Rogue Wave by Susan Dunlap Read Free Book Online Page B

hands were clenched into fists. She could feel Maureen’s need, the power of her thwarted passion. She wished she were the kind of person who could wrap her arms around Maureen and let her sob. But she knew that to help meant to think clearly, to provide the logic Maureen had lost.
    “All right. I’ll go to San Francisco, look at the deckhand’s body, and if there’s anything about it that doesn’t fit in with a simple drowning, then I’ll investigate.”
    Maureen crumpled onto the sofa. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d—”
    “Don’t be too relieved. There are a couple more stipulations. One is a contract.”
    “Fine.”
    “And the other is that you answer my questions with complete honesty.”
    “Of course. Why shouldn’t I?”
    Kiernan shook her head. “No one wants to trust a stranger with their secrets. We all withhold bits and pieces of things. I’m asking you to try to be more honest with me than you’ve been with yourself.” Kiernan had given this little lecture before and seen clients nod in agreement. But she never really expected that kind of openness from them, never believed in its possibility. A compromise between honesty and self-protection were all she could really count on. “First, what do you know about Robin Matucci?”
    Maureen rested her elbows on her knees. “Besides her hitting Garrett, you mean? Only that she’s captain of a charter boat called Early Bird. It’s docked at Fisherman’s Wharf.”
    “How did you hear about Delaney?”
    She leaned forward. “Skip Olsen called. He was the cop who handled Garrett’s accident. He’s been a brick.”
    “Have you been in touch with anyone else?”
    Maureen shook her head.
    Was there a moment’s hesitation before that denial?
    “Are you sure? Think.”
    “Nobody except Garrett’s doctors and the rehab people. We had friends in San Francisco, but Garrett didn’t want to see them when he came down from Alaska. Which was odd, because normally he’d have been off to some gallery before he’d even unpacked.” She shrugged. “But this time he seemed nervous from the minute he arrived. He insisted I tell no one he was back. He said it was so we could spend some time alone together without all his friends descending on us.”
    “What do you think the real reason was?”
    “I just don’t know. Maybe he was avoiding someone.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know. He’d been in Alaska for four months. Possibly someone from the bar where he was bartending. Or some guy on the AlaskOil maintenance crew.”
    “Were any of his fellow workers from either of those places in San Francisco?”
    “I did ask him that. He said no.”
    The cooling breeze chilled the sweat on Kiernan’s shoulders and made her aware of how tense she’d become. “I know this is hard for you, Maureen, but every insight you can give me will make it that much more likely I can help. Please think calmly about what I’m going to ask. Garrett said he wanted to spend time with you. But he went to the city alone. Why?”
    “He said he had a meeting.”
    “What kind?”
    “With a representative of a gallery.”
    “Why didn’t he take you?”
    “The representative was a woman. Garrett believed, and he was right, that there’s always a sexual element in any negotiations between men and women, and that this woman would do better by him if he dealt with her alone.”
    “Could he have been having an affair with her?”
    The color vanished from Maureen’s face. “No!”
    Kiernan waited a moment. Maureen Brant’s denial wasn’t a statement but a protest. “But you’ve considered it, haven’t you?”
    Slowly the color returned, but irregularly, blotching her face. “Of course. I doubt there’s any possibility I haven’t thought about. If he hadn’t insisted on going to San Francisco, alone, our lives wouldn’t be over. What was so important? I have no more idea than I did three years ago.”
    “Who was the woman?”
    “I don’t