“Excuse me, ma’am.” He read her name tag. “Mae. There was a man who was just in here—he bought a whole cart of stuff? Some electrical wire? . . .”
She looked at him again, one eyebrow raised this time as she kept working, holding the various types of pipe and connections up to the scanner. “You’ve just described nearly every customer I’ve helped since my coffee break at ten-thirty.”
She smiled at her own small joke and Tom took a steadying breath. Okay. She seemed friendly. At the very least she was good-natured and intelligent.
“This was just a few minutes ago,” he said. “He had brown hair, going gray. About forty-five years old, about my height. He bought a roll of wire? . . .”
“Pleasant brown eyes?” she asked.
Brown eyes. But okay. “Yes,” Tom said. If he were the Merchant, he would figure he’d call less attention to himself by not wearing the cheap blue contact lenses once he was away from the potential scrutiny at Logan Airport. But Christ, what was he doing in Baldwin’s Bridge?
Mae was looking at him, waiting for him to go on.
“He’s my brother-in-law,” he said smoothly. Jenks would have been proud. “My crazy sister just sent me down here to make sure he didn’t forget a bunch of things we need. We’re rewiring the house and . . . But I just missed him. He pulled away before I could make sure he got everything. I saw he had the wire, but maybe you could tell me—did he also get pliers?”
“He bought quite a few items,” Mae told him as she worked. “Wire, a wire cutter, needle-nose pliers, too. Let’s see . . . duct tape, lots of duct tape and electrical tape, a whole pile of switches and switch plate covers . . .” She took a credit card from the man buying the plumbing supplies and ran the magnetic tape through her register. “There was more. A bunch of doodads from our electrical department and a lovely hanging pot of impatiens from gardening that he said he just couldn’t resist.”
Flowers. Why would a terrorist buy flowers? Tom could think of a few reasons without much effort. One—because no one would suspect he was a terrorist if he bought flowers. And two—because he wasn’t really a terrorist, he was just some guy who looked like some other guy Tom had seen at Logan; and three—Tom was out of his fucking mind.
“How about a clock radio?” he asked. If he were building a bomb, the Merchant would need some kind of alarm clock to jury-rig. Provided he was the Merchant. Provided Tom hadn’t completely lost it.
Mae shook her head. “Nope, definitely not. But we don’t carry small appliances. You’ll have to go to Radio Shack or Sears for something like that.”
“Did he pay with a credit card or—”
“Cash.”
It had been too much to hope he’d used a credit card. Of course, even if he had, it probably would have been stolen. “Thank you, Mae,” Tom said.
“Good luck with your project,” she said.
Yeah, he definitely needed luck.
“A car bomb.” Admiral Crowley sighed.
Tom slowly sat down at Joe’s kitchen table, trying his hardest not to sound insane, but even he didn’t believe himself completely.
“He could pick up an alarm clock from anywhere. Sears. Bradlees. The CVS. Sir.” Tom chose his words carefully as he spoke into the phone. “I know how crazy this all sounds. First I see this man at Logan, and then I see him here in Baldwin’s Bridge. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. I mean, why Baldwin’s Bridge? What’s his target? Is it me?”
“That’s the craziest thing you’ve said yet,” Crowley told him dryly. “You weren’t even in a command position when you helped go after the Merchant. Out of everyone on that task force, why should he go after you?”
“How could he go after me?” Tom pointed out. “You know as well as I do that SEAL Team Sixteen’s personnel records aren’t exactly open to the public. And even if he had an inside connection with top secret clearance, he wouldn’t find out much.” He rubbed his eyes, well aware that it had only been an hour since he’d last taken Tylenol. It wasn’t working. “I don’t think he knows I’m here. It’s hard to imagine he would go to Home Depot—right under my nose—and buy the tools and wires he’d need to build a bomb if he knew I was watching.”
“Tom.” Crowley sighed again. “I’ve made some quiet inquiries, and none of our INTEL agencies report any movement from the Merchant. Nothing at all. Not a peep, not a breath. In fact, CIA’s got him on a presumed-dead list. I’m finding it very difficult to get excited about this.”
“Sir, I understand your position, and I agree I’m not the most reliable pair of eyes right now, but I think it would be wise at least to take some precautions—”
“Tom. You need to use this next month to rest. To recharge. I’m going to be frank with you, son. You’re going to have to be on your toes when you return from leave. Rear Admiral Tucker’s actively trying to deep six you and your entire SO squad. And he’s not the only one who wants you and your Troubleshooters gone from Team Sixteen. If you want to save your career, you’re going to have to come back fighting. It’s not going to help you one bit if word gets out that you’ve seen dead terrorists—or Elvis or aliens from outer space—in your hometown. I’m behind you, Lieutenant, you know I am, but there’s only so much I can do to save your ass if you’re determined to get it kicked.”
“Sir—”
“Get some rest, Lieutenant.” Crowley hung up, leaving Tom listening to the emptiness of a dead phone line.
He reached behind him to hang it up. If he wanted to save his career . . .
Tom did. His career meant just about everything to him.
But if that was the Merchant he’d seen, there was far more than his career at stake. The thought of the Merchant planting a car bomb somewhere in Boston’s Government Center was chilling.
But why Boston? The Merchant had always targeted people and places for a reason. It didn’t make sense that he should just randomly choose Boston now.
Unless he somehow was here because of Tom. Tom had been present, after all, when the Merchant’s teammates—one of whom was his wife—were killed. And sure, while the records of the task force assault were top secret, even the most top secret information could be leaked or sold or stolen.
Maybe the Merchant was after Tom.
Christ, that sounded crazy.
In fact, it sounded frigging paranoid.
Get some rest, the admiral had ordered him.
He gripped the table with both hands, holding on as dizziness and doubt assaulted him relentlessly, making him giddy and breathless and sick to his stomach. This was new territory for him, this wondering if he could trust his judgment, wondering if he could trust what he’d seen with his own eyes.
He’d gotten where he was in the SEAL teams through his ability to take charge, to take command. Confidently. Completely. His men had faith in him. They trusted him implicitly—because Tom had always, without exception, trusted himself.
He’d seen the Merchant at Logan. It was the Merchant. He’d known, deep in his gut, with every cell in his body, that this was the man he’d studied for so many months.
But these strange feelings of doubt had crept in, and now he was wondering just who and what he’d seen.
What if he was wrong and it wasn’t the Merchant? Well, okay, people made mistakes. He’d chalk it up to coincidence. With all the millions of people in the world, the man he’d seen just happened to pick up a bag with the same exact twisting motion that the Merchant had always used.
Unless Tom hadn’t seen that telltale motion at all. Unless this goddamned head injury had only made him think he’d seen it.
And that was where the self-doubt was killing him.
Was he ever going to be able to trust his own eyes again?
That was enough to drive him fucking nuts—if he wasn’t fucking nuts already.
But the sixty-four-million-dollar question was even harder to answer.
What if he had seen the Merchant? What if the terrorist was planning to hit some target in
the Boston area?
And what if Tom just sat back in a lounge chair on the deck overlooking the ocean and did nothing except maybe take advantage of Kelly Ashton when she was feeling particularly lonely and in need of a physical connection?
Yeah, that would be great. He could be twice the asshole—ignoring the potential threat from a terrorist while deceiving a woman he liked and respected.
Kelly would end up hurt and people would die. Maybe a lot of people.
Head pounding, Tom reached for the phone again, leaning back to dial Jazz Jacquette’s home phone number. Jazz had a key to Tom’s apartment, where Tom still had files of information about the Merchant and his organization stashed on his computer’s hard disk. It would take a matter of minutes for Jazz to send that info to Tom electronically. Jazz could also get in touch with WildCard, who could use his unique hacker skills to gather whatever new information had come in on the Merchant over the past few years—pictures, videos, reports, and even rumors.
Yeah, provided he could beg, borrow, or steal a computer with Internet access, Tom was about to get that rest Admiral Crowley recommended—while he caught up on his reading.
“What flavor do you recommend?”
The voice was familiar and Mallory looked over the Ice Cream Shoppe counter and focused on her five thousandth customer of the early afternoon.
What a surprise. It was the geek of last night past, come here to her place of employment to haunt her by rattling his pocket protector.
“A two scoop sugar cone,” she told him flatly. “Plain vanilla.”
He blinked at her from behind his windshield, clearly surprised. But he’d asked, and in her opinion, none of the fancy, yuppified, rock- and twig-littered flavors ever beat the Shoppe’s wicked awesome homemade vanilla.
“If that’s too middle of the road for someone as obviously cosmopolitan as you,” she added, “try one scoop vanilla, one scoop orange sorbet.”
“Like a Creamsicle,” he said. “That sounds great. I’ll take one of those.”
He watched through the glass as she leaned over and dug into the hard frozen vats of ice cream and sorbet—no doubt taking advantage of the opportunity to try to look down her shirt.
“You’ve been working here for a while, haven’t you?” he said. “More than a year, right?”
“A year and a half,” she told him. “So what?”
There was actually nothing “so what” about it. It was a year longer than her mother had ever held a job in her entire life. In the overall scheme of things, serving ice cream was stupid and meaningless, Mal knew, but when Carolyn had given her a copy of the key so she could open up in the morning, she’d been proud.
She reached across the counter to hand the cone to the geek and their fingers touched. It was hard to tell if it was on purpose. He didn’t turn red or start stammering or fall down in a dead faint, so maybe it had been.
“Thanks,” he said with a flash of his perfect teeth, handing her a five that he had out and ready. “When I first saw you, I thought maybe you lifted, but you don’t have to, do you? You get that great definition in your arms just from working here—from scooping ice cream.”
Her arms. He was waxing poetic about her arms. It was almost funny enough to make her laugh, but she managed to restrain herself. Mallory turned her back on him as she made change at the cash register.
When she turned to face him, he’d somehow gotten a dab of ice cream on the tip of his nose. God, what a loser. She dropped the change into his hand from as distant a height as possible.
“Are you working all afternoon?” he asked.
Carolyn chose that exact moment to breeze out of the back room. “Lunchtime, Mallory! You’re free for an hour. Don’t smoke too many cigarettes, girl.”
Oh, crap. It was bad enough Carolyn announced that she had the next hour free, but the real killer was that now the geek knew her name.
Mallory took off her apron, grabbed her bag lunch from the refrigerator, along with her book and cigarettes, and headed for the door.
Geek-boy followed with his ice cream—had she really thought that he wouldn’t? Before she hit the door, she pulled a yooie, marching back toward the counter and grabbing a napkin. As ridiculous and pathetic as he was, and as scornful as she was of him, there was still no way she could knowingly let him walk out into the harsh streets of Baldwin’s Bridge, among the snickering cliques of richie-rich yacht club kids, with ice cream on his nose.
“Don’t move,” she ordered him, and swiped his face clean. “And don’t get excited. This doesn’t mean anything except that you had ice cream on your nose.”
She tossed the napkin into the trash container outside the front door and kept going, pretending that he wasn’t still following her.
“Actually,” he said, “I did that on purpose.”
When he spoke to her, it made it hard to pretend he wasn’t following her—especially when he said things that didn’t make any sense at all. Mallory couldn’t help herself. She turned and looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
He smiled at her over his cone, a happy little geek smile. “The ice cream on the nose. It’s my humanity test. You passed.”
“Yeah, well, fuck off,” Mallory said. She glanced at him. “How do I rate now?”
He laughed. What do you know? A geek with a sense of humor. He followed her for a while in silence, eating his ice cream. “Do you always have lunch down here by the marina?”
“Crap.” She’d forgotten to grab a soda from the Shoppe. And the only thing in the house this morning had been a stale loaf of bread and some peanut butter. Lunch was going to be a dry mouth fest.
“It’s really beautiful down here.” He squinted as he gazed out over the glistening water, finishing up the last of his cone and wiping his hands and mouth on the napkin she’d wrapped around it. “That was really good, by the way.”
“Look,” she told him, settling herself on the grass under the biggest shade tree on the lawn in front of the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel, “I have only an hour, and I’m in the middle of this really great book. So if you don’t mind? . . .”
He was bending into an odd shape, trying to see the cover of her book, and she impatiently held it out.
He shook his head. “I don’t know that author’s name. Is she new?”
“Yeah,” Mallory told him, rolling her eyes. “Like nearly ten years new. She’s only the hottest romance author out there. God.”
“Ah,” he said. “I don’t read much romance.”
“Much?”
“Any,” he admitted.
She looked at him, at his mismatched socks, his geekoid plaid shorts, his faded Babylon-5 T-shirt, his bad haircut. David Sullivan, the Asian-American Irishman, could have been the spokesperson and poster model for bad hair days. And those glasses . . . Holy mother.
“Too macho for it, huh?” she asked him.
He answered as if it had been a serious question. “No, just ignorant. I like to read science fiction.”
“Now there’s a surprise. The fact that you’re into Babylon-5 was a clue.”
He looked astonished. “How do you know I’m into Babylon-5?”
She pointed at his space vessel–covered chest.
He glanced down at himself as if surprised by what he was wearing. Actually, he was probably surprised by the fact that he had on clothes, period. “Ah. And here I thought you were a mind reader. Instead, you’re just a good observer.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’ve found it helps when you keep your eyes open and actually focus on something or someone. If you do that, you start to notice little details, like whether they’re a human being or a Boston terrier.”
He actually managed to realize she was ragging on him. “I notice details,” he protested. “In fact, I’m good with details. It’s just my own personal details I don’t pay much attention to.” He tilted the cover of her book toward him again. “Now that I know what to look for, I’m going to have to read a romance
novel.”
“Yeah, right.” He’d pinned the bullshit meter with that one. He’d actually read a romance, and her mother would become the governor’s wife. Mallory opened her book, opened her bag, and started to eat and read, pointedly ignoring him.
He stood there for only a few seconds longer and then, to her complete surprise, he walked away.
Wonder of wonders. A geek who actually understood “go away” body language.
But ten minutes didn’t pass before Mallory saw him again, walking back across the lawn toward her. She braced herself, focusing all of her attention on the page of her book, hunching her shoulders, turning slightly away.
She didn’t look up as he walked right up to her. She didn’t say a word, didn’t acknowledge him.
And again, to her surprise, he didn’t stay very long. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to get her attention. He simply set something on the grass next to her and then walked away, toward the marina.
When he was finally far enough away and it was safe to move, Mallory looked up.
He’d brought her a can of soda.
As she watched, he sat down on a bench near the seawall, facing the harbor, and taking a book out of his bag, he began to read, too.
She opened the can of soda and took a long drink. It was cold and delicious. She lit a cigarette—one of her last three. This was going to be her last pack. After this, she was quitting for good.
As she savored both the cigarette and the soda, she looked over at David Sullivan.
He didn’t look back at her, didn’t do anything but slouch there and read.
What a complete weirdo.
Six
JOE FINISHED WATERING the roses. He coiled the hose, gazing up at the rather ostentatious main house.
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