Carla Neggers - Breakwater

“We didn’t kill her-she drowned.” Lubec’s voice was toneless, his eyes flat. He was the most difficult person to read Quinn had ever encountered. “She kayaked in a thunderstorm.”

Lattimore was ashen. “How can you be so cold?”

Lubec shrugged, as if it was nothing to him.

“My God, Ollie.” Gerard seemed totally shocked. “What’s happened to you?”

“I’ve come to my senses. I see the world and its dangers with a clarity I never have before. I’m willing to risk everything to save my freedoms. Your freedoms, Gerry.” Crawford sat back on the sofa, looking smug, if also nervous, even agitated. “What are you willing to risk?”

“You need help, Ollie.” Gerard shook his head sadly. “The kidnapping did something to you.”

“It only galvanized me into action. I learned we can’t have it both ways. I made a commitment. I’ve risked my fortune, my life. I operate outside of the rule of law only to save it. I have to violate the thing I love for the greater good. Do I sound insane to you?”

“No. You sound very rational.”

“Help us, Gerry. Join us.” Crawford sat forward, leaning over his knees. “Today we make our mark.”

Sharon took a gulp of champagne. “Oliver, let’s not scare anyone.” Her smile was halfhearted, ragged. “We love to talk politics, even extreme politics, but we haven’t broken any laws, no matter how much we disagree with them.”

Quinn interrupted, remembering her research. “I think you all need to get your own house in order before you undertake any further operations. For instance, Oliver, you and your right-hand woman here need to work on your communication. Did she tell you that she’s the one who arranged for you to be kidnapped?”

Sharon barely responded. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’re good, Quinn.” Oliver Crawford sounded almost sympathetic. “Trying to turn us against each other-”

“I’m serious. How did the thugs know where to find you? Hasn’t that little question been keeping you awake at night? I’ll bet my green kayak that it has. And how did Lubec here know where to find you when he came to your rescue? And where to find these guys so they could be tortured and executed?” Quinn pointed a finger at Sharon Riccardi. “Right there. She arranged it all.”

“Oliver, don’t listen to her,” Sharon urged. “You’re the risk-taker. Look at what you’re doing today. You know I’m against it. I think it’s too much when we’re just starting. You’ve said yourself that in many ways the kidnapping was the best thing that ever happened to you. It gave you clarity.”

“That’s what she wanted, for you to have ‘clarity.’” Quinn kept her tone matter-of-fact. “You’re scared witless, beaten, half starved, threatened with death, and she’s pulling the strings on all of it.”

“Travis,” Sharon said coldly, “take Miss Harlowe-”

Oliver held up a hand. “Not just yet.”

Quinn, her heart racing, faked a yawn. “You all are such amateurs. I thought you were real players. You have to get with the program here.”

But the boss wasn’t listening. He was staring at the woman he’d trusted with his life. “ Sharon?”

She smashed her glass down onto a side table. “Oh, stop. Stop! I’ve been at this a lot longer than you have, Oliver. I know what’s at stake. We were cash-strapped after that mess last fall. We had every law enforcement officer in the country looking for us. We needed you to get off the fence. I knew once you got a taste of what we were up against, you’d come through for us.”

Oliver Crawford jumped to his feet and turned to the window, apparently trusting someone, Quinn thought, to keep Sharon Riccardi from shooting him in the back. At the hall door, Joe Riccardi was stiff and silent. Quinn suspected he was armed-and on her side.

Gerard Lattimore looked as if he was about to have a heart attack.

Sharon was near tears. “You give the orders, Oliver. You always have. Things are out of control. Call off the hits you ordered. We have to be patient. We have to pick our battles or we lose the war-”

“My God,” Crawford whispered, “my kidnapping-it was your doing.”

She spun to Lubec. “Travis?”

“Mr. Crawford gives the orders.”

“Joe?” With a quivering lower lip, Sharon Riccardi turned to her husband. “You’ll stand by me, won’t you? I know you’re not a part of our movement, not officially. In your heart-”

“No, Sharon.” He shook his head. “I came here to do a legitimate job. I’m not some psycho making up the rules as I go along.”

“Bastard.”

He ducked into the hall. Travis started to follow him, but Quinn stepped in front of him, aware of Lattimore on the sofa, frozen, staring at her. She had no idea if he’d help keep everyone off balance, talking, instead of shooting-but she couldn’t wait for him to make up his mind. “Travis, you didn’t switch the meds, did you? My prescription-strength ibuprofen for an SSRI-”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Travis replied.

“No, that was Sharon, wasn’t it?” Quinn pressed on. “She wanted Alicia agitated and upset. Her husband-” Quinn turned, trying to keep both Lubec and Sharon in sight. “ Sharon, you said he used to run through the marsh. You followed his same route last night. You’d had too much to drink-”

“I didn’t follow his route. I followed a path through the marsh.” She raised her chin, defiant. “Yes, I was a little drunk. I had a lot on my mind. Oliver-”

“You let Alicia take a medication to which she was allergic, thinking it was ibuprofen?” Oliver shouted. “Why? What was the point? She was so agitated, so out of control-” Crawford staggered toward Sharon, fighting a sob. “She wasn’t a real danger to us until then. I couldn’t risk-” He raked both hands through his hair. “Having her in that state was too great a risk. She knew too much.”

“Not because of me,” Sharon said, hoarse now. “Because of Joe.”

“Oh, I get it.” Quinn acted as if the realization had just hit her. “Alicia wasn’t having an affair with your boss. She was sleeping with your husband.”

Sharon took two steps forward and slapped Quinn across the face, a crisp smack that stung, then flew around to face Oliver. “You killed her?”

“We let her die,” he confessed. “It had to be done.”

“Oliver-” Gerard’s voice was strangled. “You’ve gone off the edge.”

His eyes shining with conviction, Crawford pleaded with him. “Help us, Gerry. Join us.”

Lattimore looked away, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of his longtime friend another second. “I have no intention of helping you or joining you.”

“All right. Have it your way.” Crawford stood up straight, deflated. “Travis, take Mr. Lattimore back to his yacht. I’ll trust in our friendship and his own self-interest that he’ll keep what we said here today private.”

Quinn moved in front of her former boss. If he went off with Travis Lubec, Lattimore was dead. “Wait, let me try talking to him.” She saw Huck enter the room from the same hall she had used earlier, his gun drawn. “Huck, why don’t you and I take Gerard out of here and have a talk with him?”

His eyes connected with hers for half a second, just enough for her to know he understood the situation. “Vern and Rochester are on the way,” he said, moving toward her. “Is everything okay in here?”

Sharon slumped with relief. “We’ve had something of a miscommunication here.”

“I’ll say.” Quinn touched her cheek where Sharon had smacked her. “It seems Sharon and Oliver aren’t on the same page. She had him kidnapped and tried to undermine her husband’s affair with Alicia by making her crazy, but Oliver also went behind Sharon ’s back-”