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“And she knew about my movements?” said Devine.
“She arranged your travel while you were overseas, and also your itinerary for Maine.”
“But why run now?” asked Devine.
“They might have asked for something she was unwilling to give. Or she felt guilty, or scared that we would find out once we began our internal security audit. Ironically, her fleeing was what made us look at her.”
“They might have grabbed her and made it look like she left voluntarily.”
“Trust me, Devine, I had thought of that possibility. Should I send you reinforcements?”
“No. That’ll just spook our killer and then the guy goes even deeper underground.”
“Well, be careful.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to get it done, sir,” replied Devine before clicking off.
CHAPTER
52
DEVINE COULD NOT SLEEP THATnight. The rain beating down on the roof, normally a soothing white noise, simply served to pound relentlessly into his head, and also into his thoughts.
A mole in Campbell’s organization had likely helped put a bullseye on his back. There were forces up here who wanted him dead. And he had a murderer that hopefully he was closing in on. And while he had fought battles on two fronts before, it had never been quite like this.
He gave up the attempt at sleep, got dressed, grabbed his gun, and headed out, running to his SUV through the rain and cranking up the heat once he got inside. The trip he was about to take was not all about his insomnia. He needed to follow up on a possible lead that he had failed to do before.
He headed through the darkened streets. He didn’t know if he would again see what he had glimpsed once before, but he had his fingers crossed that he would. It might not be connected to Jenny’s death, but he couldn’t rule it out until he knew a lot more. And it was intriguingly odd; that alone deserved scrutiny.
Devine approached the spot where he’d been when he’d lost sight of the boat he’d seen before. That time he’d become distracted by seeing Françoise Guillaume drive by and following her to the mansion where she lived with her brother.
No distractions tonight, at least I hope not.
He parked off the road, killed his lights, and waited. An hour later he had just about given up hope and was getting ready to head back to the inn when he saw it.
The light was quite a ways out on the water, but as he watched, Devine judged that it was definitely heading toward shore.
He started the SUV and, driving without his lights on, he moved slowly down the road in the direction of where he had roughly calculated the landing spot to be.
It was a long ride at a slow speed while his focus was on the light out at sea. A few minutes later the rising winds cleared the dense cloud coverage and the light, which Devine had lost sight of for about a minute, reappeared farther down the coast. He pointed his ride that way, and soon the light became more and more vivid, like a star fallen into the ocean.
He finally pulled to a stop along an isolated stretch of coastline. He figured he was about six miles north of Putnam at this juncture.
Directly east, across the Gulf of Maine, lay Nova Scotia. Directly north was New Brunswick, which Devine knew was separated from Nova Scotia by the Bay of Fundy.
His gaze fixed steadily on the approaching boat light, Devine got out of the Tahoe, hurried toward the rocky shore, and took up position behind a stand of white pines that had been battered and deformed by the stiff ocean wind. He placed a hand against one of the lean, bristly trunks.
He thought,If this is just a fishing boat and I’ve wasted time and sleep for nothing?
Devine tensed as the boat drew ever closer to shore. He wondered how they were going to manage it, because the coastline here was every bit as rocky as the one back in Putnam, and the breakers were not going to be easy to navigate.
He once more drew out his military-grade optics. They were the latest generation of surveillance technology, cost a fortune, and were worth every dime.
He squared up on the boat. The vessel didn’t appear to be a lobster boat, at least not like the ones he’d seen at the harbor in Putnam. It was larger and sleeker and had sophisticated sat-nav tower modules mounted on the pilothouse roof. He didn’t see anyone on deck and the pilothouse glass was darkened. He scanned the portside of the boat for ID markers but saw none. The boat had been powering along all this time, but as it grew closer it suddenly slowed and then stopped so abruptly a stiff stern wake jostled it.
As he watched, a smaller boat was lowered from the port side, and he saw three figures board it. And then several crates were passed down to the people on the smaller boat. One of them sat in the rear and operated the outboard motor and tiller. The small boat headed directly to shore.
Devine took out his phone and filmed this through his optics so it was as magnified as possible. He looked to the spot on land where the boat was headed and thought he saw movement there. He looked through his optics and confirmed at least one person standing at a spot near the shore. The person was moving a light up and down, clearly signaling to the boat.
