Joe was stopped at a traffic light a couple of miles from the Murmuring Surf when he spotted the silver Kia as it pulled out of a McDonald’s parking lot and into traffic. The light turned, but he had to wait while a bedraggled-looking homeless man shuffled across the street pushing a shopping cart loaded down with bags of plastic bottles and aluminum cans for recycling. By then, the Kia was three cars ahead. He accelerated, pulled up next to her, and lightly tapped the truck’s horn. Letty glanced over, looking surprised, and gave him a wave. Maya was seated in the back seat, contentedly sipping on something in her plastic cup. His shoulders relaxed and he called Vikki Hill. “Found her,” he reported, pulling into a convenience store parking lot. “They were at McDonald’s.” He exhaled slowly and headed back to the Murmuring Surf.

When they reached the motel, she got out of the Kia and waited for him to park. Letty knew something was up from the serious look on his face.

“Something wrong?” she said, as he walked up to her.

“You scared the crap out of me, taking off like this without telling anybody,” he said.

Letty leaned into the car, lifted Maya out of her car seat, and set her down on the pavement. “Hey Mr. Joe,” the child said. “I got a Happy Meal.”

He forced a smile. “Good for you.”

Letty started walking toward her unit. “We need to talk,” he said, hooking his hand around her elbow. “Vikki got the call this morning. When she couldn’t reach you, and you weren’t at your place, yeah, we panicked.”

“Well, we’re back now,” she said.

“There’s more.” He pointed toward the office, where Ava and Vikki Hill stood waiting in the open doorway.

“I need some coffee,” Joe said. “And then we talk.”

The four of them sat around Ava’s kitchen table while Maya parked herself in front of PAW Patrol in the living room.

“I got a call from a sheriff’s deputy down in South Florida this morning,” Joe said. “They found Chuck’s body in a car, back in the swamp, with a bullet in his brain.”

Coffee splattered over the side of Ava DeCurtis’s mug. “Oh?”

Letty jumped up, fetched a paper towel, and began cleaning up the spill.

“Sorry to break it to you like that, but I didn’t know how else to tell you,” he said.

“It was only a matter of time, I guess,” Ava said, scowling. But her hands shook as she sipped what was left of her coffee. “I guess he got what he had coming to him. Does that deputy know who did it?”