"Go. See what you can do."

"I'm so scared. I've mucked things up as it is-" You bought us time.

Sig would be dead if ye hadn't acted. This is Henry's last chance. He know it. Riley, you'll know what to do. Trust your ii stincts. "

Abigail collapsed again, vomiting. Riley reclaim her poker, and Emile waved her upstairs, even as 1 struggled with the last of his ropes and duct tape.

"Go," Abigail echoed, her voice rasping, hoars "Stop him."

Riley took the stairs quickly, silently, praying tl police would arrive before Henry had a chance harm her sister. She didn't know what to do in a ho tage situation. She just knew she couldn't let the ba tard hurt Sig.

She slowed her pace as she came to the top of tl stairs. She held her poker high and took a breath, b before she could assess what was happening in the hall, a hand shot out and whipped the poker from her grip. It clattered to the hall floor. She opened her mouth to scream, but Straker was there, scooping an arm around her.

"I didn't want you to ram me through with that thing," he said.

She started sobbing, gripped his shoulders, "Sig-he's got Sig.

Henry. He has a knife. "

"Not anymore."

"I'm okay." Sig's voice, weak and shaky and angry, came from down the hall.

"The son of a bitch ran into Matt and Straker. He didn't stand a chance."

Riley focused, and she took in her battered and bloodied brother-in-law holding Henry's knife at the bastard's throat. Henry had his face in his hands. Henry wasn't crying, he wasn't raging. He was simply sitting there quietly.

Straker rubbed a hand over Riley's hip.

"You hurt?"

"Bruised."

"Good." His gray eyes were unamused.

"You St. Joes. Don't you believe in calling the police?"

"I did call. They're on their way. I just couldn't wait for them to get here. Henry would have shot Sig."

He nodded.

"Then you did what you had to do."

"Emile's down in the kitchen. I think he's okay, but Abigail--Henry did a job on her. We need an ambulance."

"I think we need a couple of ambulances."

"I'm fine." But even as she spoke, Riley felt her legs going out from under her. Straker steadied her, and she grumbled, "I can't believe you get paid for doing this. How did you know to come here?"

He winked, tightened his arm around her.

"I'm the FBI."

"Well, I'm glad you showed up." She squared her shoulders, sniffled and managed a quick smile.

"I didn't feel like catching Henry all by myself."

Eighteen -^Q /9IViley breathed in the clean Maine air, shoved her hands in her jacket pockets as a breeze blew in off the bay. It was a shining autumn afternoon, as beautiful as any she remembered.

Evergreens and hardwoods with leaves of red, orange and yellow were outlined against a deep, endlessly blue sky. The bay was choppy, the tide coming in hard. Lobster boats were out, their multicolored buoys bobbing in the swells. Cormorants dove for fish. In all the important ways, she thought, life here hadn't changed.

Emile and his lobster men buddies had hauled off most of the rubble that had once been his cottage. They were still arguing over drawings for a new one. They all had their own ideas about propane heat versus fuel oil, natural light, windows, keeping it simple or "yuppifying" it.

Emile was tireless. Henry Armi- stead hadn't succeeded in destroying him.

The police had conducted a thorough analysis of the engine parts Sam Cassain had brought up from the remains of the Encounter. They had uncompromising proof of sabotage. Sam Cassain had been wrong about Emile.

But instead of exonerating the oceanographer immediately and publicly, and turning the investigation over to the authorities, Sam had slipped behind the scenes and tried to make a profit.

He'd fingered Henry Armistead early on. It was Sam who'd let Henry aboard the Encounter shortly before it set out to sea that final day.

Abigail Granger had known. She hadn't realized its significance, she'd explained from her hospital bed, until it was too late. When she'd finally confronted Henry, he'd tried to kill her. He loved her, wanted the status she could give him, but he'd been desperate, knew the walls were closing in on him.

Emile joined Riley down on the water. She smiled at him. He was sweating, in his element as he worked on his new cottage.

"I think it needs more windows," she told him. "You going to pay for them?"

"Only if I can visit whenever I want."

His dark eyes gleamed.

"You'll do that anyway."

"I'll miss the old place," she said.

"I won't. It had mice and snakes."

"Not that many." She squinted out at the water, felt the chilly breeze on her face.

"You won't change your mind and come back to the center?"

He shook his head.

"No. This is my life now. It's a good one. I have friends here."

"Lobstermen. They're lucky Lou Don-man didn't lock them all up."

"Lou's a good man," he said.

"How did you know, Emile?" She turned to him, felt that pang she always did these days when she realized how close she'd come to really losing him.

"That it was Henry, that he was as desperate as he was?"

"I didn't know he was that desperate or I wouldn't have ended up trussed up like a Christmas turkey. That it was Henry... I talked to your mother. Her last visit with Sam--he always wanted to put his best foot forward with her, even if he knew they could never be together again. He told her he was trying to put the Encounter right. She didn't think it meant much of anything at the time."

"It meant he knew what he'd found aboard the Encounter would exonerate you."

"If he hadn't tried to blackmail Henry, if he'd just gone to the police, to me, even to Matt... Sam underestimated Henry, and it cost him his life." Emile shook his head sadly.

"Sam's was a life of missed opportunities."

"Do you think Henry meant to kill him?"

"He let him die. That much we know from the police examination of the boat Abigail let Henry use while he was staying with her and Caroline on Mount Desert Island. That's where Sam confronted him. I don't think it was an accident. I think Henry hit Sam over the head, pushed him into the water and let him drown."

"Then he thought better of letting the police find him off Mount Desert Island and pulled him out."

"And dumped him on Labreque Island," Emili said grimly.

"He probably cut his engines, slipped ir under the cover of dark. Henry was bold in man; ways, cowardly in others. "

"If Straker had caught him" -- "It does no good to go back and imagine wha might have happened. It's enough to deal with wha did happen."

"Henry chose Labreque Island because he'd al ready formulated a plan to blame the Encounter or you."

Emile nodded, accepting this information philosophically.

"His one problem--he couldn't fine Sam's proof. He checked his house in Arlington burned that down. Checked my house, burned i down--which also suited his plans to frame me."

Riley sighed, continued to stare out at the water "But Sam had tucked the engine on Mount Desert Even Matt didn't know where it was. That's wha brought him out here the weekend Sam died--he wa; looking for Sam's evidence. " She could feel he grandfather's sudden melancholy. She turned to him and smiled.

"Thank God it's over."

Emile's dark, intense gaze zeroed in on her, didn' let up. "Riley, if you want a kayak, I can find yoi one. Yours burned up in the fire.

You can paddle ou to the island"-She shook her head.

"I'm not rattling that particular cage."

Straker was there, had been for ten days. He'd set tied affairs with the Boston police, the Massachusett!

State Police, the Maine State Police and Sheriff Dorr- man, and, after making love to Riley a final, bone- melting time, had retreated to his deserted island. He didn't say why. He didn't ask her to wait or to understand. He just said he'd be in touch, and went.

"He can't stay out there through the winter," Emile said.

"I wouldn't put anything past him."

A car drove all the way up to the dock, and Riley, surprised, recognized her sister's BMW. Sig popped out, looking even more pregnant. But the pale, serious look was gone, her free-spiritedness back. She waved, smiling. Matt climbed out from behind the wheel. He had a small cast on his forearm, his bruises had faded somewhat, but he'd lost weight.

"They're both wounded," Emile said.

"They need some time away together."

"They can afford to go anywhere they want."

"" Anywhere' isn't here. "

They got packs from the trunk. Riley gave Emile a questioning frown, but he was off to greet his older granddaughter and her husband. She gave up and joined them.

Sig beamed at her.

"A week on the island is just what we need."

"What island?"

"Labreque Island, idiot. It's peak fall foliage, the weather's not too cold." She blushed, smiled at her husband.

"Not that it matters."

Matt slipped an arm around her.

"John's laid in provisions. He's even appropriated a canoe for us."

Riley stared at them.

"A canoe?"

"We'll be the last two people to stay at the cottage Sig said, as if Riley knew what she was talking about.

"Then the island becomes part of the nature preserve."

Emile nodded, pleased. Riley scowled at him.

"You knew?"

He blinked at her.

"Knew what?"

"Oh, phooey, you know what I'm talking about. Has Straker been to see you? How do you know " "You ask too many questions," her grandfather told her.

"Come on, Matt. I'll help you with your packs."

Matt grinned at Riley.

"You and your sister talk. I'm with you, Riley.

I think you've been plotted against. "