On a bright, warm Thursday ten days after Alicia had found her on the coffee-shop patio, Quinn took her espresso and almond biscotti out to the same table where she’d been sitting that beautiful afternoon. Returning was her way of signaling to herself that she was beginning to accept the reality of what had happened.
Alicia was dead, drowned, the autopsy on her body completed.
Her funeral had been two days ago in Chicago, a small, private affair. Alicia’s mother had all but asked Quinn not to attend, not out of any sense of animosity, she knew, but because they all would be tempted to rehash the last confused, troubled days.
“We want to celebrate Alicia’s life and remember her as she was.”
Nor, Quinn thought as she sank back in her chair in the warm sun, did anyone need to pretend that she and Alicia had remained all that close, the best of friends. The thaw that had started in March at Lattimore’s party had never had a chance to take hold. Now that the initial shock of Alicia’s death had eased, Quinn wondered how much borrowing the cottage had to do with her friend’s own ends and not with any conscious attempt to repair the strains in their friendship.
Yet, when she was frightened and melting down, Alicia had come to her, counting on the bond between them to see her through the crisis.
And I failed her.
As far as she was concerned, there were still unanswered questions-questions that she knew but couldn’t accept might never get answers.
Ivan, the coffee-shop owner, had told her that the mother and little boy hadn’t returned for their alphabet book. He said he’d heard about Alicia’s death and was sorry.
Quinn sipped her espresso but couldn’t work up any appetite for her biscotti.
The cherry blossoms had vanished, and the trees were leafed out, the shade welcome especially now as the temperatures climbed. With the afternoon temperature in the upper seventies, Quinn had worn sandals and a sundress-turquoise, another way to tell herself that she was better.
Someone pulled out the chair across from her, and she looked up, startled, as Steve Eisenhardt plopped down with an iced coffee. He gave her a disapproving sigh. “I go inside, I stand in line, I get my drink, I pay up-it’s a good thing you’re not a spy, Quinn. You never even saw me.” He grinned at her, his eyes crinkling in the bright sun. “I ducked out of work hoping I’d find you here. How’re you doing?”
“Preoccupied.”
“No kidding.”
“I’ve been spinning my wheels ever since I got back from Yorkville last week.” She drank some of her espresso. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I heard you’ve been invited to present a paper at an international crime symposium in Vienna.”
“That was easy. All I had to do was say yes, I’ll do it. It’s not until October.”
He leaned forward and said in a fake conspiratorial whisper designed to make her laugh, “I also heard you met Oliver Crawford.”
Crawford must have told Lattimore, who told Steve. Quinn smiled at Steve’s natural irreverence. “I’ve met him before.”
“But not at his estate. What did you do, just drive up and knock on the front door?”
“I kayaked and climbed over his barbed-wire fence.”
Steve grinned. “Only you, Quinn. Lucky someone didn’t shoot a hole in your boat.”
“I had a greeting party.” She thought of Huck’s dark eyes as he’d tried to talk sense into her, and Vern Glover, impatient, scary. “Breakwater Security seems like a legitimate enterprise. It’s still so new. The compound itself is gorgeous-I hate to see it get turned into a security training facility.”
“You’d rather see it turned into a country inn?”
“Definitely.”
“I hear Crawford hasn’t slept soundly since he got snatched last year. If this helps him, who knows.” Steve shrugged. “Maybe once he gets a few weeks of REM sleep, he’ll close down Breakwater Security and open up Breakwater Spa.”
“A spa.” Quinn moaned. “I could use a week at a spa.”
His expression turned serious, at least for him. “What about your cottage? Going back anytime soon?”
“I’ve been thinking about this weekend.”
“Quinn-”
“It’s not too soon. I need to go back. If I don’t-” She looked down at her espresso. “If I don’t, I’m afraid I never will.”
“You will, Quinn. You put your heart and soul into that place.” He sighed, pushing back his chair slightly. He hadn’t touched his drink. “Alicia was a very special person. She was smart, and she was beautiful, and she was looking in all the wrong places for happiness. If she committed suicide, directly or indirectly, I wish she’d turned to her friends for help first.”
“She did turn to me. I just couldn’t get through to her. She ran off, and by the time I found her…” Quinn took a heavy breath. “Damn.”
“If it was suicide, they say people just want to stop the pain. They believe that the people they love-who love them-will be better off with them dead.”
“There’s nothing to suggest it was suicide. She was so upset she had no business being out on the water, storm or no storm. She could easily have turned over the kayak by accident, then got so disoriented that she couldn’t get herself back into the boat.”
“No life vest, no emergency whistle, a storm brewing. It sounds deliberate, Quinn.”
“In her mental state, I’m not sure she was capable of planning her own suicide. She was a mess, Steve, and she drowned. It just happened.”
“Yeah. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
Quinn could feel the jolt of the espresso, and she looked out at the quiet street, could see Alicia running past the flowerpots, jumping into the Lincoln. “I’ve been doing a little research, more for my own peace of mind than anything else.”
“What kind of research?”
“Just checking out what’s on the public record about Oliver Crawford. He started Breakwater Security after his kidnapping. I’ve been looking into it. How it happened, when, why, where. Basic stuff.”
Steve picked up his drink, giving her a dubious look as she took a sip. “You checked only public records?”
“Well, I did talk to a few sources-”
“And?”
“Just in the past week, two of his kidnappers turned up tortured and executed.”
“Ouch. Where?”
“ Colombia.”
“I thought he’d been snatched in the Caribbean -”
“These guys weren’t Colombian,” Quinn said. “One was Puerto Rican and one was Dominican. Back in February, another of the kidnappers was also found tortured and executed. He was Mexican.”
“An international group of thugs, huh?”
“They’re all professionals. Low-level mercenaries. That’s all on the record, by the way. There just haven’t been any press releases-”
“Meaning the media haven’t gotten hold of it.”
If they did-if she put them on the trail-she wondered what they would uncover, and just how uncomfortable Oliver Crawford and his people would be. “I don’t see how these thugs could have planned the kidnapping, and I sure as hell don’t see what they could have known that would have prompted anyone to risk torturing them. Killing them-they were in a volatile area. But torture takes time. From that standpoint, it’s riskier.”
Steve grinned nervously. “I don’t like the idea of either one, thank you very much.”
“My sources haven’t run across these guys before.”
“Ah, a mystery.”
“Oliver Crawford’s an American citizen, even if his kidnappers weren’t. The FBI is investigating. He was rescued by his own people-they received a tip.”
“Wasn’t there a huge reward for credible information leading to his safe rescue?”
“There was indeed. Sharon Riccardi, who’s now running Breakwater Security, put out the word. His guys found him in the Dominican. They chose not to inform U.S. or Dominican authorities. They say they weren’t convinced the tip would pan out.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “And these are the goofs running Breakwater Security now?”
“I don’t know how involved they are with Breakwater.” Quinn picked up her biscotti, although she was no longer in the mood for it. “I haven’t gotten that far in my research.”
“You’re digging around in some dangerous files, Quinn.”
“As I said, most of it’s on public record. I haven’t done any more digging than your basic Post reporter would do.”
“But you have a mind for this shit,” Steve said.
She made herself smile. “Not these days. I’m just finding distractions. What about you? How’s work, how’s my erstwhile boss?”
“Oh, work’s just a barrel of laughs with you gone and Alicia drowned.”
“I’m sorry-”
“No.” He held up a hand. “No, I’m sorry. That was insensitive. Work’s fine. We’re all bearing up. Lattimore’s the same. He’s got steel balls, you know? Nothing rattles him. Me-I’m a coward.” But there was no self-pity in his tone. He winked at Quinn. “Not you, though. You’ve got brass tits, Harlowe. Especially for a page-flipping historian.”
“Easy for me to talk tough. I’m not on the front-lines.”
“You were last week,” he said softly.
When Steve finally headed back to work, taking the rest of his iced coffee with him, Quinn watched him pick up his pace as he rushed down the sidewalk. Not for a single five-second stretch had he relaxed. She realized now why Alicia had said she found him difficult to be around for any length of time. The poor guy had been half in love with her for so long, and yet he’d never stood a chance with her-he drove her nuts.
But his distress over Alicia’s death seemed genuine, and for Quinn, that was enough.
Steve was on Pennsylvania Avenue, on his way back to work, when his cell phone rang. He recognized the tight, controlled voice of the older of the two goons. “What, are you assholes spying on me?” Bravado-he was sweating like the pig he was. “I just had iced coffee with Quinn Harlowe. Or do you know already? Are you following her-or me?”
“Did she ask you to meet her?”
“No. I knew you’d be breathing down my neck and just showed up. She’s working up a dossier on you bastards.”
Silence.
“I’m serious. Your boss is Oliver Crawford, right? Are you the ones torturing and executing the guys that kidnapped him? I hope the feds are onto you. I hope they’re fucking all over you. I hope-”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
But he wasn’t. He could feel the blood pounding in his arteries. His chest was tight. If he wasn’t so young, he’d be worried about a stroke or a heart attack. As it was, he thought he’d crack. Just collapse on the sidewalk and start blubbering. Was that what they’d done to Alicia? Scared the living shit out of her to the point she was drooling on herself?
“Where are you on the names we want?”
Steve wasn’t fooled by the mildness of the question. He was running out of rope with these bastards. “I’m working on it.”
“Work faster. What about Harlowe? Is she part of the task force investigating the vigilantes?”
“What?”
A hiss of impatience, like he was stupid. “Harlowe. What’s her role in any vigilante investigation?”
Hell. Steve wiped sweat off his brow. These guys were vigilantes. Had to be. “She doesn’t have one. No. She’s just nosy.”
Another couple seconds of silence.
“We’re not the bad guys here,” the goon said quietly, a hint of humor-and sarcasm-in his tone.
Steve glanced around him, but no one was eavesdropping. Still, he lowered his voice. “You’re never going to leave me alone, are you? You’ve got me by the balls, and you’re going to twist until I shrivel up and die.”
“We’re seizing an opportunity that you yourself presented to us. We’re careful people. We have a great responsibility. There’s much at stake.” He sounded so persuasive, so reasonable. “I don’t ask you to understand, just to do as you’re told.”
“What about Quinn? I’m guessing not everyone thinks you’re the good guys you say you are. She’ll find out. She’s like that. I’ve heard how she works. She throws out one little question in a meeting and turns it around, upside down and inside out. That’s why she’s in demand. Don’t underestimate her.”
Because if they did underestimate her, she’d be onto him as well.
“We’ll do our job. You do yours. Keep us informed.”
Steve clicked off and lifted his arms, trying to let some air in between his wet shirt and his skin, with little success.
He had no doubts now. He knew where he’d made his bed.
For better or worse, he was in the sack with fascist sociopaths.
Seeing his wife cry never failed to make Nate Winter think of his two younger sisters. He, Antonia and Carine were orphaned as children when their parents died in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and he remembered his helplessness when he’d hear them sobbing into their pillows at night. He’d never admitted to his own tears.
Sarah wasn’t crying so much as trying to keep herself from crying. She’d worked all day on a dig in back of the historic northern Virginia house where they lived and then had started packing for their move that weekend.
Honey-haired and blue-eyed, she was the most beautiful woman Nate had ever known, but right now, her cheeks had red splotches, and her eyes were bloodshot. She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“You’ve been working nonstop. Take the night off-”
“I need to finish packing these books.” With a desperate gesture, she took in the floor-to-ceiling shelves she was unloading. “I’ve hardly even started.”
“My family’s coming tomorrow. They’ll help. I can help-”
“No, no. You have a meeting tonight.” She smiled. “I’m fine. Really.”
“You’ve never been one to pace yourself.”
This time, her smile reached her eyes. “You’re one to talk. Go on. You don’t want to be late. If I applied the right kind of pressure, would you tell me what your meeting’s about?”
He laughed, kissing her, tasting her tears. “It’s boring. Save your pressure tactics for something more worthwhile.”
“I will,” she whispered, exaggerating her southern accent.
When he got to his car, Nate couldn’t dispel a nagging uneasiness. It’d been eating at him for days, ever since Alicia Miller’s death in Yorkville. He looked back at the idyllic house and thought of his wife packing for their upcoming move while he was in a meeting about high-level killers. Sarah was a fighter, a survivor-one of the smartest people he knew. But she was also married to a senior federal agent in the middle of a troubling investigation.
Nate dialed his brother-in-law in New Hampshire. He and Tyler North, an air force pararescueman, had been friends since childhood, a relationship that became somewhat more complicated when Ty married the younger of Nate’s two sisters. Ty and Carine had a four-month-old baby boy, Harry, named after his paternal grandfather.
Ty was at home in New Hampshire on leave, planning to help Nate and Sarah move. He picked up on the second ring.
“Can you get down here sooner than tomorrow night?” Nate asked.
There wasn’t even a flicker of hesitation on Ty’s part. “I can leave for Manchester airport in an hour.”
Nate didn’t bother to hide his relief. “Thanks.”
“It’s Sarah?”
“I’d just feel better with someone else here with her.”
“Should I leave Carine and the little guy up here?”
Nate thought a moment. His sister was a nature photographer and an independent soul-she and Ty had known each other since they were tots. “No. Bring them. I’m just on edge. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“You were born on edge,” North said. “I’ll see you later on tonight.”
After he hung up, Nate continued to Washington and FBI headquarters, where the vigilante task force was meeting. He had virtually nothing to report from Huck McCabe or Diego Clemente. After two weeks in Yorkville, McCabe was no closer to finding out what was going on there than when he’d unpacked his bags. He had to be frustrated. Even if he was building trust day by day, establishing his credentials as a no-holds-barred vigilante, he didn’t strike Nate as someone who would be satisfied with the status quo for too long. He’d seize his opportunity, and he’d make things happen.
Nate just hoped they all were ready when McCabe hit the switch.