"Why do you think I was in such a rotten mood last night?"
He couldn't know Sig was pregnant. He'd seen her, and he still hadn't figured it out. Riley groaned inwardly. He was even more thick headed than she'd imagined. Wouldn't a husband somehow divine these things?
As if she knew anything about husbands. Or even men. The one man she'd kissed in recent months she'd just sent packing as a stalker.
"Honestly, Matt," she said, shaking her head with a sudden smile.
"Sig can have you. If you were my husband, I'd have poisoned you by now."
He laughed, but somehow ended up looking even more haggard.
"I can't wait to meet the poor bastard who falls for you, Riley. It'll be a hell of a show." He trotted down the steps; when he reached the sidewalk, he glanced back at her" deadly serious.
"I just gave you good advice. Follow it."
Fifteen minutes later, she had her backpack crammed with essentials--underwear, flannel boxers, toothbrush, makeup, water sandals, hiking socks, hiking clothes, regular clothes. The phone rang twice while she was packing. Reporters. With any luck, she'd get out before they or the police could land on her doorstep.
Straker had gone back to Maine. He must have. Where else would he go?
Caroline Granger was en route, Abigail, Henry, her own father. Her sister and mother were already there. Riley had no idea where Matt would end up.
So. It made sense. She would go to Maine, too.
Eight -^ @^ Oig lay on the studio bed with her feet up and the hem of her voluminous dress pulled to her knees. She wasn't wearing socks.
She stared at her legs and wondered if she'd get varicose veins. She'd been on her feet again all day, painting, sketching, playing, but at least she'd gone for a long walk, too, not letting the off-and-on rain deter her. Now she just wished someone would bring her tea and toast.
If she could, she'd stay on her mother's porch forever. She had no desire to go out into the cold, cruel world. Let someone else slay the dragons.
It was the fight or flight principle at work, she knew. She would choose flight every time. Riley, of course, would choose fight.
Someone knocked on the back door, and Sig yawned. No doubt it would be the same person who'd been ringing the front doorbell, which she hadn't bothered to answer; her mother was out. It wasn't Matt. Matt wouldn't have bothered knocking. Maybe it was a dragon after all, she thought.
She roused herself enough to see John Straker's deadly, sexy face in the doorway.
"A dragon indeed," she said to herself, then called, "Door's open."
He came in, and the years since she'd seen him fell away. He was the same John Straker she'd known since childhood, never mind the FBI and six months on Labreque Island recovering from bullet wounds. He was fit, agile, alert and just impatient and irritated enough for her to know Riley was under his skin. Good for you, Sis, she thought.
Straker was the perfect kind of man for her sister--in her face, impossible to intimidate, there. Riley would never tolerate the kind of unconventional relationship their parents had.
"I tried the front door," he said.
"You didn't hear the doorbell?"
"No, I did. I just didn't bother with it, and Mom's off to the post office."
His gaze dropped to her abdomen, and he said with typical Straker frankness, "You're pregnant?"
"Oh--shit, it's that obvious?"
"Nah. I'm a trained FBI agent."
She smiled.
"It is that obvious. Mom hasn't said a word."
"Then she's minding her own business, which isn't a dominant gene in this family. Husband doesn't know?"
She sighed and shook her head. Matt had stood right where Straker was standing, and he hadn't no's ticed. Of course, she'd had a blanket pulled up to her nose.
"Well, good luck. Shouldn't you avoid paint fumes?"
"They're watercolors, and I have good ventilation out here." She dropped her feet to the floor and stood up, feeling a mild strain in her lower back.
"You've always been one to cut to the chase, haven't you?"
He grinned.
"I thought this was small talk."
"For you, maybe."
He walked over to her worktable and eyed the painting on her board. It was inspired by her mother's yellow mums, spatter layers of yellow and white. Her best work of the summer.
"You planning to sell any of your stuff?"
"I don't know. I haven't given it much thought."
"Are you any good?"
She smiled.
"I like that particular painting. I guess it's a start."
He turned to her, his gray eyes taking in her sweep of dress, her bulging stomach, her wild hair hanging down her back.
"What're you doing up here in Maine, Sig?"
"Hiding."
"From what?"
She blinked rapidly, trying to keep back the tears. Damned hormones.
"Myself, mostly." She breathed through her nose and refused to cry.
"What about you?"
"That's simple. I'm looking for Emile." Straker took a couple of steps toward her. He radiated strength, virility, toughness. Sig wouldn't be surprised if her sister hadn't even noticed.
"I think he's out to track down whoever killed Sam Cassain."
Sig could feel the weight of the past few days, the seriousness. A man was dead. Sam was dead. "I think so, too."
"But you," Straker said.
"You're just hiding."
"I understand you were on Beacon Hill last night. I heard my husband behaved like a perfect jackass. You saw what it's like. I don't fit in. There's no place for me there."
"So? Make your place."
"Matt thinks Emile should be in jail." She wondered why she was telling this man anything, much less her deepest thoughts and feelings.
"He's obsessed with proving that my grandfather's negligence and arrogance led to the Encounter tragedy. He won't let go. His father died a terrible death, and Matt wants vengeance. Justice, he'd say."
"What about you?"
Her shoulders slumped.
"I just want the whole thing to go away."
"It won't, not until the police have Cassain's death settled. Emile thinks it's murder. Otherwise he wouldn't have taken off."
"What do you think?"
"It's murder. I'd look to the Encounter disaster for clues."
She was definitely dealing with cut-to the-chase John Straker. It was a quality that had made him few friends, even in high school. The friends he had, Sig knew, would die for him.
"Riley didn't come with you, did she?"
"I let her fry in her own fat awhile. She's a damned pain in the ass."
"She's not in any danger" -- "Only from me. I might strangle her."
Sig smiled, saw the scar her sister had put in his forehead.
"You two."
But he didn't smile back.
"I need to find Emile, Sig. He was in Boston last night. He must have a base--a friend's house, an old campsite, a pile of rocks somewhere.
Do you have any ideas?"
"No, I wish I did. I haven't had much to do with him the past year. To be honest, I'm not so sure Matt's not right about him. Emile..." She threw up her hands.
"You know what he's like."
"When you and Riley were kids," Straker persisted, "you must have had places the three of you talked about, visited. If you think of anything, even if it's unlikely, let me know."
"Where will I find you?"
"Hell if I know. I'll check back with you from time to time." He moved to the kitchen door, listened.
"I think I hear your mother coming in.
I need to talk to her. You staying out here? "
Sig nodded.
"Forever if I could."
He hesitated at the door. "Your husband might be a jackass, but unless you think he'd hurt you or the baby, you should tell him he's going to be a father."
"I don't recall asking for your opinion," she said, more as a point of information than out of anger.
"Don't worry--it's free."
"And it's babies. I'm having twins."
He grinned and gave her a wink.
"Hell. Maybe you shouldn't tell him.
Or if you want to give him a heart attack, lay the news on him without any warning. "
"You're terrible!"
"So I've been told. By the way," he added, pulling open the door, "I figure I had about a two-hour head start on your sister. She'll be here before nightfall."
"She knows you were headed here?"
"No."
"Then how" -- "Trust me. She hasn't changed since she was six years old. She'll be here."
Mara gave him about three minutes before she insisted on serving him tea and a fresh, gooey coconut macaroon in the front parlor. She wore drawstring pants and a plaid flannel over shirt and every instinct Straker had said she was holding on to the last shreds of her sanity and self-control. Her family was in crisis. Her father, her two daughters. It couldn't be easy. She was tense, preoccupied and couldn't stand still.