of France. Griffin imagined they’d grow tired of fun and games after six months and open a restaurant in Cannes.
He saw Beauregard’s Antiques across from the park and thought of Anna, her face clear in his mind, how she loved eighteenth-century English antiques, hiking, and white-water rafting as much as she enjoyed bringing down drug dealers. She would have enjoyed Gaffer’s Ridge, but now she’d never see it. She’d left for Seattle months ago. She was no longer his fiancée, she’d broken it off. My mom has Alzheimer’s. I’ve got to go to her. I’m transferring to the DEA, Seattle division. I’m sorry, Griffin, sorry for everything.
He knew her mother’s condition wasn’t all her breakup with him was about. He knew what the real reason was, and there was nothing he could do about it. And he’d tried. Over the months, Anna, his tough-as-nails DEA agent, had become over-the-top jealous of any woman who came within ten feet of him or even nodded to him. She hadn’t believed his promises that he loved her and no one else, and their arguments had escalated. She’d never accused him of sleeping around on her, but Anna was convinced that one of the many women she saw with him would be the first one. She questioned him constantly about the women agents in the CAU—all three of them married, one of them, Lucy, now pregnant, but none of that seemed to matter.
When she’d left for Dulles with three suitcases and a cat carrier, a moving van set to follow her with all her superbly wrapped antiques to Mercer Island, Griffin had realized he felt sad but also relieved. There would be no more accusations, no more questioning the women he’d spoken to or met that day, no more inevitable fights, no more dreading to go home. He felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. And now, standing across from an antique shop, he realized he didn’t miss her. To be honest, it was Miss Exxie he missed, her three-year-old soft-as-silk Himalayan who slept on his chest, purring loud as a tank.
He’d walked all over Washington for weeks, looking for a place to call home, and finally found what he wanted, a condo on Capitol Hill, three blocks from Garfield Park, where he could run every morning.
Now, six months later, he’d driven to Gaffer’s Ridge for a short vacation, to rest and relax, and maybe nap away some afternoons. Griffin began to walk again, tried not to torture himself anymore with Anna’s jealousy—That face of yours—women line up to get close to you, and don’t try to tell me you don’t love it.
He closed his eyes a moment, shut out her angry voice. No, he was going to think about the furniture he wanted for his still nearly empty condo, nothing fancy, since the down payment had taken a sizable bite out of his savings. He turned onto Berger Lane, running northeast toward the mountains. The houses thinned out, the yards grew bigger, and everywhere, trees crowded in—he recognized some poplars, elms, cypress, and oak, but there were so many more he didn’t recognize, vivid greens against the blue sky. And there were the mountains, always the mountains, in the background. He didn’t see a single B&B or tourist this far from the center of Gaffer’s Ridge. The day was warm, the sun bright overhead. He filled his lungs with the clean sweet air, no trace of a car or factory.
HE’S HERE! THE PIPE, I HAVE THE PIPE. I’LL FIGHT!
Griffin jerked around at the woman’s panicked voice. What? She had a pipe? He realized her yell hadn’t come from the street, it was almost as if she were next to him, but where was she? He looked at the ancient gray clapboard house to his left. He saw no sign of anyone, no car in the driveway.
He waited, but she didn’t yell anything more. Had he imagined her voice? He had been tired when he’d arrived in Gaffer’s Ridge, both Ruth and him worn to the bone from their case. No, he hadn’t imagined anything. He ran to the front door of the gray clapboard house, pounded on it. He didn’t hear anyone. Or anything. He turned on the sagging wooden porch, stared toward the yellow-painted cottage catty-corner from him on the other side of the road.
11
* * *
Carson gripped the pipe two-handed in front of her like a gun and stared at the man who stared back at her. He