"Oh, she's that too. Didn't want to show it, but I could see it. Blond lady. Had a big ugly dog in the car with her."
"That would be Otto," Garvin said dryly.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't going to argue with him in the car. She wouldn't give me any details. She said to tell you she'd hunt you down like a rabid dog."
"Those were her words?"
"Yep. I'm from the city. What do I know about rabid dogs?" He grinned, but the concern hovered in his dark eyes. "I wondered why you headed out to sea. Now I'm getting an idea."
Garvin raked a hand through his hair and glanced back at the water, half wishing he'd stayed out another twenty hours. Yuma was perfectly capable of running the marina without him. He had yesterday, when Garvin had headed across the bay and kept watch on Annie's Gallery, ducking into Union Street shops and restaurants in which he had no interest in a half-hearted effort to keep her from spotting him. Anyone who ventured down the brick walk to her courtyard shop, he saw. Cynthia Linwood, Ethan Conninger. The odd browser. Aromatherapy customers for the shop next door.
But no Vic Denardo. And the only one watching Annie Payne seemed to be him. By dusk he was so disgusted with his own behavior and agitated by the situation that he'd had to get out on the water. He'd stayed out all night and then most of the day.
"You told her where I was?" he asked Yuma.
"Yep. Told her I expected you in before nightfall and offered her coffee and a place to sit inside if she wanted to wait here, gave her directions to your house in case she wanted to wait there. She chose to leave. My bet is, she's up at your place."
"You don't think she went back to San Francisco?"
"Uh-uh. She was after your hide." Yuma clapped him on the shoulder. "Nothing like an angry woman to greet a man just come in off the water. You need me, MacCrae, give a holler."
"Always good to know, Yuma."
The kid was still chuckling as he headed back to work, but Garvin knew that Michael Yuma had meant what he'd said. If Garvin needed him, Yuma would be there. But what could he—or anyone—do about Annie Payne?
He got in his car. He'd go home, see if Annie was there. If she wasn't, he'd head over to San Francisco. One way or another, he'd find her.
Or she'd find him.
If she was mad about what he thought she was mad about, Garvin didn't blame her.
Annie got lost three times on her way to Garvin MacCrae's house in the hills above San Francisco Bay. Michael Yuma's directions were rough at best. Unfamiliar with the narrow, winding roads of exclusive Belvedere, she wasn't surprised she kept taking wrong turns. The streets were a maze, and the expensive houses nestled into the hillside were often not even visible from the road.
Plus she was on edge. She was gripping the wheel too hard, breathing too hard, thinking too hard.
But not thinking clearly. Otherwise she'd be on her way back to San Francisco by now, looking after her gallery, checking in with Sarah Linwood, whom she hadn't seen since Sunday. She slowed to a crawl in front of a wood-and-stucco house tucked atop a steep hill overlooking the bay. Although not as remote as her cottage in Maine, it seemed isolated, removed from the rest of the world, with tall oaks and evergreens drenching it in shade and ivy and myrtle and sweet woodruff tangled in its small front yard.
This had to be Garvin's house, Annie decided, pulling over. She left her car idling. The front entrance was clearly on the house's upper level, with more house below, out of view given the near-vertical incline of the hill. It was attractive but not ostentatious, an intriguing contrast to his working marina.
"Well, Otto," Annie said, staring over at the shaded house, "what do you say? Doesn't look as if anybody's home to me."
Otto flopped down on the backseat, never to be convinced he didn't really fit there. On nonauction days, it was often his preferred place to ride. He seemed in no dire need of a walk. The trek across the Golden Gate had amused him. He'd be fine if she decided to venture down Garvin MacCrae's front walk.
Annie climbed out of the car and breathed in the clean, cool air before accepting that she was going to do what she was going to do, and she might as well get on with it. Maybe Garvin was home, after all. Maybe she'd wait for him on his doorstep.
"Maybe you're nuts," she muttered.
She'd spotted him following her last night at the San Francisco public library. She had no idea where—or when—he'd picked up her trail. It was only by chance he hadn't followed her all the way up to Sarah Linwood's little pink house, except she might have been more on her guard if that had been her destination. She'd simply glanced behind her at the right moment, and there he was, watching her from across the lobby. By the time she'd made her way through the crowd to have his head, he'd vanished.