Catherine Coulter - The Cove

He was already in big trouble. He kissed her forehead, squeezed her more closely against him, and closed his eyes. At least the bastard hadn't raped her. But he'd beat her.

Surprisingly, he fell asleep.

11

"YEAH, RIGHT," QUINLAN said to himself as he got to his feet. There were two nice male footprints below Sally's bedroom window at Amabel's house and, more important, deep impressions where the feet of the ladder had dug into the earth.

There were small torn branches on the ground, ripped away by someone who had moved quickly, dragging that damned long ladder with him. He dropped to his haunches again and measured the footprints with his right hand. Size eleven shoe, just about his own size. He took off his loafer and set it gently into the indentation. Nearly a perfect fit. All right, then, an eleven and a half.

The heels were pretty deep, which meant he wasn't a small man, perhaps about six feet and one hundred eighty pounds or so. Close enough. He looked more carefully, measuring the depth of the indentations with his fingers. One went deeper than the other, which was odd. A limp? He didn't know. Maybe it was just an aberration.

"What have you got, Quinlan?" It was David Mountebank. He was in his uniform, looking pressed and well shaved, and surprisingly well rested. It was only six-thirty in the morning. "You thinking about eloping with Sally Brandon?"

Well, hell, Quinlan thought, rising slowly, as he said in an easy voice, "Actually someone tried to get into the house last night and really scared Sally. And yes, if you're interested, she should still be sleeping in Thelma's tower room, my room."

"Someone tried to break in?"

"Yeah, that's about it. Sally woke up and saw the man's face in the window. It scared the bejesus out of her. When she screamed, it must have scared the bejesus out of the guy as well, because he was out of here."

David Mountebank leaned against the side of Amabel's cottage. It looked like it had been freshly painted not six months ago. The dark-green trim around the windows was very crisp. "What the hell's really going on, Quinlan?"

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

He sighed. "I can't tell you. Call it national security, David."

"I'd like to call that bullshit."

"I can't tell you," Quinlan repeated. He met David's eye. He never flinched. David could have drawn a gun on him and he wouldn't have flinched.

"All right," David said finally. "Have it your way, at least for now. You promise me it doesn't have anything to do with the two murders?"

"It doesn't. The more I mull it over, the more I think the woman's murder is somehow connected to Harve and Marge Jensen's disappearance three years ago, even though just yesterday I told you I couldn't imagine it. I don't know how or why, but you've got things that don't smell right. Well, I have things that just twist and turn in my gut. That's my intuition. I've learned over the years never to ignore it.

Things are somehow connected. I just have no idea how or why or if I'm just plain not thinking straight.

"As for Sally, just let it go, David. I'd consider that I owed you good if you'd just let it go."

"It was two murders, Quinlan."

"Doc Spiver?"

"Yeah. I just got a call from the M.E. in Portland, a woman who was trained down in San Francisco and really knows her stuff. Would that there were M.E.s everywhere who knew what they were doing. I got his body to her late last night, and she agreed to do the autopsy immediately, bless her. She determined there was no way in hell he would have sat himself down in the rocking chair, put the gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger."

"That takes care of the theory that Doc Spiver murdered the woman and then felt so guilty that he killed himself."

"Blows it straight to hell."

"You know what it sounds like to me? Just maybe the person really believed everyone would think Doc Spiver killed himself. Maybe an older person who doesn't know all about things a good M.E. can determine. Your man, Ponser, didn't know, after all. You could say you just lucked out because of how good the M.E. is in Portland."

"That sounds right to me." He sighed. "What we've got is a killer loose, Quinlan, and I'm so stuck I don't know what to do.

"My men and I have been questioning every damned person in this beautiful little town, and just like with Laura Strather, no one knows a damned thing. I still can't buy it that one of the local folk is involved in this."

"One of them is, David, no way around it."

"You want me to take plaster casts of those footprints?"

"No, don't bother. But take a look, one impression goes deeper than the other. You ever see anything Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

like that?"

David was down on his hands and knees, studying the footprints. He measured the depth with his pinky finger, just as Quinlan had done. "Strange," he said. "I don't have a clue."

"I was thinking the guy had a limp, but it wouldn't look like that if he did. There'd be more of a rolling to one side, but there's not."

"You got me, Quinlan." David stood up and looked toward the ocean. "It's going to be a beautiful day. I used to bring my kids here at least twice a week for the World's Greatest Ice Cream. I haven't wanted them to get near The Cove since that first murder."

And, Quinlan knew, besides that killer, there was another man here who was out to make Sally believe she was crazy. It had to be her husband, Scott Brainerd.

He dusted his hands off on his dark-brown corduroy pants. "Oh, David, which one got to you first?"

"What?"

"Which of your daughters got her arms around your neck first?"

David laughed. "The littlest one. She climbed right up my leg like a monkey. Her name's Deirdre."

James left David Mountebank and returned to Thelma's Bed and Breakfast.

When he opened the door to his tower room, Sally was standing in the doorway of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and plastered to her head, strands falling to her shoulders. She had a towel in her left hand.

She stared at him.

She was stark naked.

She was so damned thin and so damned perfect, and he realized it in just the split second before she pulled the towel in front of herself.

"Where did you go?" she asked, still not moving, just standing there, wet and thin and perfect, and covered with a white towel.

"He wears an eleven-and-a-half shoe."

She tightened the towel, rolling it over above her breasts. She just stared at him.

"The man pretending to be your father," he said, watching her closely.

"You found him?"

"Not yet, but I found his footprints beneath your bedroom window and the indentations of the ladder feet. Yeah, our man was there. What size shoe does your husband wear, Sally?"

She was very pale. Now she was so colorless that he imagined even her hair was fading as he looked at her. "I don't know what size. I never asked, I never bought him shoes. My father wears an eleven and a half."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Sally, your father is dead. He was murdered more than two weeks ago. He was buried. The cops saw the body. It was your father. The man last night, it wasn't your father. If you can't think of any other man who's trying to drive you nuts, then it has to be your husband. Did you see him the night your father was murdered?''

"No," she whispered, backing away from him, retreating into the bathroom, shaking her head, wet strands of hair slapping her cheeks. "No, no."

She didn't slam the door, just quietly pushed it closed. He heard the lock click on the other side.

He knew he would never look at her quite in the same way again. She could be wearing a bear coat and he knew he would still see her standing naked in the bathroom doorway, so pale and beautiful that he'd wanted to pick her up and very gently lay her on his bed. But that would never happen. He had to get a grip.