With Every Breath

by Beverly Bird

  "It’s Hector," Sheila said. "I’m putting him through." "Make it good. Hector," Joe warned as soon as he heard the click.

  "Something funny just showed up in the sky over The Wick," Hector said eagerly. "East side."

  There was a short silence. "The flare. Hector," Joe snapped. "I told you I gave her those goddamned flares! Go to her house! Now! I’ll meet you there."

  He disconnected before Hector could answer, and he was behind the wheel of the Pathfinder before his heart could beat a second time. And when it did, it seemed to have a chant.

  Too LATE too LATE.

  He’d get there too late.

  It was too late, he knew then, to tell himself that he could stay away from her. Too late to tell himself that he wanted to stay away from her. At the first beckoning, there he was, running. And he hadn’t actually run in years. Pain scrambled and clawed in his knee in early retribution. He should have stayed with her last night.

  It was too late to back off, too late to decide he wasn’t going to change his life. Someone was changing it for him, hurling him at Maddie Brogan with circumstances, making him admit—hell, yes—he cared.

  And he knew before he hit The Wick bridge that he cared about both of them. There was a kid at stake, a kid who already had his share of problems. And that really annoyed Joe to no end.

  Who? Who was doing this to them, he wondered? The anonymous Steve Singleton?

  It made sense that they were all one and the same, the cat-killer and the phone-line-cutter and the Fort Lauderdale PD-inquisitor. It made sense because there hadn’t been this much trouble on Candle in twenty-five years, so logic said it all came from the same source.

  Maddie Brogan.

  But where did the picture fit in?

  Then again, he told himself, it made just as much sense that these pranksters weren’t one and the same. It made just as much sense to assume that Gina had acted out again this morning against Maddie, and that explained the flare. That some nosy busybody like Mildred Diehl had called the Florida cops under an assumed name, that Rick Graycie knew where his ex-wife and his kid were and he wanted them back enough to cut the phone line so that she couldn’t call for help. It made just as much sense to assume that none of these things were related at all.

  He topped the bridge and saw Hector’s car in front of him, cruising slowly into the drive. Maddie burst through the front door onto the deck as Joe parked behind the patrol car. Joe leaped out of the Pathfinder, then his heart stopped all over again as he registered the sight of her.

  She was all legs.

  Bare legs.

  She had on some kind of sweatshirt thing, and it fell to a midpoint on her thighs, and he wondered if she had anything on underneath it. His chest tightened. He made his way up the steps far more slowly than he had intended to.

  She hurled herself at him.

  She was shaking badly and somehow his arms went around her, and the wildflowers came back into his head. Joe closed his eyes and stroked his hands over her back, and he felt nothing that even vaguely approximated bra straps. Her breasts were flattened against his chest, and it was hard as hell to ignore them under the circumstances. For a moment frozen in time, he was absolutely convinced that he could feel her nipples tightening, right through that sweatshirt, right through his own shirt. He realized then that he had forgotten his coat.

  "What happened?" he asked hoarsely. He realized that Hector was still at the patrol car, watching these proceedings with great interest, and he fought back a curse. Because this scene was going to be all over the island before noon.

  "F-Flowers," Maddie said, still shuddering.

  "Flowers," he repeated blankly.

  "B-black, with w-worms, and I locked the door, but they were on the t-t-table."

  He set her away from him very carefully. He regretted doing it as much as he needed to.

  "Where?" he asked evenly. "Where are they? Show them to me."

  "I c-can’t. I threw them."

  "Where?" he asked again.

  "Off the back deck."

  "Okay," he rasped. His throat felt inordinately dry. He went inside, crossed through the kitchen, and flung open the back door. He went out onto the rear deck, then he came in again.

  "Maddie."

  She was standing in the kitchen, hugging herself. "What?"

  "Get dressed, for Christ’s sake. Just... get dressed."

  Chapter 18

  Most of the worms had crawled off into the dunes. Joe came back into the kitchen with the flowers, the flowerpot in one hand, those that had fallen out gripped in his other. Maddie was dressed—more or less—and making coffee.

  She’d pulled on a pair of black leggings underneath the sweatshirt thing. All they did was cover her skin. They clung, outlining every curve of calf, thigh, knee. Her feet were bare. She’d scrubbed her face. The hair at her temples was damp. He didn’t think she’d put on any makeup, but her color was high without it. He didn’t know the status of the bra situation, either, and he didn’t want to look to try to figure it out.

  "Who could have done it?" she repeated, and he realized she had been talking to him. He looked up into her clear blue-green eyes, feeling dazed.

  "The question of the week," he muttered. Then something else hit him. "Having second thoughts about it being your ex?"

  Maddie shook her head. "No, not really. It’s just a matter of having more than one enemy now."

  And she didn’t know the half of it yet. He thought of Steve Singleton again. "Yeah, I guess you do."

  He carried the flowers into the dining room. He spilled everything onto the table and studied the mess morosely. Maddie followed him with the coffee.

  "Gina?" he asked rhetorically. "Or Rick?" He might as well tell her about Singleton, he realized. He was a long way from solving that particular mystery. He was a long way from solving anything.

  He had never felt so bumbling, so ineffectual, so unqualified for a job in his entire life.

  "Know anybody by the name of Steve Singleton?" he asked. He rubbed at a headache growing behind his eyes. She sat down and looked at him blankly. "Should I?" "It would help a whole goddamn lot." But he hadn’t expected she would. "He’s using a Candle Island phone number to try to sell one of your pictures. And he called the Fort Lauderdale PD to try to find out what they have on Graycie."

  Maddie blanched. "It’s him. It’s Rick."

  "Yeah. It occurred to me."

  The last of her color drained. "He gave a Candle Island number? Sweet God." She jumped to her feet, then she sat jerkily again. "He is here."

  Her terror hurt him. He fought a significant war with himself to remain dispassionate. To act like a cop.

  "But why the hell would he try to sell one of your pictures to people in Florida?" he demanded. And Macon and Savannah and Nassau, he added silently.

  "Which one? Which picture was it?"

  He sorted through his memory, jammed then with too many obscure, seemingly unrelated details. "The Woman and The Boy."

  "Huh?"

  "The Woman and The Boy," he repeated.

  "I don’t name my pictures."

  Something almost cold went down his spine. "Well, somebody did."

  She shook her head frantically. "And I’ve never done one with two people in it! Never. It detracts from the impact," she finished inanely.

  He stared at her, then closed his eyes briefly against his headache. "Goddamnit," he said, without much bite. "It’s us," she breathed.

  He opened one eye to look at her. "What’s us?"

  "Me and Josh. The woman and the boy—that’s us." His blood seemed to go still. "What are you saying?" "I don’t know!" she wailed. "But what else could he be talking about but Josh and me?"

  What indeed? "All right, calm down."

  "Calm—"

  He cut her off by holding his palm up. He thought she was dangerously close to becoming hysterical. "From the beginning. Let’s start at the beginning."

  She nodded, her head moving
like a puppet being jerked around by a bad marionette.

  "What happened this morning?" he went on. "In order."

  She took a deliberate breath. "I got up, and the flowers were on the coffee table in the living room." She felt herself growing calmer, and was suddenly embarrassed at having fallen apart. The business with the picture was a lot more threatening than a bunch of stupid flowers. And she had certainly never dreamed that the flare would bring two cops, burning rubber.

  "The door was open a crack," she continued, "but I locked it last night."

  "You’re sure?"

  She stiffened. "Very."

  "You were tired, stressed—"

  "I locked the damned door!"

  She was still on edge, he thought. And why not? "Okay, okay."

  "I checked it three times. I was afraid, being alone." "Well, you won’t be anymore." The words got out before he could wrestle himself over them.

  Maddie let her breath out and felt herself trembling again, with relief this time. "Thank you," she breathed.

  Don’t thank me yet. He wanted to snap at her and tell her that he didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to be anywhere near her in the long dark of the night . . . and God help him, he still wanted to get under that sweatshirt.

  "Get dressed," he said again. "I’m going to look at the door and try to figure out how they got in."

  "I am dressed," she said slowly. Why is he so fixated on that?

  "I mean to drive down to the big island. I need to get to a phone. Where’s Josh?"

  "Hiding," she whispered, her voice cracking.

  "What?"

  Maddie explained. "He’s in my room. I’ll get him ready to go, too. Just give me ten minutes."

  She disappeared down the hallway.

  He watched her go, golden hair swinging against her shoulders, long, slender legs striding purposefully, and he looked for some line or strap against her back that might indicate a bra.

  Oh, God help me.

  "Well?" she asked as they drove back over the bridge. The pot lay on the seat between them.

  "Has it occurred to you that those flowers sort of run along the same lines as your pictures?" he asked cautiously. "You know, something that’s supposed to be innocent and pretty, something we see every day and take for granted ..." He thought of the homeless woman. "Anyway, then you look twice and realize that there’s something not quite right about it."

  Surprise hit Maddie like a slap. Then she felt a rush of pleasure. "You know my pictures?"

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road. "You’re famous."

  "Not hardly."

  "Enough." He was quiet for a moment, and she saw his jaw clench. "I’ve got one."

  This time her heart triple-thumped. "You do?" "What’s wrong with that? I didn’t know you when I bought it."

  "Which one?"

  "The starfish."

  Maddie grimaced. "I hate that one."

  "Why?"

  "It’s ... trite. Too obvious."

  "Then what the hell did you do it for?" He felt personally affronted.

  "I didn’t realize how trite and obvious it was until after I’d Finished it and somebody bought it." She glanced at him. "That somebody wasn’t you." It had been an elderly woman in Pennsylvania, if she remembered right.

  "I got it at an estate sale," Joe muttered. He hesitated. "So which ones do you like?"

  Maddie thought about it. "There was one with an evening glove. That was good."

  He nodded, pleased again. He really had liked that one.

  208 Beverly Bird

  "But my favorites are usually the concepts," Maddie went on, "before they’re completed. Everything’s my favorite until it’s done. Ideas have no limits. Ideas are always perfect."

  He thought about it, and decided he could understand that.

  "So what did you find out from looking at the door?" she asked, changing the subject.

  "Forced entry."

  "With what? Why didn’t I hear it?"

  "I don’t think there would have been much to hear. It could have been something as simple as a nail file. It’s just a basic, simple lock. Josh could probably have figured out a way past it."

  They both glanced in the rearview mirror at him at the same time. He was quiet, watching the houses move past.

  "I’m going to call Tony Macari and try to get him to put something better on your doors," Joe went on. "But he’s a cheap bastard when it comes to his rental properties."

  She chewed her lip for a moment. "Joe, is Leslie any good? Honestly, is she? I’ve got to think about help for Josh, and I’ve really got my doubts about her."

  He shrugged. "She’s a good friend, but I never really gave any consideration to her ... you know, her professional qualifications."

  Maddie nodded.

  "She didn’t do much for Gina’s drinking," he went on, "but to be fair, Gina wouldn’t keep on seeing her." "How about you?"

  His heart did something strange and painful. "What do you mean?"

  "Did you ever see her? I mean, after ... after what happened to your daughter?"

  "No." His face hardened. A second ticked by. "Not

  professionally. She’s given me an earful over the years whether I wanted to hear it or not."

  "She seems prone to that," Maddie agreed bitterly. She was quiet for a long time. "Could she have some ax to grind here?"

  "Everybody on this island has an ax to grind with somebody," Joe muttered, almost to himself.

  "I mean, could she want to hurt me for some reason?" He was startled. Either she was having some doubts about its being Rick Graycie who was troubling her, or she was starting to buy in to the idea that the bastard was paying somebody. She was thinking that maybe it was someone right there on the island.

  It was that damned classified ad, he thought. Selling a picture that didn’t exist. Someone advertising in Florida about her and her kid, because of some hidden personal agenda. That complicated and changed everything.

  Maddie was watching him, he realized, waiting for an answer.

  "Not unless you blew her off," he said finally.

  "Blew her off? How so?"

  "She’s gay. I’ve always gotten the feeling that that’s why she spends half the week in Jonesport. She lives the good part of her life away from home, where people won’t talk, and I don’t blame her. I guess if she came on to you, and you slugged her or something, then maybe she might get pissed off."

  "Oh," Maddie answered, startled. "No, she never did that. I didn’t even realize."

  "No reason why you should, I guess." He turned into the city lot. "Nah, Leslie wouldn’t act out even if you blew her off. Anyway, she wouldn’t be so unprofessional as to—you know—try to cuddle up to you."

  They reached the station and parked. Josh seemed

  okay. This time Joe plucked a chair out of another room, balancing it over his shoulder with one hand, taking it to his office. Maddie had a renewed appreciation of his strength.

  He dropped the chair with a clatter beside his desk. "Have a seat."

  She made herself comfortable while he returned calls that had come in while he was out. Josh roamed the office silently, picking this up, examining that.

  Within half an hour, they knew that the island florist hadn’t sold any roses to anyone within the last several days, dyed black or otherwise. There were two florists in Jonesport. Between them, they had sold eighteen orders of roses since Friday. Joe began sorting through them, writing down the names of those people who had paid by credit card. He’d have one of his men check up on them through the course of the day. It would be tedious and probably fruitless. Their man wouldn’t pay by credit card, he thought. Just like the jaywalker, that would be too goddamned easy.

  There were six remaining orders, all paid for with cash, and they were dead ends. They could have been sold to anybody. None of the salespeople had any customers who stood out in their memory.

  Joe leaned back in his chair, put his feet up, and closed his ey
es. If Maddie had a picture of Rick—doubtful, he realized, given the circumstances there—then he could circulate it among the people who had sold those cash orders. There would probably be a picture in the Fort Lauderdale file, but he had asked for that on Saturday night, and he didn’t expect to get it until tomorrow.

  Why did he feel like he was running out of time?

  "I know," Maddie murmured, reading his expression. "Goddamnit."

  He looked at her again to see her manage half a smile. He put his feet down and went back to work.

  He found out that a telephone repairman was on his way to the island to repair her line. Somebody would run up to The Wick and tow Maddie’s car back to the city garage before noon. The replacement glass would have to be ordered. If the ferry was running, they should have it by Friday. If not ...

  What a way to live, Maddie thought despondently. Then she realized that in spite of everything that had been going on, she really wasn’t particularly homesick anymore.

  Joe called Ellsworth next.

  She could tell from his half of the conversation that the lab over there had eliminated her prints and his from the ones on the window. That left a few smudges that belonged to a third party. They ran those through the computer to check them against the state’s known criminals, but so far they hadn’t come up with any matches.

  "Well, hold on to them, would you?" Joe asked finally. "I should be sending you another set for comparison tomorrow afternoon at the latest."

  "Now what?" Maddie asked when he hung up.

  "The kitten." He punched in yet another number. This time she could tell nothing from his side of the conversation. He hung up again slowly.

  "A real case of overkill," he muttered.

  Her belly rolled. "What do you mean?"

  "His neck was twisted, and his throat was cut. The nails didn’t kill him."

  Maddie gave a soft cry. He was instantly sorry for his curt, callous tone. He fought every instinct to get up from the desk, to move to her, to touch her in comfort, to gather Josh close as well. Josh was staring at him hugely. He fisted his hands on his desk instead. "Sorry."