The waitress refilled their coffee mugs, and J.B. found himself noticing Zoe West's slender fingers and neatly polished fingernails. There was something off-center about her, as if she'd just started getting in touch with a part of herself she'd stamped down during her years in law enforcement. She might have belonged there for a while, but she didn't anymore. He could see that now, wondered if she did, too. He thought about Bruce's comment that his childhood friend was a closet eccentric. Then he thought of her writing secretly in the attic.
"What about you?" she asked. "Did you always want to be an FBI agent?"
"Nope. I wanted to be a fishing guide like my father and grandfather."
"That didn't work out?"
"It got me through high school and college. Then I went to Washington, D.C., and knew I wasn't going back home except for vacations."
"Not this vacation," Zoe pointed out.
"True." He didn't expand.
"Now you're an FBI agent. You hate it Stick found out about you, don't you? You undercover types. Pains in the butt."
"No comment."
He finished his coffee and got to his feet. Zoe followed, and he turned to her abruptly, catching her off guard. He stood so close to her that her sweater sleeve brushed against him and he could see the gray flecks in her blue eyes. "You don't trust me, do you, Zoe?" he asked softly.
She didn't back up even an inch. "Tell me who you trust."
"That's not what I asked-"
"Of course not. I know you won't answer, so I'll tell you. No one. You trust no one. That's why you can do the work you do." A steely hurt worked its way into her eyes, a kind of pain he thought he understood. "When I found my father, I stopped trusting. It happened just like that. The blink of an eye."
"It's a tough way to live."
He didn't know if she could see in him the lingering effects of what he'd done. Escaping his own death, causing another. Putting an image into three kids' eyes that they would have to live with forever, just as Zoe did the one of her murdered father. J.B. didn't think he didn't trust people but he was the only son of a solitary and self-reliant man, and undercover work had come naturally to him.
If Patrick West's murder had been solved, J.B. doubted he'd have come to Goose Harbor. Maybe for a three-day weekend, to see where his grandmother was born, maybe deliver Olivia West's letters to the West family. But he wouldn't have picked it now for this particular vacation.
Zoe spun off, telling her sister what a great breakfast they'd had-in a better mood, Christina thanked her, said she'd talked Bruce into fixing her café door. Zoe greeted an older couple who'd come in, people from Goose Harbor she'd apparently known forever. Then she disappeared outside, the screen door banging shut behind her.
J.B. stopped at the counter, and Christina smiled feebly at him. "It's harder for her than for me. I know that." She spoke as if he'd understand what she meant, without her having to provide context, and he thought he did. She brushed her forehead with the back of her wrist and shifted her gaze to her broken door, then back to him. "You're one of the good guys, right?"
He nodded. "Yes."
"Then do what you can before it's too late and she starts again, running roughshod over everybody, not eating, not sleeping. Please. Most of the time Zoe knows when enough's enough, but with Dad's death…" Christina trailed off, her own skin a little paler.
J.B. smiled, trying to ease some of Christina's obvious tension. Zoe's return to Goose Harbor wasn't easy for her little sister, either. "Did you know Zoe eats Toaster Strudels sprinkled with flax seed?"
"Oh, God. Is that the worst?"
But Christina had smiled, even laughed, and J.B. headed outside, the sun so sharply bright as it rose up over the harbor that it gave him an instant headache. He had no deep sense of belonging here. None at all, no matter how many of his ancestors were buried in Goose Harbor cemeteries. To him, at that moment, it was a strange and beautiful place, and he understood why his grandparents had cleared out and headed west.
Twelve
Zoe was aware of J.B. easing in behind her, then beside her, as she made her way along Ocean Drive. He'd prodded and poked at her for information and reactions, and maybe he'd needed to because of Teddy Shelton and the break-ins-and maybe she'd let him because she wanted his fresh take on what had happened here last year. But it'd been difficult for her, even just that much questioning.
Because all along, deep down, she was convinced she'd said something, done something, that had caused her father to be shot dead early on a beautiful autumn morning.
"You okay?" J.B. asked.
She nodded. "It's different when it's your father lying there."
He said nothing, for which she was grateful.
"Zoe! Hey, wait up!"
It was Kyle Castellane, running to catch up with them. He jumped off the sidewalk onto the street and came up on her left. He was out of breath, his longish hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Wild night last night, huh? Looks like we have a serial thief on the loose in Goose Harbor."
"Let's hope that's all."
"Ooh," he said, grinning, "always the doom-and-gloom cop."
She wanted to hit him. "What's up, Kyle?"
"Nothing-just wanted to say hi. Chris tell you we stayed up until all hours brainstorming on my documentary?"
"Sounds like you're making progress."
He shrugged, still out of breath from his run up from the docks. "I run into the occasional stone wall."
Like Chris's big sister, he seemed to imply. Zoe didn't bite. "That's the way it goes, I guess."
"Chris tells me you don't want to get involved. That's okay, but maybe you can point me in the right direction on something." He paused, walking a few steps, but Zoe didn't take the bait and say yes before she knew what he wanted. "Did Olivia ever tell you about her best friend when she was growing up? Posey Sutherland. She lived across Ocean Drive, about a half mile from Olivia."
J.B. stiffened noticeably next to her and Zoe assumed Kyle's intense, self-absorbed manner got on his nerves. It was a beautiful morning, she was just back in Goose Harbor since her father and her aunt's deaths, and Kyle Castellane wanted to pick her brain for his documentary.
Zoe shook her head. "I know the Sutherland name, of course, but I don't recall Aunt Olivia ever mentioning, at least to me, a Posey Sutherland, friend or otherwise."
Kyle nodded, frowning as he considered her answer. "Posey was the youngest daughter of John Lester Sutherland. All kinds of bells and whistles went off when I saw his name. That has to be where Olivia got the Lester for Mr. Lester McGrath, Jen Periwinkle's evil nemesis."
As if he had to tell her who Mr. McGrath was. Zoe slowed her pace, dropping just slightly behind J.B., but enough for her to get the full brunt of a gust of wind blowing up off the water. But she could feel the temperature rising now that it was midmorning. "It could just be an innocent coincidence."
"I don't think so. The more I learn about her, the more I think Olivia was deliberate about everything she did. It's my guess she didn't think much of her friend's father and this was her private revenge."
"But if you have no proof-"
"I can raise the question without answering it. But I want to know what she thought of Posey's father-I want to know what happened to Olivia West's best friend from childhood. What happened to Posey Sutherland? I can't find a thing. Not yet, anyway. I'll keep looking."
"I can't help you," Zoe told him.
"I checked town records. Posey was a year younger than Olivia. They grew up together. I'm checking with the local school district to see if they have pictures of them in their archives. I imagine they already gave everything they had on Olivia to the town library."
J.B. picked up his pace, and Zoe imagined he'd had his fill of Kyle. She tried to smile at him. "You are into this documentary, aren't you?"