He grabbed her wrist and held her. “Easy there.”
“I’m sorry.” She stared at where his hand held her wrist. “I just don’t understand.”
“I think it has to do with his time in Bosnia.” Nick held her at arm’s length. “He never talked to you about it?”
“No, never.” Mary brushed tears from her eyes. “Until yesterday, I didn’t even know his other name. How stupid is that?”
Nick sighed. “We all have secrets. I’m sure your father had a good reason for keeping them.”
“But why now? It’s been over thirty years. Why are the secrets surfacing?”
Nick stepped inside the small cabin with the hardwood floors hewn of split logs. The furniture was handmade of smoothed cedar with leather cushions. A stuffed moose head hung over the smooth river stone fireplace. Blankets draped the back of the sofa. In the corner, a tall safe like the ones men used to store guns in stood open, the lock having been blown off. All the contents spilled out on the floor, including several shotguns, rifles and documents. The documents had been scattered across the room. Throughout the two-room cabin, cabinets and dresser drawers hung open, the contents shoved out on the floor.
“He was looking for something.” Mary spoke Nick’s thoughts aloud.
“Yeah, but what?”
“I don’t know. Obviously, he thought it was worth killing for.”
Nick lifted a telephone receiver off the kitchen counter and listened for a dial tone.
Nothing.
“Line’s dead.” He dropped the receiver in the cradle. “Come on, let’s get back to North Pole. I want to check in with Kat.” Nick grabbed Mary’s hand and pulled her out the back door.
“What about Mr. Feegan?”
“We’ll send the police out to take care of him.” Nick wanted to talk to Royce. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. No reception. A satellite phone would come in real handy about now. He should have known his cell phone wouldn’t work this far out of town. Maybe Royce would have more information for him. They couldn’t keep losing people to this hit man.
Mary trotted to keep up with Nick. “I don’t feel right leaving him here.”
The sorrow in Mary’s voice tugged at Nick’s heart, but he pushed aside the unwanted feelings. He had a job to do. Find Santa and keep Mary from being killed. “It can’t be helped.”
Mary’s feet slowed. “Maybe I should stay with him.”
Fear tightened Nick’s chest. Not for himself, but at the thought of Mary alone in the wilderness with a dead man, exposed to the machinations of a killer. “No.”
“But—”
“Not an option.” He climbed on board the snowmobile and pushed the start button. The sooner he got her back to town, the better. If he could lock her in a room for the duration of the case, he would. “Get on.”
Mary frowned but did as directed. Her gaze strayed to the house, behind which Robert Feegan’s body lay. Tears swam over blue eyes.
Nick’s grip on the handlebars loosened and he grabbed one of her hands and squeezed. “The sooner we get to the police station, the sooner he’ll be taken care of.”
Mary sighed. “I know, but it still doesn’t feel right. As far as I know, Mr. Feegan didn’t have family. Dad and the other poker players were all he had. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them all until I moved to Seattle.” She settled on the back of the machine, wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his back.
Bob Feegan had lived a lonely life with no family, yet he had friends who were like family.
Nick found himself envying Feegan’s connections. In his line of work, Nick was destined to live an even lonelier life, never forming lasting relationships, never having a family or a little blond-haired girl bouncing on his lap, calling him Daddy. When had the action and stimulation of life as an SOS agent lost its glamour and become less fulfilling?
When he’d come to North Pole and met a woman who loved her father enough to risk her own life to save him.
Nick ground his teeth together. Something about this place and this woman was getting under his skin. Still, he refused to acknowledge Mary’s hold on him. To acknowledge was to admit he cared. In Nick’s books, caring got you in trouble. Caring made you vulnerable to the enemy.
Unwilling to switch the headlamps on and create a more visible target, Nick left them off and hugged the edge of the roads on the way back to town. The clouds had cleared sufficiently to allow light from the stars to guide them.
When they pulled up in front of the bed-and-breakfast, Kat ran out. “I talked to Janovich.”
