“Thank you.”

“What can I do for you?” He squeezed her hands. “You’re freezing.”

Now that she was here, seeing how distraught everyone was over Alicia’s death, Quinn didn’t know what to say, and she was so cold, she just wanted to crawl back into her quilt at her cottage and stay there. “Nothing, really. I just wanted to say hello.”

“You’ve never been out here, have you?” When she shook her head, he let her hands go and gestured broadly, taking in his entire hundred-acre estate. “We’re transforming the place into a state-of-the-art security company. We want to keep it small, elite.”

“Looks as if you have your own mini-Quantico here.” She thought of Donna at the diner, the talk in town surrounding Breakwater. “There’s a rumor going around town that you’ve got snipers on the roof and everything.”

Huck didn’t react at all, but the Riccardis seemed appalled at such a suggestion, Sharon in particular, wincing, taking a sharp breath. Oliver Crawford, more accustomed to controversy, chuckled. “Well, not quite.”

“Corporate security isn’t what it used to be, is it?” Quinn could feel her teeth starting to chatter and knew it was the cold. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Gone are the days when you just needed a couple of scary-looking guys in black suits.”

Sharon stepped forward. “Miss Harlowe-”

“Quinn’s fine.”

Crawford held up a hand, apparently guessing that his Breakwater CEO was losing patience. He smiled. “Scary-looking guys never hurt.”

Quinn refused to look at Huck, who was tight-jawed, not moving from his spot. She kept her attention on the boss, the owner of the hundred-acre compound. “You heard that Alicia came out here to Breakwater early Monday morning, didn’t you?”

Crawford’s smile faded, and he sighed heavily, his eyes shining with regret and sympathy. “I heard, yes. Quinn-Gerry told me your friend had been on the verge of a breakdown for several weeks.”

“A couple of your guys took her back to my cottage-”

“Travis Lubec and Nick Rochester, Oliver,” Sharon said, her voice steady but laced with impatience. “They were trying to help.”

“Did they follow her to make sure she got back to Washington?” Quinn asked, noticing that purple splotches had appeared on her hand-she needed to get on dry clothes. But she didn’t stop. “A black Lincoln Town Car with tinted back windows picked her up at a coffee shop down the street from my office.”

Huck quietly fell in next to her. “I can take Miss Harlowe back to her cottage now. If you’ll all excuse us-”

“No, wait,” Crawford said. “Boone, right? Thank you, but I want to know what she’s getting at. Quinn, if you’re suggesting my men had anything to do with your friend’s death, that they have anything to hide, then you’re quite mistaken.”

“I have no idea who was in the car that picked Alicia up in Washington.”

He softened. “Perhaps this mysterious black car belonged to another of Alicia’s Washington friends, someone who also tried to help her. With a sudden death-especially of a vibrant young woman-we all want to find answers where sometimes there simply are none.”

Quinn suddenly felt tears hot in her eyes, high on her cheeks. She looked away.

Crawford draped an arm over her shoulders. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered. “Cry all you want. It’s a terrible loss. Please, if there’s anything I can do, personally-anything at all-you’ll call, won’t you?”

“Thank you. I should get back. It’s a long drive to Washington.” Stepping out of his embrace, Quinn managed a quick, fake smile. “And I don’t have a helicopter.”

He seemed to relax at her attempt at humor.

Joe Riccardi, who’d maintained a tight-lipped silence, glanced at Huck. “Boone?”

“I’ll see her out of here.”

As he led Quinn back across the lawn, Huck was relieved no one joined them. He was thinking that one more word out of her and she’d have everyone pissed off, and someone would start shooting. Then he’d have to blow his cover and say he was a deputy U.S. marshal and get her safely away.

He didn’t need a shivering kayaker poking around in his investigation.

Not that she was just some black-haired, slim and sexy yahoo out for the afternoon. He wasn’t that lucky. Nope. His kayaker had to be Quinn Harlowe, an expert in transnational crime who had recently worked for the Justice Department and the best friend of Breakwater Security’s owner.

For all Huck knew, she was more familiar with his psycho vigilantes and how they operated than he was.

Whose side was she on?

If a vigilante mercenary ring was using Breakwater Security as a front for smuggling weapons and training a private army-helping murderers escape custody-Gerard Lattimore would look bad, even if he wasn’t involved. He and Oliver Crawford were friends. It wouldn’t matter what either man knew. Appearances were everything in Washington.

Quinn, too, could get burned.

Not your problem.

“You’re in no shape to kayak back to your cottage,” Huck told her. “We can grab your boat and throw it in the back of my Rover.”

He could see her stiffen, her eyes, red-rimmed and puffy from fatigue and grief, focused on something in front of her, determinedly not focused on him. “That’s not necessary. It’s just cold. There’s no fog or thunder and lightning. No rain. Not like Monday. I’ll be fine.”

She shot ahead of him, jumping over the barbed-wire fence. She picked up her kayak by a short line tied to the bow and started dragging it toward the water, her soaked shoes sinking into the sand.

Huck remained on the other side of the fence. “You’re already a candidate for hypothermia.”

She dropped the kayak and put her hands on her hips, then, heaving a sigh, let them drop to her sides. “All right. You win. If I get into trouble out there, I don’t know if I’d have the energy to blow my whistle. And Buddy Jones would tack my picture up on the bulletin board behind his front desk as a warning to others. He thinks most of us kayakers are idiots.”

“Buddy Jones is-”

“The owner of the shabby little motel on the loop road.” She raised her eyes. “I’m sure you’ve seen him on your runs.”

Diego’s motel. Huck didn’t react. “I’ve only been in town a few days.”

“You stopped there on Monday before the bad storms hit. You chatted for a couple of minutes with a fisherman named Diego Clemente. He was having a cigarette.”

For two cents, Huck thought, he’d shove Quinn Harlowe’s butt into the back of his Land Rover and drive her to Nate Winter and have him put her in protective custody. Or some kind of custody.

Better yet, he’d leave her with Diego and let him deal with her.

Since he didn’t know what role, if any, she had with Breakwater-since he didn’t know if she’d been on the straight and narrow about her friend’s death and had nothing to hide-Huck put one foot on the barbed wire and pressed it down. “Coming?”

“I’m almost certain this Clemente character is the one who phoned in the anonymous tip about Alicia’s car.”

Sweet pea, Huck thought, you’re lucky I’m not wired, because if Diego were listening in, he’d be on his way.

He kept his foot steady on the barbed wire. “I’m not surprised. These fishermen can see things from their boats that other people might miss.” Especially with high-powered binoculars and night-vision equipment. “Why don’t you leave your kayak. I’ll bring it by your cottage later.”

“I think our Special Agent Kowalski should talk to this Clemente character, don’t you?”

“I don’t tell the feds what to do.”

She shrugged. “They don’t intimidate me.”

Huck wished to hell they did. But he found himself almost smiling. Traumatized and half-frozen, Quinn still was paying attention to details, processing, analyzing, thinking. The woman had guts.

She glanced down at her kayak, then let her shoulders slump as she muttered something under her breath. Leaving her boat behind, she walked back to the fence. “If you all can hold on to my kayak, I’ll stop by and get it when I come back down here.”