Breaker's Reef (Cape Refuge Series) by Terri Blackstock

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Breaker’s Reef
Copyright © 2005 by Terri Blackstock
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blackstock, Terri, 1957–
Breaker’s reef / Terri Blackstock.
p. cm.—(Cape Refuge series; bk. 4)
ISBN: 0-310-23595-2
1. Bed and breakfast accommodations—Fiction. 2. Detective and mystery
stories—Authorship—Fiction. 3. Teenage girls—Crimes against—Fiction.
4. Novelists—Fiction. 5. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.L34285B74 2005
813'.54—dc22 2004025174
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-23595-8
Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963,
1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc.,
7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
Interior design by Beth Shagene
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 /. DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

C H A P T E R 1
Chief Matthew Cade rarely considered
another line of work, but the 4:30 a.m. phone call about
the dead teenage girl made him long for a job as an
accountant or electrician—some benignvocation that
didn’t require him to look into the eyes of grieving parents.
He sat on the side of his bed, rubbing his eyes as he
clutched the phone to his ear.
“She’s from Cape Refuge, Chief.” Myrtle, his night
shift dispatcher, sounded shaken. “That new guy, Scott
Crown, just found her floating in a boat on the Tybee side
of the river. Looks like a homicide.”
Cade braced himself. “Who is it, Myrtle?”
“Didn’t give me a name yet. If they know it, they’re
keeping it off the radio for now. But Chief Grant from
Tybee is hot about how Crown handled things, and he
wanted you to come to the scene as soon as you can.”
“All right, give me the address.” Oswald, Cade’s cat,
jumped onto his lap, purring for attention as Cade fumbled
for a pen and jotted the address down. The cat stepped
onto the bed table and plopped down on the notepad. “So what is
it Crown did?”
“I’m not clear on that, Chief. But he’s young. Go easy on him.”
He clicked the phone off and thought about the nineteenyear-
old rookie. Crown had joined the force straight out of the
academy; he hadn’t even been in Cade’s department a week. His
zeal to be the best cop in the department had led to a few mishaps
already, but nothing serious. Cade knew he just needed to give the
kid some time to grow into his position. But what had he done to
aggravate the neighboring chief?
He got up, wincing at the arthritic ache he always felt in his
leg first thing in the morning. It had healed from the multiple fractures
he’d sustained in an injury a year ago—and he’d overcome
his limp for the most part—but the mornings always reminded
him how far he’d come.
He got dressed and hurried out to his truck. It was cool for
May, but he knew it would warm up to the upper eighties by the
end of the day. Life would go on as it always did—murder or not.
As he drove across the bridge that connected Cape Refuge to
Tybee Island, his mind raced with the faces of teenage girls who’d
grown up here. Whoever this girl was, the murder would have a
rippling effect, shattering her family and shaking her friends.
There would be a life-size hole in the heart of the small town.
He found the site and pulled up to the squad cars parked
there. One of the Tybee officers met him as he got out. “Oh, it’s
you, Chief Cade. I didn’t recognize you in your truck.”
“Where’s Chief Grant?” he asked.
The man pointed to the riverbank, and Cade saw him with
the medical examiner looking over the body.
As he approached, Cade saw the girl lying on the grass. She
was small, maybe a hundred pounds, and looked as if someone
had carefully laid her down there, her arms out from her body,
her knees together and bent to the side. In the flickering blue light,
he couldn’t yet see her face, and her hair was wet, long . . . He
walked closer, and Keith Parker, the medical examiner, looked up
at him. “Hey, Cade. You recognize her?”
Chief Grant handed him a flashlight, and Cade stooped
down and illuminated her face. His heart plunged. She was Alan
Lawrence’s girl, Emily. She couldn’t be more than sixteen. Cade
didn’t think she’d even gotten her license yet.
Anger stung his eyes, and he rubbed his jaw. His throat was
tight as he swallowed. Who could have done this? Who would
have wanted to end the life of an innocent, sweet girl whose parents
loved her?
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, her name’s Emily Lawrence.
Her parents are Alan and Marie.” He paused, trying to steady his
voice. “You know the cause of death?”
“Gunshot,” Grant said. “Looks like she was shot in another
location, then apparently brought here and put into that boat.
Your man found her.”
Cade stood and looked in the direction Grant nodded. Scott
Crown stood with the other cops, answering questions. His uniform
was wet, and he looked shaken and nervous. Cade felt sorry
for the kid. Odds were he hadn’t expected to find a dead girl his
first week on the job.
“Unfortunately,” the Tybee chief went on, “your man compromised
the evidence. Moved the body out of the boat before he
called us. Got her wet trying to get her onto the shore. Who
knows what evidence might have been washed off? I would think
you’d train your people better than that.”
Cade’s anger shifted from the faceless killer to the rookie.
“What was he even doing over here? He was supposed to be
patrolling Cape Refuge.”
“He saw the boat floating in the river between the two
islands, saw that someone was in it. Right then he should have
called my department instead of coming onto my turf and handling
the matter himself.”
Cade sighed and looked toward the kid again. He’d had
reservations about hiring someone so young right out of the academy,
but Crown was Joe McCormick’s nephew. When his detective
vouched for the kid, Cade decided to give him the benefit of
the doubt. But he’d recognized Crown’s hero complex his first day
on the job. He was something of a loose cannon, and Cade had
wondered if he could trust him to follow the rules.
Apparently, he couldn’t.
He crossed the grass toward Crown. The kid turned, saw
him, and burst into his explanation. “Chief, I know I did wrong.
It was stupid. I don’t even know what I was thinking. But there
were vultures, and I thought there must be a dead animal in the
boat . . . I crossed the bridge and came over here—”
“Your first mistake,” Cade said.
“But if I hadn’t, they might not have found her!”
“Crown, if you had called Tybee to tell them what you saw,
they would have been there in minutes. Not only did you step outside
of our jurisdiction, but you botched up the evidence.”
The kid looked at the cops around him, as if humiliated that
he’d been reamed in front of them. “I didn’t botch it up.”
“Yes, you did! I know they taught you in the academy never
to move a body. And then you go and wash off the evidence!”
In the light of the police cars’ headlights, he could see the
kid’s face turning red. “Okay, I’m sorry! I got out to the boat
and recognized Emily. I wasn’t sure she was dead. I was trying
to save her!”
“You should have checked before you got her out of the boat!”
“Right.” Crown’s voice rose as he shot back. “So let me get
this straight. Next time I see a girl dying in a boat, I’m supposed
to sit on my hands until the right people get there? I thought we
were emergency personnel.