* * *
Zoe had apple coffee cake with her sister at the café and then sat with a cup of coffee at a small table overlooking the harbor and tried to pretend her life was normal. It felt so normal, being back in Goose Harbor, watching the activity on the docks. As the sun came up and the morning wore on, there were more tourists and pleasure yachts. The lobster boats were out in deeper water where the catch was plentiful this time of year.
Christina was too busy behind her glass-front counter for chitchat. Her café was just what Zoe had expected. White tables and blue linens, milk-glass vases with yellow mums, watercolors by local artists on the walls, a constant flow of people. Christina and her wait staff all wore black bottoms, white tops and blue aprons.
The food was wonderful. Zoe remembered how Chris would get up early even as a teenager to make wild-blueberry pancakes and set the table with their mother's white bone china.
Finally, Zoe gave up her table and headed back outside, welcoming the cool breeze blowing in off the water. She debated checking with the local police about the break-in yesterday, but she knew better. They wouldn't have anything.
She wondered where Agent McGrath was. The lobster boat he'd rented from Bruce was tied up at the dock. Christina wanted her to talk to him and find out what he was doing in Goose Harbor—cop to cop, she said, as if an FBI special agent would tell Zoe anything.
With any luck, he'd decided to continue his vacation elsewhere.
Then she noticed a Jeep with D.C. license plates parked in the town lot and gritted her teeth. No. Special Agent McGrath was still in Goose Harbor.
She got into her car and drove out along Ocean Drive, her stomach constricted, the apple coffee cake churning, her fingers in a death grip on the wheel as the road edged along the water. She could see it was choppy out on the ocean. She rolled down her windows and heard the waves and the wind, smelled the salt and tried not to cry.
Until she was in her late nineties, Olivia would walk from her house to the docks almost every morning. She said walking helped her think, helped a story to simmer. There was a famous picture of her leaning on her cane above the rocks on Ocean Drive. It had run in papers all over the country on her ninetieth birthday.
She hadn't died in peace. She'd died thinking she knew who'd murdered her nephew. Tortured because she couldn't produce the name.
Zoe blinked back tears and turned up her aunt's paved driveway. She hadn't expected to inherit the house. Olivia was meticulous in putting her affairs in order, but circumspect—Zoe hadn't known she would inherit the house and the rights to Jen Periwinkle, Christina a trust fund for Christina. They split the modest trust fund meant for their father. Olivia had willed the bulk of her estate to the nature preserve and her other favorite charities. She'd lived frugally and had a decent portfolio, but she'd given away money all through her life and was never enormously wealthy.
The brown-shingled 1890s house stood on the rockbound point as it always had. All that was missing were the pots of mums Olivia put out every year. And Olivia herself. Zoe parked in the driveway and climbed out, still not used to the reality that the house was hers now. She could sell it for a fortune. It'd buy her more time before she had to get a job, but that seemed like the classic long-term solution to a short-term problem. She had to get her life in order first. Then she could decide what to do with her aunt's house.
Using the key on her key chain, she unlocked the side door and walked into the small entry between the kitchen and the front room.
Someone was here.
She stepped into the kitchen and noted the used tea bag on the counter, felt the still-warm kettle on the stove. Whoever it was could have their own key or have come in through the porch door, which didn't have a lock. Getting one had been on Zoe's to-do list for a year. But the door was seldom used, and not having a lock for it hadn't been a problem in a hundred years.
Had Christina let someone stay here and forgotten to mention it in the excitement over the break-in at her house?
"Hello? Anyone home?"
Zoe checked the front room, but there was no sign of anyone. The porch door was shut tight. Maybe Christina had let Bruce loan a room to someone. Maybe Betsy O'Keefe had moved off Luke Castellane's yacht and needed a place to stay. Zoe doubted a burglar would have fixed himself a cup of tea, but stranger things had happened.
She started up the steep stairs to the second floor. There was no sound of the shower running. No snoring. Nothing unusual.
She called again, keeping her voice cheerful. It had to be someone she knew. "Hello, anyone home? It's me, Mama Bear. Someone's been eating in my kitchen…."
At the top of the stairs, the door to the biggest bedroom across the hall was open, and she saw the unmade bed. "Someone's been sleeping in my bed, too," she muttered, not so loud, and stood in the doorway.
It wan't anyone she knew.
Heaped on the floor was the opened, soft black suitcase she recognized from her tour of Special Agent McGrath's room at the inn last night.
Just what she needed.
She wouldn't put it past Lottie Martin to toss him out for the spilled tea. Hell of a nerve, though, to help himself to a room here. Bruce could have given him the go-ahead, but still.
Zoe returned to the hall. She supposed she had no business talking about nerve since she was the one who'd spilled the tea in the first place. She'd have to find him, figure out what was going on and take it from there.
What if McGrath was the one who'd broken into Christina's house yesterday?
At this point, Zoe was willing to entertain any and all possibilities. Barely twelve hours back in Goose Harbor and things were already a mess.
She started for the stairs but noticed that the door to the attic was cracked and stopped still. A jolt of adrenaline shot through her. Oh, no.
It had to be the wind. McGrath couldn't be in the attic. Anywhere else, but not there.
She tore open the door and ran upstairs, and only when she got to the top did she think—did she really want to confront a nosy FBI agent? What if he was a phony?
The stairs ended in the middle of the attic, with no rail or wall around the stairwell. There was a window at each end of the huge open space. It was filled with boxes, trunks, old furniture—what anyone would expect to find in an attic. Except for the space by the south window.
Zoe snatched up an old drapery rod. She made herself breathe as she picked her way through the attic junk, unable to see if anyone was in the little nook she'd made for herself during the first weeks after her father and great-aunt had died, when she'd been overwhelmed with grief, shock, anger, insanity. She'd used two old bureaus to create false walls and added a chenille rug and a dozen pillows in varying sizes, shapes and colors, anything that didn't scream "cop," that didn't remind her of touching her father's dead body…of hearing her aunt say, "I know who did it…."
The only solace she'd found in those weeks was in spending time up here. She bought yellow pads and pencils, a pencil sharpener, ten different kinds of pens, and she sat on her rug amid her pillows, staring out her window at the harbor and scribbling.
She should have dismantled her secret retreat before she left for Connecticut. Set fire to everything.
Pushing back her sense of embarrassment and violation at the idea anyone had pawed through her private space, she came around the two tall bureaus that marked one of her walls.
A lean, black-haired man had his legs stretched out and one of her yellow pads on his lap, and when he looked up at her, it was all Zoe could do to hang on to her drapery rod. He might have crawled off a Winslow Homer seascape with his blue eyes and weathered appearance, more the New England seaman than a Montana FBI agent.
He smiled at her. "You must be Mama Bear."
"And you must be Special Agent McGrath."
"Zoe West?"
She nodded. She didn't know what else to say. Ex-detective West? Almost Special Agent West? She cleared her throat. "I understand you've met my sister, Christin
a."
"I have."
She felt ridiculous carrying a drapery rod and self-conscious seeing the yellow pad with Chapter One scrawled in her handwriting across the top in his lap. It was as if there was nothing left in her of the veteran Maine State Police detective or even the somewhat eccentric sole detective of Bluefield, Connecticut.
McGrath got to his feet. He was tall and obviously very fit. Zoe used to be more fit before she took up residence with Charlie and Bea Jericho and started knitting and canning and milking goats, trying to put her life back together after her year of self-imposed exile. She didn't run, not since she'd found her father's body.
She watched McGrath take in her outfit of slim black pants, little fuchsia top, black flats and silver ankle bracelet and put that together with the image he, like the rest of Goose Harbor, must have formed of her. At least he couldn't see her rose tattoo.
He gave her a slight nod. "You want to call the police or just hit me over the head with that curtain rod?"
"It's a drapery rod. You can tell because of the hooks and the little pulley thing."
"Ah."
He tossed her pad onto a rose-flowered pillow. He moved with the kind of restrained control that reminded Zoe she was out of practice with her hand-to-hand combat skills. He wasn't wearing a weapon. He had on jeans, a thick black sweater and scuffed boat shoes.
She tried not to glance at the pad. She'd written in longhand, page after page of nothing anyone else was supposed to see. Ever. "Did you read—" She took a breath and decided she didn't want to know. "Never mind. Did Bruce give you permission to stay here? He has no right—"
"Bruce doesn't know I'm here. It was my idea to stay here."
His tone was unapologetic. He was simply stating the facts and letting her decide what she thought of them.
His voice was deep and slightly raspy, as if it'd been
dragged over sharp rocks a few times.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you got me thrown out of my inn."
"What? I did no—" She stopped herself. Why make a denial? Why lie? He hadn't asked a question or demanded an explanation. No point in painting herself into a corner. "I'll see you downstairs in the kitchen."
"As you wish."
Right. As if she had any control over the situation. She took her drapery rod with her, about-faced and headed back to the stairs, just missing falling into the stairwell and ending her return to Goose Harbor with a broken neck—which would have served her right.
Five
J.B. made his way down the attic steps thinking Zoe West must have known she wasn't dealing with a real threat or she'd never have come after him with a drapery rod. Either that or she'd gone more off the deep end as a cop than even he'd expected.
He debated packing up his stuff before heading down to the kitchen, then decided not to keep ex-detective West waiting. She had a right to be pissed at finding him in her attic, but he didn't feel bad about it. At some point in her not-too-distant past, she'd decided to resurrect Jen Periwinkle. He'd read the first chapter on her yellow pad. He knew she'd written it because she'd put her name at the top of the first page in neat block letters. It was pretty good. Her Jen Periwinkle was a little older than Olivia West's Jen Periwinkle, and she had a boyfriend. A young FBI agent. J.B. got a kick out of that. No sign of Mr. Lester McGrath in what he'd read.
He'd watched Zoe West drive up to her aunt's house in her yellow VW and could have alerted her to his presence at any time, but he hadn't. Not very nice of him, but she had searched his room. He figured she deserved to find him in the attic.
She had her kick-ass cop face on when he joined her in the kitchen. She was standing with her back to the sink and her arms crossed. He noticed she had more flecks of gray in her blue eyes than her sister did; she wasn't as tall and her blond hair was shorter. She didn't have as many freckles. With the little shirt and pants and the ankle bracelet, she didn't look as if she'd ever carried a gun. J.B. suspected that was pure prejudice on his part, but there it was.
"I'd like an explanation," she said. "An explanation of what?" No reaction. "Of why you're here." "In Goose Harbor or in your house?" "Both." He pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, keep
ing an eye on her. "I'm in Goose Harbor on vacation, and I'm in your house because I figured you owed me one for pawing through my room."
"Your name's J. B. McGrath?" "Jesse Benjamin McGrath." "And you are with the FBI, right?" "I was trying to keep a low profile, but yes. Do you
want to see my credentials?" She gave a tight shake of the head. "I understand your
ancestors are from Goose Harbor." "That's right." "McGraths?" "No."
"You know that Jen Periwinkle's evil nemesis is named McGrath?"
"He's fictional," J.B. said. "I'm not."
She muttered something that sounded like "more's the pity," then dropped her arms to her sides. "You had nothing to do with the break-in at my sister's yesterday?"
"No."
"You're not involved with the investigation into my father's murder?"
He could feel his expression softening. "No, I'm not."
"Why Goose Harbor? Why now?"
"I was due a vacation." He didn't need to tell her he'd been ordered to take some time off. "My ancestors are from here. I'd heard about your father's murder and knew it was still unsolved—I won't say I haven't tried to put the pieces together in my own mind."
"But it's not why you're here?"
He decided now wasn't the time to try to explain the relationshio between her great-aunt and his grandmother. He shook his head. "Not specifically, no. Detective West—"
"Zoe's fine. I'll never be a detective again."
He got to his feet. "I'll make my bed, pack up and clear out."
"In a minute. First you can help me get my things out of the car." She started for the side entry and glanced back at him. "Then we'll be even."
It was as much of an admission as he was going to get that she was the one who'd gone through his room last night. He walked behind her out to the side porch and down the stone walk to her VW Beetle, its back stuffed with boxes, bags and a heavy suitcase that had to be forty years old.
Zoe nodded at two knitting needles and a mass of milky-gray yarn spilling out of one of the bags. "That's my scarf. I started with a hundred stitches and now I have seventy-seven. What do you suppose happened to the other twenty-three?"
"You dropped them."
"Dropped them where?"
There was a glint of humor in her eyes—more gray in the late morning sun than blue—as she opened the driver's door. "Bruce says you're a closet eccentric,"
J.B.
said.
"He said that about Aunt Olivia, too. Bruce is an authority on two subjects: lobstering and the Maine coast. Anything he says on any other subject is not to be trusted."
J.B.
was still confident the flax seed and the soy powder were hers. "He says you refused to carry a weapon on duty and encouraged a Texas Ranger to interfere in the investigation into the Connecticut gov-ernor's death."
"I didn't encourage him—I just didn't stop him. And I didn't refuse to carry a weapon—I just didn't." She lifted out a backpack and hoisted it onto her shoulder. "Any other questions?"
"About a million, but I'll resist." She said nothing and grabbed a plastic bag overflowing with books, the top one a primer on domestic goats.
J.B. watched her turn up the walk to the side door. He could almost see the demons swooping around her, haunting her, toying with her as she tried to tell herself she had to get used to the idea that she might never know who killed her father—that she might never know if telling her aunt about his murder had somehow contributed to her death.
She stopped on the side porch and turned back to him. "How much did you read of what I wrote?"
"None of it. You have lousy handwriting, Detective West."
"That's very decent of you," she said quietly, unexpectedly. "Thank you."
&
nbsp; But he could see she knew he'd lied. He felt like a heel. She'd only picked through his underwear and his reading material, none of which he'd written himself.
After they got the last of her stuff out of her car, J.B. made his bed, packed, cleaned his bathroom and wiped down the kitchen counter and sink where he'd made tea. Then he offered to take Zoe West to lunch at her sister's café.
To his surprise, she accepted.
* * *
Betsy O'Keefe stretched out on a cushioned lounge chair on the afterdeck of Luke Castellane's yacht and listened to the seabirds. A lifelong resident of Goose Harbor, she still barely knew a seagull from a duck. Just wasn't interested. She closed her eyes and welcomed the ruffle of a breeze over her. It had warmed up nicely. Almost seventy degrees. Luke had on a toasty warm-up suit, but Betsy, in elastic-waist yellow jeans and an oversize white shirt, wished she'd put on shorts that morning.
Luke hissed impatiently as he read a health article at the nearby table. He was always reading health articles. After Olivia died, he'd invited Betsy over to check his blood pressure three times a day for a week. He was worried the stress of Patrick West's murder and all the publicity of Olivia's death would push him into a stroke. He was in his early fifties, sandy-haired and good-look-ing, if a little too whip-thin from his diet and exercise regimen. Healthy as a horse. She'd had her eye on him even before that terrible twenty-four hours last fall, but even she was surprised when he took to her.
She could do worse than Luke Castellane.
His cell phone rang. He sighed—if anything did him in, it would be his natural impatience—and answered it. "Yes, what is it?" He listened a moment. "I can't talk right now. Do nothing without my permission. Is that understood?"
He didn't give whoever was on the other end a chance to respond before he disconnected.
"Who was that?" Betsy asked mildly.
"What? No one. A money matter. Go back to sleep."
"I wasn't sleeping."
He didn't reply. Olivia West had always had a soft spot for Luke. She told Betsy it was because she saw what his parents did to him. His oddities, she believed, were a direct result of their psychological abuse and neglect, and that at heart, Luke was a good man who wanted to be able to connect with other people and have healthy relationships but didn't know how.
The Harbor Page 4