Wickingham Way (A Harbour Falls Mystery #3) (6 page)

As we sat around the table in the kitchen, eating eggplant parmesan and drinking red wine, Erin continued with her updates to Adam, detailing the new developments in the Wickingham Way project.

I gathered that, thanks to Adam’s most recent work, the criminal organization employing Stowe Hannigan was close to collapse.

“Financially crippled beyond repair,” Erin said, confirming my assumptions. “The top-level associates have begun to scatter.”

She explained that the government had already picked up many low – and middle-level members, some in Maine but mostly down in Florida. Many of the apprehended men were proving to be very helpful, as they were only too happy to exchange their testimony against some of the higher-ranking members for their own reduced charges.

The whereabouts of the very highest-ranking members, though, remained unknown.

The head of the organization, Nikolai’s son, a man named Ruslan, was the one the government wanted the most. It was said he was cunning and ruthless, and he intended to rebuild his ruined empire. To capture him would mean the end of his organization…for good.

Unfortunately, no one could pinpoint Ruslan’s exact whereabouts. This was especially disturbing to hear when it became pretty clear Ruslan was the one who’d issued the hit on Adam.

“So,” I began as I set my fork down, “with Ruslan running around, Adam is still in danger, right?”

“Yes,” Erin stated as she turned to me. “I’m afraid so, Maddy.”

I then asked what I already knew, “Ruslan issued the directive to”—I swallowed hard—“kill Adam, right?”

Erin sighed. “Yes, Maddy, that’s correct.”

A few beats passed, allowing me several seconds to process this information.

Adam then asked Erin about the man who was probably the second-highest-ranking member of the organization that sought to off him. “What about Stowe Hannigan? Any word on him?”

Erin quickly lowered her eyes and stared down at her plate. She appeared to be studying what was left of her eggplant parmesan, but I swear the woman was blushing. Her cheeks were definitely turning crimson.

“Uh-h-h,” Agent Lenehan drew out in an uncharacteristic shaky voice. “We’re still working on Stowe Hannigan.”

What kind of a response was that? Working on him? What did that mean?

I turned to Adam, but he just shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of wine.

Agent Lenehan’s response was odd, to put it mildly. I suspected a story lay beneath her evasiveness.

Hmm…

Adam must have seen the wheels turning in my mind as he caught my attention and shook his head, as if to say, “Let it go.”

I wished I were back in Harbour Falls. Then I could look into things. What was Agent Lenehan up to anyway? Why was she blushing at the mention of Stowe? Surely my charming, good-looking neighbor hadn’t somehow won over one of the pivotal players in the Wickingham Way project, had he?

Good God, what if he had? Stowe Hannigan was a very persuasive, very handsome man. Hell, he’d charmed me…to an extent. But his intentions towards me had been harmless compared to this situation. If Agent Lenehan were compromised, I couldn’t begin to imagine what that would mean for Adam…or for me.

I glanced around, suddenly feeling far less secure than I had before Erin’s visit. I kept silent, but what I was really thinking was,
Just how safe is this safe house?

Chapter Four

D
espite my concerns, I knew the cabin would be safe for now. And that’s all that really mattered. If trouble arose, then Adam and I would face it. But until that time, we were having far too much fun to worry.

Partially into the third week of our stay at the safe house, Adam and I took a break from all the reading we’d been doing. We shelved the books—for the time being—and dug out the board games Adam had told me about when we’d first come to the safe house. They were packed away in a crawl space on the second floor of the cabin.

Adam, feeling brave, volunteered to venture in and retrieve a few. When he emerged, he was carrying an armload of games. And he was covered in cobwebs.

“Aw, Adam, you look cute all dusty like this,” I proclaimed as I brushed gray-white cobwebs from his raven hair.

Adam brushed a hand through his hair and rolled his eyes. “The things I do to keep you entertained,” he playfully retorted.

Adam set the pile of games down, and I grabbed one from the top. “Oh, Monopoly,” I cooed as I twisted the box in my hands and read the title. “Let’s play this one first.”

And so it was decided—Monopoly was up first.

I felt so certain I’d win that I bragged to Adam, “I used to always kick my brother’s ass in this game.” I blew on the dice and rolled. “So get ready to go down.”

Adam laughed, smug. “We shall see about that, Maddy. You’ve never played this game with me.”

No I had not. And an hour later, I came to the conclusion that Adam Ward was quite a different opponent than my brother, Brent, had ever been. Needless to say, I lost our first round of Monopoly. Badly.

“Damn Boardwalk!” I lamented when I ran out of money and all my properties were mortgaged.

I’d landed on the stupid square with the dark blue heading almost every time my poor little dog had made his way around the board, limping by the end. I accepted defeat gracefully, though, and promptly proposed a rematch.

To my chagrin, I lost that game as well.

“No more Monopoly,” I groaned following my second crushing defeat.

Following a quick break for lunch, Adam held up some war-strategy game with the ominous title Risk.

Let’s just say it was a bad move on my part to agree to play a game like Risk with the formidable Mr. Ward. I soon discovered Adam excelled at games where you either had to strategize or just flat-out take over the world. Adam was even better at that game than he had been at Monopoly.

“I give up,” I said when I lost stupid Risk too.

In need of something a little simpler, I suggested Twister.

Adam laughed and said, “That’s a kid’s game, Maddy.”

“Not really,” I shot back. “After all, it was with the rest of the games you pulled out of the crawl space, right?”

“Only because when I brought those games from my parents’ house—which was a long time ago, mind you—I just grabbed every game in sight.”

I arched an eyebrow and smiled slyly.

“What?” Adam wanted to know.

“I think I know a way we can make Twister, um, more
adult
,” I offered.

“And that would be…”

“Let’s play naked Twister.”

Yep, Adam
loved
that idea.

Entertaining from the start, the game turned especially so when Adam and I wound up all tangled up in each other. We eventually called the match a draw, but really I was the victorious one.

As I reminisced about everything Adam had done to me—with his knee on red and his hand on blue—the sound of his voice drew me from my lust-laced memory. I glanced up from where I sat perched, knees up, on the sofa. Adam was halfway down the stairs, holding up another game he’d pried from the pile.

“What do you think about this one, Maddy?” he asked, a playful grin in place on his beautiful face.

As I read the title, I laughed. “Clue?”

Adam glanced at the game, then back to me. “Well, yeah. I think this is a game you may actually have a possibility of winning,” he deadpanned.

“Ha, ha, ha,” I retorted.

Funny guy, that Adam Ward.

Of course, he had a point. I hadn’t won a single game yet—if you didn’t count our adult game of Twister. But if there was one thing I was good at, it was piecing together clues to get to the bottom of a mystery. History had proven that fact to be true. Hell, the more I thought about it, the more certain I became that this game was made for me.

“You’re on, Ward,” I declared resolutely as I stood. I straightened the fuzzy peach angora off-the-shoulder sweater I was wearing over my black camisole and brushed off my jeans. “Let’s do it.”

“Great,” Adam said.

“Prepare for defeat,” I added, pointing at the guy whose butt I planned to whoop as he came down the stairs.

Adam chuckled and strode toward me, game in hand. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re going to need it.”

“Trash talker,” I accused when he reached me.

“Just don’t think I’m going to go easy on you, Fitch,” Adam warned.

Damn, too bad he was talking about the game. Distracted momentarily, I took in how Adam’s dark rinse jeans hugged his sculpted ass and how the dark gray sweater he was wearing showcased his finely toned upper body. Yeah. Adam was sex on legs, no doubt about it.

I smiled, and Mr. Sex-on-Legs promptly leaned down and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. He followed up with a playful smack to my ass right before we knelt down to spread the game board out on the floor.

“Trying to distract me?” I accused.

“Hey, whatever it takes.”

“I am so going to kick your ass,” I retorted.

Adam scoffed, but twenty minutes later my Miss Scarlet was indeed kicking Adam’s Professor Plum’s ass.

Yes! Perhaps I
could
win this one.

I carefully reviewed what I knew…

Okay, I was pretty certain the murder weapon was
the knife
, and the room the murder had been committed in was
the billiards room
. The only hitch—I was sketchy on the suspect.

Adam rolled the dice and moved his purple playing piece to
the library
. He cleared his throat and offered up his accusation. “I think it was Mrs. Peacock, in the library
,
with the knife.”

Damn, Adam was onto
the knife
as the murder weapon, same as I suspected. With what I hoped was a poker face, I sorted through my cards. I held up the one for
the library
.

“Interesting,” Adam murmured as he thumbed through his own cards.

I rolled the dice and worked my way toward the billiards room.

Once my token was in that green room, I took a stab (no pun intended).

“I think it was Mrs. White”—a pure guess—“in the billiards room, with the knife.”

Adam’s blue eyes met mine after he looked through his cards. “Huh. I think you may have won, Maddy.”

“No way.”

Adam examined his cards once more. “Yeah, you won. I don’t have any of those cards.”

I checked the cards we’d placed at the center of the board at the start of the game. I read the results out loud as I drew each one from the envelope: “Billiards room…knife…Mrs. White.”

A beat passed, and then I tossed the cards in the air. “Oh my God, I won! I beat you, Adam.”

Adam shook his head, but was smiling the whole time. He leaned across the board, cupped my chin, and kissed the tip of my nose. “Good game,” he murmured as his thumb brushed over my lower lip.

“Do you want to play again?” I asked.

It was midafternoon, and there was a light snow falling. The temperatures were dropping, so it appeared we’d be staying indoors the remainder of the day.

Adam nodded. “Sure”—he glanced to the waning fire in the fireplace—“but let me grab more wood from outside before the snow picks up.”

“Sounds good, I’ll reset the game.”

I began placing the different-colored playing pieces on their respective starting spaces, while, as per the usual routine, Adam worked to secure his .45 into the back of his jeans. Once that task was done, he opened the front door.

A cold wind blew in.

I watched Adam walk out to the porch, firearm visible, and sighed. Some days it was easy to forget why we were at this safe house, but the gun Adam kept nearby at all times served to harshly remind me he was in danger, always. We both were.

Just as I started to shuffle the cards, I heard the approach of a car, tires crunching through the snow and thick ice. Someone was pulling up to the house.

“What the…” I murmured to myself.

It was a Thursday, and Erin wasn’t due to visit until Friday afternoon. So who was pulling up to the cabin?

I stood up and hurried to the door, concerned for Adam. And the exact second I was reaching for the doorknob, a single shot pierced the silence.

What the hell!

Panicked, I swung the front door open and took a single step out onto the porch. And that’s where I froze as I took in the scene before me.

Adam was on the porch, in a shooter’s stance, gun at the ready, while Erin crouched behind her car, taking cover from Adam’s warning shot. The agent’s voice rang out in the wintry stillness of the landscape, but I couldn’t discern what the hell she was saying.

I gawked at Adam. “God, Adam, what are you doing?”

Had he lost his mind?

Adam threw me a quick sidelong glance, frowning. “Maddy, get back inside,” he hissed.

Erin meanwhile, from behind her car, was shouting for Adam to put the gun down and listen. I couldn’t imagine a single good reason why Adam would fire at Agent Lenehan, his trusted Boston contact. But then I saw movement next to her and realized she wasn’t alone.

I squinted, and holy shit, I recognized the person who was with her.

Now I knew why Adam was firing. He wasn’t shooting at Erin. Adam was shooting at the person with her—Stowe Hannigan.

Yeah, there was no mistaking the dirty-blond hair, very wide shoulders, and boyishly handsome face of the man who was hiding just under the line of the hood of the car. The man crouching next to Agent Lenehan was definitely Stowe Hannigan.

But what in the hell was Stowe doing
here
at the safe house? And why was he with
Erin
? More interestingly, why wasn’t he shooting back?

Not that I wanted him to—dear God, no—but his job, after all, was to assassinate Adam.

Or was it?

I wasn’t sure anymore, as Stowe sure wasn’t making any moves to see the directive to kill Adam Ward to completion.

Adam walked slowly backward, nearing the door but never wavering with the gun.

When he was next to me, he said once again, “Get in the house, Madeleine.”

His voice was low and even, but I knew he was steaming mad.

Before I could comply—or not—Erin yelled, “Adam, listen, Stowe is working with us. He has been for a while…I just couldn’t say anything.”

Well, that explained Erin’s odd behavior every time Stowe’s name had been mentioned.

“Please, Adam, put the gun down,” she continued. “You know I wouldn’t have brought Stowe here if he was a danger to you.”

Adam kind of chuckled, like he didn’t quite believe what she was saying. But I knew he ultimately trusted Agent Lenehan, so it wasn’t a complete shock when, at last, he slowly lowered his weapon.

“This had better be good, Erin,” Adam shouted out as the snow falling from the sky increased in intensity.

Agent Lenehan and Stowe stood cautiously from their safe positions behind the sedan. When it was clear Adam wasn’t planning to shoot either one of them, they cautiously walked toward the porch.

Erin—dressed in black over-the-knee leather boots, designer jeans, and a smart gray overcoat—appeared more runway model than government agent as she swept her strawberry-blonde tresses over one shoulder and carefully made her way across the snow-covered land.

Stowe, in jeans and a dark parka, held Agent Lenehan’s elbow in an effort to help her navigate the uneven drifts of snow in her high heels. I had to concede the two of them looked great together.

And that made me wonder if Stowe and Erin were a couple.

I was so busy focusing on Adam’s contact and my former neighbor, and the possibilities, that I missed the look of fury on Adam’s face. At least I did until the last minute. And it was in that moment, when Stowe and Erin stepped up to the porch, that Adam took a swing at the man he thought had tried to kill him.

“Adam, stop,” both Erin and I cried out as Adam’s fist met Stowe’s jaw.

Stowe’s head jerked to his right.

“That’s for taking a shot at me on Fade Island,” Adam said gruffly.

Stowe rubbed his jaw and replied, “Guess you wouldn’t believe me if I told you it wasn’t me on the island that day.”

“Yeah, right,” Adam scoffed, clearly not buying Stowe’s claim of innocence.

Erin was quick to echo Stowe’s words, though, coming to his defense.

Very interesting
, I thought as Erin claimed the man who’d shot up Adam’s study was someone else.

“Who?” Adam demanded.

“One of Ruslan’s men,” Erin stated. “He was apprehended leaving Maine the other day. He not only fits the description Max gave us, but we just recently procured his full confession.”

Adam still didn’t look fully convinced, but he grudgingly conceded it may not have been Stowe on the island that day.

“It was
not
Stowe,” Erin insisted once more.

Erin sure was adamant, and it convinced me further that there was something going on with her and Stowe. Did Agent Lenehan have a thing for Stowe Hannigan?

It seemed so, I concluded when Erin reached up, touched Stowe’s jaw gently, and said softly, “You should put some ice on that soon.”

When Stowe saw as realization dawned on my face—and apparently Adam’s too, as he smirked knowingly—he lowered Erin’s hand back down to her side.

“I’m fine, Agent Lenehan,” he replied curtly, his green eyes moving from me to Adam.

Stowe was trying to deflect by acting all professional with Erin. But it was too late. It was more than apparent there was something going on between them.

“Agent Lenehan,” Adam
tsk
ed as he turned to Erin. “I’m surprised at you.”