"Lucky me."
"Yeah. Well, I'm not surprised Sheriff Don-man thought it might be someone out to kill you." He grinned at his own sick humor, then frowned, beady eyes narrowed.
"What're you doing here?"
"I was just watching TV."
The detective snorted. "Dorrman warned me about you, Straker. I take it you're not here in any official capacity?"
"No."
"You a friend of the family or just Emile?"
"I've known Riley St. Joe all my life."
Palladino let the sideways answer go.
"She in?"
"She's powdering her nose just for you." Straker motioned up the dark, narrow staircase.
"After you, gentlemen."
Riley was waiting on the futon couch. She'd finger- styled her damp hair, slipped into stockings and low- heeled shoes and rosied her cheeks and lips with a bit of makeup. She looked poised, if a little pale. Straker saw the detectives take in the clutter, the nautical charts, the flamingo Beanie Baby. They didn't know what to make of her, either. If he had his island, Straker thought, she had her kooky egghead apartment. A narrow escape from death, a grandfather's reputation shattered, five people dead. The Encounter disaster had left her with her own demons to fight. This was a good place to keep them at bay.
Palladino introduced himself and his partner, Chris Donelson.
"We'd like to ask you a few questions, Miss St. Joe."
"Sure."
He turned to Straker. "You mind taking a walk for a half hour?"
"I'll go put my feet up in the bedroom."
"What, you don't trust us?"
"Nah. I just could use forty winks."
He was wide-awake. He had no intention of sleeping, but if he left the building, he wasn't sure that, in her current frame of mind, Riley would let him back in. She'd never admit it, but she was close to snapping. Sam Cassain dead on Labreque Island, Emile gone and now two Maine CID detectives in her living room--it was enough.
On his way back to her bedroom, he heard Palladino say, "You know the body you found on Sunday has been identified?"
"Yes, it was Sam Cassain." She said it as if she were in science class.
"He was captain of the Encounter until it sank last year."
"And you didn't recognize him?"
"No."
Straker shut the bedroom door behind him. He'd let Palladino and Donelson do their job. Riley would hold up, and she had nothing to hide. She had no more idea of what was going on than any of them did.
The bedroom was softly lit, the colors warm and soothing. Straker took in things he'd missed that morning when he'd barged in after Sig's call. She had a fluffy down comforter and lace-trimmed sheets, the bed stand piled with a mix of popular novels, magazines and work-related documents and texts.
He noticed a watercolor on the wall, recognized the surf and rocks of Schoodic Point. It was signed in the lower right corner by Sig St.
Joe. Straker stared at the painting. It captured both the resilience and fragility of the Maine coast, as well as its beauty--everything he missed most during his years away at college, law school, Quantico, his various assignments with the FBI, first in the Boston field office, more recently with a counter-terrorism unit based in Washington. Where to next--he didn't know.
Looking at Sig's painting, he could understand, if not articulate, why her little sister worked so hard rescuing and rehabilitating marine animals--why the world's oceans so consumed her family. It was different from the forces that had driven Strakers to sea for generations, although his lobster man father always seemed to understand Emile's passion and dedication to oceanographic research and conservation.
Straker pulled his gaze away. He hadn't chosen a life on the water.
He couldn't predict what would happen to the North Atlantic in fifty years--but he could predict what questions the detectives were asking Riley St. Joe. They would ask her what she knew about the animosity between her grandfather and Sam Cas- sain, details about their working relationship over the years, her take on the Encounter tragedy. They'd ask her how she'd come to be on Labreque Island to find Sam's body.
Why she was visiting Emile, why she hadn't told anyone, why she was kayaking alone, how she'd come to be caught in the fog. They might get to Emile's relationship with the center he'd founded, the Granger family, his own family. But they might wait on that, too.
They'd ask her if she had any idea where her grandfather was. Straker was convinced she didn't, not because she wasn't above hiding that information from him. If it suited her, she'd lie to him--but she didn't know because otherwise she wouldn't be here, dressed for dinner.
She'd be out pestering Emile. She'd never let him just sneak off on her. That wasn't her style. She thought she had the right to know everything. It was the same natural curiosity that had led her to learn the Latin names of seaweed and mussels and all the other little creatures in a Maine tide pool.
Straker sat on the edge of her bed. Dangerous territory. He felt a little as if he were trespassing. He concentrated on the questions at hand. He was operating under the assumption that Emile had taken off on his own because he'd guessed the identity of the body Riley had stumbled on. But what if he'd run into trouble? What if he'd been hurt, kidnapped, killed?
Straker jumped up from the bed. Time to quit dithering. He needed to get out of here. He needed to go after Emile without Riley breathing down his neck. Or him breathing down hers.
Palladino pushed open the bedroom door.
"Walk out with us?"
My turn, Straker thought. He started toward the door.
"Let's go."
Riley talked herself out of skipping Abigail's dinner. She needed her routines. She needed her friends and colleagues. She also needed to get away from Straker, she thought, but that wasn't working out too well. He had all but stuffed her into his car to give her a ride to Beacon Hill. "I could have taken the subway or driven my own car," she repeated for at least the fourth time as he drove up Mount Vernon, Beacon Hill's widest and most well-known street.
"It's not as if I need a bodyguard."
"I'm being nice." "No, you're not. You're just a control freak.
That's why you joined the FBI."
He glanced at her as if she'd turned purple.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Well," she said, "I don't need you to give me a ride home. I'll take the subway or get a ride from someone at the dinner."
"Take a cab. Don't take the subway."
"Straker, it's not as if someone's going to hit me over the head and dump my body on the rocks. We don't know Sam was murdered."
"I know," he said.
She scowled.
"You're in fine form tonight. A control freak and a know-it-all.
That's Louisburg Square." She pointed to an intersection up ahead.
"Drop me off on the corner. I'll walk to Abigail's."
"Don't want to be seen with me?"
"Absolutely not. What are you going to do?"
He pulled over to the curb. His rusting Subaru with its Maine plates didn't exactly fit in with the expensive cars and stately town houses.
"Go back to your apartment and rummage through your underwear drawer."
"You are such a jerk."
He grinned, the evening light darkening his gray eyes.
"I'll go back and watch TV."
"Liar. You're going to snoop around here. If you cause me any trouble, Straker, I'll have your head. I swear I will. These are my friends and colleagues. This is my job.
"
"Looks like a Beacon Hill dinner party to me."
"I'm serious. I'm already on thin ice. You wouldn't be easy to explain if I hadn't just found Sam dead."
Straker leaned back in his seat. He didn't look too worried.
"Sure you can handle a brick sidewalk and cobblestones in those little shoes of yours?"
She jumped out of the car without bothering to answer. Instead of heading up Mount Vernon, he lingered. Riley felt his gaze on her as she negotiated the brick sidewalk to Louisburg Square, famous for its cobblestone streets and graceful nineteenth-century homes on a small, enclosed private park. After her husband's death last year, Caroline insisted on moving to a condo on the water, and Abigail had reluctantly moved back into her childhood home. Matthew and Sig had a town house on Chestnut Street, two blocks over. At least for now.
Riley didn't want to speculate what would happen if her sister's marriage ended in divorce.
Most of the guests had already arrived, gathering in the parlor of the elegant bowfront house. Good, Riley thought. That reduced the chances anyone had seen her arrive with Straker. She did not want to have to explain him.