Breakwater

A wasted trip, she thought, watching an osprey-a female-swoop up from the marsh into the clear sky above the bay. In spite of her concern for Alicia, Qui

The two young ospreys that had constructed the oversize mess of a nest on a marker at the mouth of Qui

But they were raptors-birds of prey. Although they dined primarily on fish, if Alicia had indeed walked out to the water early one morning and saw an osprey scoop up an unsuspecting duckling in front of her, she would have been horrified. Stressed out as she was from the pressures of her job, perhaps on the verge of a breakdown, she could have latched onto such a gruesome sight as she’d melted down, twisting it into a metaphor for all her fears and troubles.

Speculation, Qui

Built in the 1940s, her cottage occupied a half-acre lot with lilacs and azaleas, not yet in bloom, and a vegetable garden out back that she meant to revive. Right now, it was mostly weeds. Alicia had promised to rent a tiller and dig up the garden, but Qui

She walked across the road and up the stone walk to her cottage, the grass, which needed mowing, wet from the pounding rain. She stepped onto her porch, no railing to impede the view of the water from her wicker chairs. On one of her weekends on the bay, Alicia had put out a blue ceramic pot of yellow pansies as a gift for use of the cottage.

Qui

When she’d bought the cottage, it was a wreck. For two years, she’d poured herself, and coaxed various friends, into fixing it up. The scrubbing and painting and foraging for deals served as a welcome contrast to her days spent researching and analyzing criminal networks with tentacles that knew no borders, no boundaries, no ethics or morals but the lust for power, money and violence. She painted the simple wood floors and replaced the wainscoting, splurged on tile for the bathroom that she had put in herself.

Qui

It was just before Alicia had introduced Qui

The cottage, ultimately, had helped end their relationship. He wanted to buy a boat-he said he might stand the occasional weekend in Yorkville if he had a boat. They’d bought two kayaks together. Then he said a kayak wasn’t the sort of boat he meant.

Before long, he was staying in the city on weekends, and she’d drive out to the bay by herself.

Yet, in spite of how easily and completely they’d drifted apart, Brian was the first to see that she needed to leave the Justice Department and strike out on her own. If she was content to spend a weekend stripping paint off an old chair, he reasoned, the day-to-day grind of her work was getting to her. She needed to take a risk and broaden her horizons. Dare to go out on her own.

“I’m too young,” she’d argue. “I need more experience.”

“You’re from a family of daredevils. Go on, Qui

It was another month after they broke up for good before she finally turned in her resignation.

Her withering relationship with Brian had put an added strain on her friendship with Alicia, who couldn’t hide her disappointment, even irritation, at Qui

She hadn’t dumped Brian, and Alicia knew it. She’d exaggerated. What really got to her was how hard Lattimore had tried to get Qui

Alicia was at the party. She and Qui

When she asked to use the cottage for a weekend getaway, Qui

Not once that night or in the next weeks did she sense that Alicia was seriously troubled or burned out.

“Alicia-where are you?”

Qui

8

When she took her tea out to the porch in the morning, Qui

She sat on a wicker rocker and pulled her feet up under her, cupping her mug with both hands to feel the warmth of the steaming tea. She had on her oversize sweater, a fla

He didn’t seem to notice her. When he reached the end of her road, just past her cottage, he did a wide turn and paused briefly to stretch. His dark hair was cut very short, not quite a crewcut, and he had a thickset build, with a flat abdomen and muscular arms, shoulders and thighs. He was obviously a physical man, not some guy dragging himself out for an early-morning jog to lose a few pounds.