"Aunt Hannah."

She turned around to see Ronnie standing a few feet away from her. Jesus, he looked like Conner, she realized anew with a pang. The same tight, dark curly hair, the angular face, the elfin arch to his eyebrows. Donna was small and vital like Cathy, but Ronnie was all Conner. He looked older than his eleven years in his dark suit and striped tie. Older and pale and hurting. She held out her hand to him. "Hi."

"Hi." His voice was gruff, and he came forward to nestle against her. "I thought I'd come and be with you. You looked lonely."

"I guess we're all lonely today."

"Yeah." He laid his head against her arm. "It's bad… isn't it?"

"Terrible." She hugged him close and forced herself to release him. "Maybe you should go back and be with your mom. She needs you."

"It's okay. I told Donna to take care of her."

"She's only five, Ronnie."

"But she's smart… sometimes. You just have to nudge her. I think she'll get better in a year or two."

"Oh, she will? I'm glad to hear that."

Eleven going on thirty.

Her eyes stung as she remembered Conner's description of Ronnie.

"Well, I'm glad to have the company, but if you want to go back to your mom, I'll understand."

He shook his head. "Dad would want me here. He worried about you. He told me so."

"Did he? When?"

"A couple years ago. I was just a kid, and I was making a fuss about him leaving to go off with you. He told me that we had to take care of you. That we all had each other, and we had to make sure you knew that we belonged to you too. He didn't want you to be alone." He whispered, "Now he can't take care of you anymore. I have to do it."

She felt as if she were splintering, breaking apart. "I'll be okay," she said unevenly. "It's your mom who-"

He was shaking his head. "He wanted you not to be alone. I have to take his place. I can't do it right now. I'm still a kid, and Mom needs me. But later, when I'm older, maybe I can go away with you and watch out for you like he did."

Dear heaven, she loved him. "Maybe you can." She pressed her lips to his forehead. "We'll talk about it in a year or two. Right now, we just have to get through the next few days."

He nodded, his gaze going to the sea. "It's going to be different. It hurts…" His eyes were glittering with tears. "It hurts bad."

What could she say? Offer comfort when there was no comfort to be had? She gave him the only gift she could. "I love you, Ronnie," she whispered. "And I'm very proud of you. Your dad would be proud of you too…"

Bradworth was sitting on the porch at the bed-and-breakfast when Hannah got back from the dock. He rose to his feet, and said soberly, "My sympathy. I admit I was surprised you phoned and asked me to come here today. I would have come to the dock, but I understood the service was for family only. I know this is a tough day for you."

"Not as tough as the day Conner died."

He shook his head. "But I hoped I'd made it as easy as I could for you and your sister-in-law."

"You made it almost too easy for Cathy," she said bluntly. "You arranged for the cremation, gave her the name of the captain of a boat here. You made sure that there weren't any newspaper reporters harassing her. My brother's remains disappeared from this earth as if he'd never been here."

"I can understand how you might feel antagonistic. Would you rather there had been a publicity stink that would have hurt the museum and your brother's family?"

"You know damn well I wouldn't. The only reason I didn't step in is that Conner would have wanted Cathy and the kids to have as little emotional upheaval as possible."

"Then I did the right thing."

"But for what reason? Why did you want to erase what happened to Conner?" She stared him in the eye. "And you knew what might happen when I phoned you that night. The minute I told you about those plates we found, you knew. You even warned me not to go back there."

"And doesn't that tell you anything? I wanted to keep you safe. I never wanted this to happen."

"Because it made a mess you had to cover up?" she asked bitterly. "Isn't that what you said when you thought I was unconscious on that pier?"

"You misunderstood. Very understandable considering your condition."

"I didn't misunderstand. Were those plates still in the control room when you found Conner?"

He didn't answer.

"Were they, dammit? Answer me."

"No."

"And why would anyone be willing to kill Conner to get them?"

"I have no idea."

"You're lying."

"Think what you will."

"And whoever went after those plates knew about them almost as soon as I did. How?"

He didn't answer.

"How?"

He shrugged. "There was a device planted on the sub to monitor your conversations."

She stared at him in shock. "What? By you?"

"No."

"But you knew about it."

"I was advised when it was planted."

"And you didn't tell me."

"I thought we'd be able to scoop up those bastards before they could do any harm."

"My God, and you used us as bait?"

"I didn't expect them to move that quickly if you found something of interest to them. It would have been smarter of them to avoid killing anyone. I thought they might come back for anything valuable after you'd left the submarine."

"But they didn't, did they? They came in like a SWAT team and blew my brother's head off."

"And I can't tell you how much I regret it."

"Regret? You son of a bitch."

"I'm sorry you became involved in something that had such a tragic end, but your best course of action is to walk away from Silent Thunder and forget all about it. In time, I'm sure we'll find the killer of your brother. Trust me."

She stared at him incredulously. "Trust you? You've got to be kidding."

"What are your options? The museum wants to have nothing more to do with you. What happened could be an embarrassment that would taint the opening of their new exhibit. This exhibit could bring big money to this small town, and the local police are being very cooperative and leaving the investigation entirely in our hands."

"They wouldn't do that. There has to be some other reason."

He hesitated, then said, "You're right. Homeland Security called them and told them they had an involvement."

"Homeland Security?"

"They wield an enormous amount of influence these days."

"You're saying terrorists killed Conner?"

"I didn't say that. I said Homeland Security has an involvement. But you don't want to go up against them, Hannah."

"The hell I don't."

"Then go ahead and see how far you get. All it would take would be for Homeland Security to drop a hint in your file that they're interested in your activities. No one would be willing to hire you with that cloud hanging over you." He leaned back in the rocking chair. "Of course, you could go to the newspapers. The press is always ready to leap on any juicy story. It might mean that your brother's widow and children could be hounded unmercifully, but it might be worth it to you."

"You bastard."

"No, I'm one of the good guys."

"The hell you are. You're not with the State Department. You seem to have a good deal of knowledge of Homeland Security. Is that who you work for?"

"No."

"Who?"

He hesitated. "CIA."

"What? You've got to be kidding. Everyone knows CIA isn't supposed to operate inside the U.S."

"This is our case. We've been working on it for years overseas. Just because it moved to U.S. soil didn't mean that we were going to be shut out. Since 9/11 the other agencies are giving us a hell of a lot more latitude."

"Shit. And you involved Conner and me in your dirty games?"

He gave her a pained frown. "We thought we had you well protected. You don't understand. Choices have to be made when the stakes are this high."