On Fire

by Carla Neggers

  “She’s not in any danger—”

  “Only from me. I might strangle her.”

  Sig smiled, saw the scar her sister had put in his forehead. “You two.”

  But he didn’t smile back. “I need to find Emile, Sig. He was in Boston last night. He must have a base—a friend’s house, an old campsite, a pile of rocks somewhere. Do you have any ideas?”

  “No, I wish I did. I haven’t had much to do with him the past year. To be honest, I’m not so sure Matt’s not right about him. Emile…” She threw up her hands. “You know what he’s like.”

  “When you and Riley were kids,” Straker persisted, “you must have had places the three of you talked about, visited. If you think of anything, even if it’s unlikely, let me know.”

  “Where will I find you?”

  “Hell if I know. I’ll check back with you from time to time.” He moved to the kitchen door, listened. “I think I hear your mother coming in. I need to talk to her. You staying out here?”

  Sig nodded. “Forever if I could.”

  He hesitated at the door. “Your husband might be a jackass, but unless you think he’d hurt you or the baby, you should tell him he’s going to be a father.”

  “I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” she said, more as a point of information than out of anger.

  “Don’t worry—it’s free.”

  “And it’s babies. I’m having twins.”

  He grinned and gave her a wink. “Hell. Maybe you shouldn’t tell him. Or if you want to give him a heart attack, lay the news on him without any warning.”

  “You’re terrible!”

  “So I’ve been told. By the way,” he added, pulling open the door, “I figure I had about a two-hour head start on your sister. She’ll be here before nightfall.”

  “She knows you were headed here?”

  “No.”

  “Then how—”

  “Trust me. She hasn’t changed since she was six years old. She’ll be here.”

  Mara gave him about three minutes before she insisted on serving him tea and a fresh, gooey coconut macaroon in the front parlor. She wore drawstring pants and a plaid flannel overshirt, and every instinct Straker had said she was holding on to the last shreds of her sanity and self-control. Her family was in crisis. Her father, her two daughters. It couldn’t be easy. She was tense, preoccupied and couldn’t stand still.

  “I have a few calls I need to make,” she said. “Would you excuse me? I won’t be long. Then we…” She swallowed, unusually nervous. “Then we’ll talk more.”

  “Sure.”

  The time out would give him a chance to consider how much was left unsaid among the Labreques and St. Joes. He set his cup and saucer on the gleaming butler’s table. Mara had gotten out the good china. He felt like a nineteenth-century ship captain home for a spell with the womenfolk.

  She claimed Sam Cassain had stopped by late last week merely to say hello, not to drive the wedge between her and her father deeper; not for old times’ sake; not, apparently, because he knew he was about to be killed.

  Straker didn’t disbelieve her. He thought there was more.

  The front door banged open, and Riley burst in. She’d changed from her work clothes to jeans and a high-tech hiking top that delineated the shape of her breasts probably more than she’d want him noticing. Or not. She scowled. “I should have known I’d find you here.”

  “You did know. That’s why you came.”

  That didn’t sit well. She stormed around the living room. The long drive and long days had taken their toll. This was bluster. Fatigue. Even buried anguish. She flew at him, her jaw set hard. “Where’s my mother?”

  “Back in her office. She had some calls to make. Sig’s gone for a walk.” He sat back on Mara’s handsome couch, which wasn’t particularly comfortable. “It’s been a rough few days for them, too.”

  She gave a tight nod. “I know. They won’t admit it, but they’re worried about Emile. They don’t want to see him in over his head.”

  “That goes for you, too.”

  She sank into a wing chair and kicked her feet out in front of her. He could see some of the frustration and anxiety wash out of her now that she was in a safe place, with people she cared about and who cared about her, even if he was among them. “I’m sorry,” she said abruptly, without looking at him.

  Straker made no comment.

  “I shouldn’t have gone along with Henry’s suggestion that you could be a stalker. It was…stupid.” She rubbed her forehead, not because she had a headache, Straker reasoned, but because she hated admitting she was wrong. “He’s upset with me for finding Sam’s body, for bringing you onto the scene last night and enraging Matt. He offered me a chance to throw you to the wolves, and I did.”

  “You were trying to save your own neck?”

  She nodded, obviously not proud of herself.

  Straker picked up his teacup. “I thought it was because I’d kissed you and you were scared of what came next.”

  “I wasn’t scared then,” she said. “And I’m not scared now, because nothing comes next.”

  She slid off her chair and poured herself a cup of tea from Mara’s china tea service, then sat back down. She still hadn’t met his eye. “Then you had cold feet,” he said.

  “You only get cold feet when you stop yourself from doing something you deep down want to do or know you need to do.” Now her eyes lifted, zeroed in on him. “So that leaves cold feet out.”

  No, that left cold feet in. But Straker decided not to push her. She’d had a lot of time to think things over on her solitary drive up to Camden. “Armistead tell you to get out of town?”

  “To lie low is more like it.” She sipped her tea, which was only lukewarm. “I want to find Emile before he runs afoul of the wrong people.”

  Afoul? Maybe it was the antiques and the nineteenth-century atmosphere, Straker thought. “What makes you think you won’t run ‘afoul’ of the same people?”

  She set her teacup in its saucer. “I know how to shoot.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Straker breathed. “All this mess needs is Riley St. Joe armed to the teeth. Did you slip a gun into your backpack?”

  “No, I don’t even own one. You’re the FBI agent. You must have all kinds of guns.”

  “Riley. Forget it.”

  She refused to give up. “I can always use tranquilizer darts.”

  “Sit back,” he said softly. “Tell me about your work.”

  “I don’t want to tell you about my work. I want to find Emile.”

  “What does the director of recovery and rehabilitation for the Boston Center for Oceanographic Research do?”

  She sighed. Her dark eyes fixed on him. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “If I were a dolphin,” he said, “would I want Riley St. Joe to rescue me?”

  It worked. She gave another sigh and started. She explained the basic philosophy of the center’s recovery and rehab program, the constant search for funds, the training and mobilization of volunteers when there was a mass stranding, the ongoing research. Straker tried to pay attention to her words, but it was her manner that captivated him—her passion, her common sense, her dedication. This was work she loved. Work she could never give up. He’d once felt the same way about his own work, but not in a long time.

  Mara St. Joe joined them in the parlor. A pair of reading glasses hung from her neck, and she fingered them nervously as she greeted Riley. “John said you’d be along. Did you have much traffic?”

  Riley shook her head, a tiny spark in her eyes all that suggested she didn’t like the idea of him predicting her movements. “I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead.”

  “There’s no need. You’re always welcome here.” Mara dropped her glasses, but didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She seemed unusually ill at ease, even for someone whose daughter had recently found a dead man. “Riley, we need to talk. I have something I—something you deserve to know.”

>   Graceful exits weren’t one of his strengths, but Straker got to his feet. “I could use some air. I’ll take a walk around the block.”

  Mara seemed relieved. Riley just seemed confused, as if she couldn’t imagine what her mother might tell her that she didn’t already know. Straker had a policy of avoiding mother-daughter conversations whenever possible. It was bad enough when his own mother got him by the ear and sat him down. Hadn’t done that in years, not for lack of provocation.

  He ran into Sig halfway down the front walk. The clouds were moving out over the water, the sky clearing. “I see Riley’s arrived,” she said. “She boot you out?”

  “I took my cue.”

  Her face clouded, and she nodded with understanding. She was breathing hard from her walk, her cheeks red from exertion and the stiff breeze, but she wasn’t winded. “Then she’s telling her. Damn. I think I’ll sneak around back. You want to join me?”

  “That depends.”

  “Then you don’t know,” she said.

  He remained silent.

  “I thought you came up here because you knew.”

  “To be honest,” he said, “I haven’t thought much about you St. Joe women until Riley came screaming into my cottage about a dead body and threw up.”

  Sig’s eyes narrowed on him. She’d combed her hair and braided it, put on comfortable shoes. At the right angle, she didn’t look pregnant in her flowing dress. She was artistic, creative, intense in ways different and less obvious from her scientist sister, mother, father, grandfather. And Straker could see her debating what to tell him, wondering if she’d said too much already.

  “You have no reason to trust me,” he said.

  “It’s not that. I just don’t know if it’s my place—”

  “Sig, a man is dead, murdered. Your grandfather is missing. Even if what you have isn’t directly related, if you think it might help me figure out what’s going on, stop it from escalating, then you should tell me. If not, feel free to keep it to yourself.”

  She licked her lips, bit down hard.

  “Is it about Sam Cassain?” Straker asked. “He stopped here last week.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes, spilled almost immediately onto her cheeks. She flicked them away with her fingertips, as if furious. “I can’t stand it—I cry at the drop of a hat.” She made a valiant attempt at a smile, gave up before it had formed. “My mother and Sam had an affair.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know. It happened just before she bought her house here. It didn’t last. Sam was never Mom’s type, and vice versa. I guess my parents almost split up—the affair was their wake-up call to make changes, which they did.”

  “What happened when he stopped by last week? What did he say? How long was he here?”

  She shook her head, eyes lowered. “I don’t know what he said. I stayed in my studio. He left after about twenty minutes.”

  “And Riley doesn’t know,” Straker said.

  “I’m sure Mom’s telling her now.”

  “Who else knew?”

  “Everyone,” Sig said bluntly. “My father, Emile, the Grangers. It was a fling, a wake-up call for all of us, herself included, that something was wrong. She moved up here, and things have worked out since. She didn’t want Riley to know about Sam—I guess none of us did.”

  “Why?” But Straker could guess.

  “It’s hard for any of us to live up to her expectations,” she said. “It’s not that she’s hard on us, it’s that she believes in us so much. I suppose we just want to pretend we’re as good as she thinks we are.”

  Straker couldn’t see it, maybe because Riley didn’t think much of him to begin with. “Emile?”

  “Emile is her idol. He would want to disappoint her least of all.”

  Riley sank into a hot bath sprinkled with a few drops of essential oil of rosemary. It was supposed to revive her. Good. She needed reviving. She had things to do before nightfall, and she couldn’t let her confusion and anger, her total frustration, get the better of her.

  Straker and her mother were down in the kitchen. She could hear Straker’s terse laugh, her mother’s strong, confident voice. They were getting along fine considering she’d warned Riley not fifteen minutes ago to watch out for him, that he wasn’t normal. Her mother and Sig wouldn’t expect him to be charming. Well, no one would.

  Her conversation with her mother had been awkward, painful and brief. Riley shut her eyes and breathed out over the steaming water, tried to absorb the unexpected news, tried not to picture the bloated body on the rocks of Labreque Island. Sam Cassain. Her mother. Good God.

  She wasn’t as put out about being the last to know as she might have anticipated. She was often oblivious to personal undercurrents. Rivalries, jealousies, mad crushes, personality conflicts, the occasional illicit affair. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested—more often than not she just didn’t notice. Through example and edict, Emile had taught her to stay focused on her work.

  Yet even he’d known about her mother’s affair with the captain of the Encounter.

  With deliberate effort, Riley concentrated on her breathing. Eventually her mind drifted. Her body relaxed. After a while, she became aware the water had cooled. A knock came at the door. “Riley?” Straker’s voice, like a bucket of boiling water in her tub. Her skin felt as if it were on fire. “You didn’t go down the drain, did you?”

  “No, I was just getting out.”

  She moved, the water stirring, and she went still as she pictured him out there in the hall, listening. Imagining her in the tub.

  “Straker? You still there?”

  “I haven’t moved a muscle.”

  His voice was deep and low, like liquid heat down her spine. She kept very still. “Could you go down and heat up a can of soup or something? I’m starving.”

  “I can do soup,” he said, and she thought she detected a trace of knowing humor in his tone.

  She waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. Her skin was prune-wrinkled and pink, but she shivered when she stepped out of the tub. She rubbed herself down with one of her mother’s big, soft towels. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was tasteful, understated and comfortable. It bore little resemblance to the series of functional apartments and houses her parents had rented when she and Sig were growing up.

  Riley could remember when her mother had shared Emile’s excitement and vision for their work, for the center. His growing fame and the pressures of his single-mindedness—her husband’s single-mindedness, her own—had put a subtle, ever-present strain on everyone.

  Relationships weren’t easy even when you had everything in common, Riley thought, sprinkling herself with powder. She and Straker didn’t have anything in common, and whatever was going on between them, it could hardly be called a relationship. Just because she couldn’t stop thinking about him in the most basic, physical ways didn’t mean a thing. He was a rough, competent, utterly masculine man, and what she was feeling was…simple biology.

  So why was she sorry she’d sicced Armistead on him? Why did she want to hear him laugh?

  Don’t even think it, she warned herself, and quickly pulled on her clothes.

  Her mother had a bowl of steaming, homemade bean soup on the kitchen table. “John’s back talking to Sig,” she said. “He doesn’t seem as…unbalanced as I expected.”

  “He believes in Emile.”

  Her mother looked pained. “So do I, Riley.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” She sat in front of the soup, wished she could stop her mother from being so defensive. “Straker considers himself Emile’s friend, but that doesn’t mean he thinks Emile couldn’t have—” She stopped abruptly. Couldn’t have killed your ex-lover. “It doesn’t make any difference to him if Emile’s done something or not.”

  “John’s always had his own way of looking at things.” Her mother attempted a small smile, twisted her hands together as she paced in her homey kitchen. “I’m sorry. I’m not tryi
ng to put you on the spot. I’m not proud of myself. For Sam, for not telling you when I found out it was his body you’d found.”

  “You don’t owe me an apology or an explanation.” Riley tried the soup, but she’d lost her appetite.

  Mara leaned against the counter and shut her eyes, her regret, her pain, evident. Her father was missing; Sam Cassain was dead. “I hadn’t seen Sam in ages, not even after the Encounter went down. I didn’t want to see him.”

  “Why did he stop by?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, just to say hello, he said. He seemed content, almost smug. I think…” She chose her next words carefully. “I think our affair was a coup for him. I was a scientist, Emile Labreque’s daughter, Richard St. Joe’s wife—your mother. I saw that last week, and frankly, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like myself.”

  Riley wanted to crawl under the table. This sort of introspective, heart-to-heart talk with her mother made her squirm. She tried more of her soup, but her stomach rebelled.

  “Sam Cassain was a selfish, greedy man,” her mother continued. “His needs always came first, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted. I guess I needed that in my life at one time.”

  “Mom, I’m not judging you—”

  “No.” Her smile reached her eyes. “Of course you’re not. It’s long, long over. I love your father. We worked things out. That’s all that matters.”

  Riley nodded. “I guess I’m as thick-headed as Emile. I never suspected a thing. You sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I plan to head up to Schoodic, stay at Emile’s—”

  Her mother winced. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “I’ll be okay. I can’t just sit back, I have to do something. If I can find Emile—”

  “You think it’ll make a difference?” Mara asked.

  Riley ignored the trace of bitterness in her mother’s voice. “I’ll be careful,” she said. “I’ll go on back and say goodbye to Sig, see what Straker’s up to.”

  “You know where I am if you need me.”

  When Riley ducked onto the back porch, she found her sister standing next to a packed overnight bag. Straker was nowhere in sight.