“I’m afraid so.”
Marni came out then. She was clad only in a sweater against the cold, and she shivered, then hurried to her husband’s side and huddled against him. “You need to come and visit us in the summer,” she told Caer. “It’s nice then.”
“Yeah, and when we have a long winter, summer can be just one day,” Cal said.
Marni punched him in the arm.
“Come for it. It’s on July fourteenth and you know it,” Cal said solemnly.
Marni sniffed. “Hey, trust me, it’s better than Florida, where Zach’s from. You can fry down there.”
“Hey, watch what you say,” Zach said, feigning indignation. “We just get more than one day of summer, that’s all. Anyway, we really do need to get going. We’ll see you later.”
His arm was still around Caer as they headed toward the car. She knew that as soon as they were out of earshot, Cal and Marni were going to be talking about them.
“I don’t get it. Why do you want Cal and Marni to think you were just taking the afternoon to see the sights—with me?”
He glanced at her quickly. “I like to see people’s reactions.”
“You like to cause trouble.”
“Sometimes it’s good to stir the pot,” he told her.
“You think Cal and Marni wanted Eddie dead?” she asked.
“I think just about anything is possible.”
His grim tone surprised her.
“Does that mean…you think Amanda might actually have tried to harm Sean? I thought that—”
“I told you. I think just about anything is possible,” he repeated. “And,” he reminded her sharply, “I don’t want anyone to know right now that I’m pretty sure that Eddie was murdered or how his murderer escaped.”
He was studying her again.
She returned his stare. She had told him the truth. She was there to protect Sean, and she didn’t feel the need to assure him again that he could trust her. “I understand,” she told him. “And I won’t say a word.”
Sean was doing well, Zach thought. He’d spent the warmest part of the day, when the sun was high, wrapped in his heaviest coat and sitting outside with Kat.
When Zach returned, he had called Detective Morrissey, and then he and Sean had closeted themselves away and talked about what Zach had discovered on the boat.
Eventually Caer had come in to give Sean his medications, insisting that he rest for a while.
He’d made it to the table for dinner under his own steam, though, and seemed pleased to find that Cal and Marni were joining them.
As they ate, Zach noticed that Marni was as attentive to Sean as Amanda was—and judging by Amanda’s expression, she was aware of it, as well, but everyone at the table, including Kat, seemed determined to be cordial to everyone else, and the meal passed pleasantly.
Zach also noticed that Caer was watching the others just as intently as he was, as if she were trying to learn as much as she could about everyone.
Quite a nurse. Except that she seemed to be more than a nurse.
Was he crazy? he asked himself.
No.
Just suspicious of everyone. Eddie had been murdered. He didn’t need proof to know that was a fact.
Back in his room, he was still debating the same questions that had been occupying his mind for days.
Why?
Why would anyone want to kill Eddie, and possibly Sean, as well?
The business was worth a great deal of money, true. But the disbursement of that money was controlled by partnership agreements and wills, so killing someone over it wouldn’t make any sense. The same thing held true for both men’s personal assets.
He couldn’t think of anyone who would have wanted Eddie dead for monetary gain.
And Kat would clearly die before she let anyone hurt a hair on her father’s head.
Amanda stood to inherit, but it wasn’t as if she would receive a windfall. Kat would still inherit the bulk of her father’s estate.
So if it wasn’t the inheritance, what was it?
He put through another call to Detective Morrissey, using his cell phone just as he had earlier, not wanting anyone in the house to be able to listen in. Morrissey assured him that he had his men discreetly checking the dive shops, adding that Zach was more than welcome to double-check his efforts. So far they had come up with nothing suspicious, but they would keep at it.
Zach thanked him, then told him that he wanted to have the substance he’d found on Cow Cay checked out, promising to deliver it the next morning.
He hung up with a growing respect for Morrissey. Cops, he knew, could be jerks. He had been a cop.
He hoped he hadn’t been a jerk.
With nothing else to do, he booted up his computer, went online and started going through the newspaper reports on Eddie’s disappearance.