Wild Secret

really? You guys are serious?"
"Doing our due diligence."
He thought about it and nodded. "Okay. I can respect that. It was a long time ago, but I'll never forget where I was. If I recall correctly, that was a Thursday night, and I was playing Dungeons & Dragons with Conrad Simmons and Gene Dixon, and I think John Foster was there, but I'm not sure."
"Did you two ever date? Hookup?"
"I wish. Skyler was way out of my league. Of course, nothing's out of my league now."
"Do you know if she was involved with anyone else besides Marshall?"
"Marshall was her boyfriend."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know what you asked.” He paused. “Yeah, she saw somebody else."
"Older guy. Married, right?"
"I don't know if he was married or not, but he was an older guy." He paused and took a breath. “This was a couple weeks before she disappeared. I never told the cops about it at the time. I didn’t want to sound like some kind of stalker. They interviewed a lot of kids at school. I feel bad about not saying anything. But I followed her one night."
He hung his head, embarrassed.
"Care to elaborate?"

33
"I don't know why, but I used to drive by her house all the time just to see if she was home," Tommy said.
"And peep on her sometimes," I added.
"Can you blame me? That girl was hot, and she had great perky little…" He censored himself before continuing. "Anyway, one night, I saw her sneak out of her window and get into a car with this guy."
"What kind of car?”
“I’ll never forget. It was such a cool car at the time—a candy-apple red convertible Cadillac. An Eldorado Biarritz. Sweet pimpmobile. Anyway, they drove around for a while, and he took her down to Taffy Beach. They walked along the shore, he took her under the pier, and they did the old in and out. At first, I was really pissed off. But then I found myself turned on by the whole thing. Weird, but whatever. They went at it for a while, then finished up. He drove her home. That was it."
"Did you see them together any other time?”
"No. That was the only time."
"Did you recognize the guy?"
"No. I’d never seen him before."
"You think you’d recognize him if I showed you a picture from the era?"
Tommy shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. It’s not like I had binoculars. I didn't get that close."
"You’re sure about the make and model of the car?"
"Positive. I thought it was so cool at the time. I wanted one bad." He grinned. "But I have much nicer things now.”
A topless blonde made her way down the port side passage to the aft deck. She wore big sunglasses, small bikini bottoms, and nothing else. She looked like she'd stepped off the pages of a magazine. Tight, toned abs, long legs that shimmered with lotion, bubbly assets. She was probably 23. She made a pouty face and spoke in a breathy, baby doll voice—the kind of voice you’d do just about anything for. “We're out of strawberry daiquiris. Can you make us some more?"
She turned out her bottom lip.
Tommy looked at us and shrugged. "Duty calls, gentlemen."
He pushed away from the table and stood up. He escorted us to the passerelle, then attended to his plaything.
We crossed to the dock, and I dialed Denise. “I need you to look up old DMV records.”
I gave her the make and model of the car and asked her to look up Randy Murdoch’s registration history.
“I’ll let you know what I find out,” she said.
JD glared at the superyacht that belonged to Christian Hutton as we walked back to the parking lot.
“Let it go,” I said.
JD frowned at me. “What!? It’s gone. I’m over it.”
He clearly wasn’t.
We hopped into the car and drove to the station. We found Denise at her desk.
“Guess what?”
“Randy Murdoch owned a convertible Cadillac in 1989,” I said, hopeful.
She smiled. "Yup, and get this. That car was an ’84, and was a limited edition run. There were only a few thousand convertibles like it ever made, and Randy's car was the only one registered in Coconut Key at the time. It's a safe bet that Randy Murdoch is the married man."
A confident smirk tugged my lips. "That ought to be enough for a warrant."
We filled out sworn affidavits, went to the judge, and asked for a warrant. It seemed like a slam dunk. The judge agreed, but it took some convincing.
I didn't think we’d need a tactical team to bring in Randy Murdoch, but Faulkner and Erickson accompanied us. Bringing him back to the station in the back of the Porsche wasn't really an option.
Mrs. Murdoch was understandably concerned to see the four of us standing on her front porch, asking about her husband again.
I displayed the warrant, and her eyes rounded, and her jaw dropped. The color drained from her face, and she fumbled for words. "That's not possible," she stammered. "Randy can't be involved in that girl's disappearance."
“Death, ma’am. Death,” I said. “Is he here?"
She shook her head, still dazed. I nodded to Erickson and Faulkner. They marched inside and quickly searched the home.
I told her that we had a witness that had seen Randy with the girl. I didn’t go into much detail.
"Your witness is lying. I refuse to believe such a thing."
Erickson and Faulkner returned a moment later. Faulkner shook his head. “He’s not here, but I did find this.”
He held a picture frame in his hand. The faded photo was of a 1980s era Randy standing in front of a red convertible Cadillac, wearing a mustache and a grey Members Only jacket. The photo looked like it could have been an ad for the car, the jacket, or cigarettes.
Mrs. Murdoch’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t take that! That’s personal.”
“We’ll return it,” I promised. “Where's your husband, Mrs. Murdoch?”
"Do I have to tell you?"
"You don't want to be charged with obstruction of justice, do you?"
Her face tightened. "He's at the country club," she