“I have good memories, too. They’re not all bad.” She sat on the edge of a chair. “You’re not here just because a Maine state detective called you.”

Bob kept his gaze on the water. “You’ve got a few spots of fog that haven’t burned off yet. Kind of neat looking.”

“Bob.”

“The FBI stopped by to talk to Scoop and me about you.”

Abigail didn’t react. “Because of Grace Cooper’s background check?”

He turned to her with a half grin. “We didn’t get that far.”

“Scoop was in a bad mood?”

“That and your father called right while these G-men were sitting in my living room.”

Abigail sprang up. “My father called you?”

“We knew each other in the old days.”

“So?”

“Better he should call me about his daughter than about five thousand other people he could have called, don’t you think?”

She was only slightly mollified. “What did he want?”

“For me to come up here.”

“And here you are. Great, Bob. Just great.”

“He talked to me as a father, not-”

“Not as the FBI director? And you didn’t think of his position for one second, did you?”

O’Reilly shrugged off her irritation. “He asked me to put eyes on you and reassure him you were all right. If he came up here himself, it’d be a show. You know that.”

And if he’d called-which he probably had tried to-she wouldn’t have been there to answer the phone, but that was a point Abigail preferred to keep to herself.

“Some asshole comes after my kid with a saw,” Bob said, “I’d want to know she was all right, too. It’s natural. It’s got nothing to do with what’s going on up here or what you’re doing or not doing.”

“It’s got everything to do with what’s going on up here. He wants to make sure it’s not about him-that someone’s not using Chris’s death to play games with my head and get at his somehow.”

“That’d be a stretch.”

She shrugged. “Anything’s possible. Isn’t that what my father told you?”

“You and your dad aren’t as different as you think.” Bob paused, nodding at her waterfront. “Isn’t that your neighbor? Batman Garrison. Guy can move on those rocks, can’t he? He’s like a billy goat.”

“Owen’s here?”

O’Reilly must have heard something in her voice, because he turned to her. “Browning, are you blushing?”

“I never blush.” She walked to the door, but he didn’t move aside. “I should go down there and meet him. Maybe he has news.”

Bob didn’t budge. “He patch up your injuries for you?”

“What difference does that make? He’s trained in first aid.”

“So he did patch you up. I’ll be damned. Should I report this to your father?”

“You should mind your own damn business.”

Her half-faked irritation only further confirmed whatever he was thinking-and she had a fair idea of what it was. His grin broadened. “So it’s not just the weird shit happening that’s keeping you up here.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to go out to see what he wants.”

“Am I in your way, Detective?”

“Bob.”

“Don’t you want me to meet your neighbor? I’ve seen him a couple times when I’ve been up here, but he’s usually off to a disaster. We’ve never officially met.”

“You don’t need to meet now.”

“Abigail? Hell-are you sleeping with this guy?”

“Bob.”

“You get involved with Batman, and everything changes. You know that, right?”

He wasn’t letting her go to Owen without him. “You’re a pain in the neck, Bob. You know that, right?”

He ignored her. “You get involved with a guy like Scoop, nothing changes. You’re both a couple of working stiffs, never mind who your father is. You rent out one of your apartments, put his TV set and stereo system in with your IKEA stuff, and that’s it. You’re done. With Owen Garrison-” Bob squinted out at the rocks. “Do you know who the Garrisons are? Who he is?”

“Yes, Bob, I know who the Garrisons are, and I know who Owen is. And why come up with Scoop for your hypothetical? Why not that cute guy in narcotics?”

“Abigail, the Garrisons used to own this island.”

“Not all of it.”

“The half the Rockefellers didn’t own.”

“His grandmother grew up dirt-poor in Texas. She kept chickens up here. She wanted to keep pigs, but her husband-”

“The guy throws himself into the mouth of danger every chance he gets.”

Maybe that described why he made love to her, she thought. He’d gotten turned on by the risk of having a relationship with her. The forbidden woman. But she found herself smiling at the thought.

As Owen crossed her narrow strip of yard, Bob elbowed her, still not letting her get past him in the doorway. “He’s even better-looking than that guy in narcotics.”

Owen trotted up the porch steps. Abigail could have smacked Bob for successfully stalling her long enough to make sure she didn’t get a word with Owen alone first.

Bob opened up the door as if he owned the place, and Abigail, with no other real option, stepped back out of the way and made polite introductions. She didn’t explain why Bob was there. She didn’t ask why Owen was there.

Owen, casually dressed, as good-looking as ever, handed her a small paper bag. “You left these at my house.”

She gave him a questioning look.

“Your socks.”

Avoiding Bob, Abigail snatched the paper bag and dumped it on a chair. “Thanks.”

“Doyle stopped by,” Owen said. “They found Mattie’s bike in the woods. It was hidden off a hiking trail behind Ellis’s place. No sign of him. Lou Beeler asked Doyle to let you know, and Doyle asked me-”

Bob snorted. “Sounds like no one wants to talk to you, Abigail.”

“Everyone’s busy.” She sighed, then addressed Owen. “Bob’s humor takes some getting used to. I should get rolling. I want to help search for Mattie.” She turned, motioning at her mostly gutted room. “Never mind that everyone would rather I stay here and work on my walls.” She frowned, but her mind had gone elsewhere. “What’s that?”

Before either man could respond, Abigail was across the room, kneeling on the floor, picking up a tiny white ball. She held it up in the light. “It’s a pearl.”

Bob was there instantly, and she placed the pearl into his big hands.

“How did the crime scene guys miss this yesterday?” Bob asked.

“We all missed it. We weren’t looking for pearls.”

“The wall,” Owen said.

He didn’t need to explain further. They all recognized it as the same wall that she and Chris had worked on the morning before she was attacked and robbed.

Abigail, still on her knees, leaned into the gutted portion and reached down inside the wall, lowering her arm as far as she could, wiggling her fingers for any more pearls. “That pearl didn’t jump out onto the floor by itself,” she said, touching something soft and dry with her fingers. “Gross. I think I hit mouse pooh.”

Neither man smiled at her attempt at humor. She dug through a ball of fuzzy gunk of some kind, scraping her already bloodied arm on a two-by-six.

“Let me do that,” Bob said.

“Your arm’s too big. Owen’s, too.”

She scooped up a brown-and-gray heap and dumped it onto the floor.

Another pearl, covered in dust, rolled out.

And, in the middle of the fuzz, Abigail saw her grandmother’s cameo pendant.

She dropped back onto her heels, her arm stinging, her cut leg aching. “My necklace was in the wall all this time. And Mattie-” She took in a breath, calming herself. “That bastard knew.”

Owen lowered a hand to her and helped her to her feet. “That’s what he was after yesterday.”

“He must have used the drywall saw to dig into the wall and hook the necklace.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “Damn him.”

Bob frowned at the heap of dust, mouse droppings, mouse fur, pearl and cameo. “Why go after it now? Why not seven years ago?”

“Because I was gutting walls. He knew I’d find it. I’ll call Doyle and Lou.” She caught her breath and faked a smile. “Heck. Now maybe they’ll want to talk to me.”