She glanced at him. "They tell me he never hesitated."
Garvin's gaze seemed focused on some point on one of his maps, his face expressionless, unreadable. Annie thought of the pictures she'd seen of him last night. A different Garvin MacCrae from the one she saw now. He'd had a young wife, a successful career, a future very different from the life he now lived.
Everything—his very soul, it seemed—had changed with the murders of Thomas Linwood and Haley Linwood MacCrae.
"I can understand why you want to catch up with Vic Denardo," Annie said, her voice suddenly shaky. "But we don't even know if that was him on Sunday."
"I know."
"If I could see a picture of him—"
"You could ask Sarah." He drank more of his tea, eyeing her. The dark shadow of beard only added to his air of rough masculinity. "She might have one."
Annie gave him a sideways look. "You don't give up, do you?"
He swore under his breath and surged forward, snapping locks on the french doors, flinging them open, pushing out onto the narrow deck. An icy breeze blew into the house. Annie shivered. The temperature must have dropped. Or maybe she was so overheated, she felt the cold more. She debated walking out the front door and driving off. Garvin could stand out on his deck the rest of the afternoon and the whole damned night with just his bitter suspicions for company.
Of course, his suspicions had merit.
She bit off a curse of her own.
After only a fraction's hesitation, she set her iced tea on the chest with the binoculars and followed him outside. She was no coward, and last night's research in the library had made her realize in a way she hadn't before just what was at stake for Garvin MacCrae. She noticed his broad back as he leaned against the deck rail, the thick, corded muscles that betrayed the kind of work he'd taken up since his wife's death. Kissing him the other night might not have made sense, but Annie couldn't quite make herself regret it.
"It's not any easier for me to trust you than it is for you to trust me," she said quietly.
He didn't glance at her. "I know."
"Since the auction..." She stumbled over words; trying to communicate with this man, to connect with him on some level other than the physical, was a challenge not for the faint of heart. It was also important. It was starting to scare her how important. "None of this is what I expected when Otto and I packed up and headed west."
His gaze shifted to her, probing, unrelenting. "That's not my problem, Annie. I'm sorry, but it just isn't."
She bore down on her lower lip, averted her eyes. She could sense his exasperation with her continued refusal to tell him what he wanted to know. "Look," she said, "I'm trying to do the right thing too."
"Did you tell Sarah about Denardo? She should know. If he decides to follow you—"
"Garvin, please."
He pushed off the rail and muttered a string of curses before swinging back around at her. "If Sarah Linwood didn't kill her father and Haley or conspire in any way to have them killed, she has nothing to fear from me."
Annie's pulse quickened, her breath had gone shallow, shaky. She grabbed hold of the rail with such ferocity, her knuckles immediately turned white. She wasn't afraid of what Garvin would do to her if she refused to talk. She wasn't mad at him for pushing that same button again and again. She simply didn't know what she should do. She had none of her father's clarity that awful day at sea thirty years ago.
She licked her lips, cleared her throat. "For the sake of argument, let's say I do know where Sarah Linwood is."
His smile was thin and unpleasant. "Let's say that."
"Let's also say I have reasons for wanting to protect her. Let's say she—" Annie hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "Let's say she's not the Sarah Linwood you once knew. That she's changed. That she's changed a lot."
"In what way?"
"In every way."
"That's a stretch," Garvin said. "But I'll go along with it."
"And let's say she had no more idea than I did that my purchase of her portrait of Haley would cause such a ruckus." Struck by the beauty of the view before her, Annie leaned against the rail. The water was glass smooth, dotted with boats. She glanced at the man beside her. "Then why would I trust you with her?"
"Sarah's not that fragile, Annie." Some of the edge went off his tone. "No matter what's happened to her in the last five years. Don't let her fool you."
"I'm not as skeptical about everything as you are. I went bounding into this thing with the best of intentions, and next thing, I've got a ballroom full of people hissing at me, a possible killer on my case, Linwoods everywhere, you." She took a breath. "It's more than I bargained for."
"Annie—"
"I'll tell you the truth. All right? If it'll—"