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.
9
Nate Winter glanced at the picture on his desk of the small cape house he and his wife, Sarah, an historical archaeologist, had bought. It was a fixer-upper. Worst house, best location. They looked forward to doing a lot of the work themselves. Moving day was coming up. They’d enlisted the help of family and friends. Sarah was already loading up the freezer with southern-style casseroles to feed their helpers. Her friend John Wesley Poe had promised to show up. That he was the president of the United States was only one of the many complications of Nate’s life.
The prospect of their new house only distracted him for a moment. He had wanted to give Juliet Longstreet the chance to digest the news he had just given her. Although she was a top-notch deputy U.S. marshal, even on a good day she didn’t like coming into the USMS headquarters in Arlington.
Today was not a good day.
“Nice of you to wait until this Huck Boone-Huck McCabe character finds a body before you tell me about him.” Juliet was known for her blunt manner. She was tall, in butt-kicking shape, but she was letting her fair hair grow out; it was curling past her chin now. “When did he arrive in Yorkville?”
“Saturday.” Nate could feel his usual impatience working at him. “And he didn’t find Alicia Miller. Her friend did.”
“Quinn Harlowe,” Juliet said.
Nate had already laid out for her what he knew about the tragic events in Yorkville. Juliet had made it clear she wanted to be in the field, tracking the vigilantes herself. She was directly responsible for disrupting one of their plots after a run-in with them last fall. Ethan Brooker, a former Special Forces officer, had helped. Now at the White House and romantically involved with Juliet, he was also on the task force. Both of them understood that this time, their unique expertise was best put to use at a distance. Let the guys from California do their thing.
“Ethan knows about McCabe?” Juliet asked.
Nate nodded, knowing his answer wouldn’t go over well with her. “Ethan did a mission a few years ago with Diego Clemente, McCabe’s backup.” Hesitating a moment, Nate added, “I asked Ethan to keep the information to himself.”
“Well, he did.” Juliet scowled. “I hate being kept out of the loop.”
“McCabe’s in a precarious situation. He doesn’t know us. He came into this investigation through the back door. He’s doing us a favor-”
“I get it, Nate. This guy feels safer with as few people as possible knowing he’s an undercover federal agent. If we’re right and these psycho vigilantes have infiltrated Breakwater Security, he’s a dead man if his cover gets blown.”
Leave it to Juliet not to mince words. Nate glanced again at the picture of his house. It had dove-gray shingles and white shutters, all of which needed replacing.
“Where’s McCabe now?”
“Back at Breakwater.”
“The local police are in the dark about who he is?”
“That’s right.” If they ever found out the truth, the locals wouldn’t appreciate getting sidelined, but Nate thought that, given the stakes, they would understand. “We have several problems.”
Juliet sighed. “Alicia Miller worked for the Justice Department. Is someone from the FBI looking into her death?”
That was one of the problems. “Special Agent T.J. Kowalski.”
“I take it he doesn’t know about McCabe, either.”
“Correct. At the moment, there’s no indication her death was anything but a terrible accident.”
Nate looked out his window a moment and thought of his wife happily digging in the dirt at her newest archaeological site, an old family dump. A treasure trove to Sarah Dunnemore Winter. On a day like today, he would like nothing better than to join her in her search for artifacts.
He glanced back at Juliet. Huck McCabe had stumbled onto a lead that could be the thread they needed to pull to unravel a violent, paranoid criminal network. He was a topnotch federal agent, but Nate didn’t know him. McCabe hadn’t been handpicked picked for the job.