Eclipse Bay (Eclipse Bay #1)

“Nothing went wrong.”

“Don’t give me that baffled, befuddled male stare. I’m not buying it.”

He sank deeper into his lounger and wrapped his long-fingered hands around the balloon glass. “I thought I was pretty good at doing baffled and befuddled.”

“Not funny, Madison. When you went outside you were in a reasonably good mood. You came back in a lousy mood. You can’t blame me for wondering what transpired on the front porch.”

For a moment she thought he would not answer. Then he tilted his head against the back of the lounger and closed his eyes. “Mitchell made it clear that he didn’t like the fact that you and I are, and here I quote, shacking up together.”

“Shacking up?” Hannah sucked in an outraged breath. “He actually used that term?”

“He did, yes.”

“Ridiculous. No one uses that phrase anymore.”

“I mentioned that.”

“It’s old-fashioned. Downright archaic. It implies an outdated value system that demeans and insults two rational, intelligent adults who choose to make their own decisions in an extremely private area of life.”

“Damn right.”

“It’s a stupid phrase implying low morals and a complete disregard for societal norms.”

“You can say that again—I think.”

“It takes absolutely no allowance for alternative lifestyles, freedom of association, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“Well, Mitchell never was what anyone would call politically correct, even on his good days.”

“Besides,” Hannah concluded, “it’s not even true.”

“Sort of hard to explain the facts to Mitchell.”

“We are not shacking up.” She batted at the air with one hand while she fumbled for words. “We’re not even sharing the same floor here at Dreamscape, let alone the same bedroom.”

“Believe me, I am well aware of that.”

“We haven’t even done anything,” she raced on wildly. “Not since I moved into Dreamscape, at any rate.”

“That fact has not escaped my notice, either.” He sounded disappointed.

“I own half this house.” She gripped the arm of the lounger. “If I want to use part of it, that’s my business.”

“You’re entitled, all right.”

“Furthermore, it was your idea for me to move in here.”

“I take full responsibility,” Rafe said piously.

“Oh, stop being so bloody reasonable about it.” She flopped back in the lounger in disgust. “You’re a Madison. You’re not supposed to be reasonable.”

Chapter 21

“You want the logbook from the night Kaitlin Sadler died?” Arizona Snow squinted her eyes against the smoke that rose from her cigar. She regarded Hannah and Rafe across the expanse of the wide table that dominated the space she fondly called her war room. “Well, now, isn’t that an amazing coincidence?”

Hannah tensed. She felt Rafe, sitting beside her, do the same. Winston, apparently sensing the suddenly charged atmosphere, paused in the act of sniffing around the base of a metal file cabinet. They all looked at Arizona.

“Okay, you’ve got our attention, A.Z. ,” Rafe said. “What’s with the crack about a coincidence? Are you saying that someone else has been here asking for that particular log?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Arizona shoved her hands into one of the half dozen pockets of her khaki cargo pants. She chewed thoughtfully on the fat stogie she had stuck between her thin lips. “But he didn’t exactly ask politely. The institute sent an agent to break into my place a week or so after Kaitlin’s death. Took only one thing. Give you two guesses what that one thing was.”

Hannah leaned forward, stunned. “The log that covered that particular night?”

“You got it,” Arizona said. She removed one hand from a pocket and slammed the table with the flat of her palm. “I knew right then and there something big had gone on that evening. But the next morning the only thing everyone in town could talk about was Kaitlin Sadler’s so-called accident and the possibility that Rafe, here, might have offed her. Now, don’t that tell you somethin’?”

Rafe studied her warily. “You still think Kaitlin was killed by someone up at the institute?”

Arizona gave him a grimly triumphant look. “The way I figure it, there’s only two possibilities. Either that poor gal was murdered by an agent in order to create a distraction for whatever the hell they were doin’ up there at the institute—”

“Or?” Hannah prompted cautiously.

Arizona lowered her voice to a whisper laden with portent and dark implication. “Or like I said the other night, the Sadler girl saw somethin’ she wasn’t supposed to see. Either way, it’s obvious that the institute got rid of her before she could spill the beans, and then they set Rafe up as the fall guy. If it hadn’t been for you, Hannah, he might have gone to prison.”

Hannah’s heart sank. She did not dare to meet Rafe’s eyes. They had both known that it would be difficult to talk to Arizona Snow. But neither of them had allowed for the fact that her logbook for the fateful night might have gone missing.

“You got any ideas of who might have taken your log?” Rafe asked.

“I just told you who took it. One of the institute agents.”

“Huh.” Rafe flicked a glance at Hannah.

She smiled encouragingly at Arizona. “I don’t suppose you remember any cars that left the institute parking lot that night sometime around midnight and returned before the reception ended?”

Arizona shook her head regretfully. “Been eight years now. All I recall is that there was an awful lot of activity up there that night. The parking lot was full most of the evening. Lots of coming and going. There was the media, some out-of-town institute agents, and all the innocent dupes of Eclipse Bay who paid good money to cheer for Thornley.”

Rafe sat back. “Damn. Told you years ago that you should start entering your data on a computer, A.Z.”

Arizona gave a snort of disgust. “Can’t trust computers. Any kid can break into them and help himself to anything he wants.”

“Filing your information in hard copy sure didn’t do us much good,” Rafe muttered.

Arizona raised one massive shoulder in a shrug. She regarded her guests with a crafty gleam in her eyes.