The Harbor

Thirty-Five

The rain, the ocean and the wind pounded and swirled and howled outside the house where Olivia West had lived for a century. J.B. sat in the front room while Zoe and Bruce, like the childhood friends they were, argued over the fire they were trying to light. J.B. wasn't following the particulars, but finally Bruce looked around at him. "You're from Montana, McGrath. You must know how to light a fire. You do it."

"I can do it," Zoe said.

"Fine. Do it." Bruce got to his feet. "You remember how?"

She scowled at him, but J.B. knew that Bruce saw what J.B. saw, that Zoe hadn't even begun to come to terms with what had happened today. It was late, long after dinnertime, but none of them had eaten since morning. J.B. had drunk a cup of bad coffee at the Goose Harbor police station, where he'd told the Maine state police, the local police and the Special Agent in Charge of the Boston field office everything that had transpired since he'd arrived in town.

Donna Jacobs had left him alone to do a little more explaining to the SAC. "Hell of a vacation, McGrath," the SAC, a super-fit guy in his mid-forties, said. "How'd you get mixed up in this mess? A woman?"

A woman.

He watched Zoe pile her kindling in the fireplace the way she liked it and strike a match, the fire catching, spreading. She rolled back onto her knees and waited, as if it were the most important thing in the world that her fire not go out.

After J.B. shot Stick, she rolled herself out of the lobster boat and swam, not gracefully, until she could stand, then raced to Stick. She tried to revive him. J.B. had peeled her off her dead friend and wrapped her in his arms to keep her from going into hypothermia.

She didn't cry. She clung to him and said she should have seen it, she should have known her father was going after Stick. Olivia had seen it. Why hadn't she? But her father had stopped by to see his aunt almost every day of his life-he'd have told her things he didn't tell his cop daughter. And Olivia West had lived in Goose Harbor for a century-she was a keen observer of its residents, her friends, her neighbors, her family. She hadn't known it was Stick in the way Patrick and Zoe, two cops, would know it, but as a woman who'd lived a long life and who had wisdom and instincts.

It hadn't been a stranger, not to her, Patrick or Zoe.

It had been a friend. Zoe's mentor. A man who'd let himself slip to the point of no return.

From the way the state police treated their former colleague, J.B. could tell Zoe had been a damn good cop. They'd been proud of her. But there wasn't one of them, he knew, who thought she should come back.

And he hadn't even told them about the rose tattoo.

"Fire looks good," Bruce said.

When she turned, the flames glowed in her eyes, distant, almost a charcoal gray now, but she smiled. "Told you."

"You law enforcement types." Bruce sank back against the couch and groaned. "I get up this morning thinking I'm going to catch a few lobsters, and next thing my boat's a crime scene and I'm charging across the harbor with an armed and dangerous federal agent."

"You did okay out there today," J.B. said.

"Damn straight. You'd never have found anyone in that fog without me." But J.B. could see how shaken Bruce was over today's events. His teasing tone was for Zoe's benefit, to keep her from sinking too deep. "You two want me to get out of here?"

But it was too late. Christina burst in with food from the café, lobster rolls and fresh apples, an untouched wild blueberry pie. She'd obviously been crying. J.B. guessed it had something to do with Kyle Castellane. He wasn't a bad kid, and he'd been through a lot today, but he had more growing up to do. Christina knew who she was, what she wanted in life. Kyle wasn't ready for her.

"You West girls," Bruce said. "Tough as nails."

He helped set food on the table.

Zoe got stiffly to her feet and sat next to J.B. as she stared at her fire. "I've been over it a thousand times, and I don't know what else I could have done. I keep thinking if I hadn't gotten in the boat with him to begin with, or if I'd stopped him in the nature preserve-"

"You did stop him. You kept him from killing both Kyle and Shelton."

"Kyle helped."

"Good. It's about time the kid stood on his own two feet."

"He was afraid his father had killed Dad. Can you imagine? That was what the documentary was about- a cover so he could find out the truth. Stick must have suspected, and that's why he broke into the house and café. An FBI agent was sniffing around-Stick couldn't hide it anymore. He had to know what Kyle knew."

"He must have been worried Olivia managed to leave behind a clue."

"She wasn't confused. She was shocked and horrified and her mind wouldn't let her produce the name- but she knew who killed Dad. If I'd known it was someone from Goose Harbor, I'd never have left. I'd have kept digging, come hell or high water."

"Zoe, you're going to play this day over another thousand times. You know that, don't you?"

Her eyelids were drooping. She leaned against his shoulder, and by the time Bruce and Christina called them for dinner, she was asleep.

Betsy had finished packing her things. She carried her suitcases out to the afterdeck and realized she didn't like boats that much. For a day trip, maybe. Not to live in.

Luke was there in his rain gear, like he was a lobsterman or something. The rain dripped off his orange rain hat. He looked so sad. "I blew it with you, Betsy."

She nodded. "You did."

"I'm seeing someone after I get this legal mess sorted out and head south. I need help. I'll come back next summer. If you're still here, maybe-" He shrugged. "Who knows."

"Yeah. Who knows."

"It's a lot to ask you to forgive me."

"At least you can see you need forgiveness. That's a start."

His mouth had a grim set to it, but there was none of the usual defensive arrogance about him, no contempt, none of the mannerisms that he used to keep the world at bay. "Patrick West shouldn't have died. I could have done something."

"Maybe. You'll never know for sure."

"Kyle-I was so afraid he'd done something impulsive, stupid. No matter what I did, there was this nagging doubt. He's a young man with a lot of anger, creativity, drama."

"You wouldn't have been the first father duped."

"It was always at the back of my mind that he could have had a secret life, a problem with the law that he let get out of hand." Luke's voice was steady, as if he'd gone over this so many times in his mind that it was rote now. "He could have taken the Python out for target practice and accidentally shot Patrick. I didn't know. I didn't want to know."

"Stick manipulated all of you. He played you, Kyle, Teddy." Betsy shook her head in amazement. "It's all so insane."

"Kyle's abandoned his documentary. He-he had his questions about me, too." Luke touched her wet hair, a gentle, simple gesture that was so unlike him. "What are you going to do?"

She shrugged. "I don't know yet. Maybe I'll see you next summer, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay."

She carried her suitcases out onto the docks, slick with rain, the wind blowing hard as she walked out to her car. It was an awful night. She was soaked. But she drove up to the library, and nobody said anything when she went into the Olivia West Room and sat for a while.

J.B. went back to Washington to sort out his own life, and during the month he left her alone in Goose Harbor, he sent Zoe a rose-something every day. She had red roses, pink roses, yellow roses. One white rose. Rose notepaper. Rose powder. Rose bath oil. Rose hand lotion. Rose potpourri. Rose wrapping paper. Rosehip jam.

Her favorite was the print of beach roses.

It went on and on and made her laugh every time, made her miss him, but she knew he wouldn't come back until the month was up. He'd decreed it. She needed time.

She ran the three-mile loop in the nature preserve two mornings a week. It wasn't easy at first, but she did it. And she kayaked. She and Christina went at high tide and paddled between the islands where Stick had run aground. They saw a hawk perched atop a spruce tree, as if there just for them.

Zoe also got another tattoo. A tiny orchid on her ankle. She drove down to Connecticut for it and stopped to see Charlie and Bea Jericho. She showed them her scarf, which she'd finished at night by the fire, and out on the porch when the autumn winds weren't howling. Bea said she had potential as a knitter. Zoe took that to mean her scarf still looked like a dead snake.

The leaves had dropped. The tourists had gone home. The summer people had left. Luke Castellane, in town late while he sorted out his legal problems, donated Sutherland Island to the nature preserve in Olivia's memory. Zoe tried not to look at it as a ploy to get probation.

Every day, Zoe wrote. It was still her secret. She bought more pillows and a more comfortable rug-just in case-and tried a fountain pen, gel pens, Flairs. All she asked of herself was to have fun. Whatever came after that-well, so be it. But her Jen Periwinkle was something else. She'd come to life in Zoe's mind, and on paper. The granddaughter of Olivia's agent had been in touch, just to check in-Zoe suspected Special Agent

J. B. McGrath had had something to do with it.

Then an antique rose pin Olivia West and Posey Sutherland might have worn as teenagers arrived in the mail, and Zoe couldn't stand it anymore. She decided to pack up her car and find her way to Washington,

D.C., and McGrath's door. She'd been good at tracking down people at one time. But she didn't get very far. The next morning when she was ready to leave, Bruce's truck turned up her driveway and J.B. got out. "My spies were in touch." He walked toward her in his jeans and leather vest. "I had to fly up here."

"Bruce. That big mouth."

J.B. smiled. "I never reveal my sources."

"Sources is too polite. He's a snitch. You two-"

"We're distant cousins."

"I wasn't running. I was going to find you."

"That's what Bruce thought. He was worried you'd get arrested in D.C., or get me in trouble again."

"Uh-huh. Like you need my help getting in trouble."

"No more undercover work for me," he said. "I train undercover agents now. I show them the scar on my throat. If they don't run, they're in. If they don't get scared, they're out."

"Why do I never know when you're serious?"

"Because I like to keep you off balance." But he was in front of her now, close enough that he could slip an arm around the small of her back and kiss her. "Miss me?"

"You have no idea-"

"But I do. I spent this last month alone, too."

"J.B.-"

He touched her mouth with one finger. "Before you go any further, I want to tell you that I'm not done with the bureau yet. I'm not going back undercover, but I'm not standing down. I need you to understand that."

She nodded. "It's what I've been expecting. I've been fantasizing about life in Washington. Hydrangea. Prowling the Smithsonian. It sounds like an adventure." She smiled, kissing him this time, and she whispered her only secret. "I want to write, J.B."

"I know."

"But I'm not ready to sit up here for the next seventy years and do it. This'll make a great second home, don't you think?"

"Zoe-"

"I love you. My God, J.B., I love you so much. Do you want me to stand on the bluff and yell it across the harbor?"

He inhaled sharply, caught her up with both arms and lifted her. "And I thought I was going to have to drag that out of you. Bruce said-"

"Since when are you discussing me with Bruce?"

"He knows I love you. He's known it from day one. Ah, Zoe." He swung her in a circle in the driveway and laughed in a way she hadn't heard before, then set her down. "I flew out to Montana and brought Olivia's letters to my grandmother back with me."

Zoe stared at him. "What?"

"I'm giving them to you. You can burn them if you want. They had a grand sense of adventure, the two of them, each in her own way. Posey married and went off to Montana and died young, Olivia stayed here and never married and lived to a ripe old age. It's what happened."

"J.B.-"

"I thought we could bring the letters up to that attic nook of yours and read them." He smiled. "Or not."

"I put a new rug up there."

"Did you? Like minds and all that, because that's your present for today."

And he went back to Bruce's truck and got the letters and a rug that he flung out right there in the driveway. It wasn't as soft as the one she picked out, but it had a big fat red rose right in the middle of it.

"Spies, ha. You bought that rug and couldn't stand it anymore yourself."

He winked at her. "As I said, like minds."

Zoe scooped up the rug and followed him onto the side porch, pausing to look out at the ocean churning under the gray November sky. She remembered how she and her sister had stood on the rocks and scattered Olivia's and her father's