The Harbor. Carla Neggers
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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.
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