Breakwater

by Carla Neggers

  She came to the kayak and forced herself to look where the sea gulls were feasting.

  A leg.

  “Oh no.”

  Now Quinn could see blond hair.

  She recognized the blue sweater and the jeans Alicia had worn yesterday morning.

  “Alicia!”

  Quinn’s scream didn’t faze the gulls. She turned around, facing the road, and yelled for help, her stomach knotting, bile rising in her throat. She didn’t know if her screams were louder than the cries of the gulls or the tide, if anyone was nearby to hear her.

  She made herself turn back toward Alicia and flapped her arms and yelled at the gulls, kicked sand at them, but only two flew off. When the rest refused to leave, Quinn took a closer look.

  Alicia was sprawled facedown in the shallow water, strands of underwater grass tangled on her lower legs. Her feet were bare. Her sport sandals must have come off.

  Quinn dropped onto her knees, shivering, her teeth chattering from cold and fear.

  Please don’t be dead.

  But she quickly saw there was no point in checking for a pulse.

  “Oh, Alicia,” she whispered, sobbing. “You can’t be dead. Oh, God, no.”

  “Quinn—”

  Startled, she leaped up, spinning around right into Huck Boone. She took a step back, tripping on the kayak, but he grabbed her by the upper arm, steadying her.

  He looked past her and tightened his grip on her.

  “It’s—it’s my friend.” Quinn’s voice was hoarse. “Alicia. Alicia Miller. She’s…” I can’t say it.

  “We need to call the police. Do you have a cell phone?”

  “What?”

  “A phone.”

  “Yes. It’s at my cottage.”

  He released her arm and touched her shoulder. “Go. Call 911. I’ll wait here.” When she didn’t respond, he squeezed her shoulder gently. “You’ve had a hell of a shock. There’s nothing you can do for your friend now except to call the police and get her out of here.”

  Quinn knew he was right. He hadn’t known Alicia—he wasn’t facing the horror of seeing a friend dead. “The kayak…” Her entire body shaking now, teeth chattering, Quinn tried to point to the kayak. “I didn’t realize it was missing.”

  “No reason for you to have noticed. Quinn—”

  She tried to focus on anything but Alicia’s body, disfigured by seawater and seagulls. “The storms—Alicia must have been out in the storms yesterday. Why would she do that?”

  “I’ll go make the call. Where’s your cell phone?”

  “Kitchen counter.” But she grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his hard muscle. “Wait. Did you see the kayak on your run?”

  “I wasn’t looking at the scenery.”

  Suspicion rippled through her. “You weren’t out here to find her?”

  Huck pried her fingers off his arm, holding on to them just for a second. “No, Quinn, I was out for a run. Come on. Let’s go back to the cottage and call the police together—”

  “I can’t leave Alicia. I need to keep the gulls away.”

  His expression softened.

  “I’ll be okay,” Quinn added. “The shock—” She cleared her throat, stiffened herself against the trembling and shivering. “I didn’t expect to find her out here.”

  “Of course not. I’ll be back in two minutes. Don’t touch anything—”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “The police will need to investigate.”

  Huck gave a curt nod and, after a slight hesitation, as if he was reconsidering leaving her there alone, he headed back up the narrow path.

  Quinn heard the sharp cry of a gull, and felt her stomach lurch. An autopsy. They’ll have to cut Alicia open.

  Her knees buckled and she tasted bile.

  She knew Alicia was dead and yet wished she could shield her friend from what came next. Police, paramedics. Reporters. People who never knew her asking questions. Speculating. Judging.

  They would want to know what had happened and why.

  They’d ask Quinn about her encounter with Alicia yesterday in Washington.

  Strangers would determine whether Alicia’s death was an accident or suicide.

  Would anyone even suspect murder?

  “The osprey will kill me.”

  The crazy words of a disturbed woman.

  No, Quinn thought. No one would suspect murder.

  9

  N ate Winter glanced at the picture on his desk of the small cape house he and his wife, Sarah, an historical archaeologist, had bought. It was a fixer-upper. Worst house, best location. They looked forward to doing a lot of the work themselves. Moving day was coming up. They’d enlisted the help of family and friends. Sarah was already loading up the freezer with southern-style casseroles to feed their helpers. Her friend John Wesley Poe had promised to show up. That he was the president of the United States was only one of the many complications of Nate’s life.

  The prospect of their new house only distracted him for a moment. He had wanted to give Juliet Longstreet the chance to digest the news he had just given her. Although she was a top-notch deputy U.S. marshal, even on a good day she didn’t like coming into the USMS headquarters in Arlington.

  Today was not a good day.

  “Nice of you to wait until this Huck Boone–Huck McCabe character finds a body before you tell me about him.” Juliet was known for her blunt manner. She was tall, in butt-kicking shape, but she was letting her fair hair grow out; it was curling past her chin now. “When did he arrive in Yorkville?”

  “Saturday.” Nate could feel his usual impatience working at him. “And he didn’t find Alicia Miller. Her friend did.”

  “Quinn Harlowe,” Juliet said.

  Nate had already laid out for her what he knew about the tragic events in Yorkville. Juliet had made it clear she wanted to be in the field, tracking the vigilantes herself. She was directly responsible for disrupting one of their plots after a run-in with them last fall. Ethan Brooker, a former Special Forces officer, had helped. Now at the White House and romantically involved with Juliet, he was also on the task force. Both of them understood that this time, their unique expertise was best put to use at a distance. Let the guys from California do their thing.

  “Ethan knows about McCabe?” Juliet asked.

  Nate nodded, knowing his answer wouldn’t go over well with her. “Ethan did a mission a few years ago with Diego Clemente, McCabe’s backup.” Hesitating a moment, Nate added, “I asked Ethan to keep the information to himself.”

  “Well, he did.” Juliet scowled. “I hate being kept out of the loop.”

  “McCabe’s in a precarious situation. He doesn’t know us. He came into this investigation through the back door. He’s doing us a favor—”

  “I get it, Nate. This guy feels safer with as few people as possible knowing he’s an undercover federal agent. If we’re right and these psycho vigilantes have infiltrated Breakwater Security, he’s a dead man if his cover gets blown.”

  Leave it to Juliet not to mince words. Nate glanced again at the picture of his house. It had dove-gray shingles and white shutters, all of which needed replacing.

  “Where’s McCabe now?”

  “Back at Breakwater.”

  “The local police are in the dark about who he is?”

  “That’s right.” If they ever found out the truth, the locals wouldn’t appreciate getting sidelined, but Nate thought that, given the stakes, they would understand. “We have several problems.”

  Juliet sighed. “Alicia Miller worked for the Justice Department. Is someone from the FBI looking into her death?”

  That was one of the problems. “Special Agent T.J. Kowalski.”

  “I take it he doesn’t know about McCabe, either.”

  “Correct. At the moment, there’s no indication her death was anything but a terrible accident.”

  Nate looked out his window a moment and thought of his wife happily digging in the dirt at her newest archa
eological site, an old family dump. A treasure trove to Sarah Dunnemore Winter. On a day like today, he would like nothing better than to join her in her search for artifacts.

  He glanced back at Juliet. Huck McCabe had stumbled onto a lead that could be the thread they needed to pull to unravel a violent, paranoid criminal network. He was a topnotch federal agent, but Nate didn’t know him. McCabe hadn’t been handpicked picked for the job.

  “Did McCabe talk to the police?” Juliet asked.

  “He told them he was out for a run. Quinn Harlowe was drinking tea on her porch and said hello to him. He resumed his run, heard her scream and returned—”

  “She’d found her friend’s body.”

  “She spotted a kayak—hers, as it turns out—and went to investigate.” Nate pictured the scene, although he’d never been to Yorkville. “McCabe says he didn’t see the kayak or the body on his run.”

  “You believe him?”

  Nate shrugged. “No reason not to.”

  “Quinn Harlowe. What do we know about her?”

  “Not enough, obviously.”

  “Her friend—the dead woman. She said ospreys were out to kill her?”

  “Something like that. That’s what she told Harlowe.”

  Juliet sat back in her chair. “Ospreys. That’s a new one. Harlowe didn’t get a plate number of the Lincoln that picked up Alicia Miller?”

  “No. She only caught a glimpse of the car. She did what she could to find her friend. Checked the woman’s apartment and her office, made a few calls to friends and colleagues. Then she drove down to her cottage.”

  “McCabe give you all this?” Juliet asked skeptically.

  “He managed to get to Diego Clemente. Then Diego called me.”

  She shifted in her chair, her concern plain on her face. “McCabe knows his safety is paramount, doesn’t he? He’s not to take unnecessary risks.”

  “Clemente says he reminded him.”

  “And?”

  Nate let his gaze settle on Juliet for a moment. “McCabe told him all risks are unnecessary. Otherwise they wouldn’t be risks.” He grimaced. A dangerous, delicate undercover investigation depended on a man Nate didn’t know. “I have a feeling that’s a typical Huck McCabe answer.”

  “What about Gerard Lattimore?” Juliet asked. “Alicia Miller worked for him. Until January, so did Harlowe. He and Oliver Crawford are longtime friends—”

  “I’ll speak with Eliza Abrams,” Nate interrupted, well aware of the facts, none of which he liked. Abrams was the U.S. attorney overseeing the vigilante investigation on behalf of the Department of Justice. “I expect she’ll want to give this thing some time. If Alicia Miller was in the middle of a mental breakdown, it’s possible her death had nothing to do with our investigation. We don’t need to jump the gun.”

  “Meaning…”

  “Meaning we continue to tell Gerard Lattimore nothing.”

  10

  J oe Riccardi intercepted Huck outside the converted barn before he could get back to his room and change his shoes, not yet dry after he’d charged into the marsh. Quinn Harlowe’s screams of horror had stopped him dead in his tracks on his run. Diego had said he’d heard her, too, out on his boat.

  A hell of a shock, finding her friend’s body.

  One DOJ lawyer dead. A former DOJ analyst talking to the feds and the local police. Huck thought he could understand his new boss’s tight look.

  “Where have you been, Boone?”

  “I was out for a run. There was a problem in town.”

  Riccardi’s face didn’t register any obvious emotion. “Alicia Miller. We heard the news about her death.” He paused, his eyes unchanged. “Police suspect she drowned.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “What was your involvement?”

  “I was on my run. I’d just gone past Quinn Harlowe’s cottage when I heard her scream. I went to see what I could do.”

  “She could have screamed for a dozen different reasons—”

  “Didn’t matter.”

  Riccardi nodded. “You’ll do well in this work, Boone.” But his voice was toneless. “The body—”

  “There was no hope for Miss Miller by the time I got there. She’d been dead for a number of hours.” For some reason, Huck pictured Quinn barefoot, flapping at the gulls, her black hair whipping in her face as she’d tried to protect her dead friend. “Her body washed up in the marsh near a kayak—she must have been out during yesterday’s storms.”

  “Why would anyone—” Joe shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she go kayaking in severe weather? Did this Quinn Harlowe have any ideas? What’s she doing in Yorkville?”

  “She was worried about Alicia—Miss Miller. Apparently they had an encounter in Washington early yesterday afternoon. Sounds as if she was in even worse shape than when she showed up at the front gate here that morning at the crack of dawn. Harlowe tried to find her—checked her apartment, made a few calls. When she didn’t have any luck, she came down here to see if Miller had returned to the cottage.”

  Joe inhaled sharply. “What a tragedy. Did you tell the police about our encounter with Miss Miller yesterday morning?”

  “No. I didn’t actually see her myself. I figured—” Huck regarded Joe Riccardi, clearly nothing about this day sitting well with Breakwater Security’s chief of operations. “It wasn’t anything I wanted to get into.”

  “Understood.”

  “Alicia Miller worked for the DOJ. The FBI’s investigating. Her boss was Deputy Assistant Attorney General—”

  “Gerard Lattimore. Yes, I know. He and Oliver Crawford are longtime friends. Law enforcement officials are welcome to ask questions of any of us.” Riccardi’s square chin came up slightly. “We have nothing to hide. Do we?”

  “I sure as hell don’t.”

  A flicker of impatience rose in Joe’s hard face, but his wife joined them, shuddering in the cool wind as she stepped out of the converted barn. “What an awful thing suicide is.” She crossed her arms on her chest, her windbreaker, with its prominent Breakwater Security logo, not warm enough for the cool temperature. “When I was in high school, one of my classmates killed himself. I’ll never forget it. There was no reason, not that any of us saw.”

  “As far as I know, Alicia Miller didn’t leave a suicide note,” Huck said.

  “Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe she wanted her death to look like an accident.” Sharon shook her head, staring at the ground. “Maybe it was an accident, but she was reckless and didn’t care what happened to her, didn’t fight to save herself.”

  Joe Riccardi’s jaw seemed to clamp down on itself. “We shouldn’t speculate.”

  His wife didn’t seem to hear him. “I wonder if Miss Miller had an underlying mental illness—would that make her death easier for her family and friends? If they could latch onto a reason, maybe—”

  “There’s never a reason to kill yourself,” her husband snapped.

  Her head jerked up, and she looked taken aback at his sharp tone. “No, of course not. That’s not what I meant. A reason in her own mind—”

  Joe broke in as if she hadn’t spoken. “You’d think if Miller had obvious emotional problems the Justice Department would have taken some kind of action. Insist she take a leave of absence. They wouldn’t just sit back and do nothing.” He stopped himself. “Now I’m speculating. We don’t know what happened.”

  “How well did you all know her?” Huck asked.

  Sharon turned to him. “We met last month at a party Gerard Lattimore held at the marina restaurant here in Yorkville. Joe and I were there with Oliver.”

  “Quinn Harlowe?”

  “She was there, too.”

  Joe straightened, even more rigid than usual. “Let’s leave the investigating to the authorities. We have our own job to do. Boone? You all set? If the police have further questions to ask you—”

  “I’ll be in the shower.”

  His deliberately flip answer got a reactio
n out of Lieutenant Colonel Riccardi. He made two fists. Huck thought he’d end up with at least one of them coming at his jaw, but his new boss restrained himself.

  His wife touched his hand. “Joe.”

  Neither Riccardi said anything as Huck ducked into the converted barn. A straight hall ran down the middle, with rooms on either side, like horse stalls. There was a kitchen with cafeteria tables, an office, a men’s room, a shower room. The bedrooms were at the far end—mostly singles, but a few doubles and one triple with its own private bath, apparently for any women who showed up. So far, Sharon Riccardi was the only female on the premises, but she stayed in the main house with her husband.

  Huck ran into Vern Glover at the far end of the hall. “I heard about the dead woman, Boone. Damn. Couldn’t you have picked a different route for your morning run and kept us out of this thing?”

  “Sure. Next time I’ll check my crystal ball to find out where the dead people are.”

  “You ran past the body and didn’t see it?”

  Vern had him there. Huck had noticed the red kayak in the tall grass out by the water, but hadn’t thought much of it. If he’d investigated, he could have spared Quinn the trauma of discovering her friend’s body.

  “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” he said.

  Travis Lubec emerged from the room across the hall from Huck’s. Lubec had just moved into the converted barn. He had worked security for Oliver Crawford for a couple of years and wasn’t among those fired after his kidnapping—apparently, Crawford had ignored some piece of sage advice Lubec had given him before his trip to the Caribbean.

  Nick Rochester, a kid maybe a hair older than Cully O’Dell, joined the men in the hall, coming in through the back door. He and Lubec were scrubbed, serious and ultrafit, wearing Breakwater Security polo shirts and khakis, their weapons in shoulder holsters.

  Lubec’s gaze fell on Huck. “You’re bad luck, Boone.”

  Rochester nodded. “Hell, yeah. You’re here, what, three days, and you’ve already managed to stumble on a body and end up under the hot lights, talking to the feds.”