Palladino pushed open the bedroom door.

"Walk out with us?"

My turn, Straker thought. He started toward the door.

"Let's go."

Riley talked herself out of skipping Abigail's dinner. She needed her routines. She needed her friends and colleagues. She also needed to get away from Straker, she thought, but that wasn't working out too well. He had all but stuffed her into his car to give her a ride to Beacon Hill. "I could have taken the subway or driven my own car," she repeated for at least the fourth time as he drove up Mount Vernon, Beacon Hill's widest and most well-known street.

"It's not as if I need a bodyguard."

"I'm being nice." "No, you're not. You're just a control freak.

That's why you joined the FBI."

He glanced at her as if she'd turned purple.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Well," she said, "I don't need you to give me a ride home. I'll take the subway or get a ride from someone at the dinner."

"Take a cab. Don't take the subway."

"Straker, it's not as if someone's going to hit me over the head and dump my body on the rocks. We don't know Sam was murdered."

"I know," he said.

She scowled.

"You're in fine form tonight. A control freak and a know-it-all.

That's Louisburg Square." She pointed to an intersection up ahead.

"Drop me off on the corner. I'll walk to Abigail's."

"Don't want to be seen with me?"

"Absolutely not. What are you going to do?"

He pulled over to the curb. His rusting Subaru with its Maine plates didn't exactly fit in with the expensive cars and stately town houses.

"Go back to your apartment and rummage through your underwear drawer."

"You are such a jerk."

He grinned, the evening light darkening his gray eyes.

"I'll go back and watch TV."

"Liar. You're going to snoop around here. If you cause me any trouble, Straker, I'll have your head. I swear I will. These are my friends and colleagues. This is my job.

"Looks like a Beacon Hill dinner party to me."

"I'm serious. I'm already on thin ice. You wouldn't be easy to explain if I hadn't just found Sam dead."

Straker leaned back in his seat. He didn't look too worried.

"Sure you can handle a brick sidewalk and cobblestones in those little shoes of yours?"

She jumped out of the car without bothering to answer. Instead of heading up Mount Vernon, he lingered. Riley felt his gaze on her as she negotiated the brick sidewalk to Louisburg Square, famous for its cobblestone streets and graceful nineteenth-century homes on a small, enclosed private park. After her husband's death last year, Caroline insisted on moving to a condo on the water, and Abigail had reluctantly moved back into her childhood home. Matthew and Sig had a town house on Chestnut Street, two blocks over. At least for now.

Riley didn't want to speculate what would happen if her sister's marriage ended in divorce.

Most of the guests had already arrived, gathering in the parlor of the elegant bowfront house. Good, Riley thought. That reduced the chances anyone had seen her arrive with Straker. She did not want to have to explain him.

Caroline Granger was the first to greet her. "Riley, I'm so glad you decided to come tonight. It's the very best thing you could do for yourself."

Her warm words helped Riley to relax. She'd come to admire Caroline's grace and fine manners, her acute sense of duty.

Just sixty, an attractive woman with silvery-blond hair, her life had been in limbo since Bennett's sudden, horrible death aboard the Encounter. They'd been married only seven years. This was Caroline's second experience with widowhood. Her first husband, a corporate executive, had died of a heart attack when she was in her early forties. She had no children, and she'd taken great pains not to overstep with Bennett's two adult children. She was the sort of wife who made her husband's interests her own, and even now, she was doing what she could to support the center and provide a smooth transition to the next generation of Grangers.

"I heard about Captain Cassain," she said.

"I can't imagine what it must have been like for you."

"It was pretty awful."

"Yes, so I gathered from what the police told me. They interviewed me earlier this afternoon. They asked about Sam's visit to Maine. He stopped by the cocktail party--did you see him?"

Riley shook her head.

"No. I spent most of the cocktail party trying not to hyperventilate, so I was glad just to be back on terra firma.

I'll get over it, but that was my first time on a boat since. " She didn't finish.

"I understand," Caroline said quickly.

"Well, Sam didn't stay long. He was in a good mood. But..." She smiled.

"Enough said about that. How's Emile? I heard he's gone off on one of his jaunts. His timing's awkward, but I told the police this was vintage Emile.

I miss him. I know that's heresy in some quarters, but it's true. "

"It was good to see him." Riley swept a glass of champagne from a nearby table. She knew she should abstain from alcohol under the circumstances, but the champagne went down easily.

"I think he likes his new life."

"So long as he's close to the ocean, he'll do fine." Her eyes misted, and Riley wondered how many glasses of champagne she'd had.

"Ben loved your grandfather. They accepted each other's weaknesses along with their strengths. Even if Emile did make a mistake, Ben wouldn't have wanted to see him..." She stopped herself, manufactured another society smile.

"It's a tragedy. I'm sure everyone can agree on that much. Now, tell me, how is Sig?"

"Painting again," Riley said, and they chatted for another minute before Caroline melted into the throng of other guests.

Her champagne finished, Riley slipped out to the courtyard, one of Beacon Hill's many "secret" gardens. She paused at a classical stone fountain. The gurgling water and sweet scent of end-of the-summer flowers calmed her, made her feel less exposed and vulnerable. She blamed Straker. Seeing him with the two Maine detectives had forced her to admit he wasn't the obnoxious, raging teenager she'd pelted with a rock at twelve--nor was he a salt-of the-earth Maine lobster man like his father. He was an FBI agent. Confident, disciplined, self-possessed.

"Hey, kid."

She smiled at her father. He'd put on his one dinner suit, but no matter what he wore, Richard always managed to look rumpled--and dinner parties just made him awkward.

"Are you hiding, too?" she asked.

"Not yet. I saw you and came on out. Everything okay?" "I was thinking about how I could go for a dozen whales stranding themselves on a Cape Cod beach right about now. Isn't that awful?"

"It would take your mind off things."

"I shouldn't have come. Everyone knows about Sam. Everyone thinks Emile had something to do with his death. They won't say so, but it's obvious."

"Is that what you think?"

She sighed.

"I'm trying not to think."

"I was thinking about Sig." He glanced around the perfect little courtyard garden, shaking his head. "Do you believe she's happy as a Granger?"

"She's not a Granger. She's a Labreque-St. Joe. She just married a Granger. It's a fine distinction, but one that's important to her, I think." Riley caught herself.

"Or was my glass of champagne one glass too many and I'm not making any sense?"

"No, you're making a great deal of sense. You know, I always thought Sig and Matt loved each other, and the rest--his money, her obliviousness to it--wouldn't matter."

Riley grinned at him. "Is this my pragmatic father talking?"

He smiled.

"I'm a romantic at heart. Why else would I spend a lifetime working to save a doomed species of whale?"

He faced the fountain, his eyes half-closed, almost sad.

"You can ask someone to give up some things, but not their identity, not their soul."

"Do you think that's what Mart's done with Sig?"

"I don't know. I worry about them--but there's nothing I can do." He pulled at his beard, seemed to shake off some dark thought. Then he smiled, embarrassed.

"You see why I avoid dinner parties? I'm lousy at small talk. Two glasses of champagne and I turn into a blowhard."

Riley wondered if he knew Sig was pregnant, but it wasn't her secret to tell.

"Sig'll be okay. She's tough."

"You're both tough. Emile and your mother wouldn't have had it any other way. Me, I'd like to have spoiled you rotten." He gave Riley's arm a gentle squeeze.

"This will all work out. Sam's death, Emile. I know it will."

Dinner was announced. It was served buffet style, a comfortable mix of Beacon Hill elegance and practical informality. Even after decades of attending Granger parties, Riley thought with affection, her father still looked as if he expected a live lobster to crawl out of his pockets at any moment. He was much more confident and at ease studying whales.

She managed to avoid anything controversial or seriously awkward through the main course, and was just starting to eye the dessert table when Matthew Granger barged into the elegant dining room.

Abigail gasped.

"Matthew! What's wrong?"

Fatigue clawed at his handsome features, and his blue eyes searched among the guests gathered in the sparkling dining room. He wasn't dressed for dinner. His clothes were casual, expensive, wrinkled. He quaked with outrage, the out-of-control, obsessed antithesis of the well-bred, contented man Riley remembered waiting for his bride at the altar.

His angry gaze fixed on her. "Why the hell is John Straker hanging around outside?"

Suddenly the maple cheesecake didn't look so good. Damn Straker. What kind of FBI agent was he that he couldn't snoop without being seen?

Riley noticed Henry Armistead's eyes narrowing on her with instant concern and suspicion, and she heard Abigail's sharp intake of breath, saw her father sink back in his chair in total confusion.

Caroline Granger frowned, a sliver of blueberry tart on her china plate.

"Matthew, who on earth is John Straker?"

Henry answered, his gaze, like Mart's, not leaving Riley.

"He's the FBI agent who was with Riley when she found Sam on Labreque Island.

It's not yet public knowledge. "

"Oh. Oh, my." Caroline required about two seconds to realize this was a nasty scene in the making. She reached a hand toward her dead husband's son.

"Perhaps you and Riley can discuss this in the parlor."

Matt didn't move. His eyes continued to bore into Riley.

"Where are you two hiding Emile?"

Half the guests listened with open interest. The rest just sat or stood in quiet shock, either pretending not to listen or wishing they were somewhere else. Riley could have stabbed Matt with her dessert fork. If Sig had been there, her sister would have cheerfully done the honors.

Riley's displeasure with both her brother-in-law and Straker kept her steady on her feet.

"I don't know where Emile is, and John Straker isn't my responsibility.