All That Glitters

Addy pushed her hood back from her wet hair and gave each of them an even look. Well, what she hoped was an even look because when one’s underwear was starting to take on water it was hard.

They stared back for a moment and then turned away to continue removing their rain suits. She had the feeling they would have stripped down to their underwear if she hadn’t been there—maybe they still would.

“Eh, Michael, sorry about Francine,” the stocky, white-whiskered member of the trio said to the red headed man.

Addy remembered the word FRANCINE as it had headed directly for her upturned face. Francine was the boat’s name.

The shoulders of the tall thin man with what now seemed like a bushel of wet red hair slumped. “Ah-yuh. Wish we’d’a known sooner.”

“...that the storm wasn’t going to pass us by.” In her head Addy filled in the missing words.

She stepped up behind the group. “Excuse me. I’m looking for Zachary Hale.”

A choking kind of cough made her she realize the four of them were not the only people in the bar. She looked over her shoulder to see scattered tables in a room off to the left of where she stood. People, men and women, sat in clumps of two, three or four at timeworn tables with mismatched chairs. All of them stared at her.

She peered first into the faces of the people at the tables to make sure the billionaire hadn’t shed his fancy business suit to hide amid this crowd.

When she didn’t see anyone resembling the slick, manicured tycoon in disguise she turned halfway back to the three men so she could address everyone. “Can anyone tell me where to find Zachary Hale?”

A few of the people continued to stare at her, but most turned back to their beers and bowls of snacks.

“Pardon me, miss.” The red-haired man spoke to her in a friendly voice as he pointed toward the door. “You don’t want to be going anywhere in that, so come sit at the bar and I’ll pour you a beer.”

Before she could even respond, he walked around the bar, and pulled a glass from under the counter.

Addy held her ground and pulled her hood back on. “That’s very nice of you, but I really need to get going. If someone could just tell me where Mr. Hale lives or where he might be right now.”

“You’ll get blown off the road trying to get up Sea Crest Hill in this weather.” A woman’s voice came from the crowd at the tables.

A few heads turned in the middle-aged woman’s direction and she hushed quickly. Her ruddy face got redder and she turned her chair away.

At least these people knew the man. In this small town the hill called Sea Crest couldn’t be too hard to find.

She decided to try a less direct question. She might get another nibble. “Does anyone know if he’s here in town?”

Silence.

Hale was a thief, but she doubted he’d physically harm anyone. He wasn’t that kind of bad guy, so these folks were mum because Hale grew up in this town and not because they were afraid of him. He was one of them and they weren’t going to give her much information.

She rubbed her back where a bead of water trickled down her spine between her shoulder blades. She could lie to them. Make up something about being Hale’s worried fiancé or secretary with important business.

She looked around the room. Every one of them except the woman who had given away Sea Crest Hill was staring at her with varying degrees of resolute.

And she was such a bad liar. Even the slowest of this crowd would call her on it.

Until a year ago, anyone in the news field would have said if there was one thing Adriana Bonacorda could be relied on for, it was the truth.

“Listen, miss.” The red-haired man, evidently the bartender as he had tied an apron around his thin waist. “You can stay here if you want. There isn’t much in the way of amenities, but we’re far enough up hill from the harbor to be safe and dry in this sturdy old building.”

“Thank you. I’ll be all right, but I need to find Mr. Hale.”

“There is no place else for you to go in town or for twenty miles. Sit down. Relax. Have a beer or—” He reached under the bar and pulled out a bottle of red wine and held it up.

Wine for the city girl. This guy already had that much figured out about her. By the look he gave her, he knew enough about her to know she was not here to heap rewards or praise on one of theirs.

She shook her head slowly. She could almost feel the tread of sneaks and stilettos on her back as the other reporters trampled her to get the story. If they convinced Hale to talk while she sipped Pinot Noir, she might as well start fabricating a résumé, because no one was ever going to hire her with her real one.

She pushed damp hair from her forehead.

Wile might be in order.

Or maybe something brash, near the truth.

What were they going to do? Toss her out into the storm?

Addy leaned over the bar and gave the thin, redheaded bartender an earnest smile. She didn’t need to make enemies out of these people.

“Look. I’m a reporter. Zachary Hale has a story to tell and I want to get his side out to the public before there are any more accusations.” She took a breath hoping her message of benevolence would get through. “Or worse yet, charges are filed against him.”

“Aw, just let her go out there ’n’ look, Michael,” a burly, dark-bearded man said to the bartender as he nodded toward the old oak door.

Michael folded his arms over his chest but remained silent.

“I know that he’s from around here,” Addy brushed at her sodden hair, tipped her head to the side and continued. “And I get that he doesn’t want to be hounded by reporters, but that’s going to happen, anyway. It’ll just be more civilized if he has a chance to lay his side out before the lies get too vicious.”

Before the real truth gets out, she thought. Was her nose growing?

“You can’t go out in this.” The bartender tried again, his arms not budging from their determined pose across his chest.

“But if the storm—”

“Hurricane, miss. Hurricane.”

The wind took that moment to snap the boards covering the windows as if to reinforce the bartender’s statement.

“All right. If the hurricane is already here—”

“This is merely the build-up.” He interrupted her with a warning glance that made her insides slightly queasy. “They expect winds of up to a hundred miles an hour to hit us in a few hours.”

She sighed. Did they think she was going to stand on a street corner and wait for a hurricane to blow her away? She had work to do. At least two other reporters already knew where Hale might go to ground.

“If you just give me directions to Sea Crest Hill, I’ll be out of here.”

“Hale’s not there,” the dark-bearded guy said, looking as dark as the storm clouds outside.

He had to be in Bailey’s Cove. Her lead had been sound, as reliable as one could get these days.

If not at his home, where in this town could he be? Bailey’s Cove was his comfort zone. This is where he’d go, said Savanna, her sister who had worked in the off-site records department of Hale and Blankenstock Investments, LLC, for over two years.

Peering into their faces, she examined the crowd once again to reassure herself Hale wasn’t cowering there in the disguise of a local. That would be just like a scoundrel. She got a lot of petulant, stoic looks and plain blank stares, but Hale’s slick good looks weren’t there.

Saying Hale wasn’t at his home on Sea Crest Hill was most likely a misdirection. She’d find Sea Crest Hill and have a look for herself. She’d know his home once she got there. It would be the biggest and the fanciest.

“Thank you so much for your offer of shelter,” she said to the bartender and started to leave.

The door to the tavern burst open and six people entered—two women and four men—sodden, weary and breathing hard except the man who had pulled her away from the falling FRANCINE. He stood tall, brooding and soaked, taking inventory of the people in the tavern as if he were somehow responsible for each one of them—and ignoring her.

CHAPTER TWO

ADDY’S SAVIOR FROM the docks signaled a farewell to the bartender and turned to leave.

“Where’s ah— Where’s he going?” The stout white-whiskered man asked from his bar stool at the near corner of the bar’s U shape.

One of the newcomers stepped forward. “Said he had to get back to—”

The bartender shot a hand into the air and he, too, seemed to make a point of not looking at Addy.

Addy studied the red-haired man and the retreating newcomer for a moment. The retreating man was her quarry.

He had to be Zachary Hale.

As impossible as it seemed, tall, rough looking and seething was Zachary Hale. Stripped of his business suit and the affable expression, the whiskered man with his wet hair plastered to his head seemed like a Maine fisherman instead of a criminal tycoon. She was such an idiot for not seeing it in the first place.

She started after him.

“Leave him alone, miss.” She had taken only a step when the sharp demand stopped her.

When she turned, the short white-whiskered man was no longer on his bar stool but standing inches behind her.

“He’s not who you think he is,” the man finished in a deadly calm voice.

Facing him squarely she looked directly into the faded blue eyes and told a lie that at least might fool him for a moment while she fled. “It’s a family thing.” If anyone would understand this, it would be a man from Maine.

The man’s look did not change.

She fled the tavern in time to see the SUV pull away from the curb.

Uncaring any more about the drenching rain, she flew to her car and jumped inside. Gripping the steering wheel as tight as she could, she headed out after the beckoning taillights.

The road was still deserted except for her car and the SUV.

No other reporters. Wally Harriman and Jacko Wilson would be sitting snug in their dry Boston condos waiting for the storm to pass, sure no one would be gutsy enough to travel in such weather.

“He’s not who you think he is”? This man was Zachary Hale and he was hers.

She followed, pushing the rental car as much as she dared as water ran down the back of her neck, down her body and into her bra. She wiggled her shoulders. This, too, would pass.

The street was worse than when she arrived in town. A slick of water covered most of the surface spraying out from the tires of the SUV and then filling back in.

When she passed it, she could barely see the old church through the blowing rainfall, so she spared the historic building a nod.

The hammering of the wind had escalated in the short while she had been in the town and every time the car took a broadside shot of the gusty stuff, she was sure the bitsy rental was going to tip over and tumble her like towels in a clothes dryer. But each time, the hatchback car held on to the ground and kept up the insane pace she asked of it.

Doggedly, she followed the SUV’s taillights off the town’s main street onto a side road leading away from the ocean and climbing gently up a hill. The rain slashed and the wind ripped at the trees surrounding the bungalows lined up along the road. The press of houses eventually thinned out and the road began to climb and curve through pine trees that seemed to close in behind her as she drove.

When a large tree branch plopped down onto the almost absent shoulder of the road, it brushed Addy back toward the center and she stayed there.

If she hadn’t been so fired up about clinging to the sight of Mr. Bad Guy’s taillights, she knew she would have been scared boneless. Now she held on to determination as a way of survival both mental and physical.

The SUV ahead of her turned once again, this time onto an impossibly narrow road or a driveway she would not have seen if he hadn’t turned there.

She slowed and followed with growing trepidation. He for sure knew she was tailing him, but he might also know she was a reporter. If his cell service worked, surely someone at the bar would have called him.

A thought occurred to her that tried to be amusing, but wasn’t. He could be trying to lead her to some remote place where he could get rid of her and hide this minuscule car and no one would ever be the wiser.

The folks of the town would be convinced she had gone away. Or because they would think she was trying to bring down one of their own, especially one who was so obviously a part of the community, they might help him cover up her disappearance.

Was the story worth dying for?

Was she crazy for thinking such things?

Heck, yeah.

But if she could wipe away the memory of the hopeless look on her sister’s face when she first told her story to Addy, it was worth every slick road, every gust of wind and even facing down a fleeing tycoon.

But, she wasn’t going to die. He didn’t frighten her. The FBI agent she had interviewed had said scam artists rarely seriously hurt anyone. They were usually cowards, often helpless if they were forced into a face-to-face confrontation.

After what she had seen of this guy, she had to admit he wouldn’t be terrified of her. Maybe he’d want to come clean, bare his soul to cleanse himself.

Keep dreaming, she told herself.

She squeezed the wheel and followed the lights. After a quarter mile or so of the steeper, rocky grade, and one particularly deep water-filled rut, she patted the steering wheel. “It’s okay, rental car, you can do this.”

The road turned suddenly and a stand of trees gave her a small respite from the wind. Wherever they were going they had to be arriving any time. She breathed a long sigh. The sun would be setting soon and she wasn’t relishing the darkness.

Where Hale was going and what she would do when they arrived hadn’t been very well planned in her head. Somehow, she had always seen herself confronting him in an office, a bar or a coffee shop, or even on the front steps outside his condo building in downtown Boston.

“You’re leapin’, but you’re not lookin’,” her granddad always told her when she did thoughtless things as a child.

Well, she was nothing if not adaptable. When she found out he had left town, she ran toward the place few people knew about. She would chase him into his mansion and follow him into his man cave, whatever it took. She didn’t care as long as he talked.

She hit a jarring bump.

“Whoa, baby.” She patted the dashboard with one hand.

In the past year and a half, she had changed a lot. Zooming to the top and crashing and burning six months later did that to a person. Climbing out of the crater she had made on landing had been the most difficult part and she was not sure she had found the rim yet.

Zachary Hale was going to help her regain her footing. Her old boss at the Boston Times was going to have to give her back her job when she brought this story to him.

Once clear of the sheltering trees, the wind rocked the SUV’s taillights and then a few seconds later slammed into her car. The wheels fought for traction as the car shifted sideways. When she tried to correct, the wind lifted the rear end.

The world seemed to shift as the car slid backward toward the edge of the road. Water coursed around both sides as terror grabbed hold of her and squeezed hard until she couldn’t breathe.

With a snap, the rear end of the car dropped and she screamed. Braking and steering did nothing except perhaps hasten her descent.

The nose of the car shifted suddenly upward toward the angry sky and the sound of her renewed screams bounced off the cheap vinyl and plastic around her.

With a sudden jolt the car stopped, the headlamps pointing upward at a forty-five-degree slant and lighting up the torrent of raindrops. She had no idea how far she had gone. Ten feet? Twenty?

Or how much farther she would drop.

Gingerly she sat up in the seat trying to see outside the confines of the car. There was nothing but rain in the headlights. Darkness was falling.

She tried for a calming breath.

Was this all?

Was she about to plunge off the edge of some bluff?

She turned slowly in the seat to recon the area behind her. Just then, the wind rocked the car, shifting the tires, loosening their hold and the vehicle shifted downward even farther.

Fear of having made yet another stupid mistake moved in for a tick, until she reminded herself there was a prize to be had if she could just buck up and get through this.

The car shook again, but held fast.

Okay.

Now. Stay in the car or get out and run after the story of her the life? For her pride and her sister, she popped open the door.

When she leaped out, the wind hit her like a hand grabbing her, hauling her upward.

The strong hand hefted her up the few feet to the edge of the road and Zachary Hale tossed her onto solid ground. Through the sheets of driving rain she saw the black SUV.

“Get in,” Hale yelled and she eagerly grabbed the door and did so.

A couple minutes later the driver’s-side door popped open. Hale led with her duffel bag and backpack with her electronics as he jumped in and continued up the road.

She closed her eyes for a moment of thanks for being alive and then she glanced at the driver.

Brooding was kind of an understatement, as she observed him in the shed of he dashboard lights. The wind shook even the big SUV and the driver concentrated on the road.

After a few minutes more of driving, he stopped and backed into a short driveway and up to a three-car garage. One garage door raised and he parked the vehicle safely inside.

Addy hadn’t gotten but a glance of the mansion through the downpour. Large and brooding, old, not what she had expected.

Once inside the garage, she did not give herself a second to sag in relief. She grabbed her bags and scrambled out of the vehicle. For a reporter it was probably more apt than for most people to ask for forgiveness for trespassing rather than ask for permission. If she was out of the vehicle, he could see she planned to stay.

As she stood next to the SUV and dripped, the garage door lowered. In the dimness of the light, she could see that a very early model car and a buggy of some sort filled the other two garage spaces. He must be a collector of some kind.

Then a disgusting thought occurred to her. Maybe he bought these with OPM...other people’s money.

Move, she told herself. The moment would never get better than this, and if she invited herself to stay...

She let herself into a breezeway between the house and the garage. The enclosed space ran the length of the garage and was undoubtedly a twentieth-century addition designed as shelter only. Stark and serviceable, the room had hooks on the far wall holding coats for all seasons with men’s boots and shoes lined up on mats below the coats.

Off to the left there was a large box of wood and a set of flip-up doors to a cellar. The doors would have been outside before the breezeway had been built. Outside and close to the entry to the kitchen so the food stored down there could be easily accessed. It was a very old house.

When Hale didn’t follow her, she moved to where she could see him through the window in the door to the garage. If he picked up an ax or a chain saw, she could run out a door on either end of the breezeway.

She put a hand to her wet hair and shoved a large clump out of her eyes. Maybe if she could see more clearly, she wouldn’t think such dire thoughts.

He rounded the SUV making a beeline for where she stood in the doorway. Coming to murder her? “Con men don’t usually turn to murder, unless it’s a last resort” were the FBI agent’s exact words. The woman had seemed confident in herself, but Addy wondered if she was pushing this guy toward said last resort. She had once thought of herself as a good judge of character, but now she’d just have to rely on being extra careful.

She stepped away as he swung open the door. Inside the breezeway, Hale seemed to be racing to remove the rain suit, hanging each piece on hooks on the wall. Then he ripped off his overshirt and damp baggy work pants, tossing each item onto the top of a nearby washing machine. When he turned in her direction, a sweep of raw appreciation for the masculine body made her face flush. She had no idea what had been living under those business suits.

With his dark T-shirt and dark athletic shorts clinging to his body, there was little she could not intimately imagine about this rat. Too bad.

He took a step toward where she had made a large water spot on the floor, and she stood up taller. Getting timid would not get her the scoop every journalist wanted and only she was brave or crazy enough to go after.

“Zachary Hale, I’m Adriana Bonacorda. I’d like to get your side of the story.”

He looked at her for a long moment. Drops of rain fell from his water-darkened hair still tipped with summer’s blond, and splatted onto the smooth, clean concrete garage floor.

“I’d like to throw you out in the rain.” There was only candor, not malice, in his deep voice, a voice to fit the body.

He turned and strode away. When he went through the door to the house and didn’t close it behind him, she tore off her coat and hung it on the hook beside his. Ripped off her wet clothing and hung it there also.

Then, in her girl shorts and tank top, she grabbed her bags and scrambled inside after him.

When she flipped a light switch, she found herself alone in a large old-fashioned kitchen with a cold wood-burning stove and a wooden icebox with shining brass hardware. Antique pots and bowls hung from hooks and the fireplace with a stone mantel had to have been built with the house, perhaps two hundred years ago.

She put her bags down on the old-style braided rug, and shivering, dug in her duffel for the fleece pants and hoodie she brought because she knew Maine was colder than Massachusetts. Darn cold, she thought as she shoved a leg into the pants.

“Close and latch the shutters in there. Cross-tape every window without a shutter.” Hale had disappeared into the interior of the house but his barked commands filtered back to her through the sound of the pounding rain. A roll of wide masking tape sat on the wooden counter next to the icebox.

The first window, long and tall, was flanked by sheer curtains with tulips fancifully stitched across the bottom.

She surveyed for a moment.

Open the window, reach out in the pounding rain and pull the shutter closed.

Easy peasy.

She struggled to push up the first heavy window and when it wouldn’t stay by itself, propped it open with her shoulder while she reached out and pulled the shutters closed. The shutter’s latch fell easily into place, but she struggled to lower the heavy wood and glass window without letting it drop and shatter into a million shards.

After she was finished, a large puddle of rainwater stood on the linoleum around her feet and she was wet again.

When she heard shutters slam in the next room, she closed the next two sets, grabbed the tape and a flashlight from the old wooden kitchen table, just in case, and hurried past Hale into the parlor to do the same in there.

The light she had turned on blinked out, as did the ones in the rooms she had left behind. She flipped on her flashlight.

In the beam of light she could see furniture and fixtures she might have seen in her grandmother’s home or at one of her old aunts’ houses when she was a kid. Her flashlight paused on a round table with three tiers that would serve no purpose in today’s world and then a pair of bulldogs that might be banks. Hale was trying to protect the place as if it was a museum. Wait. It was a museum, of sorts.

When Hale strode past her, she got busy and finished the parlor. A library across the hall and then a maid’s quarters at the back of the house needed her attention next. When she heard Hale run up the stairs, she finished two more rooms and followed. The first bedroom she worked on had a dark four-poster bed complete with a wooden canopy—if that’s what they called the wood ones—and velvet curtains. On a stand sat a pitcher and bowl that had once been used for washing up in the morning. A small primitive bathroom sat tucked between this and the next bedroom and she closed the shutters on all of them and taped a window in the hallway.