“Can we leave here?”
“You can. I just shot a man. I think everyone’s agreed it was self-defense, but there are some formalities.”
Fear flickered across her face. He remembered how she’d felt early this morning. Soft and passionate and ever so receptive. Because of what she had gone through. In ten days, her house had been burned, she’d been shot, then someone tried to kill her at the hospital, and now this.…
She had fallen in his arms because of her need. The fear had to go somewhere, or she would break.
Or would she?
Amy Mallory was a survivor.
He went over and put his arm loosely around her shoulder. “I think your grandfather would be proud of you,” he said.
“I don’t know what to do next,” she said slowly, pain in her eyes. “My tenure hearing is late next week. I have to be back.”
He was aware of what a tenure hearing meant. It was success or failure. Those that did not achieve tenure usually lost their positions.
He wanted to promise that she could safely return by then. But he couldn’t do that. He didn’t believe in false promises. The only thing he could do was find an answer to the puzzle. The attackers apparently believed a key lay in Amy’s boxes. But another key could be the grandchildren of the third staff officer, General Eachan. Might they have any ideas as to what happened to the missing gold and paintings?
Amy gently lowered the dog down to the floor, then stood.
“Do you think it would be safe to walk down to the beach?”
“The place is still crawling with the local gendarmes,” he said. “I think it’s the safest place you—we—can be.”
“What about the FBI? Haven’t my attackers crossed state lines?”
“We don’t know that,” he said. “And the local officials have to call them in.”
“Can’t you?”
He would have to go through Doug. Who would then order him back. There might well be a period of time where she had no protection. Maybe calling in the Bureau would be necessary, but he didn’t think they could provide protection for her. There simply wasn’t enough proof of a connection to a federal investigation. Someone had twice tried to kill a college professor. That’s really all they had.
“Let’s go for that walk,” he said, holding out his hand. “I think the bad guys are a long way from here now.”
He opened the sliding glass door. Bo stood and followed them as they went down the sidewalk toward the beach. Their particular section of the motel seemed curiously still. Irish wondered if most of the guests had left.
The beach, though, was crowded with families. And walkers. Joggers. Once more, he wished he had a gun. But on the other hand, he didn’t see anyone wearing enough clothes to hide a weapon.
Amy’s fingers tightened around his for a moment, then let go quickly, as if suddenly conscious of—and distrusting—the quiet intimacy. He could feel the tension in her body. Or had she just felt his own? He made himself relax.
The sand was hard, not sugary like so many other beaches. The water was gray rather than blue. Birds skittered over the sand while gulls competed with colorful kites as they soared in a cobalt blue sky. A breeze cooled the warm temperature. It was the kind of day made for vacations.
Not for running from murderers.
Bo stayed right with them. He walked stiffly, but his tail wagged. He stopped to sniff a piece of driftwood, then a dead sea creature. Amy’s eyes didn’t leave him.
They walked silently for a while. Gulls cried. Waves crashed. It all seemed so normal, Amy thought. It clashed against the fear she felt. She didn’t think she would ever believe in normalcy again.
Her fingers burned from Irish’s touch. She’d wanted to hold his hand, to clasp something strong and solid. But it was a lie. Oh, not that he wasn’t strong and solid. But the emotions she’d allowed to run rampant weren’t. He had been convenient. She’d been convenient. And the circumstances had created havoc.
It wasn’t real, and she wasn’t going to let it be real. She didn’t want him to think he had to stay, or that she needed him as much as she did. She didn’t want him to believe she felt she had a claim on him because of a few moments of passion.
Not just passion. Not just fear. Not just gratitude. There had been more. Much more. But it had been on her side. Men like Irish Flaherty didn’t fall for mousy historians.
She didn’t want him to feel obligated.
She tried to turn her attention to the sea. The sea she’d always loved. They could walk miles beneath those oaks, could escape the busy beach for secluded coves, but that would be dangerous. She’d never worried about danger before. She’d never not done something out of physical fear. She hated that feeling.
But the sun eased some of the tension, and the sound of the waves some of the terror. Both, however, made her even more aware of the man next to her, of the masculinity that oozed from his every pore.
They walked farther, and she noticed that he made sure there were other people around. She also noticed that the heads of females turned as they passed.
They sat on an old log and watched the shrimp boats some distance away. She still had trouble putting the two together—that peace and the violence of last night. The rhythms of life—the birds, the skittering small crabs, the children squealing as a wave washed away a sand castle—with the sound of bullets last night and the color red.
The rhythms of life this morning when they’d joined in a whirlwind of want and need. Why did she distrust it so? She shoved the thought aside.
Bo rose painfully and started exploring again. He wandered a little as enticing beach things apparently beckoned to him. Amy watched carefully as he moved a little farther down the beach.
A lone man whistled to him. Bo looked up, apparently undecided as to what to do. The man approached the dog, and suddenly Amy was up, running, calling his name in a shrill voice. Bo turned and started toward her.
The man shrugged and started walking again as she reached Bo and lifted him up. She realized she was shaking.
Flaherty reached her and put his hands on her shoulders. Safe. They were both safe.
For the moment.
Fear for the dog still washed through her like waves. The man was probably just a dog lover.
Probably.
The fast beating of her heart slowed. But fear remained.
Would she ever see a stranger again without wondering if he wanted to kill her?
thirteen
GEORGIA
Amy hated guns. She was a gun control advocate. She was for a waiting period of forever. She had berated her congressman and senators for not supporting such a ban.
And now she stared down at a pistol in her hand, then looked at the target in front of her at the pistol range. Common sense mingled with revulsion. She would no longer be entirely helpless. She despised that feeling, knowing that it justified something she felt was entirely wrong. Too many guns in the country. Too many accidents.
She was angry. Angry at being forced into being a hypocrite. Angry with whoever was responsible for destroying not only her life but her values. Angry with Flaherty for making her see it was necessary.
They had bought two guns at a gun shop in Brunswick. Flaherty had purchased them, because he had both a badge and a carry permit. She applied for her own permit, but it would be several days before it could go through. Still, she could learn how to use the thing. And she would break the law by keeping it near her at all times.
Today was a first for many things. She’d never consciously broken a law before. Not even a speeding law.
The gun felt like a snake in her hand as they entered the firing range. Flaherty had picked it out for her, bypassing the ugly, large pistols for this small, titanium featherweight model. She’d always thought a pistol would be heavy, awkward, but this weighed practically nothing. How could something this light be so deadly?
It was, according to Flaherty. It might not have the range of the heavier pistol he’d
purchased for himself, but it had, he said, plenty of stopping power.
His own choice was heavy and lethal-looking. She watched him check it over with an ease and familiarity that sent chills through her. Despite his shooting one of her assailants the night before last, she’d not thought about the fact that his entire life involved weapons and danger. That competence, for which she was grateful the other night, now set him apart. He was someone who lived in an entirely different universe.
It had never been more clear when they stood in the gun shop. Her insides churned while he talked knowledgeably about an assortment of weapons and handled them as if they were a part of him.
The final realization came when she figured out why he was wearing a shirt over his T-shirt. Along with the gun, he’d purchased a belt holster, and she’d watched as he efficiently snapped it on his belt and fitted the gun into it. The shirt covered the weapon.
He’d handed the other to her. “It’s a .38 Smith and Wesson,” he said. “Five bullets.”
He might have been talking about a box of cereal, he said it all so matter-of-factly.
“Try it,” he said.
She’d picked it up gingerly.
“There are no bullets in it,” he reassured her.
That didn’t matter. It was still a gun. But she would be damned if she let him know how queasy it made her feel. Could she ever actually fire it? She wasn’t sure.
She was surprised at how well it fitted into her hands …
Now he actually wanted her to fire it. He showed her how to load it, then how to hold it. “Brace yourself. Plant both feet solidly on the ground.” He wrapped his fingers around hers, and her back was against his hard body. She felt the heat from both places. His body heat went directly to a place terribly sensitive to it, and his fingers burned hers and sent tingling up through her arm.
She tried to concentrate. His hand was still on hers when she fired, surprised at the pop that came from the barrel. The shot the other night had been much louder. This one was higher-pitched, softer.
She’d also expected the gun to jerk, but it didn’t.
Even with his help, she missed the target. She had no idea where the bullet went.
He released her hand and stepped back. “Try it on your own.”
Amy tried to concentrate, tried to think of the article in her hand as a sporting item, not a deadly weapon. She aimed; squinted at the target, which featured the outline of a man; and fired. She hit the edge of the cardboard. Not the body. Not any of its appendages.
“Again,” Flaherty said mercilessly.
She sensed that her bad aim came from her lack of enthusiasm. She didn’t want to shoot anyone, not even a cardboard outline.
“What if he was shooting at you?” Flaherty whispered behind her, as if reading her mind.
She tried again. The third bullet.
It missed.
“What if he was shooting at me?”
She missed again.
“What about Bojangles?”
This time she didn’t miss.
He chuckled. “Now I know where I rate.”
She turned and looked at him solemnly. The slight smile disappeared from his face. He disregarded the other shooters—mainly male—and put his hand to her face.
“It’s not a joke to me,” she said in a voice that broke despite her best efforts. She turned to go, and he caught her arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please don’t go. This is important.”
Amy felt her face flush. She felt like a ten-year-old afraid of the dark, not a grown-up someone with such a deeply held antipathy for guns. Her mind flipped back to when she was a girl.…
“Hold the gun. Aim it. Damn it, girl, can’t you do anything?” Her grandfather’s voice. Demanding. Querulous.
She didn’t want to. Her mother had hated guns. She’d learned to hate them.
“Do it, girl!”
She pulled the trigger, heard the noise. Then dropped the gun in front of her grandfather.
Four years later, he had taken a gun and killed himself. She’d walked in his study and found him.…
The memory was too strong. Her hand lowered with the pistol in it. She almost dropped the pistol.
“Amy?”
She turned and looked at him. The memory flash hadn’t happened two nights ago when Flaherty had shot the intruder. Why now?
She closed her eyes and willed herself to lift her arm again.
“Amy?”
His voice was both intrusive and welcome. How could it be both? But then she’d had so many contradictory feelings. Memories revived. Mostly bad. She’d thought she’d banished them into some mental trunk.
“It’s all right,” she said.
“I don’t think it is,” he said slowly. “Something happened.”
“A lot has happened,” she replied, wanting to change the subject.
“Will you try it again?”
“I know how to pull the trigger,” she replied.
“But will you? Can you?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
“Again,” he coaxed. “Don’t worry about Bo. Concentrate.”
But she did worry about Bo. She hadn’t wanted to leave the dog in the motel. They had taken him into the gun shop, which had a firing range in the back. The owner had agreed to let Bo stay in his office while Flaherty showed her how to use the weapon.
Anxious to leave now, she aimed once more and shot. This time she hit the edge of a leg. “Satisfied?” she asked Flaherty.
“Once more. Reload. Then we’ll go.”
Amy swallowed hard, then shot one more time. She simply couldn’t aim for the heart. She hit a cardboard leg, then, without looking at Flaherty, she reloaded just as he had shown her.
“Satisfied?” she asked a little bitterly, even as she realized it was unfair. He was trying to help her. He had helped her. He’d saved her life. But she still resented being forced into doing something that went against every fiber of her being. While she knew it wasn’t his fault, he was the nearest target.
“No,” he said mildly, “but it will do. Let’s get Bo and something to eat. Then I’ll check and see if anyone has identified our John Doe.”
She handed him her pistol.
“Put it in your handbag,” he instructed.
“I don’t have the permit.”
He looked at her for a moment. It wasn’t condescending. More like patient. He expected her to do the reasonable thing. She really disliked him for doing that: forcing her to make a decision she didn’t want to make.
She put it in her handbag. “If I drop it, and it goes off, it will be your fault,” she said.
He didn’t smile. Apparently he’d learned that nothing about this was a smiling matter to her. “It won’t,” he assured her.
They stopped in front of the counter and the clerk, who happened to be a dog lover, opened the office door. Bo wriggled with delight at seeing them. She knew from her own bruises that it must hurt. It was hard, though, for him to contain his exuberance as far as she was concerned. She leaned down and picked him up. “Time for a hamburger,” she told him.
He barked as if he knew exactly what she was saying.
“Thank you,” she said to the clerk.
He grinned. He was a big guy. He looked as if he walked out of a good ole boy white supremicist movie, but his smile was genuine and she couldn’t help but return it. “How did it go, little lady?”
“She was a whiz,” Flaherty said.
Amy wanted to hit them both. “Little lady,” indeed. And “Whiz” wasn’t much better.
“Now don’t you forget,” the clerk said, “you need that permit. Until you get it, the gun belongs to the colonel.”
Amy suddenly knew it had not been for her benefit that he’d kept Bo. It was for the colonel, who Amy suspected was the clerk’s ideal role model.
A model she’d been raised to distrust.
Irish stopped at a seafood market and bought two pounds of
fresh shrimp, then went to a supermarket and disappeared inside while Amy sat inside the car with the dog. The doors of the car were locked, the windows up, the air-conditioning running. The pistol was in her purse.
Still, he hurried. He picked up some potatoes, some corn, butter, milk, and a few other items. After a moment’s consideration, he added a six-pack of beer.
Then he hurried out. She was still there. No one appeared to be taking undue interest. Which was good. He wasn’t at all sure she would use the weapon. She had disarmed one of her attackers, but she hadn’t had to do more. Her obvious distaste for weapons, he surmised, must have come from her mother. Certainly not from her grandfather.
Still, she had tried. She would know what to do if attacked again.
They didn’t say anything on the way back. She held her dog, and he concentrated on checking the traffic around him, though now he knew there was an easier way to track his movements than tailing the car.
He was only too aware of the rigid position of Amy’s body. Firing the gun, for some reason, had affected her deeply. She hadn’t wanted to do it. He sensed it had taken a great deal of willpower.
It was another facet of a complex person who fascinated him. She’d showed no hesitation in striking one of the attackers, especially after her dog had been kicked. She’d really not shown great sympathy for the dead man. She had shown fear, but he was only too aware that real courage came despite fear.
In twenty minutes they were back at the motel on the island. A yellow crime scene tape still blocked off her room.
He stepped from the car, keys in his hand. Amy didn’t wait for him to open her door and scooted out, Bo right beside her.
Irish glanced around, then unlocked the motel door with his left hand, the fingers of his right on the revolver. He walked in carefully, looking first in the bathroom, then past the two double beds to the living area. No one there, but there was a figure sitting outside on one of the patio chairs.
Hell. He knew who it was before the figure rose and turned around, although Irish could have sworn the newcomer couldn’t have seen them from his position.
Amy had walked in behind him, carrying the bag of groceries. She stopped abruptly at seeing the man at the patio doors.
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