Hearts Divided (Cedar Cove #5.5)(32)
He’d been unaware of Morrissey’s return to Seattle this week. He was sure it wasn’t in the original plans for the Las Vegas job. He didn’t like it when schedules changed.
The Tribune article said Master Sergeant Morrissey had once served overseas with the wounded marine.
This marine was alive.
Other young men serving with Morrissey hadn’t been so lucky.
The fresh-faced marine, the older woman, the granddaughter and Morrissey smiled directly at the camera in the group photo. In a second photo, Morrissey’s head was bent toward the younger woman, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered to her, and her hand rested on his forearm with intimate ease. The look on the ex-master sergeant’s face said Chloe Abbott meant something to him. Their body language hinted that they knew each other well.
Despite intense covert observation of Morrissey’s life over the past six weeks, he’d uncovered no evidence of close family members and only casual ties to women friends. Morrissey’s personal life appeared to lack anyone whose death would cause him the devastation and grief he deserved.
That situation had apparently changed.
At last. At long last.
Time for the revenge his soul craved. He had the woman’s name, and he’d check her out. This might be his chance to destroy Jake Morrissey’s life just as his had been destroyed.
All things come to those who wait.
“Perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.” Chloe Abbott cradled the rosewood mantel clock in her hands, turning it to inspect each side. Sunlight poured through the windows of the antique shop on Fourth Avenue in Seattle, gleaming off chests of silver, displays of china and crystal, and finding deep red highlights in the clock’s wooden box.
She couldn’t detect a single fault with it. The wood had the fine patina of age, and when the clock struck the hour, the carved doors on the front opened. The delicate figures of two dancers in Louis IV court dress popped out to twirl to the strains of a Strauss waltz.
“Gran’s going to love this.” Delighted, Chloe set the clock carefully on the glass counter. “Thank you so much for finding it for me.”
“I’m glad you like it.” The shop owner, a thin, elegant man in an impeccable gray suit and tie, abandoned his normal reserve and fairly beamed at her. “I knew the moment it came into the shop that it was meant for Winifred. There’s only one tiny detail that detracts from its value. Someone modified the clockworks to add a modern battery-operated alarm inside.”
“I don’t care, David, and I doubt Gran will, either.” Chloe’s eyes half closed as she swayed to the lilting music. “‘The Blue Danube’ was my grandfather’s favorite waltz. Gran told me they danced to it the night they became engaged.”
“I seem to recall Winifred telling me that story.”
Chloe opened her eyes and chuckled at his expression of fond indulgence. David McPherson had grown up with Chloe’s grandmother Winifred and grandfather Richard in the community of Ballard, only a few miles from the heart of downtown Seattle. In 1943 Winifred had signed on as an assistant to her father, a cryptographer employed in the Seattle section of the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA. That same year, Richard Abbott and Winifred were married four days before he and David donned army uniforms and marched off to war. They’d returned to Seattle to take up their lives after peace was won. Winifred had resumed her university studies, earning her doctorate and stayed on to become a professor of literature. Richard inherited Abbott Construction from his father, while David had opened an antique shop in downtown Seattle. Both men had been stunningly successful, and although David was widowed at forty-two and never had children, he’d been adopted into Richard and Winifred’s family. Chloe thought of him as a much-loved great-uncle.
Which was why, when she’d wanted a special gift to mark her grandmother’s eightieth birthday, she’d called on David.
“Of course you remember. You were probably at the same dance.”
His blue eyes twinkled. “I’m sure I was. In fact, I distinctly remember slipping money to the bandleader so he’d play the waltz at just the right moment.”
Chloe laughed and hugged him. “Clever, David, very clever.”
“Sometimes true love needs a helping hand,” he said sagely, patting her back.
“Hmm.” Chloe herself had never experienced true love, so she’d have to take his word for it. She stepped back and looked once more at the clock, gleaming in splendor on the glass counter. “I’ll buy it, of course. It’s wonderful.”
“Give me a few minutes to pack it properly.” David walked behind the counter and disappeared through a curtained doorway.
The antique bell mounted above the outer door chimed. Chloe smiled politely at the three older woman who entered the shop before her gaze moved on to the big display window. Outside, the sidewalks were busy, thronged with pedestrians walking briskly past. A solitary man stood motionless, looking through the glass into the interior of the shop. He was of average height and weight, dressed in khaki pants with a neatly pressed plaid shirt. Mirrored sunglasses concealed his eyes below the bill of a Mariners baseball cap that covered all but a glimpse of short-cropped black hair.
Chloe’s skin prickled and she shivered. She couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind the dark glasses, but she had the uneasy conviction that he was staring at her. Something about his absolute stillness was unnerving. How long had he been watching her?