Jonathan and the others had died while she was unavailable—at home, or at the library, or off on another skiing trail. Like today, when she went off on her own. Her heart contracted with apprehension for Quinn.
She carried her packages up the cleared walkway to be greeted by Elisha shambling around the corner with Alley.
Depositing her burdens on the porch, Claire clapped and called, “Alley, come, little one!”
Elisha freed the little dog’s leash, and she raced on three strong legs to her mistress. The old man shuffled closer and stood waiting while the dog twirled in frantic circles and yipped a happy greeting.
Lifting the dog in her arms, Claire said, “Well, Elisha, how did you like the new snow blower?”
His thin shoulders lifted a fraction, and the weathered lips pursed. “’Tweren’t bad. Not as reliable as a shovel, mind you. These newfangled gadgets got too many movin’ parts to run for long ’thout needin’ work, but it did the job today.”
“I appreciate you trying it out for me,” she said, knowing not to push his pride. “Mr. Quinn’s not back, I see.”
He doffed his patched cap. “Well, yes and no, Miz Claire.”
“What do you mean?” An uneasy chill invaded her spine.
“He come back a while ago, seems like. Left again in a wicked hurry, though.”
“Did he ask where I was? Was he looking for me?” She didn’t want him following her, prying, but out alone, danger stalked him.
Elisha coughed and worried his cap as if trying to scrub off its innumerable, unidentifiable stains. Claire focused half on how to locate Quinn and half on Elisha’s meandering monologue.
“That Quinn’s a good’un,” he said, measuring out his words one at a time in his Down-East drawl. “The past year, folks has said terrible things about you, Miz Claire. I don’t understand it all, but I know you. You ain’t done nothin’ wrong, and you deserve better.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Elisha?” Was it something about Quinn? Whatever he had to say, she’d have to be patient. Elisha Fogg chewed over every word before spitting it out. Letting Alley leap from her arms, she held the leash.
“He stood and talked to old Elisha like you do, Quinn did. Not like that Santerre you was married to a while back. Woulda stepped over Elisha’s bleedin’ body in the middle of his own yard, he would. Not Quinn. Asked about the blower. Listened.”
Claire mentally reviewed places Quinn could have gone. Maybe he was questioning someone on his potential stalker list. Without her! No, he’d promised. Judging from his restraint, despite his desire for her, she knew that he was honorable. She imagined the control behind his smoldering gray eyes, the power in his broad shoulders, the tenderness in his hands. Mon Dieu, where was he? He could have gone back to see one of the lobstermen. Or…
Now the old man’s kneading threatened the battered cap’s survival. “A young woman like you needs a good man like that to take care of things. A young man. Not a dried-up old crab like Elisha. Yes’m, Quinn’s a good’un. Asked for my help.”
That snapped her to attention. “Asked for your help?” she repeated, clutching the old man’s sleeve. “What do you mean?”
“Asked if Elisha seen any suspicious characters snoopin’ around the neighborhood.” His thin shoulders straightened, and he plopped the mangled cap back on his grizzled head.
“And did you?” She mentally kicked herself. She’d never thought to recruit Elisha, who like a seagull watched all comings and goings.
He bent forward conspiratorially. “Told him I seen one o’ them SUVs, a big dark blue Explorer, cruisin’ back and forth. Stopped once or twice in front o’ the house, too. Don’t belong to nobody on this street.”
Claire’s heartbeat clattered, and anxiety clawed at her throat. An Explorer. Where had she seen such a vehicle?
“Weren’t the only time I seen that truck, neither,” Elisha continued. “That’s when Quinn took off like a dog on a scent.” He pointed a bony finger at Alley, who was sniffing at something under the porch.
“Please, Elisha, where else did you see the Explorer?” She could barely restrain herself from shaking the information from him.
“Why, down to the harbor earlier this mornin’.” He scratched his chin beneath his scraggly beard. “Saw it parked outside Greavey’s Boatyard. You know, where—”
The clawing anxiety turned to daggers of fear. “Stay awhile longer if you can. I have to find Quinn.” Her breathing shallow with dread, Claire thrust the leash at the old man.
She backed her Forester onto the street and skidded away before Elisha could reply.
Michael could find no sign of Raoul’s Explorer at Greavey’s. If El Halcón’s men had been there, they were long gone now. He couldn’t find out about anyone snooping around the Rêve. Greavey himself had driven home to lunch, and the secretary had spent her morning in front of a computer screen. Besides Michael, no one had asked her any questions.
Inside the boat shed, the Rêve perched on its struts the same as it always had. Nothing seemed out of place. Except the ladder. It was nowhere near.
After checking out every other boat in the shed, Michael finally located the damn thing at the shed’s upper end. Someone had propped it and two other ladders against a broad-beamed wooden sloop, where a radio blared an old Stones romp and the odor of fresh varnish stung his nose. The varnishers had presumably gotten the hell out of there for lunch, too.
When he mumbled something about the world running on its stomach, his belly growled in reply.
Michael struggled back to the Rêve with the unwieldy ladder and with the pieces of a puzzle that wouldn’t fit no matter what the hell he did, or which way he turned things. The Weymouth police chief had been less than helpful, adopting the state CID line against the Widow Spider. He did finally agree to run Michael’s list through the computer.
Cruz could have checked the names on the DEA’s computers, but Michael didn’t want to explain it to him. Or to see his friend smirk. Clearing the widow of murder wasn’t supposed to be part of his gig.
She’d kept some secrets from him, he knew, like where the hell she’d gone this morning when she’d told him she had translating to do. But he couldn’t believe the Claire Saint-Ange he’d come to know had murdered three men.
Still, he couldn’t help thinking it was all connected. How wide was the Widow’s web? The drugs. El Halcón’s men. The telephone stalker. The murders.
They were all murders, his gut instinct insisted. He agreed with Claire that Jonathan’s death hadn’t been suicide. She’d seen no indications of depression or extreme worry, none of the usual markers.
Michael leaned the ladder against the side of the Rêve and climbed it. A quick glance around the cockpit spotted nothing out of place. Pros wouldn’t leave much of a trace, but a sharp eye could spot even a tiny discrepancy. A dial turned, a coiled line askew, something.
As he lowered himself to the captain’s chair, a flash of movement out the clerestory window caught his attention.
Damn! Claire.
The old man must have told her. The freshening wind blew her long dark hair back like a capelet above her black quilted coat. Sunlight glinted fiery highlights off her hair. Woman on a mission. Judging from her tight mouth and the way she was storming through the parking lot toward the boat shed, there’d be hell to pay for investigating on his own.
Hot damn! An argument with his delectable boss was almost as good as sex. Almost.
He grinned, a real grin for the first time in months.
With icy fear encasing her belly, Claire ran through the snowy parking lot. A fish truck blocked the entry, so she parked farther up the hill, alongside Quinn’s Cherokee. At least she knew he was here.
Spitting French curses, she slipped and slid her way. The mid-thirties temperatures were melting the snow into a slushy mess. It slowed her pace, making her plod along in slow motion as if a force, unreal, dreamlike, kept her running in place.
Tears threatened t
o choke her, to blind her. She had to reach him in time! In time for what, she didn’t know. Maybe nothing. But somehow deep inside, she knew Quinn was in mortal danger. And she had to save him.
Was he in there? Please let him be all right.
An icy patch sent her into a skid, and she fell to her knees with more Gallic imprecations on her lips.
In the next moment, strong arms lifted her to her feet and held her. Steel-gray eyes searched hers.
She clutched at his parka-covered chest, cupped his strong jaw with her hand, brushed at the strand of chestnut hair on his forehead. The rock solidity and heat of his body reassured her he was whole and well.
“Quinn! You’re all right. Thank God!”
“Yeah, boss. Why shouldn’t I be?” he drawled.
After she allowed herself to breathe, his teasing comment registered, along with the wicked silver glint in his eyes and the mocking twist to his mouth. The arrogant man didn’t even realize he was in danger. And when he called her “boss,” how did he manage to make it sound like “babe”?
Fury lit a match to her cheeks and her temper. She didn’t know whether to kiss him or pummel him.
“Idiot! Bête comme une patate!” she yelled. “Why did you come down here by yourself? Don’t you know—”
Without warning, the boat storage building behind Quinn erupted like a volcano.
The explosion flung them to the slushy pavement with the force of a giant fist. The roaring and rumble swept over them like a portent of the world’s end. Shards of metal and fiberglass and wood rained around them, on them.
When the shock ended, Claire found herself beneath the protection of Quinn’s large body.
“What in bloody hell!” Quinn rolled off her, then pulled them both from the wet and debris to their feet.
Barely noticing her ripped and slush-soaked coat, Claire blinked at where the lower end of the boat shed—and the Rêve de coeur—used to be. Angry flames leapt from the building wreckage. The fire’s heat and the cognizance of what had just happened reached her at the same time. “Mon Dieu!”
“We have to move back,” Quinn said. “There might be more gasoline and other flammables in there.” Grim-faced, he led her to a retreat position near the harbormaster’s shed, where they had met with Russ Santerre.
The whine of sirens announced the imminent arrival of the Weymouth Fire Department. Fire engulfed the lower end of the boat shed and threatened to spread to the rest. Claire spotted Greavey’s secretary standing outside the sofar intact office. She must have called in the fire.
Claire tore her gaze from the blazing debris of Paul’s dream of a boat. Quinn’s face was unmarked, but his jacket was wet and nearly shredded. “You could have died,” she whispered.
He grimaced. The hand he brushed over the back of his head came away bloody. “Some damn thing cut me.”
“Here, let me see. You’re injured from protecting me,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Oh, Michael, this is all my fault.”
He grabbed her hands and held them between their bodies as if manacled. “Is it, Claire? Is it your fault?” His eyes darkened to a winter-sea gray, stormy with turbulence. The uncompromising set of his mouth transformed him into the hard man she’d first met.
The fire trucks arrived and with them a flurry of purposeful activity. Soon water cascaded over the hungry flames.
At his accusatory tone, her heart fell in a slow, sickening spiral. “Wha—you said yourself you were the target. Because of me.” She tried futilely to free her hands. “You’re hurting me.”
“I could have been a hell of a lot more than hurt, lady,” he spat at her. “The cops will be here soon, and you’ll have to tell them everything. But tell me now. You know I come down here sometimes. What happened? Did you set the bomb and then have second thoughts? Did you decide a bomb was too obvious? Or too soon? So you changed your mind and raced to my rescue?”
His words stung her like a slap. An unholy buzzing rang in her ears, and panic made it hard to breathe. “You…you think I could have done this?”
“You know enough about explosives. I saw the reference books for one of your translation jobs. Motive? Was I getting too close to the truth? Or like the typical serial killer, you just couldn’t wait any longer. Had to do your next victim.”
He yanked her closer, so she tasted the harsh bursts of his breath and the venom of his words.
Despair and pain ripped through her, paralyzed her. How could he say these things? “Non, non,” she whispered.
“Opportunity? I was gone all morning. Where were you?”
She only shook her head in mute denial. If he believed she could do this terrible thing, divulging her secret errand would make no difference.
“What a damn fool I was!” He shoved her away so abruptly she nearly fell. “To think I believed you. Believed the Widow Spider. I even…” With a growl of rage, he turned aside to stare at the smoldering boat-shed ruins.
A hard lump of hopelessness clogged Claire’s throat and spread downward to crush her heart.
No. She was the damn fool to have fallen in love with him. The future held nothing for them no matter what, but loving a man who hated her stretched the future into an agonizing wasteland.
Chapter 7
When the Weymouth police chief ascertained that the explosion and resulting fire began on a boat belonging to Paul Santerre’s widow, the case rapidly leapfrogged to the state detectives. After Pratt questioned him, Michael had little to do but wait for the investigation to proceed.
“Yow! Watch it. That’s my skull, not a damn wood-shop project. Feels like sandpaper you’re scraping me with,” Michael bellowed at the ambulance attendant who was cleaning the glass shards from his scalp.
The EMT made some soothing comment and continued probing the back of his victim’s head.
Michael heard further mumbling about stitches and going to the hospital, but he ignored them. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on the black smoke rising into the over-cast sky.
Once the police arrived, they had separated Claire and him for questioning. He hadn’t seen her since. Where the hell did they take her?
God Almighty, he’d acted like a flaming jerk. He’d said terrible things out of fear and shock. Fear at how narrowly they’d both escaped death. Fear of all the unknowns in this damn case. Fear for Claire. And shock at all the emotions whirling around inside him.
Worst of all, he’d destroyed the trust she’d given him.
He did still believe in her, didn’t he? She had a book on explosives; that was true. And she wouldn’t tell him where she’d gone that morning. But if she was guilty, wouldn’t she have a ready alibi? She’d had no pat alibis for the alleged murders, either, he reminded himself.
Cruz would say he wasn’t thinking with his brain but with a lower part of his anatomy.
Hell, he didn’t know anymore. He wanted to trust her. He did trust her. She didn’t plant the bomb that could have blown them both up. No more than she’d murdered three men or smuggled drugs.
In the past few weeks, he’d pierced her prickly shield and seen past the sensual beauty to the gentleness and generosity inside. From the beginning, he’d wanted her, and now he cared about her, too. More than he wanted to.
Somehow he had to repair the damage he’d inflicted on their fragile relationship.
When the “Dr. Mengele” of the EMTs finished bandaging him, Michael went to sit on the tailgate of Cruz’s sport utility van. He felt dizzy and someone pounded steel drums inside his head, but he would wait as long as it took to know about the bomb.
By late afternoon, Michael wasn’t surprised to see local DEA and U.S. Customs agents join the CID at the town landing. Next they’d call in the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms guys because of the explosives.
Half the agents already swarming around the boatyard had worked with him at one time or another. So why not add to the ATF and bring in the freaking FBI, too? They’d have a damn party to announce this whole un
dercover operation. When a Customs agent he recognized strolled by, he hid his face in his hands.
A frustrating hour later, Rick Cruz and Detective Sergeant Pratt walked toward him through the slush and debris. High cirrus clouds obscured the sun and presaged a new front.
“Yo, Pratt, where’s Ms. Saint-Ange?” Michael barked.
Pratt’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “One of my detectives took her to the police station for questioning. You worried about the poor little Widow Spider?”
Michael wished for the strength to slug Pratt in his smart mouth. “Damn right,” he said quietly. Shouting would hurt too much. “That firecracker in there nearly nailed us both. She didn’t set it, and I want to know who the hell did.”
“Just what’s going on with the DEA?” Pratt asked. “If you guys would lay it all out for me, we could get this over with sooner. I’d like to get home sometime. Tomorrow’s Christmas.”
Today was Christmas Eve. At that realization, the pain in Michael’s head couldn’t match the ache in his chest. On Christmas Eve, the whole Quinn clan stuffed themselves with his mom’s lasagna and biscotti and then gathered around the enormous tree, where each opened one present. His dad told bad jokes. Roark played carols on the piano. Sandro sung off-key and rolled around on the floor with his kids. And Amy—
His eyes misted with the thought of all that without his sister Amy in her handmade elf hat to hand out the gifts.
“Yo, Quinn, you okay, mano?” Cruz said. “You look white as that seagull poop over there.”
Michael passed a hand over his eyes and pulled himself back to the problem at hand. Shivering, he zipped up the remnants of his parka to the neck. Cold. He was never cold.
“Yeah, man, I’m fine. Just fine.” If he ignored the claws ripping at the back of his head. “Can we get out of here? I don’t want some ATF puke blowing my cover.”
The state detective puffed out his chest and jerked a thumb toward the ruined boat shed. “Don’t need no damn ATF help. Our own bomb squad can handle this one.”
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