jumped down from the driver’s side and sprinted toward the clinic.

• 199 •

RAdCLY fFe

“Tory’s with her now,” Ash said as she shifted over to make room when the blonde vaulted up the steps. “She’s stable. It’s an arm wound.

Not sure how bad. Everyone’s waiting for word from Tory.”

“Thanks.” The blonde pushed open the door, perused the crowd inside, and stepped back out. She extended her hand. “I’m Flynn. We met briefly the other day, but never got introduced. You’re Ash, Allie’s friend.”

“Yes,” Ash said tightly, shaking the offered hand.

“Someone’s going to let us know?”

“Tory will be out as soon as she knows anything.”

“I can’t believe Allie is back here again, after what happened yesterday. She was supposed to be home resting.” Flynn sat down next to her. “She was really worried about you when that building collapsed.

You doing okay now?”

“Nothing a few days and some aspirin won’t cure. Doesn’t even register compared to what Allie’s going through right now.” Ash wondered if Flynn was as torn up inside as she was right now—as helpless and sick at heart.

Flynn glanced back at the clinic door, looking as if she wanted to storm the place too. “Arm wound, you said?”

“That’s what Reese told me. I couldn’t get to her to see for myself.”

Ash’s throat felt gravelly as she relived the panic of hearing the shot, hearing officer down, hearing Reese shouting for a medic. She rubbed her face. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was trembling.

“Christ. I wish Tory would tell us something. If anything happens to her, I don’t know…” She clamped her jaws together, remembering who she was talking to.

“She was frantic about you yesterday. Couldn’t rest until she knew you were okay.” Flynn regarded Ash pensively. “There’s something more than friendship going on, isn’t there?”

Ash held her gaze. “I don’t know. That’s for Allie to say.”

“You’re right.” Flynn paused. “We’ve had a couple of dates. I like her a lot.”

“There’s a lot to like.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We used to be involved,” Ash said quietly. “I’m still crazy about her, but I…ah…I don’t think she…” She shook her head. “I don’t know anything right now.”

• 200 •

RetuRning tides

“Well, now probably isn’t the time to expect her to make choices.”

“I think she already has.” Ash closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then faced Flynn head-on. “But you’re right, now’s not the time. So I’m just going to wait, because I care about her and I can’t do anything else.”

“Same here.”

“You want some coffee?” Ash stood up. “There’s a pot going in the reception area.”

Flynn rose to join her. “Yeah, I could use some. I’ll come with you.”

v

“Everything okay?” Carter asked when Bri got off the phone with Caroline.

Bri slid down in her desk chair and stretched her lanky legs out in front of her. Her expression was studied casual. “Carre’s good. So is Rica. Everything should get back to normal now.”

“Uh-huh.” Carter couldn’t really disagree, even though something kept tugging at her gut. Telling her something wasn’t right.

“Everly says it wasn’t him, you know,” Bri said. “At our house last night. He says he never followed Caroline. Never went near her.”

“I heard him.” Carter shrugged. “You didn’t really expect him to confess, did you?”

“I don’t know. He seems pretty much the same as he was back in school. He called me a fucking dyke. Told me if he’d had a shot at Carre, she’d never be with me.” Bri’s blue eyes turned winter cold. “If he’d gone after her again yesterday, I think he would have wanted to taunt me with it. Maybe get me to take a shot at him.”

“Yeah. I heard him baiting you.” Carter had seen Bri practically vibrating with rage when she was escorting Everly to the cruiser. Everly had been going on about how if he’d had a chance to fuck Caroline, Caroline would never have turned out to be a pervert. She had to give Bri credit for keeping her temper. She wasn’t sure she could’ve done the same if someone had been talking about Rica that way. “You handled yourself fine out there.”

“I wanted to kill him.”

• 201 •

RAdCLY fFe

“I don’t blame you.”

“I’m not just saying that. I really really wanted to do it. He was talking about raping my girlfriend.” Bri looked hard at Carter. “You don’t think that’s bad, me feeling that way and being a cop?”

“You’re a human being first,” Carter said gently. “Family comes before everything, and you protected your family today. What you’re feeling—I’d be feeling the same. Exactly the same.”

“Thanks,” Bri whispered.

Reese returned from the holding area and motioned them toward her office. When they were inside, she closed the door.

“Any word on Allie?” Bri asked immediately.

“Not yet,” Reese said.

“What about the scumbag who shot her?” Carter added.

“The state boys are on their way down to pick him up. His parole violation is small time now. He shot a cop. He’s going away for a long time.”

“What’s your take on his claim he didn’t try to break into our place last night?” Bri asked.

“He swears he was with Randy Thompson, his old football buddy, all night.” Reese shrugged. “Thompson corroborates it, but I don’t put a lot of stock in his word.”

“There’s still the issue of the dead FBI agent,” Carter said. “Do you see any way he’d be involved in that?”

“I can’t see him for that,” Reese said. “The feds would have no reason to be looking for him. And he would have no reason to take out a federal agent. It doesn’t play.”

“What about the breakins at your place and mine? And Rica’s car?” Carter added.

“Everly admits to being in town for the last three days, so the timeline works for him being good for all of them. Of course, he denies that he did anything other than hide out at his buddy’s place.” Reese rested her hip against her desk and thought back over the sequence of events—the intruder at her home, Rica’s car being vandalized, the burglary at Rica and Carter’s, the attempted breakin at Caroline and Bri’s. Everly was directly tied to her and Bri and Caroline, and Rica was Caroline’s close friend. In a town this small it wasn’t difficult to track anyone’s movements, and Everly could easily have seen Caroline with Rica. Perps didn’t always follow a logic that made sense to others,

• 202 •

RetuRning tides

and a pretty solid case could be made for him being responsible for everything. It was tempting to tie it all up in a neat package because more often than not, the simplest explanation was the right one. William Everly, like so many criminals, was not particularly smart, and with the instincts of a homing pigeon, he’d simply returned to familiar ground.

Once here, he’d wanted to exact a little revenge on the people who had sent him to prison and those close to them. And most of all, he’d wanted another chance to prove to Caroline Clarke that all she needed was a good man.

“We’re not going to be able to prove it was him,” Reese finally said. “One thing that bothers me is that Everly is a hometown boy. My house is all the way out at the East End, your place is at the far West End, and Caroline and Bri’s is right in the middle. He had to cover a lot of distance getting from one place to the other, and we’ve been asking about him around town for several days. But no one has admitted seeing him anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Carter said broodingly. “I don’t like that much myself.”

Bri looked from Carter to Reese. “Why would anyone except Everly go after Caroline?”

“I don’t know.” Reese blew out a breath. “And we’ve still got the murdered FBI agent, who doesn’t seem related to any of it.” She glanced at Carter. “I think we need to have a sit-down with Supervisory Special Agent Allen, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately, I agree.” Carter grimaced. “I’ve got history with her, and I think she’s still got an ax to grind with Rica. Maybe I can piss her off enough that she’ll actually tell us something useful.”

“Give it your best shot,” Reese said with a wry grin. “In the meantime, make sure everyone keeps their eyes open. Just in case we’ve missed something.”

v

He wasn’t sure what was happening at the far end of town, but he’d heard sirens racing back and forth for close to an hour. All the extra police activity on the streets suddenly disappeared, and he took that as a sign to make his move. He had gotten used to working at night, but he didn’t want to wait until nightfall. He’d been waiting for so long already. He kept thinking back to the night before, to the surge

• 203 •

RAdCLY fFe

of excitement when the knife had parted flesh, to the rush of blood in his head and his groin. He craved the sensation. Nightfall wasn’t for hours, and he needed to satisfy his craving now. He felt for the knife in his pants pocket, and let his fingers drift over its smooth surface onto the hard ridge of his cock. She’d be alone now. And all his.

• 204 •

RetuRning tides

chapteR twenty-thRee

Ireally don’t want to go to Hyannis,” Allie pleaded. “Look, it isn’t even bleeding anymore. The x-rays are okay, right?”

Tory smiled indulgently as she wrapped Allie’s upper arm with a clean dressing. “You’ve had a little Demerol, sweetie. You’re not totally capable of making a rational decision right now.”

“Nobody has the time to cart me all the way up there. And believe me, the Demerol is totally busy working as a painkiller. I don’t feel high at all.”

“Are you hurting a lot?” Tory asked gently.

“I think I’m supposed to be tough and say it doesn’t hurt much,”

Allie said with a shaky laugh. “But it really really hurts. Like, I don’t think I want to get shot again. Ever.”