Breakwater

8

When she took her tea out to the porch in the morning, Quinn told herself that Alicia must have shown up at her apartment last night and by now was on her way to work, yesterday’s drama behind her. Quinn had tried calling, but her cell phone was balky. She’d walk down to the water after her tea and try again.

She sat on a wicker rocker and pulled her feet up under her, cupping her mug with both hands to feel the warmth of the steaming tea. She had on her oversize sweater, a flannel shirt, jeans and just her socks. She expected the cool air and the cry of seagulls in the distance, the sounds of the tide washing in and out, but not, she thought, the very buff man in running shorts and a ratty T-shirt jogging on the road in front of her cottage.

He didn’t seem to notice her. When he reached the end of her road, just past her cottage, he did a wide turn and paused briefly to stretch. His dark hair was cut very short, not quite a crewcut, and he had a thickset build, with a flat abdomen and muscular arms, shoulders and thighs. He was obviously a physical man, not some guy dragging himself out for an early-morning jog to lose a few pounds.

When he reached the end of her stone walk, Quinn couldn’t resist calling out to him. “Nice morning for a run, isn’t it?”

She didn’t seem to have startled him. He stopped, not even remotely out of breath as he squinted at her on the porch. “That it is. I’m new in town. You live here?”

“It’s my weekend place.”

“Today’s Tuesday.”

She set her mug on a small table to one side of her rocker. “I was speaking in broad terms. My name’s Quinn-Quinn Harlowe.”

“Huck Boone.”

“Are you one of the new guys at Breakwater Security?”

Just a flicker of hesitation. “That’s right.” He nodded toward the dead-end road and the barbed wire. “I guess we’re neighbors.”

“No one but a seagull or an osprey would try to get to Breakwater through the marsh. It’s rough going. When did you get here?”

“Over the weekend.”

“This your first time jogging out this way?”

“No, why?”

He was calm and very direct, but obviously wondering why she was asking such questions. But she had dreamed about Alicia last night, not good dreams. “I got here late yesterday thinking a friend of mine who borrowed my cottage for the weekend might still be here. I guess I’m wondering if you’ve run into her.”

“Was she supposed to be here?”

“I don’t know where she’s supposed to be. It’s a long story.”

“Hope you find her.”

“Does that mean you haven’t seen her?”

He paused a moment. “What’s her name?”

“Alicia Miller. Her car’s not here, and none of her stuff’s here.”

And no suicide note, Quinn thought. In a fit of paranoia, she’d searched the cottage before going to bed last night and found nothing that eased her mind about Alicia-nothing, either, that indicated she’d had a complete mental breakdown. The place was clean and tidied up, not even a dish left in the sink.

Huck Boone, she noticed, hadn’t moved a muscle.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” she said quickly.

“You don’t sound sure.”

Quinn found herself wanting to tell him about Alicia’s odd behavior yesterday, but she resisted. “I’m heading back to Washington this morning. If you do hear of anything-” She debated her options. “Can you hang on a second? I’ll give you my cell-phone number.”

Boone shrugged. “Okay.”

She ran inside and grabbed a notepad and pen off the coffee table, where she’d spread out files and papers and had tried to work last night. She quickly scrawled down her number, folding the small sheet in half as she returned to the porch.

She walked along the stone path in her stocking feet, Boone meeting her halfway. His eyes, she saw, were a dark green, at least in the cool morning light of early April. Quinn tried to smile, but knew she didn’t quite manage. “Since you’re in private security…” She let her shoulders lift and fall in an exaggerated manner. “Never mind. I’m just covering all the bases I can think of, in case something’s happened to her.”

“Why do you think anything’s happened to her?”

“I don’t-”

“Yes, you do.”

She felt sudden tears in her eyes and hoped he would blame them on the cold air.

“Does she know Oliver Crawford?”

“Not well. They met briefly at a party last month.” Quinn blinked back the tears. “He and I have met a few times, but I don’t know him well, either.”

Interest rose in Boone’s expression. Little, she suspected, escaped this man’s attention, a skill that had to be a plus in private security work.

But she brought her mind back to the subject at hand, adding, “Oliver Crawford and my former boss-Alicia’s current boss-are friends. They went to college together.”

“And your boss would be-”

“Gerard Lattimore.” She didn’t know how she’d ended up giving him this information about herself. “He’s a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.”

“What are you, a lawyer?”

“Historian.”

Boone took a second to digest that information but had no visible reaction. “You don’t work for this Lattimore anymore?”

“No. I left Justice in January.”

“He knows your friend’s missing?”

Quinn realized the tables had turned and now Huck Boone was interrogating her. He was a security type, she reminded herself, and such tactics probably came naturally to him. But she didn’t feel particularly reassured. “Alicia’s not missing. She’s just-I just haven’t accounted for her.”

Boone didn’t relent. “But Lattimore knows?”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Crawford?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t talked with him.”

“You don’t socialize with him in Washington?”

“I told you, I don’t know him that well. And these days, Mr. Boone, any socializing I do is work related.”

He grinned unexpectedly and leaned toward her. “Then it’s not socializing, is it?” He straightened, his eyes softer now, not as intense. “Since we’re neighbors, you can just call me Huck.”

She felt a twitch of a smile. “Huck Boone. That’s quite a name, isn’t it? Makes me think of Huckleberry Finn and Daniel Boone-”

“My folks have a strange sense of humor. I should get rolling. You okay? Anything I can do for you?”

His concern took her aback, and she wondered just how tight and preoccupied she appeared. She glanced out at the osprey nest at the mouth of the cove and almost told him about Alicia’s pleas, but she’d told Boone, a man she didn’t know at all, more than she’d meant to as it was. “I’m okay. Thanks for asking,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you from your run.”

“Just getting loose. We’re getting put through our paces today at Breakwater.”

“Good luck.”

He winked at her. “Thanks.”

He jogged off toward the loop road at a moderate pace.

Quinn didn’t immediately return to her hot tea. The bay glistened in the morning sun, the water quiet and very blue under the clear sky. She wondered how many of Oliver Crawford’s guys would be jogging past her cottage now that he’d converted his estate into a private security outfit.

She started across the road, then remembered she was in her socks. But they were damp now, anyway, and she continued on her way, taking the narrow, sandy path through the tall marsh grass down to the water. The tide was out, leaving behind wet sand, slippery grass and swirling shallow pools. Using one hand to block the sun, she squinted out at the enormous osprey nest, but it was empty, the female, presumably, still out hunting.

As she turned to head back to the cottage for her cell phone, a fishing boat out in the water beyond her cove caught her eye. Something bright drew her gaze downward, out past her waterfront to the edge of the protected marsh.

Red.

What would be red on the shore?

“I have a red kayak,” she said aloud.

Had Alicia left it in the marsh?

Why? Dropping her hand from her eyes, Quinn ran back up to the road and down to the marsh, pushing her way through thick marsh grass onto a narrow path. Her socks were soaked through now, covered with sand. Barely breaking stride, she lifted one foot and pulled off her wet sock, then lifted the other, leaving the socks on the path and pressing forward barefoot, the cold sand a shock.

She kept running toward the water, noticing gulls up ahead.

Gulls…

Why so many? Quinn counted five near the shore.

The path curved, and she saw the red kayak lying parallel to the beach, partly submerged in the receding tide. The gulls seemed to be picking at something in the tall marsh grass.

Quinn felt a crawling sensation at the top of her spine. Her mouth went dry. She tucked her hands up into the sleeves of her sweater and slowed her pace, ignoring her frozen feet.

More gulls arrived.

“Shoo!” She waved her arms at the birds, but they stayed with their find, whatever it was.

She looked up toward the road, hoping to see someone-anyone-she could call to walk with her down to the kayak and the gulls and see what was there. But there was no one.

With a nauseating sense of dread, she forced herself to veer off the path through the knee-high grass, still cold with the morning dew, slapping at her as her feet sank into the wet, shifting sand.

A dolphin? A small whale? Was it possible something had beached itself here on the edge of a Chesapeake Bay marsh? She was a historian, not a naturalist. She’d fancied that in her spare time, on long, lazy weekends, she could study bay life, learn the names of the birds and fish and wildflowers and grasses.

She came to the kayak and forced herself to look where the sea gulls were feasting.

A leg.

“Oh no.”

Now Quinn could see blond hair.

She recognized the blue sweater and the jeans Alicia had worn yesterday morning.

“Alicia!”

Quinn’s scream didn’t faze the gulls. She turned around, facing the road, and yelled for help, her stomach knotting, bile rising in her throat. She didn’t know if her screams were louder than the cries of the gulls or the tide, if anyone was nearby to hear her.

She made herself turn back toward Alicia and flapped her arms and yelled at the gulls, kicked sand at them, but only two flew off. When the rest refused to leave, Quinn took a closer look.

Alicia was sprawled facedown in the shallow water, strands of underwater grass tangled on her lower legs. Her feet were bare. Her sport sandals must have come off.

Quinn dropped onto her knees, shivering, her teeth chattering from cold and fear.

Please don’t be dead.

But she quickly saw there was no point in checking for a pulse.

“Oh, Alicia,” she whispered, sobbing. “You can’t be dead. Oh, God, no.”

“Quinn-”

Startled, she leaped up, spinning around right into Huck Boone. She took a step back, tripping on the kayak, but he grabbed her by the upper arm, steadying her.

He looked past her and tightened his grip on her.

“It’s-it’s my friend.” Quinn’s voice was hoarse. “Alicia. Alicia Miller. She’s…” I can’t say it.

“We need to call the police. Do you have a cell phone?”

“What?”

“A phone.”

“Yes. It’s at my cottage.”

He released her arm and touched her shoulder. “Go. Call 911. I’ll wait here.” When she didn’t respond, he squeezed her shoulder gently. “You’ve had a hell of a shock. There’s nothing you can do for your friend now except to call the police and get her out of here.”

Quinn knew he was right. He hadn’t known Alicia-he wasn’t facing the horror of seeing a friend dead. “The kayak…” Her entire body shaking now, teeth chattering, Quinn tried to point to the kayak. “I didn’t realize it was missing.”

“No reason for you to have noticed. Quinn-”

She tried to focus on anything but Alicia’s body, disfigured by seawater and seagulls. “The storms-Alicia must have been out in the storms yesterday. Why would she do that?”

“I’ll go make the call. Where’s your cell phone?”

“Kitchen counter.” But she grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his hard muscle. “Wait. Did you see the kayak on your run?”

“I wasn’t looking at the scenery.”

Suspicion rippled through her. “You weren’t out here to find her?”

Huck pried her fingers off his arm, holding on to them just for a second. “No, Quinn, I was out for a run. Come on. Let’s go back to the cottage and call the police together-”

“I can’t leave Alicia. I need to keep the gulls away.”

His expression softened.

“I’ll be okay,” Quinn added. “The shock-” She cleared her throat, stiffened herself against the trembling and shivering. “I didn’t expect to find her out here.”

“Of course not. I’ll be back in two minutes. Don’t touch anything-”

“I know,” she said quietly. “The police will need to investigate.”

Huck gave a curt nod and, after a slight hesitation, as if he was reconsidering leaving her there alone, he headed back up the narrow path.

Quinn heard the sharp cry of a gull, and felt her stomach lurch. An autopsy. They’ll have to cut Alicia open.

Her knees buckled and she tasted bile.

She knew Alicia was dead and yet wished she could shield her friend from what came next. Police, paramedics. Reporters. People who never knew her asking questions. Speculating. Judging.

They would want to know what had happened and why.

They’d ask Quinn about her encounter with Alicia yesterday in Washington.

Strangers would determine whether Alicia’s death was an accident or suicide.

Would anyone even suspect murder?

“The osprey will kill me.”

The crazy words of a disturbed woman.

No, Quinn thought. No one would suspect murder.