“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple.”
Most people, she thought, would back down under that kind of certainty and conviction, but Antonia stood her ground. “What if our positions were reversed, and I had a lot of important commitments at work and didn’t need any distractions, if you thought you might hurt my reputation—”
He shook his head. “I’m not buying it. You’re just not used to telling people anything. You play it close to the vest, Antonia. It’s not just me and my reputation, my guilt over what happened to my family—it’s you. The way you are.”
She paused. “You’re probably right,” she admitted finally.
His eyes flashed with sudden humor. “Probably?”
She waved a hand at him. “You cocky military types. Honestly. Okay, I didn’t know what to do. I’m not sure I realized how rattled I was until you got here and I—”
“Ran for your life?”
“Damn close. Maybe I’ve been in denial, I don’t know. I had this time on the island planned—I hoped it’d all go away by the time I got back to Boston. It still might, you know.”
“Or it might not.” His outward calm deteriorated, and she could see his jaw tighten. “Damn it, Antonia, what if someone attacked you because you didn’t go to the police to save me the embarrassment in case you’d imagined the whole thing? Tell me that.”
She drank more of her tea, which was still very hot, and looked at him over the rim of her mug. “You’re not responsible for the choices I make.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”
“Frankly, I think I’ve behaved very sensibly.” But her bravado didn’t last, and she set her mug down. “I’ve been so immersed in my education and career for years—I never thought—” She broke off, at a loss for the right words. “Carine wears her heart on her sleeve, but I don’t.”
“I’m not Gus. I’m not your brother. I’m not Carine. God knows I’m not Tyler North. I don’t fit into your life that way. I’m not family, I’m not a friend you’ve known all your life—”
“Tyler’s not a friend anymore.”
“He is. You all can’t help it. First sign of trouble with one of you, and who did I think to call?”
“Big help he was. Toe tag.”
“He gave me the name of the island.” Hank drank more of his tea, then leaned back in his chair, eyeing her with a seriousness she found unnerving. “All right. You know what I’m saying. I won’t belabor the point. You have any ideas who this stalker might be?”
“If he’s real—”
“He’s real.”
She fought a shiver of fear, uneasiness. “I brought a disk with recent patient records on it. I get my fair share of difficult cases. Crime victims, crime perpetrators, psychiatric patients—I thought something might jog my memory, make sense to me.”
“No luck?”
“Not yet. I don’t think whoever it is wants to hurt me. If he did, he’s had plenty of opportunities.”
Hank shook his head. “Just because he hasn’t hurt you yet doesn’t mean he won’t. He could be toying with you—”
“The cat with the mouse.”
Hank didn’t answer, and she got to her feet, feeling the darkness all around her, just the one naked 80-watt bulb penetrating the pitch black. Antonia debated lighting the kerosene lamps. She didn’t even know what time it was. Past dinnertime, for sure. She was faintly hungry but knew she couldn’t eat.
“I thought coming here would at least help me clarify my options.” She didn’t look at Hank as she tried to put words to the conflicting thoughts and emotions she’d experienced the past week. “Call hospital security, don’t call hospital security. Call the police, don’t call the police.”
“Tell me, don’t tell me.”
There was no hurt in his voice—he was under tight control. She didn’t flinch, made herself turn and look at him. “That’s right.”
He was on his feet, and before she knew what was happening, he had her in his arms. He held her shoulders. “Antonia, listen to me. When you look at me, I don’t want you to see a senator or an air force officer, or a man who’s lost his family and can’t bear to be hurt again—I want you to see me. Just me. Do you understand that?”
“I do, Hank, but you’re all of those things. You can’t separate—”
“What I can’t do is let someone I care about put herself in danger because of me. I can’t have a woman I’m in love with hold back on me because she’s trying to protect me.”
She was too stricken to speak.
“I am in love with you. I know it’s awkward as hell. My timing couldn’t be worse with your sister’s botched wedding, my campaign, this mess you’re in, but—” He stopped, letting his hands slide down her back, his mouth find hers in a kiss that was brief, fierce and impossibly tender, leaving her breathless, even more out of control. When he pulled away, he smacked her on the butt and smiled. “Talk to me next time, okay?”
“I was trying to do the right thing. You know that, don’t you?”
“You’re a Winter, Antonia. You’re a natural risk-taker. Take a risk with me. Talk to me.”
“I will, but tell me something first, Hank. You say you’re in love with me. I don’t mind, because I’ve been in love with you since I saw you in front of Carine’s woodstove. But are you fighting it?”
He stared at her a moment, then didn’t answer. “What do you have in here for supper?”
“Hank—”
“The only thing I’m fighting is whether I’d rather eat dinner now or make love to you now.”
He’d wormed his way under her defenses, until she could only laugh. “First things first. Always.”
8
A hurricane watch went up overnight for Cape Cod and the islands. Mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders had been posted for vulnerable areas. Hope remained a Category 2 hurricane and looked as if it would hit the Cape before it made its expected turn east.
No one, Hank thought, would be concerned about the one cottage left on Shelter Island, even if they thought of it. The spits of sand along the elbow of Cape Cod had been rearranging themselves for millennia and would again with this storm. Shelter Island could take an entirely different shape by the time Hope blew over. North Monomoy and South Monomoy Island were formed in the notorious blizzard of 1978, when the single main island split into two islands. Both were part of the Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Refuge Complex, eight ecologically diverse refuges that provided habitat, resting and feeding grounds for a wide variety of plants and animals, in addition to birds.
Hank hoisted his backpack onto one shoulder, Antonia’s onto the other as they set off across the narrow island. If the powerful winds and surf and torrential rains of Hurricane Hope rearranged these stretches of sand again, at least he and Antonia wouldn’t be around while it happened.
They took a twisting path through stunted pitch pine and patches of juniper, low-growing wild blueberry bushes, the ever-present bearberry and beach grasses. It was just spitting rain, but the wind had kicked up, and he could hear the waves pounding the shoreline. Antonia would never have made it across the narrow inlet to the mainland in her kayak. The inlet wasn’t as choppy as the Sound, but, as they walked out onto the beach, which was just down from a fertile salt marsh, he noticed the whitecaps. Even with the stiff, steady wind at her back, she’d be lucky to keep herself afloat, never mind on course.
She’d put on jeans, a polo shirt and a windbreaker for their ride back to the mainland and seemed less strained and preoccupied. Hank liked to think it was his presence. She’d finally told someone about her unsettling incidents—he thought their lovemaking might have helped a little, too. He smiled to himself, but noticed her frown as she paused at the water’s edge. “Where’s your boat?” she asked.
Hank hadn’t even thought about his boat, just assumed it’d be where he left it. But it wasn’t. He squinted out at the water, seeing only whitecaps and seagulls
against the graying sky. Where the island’s myriad of birds were, he didn’t know—it was as if they’d all vanished ahead of the hurricane. “It should be right here,” he said. “I dropped anchor just off shore.”
“Maybe it pulled loose.”
“It should have held, even in this weather. Damn it, I grew up in a marina. I know how to secure a boat.”
“But you spent all those years in the air force tinkering with helicopters.”
“Tinkering?”
“It’s not like you were in the Navy or the Coast Guard.” But Antonia’s halfhearted attempt at humor didn’t seem to work even with her, and she abandoned it. “I don’t know what to say. Now what? I still have my flares. We can always try to alert a passing boat.”
Hank continued to gaze out at the water, not liking this development, then glanced at her. “Where’s your kayak?”
“We can’t both take it. It’s just a one-person kayak—”
“Antonia, I didn’t make a mistake. My boat should be here, and it’s not.” He studied her, her skin quickly going pale again, ghostly, her eyes taking on the strain he’d seen in her yesterday when he’d first arrived. Her muscles were visibly tight, and he guessed she was thinking along the same lines as he was—that his boat wasn’t missing by accident. “You know I didn’t screw up, don’t you?”
“My kayak’s over here off the beach.”
She hoisted her backpack high onto her shoulder and, with a nod of pure determination, set off across the wet sand, back along a sloping dune. Hank followed her with the two other packs, and she led him into a stand of pitch pine.
“Mind the poison ivy,” she said, pointing to a vine of it streaming up one of the pines.
Her kayak was tucked among the trees. It was a sleek red touring kayak, obviously expensive, obviously new. Fat drops of rain splattered on its unscratched finish. Hank noticed rain shining on Antonia’s hair, felt it splatting on his shoulder, the top of his head. Except for the occasional lull as the storm moved north, the weather conditions would get worse—far worse—before they got better.
“The paddle.” She almost couldn’t get the words out and had to pause to clear her throat. “Hank, the paddle’s not here.”
“You left it with the boat?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“When I arrived. I haven’t been back here.”
He turned over the long, narrow kayak, but the paddle wasn’t under it. Antonia checked the brush and the surrounding area without success. Hank absorbed what had transpired so far—his boat gone, her kayak paddle gone.
“Maybe the wind blew the paddle away,” she said lamely, then sighed, some of her physician’s calm and decisiveness restoring itself. “If someone finds your boat adrift, there might be enough time for them to launch a search before the hurricane gets here.”
“It won’t be that easy to put the pieces together. The boat belongs to friends of mine in Chatham. They said I could borrow it anytime, and I did. They’re in Prague right now. It’ll take a while for authorities to sort all that out.”
Antonia digested his explanation without any evidence of increased anxiety. “Given the conditions, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to think the boat pulled loose prematurely and no one was in it. I hope that’s the case. Better you messed up than—”
“I didn’t mess up. Someone scuttled my boat and took your paddle.”
She swallowed, nodding. “I know.”
“It means we’re not alone.”
Robert swore viciously. He was in agony. His skin was burning, itching, covered in lumps and bumps and oozing crusts. Now thorns were pricking his arms and back from the rosebush behind the bitch doctor’s cottage.
Just what he needed, more shit gnawing on him.
He was covered in bites and red welts. The humidity was building in ahead of the storm, and he couldn’t stand it in his poncho—it was like a damn steam bath, and sweating made him itch and burn even more. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t plan. But he didn’t see what choice he had, and he put his poncho back on, just for protection from the thorns and the bugs. He’d given up on the deer ticks. One ankle was damn near black with them. He’d just have to get some antibiotics when he returned to the mainland. Maybe he could get Dr. Antonia to write him a prescription before he killed her.
Meanwhile, bring on the Lyme disease.
At least he was well-armed against the bitch doctor and the stud boyfriend. It had nearly killed him last night, knowing the two of them were in the cottage. But now he had no illusions whatsoever. He had no doubts. He didn’t have to second-guess himself. He’d done the right thing, stalking her, sneaking out here with his Smith & Wesson. Deep down, he knew it would come to killing her. And killing the wannabe senator, too. It was why he’d kept picturing her begging for her life. Because it was the right thing to do. It was necessary.
The bitch doctor would never let him into her orbit.
He was a nonentity to her. He didn’t have the nuisance value of even one of the ticks stuck to his leg, sucking his blood, spreading disease. He was just the floor-mopper who showed up for work every day and once, for reasons that she must have thought didn’t concern her, had arrived in the E.R. for treatment.
Well, the instant messages, the spooky way he’d whispered to her in the garage and left her bedroom window open, cutting up her underwear—that all had more than deer-tick-level nuisance value. But she didn’t know it was him. She didn’t even know he’d slashed up her silky underthings. She didn’t know he was the one who’d set Superman Callahan’s boat adrift, who’d stolen her paddle, who was out here now, plotting his next move.
That was paramount, he thought. She had to know it was him. He couldn’t just sneak up on her and gun her down. There was no satisfaction in that, no real justice. Damn it, he wanted credit.
“What’s this?”
It looked like a knife handle. He pulled on it, and realized it was a five-inch carving knife. A signal from God! The green light!
Here’s another weapon, Mr. Prancer. Do what must be done.
Amen!
Robert wiped the blade clean on his wet pants. Another length of thorn-studded rosebush backhanded him in the face and ripped a trail of scratches across his cheek. It was all he could do not to start hacking at the goddamn bush with his new knife.
Patience, he reminded himself. He had to remember what he was here to do—it wasn’t getting all pissed off at a rosebush.
Crouching down, he undid the paddle so that it was in two parts. Too easy to end up smacking himself in the head when it was one long paddle, but one of the halves he could maneuver easily. He pictured himself jumping up out of nowhere and whacking Callahan on the side of the head with it—Robert didn’t mind if the wannabe senator never knew what hit him.
A paddle, a gun, a knife. Not bad.
It was his own damn fault he was under the rosebush and not in the cottage. He’d decided to follow his two hostages—even if they didn’t know it yet, they were his hostages as far as he was concerned. He wanted to see the looks on their faces when they discovered they were stuck on the island for the duration—when they realized they weren’t alone.
Keeping them from hearing him wasn’t a problem with the wind, the rain, the ocean. It was keeping them from seeing him that almost tripped him up. Not a lot of tall trees to hide behind out here. Once, he’d had to burrow down in the bird shit.
He sank the boat last night just after dark. It wasn’t easy, either. He’d had to wade out into the water and beat a hole in the bottom with the anchor. He’d cut his hand. He’d been tempted to shoot the damn thing, but he didn’t dare risk alerting his hostages to his presence prematurely. Mr. Military Man would recognize gunfire when he heard it.
And Robert didn’t just want to set the boat adrift—for all he knew, it could float back to shore. He wanted it at the bottom of the ocean.
Even when the damn thing filled up with water, it didn’t go down fast. He’
d sat out there in the dark, mosquitoes chewing on him as he watched the boat float out into the inlet and slowly sink.
By the time he reached his campsite, he was covered with at least a hundred mosquito bites. He wondered if Dr. Antonia would treat him if he broke out in a fever or got West Nile or malaria or something. She had to. It would be unethical not to. Illegal, even. She was the one who’d told him she had to report his gunshot wound to the police.
The looks on their faces when they discovered the boat was gone—it had been worth it. They were back in the cottage by the time he’d slipped back across the island, but that was okay. He still had time, and he liked the idea that they had a few minutes to fret, try to put the pieces together, come to terms with the gravity of their situation.
It did suck. He wondered if they had any idea just how much it did, in fact, suck.
The cottage broke some of the wind coming off the Sound, but it was raining again, not a soft, gentle rain, either. Robert was already tired of it, but knew it’d only get worse.
He had to get his final plan together, but he couldn’t think with all the distractions of his pain, his itching, his delight in imagining the two of them scared shitless just a few yards away.
The back door creaked open.
Robert sank low, not breathing, as Hank Callahan walked out onto the back steps.
Superman Hank. He didn’t look as if he’d been fretting. He looked like some kind of sniper on the lookout. He had an alert, military feel about him that Robert didn’t like at all.
Bastard. The arrogant bastard.
He should be quivering! Scared out of his mind!
Robert felt his nostrils flare, like he was a pissed off bull in a rodeo or something. “Screw it.” He didn’t know if he spoke out loud, didn’t care. He wasn’t taking any more chances with this puke—time to put the major out of commission. “Yeah. Screw it.”
On the Edge Page 18