"Doesn't looked forced on her part, does it?"
"No," Carine said. "No, it doesn't."
Ty squinted, eyeing the pictures more closely, then gave another low whistle. "Agreed. I guess you never know what goes on between two people."
But Carine's throat was tight, her heart racing. "My blood pressure must be a thousand over a thousand. Ty, I swear, I never had an inkling they were having an affair."
"Maybe it was a moment," he said, "not an affair."
"Well, it was a 'moment' not long before one of the two people involved in it was killed. Louis asked me if I wanted a ride while I was on my way back from lunch-he and Jodie must have-" Carine hesitated, trying to steady her breathing, calm herself. "They must have had their liaison before he went out."
"Liaison?"
"Ty, please."
"Babe, they were screwing each other blind. Facts are facts. How long were you gone? About ninety minutes?"
She nodded, transfixed by the pictures on the screen, embarrassed for the participants. But if they'd wanted privacy, they could have skipped the library and gone somewhere else. Had there been any clues, any hints she'd missed? Did Sterling know? Turner? "I wasn't in a hurry. There wasn't much going on at the house…that I knew about, anyway."
"Ninety minutes is plenty of time for a quickie in the library." Ty shook his head tightly, obviously as uncomfortable with what they were seeing as she was. "Jesus. What a nasty business. They took a hell of a risk if they didn't want to be caught. Anyone could have walked in on them-"
"Obviously someone did and took pictures."
Carine sank back in the chair, an ergonomic design that she'd helped choose when Ty purchased his computer. The den was tucked in the southwest corner of the house, a sun-filled room with original 1817 twelve-over-twelve paned windows that looked onto the front yard. It was prosaically furnished with a pullout couch, a beat-up leather club chair, a rolltop desk and the computer table. One of Saskia's collages hung on the back wall, depicting images of the White Mountains.
"Do you think Manny knew?" Carine asked quietly.
Ty shook his head. "I don't know."
"What if-" She cleared her throat, her hands shaking as she turned back to the computer screen. "What if he walked in on Jodie and Louis?"
"Manny didn't take those pictures."
"No, but maybe he came in after someone else had. I wonder if he said something to the police, if Turner found out- Gary obviously knew, or at least guessed, these pictures existed. He said he was asking me for the disk on Sterling 's behalf, but I'm not sure now."
"Maybe Turner took the pictures."
Carine sighed. "Lots of questions, no answers."
"It's not our job to come up with answers," Ty said.
She stared at the screen. "I didn't take these pictures."
"I didn't ask."
"Someone will. I don't think there's a way I can prove it, but-I didn't take them. Why would anyone do such a thing?"
"Blackmail. Titillation. To humiliate and embarrass one or both of the two lovers, or the jilted husband."
"The possibilities are endless, aren't they?" Carine quickly completed the process of uploading the pictures to Ty's hard drive, as a backup to the disk in case something happened before she could get it to the police. "We should notify the detectives on the case. If Jodie Rancourt told the police she was out shopping, and instead she was with Louis-"
"She could have told the police the truth," Ty said.
"They might just have kept it to themselves. For all we know, this is old news to them."
"I hope so. I hate the idea of being the rat." Carine popped out the memory disk and disconnected the USB cable. "Gary Turner said to remember he tried to be discreet."
"Right," Ty said skeptically. "Maybe that's why he took the trouble of using a key instead of a crowbar when he broke into your apartment yesterday."
She tucked the disk into her coat pocket. "We don't know that was him."
"A lot happened on your lunch hour, that's for damn sure."
"And I didn't have a clue."
Ty straightened. "We can call the Boston cops on the way to lunch and ask them what they want us to do with the disk."
"Us? Ty, there's no reason for you to get involved."
"Too late. The minute you found Louis Sanborn, I was involved." He headed for the door, glancing back at her, his eyes a soft green, a real green, but as unreadable as if they'd been green rocks. "But you knew that, didn't you?"
"Maybe I did," she said, and slipped past him into the hall.
Fourteen
His lungs were bursting from sucking in the cold air, rushing up the path too fast. His legs ached. But Sterling pushed himself harder, determined to make it up the last thirty-foot, near-vertical stretch of the path. He'd started from his house, thinking he'd only go for a short walk to blow off some steam, and now he was almost onto the main ridge trail, the same one Abraham Winter had carved almost two hundred years ago.
How had his life gotten so miserably, abominably out of control?
What the hell had happened?
He groaned, lunging upward, crab-walking on the rocks and exposed tree roots. The path was still below the tree-line, winding through lichen-covered rocks and fir trees. He had no business being out here alone, but he didn't care.
"Fuck," he muttered, "I don't care about anything."
With a final spurt of energy, he made it to the top of the hill, onto a rounded rock with a blue-splashed cairn marker that indicated he had come, at last, to the Cold Ridge Trail. If he kept going, soon he would be above the treeline, walking along the narrowest section of the ridge, then up to a summit and back down to the cliffs and the famous, awe-inspiring view of valley and ravines, a mountain lake, a river. He'd never gotten that far. Last year, he and Jodie had barely made it above the treeline before they got into trouble.
He paused, sweating, gazing out at the cascade of mountains, some of the highest ones snowcapped, others bald rock against a cloudless sky-which wouldn't last. November was a gray month in northern New England, and the weather forecasters promised that new clouds would move in before sunset.
The days were shorter, the sun lower in the sky. With no city lights, the nights were long and dark, and he could feel the claustrophobia eating at him, just knowing there were only a few more hours of sunlight left. He didn't know how people lived up here all winter.
He wondered if God had intended for him and Jodie to die on the ridge last November and that was why, ever since, their lives had come apart bit by bit, piece by piece.
Exhausted and frightened, shivering uncontrollably, Sterling remembered, with a wince of regret, how he'd grabbed hold of Manny Carrera after their rescue and sobbed. "I was so scared, so damn scared. I thought I could survive up here on my own."
"Nobody survives on their own, pal," Manny had said in his matter-of-fact, unwavering way. "We all need a helping hand."
"You don't-you survive on your own."
"No, I don't. I'm part of a team, they're part of a squadron, and on up the ladder it goes-get it? We each have a job to do. We look out for one another. Right now, I'm looking out for you. So, just rest easy, okay?"
"But if you were stuck behind enemy lines, or attacked or captured, you'd know how to handle yourself. You'd know what to do."
"Yes, sir, but I'd also know I had people who'd never rest until I got back to safety. They'd come for me, the way I am here for you right now.You want to keep talking about this shit, or do you want to get off this god-damn mountain?"
Manny Carrera…ah, Manny.
Had Manny taken those pictures of Jodie and Louis Sanborn? Had he known about their affair and that was why he wanted Sanborn fired? Had he tried to take advantage of the situation?
Sterling liked to believe if he'd signed up to become a PJ as a young man, he'd have made it through the rough training. The washout rate was high-often more than eighty-percent. But over celebratory drinks at his house in the mountains, after they'd all warmed up last year after the rescue, Manny had told him he hated the word washout, because it implied guys didn't cut it, that they were lesser, somehow, failures. "They just weren't where they were supposed to be. Not everyone figures that out the easy way."