He stopped, his shoulders squared, and turned to her in disbelief. “Revenge? Is that what you think this is? No, Lillian—God, no. I admit when I first saw his picture I thought to myself, this man deserves to pay, and pay dearly, for what he did to me. But then I thought of Elaine, the children, the life I’d built for myself. No, revenge certainly wasn’t worth the risk.”

“Then what is?”

“The life of a brother and sister who were born innocent into this hell we created. It’s a question of honor, Lillian. But I don’t expect you to understand that.”

And he disappeared into the shadows.

30

David and Sarah arrived in Southwest Harbor, on the quiet side of Mt. Desert Island, around seven o’clock in the morning. “You look terrible,” Sarah told him as she parked the Ferrari on a picturesque street near the water. “Does your leg hurt much?”

He managed a wan grin. “Yeah.”

In fact, his leg hurt like hell and he was stiff and sore and irritable, but he didn’t want to take any of the painkillers he’d been given. The stuff made him crazy as well as drowsy, neither of which intrigued him. He hadn’t slept at all during the long ride up. Sarah was a hell of a trooper: she wouldn’t have stopped at all, except David couldn’t bear sitting in the cramped car for long, and they had needed gas and coffee and a bathroom. All in all, he thought they’d made good time.

David insisted on being the one to call Badger Rock Island, and with Sarah alongside him, he got up on his crutches and hobbled over to a phone booth on the sidewalk. It felt better to be upright, and he wasn’t bothered by the cold damp morning air.

He dialed the unlisted number Ashley had given him. A prissy-sounding guy answered on the first ring. Shifting all his weight onto his good leg and easing the crutch out from under the arm on the side of his bad leg, David tried to arrange himself so he wouldn’t fall over. It was awkward, he thought, having a busted leg. He said, “Tell your boss I’d like to talk to him.”

Sarah winced, warning him against such a tone, but David just gave her one of his lopsided grins.

“Mr. Crockett is unavailable. How may I help you?”

“You can send someone out to fetch me,” David told him. “I’m in Southwest Harbor.”

A horrified silence, very brief, followed. “That’s quite impossible.”

“Look, buddy, you can either come out here to fetch me or I’ll just get some guy around here to give me a ride out. I know where your frigging island is. Makes no difference to me how I get there.”

“You’re being rude and unreasonable.”

“I know it. I don’t care if I have to swim—”

“Just who are you?”

“David Wakefield.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “One moment.”

The one moment was long enough that David had to come up with more quarters, an involved process with the phone and the crutches and the cast, but Sarah came to his rescue.