"It blew up, caught fire and sank for a reason. Five people died, Riley, including my father-in-law."

"Don't you think I know that? I was there." She grabbed a small oak log, shoved it on the burning kindling, nearly smothering the flames.

"It was an old ship, Sig. Unless we go out and dredge it up, we'll probably never know for sure what happened."

Sig was silent.

The fire was throwing off heat now, and Riley turned to her sister, could feel the warmth on her back.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to upset you" -- "I'm pregnant, I'm not sick.

And I'm not fragile. Don't tiptoe around me, okay? If Sam..." Sig thought a moment, fidgeting, pulling at the fringe on her shawl.

"If he was murdered, we have to assume someone would have a motive to kill him. What if he had proof the Encounter was sabotaged--or of criminal negligence, something?" "What, and he brought it to Emile and Emile killed him?"

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it was phony proof and Emile cracked, or maybe Sam came after him for revenge and Emile killed him in selfdefense. Maybe Emile didn't have one damned thing to do with killing him. How the hell would I know?" She paused, eyes narrowed.

"And how would you know?"

Riley kept her cool.

"I've worked side by side with Emile since I turned thirteen. He didn't kill Sam. Sig, come on. You know he didn't."

"All right. Let's do it your way. For the sake of argument, let's eliminate Emile as a suspect. Let's say someone else killed Sam. Let's say Sam had evidence of neglect or sabotage--proof something went very wrong aboard the Encounter and it wasn't just one of those things, something beyond anyone's control."

"He just pinned it on the wrong person?"

"Right. What would he do with that kind of proof?"

Riley didn't hesitate.

"He'd try to make a profit."

"He wouldn't go to the police?"

"No. When Sam railed to the Coast Guard and then the rest of the world about Emile, it wasn't for the sake of justice. It was for revenge, and to keep anyone from blaming him for what happened. I'm not saying he was evil or even particularly bad, he just looked out for himself."

"Until someone hit him on the head and let him drown."

Riley shuddered.

Sig pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

"This is scary."

"Yep. I think I'll turn on another light."

She stopped halfway across the living room. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Then, from outside, came a muttered curse in a voice that was distinctly male but unidentifiable, followed by heavy footsteps on the front porch.

"Grab the poker," Sig said, even as Riley reached for Emile's ancient blackened iron poker by the woodstove.

The door opened. Riley had her poker poised, ready for battle.

Straker walked in and shook his head.

"I don't believe you two. The two of you put together don't have the sense of one hermit crab."

"Scare us to death, why don't you?" Riley didn't lower her poker. He filled the room with his presence, his broad shoulders and glower and total selfpossession.

"Why didn't you knock?"

"Because I was hoping someone had stolen your car and left you in a ditch somewhere." He bit off another curse, his gray eyes narrowed, unyielding.

"Why the hell aren't you still in Camden?"

"We're trying to find Emile."

"I'm sure that's just what we all need--a pregnant woman and a know-it-all oceanographer out here in the wilderness searching for a man who doesn't want you to find him."

Riley lowered her poker a fraction of an inch, just because it was heavy and she was tired. She doubted he was too worried about her taking it to him, but she wanted him to know she wasn't intimidated.

"I wish I'd never gone to your cottage to throw up."

"You didn't come there to throw up, you came there for my help and good advice--which right now is to go back to Camden."

"Obviously I was in shock or just out of my mind." The poker went down another few inches, in spite of her desire to do something productive with it. This man drove her wild. She didn't know what it was about him.

"You belong on a deserted island, Straker."

Sig wiggled her toes and leaned back against Emile's ancient throw pillows.

"You two fight it out. I'm beat."

Her words didn't break the tension. Straker was clearly in no mood to back down. He thought he had the upper hand. Riley knew she was being obstinate, but his presence had thrown her off balance, made her hyper alert, aware--of him, herself. She noticed the shape of his shoulders, the way his sweater fit over his chest, the thick muscles in his thighs, the set of his jaw and the cool, fog like gray of his eyes.

She couldn't control her attraction to him, couldn't bank it down even when he was standing there yelling at her, disgusted and cranky because she wasn't marching to his tune.

He took three long steps across the room and snatched the poker from her hand. "As if this would do any good."

"It would if I used it," she grumbled.

She noticed the tensed muscles in his arms and shoulders as he smacked the poker back by the woodstove. The fire was going nicely now. It filled the room with the smell of burning oak, made the cottage homey, welcoming, less cold and empty. Yet she could feel the sprawling blackness beyond the flames and the glow of Emile old lamps, out across the dark bay and the dark acres of the nature preserve. Straker wouldn't feel it. This was civilization compared to what he was used to.

He turned to her, no sign he was softening. "I take it you two plan to spend the night here."

"Good work, Straker. I guess they taught you deductive reasoning at Quantico."

She regretted her sarcasm almost immediately. What was the matter with her? But they must have taught him self-restraint, too, because he didn't react.

"And tomorrow?"

"We don't know yet." She grabbed a birch log out of the wood box.

"Don't you worry about us. Feel free to take all the room you need to maneuver. We don't want to cramp your style."

"You cramped my style when you paddled your kayak to the island for your damned picnic." He sighed, glancing around the old cottage.

"I planned to stay on the island, but I could camp out here"-- " No! "

Sig sat up on one elbow, her eyebrows raised. "Why not? You know, Riley, if Sam really was murdered--well, I wouldn't mind having an FBI agent sleeping on the couch."

Riley shook her head, adamant.

"I've had Straker under my feet for two nights. / need room to maneuver." She turned back to him, sensed he'd dipped into his last reserves of patience. He needed the island. She needed him on it.

For once they were in sync.

"Go on. We'll be fine.

All your stuff's on the island or in my apartment. You don't even have a toothbrush. "

"I don't like the idea of you two out here alone."

"We like it out here alone."

"Riley" -- "It's okay, Straker. Really. We'll be fine." She managed a sincere smile.

"Thanks for checking on us."

He sighed. "All right. But if you need me" -- "We'll send up flares."

He clenched his teeth without a word, whipped around and marched back outside. The floor of the old cabin shook when he pounded down the front steps. Riley ran to the door and peeked outside, made sure he wasn't pitching a tent out on the rocks. She heard his boat, saw its lights, then watched it speed out across the starlit bay.

"Holy shit." Sig peeled off an afghan from the stack at the end of the couch and pulled it up over her.

"You do get under that man's skin."

"He's up to something."

"Of course he's up to something. He's a frigging FBI agent."

"I hate him," Riley said, but her heart wasn't in it.

Sig grinned.

"Ha! He's under your skin, too." She planted her feet firmly on the floor and stood, rubbing her lower back.

"I always thought you'd end up with some expert in clams or porpoises or something, and here it is an FBI agent." She chuckled to herself.

"John Straker no less. A son of the Stone Coast."

"I'm glad you're having a good laugh at my expense."

"It's not at your expense. If I weren't here. God knows what you two would be doing right now."

"Sig!"

"See?" She was smug.

"You were thinking the same thing. I'll bet he was, too."

"Would it do any good for me to tell you you're way off track?"

"It would not."

Riley let her sister enjoy her victory. Arguing would only further convince her she was right. They left a light on downstairs"--for the bogeyman and the bathroom," Sig said--and collapsed under heaps of quilts in the twin beds in the loft.

But neither fell asleep quickly. Riley stared at the sloped, wood-paneled ceiling and listened to the ocean and the wind, imagined Straker alone on his tiny island and tried not to think about how much she wished she'd asked him to stay. He had her confused, aching with longings she didn't understand or care to explore.

She could hear Sig's bed creak as her sister turned onto her side.

Riley bit back tears. She wasn't being fair to Sig, either. She was holding back on her about Matt last night at Sam's, about this afternoon outside her apartment. It wasn't right. Sig deserved to know. Riley knew she was being protective--overprotective, maybe--because of her sister's pregnancy. I'm not sick. But how much could Sig take?

Riley rolled over, facing her sister's bed in the darkness.

"Sig, are you sure you should be here? I can take you back to Camden in the morning. It's not just that you're pregnant. You lost your father-in-law, your marriage is under tremendous strain and now you've got Sam's death and Emile." And Matt, Riley thought. Who knows about him?

"I'm fine. Trust me, will you?" But Sig's voice cracked, and she sobbed quietly, wretchedly, into her pillow, as if no one could hear.

Riley sat up, could see her sister's silhouette under the old quilts.

She remembered the countless nights they'd slept up here, laughing and talking and arguing, nothing more serious at stake than whether the purple sea stars they'd found in a tide pool would go out with high tide.

"I saw Matt this afternoon." Riley kept her voice steady, matter-of-fact.

"He was waiting for me outside my apartment. He's okay, Sig. Sam's death hasn't been easy on him, but he hasn't gone off the deep end.

He's as stirred up as any of us about what's going on."

She waited, but her sister didn't respond.

"He wouldn't do anything deliberately to hurt you."

"Too late," came Sig's muffled voice.