“Riley, I’ve never stopped thinking about you. You just left — disappeared. Now that I’ve  found you again, don’t push me away. Don’t make me into a ghost like your brother. You’re having a bad time of it, I can see that. At least let me help you.”

Oh, he was good. She had to grant him that. He told women what they wanted to hear. And he knew how to listen. The most talented chameleon she had ever met, but that was all part of the job, of course. As if he couldn’t have found her any time he wanted to. She shook her head and turned her back to him. Yeah, he was lying, something she normally found unforgivable, but part of her didn’t give a damn. In fact, very specific parts of her wanted to grab a cab and head straight to his hotel room.

 “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it,” he said, touching the back of her neck, brushing his fingers along her hairline.

She could see he was baffled by her silence, and she felt a brief moment of triumph at his unease.

“I have resources, you know,” he said. “Come on, let’s share a glass of wine, and you tell me all about what’s been happening with you. Surely you have time tonight to share a glass with an old friend?”

He slid his hand over to her shoulder and squeezed. Her scars ached, and she felt sick, as though her belly were full of shards of ice.

“Get your hand off me.” Her voice was low, trembling as she struggled to keep in control.

“Oh, come on, love, you don’t have to be like this.”

Her hand was in motion before she was conscious of her decision, and the crack of her palm striking his cheek startled the evening strollers like the sudden bang of a balloon popping. She kept her eyes focused on his as he lifted his hand to touch the growing red spot on his cheek.

“Don’t call me that,” she said in a harsh whisper.

He bowed his head once and said, “I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Offend? Oh please. Love? As if you knew the meaning of the word. I’ve been waiting more than two years for some kind of communication from you, some explanation of what really happened that day. Dig, people I loved died down there. Others were maimed and wounded and their lives changed forever. Including me.” She yanked at the collar of her polo shirt and exposed the patch of mottled skin on her right shoulder.

Dig’s eyes flicked to the injury, then away again. “Riley –”

“No. You take a long look, Diggory. And that’s after Bethesda’s best did their work. After months in the hospital. Wondering what happened to you, but knowing I couldn’t reach out to you. Waiting. And did I hear one word from you?” She tried to force a laugh. “Offend me? Every time I think about what happened I feel like I’m going to vomit. Those flames haven’t stopped burning. I’ve carried this, this —” She stopped, not knowing what to call it, afraid to put it into words. Just as all the other times when she thought about that day, she smelled the greasy smoke of burning flesh, and the stench of it made the bile burn at the back of her throat. She shook her head. “I don’t want any more of your lies. What I want is the truth. The truth about what happened down there.”

“Do you really?” he asked.

He spoke in those seductive tones, and she clenched both of her fists in an effort not to hit him again.

“There’s more you and your kind aren’t telling me,” she said. “I know it. And if you won’t tell me,” she started, then stopped short of saying it.

“What? It was a terrible thing, but it had nothing to do with us.”

“Oh really? Why is it I have such a difficult time believing that? I kept my mouth shut, kept you out of it, and every day I grew more sick with myself.”

His hand started for her, ever confident that his touch could quiet her.

She raised her hands in self defense and stepped back. “You keep your hands off me, Diggory Priest. You hear me? I’m out of it now.”

Riley spun around and ran across the quay to her dinghy. She stepped into the boat, untied the painter, and pushed the boat away from the sea wall. Her outboard engine started on the first pull, and she spun the throttle, gunning the engine, forcing the small boat onto a plane. The hot wind stung her face and blew the tears from her eyes as her boat roared out into the dark harbor.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pointe-a-Pitre

March 25, 2008

7:15 p.m.

Diggory stood on the quay and watched the small dinghy disappear out of the inner basin and into the night. The harbor side fish market was now abandoned, the tables empty, the dark awnings flapping in the breeze. Some movement attracted his attention farther down the dock, and he saw a large brown rat tightrope walk the dock lines securing one of the local fishing boats. The animal disappeared into the hold.

Diggory shuddered then began walking down the street that formed one side of the inner harbor. He steered clear of the fishing boats moored along the seawall and walked down the center of the asphalt, his strides growing longer with each step. By the time he reached the end of the street where it curved in a sharp left, he broke into a run. He could still hear the high pitched whine of the straining outboard engine. One hundred yards ahead the houses gave way to a waterfront restaurant, and he rushed through the tables, pushing aside empty chairs and startling diners who watched wide-eyed as he hurried to the terrace. He stopped at the railing, breathing hard, staring out into the anchorage where the half dozen or so cruising sailboats bobbed in the wind chop.

The sound of the outboard died and he waited. He was not disappointed. Less than a minute later a masthead light blinked on. Straining his eyes to see through the darkness he made out the white of the hull, the dim yellow of a cabin light. Her boat was a white-hulled sloop anchored close to the red flashing channel marker. It would be easy for them to find.

“Monsieur, est-ce que vous voulez quelque chose a boire?”

“Non, merci,” he said to the waiter who had appeared at his elbow. Much as he could use a drink, now wasn’t the time. He had found her, and this time, he would see it through to the end. Marguerite Riley represented one of his rare missteps, and now, here she was like a gift, one that would keep on giving with all its ramifications.

He hadn’t been lying when he told her she had improved with age. She was the physical embodiment of Nietzsche’s Superwoman: fit, smart, and most of all, well-bred. There had been few women he remembered longer than a week or two, few who had been of his class. Riley had been different. He could not ask her to do the things he asked of the whores or the bored foreign service wives he encountered. He knew — from the first moment he saw her in her crisp, creased USMC uniform, brown shirt, blue pants, chest covered with ribbons, firm grip announcing herself as Sergeant Riley —  he had to have her and his usual sexual repertoire would never be seductive to a woman like her. The little upper crust daddy’s girl masquerading as the enlisted working class. She was the sort of girl who had acted as though he were invisible back when he was in high school and sitting in a booth waiting for his mother to get off work.

Only a few days later, he’d asked her out and brought her back to his apartment in San Isidro. He’d shuddered at that first embrace when her fingers stroked the naked skin of his shoulders and back. With her, he had come the closest to feeling the pleasure of a caress. She was the polar opposite of the human offal his mother had worked with at the diner.

And now, she said she wanted to know the truth about what happened down in Peru. Riley, darling, he thought, you of all people should know when to leave well enough alone. And the amusing part was that he had every intention of telling her, in good time.

Diggory left the restaurant and ambled back toward the harbor on autopilot, lost in memories of Lima. As he passed the immigration office, he surfaced from his reveries, paused, and looked back in the direction of the anchorage. After a moment, he climbed the steps to the government building. He tried the door. It was open.