Free Shimmer by Hilary Norman

Office would be ruling the roost, with the ATF not far behind.
    â€˜Isn’t this a job for the Coast Guard?’ Grace asked, handing him a tie.
    Sam nodded. ‘Along with the Fire Department.’
    â€˜So why are you being called in?’
    â€˜I don’t know yet,’ Sam said, heading out of the bedroom and back downstairs. ‘If this is no accident, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s terrorism. Could be an old-fashioned kind of crime.’
    â€˜Lovely,’ Grace said, right behind him.
    â€˜Or maybe this is just Alvarez or the Captain figuring that if someone’s bombing Miami, people are going to get a little crazy.’
    Grace kissed him at the door. ‘Whichever, please be careful.’
    â€˜Always,’ Sam said.
    She wished, with all her might, that were true.
    â€˜What?’ Daniel sounded bleary, as well he might at this early hour.
    â€˜I had to call,’ Claudia said, up in Cathy’s bedroom, ‘because of the bomb.’
    â€˜What bomb?’ Instantly awake. ‘Where? Are you OK?’
    â€˜I’m fine.’ She felt comforted hearing his voice, even more consoled because he sounded concerned, and because clearly there had been no visit from Jerome, at least not yet. ‘I’m sorry to wake you, Dan, but we’re all so wide awake here, and I just had to hear your voice.’
    â€˜What bomb, Claudia?’ Daniel persisted. ‘I don’t know anything.’
    She told him what little she knew. ‘It must be something big for Sam to get called out like this.’
    â€˜That’s what happens with cops, surely,’ he said.
    Plainly hoping to go back to sleep.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Claudia said. ‘I guess it was a shock. It made me want to check that my husband and children are OK.’
    â€˜We’re thousands of miles away,’ Daniel said, ‘so of course we’re OK.’
    â€˜Well, good,’ she said.
    She felt her hackles rising, wanted him to have said more, to have been happier to talk to her, whatever the hour, but then she reminded herself that their separation was entirely her fault.
    Except Daniel didn’t know that, and he hadn’t even asked after Grace.
    â€˜Go back to sleep,’ she said. ‘And tell the boys I love them.’
    â€˜How’s Grace doing?’ he asked.
    Guilt sent her spirit crumbling again.
    â€˜A little better,’ she said.
    â€˜That’s great,’ he said. ‘So when do you think you’ll be coming home?’
    â€˜I’m not sure,’ Claudia said. ‘Soon as I can.’
    â€˜Right,’ Daniel said. ‘So if it’s OK with you, I’m going to try and get a little more shut-eye before I have to get up and start our day for real.’
    â€˜Of course it’s OK,’ Claudia said. ‘I really am sorry.’
    â€˜No problem,’ Daniel said, and hung up.

22
    It was still too soon to say what had caused the explosion, but first light had turned up, in the flotsam in Biscayne Bay, the destroyed boat’s decal bearing its registration number. A Sunseeker 75 yacht, the most modest of a small fleet of yachts belonging to one Adrian Leehy, a big cheese music business guy with a part-time home on La Gorce Island.
    Leehy and his family were all safe and sound in New York City. The yacht – named Darryl for Mrs Leehy – had apparently been stolen from its mooring sometime between eleven p.m. Saturday night, when the housekeeper had last laid eyes on it before retiring, and around three thirty, half an hour before the explosion.
    No eyewitnesses to the theft, and though it had occurred on this island of immense wealth and private guard-gated security consciousness, it was too soon to say if the crime had been recorded on any surveillance system.
    Three reasons had been given for the rousing of all available personnel in Violent Crimes. One: the location of the explosion. Two: Adrian