Nina turned and looked out the rear window, at a pair of headlights behind them. “Is someone following us?”
“I’m not sure. I do know that car pulled out behind ours when we left the hospital. And it’s been there ever since.”
“Your buddy in Homicide must really think I’m dangerous if he’s having me followed.”
“He’s just keeping tabs on his suspect.”
Me, she thought, and sank back against the seat, grateful that the darkness hid her face. Am I your suspect as well?
He drove calmly, making no sudden moves to alarm whoever was in the car behind them. In that tense stillness, the ringing of the phone was startling.
He picked up the receiver. “Navarro.” There was a pause, then he said, “You’re sure?” Again he glanced in the mirror. “I’m at Congress and Braeburn, heading west. There’s a dark truck—looks like a Jeep Cherokee—right behind me. I’ll swing around, make a pass by Houlton. If you can be ready and waiting, we’ll sandwich this guy. Don’t scare him off. For now, just move in close enough to get a good look. Okay, I’m making my turn now. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up and shot Nina a tense glance. “You pick up what’s happening?”
“What is happening?”
“That’s not a cop behind us.”
She looked back at the headlights. Not a cop. “Then who is it?”
“We’re going to find out. Now listen good. In a minute I’ll want you down near the floor. Not yet—I don’t want to make him suspicious. But when Gillis pulls in behind him, things could get exciting. Are you ready for this?”
“I don’t think I have much of a choice…”
He made his turn. Not too fast—a casual change of direction to make it seem as if he’d just decided on a different route.
The other car made the turn as well.
Sam turned again, back onto Congress Street. They were headed east now, going back the way they’d come. The pair of headlights was still behind them. At 10:30 on a Sunday, traffic was light and it was easy to spot their pursuer.
“There’s Gillis,” Sam stated. “Right on schedule.” He nodded at the blue Toyota idling near the curb. They drove past it.
A moment later, the Toyota pulled into traffic, right behind the Jeep.
“Perp sandwich,” said Sam with a note of triumph. They were coming on a traffic light, just turning yellow. Purposely he slowed down, to keep the other two cars on his tail.
Without warning, the Cherokee suddenly screeched around them and sped straight through the intersection just as the light turned red.
Sam uttered an oath and hit the accelerator. They, too, lurched through the intersection just as a pickup truck barreled in from a side street. Sam swerved around it and took off after the sedan.
A block ahead, the Cherokee screeched around a corner.
“This guy’s smart,” muttered Sam. “He knew we were moving in on him.”
“Watch out!” cried Nina as a car pulled out of a parking space, right in front of them.
Sam leaned on his horn and shot past.
This is crazy, she thought. I’m riding with a maniac cop at the wheel.
They spun around the corner into an alley. Nina, clutching the dashboard, caught a dizzying view of trash cans and Dumpsters as they raced through.
At the other end of the alley, Sam screeched to a halt.
There was no sign of the Cherokee. In either direction.
Gillis’s Toyota squealed to a stop just behind them. “Which way?” they heard Gillis call.
“I don’t know!” Sam yelled back. “I’ll head east.”
He turned right. Nina glanced back and saw Gillis turn left, in the other direction. A two-pronged search. Surely one of them would spot the quarry.
Four blocks later, there was still no sign of the Cherokee. Sam reached for the car phone and dialed Gillis.
“No luck here,” he said. “How about you?” At the answer, he gave a grunt of disappointment. “Okay. At least you got the license number. I’ll check back with you later.” He hung up.
“So he did catch the number?” Nina asked.
“Massachusetts plate. APB’s going out now. With any luck, they’ll pick him up.” He glanced at Nina. “I’m not so sure you should go back to your father’s house.”
Their gazes locked. What she saw, in his eyes, confirmed her fears.
“You think he was following me,” she said softly.
“What I want to know is, why? There’s something weird going on here, something that involves both you and Robert. You must have some idea what it is.”
She shook her head. “It’s a mistake,” she whispered. “It must be.”
“Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to ensure your deaths. I don’t think he—or she—would mistake the target.”
“She? Do you really think…”
“As I said before, murder needn’t be done in person. It can be bought and paid for. And that could be what we’re dealing with. I’m more and more certain of it. A professional.”
Nina was shaking now, unable to answer him. Unable to argue. The man next to her was talking so matter-of-factly. His life didn’t hang in the balance.
“I know it’s hard to accept any of this yet,” he added. “But in your case, denial could be fatal. So let me lay it out for you. The brutal facts. Robert’s already dead. And you could be next.”
But I’m not worth killing! she thought. I’m no threat to anyone.
“We can’t pin the blame on Jimmy Brogan,” said Sam. “I think he’s the innocent in all this. He saw something he shouldn’t have, so he was disposed of. And then his death was set up to look like a suicide, to throw us off the track. Deflect our bomb investigation. Our killer’s very clever. And very specific about his targets.” He glanced at her, and she heard, in his voice, pure, passionless logic. “There’s something else I learned today,” he told her. “The morning of your wedding, a gift was delivered to the church. Jimmy Brogan may have seen the man who left it. We think Brogan put the parcel somewhere near the front pews. Right near the blast center. The gift was addressed specifically to you and Robert.” He paused, as though daring her to argue that away.
She couldn’t. The information was coming too fast, and she was having trouble dealing with the terrifying implications.
“Help me out, Nina,” he urged. “Give me a name. A motive.”
“I told you,” she said, her voice breaking to a sob. “I don’t know!”
“Robert admitted there was another woman. Do you know who that might be?”
She was hugging herself, huddling into a self-protective ball against the seat. “No.”
“Did it ever seem to you that Daniella and Robert were particularly close?”
Nina went still. Daniella? Her father’s wife? She thought back over the past six months. Remembered the evenings she and Robert had spent at her father’s house. All the invitations, the dinners. She’d been pleased that her fiancé had been so quickly accepted by her father and Daniella, pleased that, for once, harmony had been achieved in the Cormier family. Daniella, who’d never been particularly warm toward her stepdaughter, had suddenly started including Nina and Robert in every social function.
Daniella and Robert.
“That’s another reason,” he said, “why I don’t think you should go back to your father’s house tonight.”
She turned to him. “You think Daniella…”
“We’ll be questioning her again.”
“But why would she kill Robert? If she loved him?”
“Jealousy? If she couldn’t have him, no one could?”
“But he’d already broken off our engagement! It was over between us!”
“Was it really?”
Though the question was asked softly, she sensed at once an underlying tension in his voice.
She said, “You were there, Sam. You heard our argument. He didn’t love me. Sometimes I think he never did.” Her head dropped. “For him it was
definitely over.”
“And for you?”
Tears pricked her eyes. All evening she’d managed not to cry, not to fall apart. During those endless hours in the hospital waiting room, she’d withdrawn so completely into numbness that when they’d told her Robert was dead, she’d registered that fact in some distant corner of her mind, but she hadn’t felt it. Not the shock, nor the grief. She knew she should be grieving. No matter how much Robert had hurt her, how bitterly their affair had ended, he was still the man with whom she’d spent the last year of her life.
Now it all seemed like a different life. Not hers. Not Robert’s. Just a dream, with no basis in reality.
She began to cry. Softly. Wearily. Not tears of grief, but tears of exhaustion.
Sam said nothing. He just kept driving while the woman beside him shed soundless tears. There was plenty he wanted to say. He wanted to point out that Robert Bledsoe had been a first-class rat, that he was scarcely worth grieving over. But women in love weren’t creatures you could deal with on a logical level. And he was sure she did love Bledsoe; it was the obvious explanation for those tears.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as frustration surged through him. Frustration at his own inability to comfort her, to assuage her grief. The Roberts of the world didn’t deserve any woman’s tears. Yet they were the men whom women always seemed to cry over. The golden boys. He glanced at Nina, huddled against the door, and he felt a rush of sympathy. And something more, something that surprised him. Longing.
At once he quelled the feeling. It was yet another sign that he should not be in this situation. It was fine for a cop to sympathize, but when the feelings crossed that invisible line into more dangerous emotions, it was time to pull back.
But I can’t pull back. Not tonight. Not until I make sure she’s safe.
Without looking at her, he said, “You can’t go to your father’s. Or your mother’s for that matter—her house isn’t secure. No alarm system, no gate. And it’s too easy for the killer to find you.”
“I—I signed a lease on a new apartment today. It doesn’t have any furniture yet, but—”
“I assume Daniella knows about it?”
She paused, then replied, “Yes. She does.”
“Then that’s out. What about friends?”
“They all have children. If they knew a killer was trying to find me…” She took a deep breath. “I’ll go to a hotel.”
He glanced at her and saw that her spine was suddenly stiff and straight. And he knew she was fighting to put on a brave front. That’s all it was, a front. God, what was he supposed to do now? She was scared and she had a right to be. They were both exhausted. He couldn’t just dump her at some hotel at this hour. Nor could he leave her alone. Whoever was stalking her had done an efficient job of dispatching both Jimmy Brogan and Robert Bledsoe. For such a killer, tracking down Nina would be no trouble at all.
The turnoff to Route 1 north was just ahead. He took it.
Twenty minutes later they were driving past thick stands of trees. Here the houses were few and far between, all the lots heavily forested. It was the trees that had first attracted Sam to this neighborhood. As a boy, first in Boston, then in Portland, he’d always lived in the heart of the city. He’d grown up around concrete and asphalt, but he’d always felt the lure of the woods. Every summer, he’d head north to fish at his lakeside camp.
The rest of the year, he had to be content with his home in this quiet neighborhood of birch and pine.
He turned onto his private dirt road, which wound a short way into the woods before widening into his gravel driveway. Only as he turned off the engine and looked at his house did the first doubts assail him. The place wasn’t much to brag about. It was just a two-bedroom cottage of precut cedar hammered together three summers ago. And as for the interior, he wasn’t exactly certain how presentable he’d left it.
Oh, well. There was no changing plans now.
He got out and circled around to open her door. She stepped out, her gaze fixed in bewilderment on the small house in the woods.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“A safe place. Safer than a hotel anyway.” He gestured toward the front porch. “It’s just for tonight. Until we can make other arrangements.”
“Who lives here?”
“I do.”
If that fact disturbed her, she didn’t show it. Maybe she was too tired and frightened to care. In silence she waited while he unlocked the door. He stepped inside after her and turned on the lights.
At his first glimpse of the living room, he gave a silent prayer of thanks. No clothes on the couch, no dirty dishes on the coffee table. Not that the place was pristine. With newspapers scattered about and dust bunnies in the corners, the room had that unmistakable look of a sloppy bachelor. But at least it wasn’t a major disaster area. A minor one, maybe.
He locked the door and turned the dead bolt.
She was just standing there, looking dazed. Maybe by the condition of his house? He touched her shoulder and she flinched.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so fine.”
In fact she looked pretty pitiful, her eyes red from crying, her cheeks a bloodless white. He had the sudden urge to take her face in his hands and warm it with his touch. Not a good idea. He was turning into a sucker for women in distress, and this woman was most certainly in distress.
Instead he turned and went into the spare bedroom. One glance at the mess and he nixed that idea. It was no place to put up a guest. Or an enemy, for that matter. There was only one solution. He’d sleep on the couch and let her have his room.
Sheets. Oh Lord, did he have any clean sheets?
Frantically he rummaged in the linen closet and found a fresh set. He was on top of things after all. Turning, he found himself face-to-face with Nina.
She held out her arms for the sheets. “I’ll make up the couch.”
“These are for the bed. I’m putting you in my room.”
“No, Sam. I feel guilty enough as it is. Let me take the couch.”
Something in the way she looked at him—that upward tilt of her chin—told him she’d had enough of playing the object of pity.
He gave her the sheets and added a blanket. “It’s a lumpy couch. You don’t mind?”
“I’ve taken a lot of lumps lately. I’ll hardly notice a few more.”
Almost a joke. That was good. She was pulling herself together—an act of will he found impressive.
While she made up the couch, he went to the kitchen and called Gillis at home.
“We got the info on that Massachusetts plate,” Gillis told him. “It was stolen two weeks ago. APB hasn’t netted the Cherokee yet. Man, this guy’s quick.”
“And dangerous.”
“You think he’s our bomber?”
“Our shooter, too. It’s all tangled together, Gillis. It has to be.”
“How does last week’s warehouse bombing fit in? We figured that was a mob hit.”
“Yeah. A nasty message to Billy Binford’s rivals.”
“Binford’s in jail. His future’s not looking so bright. Why would he order a church bombed?”
“The church wasn’t the target, Gillis. I’m almost certain the target was Bledsoe or Nina Cormier. Or both.”
“How does that tie in with Binford?”
“I don’t know. Nina’s never heard of Binford.” Sam rubbed his face and felt the stubble of beard. God, he was tired. Too tired to figure anything out tonight. He said, “There’s one other angle we haven’t ruled out. The old crime of passion. You interviewed Daniella Cormier.”
“Yeah. Right after the bombing. What a looker.”
“You pick up anything odd about her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Anything that didn’t sit right? Her reactions, her answers?”
“Not that I recall. She seemed appropriately stunned. What are you thinking?
”
“I’m thinking Homicide should get their boys over there to question her tonight.”
“I’ll pass that message along to Yeats. What’s your hunch?”
“She and Robert Bledsoe had a little thing going on the side.”
“And she blew up the church out of jealousy?” Gillis laughed. “She didn’t seem the type.”
“Remember what they say about the female of the species.”
“Yeah, but I can’t imagine that gorgeous blonde—”
“Watch the hormones, Gillis.”
His partner snorted. “If anyone better watch his hormones, it’s you.”
That’s what I keep telling myself, thought Sam as he hung up. He paused for a moment in the kitchen, giving himself the same old lecture he’d given himself a dozen times since meeting Nina. I’m a cop, I’m here to serve and protect. Not seduce.
Not fall in love.
He went into the living room. At his first sight of Nina, he felt his resolve crumble. She was standing at the window, peering out at the darkness. He’d hung no curtains; here in the woods, he’d never felt the need for them. But now he realized just how open and vulnerable she was. And that worried him—more than he cared to admit.
He said, “I’d feel better if you came away from those windows.”
She turned, a startled look in her eyes. “You don’t think someone could have followed us?”
“No. But I’d like you to stay away from the windows all the same.”
Shuddering, she moved to the couch and sat down. She’d already made the couch into a bed, and only now did he realize how tattered the blanket was. Tattered furniture, tattered linens. Those were details that had never bothered him before. So many things about his life as a bachelor had not bothered him, simply because he’d never stopped to think how much better, sweeter, his life could be. Only now, as he saw Nina sitting on his couch, did it occur to him how stark the room was. It was only the presence of this woman that gave it any life. Any warmth.
Too soon, she’d be gone again.
The sooner the better, he told himself. Before she grew on him. Before she slipped too deeply into his life.
He paced over to the fireplace, paced back toward the kitchen door, his feet restless, his instincts telling him to say something.