“Give me the list. I’ll replace the stuff. I was part of the team, wasn’t I?” he asked when she frowned at him.
“Yes, but you don’t have to feel obligated to—”
“I don’t volunteer to do things out of obligation.”
“That’s true. I’ll give you a list.”
They stopped off at Sylvia’s, loaded up the dogs, which took twice as long as it might have due to desperate joy. He had to admit he’d missed his own idiot dog, and it felt damn good to be driving home with Fiona beside him and the back full of happy dogs.
“You know what I want?” she asked him.
“What?”
“I want a long, tall glass of wine and a lazy hour in my custom-made porch rocker. Maybe you’d like to join me?”
“I just might.”
When she reached over for his hand, he linked it with hers.
“I feel good. Tired, happy and just good all over. How about you guys, huh?” She shifted to look back, rub faces and bodies. “We feel so good. You can play while Simon and I drink wine until the sun goes down. That’s what I think. We’ll all be tired and happy and just good all over until—”
“Fiona.”
“Hmm?” Distracted, she glanced over. The hard set of his face had that happy lift dropping into worry. “What? What is it?”
She swiveled back as he slowed at her drive.
The red scarf tied to the lifted flag on her mailbox fluttered in the fitful breeze.
Her mind emptied, and for a moment she was back in the tight, airless dark.
“Where’s your gun? Fiona!” He whipped her name out and slashed her back.
“In my pack.”
He reached in the back, shoved her pack into her lap. “Get it out, lock the doors. Stay in the car and call the cops.”
“No. What? Wait. Where are you going?”
“To check out the house. He’s not going to be there, but we don’t take chances.”
“And you just walk out there, unarmed, unprotected?” Like Greg, she thought. Just like Greg. “If you get out, I get out. Cops first. Please. I couldn’t take it a second time. I couldn’t.”
She pulled out her phone, hit speed dial for the sheriff’s office. “This is Fiona. Someone tied a red scarf to my mailbox. No, I’m with Simon, at the end of the drive. No. No. Yes, all right. Okay.”
She drew a breath. “They’re on their way. They want us to stay where we are. I know that’s not what you want to do. I know it goes against the grain, against your instincts.”
She unzipped her pack, took out her gun. With steady hands, she checked the load, the safety. “But if he is there, if he’s waiting, he’d know that, too. And maybe I’d be going to another funeral for a man I love. He’d have killed me too, Simon, because I can’t come back from that a second time.”
“You put it that way to close me in a box.”
“I put it that way because it’s God’s truth. I need you to stay with me. I’m asking you to stay with me. Please don’t leave me alone.”
Her need pushed against his. He thought he could have fought hers back if she’d used tears, but the flat, matter-of-fact tone did him in. “Give me your binoculars.”
She unzipped another section of her pack, handed them to him.
“I’m not going anywhere, but I’m going to look.”
“Okay.”
He stepped out of the car but stayed close. He could hear her calming the dogs as he scanned the drive, the trees. Spring had leafed out those trees, forcing him to try to angle through the green and search the shadows. While the pretty breeze fluttered, he took a few steps away to try for a better vantage point, and followed the curve of her drive.
Her pretty house stood quiet before the dark arches of the forest. Butterflies danced on the air above her garden, while in her field, grasses and buttercups barely stirred.
He walked back, opened his door. “Everything looks fine.”
“He read the article. He wants me scared.”
“No argument. Stupid to leave the marker if he’s still around.”
“Yes. I don’t think he is either. He accomplished what he wanted. I’m scared. The cops are coming. It’s all in my face again, and I’m thinking about him. We all are. I called Agent Tawney.”
“Good. Here come the cops.”
He closed the car door, watched the two cruisers approach. He heard her get out the other side, nearly snapped at her to get back in. She wouldn’t, he thought, and it was probably unnecessary.
He watched the sheriff get out of the first cruiser. He’d seen the man around the village a few times, but they’d never had a conversation—or a need for one. Patrick McMahon carried a hefty girth on a big frame. Simon imagined he’d played high school football—maybe a tackle—and likely continued with hard-fought Sunday games with friends.
Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, but his wide face held grim lines, and his hand rested on the butt of his weapon as he walked.
“Fee. I’m gonna want you to stay in the car. Simon Doyle, right?” McMahon held out a hand. “I’m gonna want you to stay with Fee. Davey and I, we’ll go down, take a look at things. Matt’ll stay here. He’s gonna take some pictures and put that scarf in an evidence bag so we’ll have it secure. Did you lock the doors when you left?”
“Yes.”
“Windows?”
“I... Yes, I think so.”
“They’re locked,” Simon told him. “I checked them before we left.”
“Good enough. Fee, how about you give me the keys? Once we clear everything, we’ll call on down to Matt. How’s that?”
She came around as Simon took the keys out of the ignition, then she peeled off the link that held her house key. “Front and back door.”
“Good enough,” he said again. “Sit tight.”
McMahon got back in the cruiser, swung around Fiona’s car and started down the drive.
“Sorry about this, Fiona.” Matt, barely old enough to buy a legal beer, gave her arm a little pat. “You and Mr. Doyle get on back in the car now.” He glanced down at the gun she held down at her side. “And keep the safety on that.”
“He’s younger than I am. Matt,” Fiona said when she got back in the car. “Barely old enough to drink. I trained his parents’ Jack Russell. He’s not going to be there,” she murmured, running her fist up and down her chest. “Nothing’s going to happen to them.”
“Did you ask anybody to come by, check on the place while we were gone?”
“No. It was just overnight. If it had been longer, Syl would’ve come by to water the pots, pick up the mail. God, God, if it had been longer, and—”
“Didn’t happen.” Simon cut her off. “No point projecting it. Everyone on the island, or damn near, would’ve known you were on that search by this morning. It’s not enough time for him to have pulled this.”
Unless, Simon thought, he was already on the island.
“I think it comes from the article—the timing of it—the way he mailed me the scarf after the first one. I guess he wants me to know he can get closer. Did get closer.”
“It’s arrogant, and arrogance leads to screwups.”
“I hope you’re right.” She stared at the scarf, forced herself to think. Follow the trail, she ordered herself. “Did it rain here last night? Did that storm, or the edge of it, blow through here, too? It was supposed to. The scarf’s dry, or dry enough to wave in the breeze. But then, the sun’s warm and bright today. He’d want to do that at night, wouldn’t he? At night or early enough there wouldn’t be much chance of a car going by.”
“We’ve been sitting here twenty minutes and I haven’t seen a car go by.”
“True, but it’s a stupid risk. Not just arrogant, stupid. If he came here at night, he’d need somewhere to stay on the island, or have a boat of his own. But if he came by boat, he’d need a car to get out here.”
“One way or the other, he was here. The odds are someone saw him.”
A car approached now, slowed, crept by.
“Tourists,” Fiona said quietly. “The summer season’s already geared up. Coming and going by ferry’s the easiest way to disappear. But maybe he didn’t come and go in the same day. Maybe he booked a room or a campsite or—”