On Fire. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ as he waited for the fog to lift and his unwelcome visitor to be on her way.

      She leaped over a yard-wide, five-foot-deep crevice and climbed up a huge expanse of rock, all the way out to its edge. At high tide, the smaller rocks, sand and tide pools that surrounded its base now would be covered with water, creating a mini-island. She stood twenty feet above the receding tide. Ahead there was nothing but fog. It was like standing on the edge of the world.

      Straker could have given her five damned minutes to warm her toes by the woodstove and have a cup of hot coffee. He could have lent her socks.

      “Never mind Straker,” she muttered into the wall of fog.

      Something caught her eye, drawing her gaze to the left. She peered down at water, rocks, seaweed and barnacles. Probably it was nothing. Fog could be deceiving.

      Not this time.

      Riley felt her blanket drop, heard herself gasp. Oh God.

      Amid the rocks, seaweed and barnacles, facedown and motionless in the shallow water, was a man’s body.

      Straker heard Riley yelling bloody murder and figured he had no choice. He had to see what was up. He walked out onto his rickety porch, where a pale, white sun was trying to burn through the fog. With any luck, the stranded Miss St. Joe could be on her way in less than an hour. She had always been…inconvenient.

      He heard her thrashing through the brush alongside the cottage, heedless of the maze of paths that connected all points of the small island.

      “Straker—Straker, my God, there’s a dead body on the rocks!”

      He made a face. A dead body. Uh-huh.

      He went back inside. His two rooms were toasty warm. He had a nice beef stew bubbling on the stove. The fog, the cold, the shifting winds were all reminders that summer was coming to an end. He couldn’t stay out here through the winter. A decision had to be made. What next in his life?

      “Straker!”

      Riley didn’t like sharing her island with him. She wasn’t above conjuring up a dead body just to get back at him for leaving her out in the cold fog. He’d known her since she was a precocious six-year-old who liked to recite the Latin names of every plant and creature she pulled out of a tide pool.

      She pounded up the stairs onto the porch. She didn’t bother knocking, just threw open the door. “Didn’t you hear me?”

      He stirred his stew. The steam, the rich smells were a welcome contrast to the cold, wet presence of Riley St. Joe. She was small and wiry like Emile, with his shock of short dark hair, his dark eyes, his drive and intensity. She had her mother’s quirky laugh, her father’s straight nose. She was difficult, competitive and a know-it-all. And she seemed to have no idea how much he’d changed since he’d left Schoodic Peninsula.

      It was a great stew. Big chunks of carrots and red potatoes, celery, onions, sweet potatoes, a splash of burgundy. Not much meat. Since getting shot, he’d tried to be careful with his diet. His FBI shrink had urged him not to isolate himself, but his FBI shrink hadn’t grown up on the coast of Maine. Two hours out of the hospital, John had headed home. When Emile caught him camped out on Labreque Island, he’d offered him use of the cottage. There was no telephone, no mail, not much of a dock and the only power source an old kerosene generator and wood. Straker had accepted.

      As a consequence, Emile’s younger granddaughter was in his doorway. He glanced at her from his position at the stove. She was pale, shaking, eyes wide.

      “I heard you,” he said.

      “Bastard—why didn’t you come? You know more about…oh, damn.”

      She turned even paler. Straker put down his slotted spoon. Hell. Maybe she had seen a dead body. “Finish your sentence. This is good. I want to hear what it is you think I know more about than you do.”

      “Dead bodies.”

      It was almost a mumble. He said, “The fog can fool you.”

      “Damn it, Straker, you don’t need to tell me about fog. I saw his—his—his hair and his hand—” Her eyes rolled back in her head. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

      He sighed. Damned if he needed that. “Bathroom’s in there.”

      “I know where the damned—”

      She interrupted herself with a curse and lurched across the linoleum floor to the short hall that led straight to the bathroom. It was in an ell tacked onto the cottage. In the old days, there’d just been an outhouse. Straker had locked her into it once when she was eight or nine and especially on his nerves. Emile hadn’t been too pleased with him. Riley, the little snot, had screamed and carried on far more than was necessary. Straker had it in the back of his mind that was what she was doing now. Exaggerating, going for the drama.

      He followed her, although not with great speed or enthusiasm. Still, if she choked on her tongue or something it was a long trek to an emergency room.

      Between moaning and swearing at him, she got rid of the contents of her stomach. She managed fine. Straker, leaning in the doorway, found himself noticing the shape of her behind as she bent over the tank. He grimaced. He’d been out on his deserted island longer than he’d thought.

      Leaving that realization for later pondering, he went out to the kitchen and checked the kettle he kept on the woodstove. The water was bubbling. He got down a restaurant-style mug Emile had probably lifted from a local diner a million years ago, dangled a tea bag in it and poured in the hot water.

      Riley staggered back into the main room. She was trembling visibly and had a wet washcloth pressed to her forehead. Her color had improved, if only from the blood rushing to her head from pitching her cookies.

      “It was the brownie,” she said, dropping onto an ancient wooden folding chair at the table.

      Straker shoved the mug in front of her. The table was in front of a big picture window overlooking the bay, still enveloped in fog. “I thought it was the dead body.”

      “I wouldn’t have thrown up if I hadn’t eaten the brownie.”

      But she didn’t smile. There was no spark in her dark, almond-shaped eyes.

      “I don’t have a phone,” he said. “We can use the radio on my boat to notify the police. I’ll go have a look, make sure you weren’t seeing things.”

      “I’ll go with you.” She tried a sip of the tea, the tea bag still dangling. “I don’t want to stay here alone.”

      “If the guy’s dead, he’s not going to come crawling in here.”

      That rallied her. She pushed her chair back so forcefully it almost tipped over. She was still trembling, but she squared her shoulders. “Just let’s go.”

      She took a couple more quick sips of tea, wiped at her face once more with the wet washcloth and pushed past him to the door. She looked a little wobbly, but Straker kept his mouth shut. Riley wasn’t one to like having her weaknesses pointed out to her. He wondered if this was her first dead human. Her job put her in contact with stranded whales and dolphins.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ