by Rebecca Ryan
My blood pounds. "I don’t understand."
Nic, ever the curator of details, explains, "Miller has a special dispensation. He petitioned to work on boats as a cook." Then his voice drops as he says, "He's been going up the coast for months. The boat he works on departs every other week or so. It's unclear where they go."
I start to say something, but the number beeps again. And, again, I ignore it.
Nic's, "I'm sorry we didn’t catch this," echoes in my ear.
"It's not your fault." Somehow, I'm outside now on the back porch and I grab the pair of birding binoculars for guests in one hand. "What's the name of the—"
Bryce cuts in with, "The Savvy-T."
But I don’t need the binoculars. It's the biggest fucking yacht in the bay. It's that big white sixty-five-footer and I can see The Savvy-T painted in black, from here.
The phone rings one more time. Same fucking number.
"I gotta get this. Call you back," I say, but my heart is slamming against my ribs so hard I think they might break.
"Is this Mr. Finn Colton?"
The beat in the back of my throat suddenly moves high and I swallow. I've only felt that high point of pain one other time. "Yes."
"This is officer Trent Bryan."
Chapter Nineteen
Claire
Finn's patchy, gold, half-ton pickup does a wide C in the gravel as he pulls up and launches himself from the truck. I'm sitting on the back end of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket. Jade Falcon, our new paramedic, is applying pressure to a cut on my calf.
Finn's face is undiscernible. But his jaw and eyes are hard. Steely. I've never seen him like this.
Officer Trent, a dishwater blond, green-eyed kid who went to school with Travis, tries to slow Finn down but I watch as Finn brushes him off and barks at him from the side of his mouth.
In seconds, Finn wraps his arms around me and Jade takes a step back.
Then, after sliding his hands to my arms, Finn pulls away, almost as if he's afraid he's hurting me. "Are you okay?" he asks me and then turns to Jade. "Is she okay?"
"I'm fine," I say, but I'm not. My face feels like it's bashed in. There's blood in my hair from a scalp wound. My legs are nicked up, and my left hand is bruised and swollen already where I hit it on the window. My jaw hurts too.
"She doesn't want to go in, but she may have a mild concussion," says Jade's EMT partner, an older man I don’t know.
Officer Trent walks over and says something to Finn that I can’t hear. There are four other squad cars and men and women milling in the background. Someone takes pictures down the ravine with a tablet.
Finn leans close and whispers, "I'll be right back," and then sees something in my face. "I’ll be right over there. I'm not going anywhere."
He steps away, and the older guy shines another penlight in my eyes.
I stare numbly ahead for a moment. When he's done, I look around for my cell phone. I had reception up here on the mountain and I feel cut off now without it. It's how they all got here so fast, thank God. Because that asshole who ran me off the road just took off.
I try not to think about what happened, but I know I’ll have to tell it all over again to Officer Trent. How I left the Rolmes's and their sick cat, Huggins after turning a kid goat. How I came down off the mountain to the intersection of Cross Sticks and State. How this car—a huge, dark green SUV—came out of nowhere and kept trying to get around me on the narrow road. He'd come up alongside me and then pulled back, so I finally put on my flashers to slow down and then I had to pull way to the right so he could pass when it was clear.
I get irritated with tourists.
When I had come around a curve to the right, where there was just a low metal railing, he made his move. I watched as he got closer and closer in my side mirror. On the curve, he slammed into the side of my car. Twice. I caught only a glimpse of the driver—enough to know it was a guy.
And then, the steering wheel spun and jerked, and I lost control of the car. I went over, rolling twice. Old airbags deployed, no side bag though, thus the cuts on my legs and my throbbing hand.
The memory of tumbling, of the sounds of metal being torn and ripped, is so fresh I can taste blood. Oddly, I have no memory of the sound of glass breaking and yet I was sitting in a pile of it when they found me.
All I could think of as blood dripped down my face was: cell phone, back pocket. Call nine-one-one. Call nine-one-one before you pass out.
Finn comes back and hands me my phone. I must have set it down on the bumper of the ambulance.
"Well?" I say, trying to smile, but my upper lip is swollen, lumpy, and asymmetrical. "Totaled, right?" I look up at him.
His face is drained of blood and he hugs me swiftly, pressing my head to his chest. His heart thuds hard in my ear.
Officer Trent's voice comes up behind Finn and I pull away for a moment. "If you have anything to add to what you've told us, please call the station. I'll be around tomorrow to go over your formal statement." Trent pauses. "I'm probably going to have to hand this off to a detective, Claire. This is a crime scene. Running people off the road is a felony."
My stomach churns. But if I throw up, Jade and her silver-haired partner are going to want to take me in.
I reach for Finn, my good arm all wobbly. He takes it tenderly and strokes my hand then raises it to his lips for a quick kiss. But his face is still impassive. Big, hot, ugly tears are starting and I hold my breath, anything to stop them. I hate being needy and I'm all needy and every part of my body hurts. At least I don’t appear to have a concussion and I am cleared to go.
There's a rush of discussion, last-minute instructions, details, and then Finn's carrying me to the truck. My head is against his chest, my bandaged hand in my lap, and one hard, tiny sob, erupts between my swollen lips.
"Hey, I'm here. You're safe now," he says, gently setting me in the passenger side of his truck.
I see the shred of the paper bag that once held the stone for Allison and Kenny and I suck in some air and hold my breath again.
He starts the car, and pulls out on to the road, his ashen face grim in profile.
I close my eyes and all I see is bent metal. The railing. The hood of my car crumpling like aluminum foil. The blood on my clothes, a reminder of the gash on my scalp.
Within five minutes, I'm crying. Big, hot, ugly tears.
Finn pulls over in a flash and wraps his arms around me, all of me. Every inch of me feels him, and I hurt inside and out. I hurt for him, for Allison and their baby, for me, and then he kisses me gently. And I don't want him to because I feel so sticky and gross with blood. But he keeps murmuring in my hair and I catch fragments of what he's saying.
"Never again…"
"I am never leaving you…"
"You're right here…"
"I've got you…"
My crying seems to be controlled by some other part of my brain, but the sobs slow.
Finn quickly pulls off his T-shirt, leaving him in a white tank undershirt. He wipes my face with the shirt and I blow my nose. Once he starts the truck up again, I lean against his bare shoulder, feeling vulnerable and fragile and way out of my element.
I can’t trust myself.
What is going on? Why is it a crime scene?
The rest of the ride takes twenty minutes and is over in a flash, with me looking out the front windshield, my head too heavy to lift.
Finn is so quiet it's eerie. There's something almost deadly about his demeanor. Like he's mentally preparing for some mission.
When he rolls into the clinic parking lot, I start to sit up straight, but a wave of nausea overwhelms me and I swallow hard and look at him. My eyes water.
"Don’t move," he says, slamming the door shut, propping open the clinic door and then returning to fetch me.
That's how it feels. To be fetched.
He picks me up like I weigh nothing, and I drape an arm over his neck. He leaves the bloodied blanket on the floor of the
truck and I watch, numb but aware of how he effortlessly carries me up the stairs. I can feel his biceps and forearms against my back and knees.
"Okay, you can put me down now," I say as we round the corner into the kitchen, but he doesn’t listen and takes me all the way into the bathroom.
He sets me down and hugs me tenderly and then his arms drop. He undresses me, easy enough because my pants were cut off mid-thigh by Jade's partner.
I'd forgotten.
Laying a hand on Finn's shoulder as he leans over, I step out and then he helps me shrug out of my shirt.
He starts running the water then. It’s spring, so it shouldn’t take too long for the hot water to run up the pipes.
"This will sting like hell, you know," he says, and I realize that he’s going to bathe me.
After I nod, he helps me into the shower and turns on the wand.
Later, I'm all bandaged up and sitting on the sofa, my legs stretched out, feet in Finn's lap. While I doze off and on, he's fielding phone calls, one after another with Nic and Bryce and someone else from his old company. And Jackson. Finn's efficient, jaw set, all business, and I see in quick successive flashes how he used to be in a past life. His life with Allison. His life as a security expert.
"Hey. No deep sleep, sweetie. Wake up," he says, rubbing my legs, careful to avoid the four bandages underneath my robe.
"Okay, okay," I say. I know he's keeping me awake in case I do have a concussion. "Can you help me get the car tomorrow?" I yawn. All the adrenaline has worn off and I'm really starting to sting. A cup of melting ice sits within arm's reach, for my lip. I avoided the mirror in the bathroom, but I know there's a cut along my hairline. Finn pressed a small square adhesive gauze bandage there an hour ago.
"The car is being impounded. They already have it," he says.
"Why?"
"Because it's evidence." Finn is blowing this all out of proportion.
"Listen, this was bad. I get it. But these things happen. It was an asshole tourist who didn’t stop. It's just a coincidence," I tell him.
That word sets him off. Lifting my feet, he moves to sit right next to me. When he slips his arm under my shoulders, our faces are just inches apart.
Though his color's back, he looks beyond angry. Beyond cruel. And I shiver because I think it's hate. I can almost feel it roiling from him in waves.
"It's not a coincidence, Claire. It was Steven Miller. He's here."
"What do you mean here? In Maine? In Echo Bay?" Despite myself, I tremble again, and my legs feel like they're strapped with weights. "How can you be sure?"
"The Savvy-T."
"That ridiculous yacht in the harbor? How could he own that?" I ask.
"He works it."
Trying not to panic, my mind, though bruised, starts putting two and two together. "The pie was yesterday."
"Right." Finn's face is starting to soften, his jaw unclenched, mouth open. I can see his lips narrow, and his eyes are so full of hurt and sorrow, I want to cry again. He lifts his other hand to pull back some stray strands of my hair and tucks them behind my ear.
"But why me? I'm nothing to you." I feel him pull back imperceptibly. "I mean, from an outsider looking in. We're not married, we're not—"
"You're everything to me," he says, his voice thick and low. "Everything." He pauses, then stands and walks to the kitchen for two glasses of water. "He's been watching us, Claire. Right from the bay. For months."
"What do you mean?"
"He knows I love you. He's been here, watching us from that fucking boat. He's seen us together."
Suddenly, I can't breathe. I start gasping, hard, and I try to move my legs down so I can stand up, but I don’t know where I'd run.
In a second, Finn is beside me, kneeling, his hand over my mouth, and I have to pull hard to get air. "It's okay, breathe gently. Slow it down, slow it down," he says quietly, like a coach.
The room begins to swirl. I know I'm hyperventilating—I’ve done it twice before; once when I got the phone call that my parents were dead, and the second time when Devon jumped.
I try to pull away from him, but he keeps that big, warm hand over my mouth so I have to breathe through my nose. But it's hard, and I feel like I'm suffocating. I struggle, but he keeps his grip and slowly the room stops spinning. My breathing straightens out and he peels his hand away from my face. My lip throbs.
"Do you feel sick?" He's facing me, head dipped.
My "no" sounds weak and far away. I wrap my arms around his neck, exhausted.
Slowly he stands, swooping me up at the same time, and carries me to my bed.
***
The red digits on the alarms blaze seven twenty-five am. A full twelve hours. Maybe more. In the first few seconds of waking, I am not thinking of Steven Miller, Allison, Finn, or the car accident. I think only of Salty, then Huggins—the cat I saw yesterday—and then my memory unfolds like a flipbook in exquisite detail.
There's a drilling sensation behind my eyes.
"Finn?" I say sitting up, the gauze bandages on my legs pulling slightly.
"I'm here," he calls from the front room. But I can hear him move down the hall, and he arrives with another tall glass of water.
"Let me pee first," I say, eyeing the water glass warily.
He sets it down on the nightstand.
When I step out I can smell coffee in the kitchen and I realize how hungry I am. Finn's beating eggs and I wander out to sit at the table while he cooks. I notice the blinds are down in the back of the living room and know he's done this on purpose. Steven Miller could be out there, with his binoculars.
"This is for you," he says and slides a cheese omelet on a plate. He sets it down in front of me, but my appetite has evaporated. "You need to eat," he says, but I see there are no dirty dishes in the sink. No second plate of food.
I dutifully eat half the omelet and push the plate away. What I really want right now is coffee.
Somehow, just pouring a cup of coffee and splashing in some cream seems to return a sense of normalcy to the world and I feel like I really am home, not in some fish tank with a creepy guy watching us.
When Finn looks at me, his face is set against all the injustices of the world, and though his mouth is hard, his eyes are soft. "I promise you, Claire Russo, I will do everything I can to make sure nothing happens to you."
I move to reach up and cup his face in my hands when someone pounds on the door downstairs. Not the side door. The front door to the clinic.
Finn moves to the wall opposite the kitchen windows and peeks outside. Blue and red lights flash in staccato against the thin blinds.
"Wait here," is all he says before he nearly leaps down the stairs.
My whole body starts shaking and I have to sit down. Voices rise in the stairwell—Finn's and another man's, someone I don’t recognize.
They talk for a long time. Normally, I'd trot myself down the stairs, introduce myself, and ask what this is all about. But every muscle hurts right now and I’m so stiff I'm not sure I could get down the stairs. My jaw starts to throb.
After ten minutes or so, the door closes and Finn reappears. His face is a total mask. Running a hand through his hair, he sets an envelope on the coffee table.
"Who was that? Not one of our local guys."
Finn shakes his head, an almost imperceptible movement. "I need to go away for a few days," he says.
"What? I thought you said he's here."
"Steven Miller is only here Friday through Tuesday or so. Then he's back in Boston. That car he hit you with was stolen. Do you think you could pick him up out of a lineup?"
I nod. "Absolutely. I got that picture Nic sent."
He sits down next to me on the sofa and shakes his head again. "Miller's counting on you having a picture. No. I mean in the car. Could you ID him as the driver that ran you off the road?"
My stomach twists again. There’s no way I got that good of a look at the man in the car. I was too busy trying to stay on th
e highway. I can feel tears start, stinging hot and hard, and I feel like a baby.
He pulls me close to him, rubs my back. "It’s fine. It's not your fault. He's an asshole who needs to be stopped."
A thought flashes across my brain like lightning. "You're not going to Boston, are you?"
Finn says nothing, and I pull away and look at him.
"Finn. What are you going to do?"
"The Savvy-T took off an hour ago. Bryce said he'll call when Miller's back. He'll trail him. I need to go down there and have a conversation." Finn reads my face. "Not now. According to the harbormasters Nic interviewed, the Savvy-T nearly always puts in at Portsmouth for a night or two before going home.”
"So, this is real," I say.
"This is real."
"What's that?" I point to the envelope.
"A temporary harassment protection order against me."
"What! Against you?"
"Steven Miller claims that he can’t work on the Savvy-T and may lose his job."
I stare at Finn. This feels surreal.
"He's claiming it's pure coincidence we're both here certain days out of the week. And he states he's in fear of his life," he says.
"But—"
"That I tried to frame him for Allison's and Kenny's murder. That I am so angry and grief-stricken, I've targeted him and will continue to do so."
"But—"
"Don't." He kisses me on the temple. "Don’t go there. It will eat you up. Believe me. The guy's a fucking sociopath and you're not. You will never understand him."
"And you do." This comes out as a statement.
"It used to be my job to understand shitholes like him," he says.
"But then—wait, you can’t go. You'll get arrested," I tell him.
"It'll never hold up. It's a temporary." He grips my face in his hands and says it again. "Temporary. That means the court has to find in his favor and that the complaint has substance. It doesn't." His hands slide from my face to my arms.
"You shouldn’t go. It's too dangerous," I insist.
Suddenly, Finn flashes a smile. "Danger used to be my middle name."