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His room at the inn had pink soap and pink-flowered wallpaper, and its four-poster bed was a first for J.B. The place was run by Lottie Martin, who had to be the sourest woman in the state of Maine. He always greeted her cheerfully just to watch her squirm. When he opened his door and saw that his room had been tossed, he knew she wouldn’t be happy.
He wasn’t happy.
It was a gentle toss, not a ransacking. If he hadn’t worked undercover for the past five years and become accustomed to imprinting on his mind how he’d left things, he might not even have noticed.
It helped that the perpetrator had spilled his afternoon tea on the carpet.
He knew he’d done tea for a reason. The daily afternoon ritual was served on the screened porch and featured three kinds of tea and an array of tiny muffins, shortbread and scones. He’d sneaked a cup of Irish Breakfast up to his room.
He knelt down. The stain was still damp.
Interesting.
The cottage-style bureau where he’d unpacked his clothes had been gone through. His empty suitcase. The stacks of books and magazines he’d picked up to while away the hours. Nothing was quite where he’d left it.
His visitor had even pawed through his bathroom.
And locked up afterward. Which required a key to the old-fashioned door.
Also interesting.
Lottie Martin didn’t strike him as the type to snoop. On the other hand, curiosity about him had risen steadily among local residents since he’d arrived in pretty Goose Harbor.
Nothing was missing. His gun was locked in his Jeep.
He left everything as it was and headed down to the front desk. Old Lottie was there in a corduroy jumper and turtleneck, her iron-gray hair pinned up in a bun that made her look like Auntie Em, except thinner. J.B. figured she’d opened the inn so she could surround herself with antiques and live in an old house. Guests were simply a necessary evil. Or at least he was.
“I heard Zoe West was back in town,” he said, then made an educated guess. “I thought I saw her car pull out of here.” He hadn’t, but Lottie Martin didn’t know that. “She’s staying here? You’d think she’d stay with her sister, wouldn’t you?”
Lottie took the bait. “She is staying with her sister. She stopped by to say hello. I’ve been friends with her family for years.”
“Did she ever work for you?”
“Just one summer.”
Long enough to help herself to a pass key. She probably had it in her old room, which meant she’d stopped at the house first and Christina had been covering for her. That explained some of her agitation. She was keeping the FBI agent occupied while her big sister searched his room to make sure his story added up. Bruce had called Christina on his cell phone from his truck to say he and J.B. were on their way with the door. The sisters could have cooked up their plan then.
He’d guess it was Zoe’s idea. While she was in full screwup mode, why not break into an FBI agent’s room?
“I spilled tea in my room,” he told Lottie Martin.
She frowned. “On the carpet?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She seemed to think he was being sarcastic. “No harm done, I’m sure.” Her teeth were half clenched as she spoke. “Mr. McGrath, I have a problem with your room. This is terribly awkward. I wanted to catch you sooner—” She paused, fixing her gray eyes on him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to check out. I found a room for you in Kennebunkport. It was no mean feat since this is peak foliage weekend. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with it.”
“You giving me the boot because of the spilled tea?”
“No, of course not.”
“Because Zoe West was here and you think I’m to blame?”
“Trouble does have a way of following her these days, but no, that’s not the reason. There’s a problem with the room, that’s all. It happens in these old houses.” She jotted down the name and number of the Kennebunkport inn and passed it to him. “I’ll pick up the tab myself to make up for the inconvenience.”
J.B. had to hand it to her. As socially inept and sour as she was, she’d just smoothly maneuvered him right out of her inn. He wondered if Zoe West had said anything to her, or if old Lottie had simply put the ex-detective’s visit, the spilled tea and the fact that her guest was an FBI agent together and decided to toss him to avoid any trouble. She must have heard about the break-in at the West house by now.
In her place, he’d probably do the same.
He took the paper with the Kennebunkport information on it. “I’ll pay my own way. Thanks. You know, my ancestors came here in the seventeenth century. Maybe we’re cousins.”
She didn’t like that any more than Bruce Young had.
J.B. returned to his room and packed up. He had no idea where he was going, but it wasn’t to Kennebunkport. Bruce’d probably put him up, but Bruce had dogs that looked as if they’d have the run of the place. Bruce was also part of whatever it was that had happened in Goose Harbor a year ago. After she’d found her father’s body, Zoe West had run into the water and waved down the nearest lobster boat. Bruce Young’s. He’d notified the Maine marine patrol.
It was a cold night, and dark, the clouds blocking out the moon and any stars. J.B. could taste the salt in the air, feel the dampness of an approaching storm. He dumped his stuff in the back of his Jeep and drove down to the docks, parking in the town lot. The small, protected harbor was mostly rockbound, lined with houses, with Main Street running parallel to the water above the docks. In daylight on a clear day, Olivia West’s house was visible on its point on the northeast edge of the harbor. According to town gossip, she’d left it to Zoe. Christina inherited money to buy the small clapboard building on the waterfront behind him, a run-down clam shack she’d converted into her charming café.
If he left now, J.B. figured he could be back in Washington, D.C., by morning. He had an apartment there. He didn’t know what he’d be doing next with the bureau, but he expected it wouldn’t involve undercover work, at least not anytime soon. There was talk of having him train new undercover agents. Yeah. He could give them pointers on how to kill a man in front of his children with your throat cut and bleeding, then how to live with yourself afterward. It didn’t matter that he’d done what he had to do, that he’d had no other choice. But wasn’t that the point? Leave yourself options. Always leave yourself options.
A puff of fog floated off the water and enveloped him as if it meant to, as if he was its target. He walked across the nearly empty parking lot to the intersection of Ocean Drive. If he turned left, it’d take him to Main Street and Goose Harbor village. Right, along the northeast edge of the harbor, past Olivia West’s house and the nature preserve named for her.
Olivia West’s house was unoccupied, sitting on its lonely point like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Bruce said Zoe kept the lights and heat on and had it cleaned once a month, but didn’t know what to do with it.
J.B. did. He’d sleep there tonight.
Bruce had also said that Olivia West had never bothered to get a lock for the porch door. J.B. could walk right in. And why shouldn’t he? Zoe West had gotten him tossed from his inn. He figured she owed him a night’s lodging.
Three (#ulink_8b1ed0d1-f188-52a0-b5d2-ae51c68b065e)
Christina paced in the kitchen and alternated between horror and delight at what her sister had done. Zoe was just relieved Special Agent McGrath hadn’t walked in while she was searching his room. She didn’t know where she’d be if he had, but it wouldn’t be in her sister’s kitchen eating hummus and red onion on pita. Lottie Martin, fortunately, had seemed content to pretend she didn’t know what was going on. She would be curious about McGrath herself, and she wouldn’t want to get in Zoe’s way.
Not that she’d found much of anything.
Knocking over the tea had nearly done her in. She was a better cop than a sneak, and she didn’t exactly have the law on her side. More to the point, no way would J. B. McGrath not remember having spilled tea on Lottie Martin’s carpet. He’d see the stain and know it wasn’t his doing.
So long as he didn’t realize it was her doing, Zoe thought she was all right. She’d slipped out, relocked the door with her pass key and managed to get out of the inn without incident.
“I can’t believe you actually did it,” Christina said. “God, Zoe, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking he wasn’t a real FBI agent.”
“If he’d caught you—”
“He didn’t. And I didn’t steal anything out of his room. Relax, I’m in the clear. Otherwise there’d be a cruiser in the driveway right now.”
“Or him. You haven’t met him.”
Zoe stretched out her legs and munched on her pita sandwich. Christina had made the hummus herself, from scratch. Over the past year, she’d added her own touches to the kitchen—baskets and brightly colored towels, gourmet gadgets, a hand-thrown pottery bowl their father would have considered extravagant. But Zoe could still feel his presence, as if he might walk in from the garden with an armload of tomatoes and chuckle at how agitated his two daughters were. He was the steadiest man Zoe had ever known. He took everything in stride. She thought she took after him, but in the days after his death, and then her great-aunt’s, Zoe knew she’d been a total madwoman.
“It’s weird being back,” she said.
“I know it must be.” Christina stopped pacing and opened a cupboard door. Kyle had taken off after Zoe returned, but promised to stop in again. “Why don’t I make us drinks? What would you like?”
“Scotch on the rocks.”
Christina grinned. “That’s easy.”
Zoe struggled to smile back. She was still thinking about that spilled tea—and the sight of Agent McGrath’s razor on the sink. She didn’t know why that got to her. “The place looks good, Chris. I can’t wait to see the café.”
“It’s great—I’m having such a good time. It’s a lot of work, but I love it.” She got out two glasses, filled them with ice and poured the Scotch, a brand she would have picked with the same care she took with everything related to food. She brought the two drinks to the table and sat down. “Zoe, I don’t know—maybe I overreacted to the break-in.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re here, I guess. It makes me think—” She lifted her glass but didn’t take a sip. “I don’t know, I guess it makes me think the break-in must be related to Dad’s death if you’re here.”
“I was fired in August. I should have come home sooner.”
“To do what?”
Zoe drank some of her Scotch. It was her father’s drink. Scotch on the rocks. Not often, and only in the evening. She didn’t really like it. She knew Christina didn’t, either. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. First things first, okay?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t have any theories about the break-in, Chris. I’m not going to go off half-cocked. It’s been a year—”
“I know, but you haven’t been here. Zoe, I’ve gotten used to not having any answers. I’m not saying I like it, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
Zoe nodded. “You’re afraid I haven’t.”
“I know you haven’t. It’s not in your makeup.”
But Zoe wasn’t going there, reliving the nightmares and bad decisions, the confusion and grief of the past year. She took another sip of her Scotch and jumped to her feet. “You have to look at my knitting and see if you can figure out what I’m doing wrong.”
“Zoe—”
“No, I’m serious. Knitting’s a great stress reliever. I’m determined to learn. Bea Jericho took me to a yarn store in Litchfield and had me pick out a beautiful, hand-dyed yarn. Milk-gray. She insisted I’d like knitting better if I started out with yarn I loved.”
Christina shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re learning to knit.”
“Not only that,” Zoe said, “but I know how to milk goats.”
* * *
Teddy Shelton sat behind the wheel of his rusting-piece-of-crap pickup and tried to figure out his next move. He’d pulled into the town lot next to the FBI agent’s Jeep. If he leaned forward, he could see down the docks to the yacht club and the deep-water slip where Luke Castellane had his multimillion-dollar yacht. Luke’s kid had a crummy apartment above Christina West’s café. He was playing the starving artist. He’d tire of Christina once he finished his documentary on Olivia West. No question in Teddy’s mind. Kyle Castellane was a spoiled, self-absorbed little prick.
Teddy wondered if Kyle’s documentary was just a way to stir up a bees’ nest and get people focused on Patrick West’s death again. The state police investigation was still active, but people’d settled down, assumed someone from out of town had killed him. Chief West could have had terrorists plotting an attack right under his nose, and he’d never notice. Not in Goose Harbor, he’d think. No way.
Yeah, well. He’d learned. Those last minutes before he’d bled to death must have been something. Oh, shit, I should have known.
Fat raindrops pelted Teddy’s windshield. He didn’t know why he couldn’t afford a decent truck. At least he had all the weapons he wanted. Most of them, anyway. He’d like a couple more grenades. He had more flash-bang grenades than he needed—they were all noise and light and smoke, designed to distract and confuse, not to destroy. Maybe he could trade some for the kind of grenades that could blow a guy’s legs off.
He kept his personal arsenal in an apple crate in the jump seat behind him. Sometimes it’d push up against the driver’s seat. Not too comfortable on his back. But it was good to know he had an MP5 handy if some asshole tried to take him out on the interstate.
The lights on the Castellane yacht went out. It was ten o’clock. Jesus. He’d been in southern Maine a year, and still had no intention of ever keeping lobsterman hours. Luke Castellane was a notorious hypochondriac, always thinking something was wrong with him, probably because his father, Hollywood director Victor Castellane, had dropped dead of a heart attack at fifty-five. Luke’s mother died three years later. Ovarian cancer. From what Teddy gathered, they’d been total jackasses. They used to summer in Goose Harbor, and Luke had continued the tradition after he grew up, married, had a kid, divorced and turned the modest inheritance from his parents into a bloody fortune. Now he sailed up and down the coast in his yacht all summer and spent the winter at his house in Key West.
Chubby Betsy O’Keefe was living with him. Nurse Betsy. She was plain as a bucket of oats and built like a fire hydrant, but all Luke would care about was the R.N. after her name. And who else would have her? Teddy figured she was in it for the goodies.
The rain picked up. It was pounding on his windshield now. He could feel the damp cold and debated turning on the engine and getting some heat in his truck. He probably should head back to that goddamn shack he rented from Bruce Young down by the lobster pound. It was barely winterized. He wanted to tell Luke that Zoe West was back in town, but he’d waited too long and now Luke had gone night-night.
If he stayed out here much longer, Teddy knew he’d fall asleep. Then some jerk cop would roust him and maybe see the guns and shit in back. Luke had never invited him to stay in a stateroom aboard the Castellane yacht. Understandable. How would he explain why he’d hired a guy like Teddy? Even that dumb-bunny Nurse Betsy would ask questions.
Teddy turned the key in the engine and switched on the windshield wipers and the headlights, which barely penetrated the thick fog that had rolled in off the water. The docks were dead on such a dark, rainy October night.
“What the hell,” he said, shutting down the engine.
When he pushed open the door, he could hear the tide. He didn’t know if it was coming in or going out. When he first arrived in Goose Harbor, he’d tried to keep track, but soon discovered it didn’t make any damn difference. He never went on the water. Best job he could get was working at the lobster pound. He had enough claw marks from the damn lobsters to prove it. The native Mainers almost never got clawed, not like he did. His own damn fault, they told him.
He stepped onto the wet pavement and smelled the salt in the fog. The rain hit his Yankees cap. Nothing colder than a fall rain on the New England coast. He shivered, not wanting to get too wet. The kerosene stove in Bruce’s shack would take forever to heat up the place, even as small as it was.
Teddy pulled a rag out of his pants pocket and wiped the rain off the driver’s window on the FBI guy’s Jeep. He peered inside. Not much to see. No file with “Top Secret” scrawled on it. Teddy wondered where Mr. Special Agent had gone. Talking to Luke? No way. Luke was in bed with Nurse Betsy.
“Screw it.”
Teddy got back into his truck, started the engine again and drove back up to Main Street, then cruised on over to the West house. Zoe West’s yellow Volkswagen Beetle was parked out front. Kyle Castellane was getting into his black BMW. Teddy could feel the sarcasm rising up in him. Starving artist. Yeah. Kyle’d be more shocked than anyone if he knew Teddy was working for his watery-eyed pop. Luke didn’t like the idea of an FBI agent crawling around town. He’d thought it might bring Zoe back to Goose Harbor, and it had.
Just keep me informed. Do what you have to do.
That left a lot of wiggle room.
Teddy moved on down the road before Kyle’s headlights came on, not that he was worried about being seen. He was a nobody here. Fine with him. It gave him room to maneuver. If things went the way he thought they would, he’d need every inch he could get.
Four (#ulink_7e804959-ec24-536a-a625-f1821657c5bb)
The bright sunrise over the Atlantic woke J.B. early. He had no trouble remembering where he was. Upstairs front bedroom of Olivia West’s house. Or why. Zoe West. Or acknowledging that he must have been out of his mind last night.
On the other hand, he liked waking up to the sound of the ocean.
He’d cracked his window and could hear the tide rolling in, the wind gusting, seagulls crying in the distance, the putter of lobster boats. The rain and fog had blown out, leaving behind a washed sky and clear, dry autumn air. His room looked straight out on the Atlantic Ocean, which sparkled in the morning sun.
He pulled on his pants and raked a hand through his hair. Probably a good idea to get moving before ex-detective Zoe decided to inspect her property. Funny she’d decided to inspect his first.
But instead of throwing his stuff together and clearing out, J.B. found himself wandering around the big, airy house. Three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs were another bedroom, one and a half bathrooms, an eat-in kitchen, a side entry and a dining room and living room that stretched across the entire front of the house, with canvas-covered furniture and tall windows that looked out onto a porch and beyond to the Atlantic. The kitchen window faced the harbor. He’d heard that Olivia West had penned all her Jen Periwinkle novels at the kitchen table.
He put an old-fashioned copper kettle on to boil and wondered if it was the same table. Probably. The house still had a pre-World War II feel to it, and from what he’d experienced of the residents of Goose Harbor so far, J.B. took them as a frugal lot. Waste not, want not.
He retrieved a tea bag from a clear glass jar on the counter and duly noted the can of soy powder sitting beside it. He doubted it was the old lady’s. He pulled open the Reagan-era refrigerator and noted the routine condiments, pure maple syrup, natural peanut butter and a Ziploc bag labeled “flax seed.” There were cinnamon Toaster Strudels in the freezer and a bag of frozen blueberries, the little ones, which he knew meant they were wild.
When the water came to a boil, he filled a restaurant-style mug and dunked in his tea bag, then headed through the side entry and into the front room. He eased past the dining-room table, a light film of dust on its dark wood, and walked out onto the front porch. The air was brisk, the porch furniture a mix of Adirondack chairs and rockers. There was a porch swing. He pictured the West family gathering here on summer Sunday afternoons. Now only Christina and her burnt-out older sister were left.
