“Work with us?” Joe said.

Kinkaid nodded. “Yes, sir. Work with you on the Weston case, I mean. I think I can help, and I want to help.”

“Why?” I asked, and he looked up for the first time. “Why did you go from lying to Joe to wanting to help us on the case?”

He met my eyes for a moment and then looked back at his shoes. “Because,” he said, “I’m in love with Wayne Weston’s wife.”

CHAPTER 10

WE ALL sat in silence for a minute after that, and then Aaron Kinkaid told us his story. He’d lied to Joe, he said, only when he’d explained the circumstances of his separation from Wayne Weston. He’d told Joe that Weston had been closemouthed and ended his partnership with Kinkaid for unknown reasons. In reality, Weston had an excellent reason to break off the partnership-Kinkaid had approached Julie Weston with feelings he said had been building for months.

“I know she had feelings for me, too,” he told us. “She admitted that much to me. But there was her daughter to consider. Julie told me not to pursue it, and for a few weeks everything was calm. Then she became uncomfortable and talked to Wayne about it.”

I glanced at Joe and noticed he was looking at Kinkaid with undisguised scorn, clearly unimpressed with anyone who would pursue his partner’s wife. Joe’s own wife, Ruth, had been dead for several years, and I think marriage seemed even more sacred to him now than before. He kept quiet, though.

Kinkaid told us an enraged Wayne Weston had confronted him about his advances toward Julie. Kinkaid hadn’t denied his attraction to his partner’s wife, and Weston demanded he leave the firm. Kinkaid resisted at first.

“Then I realized it was hopeless,” he said. “We’d never have been able to work together again. Wayne couldn’t trust me, and I understood that, and I didn’t blame him for it. If you can’t trust your partner, you need to move on. So we moved on.” He ran one of his big, bony hands through his hair. “You need to understand that I really care about Julie, though. I see the way you’re looking at me, and I know what you’re thinking-that I’m a first-class prick, a guy who wants his partner’s wife just because she’s off-limits, or maybe just because of her beauty. That wasn’t it, though. Julie’s an amazing woman.”

He looked at me, as if I might understand what Joe could not. “She’s truly one of a kind. Yeah, she’s gorgeous, but after a few months I was hardly even aware of her looks. She’s unlike any other woman I’ve ever known. She has this depth, this quality of intelligence and compassion, man…” He shook his head. “It’s like she figures you out, understands you better than you understand yourself. I tried not to think about her. I tried to stay away from her, even. It didn’t help. Nothing could help. I know you look at me and all you can see is an asshole who tried to steal his partner’s wife, but I tell you, I loved her like I’ve never loved anyone before. And I know I’ll never love anyone like that again.”

Joe and I didn’t say a word. We’re good at that, sometimes. If there’s anything better than our tag-team wit, it’s our tag-team stony silence.

“Listen,” Kinkaid said eventually, “I heard about Wayne’s death, and Julie and Betsy being missing, and I didn’t want to have any part of it. I didn’t want to allow myself to even think about it, because I knew if I did, I’d stop feeling sorry for my dead partner and start wishing I could see his wife again. You know what kind of a bastard that made me feel like? But I’m not worrying about it anymore. I’ve got to know where that woman is, and where that little girl is. That’s all I care about. If I can learn what happened to them, I’ll walk away and be done with it. But I’ve got to know. I’ve got to know.”

Joe cleared his throat. “That’s great, Kinkaid. I respect your desire to help, but I’m afraid that’s not how we work. Lincoln and I work alone. Exclusively. We don’t posse up on anything, all right? You want to help so badly, I’ll give you the number of the detectives in charge of the case. Maybe they’ll appreciate the assistance more than we do.”

“I understand that reaction,” Kinkaid said, squeezing his big hands together and nodding his head. “But I remind you I’m not a stranger to this business. I know what I’m doing. In fact, I’ve got more experience working in the private sector than either of you. Yeah, you were cops, but it’s a different world out there if you don’t have a badge. I know how to work in that world, and I know how to do it quickly.”

“We’re stumbling along all right on our own, thanks,” I said.

Joe nodded. “I have to hold his hand a lot of the time, but we’ve managed to get by so far. I think we’ll continue to manage.”

Kinkaid got to his feet, his broad frame towering over Joe’s desk. “Fine,” he said. “I’m not going to beg you. But it’s your mistake. I know Wayne Weston better than anyone. I know his history, I know his mind, I know his habits. And I’m going to find out what the hell happened in that house. You can take that to the bank, gentlemen.”

The phone rang. I ignored it at first, thinking I’d let it go to voice mail, but then I remembered the clerk at the Golden Breakers who was supposed to call back, and I reached over and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Rebecca with the Golden Breakers Resort in Myrtle Beach,” a young female voice announced brightly. “I believe I spoke with you earlier about Randy Hartwick, our chief of security?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve located Mr. Hartwick’s cell phone number.” She read the number off while Kinkaid stood at the door, his hand on the knob. I thanked the clerk and hung up, wishing her voice hadn’t been so loud. I hoped Kinkaid hadn’t heard Hartwick’s name.

He had.

“Randy Hartwick, eh?” he said, his back to us. I looked at Joe, and he shrugged, leaving the response up to me.

“What do you know about him?” I asked.

Kinkaid turned back to us, keeping his hand on the doorknob. “Randy Hartwick,” he said, “is possibly the most dangerous man I’ve ever known.” He hesitated, looking from Joe to me. “You’d be well advised to watch yourselves with him. It’s too bad you don’t posse up,” he said, echoing Joe’s phrase. “Because if you take a run at Hartwick, you’ll need all the help you can get.”

He opened the door and stepped halfway into the hall, then paused, giving us a last chance. Joe looked at me and then sighed.

“Get your ass back in here and sit down,” he said.

Kinkaid grinned, shut the door, and returned to his seat. “All right,” he said. “Now let’s get to work.”

Kinkaid’s knowledge of Randy Hartwick dated to his early days with Wayne Weston. Hartwick had visited occasionally, and Weston introduced the two men.

“He’s an old Marine buddy of Wayne’s,” Kinkaid said, “and Wayne stayed close to him since those Marine days, even though it was a bad idea.”

“Why a bad idea?” I asked.

Kinkaid smiled tightly. “Those two were in Force Recon together. The baddest of the bad, right? They were the guys who fought the secret wars, did the dirty deeds, and kept their mouths shut about it. Covert operations were what they lived for, and Hartwick-well, he never really stopped living for them. He was addicted to the rush of it, the danger, and the adrenaline. Wayne had the bug, too, but it wasn’t as bad. He used to talk about it with me after Randy would leave, and his eyes would kind of light up. He’d just float off in his own world for a minute. Then he’d look at a picture of Julie and his daughter and come back down to earth.

“Hartwick mustered out of the Corps two years after Wayne did. He tried to go into private security work, but it didn’t hold his interest for long.”

“It’s what he’s doing now,” I said, and Kinkaid smiled at me like you might smile at someone who thought all his tax dollars were put to good use.