"When you lose yourself in the battle," he said, "you're no damned good to anyone."
Granger glanced back.
"Take care of my wife."
"How can you leave her?"
The man's eyes flashed with a pain so deep and penetrating Straker felt a certain sympathy for the poor bastard.
"I have no choice. I wouldn't be any kind of husband if I didn't." He hesitated, added in a strangled voice, "Any kind of father."
Hell, Straker thought, and he let the man go.
He met up with Riley back in the waiting room. Sig was down for the rest of the night, her parents still with her.
"Matt?" Riley asked.
"Gone."
She nodded, almost as if she understood.
"You don't look so good, St. Joe. Come on. You can zonk out in the car. When we get to Schoodic, it'll be time for breakfast." / "When we get to Schoodic, it'll be four in the morning."
He grinned.
"Like I said, time for breakfast."
He drove back up the coast and pulled up to a one- room shack of a restaurant on the water. Riley stirred. She'd fought sleep for a few minutes, but the warm car, fatigue and adrenaline had overcome her resistance. She glanced at him now and tried to smile. Her face was still smudged with soot, her eyes heavy from sleep and the aftereffects of her ordeal. "I smell like an old fireplace."
"This crowd won't even notice."
The half-dozen tables and small counter of the tiny, rustic restaurant were occupied by lobster men chatting over plates of eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, with steaming mugs of coffee. It was Sunday morning, not as crowded as a weekday. Straker's father kicked two other guys from his table and motioned for his son and Riley to sit down. Straker started to apologize to the guys--he'd gone to high school with one of them--but they assured him they were just leaving.
"Pop" -His father held up a hand. John Straker, Sr. " was a burly, gray-haired, iron-willed man with simple aspirations, all met. He called to the waitress, " Two coffees and two plates of eggs with the works over here, when you get to it. " He looked at Riley.
"I get that right?"
She smiled.
"Perfect."
He turned to his son.
"You both look like you could use some good food. How close did you cut it last night?"
"It wasn't close for me," Straker said.
"But Riley and her sister..."
"I heard if they'd waited another ten minutes before jumping out the window, they'd have been charcoal briquettes."
Straker turned to Riley.
"I'm afraid bluntness runs in my family."
"What?" His father was mystified.
"Jesus, John, if anyone knows how close she came, it's Riley. How're you doing, kid? Eggs'll be here in a minute. A good breakfast'll fix you right up."
Their coffees arrived, followed quickly by their breakfasts. Riley picked at her food at first, but after a few sips of coffee, she showed more interest. She was awake and alert, a bit less pale. She was listening, Straker knew, to his father, who had his own opinions on Emile, Sam Cassain and the fire. Despite Emile's fame and his work in waters far beyond theirs, the local lobster men still considered him one of them. In their minds, Emile Labreque had never forgotten his roots. They thought he'd got a raw deal last year, not because he couldn't have screwed up--they weren't there; they didn't know--but because Sam Cassain should have kept his mouth shut without substantial and convincing proof of Emile's negligence.
"It's just not how things're done," John Straker, Sr. " said.
How Cassain had turned up dead on Labreque Is's land had been a subject of much speculation all week. Emile's whereabouts, however, didn't seem to stir up as much interest. Straker thought this was curious.
"We need to find Emile," he told his father.
"I'm guessing he's on the coast somewhere."
"You want me to keep an eye out, pass the word?"
"Just don't do anything crazy."
"That's your department," his father said without rancor. He shifted his gaze to Riley.
"It's rough, getting the call your son's been shot and might not live.
I don't want to see you and your sister doing that to your mother and father."
Riley set her mug down on the small wooden table. Outside, the tide was coming in, the water almost black against the slowly brightening sky. Straker could feel his father itching to get to his traps.
"You and Sig--you two need to leave this thing to the police," the lobster man added.
"Let them do their jobs." He sat back in his chair, said grudgingly, "At least when John got shot, he was doing his job."
"Emile's my grandfather," Riley said.
"So?"
"So I am minding my own business."
His father leaned forward, his bushy eyebrows drawn together. "You were almost killed a few hours ago. Go back to Boston. Take your sister with you. Your grandfather never asked for your help, did he?"
She breathed in, paling just a little.
"Thanks for the advice, Mr.
Straker. "
He snorted.
"You won't take it. You're half La- breque."
He insisted on paying for his son's and Riley's breakfasts. When they were back in her car, Riley looked grimly at Straker. "He knows where Emile is, doesn't he?"
"I'd say he has a fair idea."
"Then let's follow him."
Straker started the car. "You and I think we know these waters, but we don't. My father and his friends have been working this coast for decades. Day in and day out, year after year." He backed up the vehicle, choked down his own frustration with his father before it could take hold.
"We wouldn't stand a chance."
Twelve -^Q /^~
-K-iley felt her stomach roll over when Straker pulled into Emile's driveway and she saw the smoking remains of the cottage. She ached with fatigue, sorrow, fear. Memories swam over her, of the countless times she'd watched the sun come up from the front porch, of the cookouts and the foggy days reading by the fire. It was here Emile could be simply a grandfather, not the famous, driven oceanographer, the researcher, the seaman. The cottage had provided continuity in the rootless childhood of his granddaughters, and now it was gone.
Straker pulled on the emergency brake, his expression serious, focused.
"You've got your FBI face on," Riley told him, but her attempt at humor fell flat.
"Emile still has the land," he said, as if reading her mind.
"He can rebuild."
"It won't be the same."
He looked at her.
"Nothing's ever the same."
Her father had driven up from Ellsworth and was speaking to investigators in front of the cottage. He spotted Riley, gave her a quick wave as she and Straker got out of her car. The air smelled charred. Her throat was tight, and she pushed down a wave of nausea, tensed in an effort to keep from shaking.
"I refuse to believe Emile did this." She wasn't sure she was addressing Straker or talking to herself, reinforcing what she knew, in her gut, to be true.
"It just doesn't make sense. A fire this time of year, when it's so dry--he wouldn't risk having it spread to the nature preserve. Straker, if you hadn't come along, this whole point could have gone up in flames."
He nodded. "What did happen is bad enough. The might-have-be ens can drive you over the edge. Stay focused on the facts and let the investigators do their job."
"What if their job is to arrest Emile and he's an innocent man?"
"They'll figure that out."
"And meanwhile the real bad guy gets away. Someone's setting him up, Straker. You know it as well as I do."
"A successful frame isn't as easy to accomplish as it sounds."
She swallowed past her constricted throat.
"It is if the person you've framed ends up dead."
Straker gave her a sideways glance, but said nothing as her father extricated himself from the investigators. He looked exhausted, the eccentric scientist out of his element.
"They want to talk to you," he told Riley.
"They already have a theory about how the fire started. Basically, you soak a rag in linseed oil, put it over a lightbulb and drape something--a curtain, a sheet, whatever--over the lamp. Linseed oil is very flammable, spontaneously com busts easily."
"Wouldn't Sig or I have seen the light?"
"The fire started in Emile's bedroom. They're positive about that much. If the door was closed, the light draped with the rag and a sheet..." He shook his head.
"It's not surprising you wouldn't have noticed. The investigators tell me it's a crude but effective method of setting a time-delayed fire."