Chapter 5

9 August

“IT’S HIM, ISN’T it? It’s Joe.”

Kelly was gazing up at the statue that was on the Baldwin’s Bridge common—the picture-perfect lawn between the world-famous hotel and the town marina. But now she turned to find Tom standing behind her.

She wasn’t one bit surprised that he should be here this morning, too. No doubt he had been as eager as she to take another look at the statue that was boldly labeled “The Hero of Baldwin’s Bridge.”

“Hey,” she said in greeting, trying not to blush, thinking of the way she’d kissed his hand last night. The way he’d run away afterward. Good thing she hadn’t gotten close enough to kiss him on the lips.

“Taking the day off?” He didn’t sound as if he were thinking about anything but here and now. He sounded . . . like Tom. Casual and friendly, with an undercurrent of sexuality he couldn’t lose even when he was being casual and friendly.

“Hah. There’s no such thing.” She tried to sound just as casual, hoping he couldn’t tell that every time she so much as saw him she started flashing hot and cold and having fantasies of him kissing her, right here, in public, on the Baldwin’s Bridge common. “I mean, yeah, this is supposed to be one of my stay home days, but odds are I’ll be paged and end up going into Boston.”

Tom was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. Much of his face was hidden, but what she could see looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept well or the headache he’d mentioned last night was still bothering him. He smelled great, though, like sunblock and coffee and fresh laundry. She resisted her urge to press her nose against the clean cotton sleeve of his muscle-hugging T-shirt and breathe in deeply.

“Check this out.” Kelly dug through her purse for the copies she’d made at the library from the microfiche machine. “It’s from The Baldwin’s Bridge Trumpet.”

He laughed. “We think alike. I was going to the library next.”

“I was there for over two hours and this was all I found,” she told him. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

“May 8, 1946,” he read as she handed him the copies. “That’s nearly a year after the end of the war.”

“Yeah, it was a year after V-E Day. The town had a special statue unveiling. For this statue,” she explained, glancing up at it again. “It was commissioned and paid for by Mrs. Harper Baldwin to remember a son and a nephew who’d died in the war. According to what it says in the article, she had two other sons. Both served with the Fifty-fifth, and both survived, thanks at least in part to Joe, who risked his life to warn the division of a coming attack. Mrs. Baldwin had the artist use a photo of Joe as the model for this statue, but honored Joe’s quote unquote most humble request to leave his name off the statue.”

Kelly watched as Tom silently skimmed through the three pages of news articles and looked at the pictures. Joe, looking uncomfortable, standing stiffly next to Mrs. Harper Baldwin, surrounded by a crowd of well-dressed townfolk. Joe in his uniform, impossibly young. He was twenty-two in 1946, after the war. When he’d first been shot down in France, he’d been only eighteen. Eighteen.

“The second article has a brief recounting of the incident in which Joe saved the division,” she told Tom. “It doesn’t say much more than what Dad told us last night. Although it does mention that Joe . . .” She moved closer to him to read over his shoulder, her arm brushing against his as she reached to point out the passage. She had to clear her throat. “Here it is. ‘Joseph Paoletti, who is currently employed as the Ashton family groundskeeper in Baldwin’s Bridge, met Charles Ashton, an officer with the Fighting Fifty-fifth, when Lieutenant Ashton was wounded in France in June 1944. Mr. Paoletti helped hide the wounded officer from the Nazis after a German counteroffensive that pushed the battle line far to the west, leaving Lieutenant Ashton stranded deep within enemy territory.’ “

She looked up at Tom. “My father was there, too. Behind the German lines. Did you know about that?”

He looked at her pointedly over the top of his sunglasses, and she laughed. “Dumb question,” she said. “Like either one of the silent twins would’ve told you. Sorry.”

As she watched, Tom looked from the blurred newspaper photograph of Joe—a young Joe, but still so serious—up to the grim-faced statue.

“It’s definitely Joe,” Kelly agreed, gazing at the statue, too. “He’s got those Paoletti eyes.”

Tom laughed. “You mean those shifty Paoletti eyes?”

She turned to face him, horrified. “God, no! You don’t have—”

“Whoa,” he said. “Easy! I was just kidding.”

She was standing close enough to see his eyes behind his sunglasses. “No, you weren’t. There may have been people in this town who didn’t like or trust you, Tom,” she said fiercely, “but I was never one of them.”

He gave her one of his little half smiles. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I . . . always appreciated that.”

Kelly was standing much too close but she purposely didn’t back away. Her attraction for him was mutual. It had to be. When he wasn’t around, she doubted its existence. But when she was with him . . . She wasn’t imagining this electricity that crackled between them.

He’d apologized last night for kissing her all those years ago. But he hadn’t apologized for leaving town the next day with only the lamest of good-byes. She’d kept waiting for him to mention that, but he hadn’t. Then all of a sudden he was about to go find Joe, so she’d reached out to shake his hand.

Way to initiate a seduction—with a brisk handshake. She knew she had to do something, and that was when—stupider and stupider—she’d kissed him.

On the hand.

Genius.

In retrospect, she came up with all kinds of snappy replies to his apology. Like, “You don’t need to apologize for something I enjoyed immensely and am dying to do again.”

Right—as if she’d ever find the nerve to say something like that to him.

“So explain,” Tom said now, glancing up at the statue looming above them. “He’s got Paoletti eyes. I’m dying to hear what that means.”

What was she supposed to tell him? That his version of those hazel Paoletti eyes had the power to make her melt? To make her heart rate increase? To fuel some pretty powerful fantasies, particularly when combined with the memory of a few stolen kisses in the front seat of a station wagon?

“Well,” she said carefully, “I think it’s probably a window-to-the-soul thing. Maybe it comes from being part Italian, but neither you nor Joe are very good at hiding your emotions. Which is really wonderful,” she added when it looked as if he was about to protest. “And maybe it’s because of that, but you both always look just a little bit sad. Even when you’re smiling.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Probably comes from keeping so many secrets.”

He laughed and dimples appeared in his cheeks. “I don’t have any secrets.”

“Sure,” Kelly said. “Aside from the fact that you’re a Navy SEAL and everything you do is a secret, your life’s an open book. But, whoops, you don’t manage to come home to visit more than twice a year, because your career is your life.”

She had him there.

“And Joe,” she continued. “All these years I thought he was just a gardener—turns out he’s an international man of mystery. Every time I turn around, he’s got another secret.”

“Only about the war,” Tom protested. “There are plenty of men who returned from Europe and didn’t say a single word about it to anyone. It’s not that hard to understand.”

“What about his personal life?”

“What personal life?” Tom asked.

“See?” she countered triumphantly, smiling up at him.

He was silent then, just gazing down at her, still standing much, much too close. Kelly felt her smile fade. Kiss me.

She could see the sign for the bank from where she stood. Seventeen years ago, Tom had pulled into the dark bank parking lot, jammed his car into park, dragged her into his arms, and kissed her.

Right there.

Just a stone’s throw from where they were now standing.

It had been, without a doubt, the hottest, most powerful sexual experience of her life. And she’d kept her clothes on the entire time.

For him, it had been only something for which to apologize.

He shifted slightly back, putting more space between them. Still backing away, even all these years later.

“Why didn’t Joe ever get married?” Kelly asked. Why didn’t you ever get married? was the question she really wanted to ask, even though she already knew. He wasn’t the kind of man who would willingly settle down. And that was a good thing, she reminded herself. If she could manage to strike a match and ignite their attraction, neither of them would get hurt.

She motioned toward the papers Tom still held, pointing at the picture of Joe. “Look at him. He was delicious. And as if looking like this isn’t enough,” she added, “he just so happens to be one of the nicest guys in the world—and a war hero with a statue made in his likeness. I’m sorry, but the women in town had to be lining up to meet him.”

“You know, I asked Joe about that once,” Tom told her. “I wanted to know why he didn’t marry my grandmother—his brother’s widow. She’d moved to Baldwin’s Bridge a few years after Joe did. He got a job for her as a cook in your father’s house after the war. It was obvious he liked her, and I’ve seen pictures—she was gorgeous. She must’ve married my grandfather when she was seventeen. So there she was, a war widow at the ripe old age of twenty-three, with a five-year-old kid in tow—my father. Joe helped her rent a house in town, helped her get settled, but that’s as far as it went.

“When I was about six, she married the mailman. I didn’t get it. I asked Joe why he didn’t marry her, and he told me he loved my Gram like a sister. He was glad she was getting married—glad she’d found someone to spend the rest of her life with, glad she didn’t have to be alone anymore.” He looked up at the statue. “So I asked him how come he never got married, how come he didn’t find someone so he didn’t have to be alone.”

He laughed softly, remembering. “I was only six, I didn’t have a clue about the boundaries I was stepping over with that one.”

“What did he say?” Kelly asked, intrigued.

“He told me he wasn’t married because he’d met and lost his one true love during the war. I remember him saying that as if it were yesterday. His one true love.” He was silent for several long seconds. “He told me that after he met her, there was really no point in looking any further, you know? No one could ever compare. And Joe, he said he wasn’t the kind of man who was willing to settle. He’d rather be alone.”

Kelly stared up at the statue’s grim face. “Lost,” she whispered. “Did she . . .” She looked at Tom. “Did he mean that she died?”

“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “Lost could mean a lot of things, couldn’t it? Maybe she married someone else.” He looked down at the papers he still had in his hands, as if surprised by the sight of them. He stepped toward her, holding them out.

She exhaled her disbelief as she took them from him and put them back into her bag. “God. It all seems so, I don’t know . . . So romantic.” Yet Joe had always struck her as pragmatic and down to earth. He was a gardener, a handyman. To think that he’d spent all these years carrying a torch, refusing to settle for anyone else. Who would’ve thought? . . .

“Do you think he’s right?” she asked Tom. “That we each have only one chance at true love? Do you think there even is such a thing as true love?”

He shook his head. “You’re asking the wrong guy. I don’t have a lot of experience with this subject. I don’t really, um, do love, you know? It doesn’t quite . . . fit with my line of work.”

“But you have an opinion, don’t you?” she persisted. “We all have ideas and beliefs about what love should or shouldn’t be. In fact, your beliefs about love are probably behind your determination to avoid serious relationships.”

“Well, thank you, Dr. Freud,” he said, amusement in his voice. “Has it occurred to you that I might not be in a serious relationship because I know that with the combination of my, shall we say, restless temperament and the strains of my intensely relationship-unfriendly job, the odds of any relationship working out are zip?”

“So if your dream woman approached you—someone who fulfilled your every physical and emotional and mental expectation for what a life partner should be,” Kelly hypothesized, “and she said, ‘Tom, here I am, ready to be your friend and lover forever, ready to stand beside you through bad and good, ready to play out your every sexual fantasy,’ you’d turn her down?”

Tom laughed. “I don’t know. You want to be more specific about those sexual fantasies?”

Yes. This was flirting. There was definitely an underlying current of attraction beneath his words. Now what she had to do was zing one right back at him. She could do this. She looked him squarely in the eye. “You tell me. It’s your fantasies we’re talking about.”

Now it was his turn, but instead of pressing forward, he stepped back. He laughed.

“I’d feel kind of funny going into detail with Uncle Joe listening in,” he said lightly, glancing up at the statue.

“I don’t think you’d turn your dream woman down.” Kelly didn’t want to laugh. She didn’t want this conversation to turn lighthearted. She wanted to get back to that place where the very air between them crackled with sexual energy. Then all she had to do was ask him to dinner. She could do this.

Tom shook his head. “I’d have to turn her down,” he countered. “If she was that perfect . . . I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”

“But if you were her one true love, you’d hurt her by not being with her.”

He rubbed his forehead as if he still had a headache even as he laughed again. “Okay. Whoa. That’s enough. You can’t set up a completely fictional, no-chance-of-it-ever-happening scenario, and try to force a point of any kind with it. Let’s get real here, Ashton. No ‘dream woman’ is about to walk up to me and offer to—” He broke off, clearing his throat. “Fill in the blank—I’ll leave it to your imagination, but figure it probably involves whipped cream and black lingerie.”

Kelly couldn’t keep from giggling. Black lingerie and . . . She took a deep breath and tried to pretend she wasn’t blushing. Whipped cream and Tom Paoletti. My God. Somebody come take her order. She wanted a double.

“You think it’s a no-chance scenario,” she argued. “But what if Joe had actually met his dream woman? His true love?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe he did.” But even that was too strong an admission for him, and he tried to back away from it. “Look, Kel, all I really know for sure is whatever Joe felt, it had to be pretty powerful if it made him prefer to spend nearly sixty years of his life alone rather than settle for someone he didn’t really love. And we’re talking alone alone,” he added. “Joe didn’t have girlfriends, he didn’t have lady friends, he didn’t go out to bars and have one-night stands. He was Alone, with a capital A. No black lingerie. No whipped cream. Just Joe and his memories.”

God, that was sad. Had Joe simply quit looking at age twenty-two? Or did he hold on to hope for years, hope that he’d find someone to replace the woman he’d loved? If so, that hope had surely died slowly, painfully.

“In a lot of ways, I can understand his not wanting to settle,” Tom said quietly. “There’re a lot of things in my life I wouldn’t be willing to settle for.”

Kelly’s pager went off. She’d set it on silent when she went into the library, and the shaking made her jump. She checked the number.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Tom as she dug through her purse for her cell phone. “I have to call my office.”

She dialed the number, turning slightly away from him. “Hi, this is Dr. Ashton. I was just paged.”

“Doctor, I’m sorry to disturb you.” It was Pat Geary. “But the McKenna test results finally came in.”

Kelly closed her eyes. “Please tell me it’s some kind of weird anemia.”

“No such luck. It’s about as bad as it gets,” Pat said grimly. “Brenda McKenna’s pretty anxious for the results. Should I call her back, schedule a meeting for tomorrow?”

“No, better make it today,” Kelly decided. “And call Dr. Martin. Let’s get Betsy in to see the oncologist as soon as possible.”

“So much for your vacation.”

“It’s not a vacation, it’s a temporary partial leave.”

“Well, for someone who’s taking temporary partial leave, you’re sure here nearly all the time.”

“Schedule the meeting with the McKennas for about an hour from now,” Kelly told her assistant. “I’m on my way in.”

She closed her phone and grabbed her keys from her purse before she realized. Her father. She swore and opened her cell phone again to call Pat back.

But Tom was already one step ahead of her. “I was going from here to pick up some paint from Home Depot,” he told her, “but that’s a pretty low priority. If you want, I’ll stay with your father.”

“You don’t need to change your plans,” Kelly said, “but if you wouldn’t mind checking in on him when you get home . . .”

“No problem,” Tom said. “Think he’d be up for a game of chess?”

“Oh, God, that would be so nice. I’m sure he’d love it.”

“Is there a number where I can reach you? I mean, I probably won’t need it, but . . .”

Kelly dug through her purse for her business card. “This has my office number—a direct line to my desk—and my pager, too. Please don’t hesitate to call. And don’t feel as if you need to stay with him the entire time. Just stick your head in every now and then.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Tom said. “It’s not going to be a hardship. Believe it or not, I like the guy. And maybe if I’m lucky, there’ll be a Red Sox game on, and I’ll be able to get Joe to sit in the same room with him without fighting.”

Kelly had to hold on to herself to keep from hugging him. “If you can manage to do that, I’ll love you forever. And if you can get them to make up and be friends and stop fighting for good . . . I’ll bring home some whipped cream.”

Oh, my God, had she really said that out loud?

She had.

For about a half a second, Tom looked completely surprised, but then he laughed. “Well, hey, there’s incentive.” He pointed toward the nearby marina parking lot. “Go,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

She ran for her car.

It was him.

Right there in Home Depot on Route 1 in Baldwin’s Bridge.

Tom had filled his shopping cart with cans of paint and rollers and was pushing it through the crowd toward the checkout when he saw him. The Merchant. Or at least it was the very same man he’d seen in LoganAirport by the luggage carousel. The man was pushing his own shopping cart to the exit, away from checkout number four.

Tom got a brief but very clear look at his face before he turned the corner. It was him.

Brown hair shot with gray, weak chin, slightly stooped shoulders as if he were trying to make himself shorter. It was definitely him.

What the fuck was the Merchant doing here in Baldwin’s Bridge?

Shopping. He had an entire cart filled with his purchases. Tom could see a roll of electrical wire sticking out of his bag.

The hair on the back of his neck went straight up.

The man responsible for the 1996 Paris embassy car-bombing was buying electrical wire.

Tom left his cart right there, in the middle of an aisle, much to the displeasure of the shoppers around him. He deserted all his wayward thoughts about Kelly Ashton and whipped cream, too, as he pushed toward the same door the Merchant had used.

He fought the throng, silently cursing the time it was taking, the precious seconds he was wasting. He broke into a run as he hit a less crowded area. Hitting the sidewalk and the glaring brightness of the day, he skidded to a stop, shielding his eyes with one hand and fighting his dizziness as he quickly scanned the parking lot.

The Merchant was gone. The parking lot was busy, filled with cars, some pulling in, some pulling out. There were people walking to and from their vehicles, some with shopping carts, but none of them was the Merchant.

Tom scanned the area again. Come on, come on. Stand up and show yourself. No one could have pushed his cart out to a car, loaded up the trunk, and been inside it that quickly. Unless. . .

There were four cars heading for the entrance onto Route 1, a number of empty shopping carts left forlornly on the sidewalk outside the exit door. If the Merchant had had a car waiting for him, if he’d loaded it up right here from the sidewalk . . .

Tom looked again at the cars at the far end of the huge parking lot, waiting for the light to change so they could pull out onto the busy main road. Two were white subcompacts, one was a boxy red minivan, the last a blue sedan—probably a Ford Taurus. They were all too far away for him to see the license plates, and as he watched, the light changed and they all pulled away.

Shit.

Tom went back inside through the exit doors, back to the clerk working cash register four. She was an older woman, a senior citizen, probably looking to make a few extra bucks to bolster her Social Security checks. She was currently ringing up a whole cartful of plumbing supplies, her movements quick and sure. She glanced at Tom and he made himself smile at her despite the fact that his heart was still pounding. She looked as if she’d be able to multitask, so he didn’t wait for her to finish.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” He read her name tag. “Mae. There was a man who was just in here—he bought a whole cart of stuff? Some electrical wire? . . .”

She looked at him again, one eyebrow raised this time as she kept working, holding the various types of pipe and connections up to the scanner. “You’ve just described nearly every customer I’ve helped since my coffee break at ten-thirty.”

She smiled at her own small joke and Tom took a steadying breath. Okay. She seemed friendly. At the very least she was good-natured and intelligent.

“This was just a few minutes ago,” he said. “He had brown hair, going gray. About forty-five years old, about my height. He bought a roll of wire? . . .”

“Pleasant brown eyes?” she asked.

Brown eyes. But okay. “Yes,” Tom said. If he were the Merchant, he would figure he’d call less attention to himself by not wearing the cheap blue contact lenses once he was away from the potential scrutiny at LoganAirport. But Christ, what was he doing in Baldwin’s Bridge?

Mae was looking at him, waiting for him to go on.

“He’s my brother-in-law,” he said smoothly. Jenks would have been proud. “My crazy sister just sent me down here to make sure he didn’t forget a bunch of things we need. We’re rewiring the house and . . . But I just missed him. He pulled away before I could make sure he got everything. I saw he had the wire, but maybe you could tell me—did he also get pliers?”

“He bought quite a few items,” Mae told him as she worked. “Wire, a wire cutter, needle-nose pliers, too. Let’s see . . . duct tape, lots of duct tape and electrical tape, a whole pile of switches and switch plate covers . . .” She took a credit card from the man buying the plumbing supplies and ran the magnetic tape through her register. “There was more. A bunch of doodads from our electrical department and a lovely hanging pot of impatiens from gardening that he said he just couldn’t resist.”

Flowers. Why would a terrorist buy flowers? Tom could think of a few reasons without much effort. One—because no one would suspect he was a terrorist if he bought flowers. And two—because he wasn’t really a terrorist, he was just some guy who looked like some other guy Tom had seen at Logan; and three—Tom was out of his fucking mind.

“How about a clock radio?” he asked. If he were building a bomb, the Merchant would need some kind of alarm clock to jury-rig. Provided he was the Merchant. Provided Tom hadn’t completely lost it.

Mae shook her head. “Nope, definitely not. But we don’t carry small appliances. You’ll have to go to Radio Shack or Sears for something like that.”

“Did he pay with a credit card or—”

“Cash.”

It had been too much to hope he’d used a credit card. Of course, even if he had, it probably would have been stolen. “Thank you, Mae,” Tom said.

“Good luck with your project,” she said.

Yeah, he definitely needed luck.

“A car bomb.” Admiral Crowley sighed.

Tom slowly sat down at Joe’s kitchen table, trying his hardest not to sound insane, but even he didn’t believe himself completely.

“He could pick up an alarm clock from anywhere. Sears. Bradlees. The CVS. Sir.” Tom chose his words carefully as he spoke into the phone. “I know how crazy this all sounds. First I see this man at Logan, and then I see him here in Baldwin’s Bridge. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. I mean, why Baldwin’s Bridge? What’s his target? Is it me?”

“That’s the craziest thing you’ve said yet,” Crowley told him dryly. “You weren’t even in a command position when you helped go after the Merchant. Out of everyone on that task force, why should he go after you?”

“How could he go after me?” Tom pointed out. “You know as well as I do that SEAL Team Sixteen’s personnel records aren’t exactly open to the public. And even if he had an inside connection with top secret clearance, he wouldn’t find out much.” He rubbed his eyes, well aware that it had only been an hour since he’d last taken Tylenol. It wasn’t working. “I don’t think he knows I’m here. It’s hard to imagine he would go to Home Depot—right under my nose—and buy the tools and wires he’d need to build a bomb if he knew I was watching.”

“Tom.” Crowley sighed again. “I’ve made some quiet inquiries, and none of our INTEL agencies report any movement from the Merchant. Nothing at all. Not a peep, not a breath. In fact, CIA’s got him on a presumed-dead list. I’m finding it very difficult to get excited about this.”

“Sir, I understand your position, and I agree I’m not the most reliable pair of eyes right now, but I think it would be wise at least to take some precautions—”

“Tom. You need to use this next month to rest. To recharge. I’m going to be frank with you, son. You’re going to have to be on your toes when you return from leave. Rear Admiral Tucker’s actively trying to deep six you and your entire SO squad. And he’s not the only one who wants you and your Troubleshooters gone from Team Sixteen. If you want to save your career, you’re going to have to come back fighting. It’s not going to help you one bit if word gets out that you’ve seen dead terrorists—or Elvis or aliens from outer space—in your hometown. I’m behind you, Lieutenant, you know I am, but there’s only so much I can do to save your ass if you’re determined to get it kicked.”

“Sir—”

“Get some rest, Lieutenant.” Crowley hung up, leaving Tom listening to the emptiness of a dead phone line.

He reached behind him to hang it up. If he wanted to save his career . . .

Tom did. His career meant just about everything to him.

But if that was the Merchant he’d seen, there was far more than his career at stake. The thought of the Merchant planting a car bomb somewhere in Boston’s GovernmentCenter was chilling.

But why Boston? The Merchant had always targeted people and places for a reason. It didn’t make sense that he should just randomly choose Boston now.

Unless he somehow was here because of Tom. Tom had been present, after all, when the Merchant’s teammates—one of whom was his wife—were killed. And sure, while the records of the task force assault were top secret, even the most top secret information could be leaked or sold or stolen.

Maybe the Merchant was after Tom.

Christ, that sounded crazy.

In fact, it sounded frigging paranoid.

Get some rest, the admiral had ordered him.

He gripped the table with both hands, holding on as dizziness and doubt assaulted him relentlessly, making him giddy and breathless and sick to his stomach. This was new territory for him, this wondering if he could trust his judgment, wondering if he could trust what he’d seen with his own eyes.

He’d gotten where he was in the SEAL teams through his ability to take charge, to take command. Confidently. Completely. His men had faith in him. They trusted him implicitly—because Tom had always, without exception, trusted himself.

He’d seen the Merchant at Logan. It was the Merchant. He’d known, deep in his gut, with every cell in his body, that this was the man he’d studied for so many months.

But these strange feelings of doubt had crept in, and now he was wondering just who and what he’d seen.

What if he was wrong and it wasn’t the Merchant? Well, okay, people made mistakes. He’d chalk it up to coincidence. With all the millions of people in the world, the man he’d seen just happened to pick up a bag with the same exact twisting motion that the Merchant had always used.

Unless Tom hadn’t seen that telltale motion at all. Unless this goddamned head injury had only made him think he’d seen it.

And that was where the self-doubt was killing him.

Was he ever going to be able to trust his own eyes again?

That was enough to drive him fucking nuts—if he wasn’t fucking nuts already.

But the sixty-four-million-dollar question was even harder to answer.

What if he had seen the Merchant? What if the terrorist was planning to hit some target in the Boston area?

And what if Tom just sat back in a lounge chair on the deck overlooking the ocean and did nothing except maybe take advantage of Kelly Ashton when she was feeling particularly lonely and in need of a physical connection?

Yeah, that would be great. He could be twice the asshole—ignoring the potential threat from a terrorist while deceiving a woman he liked and respected.

Kelly would end up hurt and people would die. Maybe a lot of people.

Head pounding, Tom reached for the phone again, leaning back to dial Jazz Jacquette’s home phone number. Jazz had a key to Tom’s apartment, where Tom still had files of information about the Merchant and his organization stashed on his computer’s hard disk. It would take a matter of minutes for Jazz to send that info to Tom electronically. Jazz could also get in touch with WildCard, who could use his unique hacker skills to gather whatever new information had come in on the Merchant over the past few years—pictures, videos, reports, and even rumors.

Yeah, provided he could beg, borrow, or steal a computer with Internet access, Tom was about to get that rest Admiral Crowley recommended—while he caught up on his reading.

“What flavor do you recommend?”

The voice was familiar and Mallory looked over the Ice Cream Shoppe counter and focused on her five thousandth customer of the early afternoon.

What a surprise. It was the geek of last night past, come here to her place of employment to haunt her by rattling his pocket protector.

“A two scoop sugar cone,” she told him flatly. “Plain vanilla.”

He blinked at her from behind his windshield, clearly surprised. But he’d asked, and in her opinion, none of the fancy, yuppified, rock- and twig-littered flavors ever beat the Shoppe’s wicked awesome homemade vanilla.

“If that’s too middle of the road for someone as obviously cosmopolitan as you,” she added, “try one scoop vanilla, one scoop orange sorbet.”

“Like a Creamsicle,” he said. “That sounds great. I’ll take one of those.”

He watched through the glass as she leaned over and dug into the hard frozen vats of ice cream and sorbet—no doubt taking advantage of the opportunity to try to look down her shirt.

“You’ve been working here for a while, haven’t you?” he said. “More than a year, right?”

“A year and a half,” she told him. “So what?”

There was actually nothing “so what” about it. It was a year longer than her mother had ever held a job in her entire life. In the overall scheme of things, serving ice cream was stupid and meaningless, Mal knew, but when Carolyn had given her a copy of the key so she could open up in the morning, she’d been proud.

She reached across the counter to hand the cone to the geek and their fingers touched. It was hard to tell if it was on purpose. He didn’t turn red or start stammering or fall down in a dead faint, so maybe it had been.

“Thanks,” he said with a flash of his perfect teeth, handing her a five that he had out and ready. “When I first saw you, I thought maybe you lifted, but you don’t have to, do you? You get that great definition in your arms just from working here—from scooping ice cream.”

Her arms. He was waxing poetic about her arms. It was almost funny enough to make her laugh, but she managed to restrain herself. Mallory turned her back on him as she made change at the cash register.

When she turned to face him, he’d somehow gotten a dab of ice cream on the tip of his nose. God, what a loser. She dropped the change into his hand from as distant a height as possible.

“Are you working all afternoon?” he asked.

Carolyn chose that exact moment to breeze out of the back room. “Lunchtime, Mallory! You’re free for an hour. Don’t smoke too many cigarettes, girl.”

Oh, crap. It was bad enough Carolyn announced that she had the next hour free, but the real killer was that now the geek knew her name.

Mallory took off her apron, grabbed her bag lunch from the refrigerator, along with her book and cigarettes, and headed for the door.

Geek-boy followed with his ice cream—had she really thought that he wouldn’t? Before she hit the door, she pulled a yooie, marching back toward the counter and grabbing a napkin. As ridiculous and pathetic as he was, and as scornful as she was of him, there was still no way she could knowingly let him walk out into the harsh streets of Baldwin’s Bridge, among the snickering cliques of richie-rich yacht club kids, with ice cream on his nose.

“Don’t move,” she ordered him, and swiped his face clean. “And don’t get excited. This doesn’t mean anything except that you had ice cream on your nose.”

She tossed the napkin into the trash container outside the front door and kept going, pretending that he wasn’t still following her.

“Actually,” he said, “I did that on purpose.”

When he spoke to her, it made it hard to pretend he wasn’t following her—especially when he said things that didn’t make any sense at all. Mallory couldn’t help herself. She turned and looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

He smiled at her over his cone, a happy little geek smile. “The ice cream on the nose. It’s my humanity test. You passed.”

“Yeah, well, fuck off,” Mallory said. She glanced at him. “How do I rate now?”

He laughed. What do you know? A geek with a sense of humor. He followed her for a while in silence, eating his ice cream. “Do you always have lunch down here by the marina?”

“Crap.” She’d forgotten to grab a soda from the Shoppe. And the only thing in the house this morning had been a stale loaf of bread and some peanut butter. Lunch was going to be a dry mouth fest.

“It’s really beautiful down here.” He squinted as he gazed out over the glistening water, finishing up the last of his cone and wiping his hands and mouth on the napkin she’d wrapped around it. “That was really good, by the way.”

“Look,” she told him, settling herself on the grass under the biggest shade tree on the lawn in front of the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel, “I have only an hour, and I’m in the middle of this really great book. So if you don’t mind? . . .”

He was bending into an odd shape, trying to see the cover of her book, and she impatiently held it out.

He shook his head. “I don’t know that author’s name. Is she new?”

“Yeah,” Mallory told him, rolling her eyes. “Like nearly ten years new. She’s only the hottest romance author out there. God.”

“Ah,” he said. “I don’t read much romance.”

“Much?”

“Any,” he admitted.

She looked at him, at his mismatched socks, his geekoid plaid shorts, his faded Babylon-5 T-shirt, his bad haircut. David Sullivan, the Asian-American Irishman, could have been the spokesperson and poster model for bad hair days. And those glasses . . . Holy mother.

“Too macho for it, huh?” she asked him.

He answered as if it had been a serious question. “No, just ignorant. I like to read science fiction.”

“Now there’s a surprise. The fact that you’re into Babylon-5 was a clue.”

He looked astonished. “How do you know I’m into Babylon-5?”

She pointed at his space vessel–covered chest.

He glanced down at himself as if surprised by what he was wearing. Actually, he was probably surprised by the fact that he had on clothes, period. “Ah. And here I thought you were a mind reader. Instead, you’re just a good observer.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’ve found it helps when you keep your eyes open and actually focus on something or someone. If you do that, you start to notice little details, like whether they’re a human being or a Boston terrier.”

He actually managed to realize she was ragging on him. “I notice details,” he protested. “In fact, I’m good with details. It’s just my own personal details I don’t pay much attention to.” He tilted the cover of her book toward him again. “Now that I know what to look for, I’m going to have to read a romance novel.”

“Yeah, right.” He’d pinned the bullshit meter with that one. He’d actually read a romance, and her mother would become the governor’s wife. Mallory opened her book, opened her bag, and started to eat and read, pointedly ignoring him.

He stood there for only a few seconds longer and then, to her complete surprise, he walked away.

Wonder of wonders. A geek who actually understood “go away” body language.

But ten minutes didn’t pass before Mallory saw him again, walking back across the lawn toward her. She braced herself, focusing all of her attention on the page of her book, hunching her shoulders, turning slightly away.

She didn’t look up as he walked right up to her. She didn’t say a word, didn’t acknowledge him.

And again, to her surprise, he didn’t stay very long. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to get her attention. He simply set something on the grass next to her and then walked away, toward the marina.

When he was finally far enough away and it was safe to move, Mallory looked up.

He’d brought her a can of soda.

As she watched, he sat down on a bench near the seawall, facing the harbor, and taking a book out of his bag, he began to read, too.

She opened the can of soda and took a long drink. It was cold and delicious. She lit a cigarette—one of her last three. This was going to be her last pack. After this, she was quitting for good.

As she savored both the cigarette and the soda, she looked over at David Sullivan.

He didn’t look back at her, didn’t do anything but slouch there and read.

What a complete weirdo.