“Not deserved.” He didn’t raise his voice. “She’s capable, Grace. She’s an experienced homicide detective. She can handle herself.”
“Mattie could have slit her throat today.”
“I don’t think so. He had a rusted saw that probably hadn’t been sharpened in fifteen years, and he had only a split second to act—not enough of an opening for someone of his abilities and limitations to have succeeded in doing more than what he did.”
“You can be so calculating sometimes,” Grace said.
“I’m just trying to be objective and understand the situation.”
Linc had heard enough. He let the screen door bang shut on his way out. Abigail and Owen had headed out to look for Mattie even before the police had arrived, but as well as they knew their way around the surrounding woods, Mattie knew them better. He’d grown up there, he’d photographed them. With the fog and the oncoming darkness, no one would find him unless he wanted to be found.
The police hadn’t asked Linc outright if he’d seen Mattie. He hadn’t volunteered what he knew, but he hadn’t lied.
One of the FBI agents—Special Agent Capozza—stood in front of the shed door, brushing at a cloud of mosquitoes hovering over him.
Linc gave him a sympathetic smile. “They’re bad tonight, aren’t they? Early morning and early evening are the worst times. You want to be careful of West Nile.” He peered past him into the shed. “Was Mattie in there for sure?”
“You’ll have to talk to Lieutenant Beeler or ChiefAlden.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Capozza whacked a mosquito on his arm, grimacing when it spurted blood. “Looks like I got that one too late. Your father and sister still here?”
“They’re having tea in the kitchen. I want to go look for Mattie.”
“Why?”
Linc felt a surge of emotion. “Because he’s my friend. Because I don’t think he’d ever hurt anyone. I don’t want some trigger-happy cop to shoot him just because—”
“Whoa, whoa. Watch what you say, Mr. Cooper.”
“He didn’t kill Chris Browning.”
The FBI agent tilted his head back and eyed Linc. “Why do you say that?”
“Chris was my friend, too. And he was Mattie’s friend.”
“Sounds like everyone’s friends up here.” Capozza wasn’t paying attention to the mosquitoes now. “But we’ve got a string of unsolved burglaries, an unsolved attack and robbery, an unsolved murder, and now—”
“I need to go.” Linc sniffled, pushing back an urge to cry. “Ellis has bug repellent inside if you want some.”
“Suppose you and I go in together and find it?”
“What?”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
An hour later, Linc sat stiffly in his sister’s car as they headed back to Somes Sound. She was driving too fast for the conditions. Thick fog, high emotion. He was too scared to say anything in case he threw off her concentration and she wrapped them around a tree.
“What did you and Special Agent Capozza talk about?”
“Nothing much. How well I knew Chris. How well I know Mattie. I didn’t tell him anything people around here don’t already know.”
I didn’t tell him about the blackmail and the four grand.
“Did he ask about me?” She gripped the wheel with both hands. “Because I deserve to know if he did.”
“He was trying to get all our relationships straight in his head. That’s all.”
She took in his words with a nod. “I don’t want anything to happen to Mattie, but if it does, it’s not my doing. Or yours. Or Father’s, no matter how frustrating he can be. And Ellis—did you see him, Linc? He’s a wreck.”
“He just doesn’t want Mattie to slit his wrists under one of his rhododendrons.”
“Linc!” She pounded on the brake, the car screeching to a halt in the middle of the fog-enshrouded road. “Damn you. You inconsiderate little bastard. I’ve stood by you as you’ve flunked out and gotten yourself thrown out of school after school.”
“Two.”
“Two colleges. How many prep schools? Father and I both pulled strings to get you into good schools. He’s not an easy man, but he’s only ever wanted the best for you.”
“What’s good for me is good for him.”
“Just stop.”
Linc sank back into his seat and sighed, as if he didn’t care how upset she was. “I wish you’d start driving before someone rear-ends us.”
“I was proud of you for going to Owen and asking him to train you.” Grace was half crying. “I hope he does. I hope it works out. You can make a difference, Linc, if you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself and being mad at the world.”
“Who says I want to make a difference? Maybe I just want to train with Owen so I can look good.”
“He’d see through you in a heartbeat.”
Linc paused for a beat. “If you admire him so much, why don’t you marry him?”
“We’ve never had that kind of interest in each other.”
“Because you’re in love with a dead man.”
His sister reacted instantly, slapping him across the face.
In the darkness, his face stinging, Linc could see tears shining in her eyes as she turned back to the wheel and pressed her foot on the gas.
“Oh, shit.” He choked back a sob. “Shit, Grace. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not staying here. I’ll leave tomorrow. I have plenty to do back in Washington.” She was crying openly now. “Linc—my God, Linc. I love you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“Nothing will, Grace. I promise.”
“I’m here for you. Always. Do you understand?”
Tell her.
But he couldn’t. “I do understand. And you—I’m here for you, too.”
She smiled at him, tears still streaming down her face. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.”
“I mean it. Grace—I really am sorry about what I said. About Chris.”
“Chris. My God, Linc. I did love him.” She sucked in a breath, slowing in the thickening fog. “We were just never meant to be.”
“Did he ever love you?”
“He loved Abigail.”
I
don’t want to think about death tonight.
I want to think about love.
I don’t want to think about violence.
Again. Love.
I don’t want to hear Abigail’s voice.
Love.
My heart bursts with a love so deep and pure and fulfilling that it alone is all I need to sustain me.
So few ever have this kind of love in their lives.
I don’t pity them so much as I stand apart from them.
Separate.
Alone.
Isolated.
All those words come to mind and yet don’t describe how I feel, because they imply loneliness and desperation. Incompleteness. But I am not lonely or desperate or incomplete.
Because of my love.
I love.
It’s not just a state of being but of action.
Love as a verb.
I’ve lied. I’ve misled. I’ve cried. I’ve killed.
Ways of loving. All of them.
I feel so free, writing in this stream of consciousness manner. Allowing myself to put aside all my inhibitions.
I don’t want to kill again but to say I won’t is to say my ability to love has weakened.
And it hasn’t.
It won’t.
Not ever.
W
herever Mattie was, he’d be there through the night. Abigail didn’t like the idea, but who did? The warm day had turned cool with nightfall and the fog. If he didn’t have proper attire, a good blanket, water, food—if he panicked and got lost, or kept running in the woods—then anything could happen.
She watched Owen, crouched down on one knee, build a fire in his woodstove. She’d pulled a fleece throw over her as she sat in one of his fireside chairs, but he showed no sign of cold or fatigue. “If you’d climbed Cadillac and got whacked today, you’d be as wiped out as I am,” she said.
“You didn’t climb up Cadillac. You drove up.”
“I walked all over the summit. And it was freaking dawn. That counts.”
He looked back over his shoulder at her. “The only reason you’re shivering is because of what you have on.”
“Not enough?”
He turned back to his fire-building. “Depends on how you look at that one.”
She gave him a shove in the back with her foot. She’d left her wet shoes at the door. “You know what I mean.”
“You’re in the wrong clothes for charging through the woods in these conditions.”
“And you?”
He struck a match. “I’m fine.”
“Uh-uh. You’re in jeans. Jeans aren’t the best choice for cool, wet conditions. They’re not good insulators, especially when wet. See? Not bad for a city cop.”
The kindling and rolled-up newspapers caught fire, bright flames crackling as Owen shut the screen and leaned back on his outstretched arms, stretching out his legs. His toes were almost in the fire. He’d taken off his shoes, too. His feet struck her as casual, intimate.
They’d joined the search for Mattie, but the trail was cold, visibility marginal. Any sign of him—footsteps, trampled plants—ended after a few feet. He could be anywhere.
“Who knows about Mattie,” Abigail said. “I’ve never seen him in anything approaching clothing appropriate for a night out in the elements.”
“He could have supplies with him.”
“Or he could be shacked up with a friend, or hiding on some derelict pal’s clunker of a boat. He could have caught a ride off the island with someone…”
“Abigail—”
“I’m just saying.” She breathed out a sigh. “I don’t want to find him dead, Owen. No one does.”
“Do you have any clue what he’s up to?”
She shook her head. “I wish I did.”
“Think he’s your caller?”
“I don’t know. The caller supposedly wants to help—” She broke off. “Whatever Mattie’s doing, it’s not helping.”
“Your caller—whether it’s Mattie or someone else—isn’t helping, either. Just stirring the pot.”
“Good point.”
The local and state police and the two FBI agents had all departed from Ellis Cooper’s house. Ellis had pointedly refused to have any cruisers posted in his driveway, insisting to Lou Beeler that he wasn’t afraid of Mattie—that it wasn’t as if Mattie had done anything horrible—if he’d done anything at all.
“Ellis might as well have said I was bad luck,” Abigail went on.
“He’s upset.”
“Jason and Grace weren’t much better. But I only came up here after I got the first call. Maybe whatever Mattie’s up to has more to do with what the Coopers have going on than with me. The appointment, the sale of the house—they could be the catalyst.”
“Could be,” Owen said.
She slipped her arms over his shoulders and down his chest, leaning forward and touching her cheek to his. “You don’t care, do you?”
He grabbed her hand. “At the moment, no.” And in one move, he’d lifted her off her chair and over his shoulders, onto his lap, his arms circled around her. He grinned. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t put up a fight.”
“Fight? I’m injured.”
“I thought it was just a few scratches.”
She draped her arms around his neck. “It is. Traipsing over hill and dale after Mattie didn’t hurt my leg. It’s a little stiff, but that’s it.” She smiled, feeling the heat of the fire on her back. “I just didn’t want you to think I’m easy.”
“Easy isn’t the first word that comes to my mind when I think of you. More like determined, single-minded, dedicated…”
She rolled her eyes. “Gee, I’m feeling better already.”
He tightened his hold on her. “Attractive. Sexy. Brown-eyed.”
“Shapely?”
He laughed. “Definitely.”
“Liar. I’m not shapely. I’m–” she thought a moment “—fit.”
“That’s it,” he said, his mouth lowering to hers. “I could watch you trek up and down mountains all day with that fit butt of yours.”
“Bastard,” she said with a laugh, their lips coming together before she could add anything else.
She opened her mouth to the kiss, giving a small gasp at the urgency with which he responded—all eagerness and heat. There was nothing tentative about him. He wasn’t tiptoeing around what he wanted.
He lifted her shirt and placed his palm, warm from the fire, on her stomach. “Stay with me tonight.”
“You can trust me not to go out a window on a bedsheet.”
“I’m not talking about staying in a guest room.”
“Owen…”
He eased his palm higher up her abdomen and smiled. “Yes, Abigail?”
“You’re direct, aren’t you?”
Without answering, he smoothed his palm over one breast, outlining the shape of it, curving his fingers around the nipple. “Lace,” he said. “Somehow I expected a lace bra, Detective.”
“Ah-ha. So you’ve been imagining what kind of bra I wear.”
“And you? Want to admit what you’ve been imagining about me?”
She smiled. “No.”
He slid her off his lap and got to his feet, tossing another log on the fire, then caught her by her hand and helped her up. The fresh chunk of wood caught fire with a crackle and a spark of heat. Owen didn’t let go of her hand. They walked together down a short hall to his bedroom, all dark woods and deep, earthy colors. The air was cooler there, away from the woodstove.
“It’s a beautiful spot,” Abigail said.
He lifted her into his arms and laid her on his bed, smoothing back her short curls. “Don’t think for a change. But if anything doesn’t feel right—”
“I won’t shoot you. I promise.”
He ignored her attempt at humor and kissed her forehead, her nose. “Just tell me.”
She touched her fingertips to his mouth. “I will. Thank you.”
They helped each other get undressed, her shirt going first, her lacy bra and underpants going last. Owen was very careful of her bandaged scratches, but she hardly noticed them at all, her entire body screaming out not with pain but desire, an ache that had nothing to do with getting attacked with a drywall saw.
“Owen,” Abigail said, letting her mind spin away from all that had brought her to Mt. Desert. “I like saying your name.”
She ran her hands up his back, skimming the ripple of scars, of hard muscle. She had nothing on him when it came to being fit. Every inch of him betrayed the work he did. He was tough, sexy, focused and absolutely relentless.
“Stop thinking,” he whispered, as if he’d been reading her mind.
“I’m not thinking. Not really. I’m feeling your scars.” Her fingertips caught the tip of his erection. “I guess that’s not a scar.”
“I hope to hell not.”
He took her nipple into his mouth, scraped his teeth erotically over it, then down her stomach, and lower. There were no more words after that. And, she thought, no going back. She moved under him, guiding him to her. He eased into her just a little, as if to give her a chance to change her mind, but she responded by taking him deep inside her.
That was all he required. She could feel his shudder of total abandon as he thrust into her. She threw her arms over her head and shut her eyes, sensations washing over her, emotion and physical need melting together, indistinguishable.
He didn’t slacken his pace, didn’t relent. She grabbed hold of his hips and drove him even deeper into her. She knew she was on the edge. She tried to hold back, but he urged her on, thrusting faster, harder, until she was spiraling into an orgasm that took over her entire body. She cried out, but still he didn’t stop, taking her higher, deeper, holding her there.
“Owen!”
She shattered and melted into the warm bed under her. She didn’t move. Couldn’t.
But he could, and did, still hard inside her, but moving more slowly now, as if to test her, tempt her, make her prove to him that she was spent.
Amazingly, her body responded. Desire coursed through her like a hot, oozing trickle that turned quickly to a flood, overwhelming everything in its path. She clutched his arms, digging her fingers into his muscles as he quickened his pace, his energy and stamina without limit.
For an instant, their eyes locked.
Then he smiled, shuddering with his own release, even as she pulled herself up against his chest and felt the heat there, tasted his sweat as her body convulsed yet again, this time with him.
They collapsed together, then fell onto their backs, breathing hard.
Bit by bit, the room came back into focus. The wood walls. The rich colors. Abigail could smell the fire in the other room and hear the sigh of the ocean, the rhythmic hoot of a nearby owl.
She’d just made love to Owen Garrison.
She hadn’t held back even a little. She sat up, aware of her nakedness. In the dim light, she could see spots reddened by his teeth and tongue, still sensitized. A touch—just a glance, probably—and she’d be fired up again, eager for more wild sex.
His eyes drifted from her breasts downward and back again with a frankness she found both comforting and unbelievably erotic. He made no effort to cover himself. She could see it wouldn’t be long before he was ready to take her again.
“You’re one good-looking bastard,” she told him.
He sat up. “Am I?”
“You know damn well you are. A good-looking dare-devil. And bloody rich, too.”
“And?”
“Oh, there should be more, should there? Glutton. Well, you’re also good at what you do, and committed to it, and—” All the fun went out of her tone, and she finished. “Rootless.”
“All true. Everything you say.” He sat up halfway and flicked his tongue over her nipple. “Every word.”
She gulped in a breath. “Owen…”
He flicked his tongue over her nipple again. “I think you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.” He cupped his lips around the nipple, holding it in his mouth as his tongue did its work and she started to melt. He released it, saying, “I love your dark eyes,” then captured it again.
Barely able to sit up any longer, Abigail ran one hand up his back. “Never mind my eyes. I’m—”
“And your heart.” He let go of her nipple and sat up higher, so that his eyes were level with hers. “I love your heart. You’re not cynical. You’ve seen the worst that human nature can offer, and you still believe in the rest of us.”
She sank back onto the bed, taking him with her. “Don’t be too sure,” she whispered. “Just make love to me again. Now. If you can….”
“Oh, I can,” he whispered back, taking her hand and guiding it to him.
As she stroked him, she pressed him against her most sensitive flesh, slowly, the hard tip inflaming her. When he entered her this time, he didn’t move. He filled her up with him and held her close.
“I’m falling in love with you, Abigail,” he said. “I have been for a long time.”
This time, their lovemaking was slow and tender as they explored each other, giving as well as taking, a meeting of souls and not just of bodies. She could feel his release starting and moved in such a way to heighten it. He moaned, shuddering with each thrust.
She didn’t think she’d have another orgasm—didn’t care—but before she realized what was happening, it was upon her, rocking her to her core.
“Owen,” she said. “Owen, I…”
But she couldn’t get another word out. She was done, exhausted. Satiated. She rolled into him, aware only of his arms around her as she fell asleep.
Doyle kissed his sons good-night and lumbered downstairs as if he were a million years old. Will Browning in his last days at ninety-five had walked with more of a spring in his step.
No one thought this thing with Mattie would end well.
He’d gone on self-destructive binges before, but luck and friends would walk him back from the brink. This time, luck meant not that he’d passed out before getting behind the wheel of a car but that Abigail Browning hadn’t caught him cutting her phone wires or pawing through her house. Armed or not, she’d have nailed his skinny ass.
Luck meant he hadn’t nicked her deeper with the drywall saw.
And friends.
Mattie might have other friends he could count on, but Doyle was through. The DUI over the winter had just about done him in. If Mattie had been bugging Abigail with the anonymous calls—if he’d attacked her—there was just no going back to any kind of tolerance between them. Any kind of friendship, no matter how ragged.
The stupid bastard was working an angle.