On Fire

by Carla Neggers

  “Sig…I wish I knew what to say.”

  “There’s nothing you can say.” She sniffled, adjusted her pillow. “I’m not running anymore, Riley. I’m not hiding, and I’m not pretending everything’s okay when it’s not. I miss Bennett, I hate what’s happened to Emile, I fear for him, I worry about Mom and Dad—and you. I’m having two babies. I can’t afford not to look reality square in the eye.”

  Riley listened patiently, but she’d made up her mind. She was shoving Sig in the car and driving her back to Camden in the morning. Being at Emile’s wasn’t good for her. It wasn’t helping anything.

  Sig cleared her throat, got herself under control. “Matt wants to prove Emile was responsible for the Encounter and thus for Bennett’s death. He says he wants justice, that in the end, it will be best for all of us—including Emile—if the truth is known.”

  “Look, we were just speculating about Sam and any proof. We were talking through our hats. There’s no way to find out what really happened unless we raise the Encounter’s engine and have it analyzed. We all might have to learn to live with uncertainty. We’ll probably never know the truth.”

  Sig didn’t respond.

  The wind gusted against the closed window. Riley imagined Straker alone on his island, felt a stab of pain as she interpreted her sister’s silence, what she was thinking but not saying.

  Suddenly hot and restless, she threw off a quilt. It was so damned dark, so quiet. Her sister’s silence almost took on a life of its own.

  “My God.” Riley’s voice croaked. She cleared her throat, licked dry lips. Suddenly Sig’s behavior in recent months, Matt’s behavior, her sister’s decision to come up here to Emile’s made sense. The pieces came together. “Sig, do you think Matt and Sam were working together to bring up the Encounter’s engine?”

  “I don’t know. It’s at least a possibility.”

  “Sig.”

  “I can’t…” Her words were slurred, exhausted. “I can’t think about this anymore tonight.”

  Riley was wide-awake now. She wanted to drag her sister downstairs, put on a pot of coffee and work out the dozen different scenarios running loose in her brain. Sort through them one by one. Come up with a plan of action.

  But she forced herself to say, “It’s okay. Get some sleep. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

  “I can feel the babies moving,” Sig murmured.

  Riley smiled, but she had to struggle to hold back her own tears. If Sam and Matt had been working together, then Matt’s involvement was even deeper and more serious than she’d anticipated. He wasn’t just latching on to Emile’s disappearance, Straker, herself—he’d been involved before Sam Cassain’s body turned up on Labreque Island.

  She wondered if Special Agent Straker suspected anything. No reading that particular mind. Instead she concentrated on the wind, the ocean and the sound of her sister’s breathing as she finally slept.

  In the morning, it was as if their conversation had never taken place. Sig refused to discuss the possibility of Matt financing or otherwise working with Sam Cassain. “I was hormonal,” she said. “I have no idea what Matt’s up to.”

  She likewise refused to return to Camden, and Riley gave up, agreeing to Sig’s suggestion they begin their search for their grandfather, or his trail, on the nature preserve. It was a stunning day. The acres of blueberry fields, bog, forest, sand, rock and coastline helped restore their spirits and energy. They set off along the shoreline, following trails, guiltily enjoying the peace and beauty of this beautiful stretch of New England coast.

  But they didn’t find Emile or any sign of him, so they drove into the pretty village of Winter Harbor for chowder. After lunch, they stopped in to see Lou Dorrman, who told them to go home.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Sig said.

  Riley sighed. “It feels like busywork, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s why your sweetie Straker left us to it.”

  “He’s a snake in the grass.”

  “No, he’s just better at this sort of thing than you are, which I know you hate to admit. You rescue dolphins and whales. He catches bad guys.”

  “We have nothing in common,” Riley said.

  Sig gave a wicked grin. “That’s part of the fun.”

  They dragged out Emile’s old two-seater kayak and, Riley in front, Sig in back, paddled around the quiet, sparkling bay, visiting all their old haunts—except Labreque Island. That Riley deliberately avoided. But the nostalgia was too much for Sig, the peninsula packed with too many memories, too many triggers, and she started crying again.

  Riley bit her tongue and said nothing, simply kept paddling. She couldn’t swoop in to Sig’s rescue. This was her hell, and it was ultimately why, Riley realized, her sister had come up here. Sig had to confront her demons and crawl, fight, scream, do whatever she had to do to free herself of their grip. Riley understood. It was one of the reasons she’d extended her weekend to come here herself. It was why she’d kayaked alone to Labreque Island.

  “This is ridiculous,” Sig moaned. “I’m pathetic.”

  She swore, a long, colorful string of curse words that had her sounding more like her old self. Devil-may-care, say-anything, do-anything Sig St. Joe, who’d never cared about Matt Granger’s money or Harvard education or family traditions, who’d just married him because she loved him. Never mind that she was almost five months pregnant with twins, that however much she’d loved Matt and still did, it might not be enough, she would endure, survive, thrive.

  When she finished, Riley smiled. “Gee, Sig, that’s two dollars for your mason jar.”

  “Two and a quarter,” she said.

  “Feel better?”

  “Much. I am going to quit swearing, though. I won’t be a foulmouthed mother.”

  “You’re going to be a wonderful mother. May I make a suggestion? I say we have fishermen’s platters for supper and a powwow tonight by the fire.” Riley dipped her paddle into the shallow water, close to shore. Out ahead, the pink granite of Cadillac Mountain, the jewel of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park, stood out against a clear blue sky. “We need a Plan B.”

  “I agree,” Sig said. “Just don’t think you’re sharing my platter. You can order your own.”

  Ten

  Straker tied his boat up at Emile’s dock. It was early evening, the sun low in the sky, the air cool and breezy. He had made up his mind to have a sensible conversation with the St. Joe sisters, but when he walked up to Emile’s cottage, their car was gone.

  He was not relieved. He knew they hadn’t gone back to Camden. They were determined to find their grandfather.

  He’d spotted them kayaking on the bay earlier in the afternoon, probably seeing if they could pick up Emile’s trail. He doubted they’d accomplished any more than he had, which had its own set of dangers. Sitting idle, he imagined, was not something either sister did well.

  Nor did he. Yet his own idleness had served its purpose. He’d spent the morning on the rocks where Riley had found Sam Cassain’s body. He’d sat on a boulder and listened to the wind and the tide, and he’d relaxed his mind, stopped fighting the questions and frustrations and temptations.

  Had he missed something?

  That was the question that washed over him again and again. Somehow, some way, Sam Cassain’s body had ended up on Labreque Island while he, an experienced FBI agent, was there. Had he missed a noise, a light, a movement he didn’t remember—something from the moment the body was delivered onto the island?

  Emile was right. The currents, happenstance, hadn’t washed Cassain ashore. Someone had brought him there. His murderer; someone who’d found him dead and panicked; someone who’d made a cold, calculated decision to take his body to the island to embarrass Emile or throw suspicion on him.

  Cassain drowned.

  Yes. He’d drowned. After taking a hit on the head. The hit wasn’t an accident. He could have fallen in the water; someone could have pushed him; someone could
have found him there, already dead, and chosen not to be the one to explain his death to the authorities.

  No specific scenario had come to Straker as he’d sat out on the rocks. He had no answers, no solutions, no deep insights to offer, simply a clear sense of resolve. Sam Cassain’s death, the placement of his body on Labreque Island, had been a violation of Straker’s six months there, maybe of the island itself. It was time to put things right.

  That afternoon, he’d found his father and a few other lobstermen at one of the lobster pounds. They had no illusions he’d come out just to chat. They teased him about giving up the FBI to catch lobster, asked—unsuccessfully—to see the scars from his bullet wounds, reminded him of various close encounters he’d had with the law before becoming a “lawman” himself. Like he was Wyatt Earp. Without much subtlety, he’d steered their talk to the days prior to Sam Cassain’s body turning up on the island. Cassain was another seaman, and they took his death personally, knew all about the burning and sinking of the Encounter, the deaths of the crew and philanthropist Bennett Granger. Several of them, including Straker’s father, had known Bennett from his decades of summers on Mount Desert Island to the south and his long collaboration with Emile.

  And what emerged from their talk had Straker here now, standing in Emile’s dirt driveway. One of the lobstermen, an old man, older even than Emile, had seen the Granger yacht on the bay early in the week. “It was the small one,” he’d said, “not the big one. I think it’s the son’s boat.”

  Matthew Granger.

  Straker heard a car out on the main road. In another minute, Lou Dorrman pulled into the driveway and rolled down his window. “Riley and her sister are in town having supper. I saw your car down by the harbor. You want a lift?”

  Straker hadn’t expected to need his car. When he’d headed to Boston, he’d left his boat in his father’s care. Last night, before barging in on Riley and Sig, he’d fetched his boat, leaving his car with his parents.

  “Thanks,” he said, and climbed in. He and Dorrman had their differences, but a ride was a ride. And he needed to see Sig, if not her little sister.

  “I thought at first this body’d lead back to you,” Dorrman said, his eyes on the road. “Figured you’d brought terrorists or some damned thing out here. Turns out it leads back to Emile.”

  It was as close to an apology as Straker was going to get, and more than he’d expected. “You’ve got your hands full.”

  “Yeah.” The downeast accent was natural to Dorrman; he’d never left home, probably had grown up wanting to be sheriff. “Having those two women staying at Emile’s isn’t helping. Riley’s a loose cannon. Always has been. The two together—well, they make me nervous.”

  Straker understood, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “If you can talk them into going home, you’d be doing me a favor.”

  “Same here.”

  Dorrman dropped him off at a popular village restaurant that served heaping plates of fried fish, with a salad bar, baked potatoes, fries, onion rings, ten kinds of pies for dessert. The wind was picking up, the sun going down fast. Straker debated going in for a bowl of haddock chowder, but Riley and Sig emerged, laughing.

  “I swear,” Riley said, “I’m never touching another piece of fried food as long as I live.”

  Sig patted her rounded stomach. She wore an oversize hockey shirt and stretchy pants, but still managed to walk with a natural elegance. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much. A whole fishermen’s platter. I deserve heartburn!”

  Straker hung back while they got into Riley’s car, with its Boston Center for Oceanographic Studies sticker and stuffed whale in the rear window. She had on slim pants and an anorak, her fit body and quick movements packed with energy and intensity. He remembered their kiss, the feel of her hand on him. They’d been on dangerous ground right from the beginning, he and Riley St. Joe. She wasn’t one to crumple or go all meek with him. She was no china doll. She was a woman of strength, conviction, passion, great loyalty. She didn’t make life easy on the people who loved her.

  Finally he walked over and tapped on her window, which was half-open. She jumped, then groaned when she saw him. “I thought you were still off doing your Robinson Crusoe bit.”

  “You should pay more attention to your surroundings. What if it hadn’t been me tapping on your window?”

  “Like it’s any big relief it is you. For heaven’s sake, I just had a fish dinner in a quiet little village on the Maine coast. I’m not worried about thugs lurking in the bushes.”

  He leaned in closer. “You weren’t worried about finding a dead man on your picnic, either.”

  She went just a little pale. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Shoot the messenger,” he said.

  Sig smiled at him from the passenger seat. “Don’t tempt her, Straker. She’s probably got a .38 in the glove compartment. Now, if you two don’t mind, I made a pig of myself, and I’d like to get back and walk off my dinner.”

  “Fine with me.” He pulled open the rear door and climbed in. “You can give me a ride.”

  Riley glanced over her shoulder at him, said calmly, “You’ve your nerve, you know that?”

  He grinned. “I’ve done a few scarier things than get in the car. Not many, but a few.”

  She wasn’t embarrassed or intimidated, and she wasn’t about to back down. But she wasn’t mad, either. Her eyes sparked, and she licked her lips. He knew she was imagining what they could be doing together in the back seat. She’d never admit it, but for once they were on the same wavelength.

  “Oh, shit,” Sig mumbled, sinking low in her seat.

  “Sig? Riley?” Matt Granger was crossing the street to the small parking lot. He swore to himself. “Son of a bitch.”

  Sig glanced into the back seat. She was very pale. “Straker—quick, toss me that blanket.”

  He grabbed a fleece throw off the floor and shoved it over the top of the seat. She took it gratefully, unfurled it and buried herself under it as best she could.

  “What do you want me to do?” Riley asked her.

  “Get us out of here.”

  He could hear Riley fumbling for her keys. These two were as different as night and day, Straker thought, but they’d go to the ends of the earth for each other. If Sig didn’t want her husband to know she was pregnant, Riley would back her up.

  It was a damned conspiracy, but Matt Granger was helpless in the face of it. He stormed around to Sig’s window, which was partway down. Taking no pains to be subtle, she reached up and locked her door. In Granger’s position, Straker didn’t know what he’d do. Push the car into a ditch, for starters. Keep these two put for ten minutes, anyway.

  If Granger had ever possessed the same manners and cool bearing as his older sister, they were long gone. He looked ready to rip the window out and smash it onto the parking lot. “Goddamn you two—what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  That had been Straker’s line last night. Hadn’t done him much good.

  Sig smiled, snottily cool, in control. “Well, seeing how you asked so nicely, and so clearly have our best interests at heart, I’ll tell you. We’re just coming from dinner. We both had the fishermen’s platter. I had apple pie for dessert, Riley abstained.” She paused a beat. “Anything else?”

  Every muscle and nerve ending in Granger’s body went nuts. Straker could see it happen. He understood. These women would drive any man over the edge. A day by himself on an island hadn’t exorcised Riley from his mind, not to mention his body.

  “Go back to Camden,” Granger said through clenched teeth. “Paint.”

  Sig yawned. “I don’t take orders very well. That’s one reason I’m a painter.” She snuggled down into her fleece throw. “You go home, Matt. You have no reason at all to be here. My grandfather’s family goes back generations in this area. I spent summers here as a child.”

  Granger hissed through his teeth. “Sig, goddamn it—”

  “Riley came up fo
r the weekend,” she continued, not giving him one millimeter. “We decided to spend some time together.”

  This was bullshit, of course, and Granger knew it. He leaned as far into the car as he could manage without tearing off the door. “You two are trying to find Emile. You’re in over your heads. He’s dangerous and possibly insane. If anything happens to you, it’s not going to be on my conscience.”

  “Riley, start the car.” Sig breathed in deeply, taking charge. “If my husband doesn’t move back, run over his feet.”

  Granger pounded the roof of the car. “Goddamn it, Sig, you won’t listen!”

  “I’d listen if you talked.” She was furious now, biting out her words. “But you don’t. You just want everything your way. You’re so damned eaten up with your self-righteous anger…” She flopped back against her seat. “Riley, let’s go.”

  Riley turned the ignition.

  She wasn’t fast enough for her sister. “Now.”

  “I’m going, I’m going….”

  Granger kicked the door. He was speechless with rage, fear, a tangle of emotions. Straker felt a pang of sympathy for him.

  “Riley!” Sig urged. An angle of streetlight caught her face, the high cheekbones, the long, straight nose. Straker understood her urgency. He had seen the same green look on her little sister just a few days ago. Sig had her teeth clenched, her fingers tight on the throw. “Step on the damned gas.”

  Straker leaned forward, one hand on the seat behind Riley’s head. “Go,” he told her. “Granger’ll move back.”

  “Straker? What the fuck—” Matt started to say.

  But Riley said, “Stand back, Matt,” and hit the gas.

  Sig lasted a mile. When Riley hit a bump in the road, Straker told her to pull over. Her sister almost fell out of the car. He jumped out after her and held on to her while she emptied her stomach on the side of the road, sobbing, swearing, screaming in frustration and agony.

  Riley paced behind them with a water bottle and the fleece throw. When Sig finished, mumbling apologies, crying, he and Riley dabbed her face with water, wrapped her in the blanket and helped her lie down in the back seat. Her teeth chattered. She clung to the blanket, sobbing for her husband.