that stupid.

  “I mean, are you sure they were camping?” I clarified. “It’s not like there’re a lot of places to do that around here, as you said yourself.”

  “I don’t know, man, where else would they get the fish?” Derek asked with a final shrug.

  I had to admit, he had me there.

  Just then, Muñoz came back in sporting a very cracked, very old iPhone in her hand.

  “What’s the code?” she asked, standing over Derek without taking a seat.

  “1-1-1-1,” he sighed.

  She blinked at him.

  “Seriously?” she asked, somehow about to keep a straight face and a deadpan tone.

  “What? Sometimes it’s hard to remember it if it’s too hard,” he protested, and I really did laugh this time. So did Holm.

  Muñoz rolled her eyes and entered the address, then wrote it down on a small piece of paper. Then, she pocketed the phone.

  “Come on!” Derek protested.

  “You already gave us access,” she reminded him.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “Just don’t judge my search history, okay?”

  “I’ll try not to,” she said wryly, and we all laughed again.

  “Thank you for your time, Derek,” I said, standing up and motioning for Holm to do the same. “Let the police know if you think of anything else. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Wait, you’re not done with me yet?” he asked in that whiny tone again.

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it?” Muñoz asked. “If you told us everything this time, you’re golden.”

  “So long, then,” he said, saluting us awkwardly around his handcuffs as we made our way to the door. “I look forward to never seeing you again.”

  18

  Ethan

  “Ready to go?” Detective Martin asked eagerly when Holm, Muñoz, and I re-entered the main room of the police station.

  “Yeah, you can come with us if you want,
” I said, waving him after us, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone move quite that fast.

  We all piled into my car and drove to the address Muñoz had found in Derek’s phone, with her giving me directions from the passenger's seat.

  “Did you get anything from the kid?” Martin asked from where he sat in the backseat next to Holm.

  “Could be,” I said, nodding slowly. “Does the name Chris Daniels mean anything to you?”

  “Chris Daniels…” Martin murmured, scrunching up his face as if trying to remember, and then shaking his head. “No, doesn’t ring a bell. I did find a couple of other Daniels with files in our precinct, but both were from tourists who committed petty crimes years ago. Do you think this Chris character’s the Daniels you’ve been looking for?”

  “Probably,” I said, not wanting to get ahead of myself. “Seems like a guy by that name enlisted Derek back in Key West. Are you able to share records with the other islands? Is there a way you can see if anyone’s looking for someone by that name?”

  “Yeah, I can get a call in,” Martin said eagerly, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll message a friend of mine with the Key West Police Department now.”

  “Thanks,” I said, nodding to him in the rearview mirror.

  We were driving along the coast of the island by then, and the view of the ocean was stunning. Rolling waves and birds flying along the horizon brought a sense of calm to me that I hadn’t experienced since finding out that Birn was missing, or if I was honest since I’d found out that what I had originally thought to be Grendel’s journal was a fake.

  “I could get used to this, yes, sir,” Holm murmured as he too admired the view, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that even Muñoz was cracking a smile.

  “Okay, he says he’s going to take a look when he gets a chance,” Martin told me several moments later. “I’ll let you know what he says. They’re… a bit busier over there than we are here.”

  “I can imagine,” I said dryly, and Martin sighed.

  “I know what it must seem like to you, but Rollins is really a good chief,” he said. “Everyone loves him, inside the police force and in the community. He’s just not used to having to deal with something like this.”