The Unsung Hero by Suzanne Brockmann Page B

cream.”
    Oh, my God, had she really said that out loud?
    She had.
    For about a half a second, Tom looked completely surprised, but then he laughed. “Well, hey, there’s incentive.” He pointed toward the nearby marina parking lot. “Go,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
    She ran for her car.

    It was him.
    Right there in Home Depot on Route 1 in Baldwin’s Bridge.
    Tom had filled his shopping cart with cans of paint and rollers and was pushing it through the crowd toward the checkout when he saw him. The Merchant. Or at least it was the very same man he’d seen in Logan Airport by the luggage carousel. The man was pushing his own shopping cart to the exit, away from checkout number four.
    Tom got a brief but very clear look at his face before he turned the corner. It was him.
    Brown hair shot with gray, weak chin, slightly stooped shoulders as if he were trying to make himself shorter. It was definitely him.
    What the fuck was the Merchant doing here in Baldwin’s Bridge?
    Shopping. He had an entire cart filled with his purchases. Tom could see a roll of electrical wire sticking out of his bag.
    The hair on the back of his neck went straight up.
    The man responsible for the 1996 Paris embassy car-bombing was buying electrical wire.
    Tom left his cart right there, in the middle of an aisle, much to the displeasure of the shoppers around him. He deserted all his wayward thoughts about Kelly Ashton and whipped cream, too, as he pushed toward the same door the Merchant had used.
    He fought the throng, silently cursing the time it was taking, the precious seconds he was wasting. He broke into a run as he hit a less crowded area. Hitting the sidewalk and the glaring brightness of the day, he skidded to a stop, shielding his eyes with one hand and fighting his dizziness as he quickly scanned the parking lot.
    The Merchant was gone. The parking lot was busy, filled with cars, some pulling in, some pulling out. There were people walking to and from their vehicles, some with shopping carts, but none of them was the Merchant.
    Tom scanned the area again. Come on, come on. Stand up and show yourself. No one could have pushed his cart out to a car, loaded up the trunk, and been inside it that quickly. Unless. . .
    There were four cars heading for the entrance onto Route 1, a number of empty shopping carts left forlornly on the sidewalk outside the exit door. If the Merchant had had a car waiting for him, if he’d loaded it up right here from the sidewalk . . .
    Tom looked again at the cars at the far end of the huge parking lot, waiting for the light to change so they could pull out onto the busy main road. Two were white subcompacts, one was a boxy red minivan, the last a blue sedan—probably a Ford Taurus. They were all too far away for him to see the license plates, and as he watched, the light changed and they all pulled away.
    Shit.
    Tom went back inside through the exit doors, back to the clerk working cash register four. She was an older woman, a senior citizen, probably looking to make a few extra bucks to bolster her Social Security checks. She was currently ringing up a whole cartful of plumbing supplies, her movements quick and sure. She glanced at Tom and he made himself smile at her despite the fact that his heart was still pounding. She looked as if she’d be able to multitask, so he didn’t wait for her to finish.
    “Excuse me, ma’am.” He read her name tag. “Mae. There was a man who was just in here—he bought a whole cart of stuff? Some electrical wire? . . .”
    She looked at him again, one eyebrow raised this time as she kept working, holding the various types of pipe and connections up to the scanner. “You’ve just described nearly every customer I’ve helped since my coffee break at ten-thirty.”
    She smiled at her own small joke and Tom took a steadying breath. Okay. She seemed friendly. At the very least she was good-natured and intelligent.
    “This was just a few minutes ago,” he