“Now that you didn’t drown, yes. You’re going to slip and slide all the way back up to your house in those shoes.”
They were five-dollar slip-on sneakers she’d picked up for the summer. Bright red. Fun. Not intended for tramping through the wilds of Maine.
She took Owen’s hand, noticed the warmth of his firm grip as he helped her up onto his boulder. If she didn’t accept his help, she’d only land up in a worse predicament. Maybe break an ankle.
She had to be practical.
“You startled me,” she said. “That’s why I fell.”
He shrugged. “Sorry. Did you cut yourself on the rocks?”
“I scraped my hand. It’s no big deal. The cold’s numbed it.”
She was shivering. She hadn’t expected the ash-dumping to turn into an ordeal, and she still had on her shorts and T-shirt from her trip. Even without the dunking, she’d have been cold in the relentless fog.
Owen wore jeans and a lightweight fleece the color of the fog-and, she noticed, of his eyes.
“Want me to fetch whatever it is you dropped?” he asked.
“It’s just a coffee can of ashes.”
“From your woodstove?”
She shook her head. “I brought them up here with me-”
“Abigail…”
“Oh-no, no. They’re not
Owen, however, had already jumped lightly down to the wet slab below the tideline. He scooped up the coffee can and, in two long strides, was back up on the dry boulder with her-not breathing hard, not wet. She did notice he’d gotten a glob of ashes on his hand and fleece.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the can from him. “I should go back and put on some dry clothes. That water’s damn cold.”
“About fifty-five degrees.”
She winced. “Now I’m
“I heard you and decided to investigate.”
“But you didn’t know it was me,” she said.
“No, I didn’t.”
He wasn’t explaining any further, obviously. Abigail started past him, slipped, cursed and felt him clamp a hand on to her upper arm. She gritted her teeth. “I see what you mean about my shoes.”
“Hikers fall all the time because they underestimate how slippery wet rock can be.”
“I’m not a hiker. I was just out here doing a cleansing ritual-never mind.” She sighed at him. “You’re going to hold my arm until I reach grass, aren’t you?”
“Unless you want to keep falling.”
“Or I could take my shoes off. Except then I’d be even colder.” She smiled. “I have tender feet.”
He hadn’t released her arm. She wasn’t wearing her weapon, thankfully. It was locked up in her car. All the panic and urgency she’d felt about getting rid of the ashes had dissipated with the shock of the cold water and her sexy Maine neighbor. Now, she just wanted warm clothes and a bowl of hot chowder.
Because her shoes were less than useless wet, Owen ended up half-carrying her up the rocks.
“I’ve dripped on you,” she said when they reached the path.
“Not a problem. When did you get here?”
“An hour ago.”
He nodded to her Folgers can. “And you had to dump your ashes right away?”
“I need the can for paint. I’m going to be working on the house.”
“Ah.”
She ignored his skepticism. “I didn’t realize you were in Maine.”
“I’ve only been here a few days. Fast Rescue is opening a field academy in Bar Harbor. We hope to have it up and running this fall.”
Abigail remembered her caller’s words.
Owen Garrison and his nonprofit outfit starting a field academy was something that was happening. Had her caller read about it in the paper, on the Internet? Heard about it from a friend?
And what possible difference could Owen’s presence and a new training facility make in the investigation into Chris’s murder?
“Why Maine?” she asked.
“Makes sense. Katie Alden is perfect to be the director.” He touched Abigail’s shoulder. “You should get into those dry clothes.”
The combination of his tone and her surroundings-her fatigue, her raw emotions, the fog-had his words curling up her spine. She backed away from him, sliding in the grass. She finally kicked off her shoes, scooped them up and continued on barefoot, turning when she reached the bottom step of her porch. “Thank you for your help.”
“Anytime.”
“I’ll be more careful about my choice of shoes next time.”
She ran inside, not stopping until she reached her one bathroom upstairs. She grabbed a towel and started to dry off, but caught her reflection in the mirror.
Her forehead and cheeks were smeared with soot.
So much for playing the experienced, confident Boston homicide detective.
As she dried her face, she burst into laughter.
On his way back along the rocks from Abigail Browning’s house, Owen watched a seagull plunge into the fog and disappear, and he thought of his long-dead sister.
Doe had wanted to become an ornithologist.
Although her given name was Dorothy, their grandmother-the inimitable Polly Garrison-had nicknamed her Doe because she was nimble and had hair the color of a deer’s coat.
And innocent eyes, Owen thought.
Such innocent eyes.
When she fell into the Atlantic, slipping on the wet cliffs through the woods on the other side of the Browning house, farther up the headland, her deer-colored hair had swirled in the waves like seaweed.
Owen had been about twenty yards behind her, and when he ran to the edge of the rock, the tide had pulled Doe farther out. Helpless to save her, Owen had tried to scream for his parents, anyone, but no sound came out. He’d had no whistle. Doe had run down from their summer house, crying, and he’d followed her, hoping to console her so that she’d pull herself together in time to go hiking with him after lunch.
Help had arrived in the form of the Brownings in their lobster boat. But they were too late. Everyone was too late.
Forcing himself to exhale, Owen pulled off his fleece. His skin was clammy, and the closeness of the fog was making him claustrophobic. It was his one weakness in the work he did-he didn’t like feeling closed in. He’d learned to control his reaction and focus on the job at hand.
That’s the problem, he thought. He didn’t have enough to do. His mind was free to go off on tangents.
And being around Abigail Browning always got to him.
He stood on a coarse granite slab above the water, above the narrow crevice where he had found Chris Browning on a cold, clear July dawn, the sky streaked with shades of lavender and pink.
Owen had found the shell casings first-up at the remains of his family’s original house. Even now, in the impenetrable fog, he could see the silhouette of its skeletal chimney, sunken and crumbled but, still, partially intact. The perfect spot for Chris’s shooter to hide.
Retreating back through the woods to the private drive would have been easy. A car concealed in the woods. A bicycle. A friend on the way. Who’d have noticed?
