Breakwater

by Carla Neggers

  “That’s good,” Crawford replied, but he didn’t sound pleased. He sighed, keeping his gaze on the water. “There was a scene earlier with Quinn Harlowe.”

  “I heard,” Gerard said, surprised that Ollie didn’t seem irritated with her. “I didn’t get any details. What did she do?”

  “She slipped into the house and found me in the library. No one noticed. Then she…” Pausing, Oliver turned to his old friend. “She’s suspicious, Gerry. She’s spinning conspiracies and fantasies where there are none. I’m afraid she’s going to get burned.”

  “She’s still upset over her friend’s death.”

  “Gerry, perhaps you should remember that Quinn Harlowe isn’t just a pretty face. She’s a well respected, very sharp expert in transnational criminal networks.”

  Gerard tried to smile. “Yes, but unless you’re operating a criminal network out of your dining room, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Sharon was very angry with her. One of the new guys, Huck Boone, escorted Quinn out of there. Joe Riccardi went pale. I think he was worried about what his wife would do, actually.”

  “From what I’ve seen of her, she’s one tough cookie.” Gerard frowned at his friend, who suddenly looked as if he wanted to cry. “Ollie? Are you okay?”

  “Alicia’s death has affected me more than I realized.” He cleared his throat, rallying. “I don’t mind saying so.”

  “But you hardly knew her…”

  “I got to know her over the last month. We became close—not romantically. I’ve never met anyone I could talk to the way I could her.”

  Gerard felt his spine straighten. “Oliver, you might not want to divulge more.”

  “You’re right. I’m just—” He clapped a hand on Gerard’s shoulder. “I’m just contemplating what might have been. Come in for a drink before you leave.”

  “I shouldn’t. I’ve had too much to drink as it is.”

  “Gerry…I had nothing to do with Alicia Miller’s death.”

  “If I thought you did, I wouldn’t have come near this place today.”

  “Stay, Gerry. Let’s talk.”

  But a stiff-backed Travis Lubec was waiting just off the patio to take him back to his boat. Gerard wanted to go back to Washington, but wondered what would happen if he said no. He told himself he was being ridiculous, he was getting paranoid—thanks to Steve Eisenhardt.

  “Of course, Ollie. We’ve known each other a long time.” He met his friend’s gaze. “I’d be happy to stay and talk.”

  Quinn ducked into the bedroom and changed into jeans, a sweatshirt and water shoes, wondering what had possessed her to fall so hard for Huck, because that was what she’d done. If Vern Glover hadn’t shown up, she had no doubt she and her undercover marshal would be in bed right now.

  She hoped she wasn’t responding to some need to remind herself that she was alive and had done her best by Alicia—that kissing Huck Boone/McCabe on her doorstep wasn’t just about the risk, the adrenaline rush of being around him. He was sexy, confident, irreverent. She liked him.

  On the other hand, he was pretending to be a bodyguard. She’d never seen his badge. She’d never seen him off duty. She couldn’t picture where he lived, didn’t know who his friends were, what he liked to do when he wasn’t working undercover.

  Basically, she didn’t know much about the man at all, she thought, tying back her hair. But as she finished up and shut the bureau drawer, she caught the reflection of her bed in the mirror and saw that the bed linens were askew. She’d been too preoccupied to notice sooner.

  She felt a crawling sensation and, grabbing an antique wooden canoe paddle she’d meant to stick on a wall, returned to the kitchen.

  Her silverware drawer was partially open, but she was positive she hadn’t left it that way.

  Quinn walked into the bathroom and found an entire drawer dumped into the sink. Bottles of aspirin, antihistamine, antacid tablets. Her first-aid kit.

  She checked the guest room. It was torn apart—bureau drawers, bed linens, closet.

  Heart pounding, Quinn grabbed her cell phone and dialed Kowalski’s number. She didn’t reach him and left a message, then called his pager number.

  While she waited for him to call her back, she headed outside, half hoping to find Huck or Diego Clemente on her doorstep.

  An osprey circled over the salt marsh.

  Alicia had tried to tell her something.

  “The osprey will kill me.”

  Quinn unlocked the shed and dragged her green kayak down to the water. She figured she was just as safe—safer, actually—on the water.

  Although she had mastered a quick entry into her kayak, she nonetheless always managed to get wet, especially since her cove wasn’t the best spot for launching. At least she was more appropriately dressed for the conditions than the last time she’d paddled, when the initial shock of Alicia’s death still had her in its grip.

  But as she paddled out to the mouth of the cove, Quinn felt a range of emotions, none of them simple.

  There were babies in the osprey nest. It was high up—no way could Alicia have left some kind of message in the nest itself.

  Quinn placed her paddle across the cockpit and let her kayak bob in the water. Maybe there was no meaning to any of Alicia’s ramblings at the coffee shop, and she’d been focused on ospreys just because she had them in her head.

  A coincidence, not a message.

  Sitting quietly in the kayak, Quinn looked at the shore and saw more osprey nests. She counted five without even trying.

  And Alicia, she remembered, had launched down the shore—where there were more nests.

  So many.

  The kayak bumped against the buoy pole, hitting a dark blue line tied just under the water. Quinn couldn’t recall ever having seen it before. Careful not to tip too far in one direction and capsize, she dipped her hand into the cold water and pulled on the line, feeling a weight on the other end.

  “What on earth?” she said aloud, splashing water from the line onto her boat, her sweater and jeans, but ignoring the cold, the discomfort as she continued to reel up the line.

  In another few seconds, she heaved a small, black waterproof bag, hooked securely to the line, onto her lap in the cockpit.

  Her fingers cold and wet, she managed to open the bag.

  Inside were a clear plastic bag and a prescription bottle.

  Quinn dried off one hand as best she could and pulled out the bottle, gasping when she saw that it was leftover prescription-strength ibuprofen from an old knee injury. She thought she’d left it in her bedroom nightstand.

  Ten to one, she thought, it didn’t contain ibuprofen.

  She held the bottle up to the light and saw blue pills…different pills.

  Whatever they were, Alicia had taken them, thinking they were ibuprofen.

  But who’d switched the pills?

  Steve. He knew about Alicia’s reaction to antidepressants. Brian had said Steve was there when she’d talked about it.

  Quinn didn’t dare open the bottle and risk accidentally spilling the contents into the bay. She carefully returned the bottle to the bag and checked the clear bag, just peeking inside at the contents.

  Pictures, printed off a digital camera.

  Two color photos were clearly visible on the top sheet. Rocking in her kayak, she focused on them.

  The top photo was of two crates of weapons. Grenades, mortars. Very illegal.

  Beneath it was a photo of a small, rustic hut.

  On its roof was an osprey nest.

  Quinn quickly closed up the clear plastic bag and tucked it back into the waterproof bag. She hadn’t taken her cell phone out onto the water with her. She hoped Diego Clemente had seen her and was on his way—that Kowalski was just around the corner.

  Where had Alicia gotten such pictures?

  When?

  Quinn made sure the black bag was secured and dropped it back into the water.

  Alicia had tried to tell her
. Agitated, frightened, out of her head—she’d done what she could to tell everyone.

  Including the wrong people.

  The mama osprey dive-bombed toward her nest and Quinn, the intruder.

  Moving fast, out of the angry bird’s path, she paddled straight for shore, using the wind to her favor. The closest, easiest spot to reach was the stretch of marsh where she’d found Alicia.

  No wonder she ended up here, Quinn thought, leaping out of the kayak into the water and dragging it ashore.

  “Quinn…help me.”

  She thought she’d imagined the voice. Alicia?

  “Quinn!”

  Quinn picked up her kayak paddle. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Steve.” He was on his hands and knees in a snarl of brush and small trees, blood dripping down his left arm. “Please—Quinn, I need your help.”

  Paddle in hand, Quinn shook her head. “FBI’s on the way. You need to tell them everything, Steve—you hear me? Everything.”

  “I know, I know.” He staggered to his feet, half sobbing. “Just help me…”

  Quinn couldn’t work up any pity for him. “You’re a son of a bitch, Steve. You switched my prescription ibuprofen for some kind of antidepressant. You knew Alicia would react—”

  “I didn’t make the switch. I just told them about her reaction. If it’d been me—I never would have left any pills behind after she died.”

  “It was you in my cottage—”

  “They wanted to know what she was up to—how much she knew about them.” His voice croaked, more blood dripping down his arm, the shirt sleeve red with blood. He seemed to be in genuine agony. “I told them nothing, only that she wasn’t spying on them. They wouldn’t believe me. I had to tell them about her reaction to antidepressants. I hoped it’d just give them room to maneuver. I thought the pills would make her weird, not suicidal.”

  “She didn’t kill herself. You killed her.”

  “Her shoulders hurt from kayaking.” He stopped, bending over as if he had a stomach cramp and couldn’t take another step. “She told me she found your old prescription.”

  “And you told—who?”

  “The Nazi. The SS guard. That’s what I call him. Travis Lubec.”

  Lubec, Quinn remembered, had engineered his boss’s rescue in the Dominican Republic and was instrumental in converting Crawford’s Chesapeake Bay compound into Breakwater Security.

  She thought of Huck, wondered how much he knew, how she could get this information to him. “Damn it, Steve. Why?”

  “Quinn, I’m not like you. I’m weak.” He stood up straight, leveling a pistol at her. He must have had it tucked in his pants—Quinn hadn’t seen it. “I’m sorry, but Crawford’s guys have me by the short hairs.”

  “Damn, Steve. Look what you’ve done…”

  “Lattimore didn’t listen. I tried to warn him. They’ll either convert him or kill him as an example of their power and purity.”

  “They’re true believers in their cause.”

  “Oh, yeah. Big time. They’re going to save us from ourselves.”

  Quinn nodded to the gun. “You don’t need to keep that pointed at me. I’ll do what you want me to do.”

  He motioned halfheartedly for her to go ahead of him, onto a narrow footpath. “Just walk.”

  The path wound through the buggy, marshy wetland, and Quinn hoped they’d startle a snake, and Steve would drop his gun. She thought of the ospreys and the gulls, soaring above the coastline, seeing everything.

  She came to an abandoned hut.

  The hut in Alicia’s pictures.

  Quinn felt her throat catch. “Steve—what’s going on?”

  He pushed open the door, but there was no sign of any crates. Any illegal weapons and explosives stored there when Alicia was alive had been moved out.

  Travis Lubec stepped out of the hut with a sniper rifle, tapping Steve in the chest with it. “Nice work. Always can count on you to be a weasel.”

  White-faced, bleeding, Steve turned to Quinn. “My gun’s empty. Lubec caught me searching your cottage. He’d have shot both of us if I didn’t cooperate.” He began to sob. “If it’d been just me, I’d have let him put a bullet in my head. I’m so sorry. I had no choice.”

  Quinn reined in her fear and tilted her chin up, eyeing Steve coldly. She had one chance to get out of this—convince Lubec she was on his side, at least long enough to buy herself time. “Lubec’s right. You are a weasel. Even now, you’re hoping the feds saw us and will come to your rescue.” She shook her head. “But I took steps to prevent them from following me.” Nonsense, of course, but she hoped Lubec would be confused or thrown off enough by her act to give herself a chance to alert Huck or Diego. Diego and Kowalski were hopefully en route—Diego must have seen her in her kayak, at the buoy, and realized she’d found something.

  Steve’s eyes widened. “What?”

  Brazenly standing between the men, Quinn knew she couldn’t stand there and let Travis Lubec shoot even a coward like Steve Eisenhardt in cold blood.

  “How do you think Sharon Riccardi found the thugs to snatch Crawford off his boat in December?” Quinn asked.

  Lubec stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know—you must be confused. You weren’t in the loop. I helped Sharon. I have contacts all over the world. She needed expendable mercenaries—thugs—and I found them for her.” Quinn sighed, glancing at Steve, who was applying pressure to his injured upper arm with the palm of the opposite hand. Blood oozed between his fingers. She turned back to Lubec. “I’m not your enemy. I’m on your side. I’ve been working quietly, anonymously, on your behalf for months. Why do you think I left Justice? I needed the autonomy. I’m the one who told Steve about Alicia’s reaction to antidepressants.”

  “Pills for the weak.”

  “I agree.”

  Lubec clearly wasn’t entirely convinced by her performance. “Who knows about you?”

  “No one. I’ve been more subtle than that. I’ve covered my tracks. You want to know what I know, don’t you?” She narrowed her eyes on him and went still deep inside herself. “Then take me to Oliver Crawford. I tried to get to him at the party this afternoon, but I was interrupted. I’ve spent a lot of time and exerted a great deal of effort to lay the proper groundwork.”

  “You’re one of us, huh?” Lubec pointed his rifle at her. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe. You’re not going to kill me when you don’t know for certain whose side I’m on and whether or not I have information you need. And you’re not going to complicate our situation by killing Steve right now.”

  Lubec rifle-butted him in the head and the gut, sending him down in a heap, and turned to Quinn, even as she pushed back her revulsion. “Let’s go.”

  Vern Glover couldn’t stop moving. Huck kept up with him on the walkway to the converted barn. Glover had rattled the steering wheel all the way back from Quinn’s cottage, and now he was moving fast, agitated, on some kind of adrenaline rush. The party-goers and caterers had left Breakwater, an almost strange silence overtaking the sprawling property.

  “Something’s going down, Vern,” Huck said. “I’m not stupid. I can tell. I want in.”

  Vern shook his head, not slackening his pace. “It’s crazy. It’s too much, too soon.”

  “What is, Vern?”

  “Lubec licks Crawford’s boots. The guy’s rich, but he’s reckless—half-crazy.” Breaking his stride slightly, Glover glared at Huck. “Quote me, and I’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t like recklessness. That’s what gets people killed.” Huck kept his tone calm, focused, knowing Vern would respond to self-control. “What about the Riccardis?”

  “Sharon’s trying to run damage control. Joe, he’s in the dark. Like you.”

  “I don’t want to stay in the dark. Can you get me in?”

  Vern took a sharp breath. “I don’t know, Boone. I don’t trust anyone. The feds gra
bbed my best buddy right from under my nose. Some undercover fed fuck.”

  At your service, Huck thought. “The feds don’t play by the rules. Any of them.”

  “That girl who drowned was one of them.”

  “A federal agent? I thought she was a lawyer—”

  “I wasn’t here for a lot of what went on. Lubec says she played on Crawford’s insecurities after the kidnapping. He trusted her, and she betrayed him.” Vern hissed through his teeth. “She had pictures.”

  Vern obviously wanted to talk, maybe just to keep his mind off whatever was bothering him. At the same time, his instincts would tell him to shut up if Huck pushed too hard. He stayed casual. “Pictures of what?”

  “Some weapons we brought through here. Stuff the government doesn’t want us to have.”

  “Such as?”

  “Things that go boom.”

  Huck could see himself reporting that one to the task force. “Where did the stuff end up?”

  He’d gone too far. Glover gave him a sharp look. “I don’t know. I don’t ask questions. Neither should you.” They came to the back door of the converted barn. Vern opened it, pausing a half beat. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Harlowe. She get you fired up to ask all these questions?”

  “She’s just upset about her friend.”

  “She fancies herself an expert in international crime—”

  Huck shrugged. “Not much of an expert, if you ask me. At least she’s pretty.” He followed Vern inside. “Come on, Glover. What gives? You’re like a worm in hot ashes.”

  Vern relaxed marginally. “The feds are still investigating Crawford’s kidnapping and rescue. In my opinion, we should have bided our time a few more months. Let things cool off before we launched a big operation.”

  “You used the past tense, Vern. Something’s going down. I want to know what.”

  “Yeah, well, too bad. Not my call.” He got out the keys to his room. “I don’t make the decisions around here. I just do what I’m told. I saw what happened last fall when some of our guys got ahead of themselves.”

  “Juliet Longstreet’s and Ethan Brooker’s vigilantes. They had a set of principles they believed in and were willing to die for. They took risks.”