The SUV stopped suddenly and the driver side window lowered. Glowering out at her was her rescuer, his face covered with soft golden whiskers, his hair both plastered to his head and sticking out at endearing angles. Hero type. Handsome and good-hearted. Maybe he’d tell her where the manicured billionaire was hiding.
“Unless you have a death wish, get out of here,” he said as the wind buffeted both vehicles.
“I just—”
The window closed and the SUV took off up the hill leaving her with no answers, a scant few feet above sea level, in a rising storm.
She looked to the second crew who were securing their boat and decided her best chance for an answer was fleeing up the hill. “You are not getting away so easily, buddy.”
Addy slammed the car in gear and hurried after the SUV’s taillights. A year ago, she would have felt the gut clench of paralyzing fear. Today, she almost savored the chase. There was a kind of freedom when one’s tail was dragging along the bottom of the barrel as hers was.
She had nothing to lose.
Water rushed down the street, high enough to make her add a prayer to her bravado as she rode a gusty tail wind steadily up the hill. At the top, the SUV turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
Addy gave the car more gas than was probably prudent, but a hot scoop waited for no one.
When she reached the stop sign at the intersection, the SUV sat parked at the curb around the corner in front of a place called Braven’s Tavern. Addy realized they must be waiting to see if she could climb the hill. Good. She might yet get a chance to speak with someone.
Just then, three of the SUV’s doors popped open and all but the driver leaped out, splashing in their rubber boots. The yellow-suited passengers hurried toward the boarded-up tavern. As Addy inched her car around the corner, the SUV made a U-turn and headed back down toward the harbor. Maybe the driver was crazier than she was.
The yellow suits hurried into the tavern, the big, solid oak door slamming shut behind them.
She let the madman driver go and parked the worthy compact rental in a high spot just past the tavern in front of Pardee Jordan’s Best Ever Donuts where water swirled but didn’t collect.
The donut shop gave her some shelter from the wind, but there was no shelter from the rain. By the time she got to the tavern’s old-fashioned oak door, rain poured down her shoulders, wicked up the pant legs of her jeans and threatened to dampen her underwear.
She grabbed the long brass door handle, tugged hard, and when the door swung open, dashed inside. These Mainers might be rough around the edges, but they would not toss her back out into the storm.
She hoped.
The short, dark hallway of the entry led to an open area where, on the right, hooks lined the wall and the SUV’s three passengers were shedding their rain gear and hanging it up to drip.
To the left, the bar stools stood empty at the square-cornered, U-shaped bar and no bartender leaned over the bar in greeting. Shelves of liquor and a couple unlit beer signs decorated the back wall of the bar lit by flickering candles.
The three workers stopped and turned as a unit to gape at her. One man was tall and lean with a lot of red hair plastered to his head and around his face. One was stocky and white-whiskered and the third man who was somewhere in the middle of height and girth had graying dark brown, unruly curls around his thin face.
Not one of them said a word.
Addy pushed her hood back from her wet hair and gave each of them an even look. Well, what she hoped was an even look because when one’s underwear was starting to take on water it was hard.
They stared back for a moment and then turned away to continue removing their rain suits. She had the feeling they would have stripped down to their underwear if she hadn’t been there—maybe they still would.
“Eh, Michael, sorry about Francine,” the stocky, white-whiskered member of the trio said to the red headed man.
Addy remembered the word FRANCINE as it had headed directly for her upturned face. Francine was the boat’s name.
The shoulders of the tall thin man with what now seemed like a bushel of wet red hair slumped. “Ah-yuh. Wish we’d’a known sooner.”
“...that the storm wasn’t going to pass us by.” In her head Addy filled in the missing words.
She stepped up behind the group. “Excuse me. I’m looking for Zachary Hale.”
A choking kind of cough made her she realize the four of them were not the only people in the bar. She looked over her shoulder to see scattered tables in a room off to the left of where she stood. People, men and women, sat in clumps of two, three or four at timeworn tables with mismatched chairs. All of them stared at her.
She peered first into the faces of the people at the tables to make sure the billionaire hadn’t shed his fancy business suit to hide amid this crowd.
When she didn’t see anyone resembling the slick, manicured tycoon in disguise she turned halfway back to the three men so she could address everyone. “Can anyone tell me where to find Zachary Hale?”
A few of the people continued to stare at her, but most turned back to their beers and bowls of snacks.
“Pardon me, miss.” The red-haired man spoke to her in a friendly voice as he pointed toward the door. “You don’t want to be going anywhere in that, so come sit at the bar and I’ll pour you a beer.”
Before she could even respond, he walked around the bar, and pulled a glass from under the counter.
Addy held her ground and pulled her hood back on. “That’s very nice of you, but I really need to get going. If someone could just tell me where Mr. Hale lives or where he might be right now.”
“You’ll get blown off the road trying to get up Sea Crest Hill in this weather.” A woman’s voice came from the crowd at the tables.
A few heads turned in the middle-aged woman’s direction and she hushed quickly. Her ruddy face got redder and she turned her chair away.
At least these people knew the man. In this small town the hill called Sea Crest couldn’t be too hard to find.
She decided to try a less direct question. She might get another nibble. “Does anyone know if he’s here in town?”
Silence.
Hale was a thief, but she doubted he’d physically harm anyone. He wasn’t that kind of bad guy, so these folks were mum because Hale grew up in this town and not because they were afraid of him. He was one of them and they weren’t going to give her much information.
She rubbed her back where a bead of water trickled down her spine between her shoulder blades. She could lie to them. Make up something about being Hale’s worried fiancé or secretary with important business.
She looked around the room. Every one of them except the woman who had given away Sea Crest Hill was staring at her with varying degrees of resolute.
And she was such a bad liar. Even the slowest of this crowd would call her on it.
Until a year ago, anyone in the news field would have said if there was one thing Adriana Bonacorda could be relied on for, it was the truth.
“Listen, miss.” The red-haired man, evidently the bartender as he had tied an apron around his thin waist. “You can stay here if you want. There isn’t much in the way of amenities, but we’re far enough up hill from the harbor to be safe and dry in this sturdy old building.”
“Thank you. I’ll be all right, but I need to find Mr. Hale.”
“There is no place else for you to go in town or for twenty miles. Sit down. Relax. Have a