Breakwater

His wife touched his hand. “Joe.”

Neither Riccardi said anything as Huck ducked into the converted barn. A straight hall ran down the middle, with rooms on either side, like horse stalls. There was a kitchen with cafeteria tables, an office, a men’s room, a shower room. The bedrooms were at the far end—mostly singles, but a few doubles and one triple with its own private bath, apparently for any women who showed up. So far, Sharon Riccardi was the only female on the premises, but she stayed in the main house with her husband.

Huck ran into Vern Glover at the far end of the hall. “I heard about the dead woman, Boone. Damn. Couldn’t you have picked a different route for your morning run and kept us out of this thing?”

“Sure. Next time I’ll check my crystal ball to find out where the dead people are.”

“You ran past the body and didn’t see it?”

Vern had him there. Huck had noticed the red kayak in the tall grass out by the water, but hadn’t thought much of it. If he’d investigated, he could have spared Quinn the trauma of discovering her friend’s body.

“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” he said.

Travis Lubec emerged from the room across the hall from Huck’s. Lubec had just moved into the converted barn. He had worked security for Oliver Crawford for a couple of years and wasn’t among those fired after his kidnapping—apparently, Crawford had ignored some piece of sage advice Lubec had given him before his trip to the Caribbean.

Nick Rochester, a kid maybe a hair older than Cully O’Dell, joined the men in the hall, coming in through the back door. He and Lubec were scrubbed, serious and ultrafit, wearing Breakwater Security polo shirts and khakis, their weapons in shoulder holsters.

Lubec’s gaze fell on Huck. “You’re bad luck, Boone.”

Rochester nodded. “Hell, yeah. You’re here, what, three days, and you’ve already managed to stumble on a body and end up under the hot lights, talking to the feds.”

“Just one fed,” Huck said. “The rest were local guys.”

“You’re a cheeky bastard, aren’t you?” Travis took a step closer to him. “I’d watch that mouth if I were you.”

“Cheeky. That’s a PBS kind of word, isn’t it?” Huck replied. “Shouldn’t you say ‘cheeky bastard’ with an upper-crust British accent?” Huck yawned. “You know that Lubec and Rochester are both names of towns, right? Lubec, Maine. Rochester, New York.”

Vern rolled his eyes at Huck’s taunting the two meats. Lubec’s fair cheeks turned red, but he didn’t say anything. The kid told Huck to fuck off.

“Boone’s had a rough morning,” Vern said. “Don’t kill him.”

Lubec took a couple of breaths through his nose, then glared at Vern. “I’ll excuse him this time. Next time, I’m not cutting him any slack.”

After Lubec and Rochester left, Vern stuck a thick finger in Huck’s face. “I’m not bailing you out again. If you want to mouth off, you can take the consequences.”

“I was just stating a fact. Lubec and Rochester—”

“Shut up, Boone. I don’t care if you did find a dead woman this morning. Just shut the hell up.”

Huck thought he was displaying just the right amount of rule-breaking attitude for the vigilantes among Breakwater Security to take notice. On the other hand, he could just be pissing people off. He couldn’t make himself care. He pictured poor dead Alicia Miller and her friend Quinn Harlowe, fighting tears and panic—and guilt. A lot of guilt.

Not that he had much hope for Harlowe heading back to Washington and minding her own business. Huck knew a few research analysts and he’d never met one who’d leave well enough alone.

11

FBI Special Agent T. J. Kowalski joined Quinn on her porch, the smells of low tide heavy in the air. She’d been sitting out there for more than an hour trying to grasp the reality that Alicia was dead.