He stumbled to the back door. “I don’t need a doctor.”
But his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fought to stay on his feet even as he reeled, knocking a chair over, cursing. Sig slipped her arms around him from behind. Riley dove in to help her, and they got him down to the floor.
“Asshole,” Sig said, crying. “Good for Emile if he did this to him. It’s the first thing he’s done in months that makes any sense.”
Straker materialized in the hall doorway, hissed something under his breath as he quickly assessed the situation. Riley was unreasoningly relieved to see him. And annoyed. “Why the hell are you always late?”
He ignored her and dropped down beside Matt. “Is he conscious?”
“Unfortunately,” Sig said bitterly.
Riley wet a dishcloth in the sink, handed it to Straker and tried not to notice her own trembling hand. “We have a first aid kit.”
“He needs to get to an emergency room.” Straker took the cloth and dabbed at Matt’s bloody face; Riley supposed they’d taught him basic first aid procedures at Quantico. “Did you fall?” he asked Matt.
“Hit from behind,” Matt mumbled. “Pushed me down the stairs.”
“Where?”
“Abigail’s.”
“Is she okay?”
He winced. “She wasn’t there. I used my key to get in.”
“Why?”
“She’s my sister. That’s the home I grew up in.”
“Oh, horse shit,” Sig said. “You and Emile are the two biggest goddamned liars. Like you’re Sherlock Holmes. What the hell were you doing sneaking around Abigail’s house?”
Straker held up a hand, silencing her. For no reason she could fathom, Riley thought of all the quarters her sister would owe her mason jar. Straker examined Matt’s injured arm. “Looks as if your forearm’s broken. Did you see who hit you?”
“No.” He grimaced, his hands shaking. “But it had to be Emile. I followed him to Abigail’s. He shoved me down the stairs to the kitchen. I was half-unconscious, and he came down and kicked me in the head and chest a few times. I probably have a cracked rib or two.”
“But you didn’t actually see him?”
He closed his eyes, shook his head slightly, painfully.
“That’s it.” Sig stood up, raked a hand through her hair. “My car’s right outside. If I can have some help, I’ll take him to Mass. General myself.”
Massachusetts General Hospital was only a few blocks away. Straker set the bloody towel on the floor. “Come on, Granger.” He pulled Matt’s good arm over his shoulder and took his weight. Matt was taller, Straker more thickly built. “You need to let a doctor take a look at you.”
Sig grabbed her keys and handbag, pushed into the hall with a force of will Riley hadn’t seen in her in days. She herself hung back. She debated saying anything, just melting into the woodwork, then finally mumbled, for honor’s sake if no other, “I’m going after Emile.”
Straker thrust a finger at her. “You wait.”
“I will not wait. Emile’s going to get himself killed.”
“And you with him.”
“You can catch up with me.” She gave him a faint smile. “I’ll leave a bread crumb trail.”
“Riley—”
“I’ve always wanted to see you in action.”
As if she hadn’t, she thought with a jolt, remembering last night.
Straker gritted his teeth, with Matt slumped against him. “Trust me, St. Joe. You don’t want me to catch up with you.”
But she’d made up her mind and charged out the back door, into the pretty courtyard garden and streaming sunshine.
Straker was rusty. It was his only excuse. An old man, a pregnant woman, a sexy spit of an egghead and a thrashed blueblood—and he was out parking the car. He stuffed Matt Granger into Sig’s sleek car. “Do you want me to drive to the hospital with you?”
She shook her head. “Go after that stupid sister of mine.”
“With pleasure.”
“She and Emile…” She brushed at tears with the back of her hand, but Straker had no illusions. She’d be fine. She was fully engaged, determined. “They’re devoted to each other. You know it, you’ve seen it yourself. And they’re just alike. They act first, think later. They’re so smart they usually can get away with it.”
“Not this time. This time, they need to goddamn back off.”
“They won’t. Neither one.”
He nodded. “When you get to the hospital, call the police. Tell them everything.”
“I will. I promise.”
He believed her. In her own way she was as strong as the rest of her family. It would be a mistake, Straker thought, to underestimate Sig St. Joe Granger’s strength.
Matt was regaining consciousness, and Sig shut the door on him before he could fall out or try to go after Emile himself. She hurried around to the driver’s side and climbed in, started the engine, gunned it and was off.
Straker headed back into her house. It was quiet, its elegance marred by the smears of blood on the walls, floor and woodwork. He went down to the kitchen and out to the pretty courtyard garden, which had obviously been neglected in recent months.
No trail of bread crumbs. He reined in his frustration, knew there was no point in following Riley on foot. He wasn’t worried about her few minutes’ head start, but she knew Beacon Hill better than he did. He’d be lucky to find his way back out to the street from the damned courtyard.
He went back to his car. He’d missed Granger’s entrance; he’d missed Emile. He shook his head, disgusted with himself.
The snaking network of hilly one-way streets, originally designed for horses, tangled him up and slowed him down. He stopped in the middle of Louisburg Square, realizing Riley could have followed Emile all the way to Logan Airport and onto a plane to Greece or South America by now.
He double-parked and checked Abigail Granger’s house. Locked up tight. He rang the doorbell, knocked. No answer. He stood on the front stoop, imagined himself on Labreque Island. It was a clear, warm, perfect September day. He’d take his kayak out, sit on the rocks, maybe dip his feet in the bay. But that life seemed remote now, as if the past six months had collapsed into a matter of seconds.
So what was Matt Granger doing here that got him pushed down the stairs and thrashed?
Straker drove down the hill to Mass. General Hospital. No Sig in the ER waiting room. No police arriving to take her and her husband’s statements. Straker swore under his breath and pushed his way to Matt Granger’s treatment room. The doctors had gotten right to work. His broken forearm was already set, and he had his ribs wrapped and the cuts and bruises on his face treated. He looked like hell, physically and emotionally spent.
He glanced at Straker. Even beaten to shit, the man had a patrician look about him. “Where’s Sig?” But Straker’s hesitation told him, and he jumped off the treatment table and grabbed his shirt, shrugged it on as he addressed the doctor who’d been shining a light in his eyes. “I have to go.”
“Mr. Granger, I don’t recommend—”
“My wife is in danger. You have any Tylenol or something you can give me?”
“You need something stronger.”
Granger shook his head. “Anything stronger’ll knock me out.”
The doctor sighed, handed him samples of Extra-Strength Tylenol and Tylenol with codeine. “I want you back here. You’re leaving against my advice.”
“I know, Doc.” Matt gave a rakish, Robert Redford grin, despite his swollen, bloody face. “I won’t sue you.”
The doctor wasn’t amused. He kept arguing as Granger headed for the door. Adrenaline and pain had him focused and alert. Straker didn’t try to stop him. If Sig St. Joe was his own wife, he’d drag his ass off an ER treatment table and go after her.
“I’ll look after him,” he told the doctor, “and get him back here as soon as I can.”
The doctor didn’t like that, either, but there was nothing he cou
ld do.
“Sig would blithely walk into the mouth of a dragon,” Granger told him as they headed outside. “She’s oblivious. Here she’s nearly been killed, I’ve nearly been killed and she goes off—” He grimaced, as if he’d thought too far ahead already and couldn’t stand what he saw. “What the hell is she thinking?”
“Riley took off after Emile.”
“Damn it. They’re both impossible.”
“You said it yourself. Loving a St. Joe isn’t easy.”
Matt half fell into Straker’s front seat. “If I brought this on Sig—”
“That kind of thing won’t get you anywhere,” Straker warned, and shut the door.
He took Cambridge Street to Government Center, snaked through the jammed traffic and endless waterfront construction and tried to push back his own rampant thoughts. “If you’re right and Emile killed Cassain, he wouldn’t deliberately hurt his own granddaughters. He had that chance back on Chestnut Street. Instead he got out bandages for you.”
Granger cradled his broken arm, swallowed the Extra-Strength Tylenol without water. He had to be in immense pain. “You don’t think it’s Emile.”
Straker reluctantly slowed for a stoplight, clenched the wheel. “No, I don’t.”
“I just don’t know anymore. My family…” Granger shut his eyes briefly, every fiber exuding misery on a large scale. He swallowed. “Christ.”
“Maine CID talked to your stepmother this morning. They found the engine parts Cassain brought up from the Encounter in an outbuilding at your family house on Mount Desert. Do you know how they got there?”
Granger sat in tight-lipped silence. Straker didn’t push it. He pulled up in front of the Boston Center for Oceanographic Research. No reporters jumped in front of his car, which was at least something. “You stay put. Security’s suspicious of me as it is. They don’t need to see me walk in with a bloodied Granger. Keep the car running.” He gave Granger a hard look. “Ten minutes. That’s all I need. You steal my car and pass out and kill a pedestrian—”
“Ten minutes. Go.”
On his way Straker called Richard St. Joe on his cell phone. “I’ve lost both your daughters. You want to let me in?”
“I’ll meet you at the main entrance.”
“Henry Armistead has me down as a stalker.”
“Screw Henry.”
Despite his rumpled, distracted appearance, Richard St. Joe commanded a certain respect among the center’s staff. The security guards let Straker pass.
Straker didn’t mince words. “Your son-in-law just had the shit kicked out of him at Abigail Granger’s house. Is she here?”
“I don’t know. I think so. John, what the hell’s going on?”
“Someone sabotaged the Encounter last year. It should have been a nice little explosion that made everyone feel bad. Instead it was a great big explosion that sank the ship and killed five people.”
“Jesus Christ,” St. Joe said.
“That’s the short version.”
“Emile?”
Straker gave a tight shake of the head. “No.” For the first time, he was convinced his instincts were right. It wasn’t Emile. “Sam Cassain came out and blamed Emile, and that suited the saboteur just fine. With the Encounter at the bottom of the ocean, there was no proof of what really happened. Then your son-in-law secretly funded Cassain’s bid to bring up the ship’s engine. He succeeded.”
“And the engine showed evidence of sabotage. Do you think that’s what Sam expected?”
“Initially, I think he was just looking for something that proved conclusively that Emile was responsible.”
“But he found evidence of sabotage,” Richard St. Joe said, “and it got him killed. Knowing Sam, he tried to blackmail whoever was responsible for the Encounter.”
Straker nodded. “That’s my guess.” He provided a quick rundown of the day’s festivities. He tried to be clinical, professional, objective, tried to ignore the twist of pain in his gut that told him he was long past playing this one as an outsider.
“Will Matt be all right if he doesn’t get back to the hospital?” Richard asked, white-faced.
“He won’t be comfortable, but he won’t die.”
“Emile couldn’t have done that to him.”
“No.”
“I want my daughters safe. Just tell me what to do.”
Richard looked as if he’d be sick. Straker had seen both his daughters get sick, and they’d had that same aura about them. But Richard held on, and they reached Abigail’s office. It was her father’s old office, tucked in a corner down from the main administrative offices. She had no regular hours, no full-time secretary.
She wasn’t in, and the door was locked. Straker held on to the doorknob, glanced at Richard St. Joe. “You up to a little breaking and entering? If not, look the other way. Is there an alarm?”
“No. Security’s not that tight once you’re inside the building. If you need an extra shoulder—”
But the door came with one good, hard shove.
Richard St. Joe followed him inside. “What do you expect to find in here?”
“I don’t know. Matt was attacked at Abigail’s, and she and Henry have worked hard this past year after the Encounter tragedy.”
“She’s devoted to the center, as much as her father ever was. She fought long and hard to get him and Emile both to pay more attention to membership. She wants more programs, more community outreach.”
“You?”
“That’s not my area of expertise.”
Straker sat at her desk. The furnishings were surprisingly utilitarian, the view spectacular. He tried to get into her computer, but it was password protected. He spun around in her chair, St. Joe pacing nervously.
Definitely rusty, Straker thought. He could sense the connections spinning around him, but he couldn’t put them together, make any sense out of them.
He stood up, examined Abigail’s wall of framed pictures. “Are these her pictures?”
“No, they’re still from Bennett. She’s hardly changed a thing in here since his death.” Richard smiled wistfully as he fingered a vase of flowers. “A new computer and flowers.”
“Who’s this?”
Straker pointed to a small framed picture of a man in fire-fighting attire. Richard peered over his shoulder. He was fidgety, a little less green. “That’s Henry Armistead—and that’s Bennett next to him.” He pointed to a tall, white-haired man; Straker realized he wouldn’t have recognized Bennett Granger. St. Joe went on, “Bennett had flown out to California during wildfires that threatened delicate stretches of the coast. He wanted to see for himself if there was anything the center could do.”
“When was this?”
“About four years ago. Henry was the executive director of a small, private California marine research institute. He trained as a volunteer firefighter for those wildfires that get out of control there. Bennett liked him, and when the job opened up here, he brought Henry in.”
Straker continued to stare at the picture. An administrator-oceanographer who would know ships. A firefighter who would know fires. And a man in love with a wealthy woman whose father wasn’t killed in an accidental explosion, after all.
The puzzle pieces stopped spinning. They settled, connected together. “Here’s what you can do.” Straker started for the door, feeling a sense of certainty he hadn’t in days. And a sense of urgency. He glanced back at Richard St. Joe. “Call the police. Tell them to pick up Henry Armistead. Tell them I said so. Throw in that I’m a damned FBI agent if you need to get their attention.”
St. Joe paled. “John? What the hell—”
“Just do it. I don’t have time to explain. I have to find your damned father-in-law.” And his daughter. Riley. She’d be right with Emile, barreling in because she was an optimist, because she believed in her grandfather.
“Go,” Richard croaked. “I’ll call the police.”
When Straker reached his car, Matt Granger was struggling n
ot to let his pain get away from him. Straker understood. He’d fought pain on every level for months. For a while he’d let it get away.
But he couldn’t let empathy affect his need to act. “You’ve been hanging on to the last shreds of hope that this thing could still be laid at Emile’s feet. Better your wife’s crazy grandfather than your sister. But you know better, don’t you?”
Granger sank against the seat, nodded. His skin had a gray cast; his one good eye was bloodshot, almost vibrating with pain.
Straker shoved the car into gear, released the emergency brake. “You should have told me you suspected your sister. That’s why you snuck into her house, isn’t it?”
“I hope I’m wrong.”
“You are wrong. She wanted a dramatic gesture to galvanize support for the center and the Encounter II.” Straker pulled out in front of a car, ignored the angry blare of its horn. “But it’s Henry Armistead who gave it to her.”
Seventeen
Sig raced up Pinckney Street and turned onto Louisburg Square, her head spinning, throbbing with tension. She’d hated to leave Matt in the ER, but she’d had no other choice. She couldn’t stand by while her family destroyed itself.
She’d pelted him with questions. How had the Encounter engine ended up at his family house in Maine? Why would Emile be at Abigail’s to push him down the stairs? Where was his sister?
He hadn’t responded. Had refused to answer. His injuries weren’t stopping him. He was closemouthed, stubborn, maddening. Overprotective. She was Sig, the free spirit, not Sig, the fighter.
Not this time. She knew her husband, knew how to read his silences, his fears. She trusted her intuition, relied on it in her work as a painter—she didn’t need to be a damned scientist to know that Matt was terrified his sister somehow had gotten herself involved in Sam Cassain’s death, the fires, perhaps even the attack on him.
Sig was as positive, as certain, as she’d ever been about anything. And it was ridiculous. Absurd. Matt had lost all perspective or he’d know. Of course Abigail wasn’t involved. Of course she hadn’t sabotaged the Encounter or murdered Sam Cassain. The idea was insane.
On Fire Page 26
