Skin Deep (12 page)

“Alasdair! What are you doing down here? Your feet…” She dropped the small bag she carried and hurried across the polished wood floor to him. “You shouldn’t be out of bed. Are you all right? Is something wrong with Conn?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. Not any more. “I was afraid…but you’re safe.” Was it relief at seeing her unharmed that made him suddenly sway on his feet, or just the pain of spending so much time on them?

“Of course I’m safe,” she said, reaching her arm around his waist to steady him.

“Garland…” Before he could stop himself he pulled her against him and held her tightly, burying his face in her hair and ignoring the faint protest of his wounds. She was safe, and so were he and Conn. Mahtahdou had not gotten them this time.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Her voice was muffled against his throat, sounding astonished and maybe a little shocked. But her body spoke with different words, softening and molding itself against him with little movements as her free hand slid slowly up his chest. He closed his eyes and let sensations almost forgotten wash over him. This was what it was like to hold a beautiful woman in his arms again, to feel her breath quicken and her body respond to his—

He pushed her away and nearly collapsed, groping for the railing that lined the stairs to hold him up. It took him a moment to master his breath and pounding heart before he could look up and meet her blue eyes. They were dazed and wide, and her cheeks bloomed red as she looked at him.

“I’m sorry…I was afraid…” he mumbled. That’s all it had been, hadn’t it? He’d been afraid for her, and was relieved that she was safe. That was the only reason he’d wanted to hold her. It had to be.

Chapter 7

J
im Barnes was a tall, shambling teddy bear of a man. He shuffled into Garland’s kitchen the next morning and gave her a wide smile as he shook her hand. Only after they had been chatting for a few minutes did she notice that the smile never reached his eyes. He refused coffee and pulled out a battered notebook.

“Your fame precedes you, Mrs. Durrell. My wife—”

Garland sighed. “She belongs to the Mattaquason Women’s Club, right?”

He chuckled. “She did say you looked pretty embarrassed standing on that chair. So tell me about your quilting. Do you have formal training or is it a hobby? I hear the show in August will be your first.”

“I’m working on a Master of Fine Arts degree, but quilting’s my hobby as well. I’d love to talk about it with you, Mr. Barnes, but I had thought you were here to learn about the people I found on the beach. At least, that’s why Rob Mowbray called you. Isn’t that a more important story than my quilts?”

He cleared his throat. “Oh, absolutely. I just thought I’d…you know, get facts for both stories. Can we finish up the quilting first, so I don’t get my notes mixed up? Where are you getting the MFA? I didn’t know you could get a degree in quilting.”

Garland simmered but let him ask her questions about her quilting, down to what model of sewing machine she used. This was not why they had called him. She wanted Alasdair’s story out there, not hers. But he seemed determined not to stray from the subject of her quilts. Then a thought occurred to her.

“I’m sorry you didn’t bring a camera”—and how was he supposed to take a picture of Alasdair and Conn for his article to get readers to help identify them, without one?—“but would you like to see what I’m currently working on anyway?” she asked him. “I spent the morning fiddling with my new quilting machine.” Alasdair and Conn had watched in fascination while she prepared the ten-foot-wide frame that held quilts taut and a free-moving sewing machine apparatus that could be moved across the frame to sew together the layers of a quilt with decorative stitching patterns. If all went well, she’d get the first wall quilt done for Kathy today.

He brightened. “Sure! My wife said the piece she saw the other day blew her socks off. Darn it, I should have grabbed the camera before I left.”

Of course he should have, the slime. Garland plastered a smile on her face and led the way up the stairs.

“It’s quite convenient,” she said, pausing in front of Alasdair’s door and politely gesturing him in ahead of her. “You can see my quilts and have a chance to meet Alasdair and Conn, too. Alasdair, here’s the man I told you about.” She herded Jim Barnes into the room.

Conn looked up from his bed where he was playing with the scraps of fabric she’d given him, laying them out in patterns, and gave her a sunny smile. Alasdair set down the copy of
National Geographic
he’d been leafing through. His posture was tense until he saw her. “Hello,” he said politely.

Jim Barnes froze. Garland had never seen anyone go as rigid as he did then, as if he might shatter if she poked him.

“Dr. Mowbray wants them to stay in bed a few days longer till they’re over the blood loss and the worst of their wounds have had a chance to heal,” she said. “But you can talk to them for a few minutes.”

For a moment, she felt almost sorry for the man. Barnes’s mouth opened and closed, rather like an asphyxiating fish’s. He’d also turned an interesting shade of pasty white. “Uhh—I—”

Garland steered him to the chair next to Alasdair’s bed. He seemed to be engaged in an internal struggle over whether to actually sit down, but manners and what looked like rubbery legs won out. He dropped into the chair but managed to shift it slightly away. She waited for him to say something, to introduce himself further. Instead, he stared dumbly down at his hands, over at the windows or at her quilting materials, but never at Alasdair or Conn.

“Mr. Barnes?” she prompted.

“What? Oh, er, yes…my pen—I seem to have left it downstairs…” He fumbled in a pocket.

“I’ve got one here.” Garland went to her worktable for a pencil and turned back to Barnes. A loud, electronic version of “La Cucaracha” stopped her.

“Darn! Now who could that be? ‘Scuse me for a sec, won’t you?” Barnes pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. Conn’s eyes widened as he tapped the screen and barked, “Barnes here.”

A pause. “Right now? I’m kinda in the middle of an interview, Joe. Can’t you take care of it?”

Another pause. “Oh. I’d forgotten about that. Well, wish her a happy birthday for me. I’ll get over there right away. Bye.”

Garland had already guessed what his next speech would be by the time he’d put his phone away. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Durrell, That was my editor. I don’t know why he schedules things for Saturday delivery, but I’ve gotta get down to the office pronto to let the delivery guy in, because he’s got his daughter’s birthday party starting in a few minutes—my editor, that is.”

She wasn’t more than four words off. “I’m sorry too. You didn’t even get to talk to Alasdair.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we can take care of the rest of this on the phone.” He glanced around the room again, and his eyes fell on the landscape quilt set in the big frame. A look of wonderment made his face even more teddy-bearish.

“Is that…? My wife said it was…holy crow, Mrs. Durrell.” He edged toward the quilt top, staring.

He looked at it so long that Garland couldn’t help taking a little malicious pleasure in saying, “I’m sure the delivery man won’t want to be kept waiting.”

“Oh, uh, you’re right.” He looked at it a second longer, then turned on his heel and almost sprinted for the door. She showed him out, just managing not to slam the front door behind him, and stomped back into the kitchen.

What had the point of that been? Yes, it was nice everyone in town seemed to like her quilts. But she’d assumed Barnes had been here to cover the far more important story of Alasdair and Conn. Because if they didn’t find Alasdair’s home and family soon, she didn’t know what she would do.

What had gotten into her last night? Poor Alasdair had been frightened and had come down to wait for her, then hugged her in his relief that she was home. And her traitorous body had interpreted that embrace in an entirely different way, so that she’d been about a heartbeat away from—well, never mind what she’d wanted from him. Darn it, it was Rob she was ought to be getting hot and bothered for, especially after the way he’d kissed her goodnight. She’d responded to Alasdair’s innocent hug the way she should have to Rob’s hot kisses. It was utterly ridiculous.

Rob arrived a little after one. “I brought sandwiches from Pete’s. Best roast beef in town,” he said, handing her a bag.

Garland sniffed it. “You didn’t have to do that. Ooh, lots of horseradish. Yum. I wonder if Alasdair likes horseradish?”

Rob looked embarrassed. “I only brought two.”

Oh Lord. Could she have put her foot through it any harder? “That’s probably a good thing. He’s already had nearly half a loaf’s worth of toast this morning. He’d eat it round the clock if I let him,” she said.

Rob listened to her indignant description of Jim Barnes’s visit without much comment, and ate only about a third of his sandwich. Nor did his grin make an appearance, even briefly. “Are you all right?” she finally asked him.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly, then frowned. “No. I mean, I’m fine, but...” He shook his head.

“What?”

“It’s—well, Ben Moniz came in this morning to see me. You know, the officer who came with Captain Howe last Saturday?”

“With the knee trouble. I remember.” Garland sat up straighter. “Did he have any news about Alasdair?”

“I wish he had.” Rob’s mouth twisted. “It’s nothing to do with Alasdair. Or maybe it is—I don’t know. Dammit, I don’t like this.”

Garland touched his hand. “What is it?”

He sighed and scrunched his napkin into a ball, then smoothed it out again on the table. “Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be telling you this. Ben swore me to secrecy, but…you heard about the guy who went clamming last weekend and never came back—they found his rake and his baskets, but no sign of him?”

“I remember. Let me guess—they found him in Atlantic City with his girlfriend?”

“I wish to God they had. They found him all right—early this morning, washed up on Harbor Beach. Or what was left of him.”

“Oh my God.”

“Poor Ben was just coming off duty when the call came in, so he went along to help. It was—he said they had to use bags. A lot of them.”

No wonder Rob hadn’t wanted his sandwich. She swallowed hard and took a gulp of the ginger beer he’d brought. “What do they think happened? Could he have had a heart attack and then gotten washed out to sea and—and sharks or whatever found him?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not the M.E. around here.” He sighed again and rubbed his forehead. “I should leave in a minute and stop by the widow’s house and see if she needs anything.”

That was right, the man had been married. “Kids?”

“No. Thank heavens for small mercies.” He drummed his fingers on the table, then looked up at her. “Garland, I know I don’t have any right to say this, but I want you to send Alasdair and Conn to the hospital to finish recuperating. Now. What if these attacks are connected—and personal?”

“You don’t have any way of knowing that—”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “What if whoever did this finds out Alasdair is here and comes back to finish the job? This is for his protection as much as yours. Though I have to admit I’m more concerned about your safety.”

Garland stared down at her empty plate. What if Rob was right? What if whoever attacked Alasdair came back? Whoever had been capable of such savagery on three people probably wouldn’t think twice about removing her to finish his job.

Besides, here was her chance. Hadn’t she just been telling herself that having Alasdair here was dangerous for other reasons?

But it wasn’t just Alasdair. It was Conn, too. She couldn’t abandon him. “Do the police think he’s in danger or not? Is there any official word?”

“Ben didn’t say. He wasn’t even supposed to mention this to me.”

“Why not? Why keep it so hush-hush? Shouldn’t this be public knowledge—” Public knowledge…oh, no. She’d just had a newspaper reporter in here to talk about Alasdair. If Alasdair really were in danger from someone, having an article about him in the local paper would
not
be a good idea. Not that she and Jim Barnes had actually exchanged more than a word or two about him, but still…

Rob seemed to read her thoughts. “I wonder if maybe we should give Jim Barnes a call and ask him to hold off on an article about Alasdair.”

“He’d want to know why, and what would we say? But he hardly asked any questions about Alasdair. I told you, I had to trick him into going upstairs, and then he faked a phone call that he was urgently needed elsewhere. All he wanted to hear about was my quilting. He’d even heard about Kathy’s plans for a show in August. It was pretty strange.”

Rob raised his eyebrows. “He was all gung-ho about doing an article about Alasdair yesterday. I got the impression he was going to call the police and give Captain Howe the third degree as soon as he got off the phone with me.”

“Maybe he did, and caught Howe’s allergy to Alasdair.” Garland sat back in her chair. “I know you want me to ask Alasdair to leave, but I can’t do that to him, and I even more can’t do it to Conn. It doesn’t look like anyone else wants to help them.”

“Maybe that’s the best way to help them.”

“Who else would take them in? No. They stay here until—”