On Fire

“So, do I get to come in?”

She hit the off button and tossed her phone onto the couch. What did he think he was doing? Six months alone on an island—and now Boston? He’d kill someone. Someone would kill him. He was not fit for the civilized world.

It was the body. Something must have happened.

She was hyperventilating. She clamped her mouth shut and held her breath, forcing herself to count to five. If she didn’t let Straker in, what would he do?

If she did let him in, what would he do?

She unlocked her door and took the two flights of stairs two and even three steps at a time. She picked up so much momentum, she almost went head-overteakettle down the front stoop. After throwing up, all she needed was to split her head open at Straker’s feet.

He had his window rolled down.

Riley caught her breath. “I can’t believe you drove all the way down from Maine.”

He popped the last of a Big Mac into his mouth. “Now that you mention it, neither can I.”

“What do you want?”

He reached for a backpack on the floor in front of the passenger seat, rolled up his window, locked his door and climbed out. He looked just as powerful and strong and unflappable on her Porter Square sidewalk as on Labreque Island. The city didn’t make him any more or less than what he was—a man she would be wise to avoid. His own mother had said so.

“Our body came with a nasty blow to the head,” he said. “CID’s treating it as a suspicious death.”

“You mean—what—” Her stomach rolled over. “Are you suggesting he was murdered?”

“That’s my bet.”

He hoisted his backpack over one shoulder and started for her front stoop as if he’d just told her a dog had peed on her rug. Riley stayed on the sidewalk next to his car. She couldn’t move. Her knees wobbled. He wasn’t just John Straker, obnoxious teenager from her past. He was an FBI agent. He’d been shot twice by some dangerous nut on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. He’d spent the last six months as a recluse.

Straker turned back to her. He shook his head. “You aren’t going to throw up, are you?”

That unmoored her. She brushed past him and walked up the steps with as much nonchalance as she could fake. She prided herself on her ability to look reality square in the eye. Right now, the reality was that Straker was here, and she had to deal with him. She headed upstairs, assuming he would follow. He did.

“I figured you for a condo on the water,” he said from behind her.

“Too expensive.”

“Well, I guess you’re comfortable among Cambridge eggheads.”

She glanced back at him, cool. “Don’t inflict your stereotypes on me, Straker.”

He shrugged. “Tell me your apartment won’t have egghead written all over it.”

“Just shut up.”

She could feel his grin as she pushed open her door. He’d always known how to jerk her chain. He walked in past her, took in her living room with her stuff stacked and spread out everywhere and gave her a smug wink. “I rest my case.”

“I haven’t had a chance to clean—”

“You have enough books and magazines and crap in here to start your own think tank.” He walked over to her computer table, cluttered with printouts and Post-it Notes. The wall behind it was covered with nautical charts. He ran a finger over the flamingo Beanie Baby she kept on her monitor. “Egghead with a touch of kook.”

Riley gritted her teeth. “Straker, I swear I don’t know how people stand you.”

“They don’t.” He abandoned her computer and came closer to her. It was as if he’d brought an electric current into her apartment; the air sizzled. “You’re looking a little green at the gills. Want me to fetch you a drink?”

“No. I want you to tell me why you’re here.”

He lifted a stack of Audubon magazines off her futon couch, set them on the floor next to a stack of Smithsonian magazines and sat down. “Emile took off.”

“What do you mean, he took off?”

“I mean he took out the trash, made his bed, locked up and vamoosed. No car, no boat. He probably hid one—my bet’s on the car. Emile’s a sailor at heart. He’d go by water if he had a choice.”

Riley ignored a sudden chill and uneasiness. “You’re thinking like an FBI agent instead of someone who knows Emile. He does this sort of thing. He’ll go off for days at a time without telling anyone.”

“Does he always hide his car?”

“You don’t know he hid it. He could have just used it to haul supplies to his boat, then didn’t want to take the trouble of driving it back up to the cottage, so left it.”

Straker shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He leaned back and stretched out his thick legs. Riley didn’t remember him being so earthy. He seemed to exude sexuality. It had to be deliberate. A way of throwing her off balance in case she was hiding something from him. He glanced around. “No cat?”

“What?”

“I figured you’d have a cat.”

She groaned. “This is outrageous. I think you should leave.”

“I’d have to sleep in my car. I don’t have enough dough on me for a hotel.”

“Don’t you have a credit card?”

“Nope. I got rid of all my plastic after I got shot.”

He was perfectly calm, controlled and irritatingly at ease. Riley sputtered, “You can’t think…”

She fought the overwhelming sense she was losing her mind. The man she’d found may have been murdered, Emile had slipped off and John Straker, who’d been living on a deserted island for the past six months, was in her apartment. She hadn’t had a man in her apartment in months, not since after the Encounter, when the oceanographer she’d been casually dating said for her to take a few weeks to pull her head together, he’d be in touch. He hadn’t been in touch, and her life had gone on. She had her work. Romance would take care of itself.

She winced. It was dangerous to think about romance with John Straker standing inches from her. “You’re not spending the night,” she told him.

His gray eyes leveled on her. “Sure I am. Why else the backpack?”

Why else indeed. She should have connected the dots sooner, like out on the street. “Then what?”

He shrugged. “The morning will bring what the morning will bring.”

“To hell with you, Straker. You have a plan and you know it. What is it? Do you think Emile had something to do with that dead body? Do you think he’s going to contact me? Has already contacted me?” She thrust her hands onto her hips, in full outrage now. “Are you going to follow me around just in case I’m up to something nefarious?”

“Nefarious?” He grinned. “I’ve been in law enforcement for ten years, and I don’t think I’ve ever used that word.”