Safe Harbor (39 page)

Ivy looked him up and down from under her lifted eyebrows. "You're Sam Steadman?" she asked, her voice slathered with disbelief.

"
Yeah
. Where can
I
find your sister?"

His urgency made an impression. She cocked her head and said, "Why?"

"None of—"

Screw it; it
was
her business. It was all of their business. "Because I love her and I want to tell her that."

"Ah. That's a good reason. Are you eligible yet?"

"Soon."

"You'd better be. Because you broke her heart a few minutes ago. She hitched a ride home."

"Thanks. See you."

He dropped down the two steps, waved to Cissy
-
Sally, and took off at a canter, aware that his car was parked practically on the other side of the island. It was hot and muggy and already he smelled like an overworked pony, but he was in an unbelievable hurry to see
Holly again. He'd just blown seven years clinging to the flotsam of a misguided notion. That had to be why he didn't want to waste even seven minutes without engaging Holly on what was bound to be a long debate over whether he was worthy of her.

He wasn't. He knew that. He tried to chalk up his blunders to his lack of experience. What did he know about women like Holly, really? Nothing. He'd never known someone like her before. The closest he could come to her was
.
...

Millie Steadman. Good grief—Millie Steadman! Honest, candid, funny, and good,
those
were the bedrock values that Sam had been looking for in a woman. Throw in a few other attributes—Holly was beautiful, talented, and fantastic in bed—and you had the makings of a world-class, once-in-a-lifetime chance for happiness, which Sam had just blown completely to hell.

No.
Nearly
blown completely to hell. He refused to fall back into his usual defeatist view of women. How could he, when he'd been taken in by Millie Steadman and taken up by Holly Anderson? How many men had that kind of luck? He practically yodeled for joy as he hopped into his Corolla and took off for Holly's place.

Crawled, that is, to Holly's place: Oak Bluffs was gridlocked. Nothing new there; but in his present mood, Sam was ready to tramp across the roofs of stopped cars. Holly, Holly,
Holly
! He could hardly wait to throw himself at her mercy. He had no doubt that she'd point out his stupidity to him (many times), but he could count on her to be kind and clever about it when she did. And when they were well into their old age, and sitting by a fire, and the snow was blowing all around them, she would doubtless remind him again, hopefully not in front of the
grand
children, and he would be sheepish and agree
.

Him! Sheepish! He positively looked forward to the prospect.

Hey, when you're right, you're right, and when you're wrong, you're wrong.

He was sitting through his third red light, wistfully if anxiously fantasizing, when something that Eden had said hit him with the force of a crowbar across the face:
I'm pretty sure he's somewhere on the island, which has me terrified out of my wits.

More lies from
Eden
? But what if they weren't?
Same had seen the bruises. 
What if the Nazi-lover
was still
skulking around, looking for his money before
Eden
took off with it?

Where would he skulk?

Where else?

Ah, hell
, Sam thought, washed over by a wave as cold and terrifying as any a mariner faced.
The barn.
Hans had been there before, but he'd taken off when Holly showed up; that was suddenly as clear as a bell. And Holl
y—Holly, who'd never been on a m
ean
s
treet in her life—was undoubtedly working through her emotions where she always did, in her studio, pounding and banging and moving furniture.

Sam felt, literally, as if he were drowning. Breathing was impossible and it was all he could do not to go into a full-bore panic. He took
an arbitrary detour, sideswip
ing the rental on a fire hydrant in the maneuver, and managed to cover two hundred feet before running smack into yet another roadblock, a squad car and two vehicles whose fenders were bent.

Hell
!
He couldn't back up, so he abandoned the car altogether and headed for the nearest bike rack. Locked, locked, locked, locked, not locked.
Out came the steal
able bike; Sam hopped aboard and began pedaling his way out of the traffic jam. On Eastville he began walking the bike with his thumb stuck out for a lift. A pickup pulled over and Sam chucked the bike in a ditch, then
told the driver, "Fifty bucks if you take me to Tashmoo."

"Cool," said the long-haired kid in painter's pants. He launched into an endless stream of chat, maybe to earn his dough, but Sam wasn't interested. He was able to manage a grunt or two, but his mind was in overdrive, fearing the worst.
Holly, please, stay out of the barn.

T
he barn door squealed as Holly slid it open and entered her studio, determined to salvage what she could of her life. Her mother was right. She lacked discipline. She needed to focus. No time like the present. Never put off till tomorrow. Just do it. Today. Now. This minute.

And to hell with Sam Steadman. Seeing him wandering around and killing time—killing time!—at the
Camp
Ground
had been a heart-stopping blow for her. Whether he was waiting to rendezvous with
Eden
or whether he was just hoping to run into her there, one thing was clear: he hadn't been looking for Holly. If he had, he would have gone straight to Wren House.

To hell with Sam Steadman. Who needed him? She'd rather grind her iron
tuteur.

Holly was proud of the birthday present she'd created for her mother, a three-foot-high garden structure shaped into a pair of wrens perched on a gnarled branch. Holly had intended it to be a support for a small vining flower, but it was pretty enough to stand alone in a garden. She had painstakingly cut and shaped and welded the wrens, instantly recognizable by their perky tails, and had shaped the branch with a fair amount of horizontal in it. The effect was almost eastern in its simplicity and very pretty, but some of the edges still needed grinding.

Better them than my teeth,
was her grim thought as she donned a clear face mask to protect herself from flying particles. She plugged in her grinder and set to work, and if Sam happened to return and the noise happened to keep him awake, so much the better.

Because to hell with Sam Steadman.

Gradually Holly let go of her misery, getting lost instead in the artistic process of making something carefully planned look charmingly spontaneous. No question, grinding was a form of therapy tonight. The loud noise, the play of sparks, the smell of metal heating up under the spinning disk—all of it served to take Holly out of herself and onto another plane. It wasn't exactly a happy place, but at least it wasn't painful.

Until someone came up behind her and gave her a stunning blow to the back of her head.

****

Sam had three twenties; he threw them on the front seat of the pickup and told the kid to keep the change. The sense that Holly was in danger was overwhelming now; he took off in a sprint down the shell-lined drive, wondering how he had missed the obvious: that at any given time,
Eden
probably had half the
New England
underworld hot on her trail.

He saw that the door at the top of the stairs was open and that all the lights were on inside the loft apartment. But the same scenario was being played out in the studio, and that made his blood congeal. He ran inside the shop. There was no sign of Holly, but a buzz-cut hulk in a black tee shirt and slacks was methodically tearing apart Holly's beloved workplace.

"Hans!" Sam shouted. "Over here!"

Hans it was. At the sound of his name, the thug turned and sent a narrow hand-painted drawer flying past Sam's ear as he ducked to the side. Were there any other weapons than drawers? Sam hadn't been thinking of a gun, hadn't been thinking at all except of Holly. His instincts had been two steps behind his emotions, but they were catching up fast. He dropped behind a wardrobe and ducked down low, waiting to see if Hans was dumb enough to have carried a weapon onto the island.

Apparently he was. Sam heard the gun being cocked. The good news was, Hans must not have had occasion to use it yet. The bad news was, where was Holly?

"Move out where I can see you," Hans commanded. "Now. Believe me, no one will hear if I shoot."

"Since you put it
that
way
..." said Sam. He stepped out from the shadow of the tall, half-painted armoire and dutifully put his hands up.

Hans squinted through steel-blue eyes at him. "We've met?" he asked, almost genially.

"No," said Sam, "but your reputation precedes you."

Where was Holly?

"Which reputation? I'm very talented."

"I've heard. I guess I'm thinking, as a hit-and-run expert."

"Ah. Too bad you know me, period. Sit down—that chair," he said, nodding to a sturdy armchair.

"Where's Holly?" Sam said, wild to know now.

"Who's Holly? Oh, so that was Holly."

"Where's Holly, you bastard?"

"Shut up. Sit down."

Hey. There's Holly!

Sam saw the top of her head as she rose slowly from the floor not far behind Hans. Her face was fierce in concentration as she lifted an iron garden ornament, one he knew she'd been working on for her
mother, and positioned it behind and above Hans.

"No need to get testy," said Sam, playing for time. "Just
... stay cool, man."

He was careful not to look anywhere but in Hans's eyes as he made a business of edging around the jammed-up furniture.

Down came the birds-on-a-branch, crashing into Hans's arm and sending the gun flying. It seemed to Sam that Holly fell to the floor after that, but he was too busy jumping Hans and knocking him semi-
s
enseless to know for certain. He recovered Hans's gun and had to resist slamming it against the man's head in retaliation for the blood he saw fresh and wet on Holly's neck as she half staggered to her feet again.

"I'm okay," she said, trying to reassure him.

Sam was anything but r
eassured. "Sit down, sit down,"
he begged, dragging over another chair—this one a rocker painted with a mama goose and a trail of goslings—while he kept the gun leveled at Hans, who was sitting on the floor with a dazed look and blood streaming down his face.

Holly sat in the rocker and pulled out a
phone
from the flap pocket of her smock. Calmly, she punched in 911 and then handed
the phone to Sam.

In less than a minute he had the police and an ambulance on the way. He
handed
her
the phone
and said, "You okay enough to hold the line open?"

"For Pete's sake, I've been whacked on the back of the head before," said Holly with spirit. "I was captain of the soccer team my senior year."

"I didn't know artists could be coordinated," he said, smiling with relief.

"Folk artists can."

Sam turned his attention to her attacker. "How about filling me in, Hans? We can make it easier for you when the cops get here."

"Yeah, sure."

"I mean it. Look, suppose I get the ball rolling for you. Here's what I know:
Eden
stole an engraving from my parents—yeah; surprised? But now it turns out the engraving's a fake."

"That's right," said Hans, his eye beginning to swell over a bloody gash on his cheek. "I got that straight from an expert. You want his report?"

"No, I'll take your word for it. I have to say, I'm curious: why would you even
want
a Durer?" Sam asked. "He doesn't seem like your style."

"We're descended."

"Ah. The family tree thing. All right, well, let me give this a shot. You tell me if I'm right or wrong. My guess is that
Eden
told you that she didn't have your money anymore—that it went to pay the medical bills of her in-laws. Correct?"

Hans nodded.

"And she said she was going to pay you in installments, because she was now engaged to a very wealthy man. Also correct?"

Again Hans nodded. "She gave me her engagement ring as token collateral. Said it was worth a chunk of change."

"Nice touch on her part. Do you have it on you?" Sam was thinking of the marquis diamond, very small, that he'd given her after their elopement.

Hans seemed to consider whether he should answer or not, then shrugged and said, "In my pocket. She said it was worth fifteen grand, and it is. I had someone look at that, too."