Cold Comfort (18 page)

He drove down 17, noting the evidence of Hurricane Hugo's passage. Young pines lined the highway, and the forest looked new. The hardwoods would take much longer to come back. He knew the eye of the monster storm had come ashore near here; the force five winds mowed through like a giant bush hog, and the seventeen-foot storm surge flattened the barrier islands during its inexorable march inland—Hugo swamped the tiny fishing community under six feet of water. The more recent double-whammy from Hurricanes Charley and Gaston, hitting only two weeks apart, did much less damage.

* * *

Traffic was light, and Claire drove steadily. Except for a brief stop in Newport News at a library to use their computer and check out a book on CD, she hardly slowed. After a quick pit stop, she checked her directions and left 95 for the last leg of her trip. She needed to get out of the car and stretch, relax at Marsh Winds. She arched her back and wriggled in the seat. Long day.

Guilt ate at her. She hated deceiving Riley, but she had no intention of being locked away while he checked into her problem. She pictured his fury and frustration when he found her note. He might even quit, walk away and leave her to figure it out by herself. No, not Riley—she'd bet on it. She smiled. The man was an anachronism, a knight with a gun instead of a sword. She hoped he'd be around when she got home, even though he'd chew her out for leaving.

She squinted into the darkness, watching for road signs, and took the turn to Marsh Winds, noting the mileage on her car. Away from the highway on a country road, she couldn't see anything outside the tunnel created by her headlights. The CD ended. She had no idea what the book was about.

At last she spotted a sign beside wrought iron gates. Thank goodness they were open. She turned into a tree-lined allée and wound under a ghostly canopy of Spanish moss. The driveway ended in a circle at the eighteenth century brick manor house. She parked and slid gratefully out of the car, raised her arms and stretched.

A voice sounded from the shadow of a tree. "Whadaya know. If it's not Claire Spencer."

She let out a startled squeak and spun toward the man, a large figure with his arms folded across his chest. He leaned against the broad oak trunk, one ankle cocked over the other. "Damn you, Ben Riley." She pressed her hand to her wildly beating heart. "Are you trying to scare me to death?"

He strode into the light and reached her in three long steps, grabbing her arm. "I'm trying to keep you alive, you idiot. What the hell were you doing?"

"How did you find me? How did you get here?" Shock gave way to anger. Heat suffused her face and she jerked free. She wanted to spit nails. "I'm going to see Dr. Clary. Go home, you—you Neanderthal."

"Do you know how long it took me to find you? Two phone calls. Christ, you registered in your own name at the first place anyone would look."

"Then how come it took you two calls?"

"I hoped you'd have enough sense to stay at some out-of-the-way place, but no, you—"

"Don't patronize me. I don't have credit cards in other names or false IDs. And, since nine-eleven, innkeepers are suspicious of people who pay cash. Besides, who would expect me to be in McClellanville? Who else knew I'd left Williamsburg?"

"Why do you think they took your birth certificate? They want to know something about your birth. Just where do you think they'd go next?"

He didn't look so threatening now. Maybe he was cooling off. She was. "Okay, it's a possibility, but how likely are they to come across me?"

"This is a small place. They could trip over you at the desk." He gestured toward the house. "We've got company."

"Hello, is there a problem?" A man stood in the open doorway.

"No, we're fine. Sorry if we alarmed you." Claire gritted her teeth and climbed the two steps to the porch, held out her hand. "I'm Claire Spencer. I have a reservation."

"I'm with her." Riley stepped up beside her. He didn't offer his name.

Making scenes wasn't in her makeup, and besides, they'd both be thrown out. She bit her tongue and went in to explain her change in plans. "Instead of a single room, I'd like a two-bedroom cottage with a sitting room," she said with a smile, praying one was available—their website listed three. When she murdered Riley in his bed, she wanted to be out of the main house.

Riley laid his credit card on the desk.

She pushed it away and replaced it with her own. "My treat," she said sweetly.

* * *

The next morning Riley sat by the window reading a Marsh Winds brochure when Claire emerged from her bedroom. He noted the set of her jaw. She wasn't budging.

He hoped they could work together without bloodshed. "They serve breakfast in the dining room. Okay with you?"

"That's what I planned." She took her coat off the rack and opened the cottage door. "You're welcome to come, but don't try to stop me. I'm not leaving till I've done what I came to do. I really do appreciate your help, but you're not my keeper."

He held up his hands. "As long as I don't think there's any danger, we'll do it your way."

She considered him for a second, then nodded. "Truce?"

They ate in the main house by the wide dining room window. Riley feasted while Claire nibbled and stared across the dull winter-gold marsh grass toward the waterway, marked by a line of tall silhouettes. Shrimp boats. He tried to imagine what it would feel like, having no one and not even knowing who you were, but he couldn't. Even though he rarely saw them, his own family remained a powerful presence in his life. And no matter what, they'd come in an instant if he needed them. Claire had no one.

"I..." He cleared his throat.
Shit
. "I guess I overreacted. I should have discussed it with you."

Soon she was smiling again—wary but willing to give "the partnership," as she insisted on calling it, a chance.

He agreed. "If you promise to stay with me. These people are serious." He wondered how long they could stay friends.

Claire laid her napkin on the table. "I hate to rush you, but you've eaten enough for three people, and I have a strong sense of urgency." She looked out at the gray sky.

They took his Tahoe into McClellanville. He wasn't spending the day crammed into Claire's car. When he entered the town, Claire watched, turning from side to side, taking in everything, "I wonder where I was born
—
and how different it was then."

He passed the ranger station for the park and slowed. "Probably not much has changed except for some of the trees. A few new houses here and there." He waved toward a large building under construction. Fewer than four hundred people called McClellanville home. It shouldn't take long to get an idea of the place, get his bearings. He drove around for a bit, thinking Claire would want to see what her first view of the world had been. Circling through the little village, Riley mentally superimposed the map he'd studied on the streets before him.

"We should find Dr. Clary pretty easily," she said.

"I'll ask." He pulled into the parking lot of the only commercial enterprise he found. He wheeled the Tahoe past a gas pump and stopped in front of a wooden building with a faded sign. "Gas and groceries. Looks like it's been here awhile. Want to come in?"

She nodded and followed him into the quaint store, ripe with the smell of grease and onions.

Two elderly men in identical plaid shirts sat at a short counter. They never shifted their focus from the paper plates of fried eggs and sausage in front of them. To one side, a stationary rotisserie behind a glass cover displayed a rack of fresh hot dogs. A woman with Grateful Dead scrawled across the back of her T-shirt switched it on, and the meat began rotating. She crossed to the grill, her back to the store. "Can I help you?" She didn't turn around. The men continued to ignore Claire and Riley.

Riley snagged a local sale or trade paper on his way to the counter. "How about two cups of coffee?"

"Okay. Biscuit? Cinnamon bun?" She reached for the coffee and, giving Claire a quick glance. "Cream and sugar?"

He shook his head and laid the paper on the worn counter. "This too."

She nodded and pulled two cups out from under the counter and said to Claire, "You're a little green around the gills, honey. I got Alka Seltzer and water too."

"No, thanks. I'm all right." Claire gave her a weak smile

Riley took advantage of the opening. "She's not feeling well. Do you know if there's a Dr. Clary here?"

The woman jerked her head up, the coffee pot suspended over Riley's cup. "Where you from? How come you're asking about Doc Clary?"

The two gray-haired men swung around in unison to stare at them, alert now. Riley caught them in his peripheral vision
—
twins. Why the sudden interest? He nodded in their direction, acknowledging their presence.

At the same time, he sensed Claire's snap to attention, knew the woman's suspicious tone surprised her. He took Claire's hand and squeezed lightly. "My mother asked us to look him up while we're here. He's an old friend of hers. My friend being sick reminded me. What's wrong?"

"Doc was killed a little over a week ago."

Oh, shit.
"How?" Riley was afraid he knew, but he had to be sure.

"Murdered. Someone broke into his house and hit him with something. Some stranger." She glared at Riley and Claire as if, being strangers, they were equally responsible.

"Oh, no." Claire clutched Riley's hand, her voice barely audible.

He slid his arm around her waist, afraid she might faint, but of course she didn't. Her delicate beauty continually fooled him. He felt her straighten, pull away.

"The police haven't caught anyone?" The hitch in her voice touched him. He wanted to hold her.

"No, not yet." The woman sounded genuinely distressed.

"Did you know him well?" Riley figured he'd better pay the police a call and find out exactly what happened, what, if anything, the killer took.

"He took care of a lot of locals after he retired. People loved him—he cared about them."

"I'm so sorry." Claire put her hand on the woman's arm.

Claire's sincerity mollified her. The two men, though more at ease, didn't return to their plates.

Riley's coffee disappeared within seconds. He glanced at Claire's coffee and asked for a to-go cup. "Bring it," he said. After thanking the woman behind the counter, he propelled Claire out the door. "I didn't want to give them time to ask questions, and I could see the wheels turning."

"I figured." Claire emptied her cup at the trunk of a scrawny pine. "How are we going to find out what happened to Dr. Clary?"

"Start at his house, see if anyone lived with him. Maybe a wife." He checked the ancient phone booth at the edge of the parking lot, but both the phone and the book were missing. "Typical."

"This has to be connected. Dr. Clary's murder and what's happened to me is too much of a coincidence, isn't it? Those bastards."

"Probably." He saw no point in lying
.
She was already convinced.

Riley found the police station housed with other municipal offices in a newish, low-country-style building at the edge of the waterway. Swags of greenery lent a festive air to the raised porch. "I want you to wait in the car. They might tell me something if they believe I'm here in an official capacity, but it's unlikely they'll talk in front of you."

"What official capacity? If I hired you, I'm as official as you are." She folded her arms across her chest, narrowed her eyes. She had that determined expression again. "Or is this some macho thing, where they won't tell the little woman?"

He hastened to pacify her. Their truce was too fragile to risk. "No, no
—
I have other connections, and I'll use what I have to." Having Claire along wouldn't help his credibility
—
he didn't think anyone would believe she was a government agent—she didn't have the look. He climbed the stairs to the double doors and entered a wide hall. Lettering on the glass window in the door to the left identified the sheriff's office.

A bleary-eyed man in a tan uniform, carrying a Styrofoam cup in his left hand, ambled out of the doorway across the hall and examined the identification Riley presented. After a brief appraisal, he held out his free hand to Riley. "I'm Ed Killian, deputy sheriff."

Riley shook it. "I'd like to talk with you about Amos Clary. We may have a mutual interest."

Killian perked up. "Let's go to my desk. Want some coffee?" He ran a hand over his graying crew cut and indicated a coffeemaker on a small table. "It's fresh."

More out of courtesy than desire, Riley poured himself a cup and took a chair beside Killian's desk. On the doodle-covered desk calendar lay a slim manila folder, the corner of a photograph showing under the edge. The Clary file? Killian must have been working on it. "Robbery?"

"If it was, we can't tell what they took. He didn't keep narcotics in the house, and none of the saleable stuff
—
TV, computer, the usual electronics
—
is missing." His face registered suspicion. "He kept some old records in a file cabinet. Someone searched them. What do you know about him? What's your interest?"

"This may be a long shot, but I'm not big on coincidence." Claire's birth. It had to be. "The woman I'm working with was attacked twice, and her home was searched. Only her records were disturbed. I believe it has something to do with her birth. Dr. Clary delivered her here in McClellanville thirty-something years ago. We came down from Williamsburg to talk to him, find out what happened back then."