The Harbor

by Carla Neggers

  Just as well she didn't trust him. Who knew what would have happened if she'd climbed into his boat with him.

  The café was packed with tourists. He had to wait, then settle for a table by the door. But the crab cakes and coffee were hot, and that was fine with him.

  Christina slipped out from behind her counter to join him for "thirty seconds." She looked calmer than she had at breakfast. "Did you see my lunatic sister on her kayak?"

  J.B. dipped a chunk of crab cake into a red-pepper coulis. "Looks like she's having a good time." "That's Zoe. If she's sweating, she's having a good time."

  For no reason at all, at least none that he wanted to contemplate, J.B. thought of slim, blond-haired, blue-eyed, very female ex-cop Zoe sweating in bed with him. He said nothing to her little sister, and, mercifully, Christina slipped back behind the counter.

  It was going to be that kind of day, and he couldn't blame the little nothing of a kiss, never mind that it had been a lit match to a fuse. He'd been thinking about Zoe in bed with him even before she gave in to impulse.

  Almost as if on cue, the café crowd gave out a collective gasp. At one of the window tables, an older woman said, "Oh, my! That kayak turned right over, didn't it?" The woman across from her nodded. "She got caught in the wake of that speedboat."

  J.B. rose, and Christina shot back around the counterand joined him. "Is she okay?" Zoe had almost made it to her aunt's house on its rocky point before she went ass over teakettle into the water. Her kayak was still upright, and she was trying to climb back in.

  Christina touched his arm. "Don't go after her. You won't get there in time to do any good. If she needs help, she'll blow her whistle." She gestured at the offending speedboat. "Most of the boaters look out for kayakers, but that guy's a menace."

  J.B. spotted Bruce Young's lobster boat coming back into the harbor from the northeast. "Bruce can get to her if she's in trouble."

  Christina rolled her eyes. "He's probably laughing his ass off."

  "Is anyone besides you happy your sister's back?"

  She smiled. "You are. You were looking kind of bored before Zoe showed up."

  He said nothing and watched Zoe flop into her kayak. She reached back into the water and grabbed her paddle, and in another few seconds was paddling again, making good time.

  A cheer erupted from the café.

  "I've got to get back to work," Christina said. "Why don't you and Zoe come over for dinner tonight? I'll cook. Zoe tends to throw things into dishes that don't belong there. Like her flax seed and Toaster Strudels."

  She retreated, and J.B., resisting the image of Zoe in cold, wet, tight-fitting clothes, returned to his coffee and crab cakes before they could get cold.

  Fourteen

  At high tide, like it was now, Bruce's cabin wasn't too bad. At low tide, it smelled like dead fish. The wet, gray sand developed pinprick holes that made tiny sucking sounds, like something was alive down there. Probably was. Teddy didn't want to know what. He'd worked at the lobster pound, but he just did what he was told. He was out of his element on the ocean. If he had any sense, he'd quit this job and head back to New York.

  He'd never have come to Goose Harbor in the first place if he had half a brain.

  He flipped a card onto the red-and-white-checked oilcloth that was duct-taped to the table. He was playing solitaire with a limp, grimy deck of cards with a picture of a lobster on the back, hoping some kind of plan of action would materialize in his head.

  There was nothing for him in New York. An ex-wife who'd dumped him over the guns, long before he'd ended up in prison. No kids. His parents were dead. He had a brother somewhere.

  He'd decided in prison that his family had something wrong with them. They had bad luck. In his early days behind bars, he read a bunch of Stephen King novels and concluded his family was cursed. Made sense to him. His father had been angry and abusive. His mother had been a mouse when he was around and a tiger when he wasn't. They had no other family—there were vague references to other Sheltons upstate, but who knew? His parents were also liars. Teddy hated liars.

  He joined the army at eighteen thinking he'd at least get away from these people, maybe make something of himself. But he'd never worked at it harder than some asshole officer made him work, and after his stint, he was done. Without the army, he had no structure. He had no purpose, even if it was only one defined for him. He'd seen other guys do fine in the military, fine when they went back to civilian life. They got jobs, they had families, they made a contribution.

  They gave up weapons they weren't supposed to have.

  At least this nitwit job with Luke Castellane paid well. Luke had made allusions to a big bonus at the end of it. The guy was just dying at the idea of Zoe West and the FBI agent crawling up his ass. He didn't understand that Teddy had his own reasons for taking the job—for being in Goose Harbor at all.

  He had the front door open and could hear the wind whooshing in the trees and the tide lapping all the way up to the grass. The place was such a hole. Saying he was renting it was too strong—he was just keeping up the taxes and utilities. Bruce wasn't making a profit.

  The front room had a couch and a musty chair, the table with the oilcloth and three rickety chairs. Teddy had nearly blown himself up lighting the pint-size gas stove in the galley kitchen. No coffeemaker, just a pitted percolator.

  He didn't know what Luke wanted him to do about Zoe West and the FBI agent. Why'd she come sneaking around? Was she on to him and checking him out? Had she found out about his prison time? His job with Luke? Maybe she and the G-man had found out about Luke's bullshit story that he wanted to protect Zoe and didn't believe it, either.

  Teddy got up from his solitaire game. He was losing, anyway. Except for his arsenal, he hadn't broken the law. If and when he did, he'd make sure he had his escape route planned out ahead of time.

  He should get on that.

  He glanced at his array of cards on the crooked table. Clock. It was a moronic game. He used to play it as a kid, up in a closet when he was hiding from his crazy mother.

  He went through the kitchen and out the back and got in his truck. He checked his apple crate of weapons in the jump seat. All nice and tidy. If the cops got wind of his arsenal, he'd be toast, but so far, so good. He'd come close to getting discovered not long after he arrived in Goose Harbor, when he ran into Patrick West on the docks. West was off duty, not in uniform. A friendly guy. He asked Teddy if he knew boats. Teddy didn't know why, but he didn't like people just walking up to him and starting talking. He'd asked West what business it was of his.

  Patrick West hadn't gotten ruffled. He wasn't a big man, and he was steady, self-confident. He explained that he knew Goose Harbor, he knew its people. He understood the kind of guys who came through looking for work as opposed to the kind who came for their ocean fix, their lobster and clam dinners and walks on the beaches, their treks through cute shops. He figured Teddy for the former. It wasn't technically the case, but Teddy didn't argue with him.

  "Lobster pound's hiring if you're interested," West told him. "Tell Bruce Young I sent you."

  It was god-awful work. Teddy had lasted only a few weeks.

  Then Patrick West was dead.

  "And here I am," Teddy grumbled, starting his truck. "Lucky me."

  He was out to the main road when his cell phone rang.

  "I want you to maintain the status quo," Luke Castellane said, without so much as a how-was-your-morn-ing.

  Teddy frowned. "What's that mean?"

  "It means I like things as they are. It's better for all concerned if Patrick West's murder remains unsolved."

  "Yeah? So far so good. It's been a year—"

  Luke cut him off. "I don't like having Zoe here. I don't like having this FBI agent snooping around."

  "What about the break-ins?"

  "I just don't want any more trouble."

  "Yeah, and I'm supposed to do what to stop it?"

  But the line had gone dead
. Teddy figured it must mean he was supposed to fill in the blanks for himself.

  He tossed his phone onto the seat next to him. The boss had just upped the ante. Had to be. Keeping an eye on Zoe West didn't require any action or decision-mak-ing on Teddy's part. He just watched and reported back to Luke Castellane. But maintaining the status quo? Stopping her and Agent McGrath from kicking up dust? That could take work. Action. Crossing the line.

  How he went about it, apparently, was his call.

  Teddy turned toward the village and kept his truck under the speed limit. He didn't want to be stopped now, have one of Maine's finest get suspicious about his apple crate.

  After a year in Gooseshit Harbor, he didn't know if he liked the idea that he might have to go as far as killing Zoe West to keep that weird bastard Luke happy.

  But, nah. Teddy shook his head. He wouldn't have to kill her, maybe just beat her up a little.

  The FBI agent he might have to kill.

  Fifteen

  Zoe sat on the porch with a pot of hot peppermint-lic-orice tea and wrapped herself in a red wool blanket that still smelled faintly of the rosemary-scented powder her aunt preferred. She listened to the ocean and the shorebirds and tried to stop shivering after her dunking in the harbor. It had been a good half hour, and she was still frozen.

  The sun was behind the house now, off the water, the porch cool and shadowy, hinting at the short, dark winter days that were just around the corner.

  "You Mainers." J.B. came around from the side porch, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He looked dark and warm, not as if he'd had to climb out of the freezing ocean. "Most people would sit by the fire after they took a spill in cold water."

  "Frigid water. I'm out of practice." She held her mug with both hands, absorbing its heat. "You saw me?"

  "All of Goose Harbor saw you."

  "I'll never live it down. I was preoccupied, and the pilot of the speedboat was an idiot—" She sighed, vividly recalling the exact moment when she realized she was broadside to an enormous swell and going over. She glanced up at J.B. "Were you ready to come to my rescue?"

  "Me and a couple of old ladies on a bus tour."

  "I'd have blown my whistle if I were in real trouble."

  "No, you wouldn't." He dropped onto a wooden rocker painted a dark green. "You'd have drowned or died of hypothermia before you admitted you needed help."

  "Are you implying I'm stubborn?"

  "Self-reliant to a fault, maybe. Proud, stubborn. Possibly overconfident." He rocked back, shrugging. "But that's only a guess. I'd have to be around you for an hour or two more before I could say for sure."

  He looked windburned and rugged, as if he'd been going out to sea for years, as if he were born to it. But Zoe pushed back her attraction to him, her curiosity about him, as if they were something she could control.

  "Still mad at me for talking to Teddy Shelton without your say-so?" She smiled. "I don't know if I'm insulted or amused."

  "I ran into Bruce on the docks. He said he was hoping he'd get a chance to fish you out of the water, just to have something to hold over you for the rest of your lives. He blamed the speedboat. That was decent of him."

  "It was accurate."

  J.B. obviously had no intention of letting her off the hook. "Your mind wasn't on what you were doing. You know it wasn't."

  There was no point arguing with him. He was already convinced he was right. Zoe drank more of her tea and finally felt a bit warmer. She wondered if her lips were still purple. She was shivering uncontrollably and still cursing her inattention when she got to the rocks below her aunt's house, then dragged herself and her kayak up the steep trail. She'd left her boat in the yard and made it upstairs to her room without collapsing from hypothermia, then peeled off her wet clothes and found an old bathrobe in her bedroom closet to put on.

  J.B. couldn't see her bathrobe under her blanket. It was one of Olivia's, or perhaps had been left by a former guest. It looked like something Lucy Ricardo might have worn.

  She decided to change the subject. "Kyle called while I was making tea. He wanted to know if I'd thought about his request."

  "Have you?"

  "No. I went kayaking to avoid thinking about anything."

  "Didn't work, did it?"

  She ignored him. "Periodically for about three years before she died, Aunt Olivia would have me burn stuff she didn't want to leave behind after she was gone. I protested, but she was adamant. She'd have done it herself if I'd refused."

  "Sounds like a character."

  "She didn't want anyone—family, scholars, gossip hounds—pawing through her private thoughts and possessions after she was dead. She knew she was famous. Kyle knows all this, you realize."

  "So no big surprises in the attic."

  "I doubt it."

  "Did she know you wanted to write?"

  Zoe was so startled by his question, she ended up spilling her tea over her hand. She yelled out, but he was there, taking the cup from her, setting it back on its saucer.

  "Did you burn yourself?" he asked.

  She nodded, feeling flushed and exposed, as if he could see not just through her, but into her, which she knew was all in her head—a result of being off balance. She sucked on her burned knuckle. "I didn't want to write. I don't want to write. I was just…scribbling. I don't know. It wasn't anything."

  J.B. stood back and sat on the porch railing, the lawn and beach roses, the bluff and the ocean behind him. "You resurrected Jen Periwinkle."

  She lifted her gaze to him. "I thought you couldn't read my handwriting."

  He shrugged. "I could read that much. Did you start writing before your father was killed and your aunt died?"

  Zoe slipped both hands under her blanket and tightened it around her, her fingers stiff from the cold and nerves. "No, after. I stayed here by myself. I made the nook up in the attic, but if it was warm enough, I'd write out here on the porch sometimes. It was a way to get my mind off everything."

  "Funny that your aunt left you the rights to Jen Periwinkle." J.B. placed his hands on the porch railing on either side of him, and she noticed several scars, not that old. "If most of the books are out of print, maybe she wanted you to keep her going, reinvent her for the next century."

  "I don't even know if there'd be an audience. And in her will, Olivia made it clear that I was under no pressure from her from the grave—she'd tried to kill off Jen herself but couldn't."

  J.B. laughed. "And here I've been thinking your aunt was a practical old Mainer—sounds like she could be loosey-goosey."

  For a moment, Zoe felt as if Olivia was out here with them, her wisps of white hair in her face as she enjoyed the fresh air and the incomparable view. Her throat caught. "She was something, J.B."

  "Tell me about that last day," he said. "When you told her about your father."

  "There's nothing to say. I barreled into the kitchen like a crazy woman and blurted that Dad had been murdered."

  "Was anyone else here?"

  "Betsy O'Keefe."

  "The woman living with Luke Castellane?"

  "Not then. She was my aunt's caregiver. She's an R.N., but she also served as a companion and personal assistant. They worked out the arrangements. Olivia was prickly at first, but Betsy was so patient with her, always willing to compromise. She had just the right mix of spine and kindness for the job."

  "Ever imagine her with Luke?" Zoe shook her head. "Betsy never seemed interested in romantic relationships, or even friendships. She's al

  ways struck me as a solitary sort. Nice, not someone who needs a lot of people in her life. I suppose that makes her good for the kind of work she does."

  J.B. said nothing for a moment, and Zoe thoughtabout how little she knew about him—a powder keg according to Stick, yet he hadn't done anything out of control or nuts as far as she could see. Unless she counted helping himself to a room in her house.

  "How'd she end up with Luke?" he asked.

  "I don't real
ly know. Aunt Olivia always liked him. She said he was an abused and neglected little boy and that made him a self-absorbed and often not very pleasant man, but she held out hope for him. He was devastated when she died."

  J.B. eased off the rail. "I've seen Luke Castellane around town a few times. He strikes me as an arrogant son of a bitch." He smiled. "But maybe your aunt was more tolerant than I am."

  "I'd call her observant more than tolerant." Zoe fought off a sudden wave of nostalgia, regret, sense of loss. "She always expected the good in people to triumph."

  "That's not a bad way to live."

  "You think so? I'd have expected you to say it's naive."

  "One kiss and she thinks she knows me." He moved toward her, deliberately, dominating her view, and smiled. "That brought some heat to your cold cheeks, didn't it, Detective Zoe? Still shivering?"

  Not anymore, she thought. "It was staying in my wet clothes that did me in. If I could have gotten out of them sooner—" She stopped, aware of a darkening of his eyes. She warned herself not to read anything into it, but she could feel how scantily clad she was under her wool blanket. She'd at least pulled on dry, warm socks. Hiking socks and a silky bathrobe. Very sexy. "I'm much warmer now."

  J.B. stood directly in front of her, his toes almost touching hers, and seemed to hesitate a moment, as if he thought she might jump up and run back into the house—or giving her the chance to.

  Then he skimmed a crooked finger over her cheek and caught the damp ends of her hair. "You got soaked, didn't you?"

  "Head to toe," she managed to say.

  He let his finger slide under her jaw and tilted her face up toward him, then slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He gave her another chance to scoot inside, to back him off, if she'd wanted to. But she didn't, and instead she parted her lips slightly, taking in a small breath as his mouth touched hers. He pulled back a little, and she thought that'd be the end of it, but she was wrong. He cupped his hand at the back of her head and kissed her for a long time, letting his mouth play against hers.