He tried to reach for her throat with his good hand, but she smashed his head against the rock. He went slack, unconscious. She checked him for hidden weapons, then scrambled to her feet and looked over the edge of the cliffs.
A huge swell took Linc against the rocks to her left, but he grabbed one with both arms and held on.
Directly below her, she caught a glimpse of Mattie right before a wave took him under. He didn’t fight it. If he was conscious, he clearly had no strength left in him.
If she didn’t act now, he’d drown or smash his body on the rocks.
The water was deep. She was a good swimmer.
Owen would have missed her by now. He had to be on his way. All she had to do was get to Mattie and stabilize the situation.
Abigail couldn’t just let him die.
She jumped.
No one was at the cliffs when Owen arrived. Dead branches clicked and cracked in the strong west wind that blew hot through the trees. Dark clouds had moved over the island, a storm imminent. He noticed tufts of wild grass that had been trampled.
He knelt down, saw a smear of blood on exposed ledge.
He heard a sound in the trees behind him.
Ellis staggered out from under a low fir branch on his walking stick. “There’s nothing we can do. Abigail’s in the water.” He spoke rapidly, blood pouring down the right side of his head. “She jumped in to save Linc. Mattie-he was out of control. He pushed Linc into the water. He was about to push me, but I had my walking stick. I got to him first. They’re all down there now. Abigail, Mattie, Linc.”
Owen stood up. “How did you bloody your head, Ellis?”
“What? Oh, this.” He wiped his fingers through the blood. “It’s nothing.”
“Abigail smashed your head on this rock, didn’t she?”
He seemed confused. Snot dripped out of his nose. Sweat beaded on his forehead and darkened his armpits. “It’s your fault. She wouldn’t have slipped…”
“I don’t have time for this.”
Owen heard someone on the trail coming in from the road. The FBI agents, Lou, Doyle-it didn’t matter. He needed to deal with Ellis and get to the people in the water.
Ellis lifted his walking stick, blood dripping into his right eye. “Move away from the cliffs. I want them to drown before you can rescue them. Just as your sister did.”
In two steps, Owen was at him. He snatched the walking stick and tossed it aside, just as Doyle and Lou arrived, guns drawn.
“It’s his fault,” Ellis screamed. “It’s all Owen’s fault!”
Owen ignored him and looked at the two police officers. “I need to get in the water.”
Abigail had never been so damn cold in her life. She huddled with Mattie in the cold water, the waves pushing them against the sheer rock face of the cliffs. His thin frame was limp from the battering it had taken from the rocks and water. His teeth chattered. He tried to speak, but his words were slurred. She recognized the signs of hypothermia and knew she’d be feeling them herself before too long.
Across the small horseshoe cove formed by the cliffs, Linc Cooper had managed to secure himself on a rectangular boulder just under water, but the waves continued to pound him. With the cold, he wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.
And Abigail knew neither would she.
Without help, they’d never last through high tide. The isolated cove wasn’t easily visible to passing boats. The gusts of wind and the crash of waves would keep them from hearing any screams for help. And there’d be no kayakers out in these swells.
“Pretend you’re in a hot bath,” she whispered to Mattie. “Think about sitting by Owen’s woodstove.”
“I…deserve to die.”
“You deserve to live, Mattie. Come on. Stay with me.”
A huge swell engulfed them. Cold salt water went up her nose and down her mouth. Abigail coughed, spitting, trying to keep her feet under her, on the rocks. She hung on to Mattie, who barely responded anymore to the battering his body was taking. If she let go, he’d drown. She could feel his ribs under his soaked clothes. How long had it been since he’d taken care of himself?
His drooping eyelids struggled to open. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“You can’t drink, Mattie. That’s all there is to it.” Abigail kept her tone cheerful, positive. “Once we get out of here, I’ll make you a nice pot of hot coffee. We’ll, hell, here comes another wave. Hang on.”
It was too strong a swell to fight, and she went with it, holding Mattie under by his armpits as they smashed into the face of the cliffs. She felt rock claw at her back and legs but didn’t fight the impact.
She swore she heard thunder.
“Great.” She held Mattie close to her. “Locusts are next.”
“Abigail…Chris…I didn’t…”
“I know you didn’t kill him. Ellis killed him.” She felt him sobbing into her. “Oh, Mattie. You didn’t cause Chris’s death. Ellis would have found a way to kill him no matter what you did.”
“I was mad…Grace.”
“She was in love with Chris.”
“A fantasy. I was real.”
“You? Mattie…” Abigail grinned at him, trying to encourage him to keep fighting, even as she shivered, her own teeth beginning to chatter. “You and Grace? I’ll be damned.”
The thought of Grace seemed to help him stay a bit more alert. “She tries. She loves her brother. I just couldn’t-” He slumped, his eyes closing again. “I couldn’t fight a ghost.”
“Chris knew about the two of you?”
Mattie didn’t respond. He was too sleepy, nearly unconscious.
Another swell overtook them, inundating them and dislodging them from her wall and back into deeper water. She felt him slip out of her grasp and lost him as she pushed her way back to air.
As if she’d imagined them, Abigail felt strong arms encircle her.
Owen’s arms.
“I’ve got you, Abigail. Let me take your weight.”
“Mattie…”
“I’ve got him, too. You kept him alive.”
“Linc-”
“He’s okay. A rescue team’s on the way.”
“Ellis. I hit him, but he’s still alive-”
“Doyle and Lou have him. You can relax now.”
“Damn Maine water. I had to fight off ice cubes as well as rocks.” She tried to stop her teeth from chattering. “You didn’t just jump off the cliff, did you?”
His arms tightened around her. “Hell, no. Lou had a rope and some clamps.”
“Batman.” She smiled at him, wondering if she was delirious. “My very own Batman.”
She didn’t remember what happened after that.
CHAPTER 32
Bloodied and beaten, Ellis still had gone after one of Doyle Alden’s officers with a rock, snatching his gun, and Lou Beeler had shot him.
It was a clean shot. Ellis had died instantly.
“Suicide by cop,” Lou said.
Abigail, wrapped in a fleece blanket in front of Owen’s woodstove, shook her head. “He still thought he could make it work. He didn’t give up.”
She edged closer to the fire. Thunderstorms were raging outside, and everyone else was in shorts and looked hot, but she thought she’d never get warm again. Mattie was in the hospital but would recover. He’d talked some to police before the paramedics took him away. Linc was fine, back with his family.
They’d survived.
“Ellis’s gun. It fell in the water when I tackled him.”
“We’ve got it.”
“It’ll be the weapon he used to kill Chris,” Abigail said. “That’s how his mind worked. He’d like the poetic justice of it. And he’d be too arrogant to get rid of it.” She tightened the blanket around her. “It’s like keeping Doe’s swing in the backyard for everyone to see.”
“I never had a clue,” Lou said.
“Me, neither. Thank God he didn’t kill anyone else.”
“He wa
s all about hate, not love. You know that, don’t you?” Lou’s look took in Owen, too. “Both of you?”
Owen nodded. “I had that clear in my head the second I kicked in the door to Doe’s old room.”
“He resented Jason for his money and power over him,” Abigail said. “He felt like a second-class Cooper. His secret obsession with Doe allowed him to feel more power, more control.”
Owen stared at the fire. “Doe never said a word. She kept what he did to her to herself.”
“I know it doesn’t make it any easier, but that’s not uncommon,” Lou said.
Abigail agreed. “Chris figured out Ellis was obsessed with Dorothy Garrison. That’s why Ellis killed him. They both knew Linc was burglarizing homes, that Mattie was angry with Chris for dumping him as an informant. Ellis used and manipulated them-and Grace. Only his obsession mattered.”
“Mattie never expected you to be at your house that afternoon,” Owen said.
Lou nodded. “He’s told us that already. Ellis said you weren’t home. When you surprised Mattie, he panicked. He hit you and grabbed the necklace, knowing the burglar would be blamed. He didn’t want to get caught with the necklace and dropped it in the wall.”
“And Ellis seized the moment.” Abigail felt a surge of respect for the man she’d married. “Chris did what he could to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Ellis knew he would-he counted on it.”
“Your husband was a good man,” Lou said. “I wish I’d had a chance to know him.”
Abigail bit back tears. “What about Grace? Have you talked to her?”
“She lied to us after the fact. She didn’t knowingly help her uncle kill your husband. She wouldn’t have-” Lou stopped himself, getting to his feet. “The Coopers have a lot to sort out. I don’t envy them.”
If the Maine detective felt any lingering effects from having killed Ellis Cooper, he didn’t show it in his stride as he headed out.
He stopped at the door. “By the way, about hypothermia-you know one of the best ways to get warm?” He grinned. “Shared body heat.”
Abigail groaned. “Good night, Lou.”
After her fellow detective left, Owen sat next to her by the fire. “He’s right, you know.”
“Tonight’s a good night to be close to you.”
He gathered up more blankets and pillows, laying them on the floor in front of the woodstove. He stretched out next to her. “We’ll stay right here by the fire.”
Linc drifted off on the couch in the library and awoke with a start, overwhelmed by a feeling of sheer terror. His heart beat wildly.
“It’s okay, son,” his father said, taking his hand in the near-darkness. “I’m here.”
“Dad?”
“I’m not going anywhere. Don’t worry.”
Grace came into the room. “I thought you two were asleep. I’ve got chamomile tea made if either of you wants it.” Her voice sounded curiously calm-shock, maybe, Linc thought. “Just let me know.”
Their father sat on the floor next to Linc. “Ellis was a malevolent force in all our lives. He had secrets none of us could ever have hoped to penetrate. He was lost in them. He couldn’t see his way out.” Jason’s voice faltered. “I didn’t know how far he’d gone.”
“Oh, Dad. I’m so sorry.” Linc was too exhausted to cry. “He was your brother.”
“He hated us.”
“None of us knew,” Grace said quietly. “We all loved him.”
“We loved the man he wanted us to believe he was.”
Grace said quietly, “Chris was the happiest man I’ve ever seen in those last days with Abigail. If I could ever dare to be so happy…”
“Dare it, Grace. Dare everything to be that happy.”
Linc could see the shock on his sister’s face at their father’s words.
When Linc drifted off again, he was aware of his father stretched out on the floor next to him, and his sister sitting across the room with her little pot of chamomile tea.
Mattie didn’t expect to see Doyle standing over his hospital bed when he woke up in a haze of painkillers and God knew what else the doctors had pumped into him. He was still on an IV. He tried to sit up. “Abigail? Linc? Are they all right?”
“They’re okay,” Doyle said, gruff as ever. “You got banged up the most. A couple broken ribs. About eight million bruises. You didn’t puncture a lung, though. No internal injuries.”
“I deserved to die.”
“Well, you didn’t. Now you have to figure out what comes next.”
“I can’t drink.”
Doyle nodded. “But you know it’s really about not drinking.” He seemed awkward. “I talked to Katie this morning. We’ll have to see what the prosecutors decide to do with you, but if you’re not in jail, you can have the spare bedroom until you’re back on your feet. One drop of alcohol, and you’re out. And you’re never to be there alone with the boys.”
“Doyle, I don’t deserve-”
“It’s not about what you deserve, Mattie. Katie and I can and want to do this for you. We’re not trying to save you. We know we can’t. Only you can save yourself.”
“When I was in the water,” he whispered. “BeforeAbigail. Chris was there. He kept me going. I had to stay alive to tell people about Ellis. I could hear his voice. I swear, Doyle. He was there, telling me…I had this one last chance…”
If Doyle believed him, he’d never say. “You’ve got a long road ahead of you, Mattie Young. Katie and I can walk some of it with you, but if you stumble-if you screw up-you’re on your own.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
Sean and Ian Alden squatted in front of a tide pool down on the rocks by Owen’s house. He sat on the deck with Doyle, watching the boys hold periwinkles up to their ears.
“You ever hear a periwinkle sing?” Doyle asked. “Because I never have. Katie says she hears them all the time.”
Owen lifted his feet onto the deck rail. “I can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time listening to periwinkles.”
“You would if you lived out here on this rock year-round.” Doyle grinned, and it was good to see. Forty-eight hours after Ellis Cooper’s death, nothing was back to normal. “Something to be said for it, don’t you think?” His grin broadened. “You’d go out of your damn mind.”
“I’ll be up here regularly once the field academy starts.”
“Rappelling off cliffs. Hauling trainees up and down mountains. Diving off boats. You won’t be listening to periwinkles sing.”
“Sometimes, maybe.”
“Katie’s excited about being director. You should hear her.” Doyle leaned back in his deck chair. “It’s good. I’m happy for her. For us.”
Owen shifted his gaze from the boys up the headland toward Abigail’s house on the rocks. The media had descended in a whir, keeping Doyle’s officers busy. Special Agents Capozza and Steele had kept vigil on Abigail’s house during the worst of it. John March called his daughter from Washington. He’d wait and see her when the frenzy had died down. By last night, most of the media had departed.
Doyle nodded in the direction of her house. “Her cop buddies from Boston are there. Bob O’Reilly and that other one-Scoop Wisdom. Have you seen him? Hell. He looks like he could dig Ellis up and shoot him again just to be sure he’s dead. Abigail says he’s got cats, though.”
“Cats?”
“She thinks anyone who has a cat can’t be all that mean. I told her she should look up all the murder cases involving weird cat people. Of course, she knows there are exceptions-she’s just saying this guy Scoop’s not as big a bad-ass as he looks. I guess not, because he’s helping her and O’Reilly nail up wallboard and paint the place.”
“Doyle,” Owen said. “Are you okay?”
His eyes filled with tears, but his gaze never left his sons. “I keep going back over what I could have done. I was the responding officer after the break-in seven years ago. If I’
d realized it was Mattie-if I’d known Chris was on to Ellis…”
“Ellis manipulated Mattie. Seven years ago, and this past week.”
“Mattie’s responsible for his own decisions.”
“But Ellis played on his weaknesses. Chris knew. He didn’t realize Ellis was a marksman. The police had found where Ellis practiced in the woods behind his house here, and at a private shooting range near his home in Washington. He’d kept his skill to himself. Chris guessed that Ellis stood by and watched my sister die, but that’s different from ambushing someone.”
“If he’d asked me to come down here with him-”
“Then you’d both be dead.”
Doyle was silent a moment. “Maybe so.” He pointed at the cloudless sky. “Hey, a heron.”
Owen saw it, a giant blue heron, ungainly looking and yet so graceful as it flew up the rockbound coast toward the cliffs.
“Herons were always one of Chris’s favorites,” Doyle said.
“One of Doe’s, too.” When the bird disappeared, Owen got to his feet. “I have to go. You and the boys are welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Guatemala,” he said. “There’s been a massive mudslide.”
“I thought you were supposed to be resting.”
Owen shrugged. “I’ll rest another time.”
“How’re you getting to Guatemala?”
“I’m flying to Austin and meeting my team there. We’ll head out together.”
Doyle squinted up at him. “Abigail know you fly your own plane?”
“Abigail has thick files on all of us, Doyle.” Owen grinned, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “She knows more about us than we know about ourselves.”
Bob and Scoop were in her kitchen making dinner-boiling lobsters, which she hated to do-whenAbigail saw Mattie limp up from the spruce trees down by the back porch. He looked thin and colorless, but his hair was clean, pulled back in a neat ponytail, and his bruises, the blossoms of purples and yellows on his arms, were beginning to heal.
“Don’t get up,” he said. “I’m not staying. I just want to leave you this.” He placed a small silver gift bag on her bottom porch step. “I know I can’t make up for what I’ve done to you.”
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