“No, that was Sharon, wasn’t it?” Quinn pressed on. “She wanted Alicia agitated and upset. Her husband-” Quinn turned, trying to keep both Lubec and Sharon in sight. “ Sharon, you said he used to run through the marsh. You followed his same route last night. You’d had too much to drink-”
“I didn’t follow his route. I followed a path through the marsh.” She raised her chin, defiant. “Yes, I was a little drunk. I had a lot on my mind. Oliver-”
“You let Alicia take a medication to which she was allergic, thinking it was ibuprofen?” Oliver shouted. “Why? What was the point? She was so agitated, so out of control-” Crawford staggered toward Sharon, fighting a sob. “She wasn’t a real danger to us until then. I couldn’t risk-” He raked both hands through his hair. “Having her in that state was too great a risk. She knew too much.”
“Not because of me,” Sharon said, hoarse now. “Because of Joe.”
“Oh, I get it.” Quinn acted as if the realization had just hit her. “Alicia wasn’t having an affair with your boss. She was sleeping with your husband.”
Sharon took two steps forward and slapped Quinn across the face, a crisp smack that stung, then flew around to face Oliver. “You killed her?”
“We let her die,” he confessed. “It had to be done.”
“Oliver-” Gerard’s voice was strangled. “You’ve gone off the edge.”
His eyes shining with conviction, Crawford pleaded with him. “Help us, Gerry. Join us.”
Lattimore looked away, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of his longtime friend another second. “I have no intention of helping you or joining you.”
“All right. Have it your way.” Crawford stood up straight, deflated. “Travis, take Mr. Lattimore back to his yacht. I’ll trust in our friendship and his own self-interest that he’ll keep what we said here today private.”
Quinn moved in front of her former boss. If he went off with Travis Lubec, Lattimore was dead. “Wait, let me try talking to him.” She saw Huck enter the room from the same hall she had used earlier, his gun drawn. “Huck, why don’t you and I take Gerard out of here and have a talk with him?”
His eyes connected with hers for half a second, just enough for her to know he understood the situation. “Vern and Rochester are on the way,” he said, moving toward her. “Is everything okay in here?”
Sharon slumped with relief. “We’ve had something of a miscommunication here.”
“I’ll say.” Quinn touched her cheek where Sharon had smacked her. “It seems Sharon and Oliver aren’t on the same page. She had him kidnapped and tried to undermine her husband’s affair with Alicia by making her crazy, but Oliver also went behind Sharon ’s back-”
“Sounds complicated,” Huck said, easing toward Travis Lubec.
“Don’t listen to her,” Sharon said. “Oliver and I are a team. Oliver, call off the hits you ordered. The feds are fumbling in the dark, wondering who we are. Don’t give them a reason to pursue us until we drop dead of old age.”
Quinn could see Oliver losing patience. “How close do you think the feds are to figuring you out?”
Sharon scowled in disdain. “Not as close as they think.”
Huck leveled his weapon on Lubec. “How about this close, princess? Lubec-hands where I can see them. I’m a federal agent. Another federal agent is behind Joe Riccardi, armed with an MP5. You do not want to make a move for your weapon.”
“Fuck you both,” Lubec said.
Sharon Riccardi turned white. “You son of a bitch, Boone. You liar.”
Huck disarmed Lubec of a gun in a shoulder holster and an assault knife in a sheath on his ankle. On the sofa, Lattimore sat frozen, but Quinn could see he had a good grasp of the situation and didn’t believe she’d turned into a vigilante.
From the hall door, Joe Riccardi said calmly, “ Sharon wears a twenty-two on her ankle. Crawford isn’t armed. He believes only his subordinates should have weapons.”
Diego Clemente stepped past the retired army colonel and lifted the hem of Sharon Riccardi’s long, rose-colored skirt. “I have the proper permits,” she said coldly. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Lattimore cleared his throat, staring at Huck. “Who are you?”
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Huck McCabe, sir.” He nodded to his partner, who had moved to pat down Oliver Crawford as a precaution. “That’s Deputy Clemente.”
“What about Kowalski?”
“He’ll be here shortly.”
Lattimore, who obviously had used up any reserves, collapsed against the back of the sofa, his face blank as he stared at his former college roommate.
“Thank God.” Oliver Crawford’s hands shook as he held them above his head. “Boone-whatever your name is. I knew you couldn’t be on the same side as these crazy bastards. I had a vague idea what Sharon was up to, but no details. She had me kidnapped. I had to draw her out into the open. Quinn and I played along with her vigilante line-”
Before Crawford went any further, Diego arrested him and read him his rights.
“Quinn?” Huck kept his eyes on Lubec. “You okay?”
“Still smarting from Sharon ’s slap. I haven’t been hit that hard, ever.”