No Mark Upon Her

now-familiar face in the photo, and he remembered how he’d always thought her hands remarkably delicate for a tall woman—that is, if you didn’t notice the calluses from the oar grips on her palms. “This guy—he was bowside—barely made the second boat. But he always thought he deserved better than he got, and he was convinced he should have been in the Blue Boat. He bitched and moaned for weeks, until Freddie told him to shut up and get on with his job.
    “He kept quiet after that, and I didn’t think any more of it until it was too late.”
    “What happened?” Kieran had sat up, interested.
    “They usually keep the crew pretty sequestered before the race, but some of the wives and girlfriends were invited to a press party the day before. The guys weren’t supposed to be drinking, it was all squash and lemonade and everyone on the very proper sportsmanlike up-and-up, with some fancy canapés to make up for the lack of alcohol.
    “But other people were being served drinks, and when I saw him”—she tapped the photo— “switch his glass with the guy rowing the same position in the Blue Boat, I thought it was just a prank, maybe a bit of vodka in the lemonade or something.”
    She’d looked up at Kieran then, her hazel eyes flashing with an anger that hadn’t faded. “Until the next day, when the Blue Boat went out with him in it. I couldn’t believe it.
    “I’d got a place on one of the following launches, cold and rough as it was that day. Not very pleasant, but I wanted to see Freddie win. It meant so much to him, to all the crew. They’d worked so hard, and they were all my friends.”
    “What happened to the guy who was supposed to be in the Blue Boat?” Kieran asked.
    “Ill, the rumors were. Maybe food poisoning, oysters on the canapés at the press party the day before. Later, I found out he was so dehydrated that they had to send him to hospital. But,” Becca added, her voice dripping sarcasm, “what unexpected good fortune for his replacement. Except that his replacement couldn’t bloody do the job. He wasn’t fit enough, he wasn’t good enough, and by the halfway mark you could see him weighing down the boat like a lead anchor. Oxford never had a chance. But he got his sodding Blue.”
    “What happened afterwards? You reported it?”
    She’d shaken her head. “No. And I’ve never forgiven myself. But his fiancée was one of my best friends. We rowed together, we were going into the police together after uni. When I told her what I’d seen, she said I had to be mistaken. She begged me not to say anything, for her sake, and after all, I had no proof.
    “Not that I’d have needed any. Hearsay would have been enough to damn him forever in the sacred community of Old Blues.” The note of derision was unmistakable.
    “So you didn’t tell? Not even your ex-husband?”
    “No. Not after I’d promised my friend.” Becca had shivered and drawn the blanket up to her chin. The anger drained from her face. “But it didn’t matter that I didn’t tell. It ruined our friendship anyway—the secret ate away at it like a cancer. Obligation made her hate me more in the end than outright betrayal would have. Betrayal, maybe, we could have got past.”
    “Why tell me now?” Kieran had asked, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face.
    “Because—” She’d shrugged, her brow furrowed. “Because you don’t know them. You don’t belong in that world. That”—she’d smiled, touching his cheek—“is a good thing.” Then, she’d trailed her fingers along his bare arm, making him shiver in turn, but her eyes had still been far away. “And because,” she’d added slowly, “I needed to remind myself that secrets kept only fester.”
    The image of Becca, for a few moments so vivid, faded, and Kieran sat alone in the cold cottage, holding nothing but a photo.
    A photo of a man who had killed Becca and tried to kill him, he was certain now. But if this man had been willing to murder Becca to keep his secret, why had he waited all these years? What had changed?
    Thunder cracked, and the wind blew a fusillade of rain against the old cottage windows. Kieran jerked and the photo slid from his hands, bouncing on the faded carpet that covered the floorboards in front of the sofa.
    But there’d been another sound, beneath the drumming of the rain—or had there? He couldn’t pinpoint it. His ears were ringing now, his head pounding, his palms sweating, the storm bringing