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Quinn cast him a quick look of disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Sorry.” Andy’s smile was both rueful and apologetic. “You grew up to be a secret agent, and I grew up to be a museum curator.”

“I mean, you must be kidding if you thinkIthink you’re not…whatever it is you think you should be right now. That you’re calmly sitting here after the night we’ve had, says a lot to me.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Yeah, well what? I’m not looking for a daredevil in my…” Quinn cleared his throat. “Art-recovery business.”

Andy studied Quinn’s profile. He felt a surge of unexpected affection, his mouth tugged into a reluctant smile. He turned his head to stare out the window.

“I’m not sure there’s much more we can do in Bangor,” Quinn said after another minute or two of driving down residential streets as they headed back toward the highway.

Andy’s heart sank. “We’re giving up?”

Quinn looked surprised. “Giving up? No. We got the answers we were looking for.”

Andy said blankly, “We did?”

“Well, not all the answers, but we’ve got a good chunk of the puzzle now. We can work the rest of it out from here.”

“What is Paul Robie?” Andy said, phrasing it as aJeopardy!style answer. A million years ago that had been a joke between them.

Quinn’s mouth curved in a grim smile. “Paul Robie is correct, Andrew. Robie was stealing—or attempting to steal—from the Whittakers, not realizing that they were part of a much larger operation.”

“In addition to their local jewel-fencing sideline.”

“Exactly.” Quinn’s tone was approving. “June Whittaker caught him and fired him. But when that last shipment of gems never turned up, Robie was suspected of somehow expropriating them. The situation was serious enough for Sirius himself to get involved, which, frankly, is a BFD. Sirius has always been scrupulous about staying clear of the action—and the long arm of the law. But it seems he showed up to deliver an ultimatum to Robie. Return the gems or else.”

“Except Robie doesn’t have the gems.”

“Which is a problem. Particularly for Robie. Naturally—because it’s what he’d do in their place—he suspected the Whittakers of grabbing the opportunity to steal the gems and put the blame on him.”

Andy felt queasy at the thought of what had apparently been open season on the Whittakers: June Whittaker dying in a hit-and-run, and then a few days later Mr. Whittaker shot to death cowering in his closet.

“You think Sirius killed them? Or had them killed?”

“I think Robie killed them. Murder isn’t Sirius’s default. Not if he can avoid it. For one thing, it attracts too much attention. He’s not going to appreciate Robie’s wholesale slaughter of everyone he comes in contact with. But Robie’s desperate. Coming after you at the cottage is proof of that. He’s grabbing at straws. I think he’ll do whatever he has to get those gems for Sirius.”

Andy said slowly, “When the Whittaker angle didn’t pan out, he worked backward to Safehaven.”

“Yep.”

“But by now Sirius knows Robie doesn’t have the gems.”

Quinn nodded. “Yep. And he knows you don’t have the gems. But that won’t stop him from applying pressure to encourage you both to come up with them.”

Nice. But yes, Andy could follow Sirius’s logic.

“So Robie broke into Time in a Bottle and attacked Uncle C.” It wasn’t a question. Andy was thinking the same thing.

“I think so. I’d like to get a physical description of Robie before I try to convince Chief Millard of it, though. If Robie turns out to be five feet tall and stocky, he’s not our guy. But as of right now…”

Andy said quietly, “And Robie killed Marcus?”

Quinn’s lips thinned. “If Robie is the intruder who attacked Cutty, well, I don’t think we have multiple people breaking into Time in a Bottle.”

“Actually… Robie, Marcus, you. It was starting to get crowded in there.”