“I want you so bad I can barely breathe. I’ll be up front. I can’t offer long term. You should have time to consider if you want me under that circumstance. Or not.” He kissed her, hard and quick, then rested his forehead against hers. “Besides, I don’t have any protection.”
She sputtered a laugh and he let her slip free.
Later on the drive to the harbor, what he’d learned about her tonight wouldn’t leave him alone. So Kevin left. Kevin was a freaking idiot. He should lose the damn election. And her dad left. He was no longer Dad. She called him her father, acknowledging only that he sired her. Remote and dispassionate words. Dispassionate wasn’t how she felt. About either man.
Their defections were responsible for the thicker wall. The reason she didn’t trust anyone but herself. So she wouldn’t count on him either.
He should be glad. Relieved. So why did a little voice inside him insist he wanted to be worthy of being counted on?
Chapter 12
Lani pretended to admire the Eastward Inn’s glorious view but her mind kept drifting.
Banishing the fog, the sun had steam-cleaned the morning. The clear light had lured three local artists to the inn’s lawn where they were painting the gleaming white lighthouse on its windswept island. She smiled at the seagulls crowding behind a circling boat for the choicest bits of stinking old bait the lobsterman tossed out.
For contrast, the dining room boasted cream linen and burgundy carpets that matched stripes in the wallpaper and the fragrance of fresh flowers and baking bread. Classy and elegant, like the inn’s prices.
Inviting Gail’s old friends to lunch here better pay off. Give her some direction. Some of their crowd had been summer residents like the Camerons. But her thoughts couldn’t stay on these two locals, either.
Jake.
Last night he’d kissed her and caressed her until her bones heated and melted like wax. Good thing he lifted her to the counter or there’d have been a Lani-sized puddle on the scuffed old tile. If he hadn’t kissed her mind blank, she’d have hit him with both barrels about his up-front offer of sex with no strings and no future.
And her impulsiveness would’ve been a mistake.
She said she was used to guys dumping her. But since the last sad affair, she hadn’t gone with anyone in two years. Jake would leave her but at least he didn’t try to bull her or bulldoze her. He was honest about his intent.
She couldn’t be cool about sex. Never could. When his work here ended, so would their time together. With Jake, the heartbreak afterward would be worth it. If she had the nerve. He not only didn’t dislike her sass, he encouraged her and teased her about it. He made her laugh. He made her feel beautiful and desirable.
As long as she could banish the niggling doubt it wasn’t her he kissed and caressed.
She looked up to see the hostess escorting Gail’s friends to her table.
Heather Nadeau was a small, plump woman with a mass of blond hair clasped at her nape. Chic in a slim navy sheath, Becca Allen stopped at a table to speak to a middle-aged couple. She smoothed her glossy dark bob as she hurried to catch up to Heather.
Lani stood and greeted them. “It’s wonderful to see you. I’m so glad you could come.”
“Sorry about the detour. The Huppers are clients in my investment firm.” Becca air-kissed Lani’s cheek. “So nice of you to get me out of the office.”
“Yes, thanks, Lani.” Looking frazzled, Heather said, “I appreciate a lunch out that doesn’t involve meals packaged with toys. And I don’t have to hurry back. Mom has the girls.”
Lani tried not to react from their obvious scrutiny. They must wonder at the reason for the lunch date, but they were also looking her over for more signs of burn scars. Sorry. The one is all you get to see.
She ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc for the table. Alcohol might encourage the others to dish on Gail’s secrets. After ordering their meals—three orders of crab cakes, the inn’s specialty—they sipped and chatted about Becca’s office mates and her divorce, Heather’s pictures of her twins, and Lani’s work with handicapped kids.
Halfway through their meals and their second glasses of wine, Lani began. “You may have heard I’m trying to get the state fire marshal’s office to re-investigate the fire.”
Heather made clucking noises. “Nothing new has come up, has it?”
Lani’s stomach clenched but she kept her features neutral. The local paper had called the attack on her an accident. No point in telling these women what really happened. “Nothing definite. I invited you here today because I need to ask you some things about Gail.”
Becca bristled. “What could we possibly tell you that you don’t already know about your twin sister?”
Lani smiled. “We went to different colleges. I had my own friends. We were close but didn’t share everything.” Beneath the table, she popped her knuckles. “For instance, the guy she was cheating on Jake with.”
Heather paled. She and Becca exchanged a glance. They knew something.
Lani’s pulse leaped like a mackerel at dangled bait.
Heather set down her wineglass and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “I don’t see how that would help.”
“You never know.” The scenario she’d worked out ought to prick their consciences. “At the time, the fire investigator concluded the blaze was an accident—gasoline spilled near the oil lamp. But more and more, the cause looks like arson. Suppose after Jake left, Gail met this other guy in the barn. And suppose they had a fight and he hit her and knocked her unconscious. Then he started the fire to cover his butt. That makes him a murderer.”
Becca blanched whiter than the tablecloth. She guzzled half her wine. “Murderer?”
“When someone dies in an arson fire, the crime is arson-murder. Don’t you want the authorities to catch your old friend Gail’s murderer?”
Heather and Becca exchanged a look. Becca nodded slowly.
“You’d better pour yourself more wine,” Heather said, her round cheeks pink from the alcohol. Or something else. “You won’t like what you’re going to hear. I’ll join you.”
Becca held out her glass. “Me too.”
*****
A great black-backed seagull landed on the other end of Jake’s picnic table. Cocking its head to one side, it lasered one red eye at his clam basket.
Great black-backs were scarcer than herring gulls. Looked like the same gull that had stolen his bagel. Nah. Just his imagination. The overlapping cases making him paranoid.
“What is it with you guys and my food? Shoo.” He picked up a pebble from the ground and heaved it in the general direction of the would-be thief.
The gull shook its feathers as if to say, “Can’t you do better than that?”
A volley of pebbles sent it squawking into the air, a blur of black and white against the smattering of cotton-balls in the blue. The fiend landed on the next table, kept its eye on Jake.
On the fresh salt air, aromas of fried seafood drifted from the restaurants that ringed the landing, including the red wagon where he’d purchased lunch. Hell of a forest of masts beyond the Bayport public landing. Dozens more than in tiny Dragon Harbor’s anchorage. Jake polished off the crispy fries that accompanied the fried clams.
After he’d left Lani last night, he worked on his laptop doing reports and sending Donovan what he knew on the people from his and Lani’s lists. Background checks would take time but he’d done his part.
Earlier this morning he found Steve Quimby at ABC Building Supplies, where his old buddy designed kitchens and baths. Reluctant at first, Steve finally consented to talk to him but not at work. Here on the landing during his lunch break.
Hearing stones crunch under heavy shoes, he turned to see Steve striding from the parking lot toward him. He carried a bag from the lunch wagon. Tall enough to play center for the Celtics, he towered over Jake’s six-two. He shook Jake’s hand with a massive paw.
“Thanks for coming, Steve. Good to see you,” Ja
ke said, gesturing for him to sit.
“Yeah, good to see you too.” A familiar, diffident grin softened Steve’s face as he folded his long body onto the picnic bench. Broad-shouldered and powerful-looking, he had the kind of crookedly agreeable looks women seemed to like. Looks that might’ve attracted Gail.
Jake allowed time for Steve to inhale his two burgers and for them to get caught up.
“It’s a good job,” Steve said. “Every room’s a puzzle. I have to take the pieces the owners want and fit them into a workable arrangement. I bet the ATF solves puzzles too.”
“Definitely, sometimes dangerous ones. I’ve got a puzzle going now,” Jake said. The analogy made a convenient segue. “You remember the fire that killed Gail Cameron.”
Steve blinked and then nodded. “A long time ago, man.”
“Twelve years.” He paused for emphasis. “You ever hook up with Gail?”
His broad forehead creased and he squinted as the sun came from behind a cloud. “Wasn’t she your girl?”
“Seems she had a few guys on the side. You weren’t one of them?”
“Me? No way.” Steve huffed a sigh. “Look, she hit on me a couple times when I danced with her at parties but I didn’t take her up on it. Why are you asking me?”
“I’d like to eliminate you from my list.”
“Your list? What the hell’s going on?”
Jake worked up a minimal smile. He’d expected this reaction. “That fire might not have been an accident. Lani Cameron and I want the state fire marshal to re-open the investigation, prove the cause—accident or arson. If someone set the fire, we want justice. That’s all.”
“That’s all? That’s a hell of a lot. Arson, you say. Bad business.”
“So you’ll answer some questions?”
Steve chewed that over with the last of his lunch. “Shoot.”
“I want to get clear where everyone stands. Where everyone was that night.”
“You know where I was. Playing poker at Todd’s until two, three in the morning.”
Jake nodded. “True enough. So you do remember that night.”
“Some. I remember the fire trucks and the sirens blasting by the end of Ridge Road on their way down the East Road.”
“As I recall, you were late. Got there after me. We played several hands before you came. Awhile later the trucks blew by. At least the other guys and I remember it that way.” Keeping his voice even, he smiled to mitigate the implicit accusation.
“Hey, I had nothing to do with that fire. Why would I?” Steve crumpled his sandwich wrappings into a tight ball.
“Not saying you did. Investigator never asked you back then for an alibi because you were at the game. You mind telling me where you were between seven thirty and ten fifteen?”
“If the guys remember that much, they—and you—ought to remember I lost big time that night. I was drinking pretty heavy before and during. I dunno where I was before Todd’s. Too long ago to remember.” He swung his legs over the picnic bench and rose to his considerable height. “I gotta get back to work.”
So Jake wouldn’t have to stare straight up into the sun to face the man, he rose to his feet. He held out a business card. Maybe the official ATF logo would provide encouragement. “I’d appreciate it if you’d try to recall. You can reach me on my cell.”
Steve took the card, pocketed it. “No guarantees.”
The black-back landed lightly on the end of the table.
Watching his friend hoof it across the parking lot, Jake said to the bird, “How much you want to bet Steve won’t make that call? He remembers all right. Remembers the sirens. Remembers the game. Five to one he remembers where he was before the game.”
The quiet, shy teen Steve had been would’ve fallen for flirty Gail like a lightning-struck spruce. He seemed easygoing but any man might snap if pushed hard enough by a gorgeous female. If he had a temper and Gail dumped him, he could’ve swatted her like a fly without breaking a sweat. And started the blaze as a cover-up.
Made sense that was the way events went down, whoever committed that crime.
Steve was a possible. And Kevin. His outbursts on the baseball diamond when calls went against him were legendary. And Kevin admitted he’d had a thing for Gail. If only the backgrounders on both these guys would come through.
Jake reached for the last of his clams to find only tartar sauce. The last succulent clam was disappearing down the gull’s gullet.
*****
Not just one guy but a stream of them.
Good thing Lani was already seated because her knees couldn’t hold her. Her head ached, and not from the wine, as she stared at the four names she’d written. The only ones Becca and Heather were sure of. How many more? Jake hadn’t explained why Kevin was on his list. That Kevin could’ve been one didn’t bear considering.
Finally Gail’s moodiness that summer made more sense. She’d always been fun-loving but that summer she went overboard with the dancing and flirting and skimpy outfits. Then she’d mope and lie around in her room for hours. Mom had sighed about her being so temperamental. But more was going on than anyone in the family suspected.
Jake had commented on the moods, but he didn’t have any more of a clue than she did that Gail was sleeping around with more than the one guy. How was Lani going to tell him? The crab cakes she’d eaten regenerated their claws and raked her stomach.
“Are you all right, Lani?” Heather patted her hand.
“Yeah. I’m trying to wrap my head around this side of my sister.” She picked up her wine glass and set it down again. Enough alcohol. She needed a clear head.
“I thought you knew.” Becca pushed the lettuce garnish around with her fork. “I warned her she was on the edge of a cliff. STDs, AIDS. A girl has to protect herself. She just shrugged me off. Said I didn’t understand.”
“Is there more? Do you know why she was hitting on every male in Dragon Harbor?”
Heather leaned forward, elbows on the table, the crème brulée she’d ordered for dessert forgotten. “What do you know about her illness that spring?”
*****
After the final blow, Lani didn’t know quite how she managed the drive home, her mind and heart roiling with Gail’s secrets. Secrets Gail kept to herself. Secrets that explained her moods. Secrets that drove her to act out her pain and desolation in self-destructive and manic fury. Why, oh why didn’t she confide in me?
Her tires sprayed gravel as she screeched into the farm driveway. She barely made it out of the car. Overwhelming nausea doubled her over beside the forsythia, and she lost her lunch.
Chapter 13
Jake arrived at Birch Brook Farm the next afternoon with the complete file on the Cameron fire and a preliminary on the Tyson one for Lani. After his meeting with Steve, he’d made copies in Bayport.
He’d put her off to give himself more time alone to study them with a professional eye—and, he hoped, a dispassionate eye. Besides, being with her distracted him too much. He wanted to miss nothing significant.
One particular item stood out. The condom lubricant was unusual, from a specific brand sold in pricey sex shops. No drugstore variety. Had to come from Portland or Boston. Whoever purchased those boutique condoms had long since disposed of the evidence, but if he narrowed down the suspect list, knowing the condom source might prove useful for intimidation purposes.
He’d climbed the porch steps and was automatically rubbing his thigh muscles when he spied a note on the door.
J, too nice to stay inside. Follow the path behind the house to the dock.
She signed it with a smiley-face drawing except with an oversize O for the mouth.
Jake chuckled in spite of his concern as he pocketed the note. He made his way along the grassy path. Damned foolish. She had no idea about security. Alone on the dock. A neon sign inviting the killer. Come and get me. Headline—Summer Resident Dies in Accidental Drowning. “Fuck.” He cranked up his stroll to a jog.
He wound pas
t the disused paddock, across the wooden bridge spanning the brook, and through a stand of white pines, where his sneakers scuffed up their scent. The run loosened the kinks in his thigh and soaked the back of his T-shirt.
The path opened to a spectacular panorama—rolling seas and a smattering of spruce-dotted islands—he only peripherally registered as he searched. There was Lani, perched on a boulder. He whooshed out a breath before he called her name.
She turned, her smile brightening his day more than the sun. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail. Above the scoop neck of her pink cropped top matching her shorts, he glimpsed the tattoo but not enough to decipher its design.
When he approached the dock, she beckoned him to join her on the shore. “Sit on the dock at your own risk.”
The wooden structure extended a dozen or so feet from where a set of matching steps descended. Water splashed up through gaps that had once been boards, and one side sagged where a rotten piling had given way. Unless a bad guy swam in, he wasn’t going to sneak up on Lani from that dock. One less threat to worry about. But only one.
Seeing her face tilted up in greeting defused his fear-fired temper. Too tempting to pass up. He planted a quick kiss on her lips. The memory of being wrapped around each other in her kitchen hovered between them like heat waves rising from pavement.
Before he got carried away again, he settled onto the slab of rock beside her. “The dock one of the things to repair before selling the place?”
She shook her head. “I’ll leave that to the buyer. Most people nowadays use aluminum or a synthetic that looks like wood. Something that won’t rot.”
“What are you having done?”
“Just got new locks. A hunky locksmith gave me a great price.”
“Hunky, huh?” He grinned, winging a flat stone out over the water. It skipped twice before sinking. He wanted this camaraderie with her to go on without the downers of danger and secrets. But the light purple shadows beneath her eyes were a testament to the grief and worry keeping her from sleep.
Once Burned (Task Force Eagle) Page 11
