The Witness

14

Waking up with Brooks, making breakfast, simply dealing with the jolt in her routine, threw Abigail off schedule. He’d taken his time with breakfast. He always seemed to have something to talk about, and keeping up jumbled her thoughts out of order. By the time he’d left, she was more than an hour behind on her plans for the day, not to mention the time she’d lost the night before.

Now instead of arriving at the market as soon as it opened, she needed to complete her research and documentation of the Volkovs’ Chicago–to–Atlantic City money-laundering operation. If she didn’t get the data to her FBI connection within the next two days, they’d miss the month’s major delivery.

These things took time, she thought, as she settled down to work. Time to gather, to decrypt, to correlate, to send. Her information had to be pure and absolutely accurate.

And maybe this time something would stick to Ilya. Maybe this time he’d pay. Or at least, as before, she’d have caused him trouble, frustration, money and men.

In her fantasies her work brought the Volkovs to ruin, exposed them, stripped them clean. Korotkii, Ilya—all of them—spent the rest of their lives in prison. Keegan and Cosgrove were discovered, disgraced and convicted.

And when she let those fantasies spin out, somehow they all knew she was responsible for making them pay.

Still, it wasn’t enough. Julie would always be dead at eighteen. John and Terry would always be murdered trying to keep her safe.

It was better to be realistic, and to do what she could whenever she could to chip away at their profits, their routines, their equilibrium.

She worked until afternoon before she was satisfied. Better to step away for an hour or two, she decided, and come back fresh for a last check of the data before she sent it in.

She’d do the marketing now, even though it was the wrong time of day. Just the wrong time. Then she’d come home, take Bert out for some exercise and training.

Then she’d recheck the data, program her series of bounces to her contact’s e-mail. After that, she’d do some hard-and-sweaty training of her own, as she’d want that physical outlet after completing her task.

With the evening free, she’d put a few hours into work on the virus she’d begun developing over the last eighteen months.

She changed her weapon, strapping on her more compact Glock, covered it with a hoodie. Soon the temperatures would rise too high for a jacket, and she’d have to use an ankle holster.

As she checked and reset her alarm, let Bert out to put him on guard, she considered acquiring a new gun. She could treat herself to some weapon research that evening.

The idea relaxed her, and she admitted she found it pleasant to drive into town in the afternoon sunlight, to watch the way that light played through the tender, unfurling leaves.

She caught glimpses of the delicate drape of toothwort, the bold yellow of trout lily catching the dappled sun along the stream bank just before the water took a quick, tumbling fall over rocks. Among those tender green leaves, wild plum added color and drama.

Everything seemed so fresh and new and hopeful. Spring revived, she thought, offered that new beginning of the cycle. It was her first full spring in this new place, this place she so much wanted to be her home.

Twelve years. Couldn’t it be enough? Couldn’t this be her place to stay? To plant her garden and tend it, watch it grow and harvest. To do her work, pay her debt—and just live.

Why should they find her here, in these hills, in this quiet? How could they ever connect Abigail Lowery with that young girl who’d been so foolish, so careless—and such an easy target?

As long as she stayed prepared, stayed vigilant, remained unexceptional—invisible—she could make a home and a life.

Stay safe. As long as she stayed safe, she could continue to chip away at the Volkovs and pay that debt.

She liked the town so much, she thought, as she turned onto Shop Street. She loved the pretty streets and busy shops, the color sliding into it all with pots and barrels of sunstruck daffodils and candy-colored tulips. Tourists added more movement, strangers passing through. Some very likely returned, another holiday or short visit. But they came for the quiet, the landscape, the hiking, the local lore and crafts. Not for nightclubs and urban action, the sort of entertainment that lured men like Ilya.

Her confidence remained high that she’d never see him or anyone connected to him strolling along the streets here, fishing in the rivers, hiking in the hills.

And surely if anyone from the U.S. Marshals, the FBI, even the Chicago police, visited here, she wouldn’t be recognized. She was out of place, and a dozen years older, her hair a different color and style.

If they looked, they might see. But there was no reason to look for Elizabeth Fitch here in the pretty tourist town in the Ozarks.

If the day came, she knew how to run, how to change, how to bury herself in another place.

But it wouldn’t be today, she promised herself, as she parked near the market. And every day it wasn’t today was a gift.

She got out of the car, hit the key to lock it. Even as she heard the lock click into place, she saw Brooks crossing the street toward her.

She didn’t know what to do with the quick rise of her pulse, the little flutter of … something in her belly. He even walked as if he had all the time in the world, she thought, and still managed to cover ground quickly. He stood beside her before she could decide what to do, or say.

“This is either really good timing or really good luck.” He took her hand—he was always touching her—and just covered her with his smile.

“I’m going to the market.”

“Yeah, I figured. Take a walk with me first. You’re just what I need.”

“For what?”

“In general, let’s say. Rough morning, and I haven’t shaken it all the way off.”

“I need supplies.”

“Got any appointments later?”

“Appointments?” People were looking at them. She could feel the glances on the back of her neck. “No.”

“Good. Let’s walk down toward the park. I’m taking half an hour. You don’t usually go shopping this late in the afternoon.”

“I like mornings.” But she’d have to mix it up more, she realized. Routines should never be noticed.

“Do anything interesting this morning?”

Somehow they were walking, and he still had her hand. What was she supposed to do about that? “I’m sorry, what?”

“This morning, did you do anything interesting?”

She thought of money laundering, Russian mobs, the FBI. “Not particularly.”

“Now you ask if I did anything.”

“Oh. All right. Did you?”

“I spent a lot of it being yelled at or lectured to. As expected, Missy came in to claim she’d tripped, and wanted me to release Ty. She wasn’t happy with the charges against him, or the consequences of them. Now that he’s sober, Ty’s actually taking it better than she is.”

When Brooks lifted a hand in a wave to someone across the street, Abigail fought back a wince.

This was not being invisible.

“After she finished yelling at me,” Brooks continued, “she did a lot of crying. When I let them talk to each other, they both did a lot of crying. After that, she hunted up and hauled in a lawyer, one who’s been a pissant his entire life. That’s where the lecturing came into my day. He seems to feel I’m exceeding my authority by offering the rehab and counseling in lieu of a trial and possible jail time.”

“It isn’t within your authority to set a plea bargain.”

“You’re both right, so I informed the pissant that was fine. Ty could stay put until we went before the judge, held a bail hearing and so on. And how he could risk spending the next several years in jail.

“How you doing, Ms. Harris?” he called out to a tiny woman watering a tub of mixed bulbs outside Read More Books.

“I’m doing, Brooks. How about you?”

“Can’t complain. Where was I?” he asked Abigail.

She could feel the tiny woman’s eyes on her as she continued down the sidewalk, hand in hand with Brooks.

“You told the pissant lawyer Ty could risk spending the next several years in jail. I really need to—”

“That’s right. So, at that point, Missy and Ty started yelling at each other. Personally, I don’t understand people who stay together when they’ve got so much animosity and contempt for each other they can call each other those kind of names. But Ty got worked up enough to turn it on me, vow to finish what he started last night and kick my ass.”

“It all sounds dramatic and distressing.”

“Can’t say otherwise. Ty’s vow didn’t please the pissant, as it made his claim of diminished capacity or whatever the hell he was going for break apart like rotten lumber under a hammer. He was less pleased yet when Ty reached through the bars and got a hand around his pissant throat.

“Hey, Caliope. Those roses look mighty pretty.”

A woman in a long, colorful skirt, a huge straw hat and flowered gardening gloves waved from her yard. “I knew you were going to say that.”

He laughed. “Alma’s daughter. She’s a psychic.”

Abigail started to explain how doubtful it was that the lady with the gorgeous rosebushes had psychic ability, but Brooks was already continuing the story.

“I will admit my reflexes might have been just a tad slow pulling Ty off the pissant, due to all the yelling and lecturing.”

Her head might’ve been spinning a little, but she followed well enough. “You let your prisoner choke his lawyer, and found it satisfying, as you’d have liked to choke him yourself.”

Brooks gave her arm a swing and grinned at her. “Though it doesn’t reflect well on me, that’s about the truth of it. The pissant quit then and there—and Ty’s sentiments toward him, delivered at the top of his lungs as said pissant retreated, were suggestions of self-gratification I don’t believe the pissant can manage. Missy ran out after the pissant, screaming and sobbing. And as a result of drama and distress, I’m taking half an hour with a pretty woman.”

“I believe there are people who think the rules, or the law, shouldn’t apply to their particular situation because they’re poor or they’re rich, they’re sad or sick or sorry. Or whatever justification most fits their individual makeup and circumstance.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“But the court system often gives credence to that attitude by making deals to those who’ve broken the rules and the law for just those reasons.”

“I can’t argue that, either, but the law, and the system, have to breathe some.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Law needs some room, some flexibility, to consider the human factor, the circumstances.” At the toot-toot of a horn, he glanced toward the street, waved at a man with a huge black beard driving a rusty pickup. “The man who steals a loaf of bread,” Brooks continued without missing a beat, “because he’s starving and desperate shouldn’t be treated the same as the one who steals it planning to sell it at a profit.”

“Perhaps. But if the law had more uniformity, those who steal for profit would have fewer opportunities to repeat the offense.”

He grinned down at her in a way that made her wonder if she’d said something charming or foolish. “Ever think about being a cop?”

“Not exactly. I really should go back and—”

“Brooks! Bring that girl on over here.”

With a jolt, Abigail swung around, stared at the house with the dragons and mermaids and fairies. And saw Brooks’s mother climbing down a run of scaffolding. She wore paint-splattered bib overalls and paint-splattered sneakers. A bright red kerchief covered her hair.

The minute her feet hit the ground, the puppy who’d begun to yip and dance at her voice leaped so high he executed a midair flip before he tumbled into a sprawl.

The woman laughed, scooped him up as she unsnapped his lead.

“Come on!” she called again. “Come on and introduce Abigail to your little brother.”

“Her favorite son right now, too,” Brooks told Abigail. “Let’s say hey.”

“I really should get back to the market.”

“Haven’t I been yelled at and lectured to enough for one day?” He sent Abigail a pitiful, pained look. “Have some pity, will you?”

She couldn’t be invisible if people noticed her, she thought, and it was worse if she made it obvious that she wanted to be invisible. Though she wished Brooks would let go of her hand—it seemed too intimate—she crossed the short distance to the yard of what she thought of as the magic house.

“I was hoping you’d drop by for a visit,” Sunny said to Abigail.

“Actually, I was—”

“I talked her into a walk before she did her marketing.”

“No point wasting a day like this indoors. Meet Plato.”

“He’s very handsome.”

“And a rascal. I do love a rascal,” Sunny said, nuzzling the puppy, then Brooks. “He’s smart, too.”

“Me or the dog?”

Sunny laughed, patted Brooks on the cheek. “Both. This one sits when he’s told, but he won’t stay put yet. Watch. Plato, now, you sit.”

Sunny set the dog down, kept a hand on his rump as she dug in her pocket for a tiny dog treat with her free hand. “Sit now. There you go, a genius!” She let the dog gobble the treat when his butt hit the grass.

And he was up and jumping, wriggling two seconds later, then scrabbled his paws on Abigail’s shins.

“We’re working on manners.”

“He’s just a baby yet.” Unable to resist, Abigail crouched down, smiling when Plato tried to crawl on her knees, laughing when he leaped and licked. “He has happy eyes.” She closed his jaws gently when he tried to nip and chew. “None of that now. Yes, you’re very handsome and happy.”

As if overcome by the compliment, he flopped down, rolled over to expose his belly.

“And he has good taste,” Sunny remarked, as Abigail gave Plato a belly rub. “Both my boys do. You have happy eyes yourself today, Abigail.”

“I like dogs.” But she looked at the house, shifted the focus. “Your house is so interesting and colorful. It must be rewarding to share your art with whoever passes by.”

“Keeps me off the streets and out of trouble. Mostly.”

“It’s wonderful. I’ve enjoyed seeing what you’ve done and continue to do since I moved here. I like that it doesn’t make sense.”

When Sunny laughed, Abigail felt the heat rise up the back of her neck. “I didn’t say that correctly. I meant—”

“I know exactly what you meant, and you’re exactly right. I like that, too. Y’all come on in. I made some peach sun tea this morning, and I’ve got some of those ginger cookies with the lemon icing you like, Brooks.”

“I could use a cookie.” Reaching down, he skimmed a hand over Abigail’s hair.

“Thank you very much, but I need to get to the market, and home to my own dog.” Abigail picked up the puppy as she rose, handing his wriggling body to Sunny. “It was nice to see you again, and to meet Plato.”

She moved as quickly as she could, trying to judge the line between busy and running away.

They’d charmed her, seduced her. The man, the mother, even the little dog. She’d let herself be swept along. Conversation, invitations, pie, sex.

People had seen her walking with Brooks. Holding hands with him. Talking to his mother. And people would talk about it. Her.

Just because she wasn’t part of a social network didn’t mean she was oblivious to how it worked.

She couldn’t be the unexceptional, hardly noticed woman who lived on the fabric of Bickford if she became part of the fabric through Brooks.

Why wasn’t he behaving per the basic male profile? They’d had sex. He’d conquered. Now he should move on to the next challenge.

When someone grabbed her arm, she reacted without thought. Pure instinct had her swinging around, leading with a backfist fired by waist and hip, the follow-through of jab already primed.

Brooks slapped a hand on her fist a half-inch before it connected, had to brace, push back.

“Whoa.” He managed, barely, to block the jab as well. “Excellent reflexes, Xena.”

“I’m sorry.” The simple trip to the market took on the quality of a nightmare. “You startled me.”

“At least. Fortunately, my reflexes are pretty good. Otherwise I’d be sporting another bruise on my face.”

“I’m very sorry.” She spoke stiffly now. “You came up from behind and grabbed me.”

“Got it.” As if to soothe, he stroked a hand down her hair. “Baby, you’re going to have to tell me who hurt you eventually.”

“Don’t talk to me that way. This isn’t going the way it’s supposed to. You had sex.”

“I think that’s we, and yeah. Why don’t you clue me in on how it’s supposed to go?”

“You’re supposed to go away.” Agitated, she pushed a hand through her hair, glanced around. “I can’t discuss this now, here. I don’t understand why it needs to be discussed. You’re not supposed to be interested now.”

“For someone as smart as you are, you can be thick as a brick. I had sex with you because I’m interested. And since we slept together, I’m more interested.”

“Why? No, don’t answer. You always have answers. You confuse me. I don’t want to feel like this.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know! I need to go to the market, and I need to go home, and I need to finish my work, and—”

“You need to take a breath.” He laid his hands on her shoulders now. “Take a breath, Abigail.”

“I need to take a breath.” She closed her eyes, fighting the panic attack. Oh God, oh God, why hadn’t she stayed home?

“Good, just take another breath. Take it easy, that’s the way. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

“Don’t tell me what we’re going to do. There’s not supposed to be any we.”

“Apparently, there is. How about here’s what I suggest we do? Why don’t we go over to my office. You can sit down, have some water.”

She shook her head. “I have to go to the market.”

“Okay, you go on to the market. Later, should be around six or six-thirty, I’ll come out. I’ll bring a couple of steaks and grill them up. We’ll have some dinner, see if we can sort this out.”

“We don’t need to have dinner or sort anything out. I just need to—”

Very gently, very quietly, he laid his lips on hers. When he lifted his head, her breath shuddered out.

“I’ve got the sense that’s what you don’t want to feel. But you do, and I do. So we ought to sort it out.”

“You won’t go away.”

“Let’s see how it sorts out. If it comes down to that, I’ll go away. I’m not going to hurt you, Abigail, and I’m going to do my best not to make you unhappy. But when two people feel something, they ought to respect that enough to try to figure it out.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, honey, I don’t. But I want to. Let’s get you to the market.”

“I don’t want you to walk me back there. I want to be alone.”

“All right. I’ll see you tonight.”

One more conversation, she told herself, as she hurried away. One more where she’d remain calm and rational. She’d simply explain that she wasn’t interested in or inclined toward a relationship. Her work kept her too busy for the distractions of dinners and company and overnight guests.

She would be firm; he would be sensible.

They’d end whatever this was that should never have begun amicably.

And everything would be quiet again.

As soon as she got home, she’d practice what she’d say and how she’d say it.

She’d be prepared.

She put off the practice, reminding herself her priority was, and would always be, the work. Maybe compartmentalizing proved a little trickier than she expected, but she carefully reviewed all the data she’d gathered, made a few small adjustments. And composed her e-mail.

Information you may find useful. Thank you for your attention and any action deemed appropriate.

Tvoi drug

Using the system she’d already devised for the message, she routed it through various locations, shut down the temporary account. As she often did, she thought she would have enjoyed communicating with her FBI contact, exchanging thoughts and opinions, but she had to settle for gleaning information from the occasional memo or file she hacked.

After shutting down, she locked her copy of the data away.

“We’ll walk,” she told Bert. “I’ll practice what I need to say to Brooks while we do. Tomorrow, everything goes back to the way it should be. We have to work for a living, too, right?”

As she pocketed her keys, Bert rubbed his body against her leg. “I met another dog today. He’s very sweet. I think you’d like him.”

When she stepped outside, Bert fell in at her heels. “You’d like a friend. Next year I’ll get a puppy. You’ll help me train him, and he’ll be good company for both of us. That’s all we need, isn’t it? It’s all we need.”

With Bert, she walked around to look at her young vegetable garden. “It needs some tending, and it’s time to think about putting in some more flowers. Past time. I’ve been distracted, but we’ll get back on schedule. I need to do more work on the virus. One day, Bert, when the time’s right and I’ve perfected it, we’re going to infect the Volkovs like a plague.”

She sighed. “But I can’t think about that now. I have to think about this situation.”

She unzipped her hoodie as they moved into the woods, laid her hand briefly on the butt of her gun.

The wild plums popped, fragrant petals among the tender haze of green, and the willow someone had planted years before dipped its lacy fingers toward the busy water of the stream. Wood violets spread a carpet of rich purple.

In the quiet, in the scent, in the color, she calmed as they walked through sunlight and shade.

Quivering in anticipation, Bert shot her a look, and on her go joyfully scrambled off the slope of the bank to splash in the water. It made her laugh, as always, to watch the big bruiser of a dog play like a toddler in a wading pool.

She gave him his moment while she scanned the woods. Birds called, a musical lift accompanied by the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker hunting for lunch. The sun through the filter of young leaves cast a dreamy light.

It would brighten as they walked, she knew, and the view would open to the hills. She loved looking out from the high ground, studying the rise and fall of the land. And here, in soft light and shadow, with the birdcall and the mutter of the stream, the splashing dog—here, she thought, was more home than the house.

She’d buy a bench. Yes, she’d go online later and find something organic and woodsy. Something that looked as if it might have grown there. Of course, benches didn’t grow, but it would have that illusion. And she could sit where the world opened to the hills, while her dog played in the stream. Maybe one day she’d feel secure enough to bring a book. Sit on the bench in her woods with the hills outstretched beyond, and read while Bert splashed.

But she had to stop thinking about the future. She had to deal with the right now, or the coming evening.

“All right.” She signaled the dog, kept her distance as he raced out to shake a storm of water in the air. “‘Brooks,’” she began, while they walked, “‘while I find you attractive and certainly enjoyed having sex with you, I’m not in a position to pursue a relationship’—no, ‘I’m not willing to engage in a relationship.’ That’s firmer. ‘I’m not willing to engage in a relationship.’ He’ll ask why. That’s his pattern, so I have to have an answer ready. ‘My work is my priority, and involves not only a great deal of time but requires my focus.’”

She repeated it, trying different inflections.

“It should be enough, but he’s tenacious. I should say something about appreciating his interest. I don’t want to make him angry or upset, or to damage his pride. ‘I appreciate your interest. It’s flattering.’ Flattering is good. Yes.”

She took a long breath, relieved the panic didn’t come again.

“Yes,” she repeated. “I could say, ‘I’m flattered by your interest.’ And I am. It’s easier to sound sincere if you are sincere. ‘I’m flattered by your interest, and I’ve enjoyed our conversations.’ Should I bring up the sex again? God. God! How do people do this? Why do they? It’s all so complicated and fraught.”

She lifted her face to the sun, breathing in the warmth and light as she came out of the trees. And looking out over the hills, she wondered. So many people out there, with so many connections, all those interpersonal relationships. Parent, child, sibling, friend, lover, teacher, employer, neighbor.

How did they all do it? How did they mix and mingle and juggle all those needs and dynamics? All those expectations and feelings?

It was easier to live quietly and alone, with your own schedule, your own goals, meeting your own expectations and needs, without constantly being required to add others to the mix.

It’s what her mother had done, and certainly Susan Fitch was successful on all fronts. Yes, the daughter had been a disappointment in the end, but then again, that’s what happened when you added another individual.

“I’m not my mother,” Abigail murmured, as she laid a hand on Bert’s head. “I don’t want to be. But even if I wanted relationships and complications, I can’t. It’s not possible. So, let’s try it all again. ‘While I find you attractive,’” she began.

She worked on the content, tone, structure of the speech, even the body language, for nearly an hour, fine-tuning it as she and Bert walked home again.

Assuming the discussion and dinner should be civilized, she opened a bottle of Shiraz. And had a half-glass to steady her nerves. By six-thirty she had to order herself not to pace, or pour another half-glass of wine.

When he drove up at six-forty-five, her nerves had taken the time to build again. She repeated her prepared speech in her head, using it to calm herself as she went to the door.

15

He really was pleasant to look at, she thought. It might take some time for the chemical reaction she experienced around him to dissipate.

“Sorry, I’m late.” With a grocery bag tucked in his arm, he walked to the porch. “I had a couple things come up.”

“It’s all right.”

“Hey, Bert.” Casually, Brooks rubbed a hand over Bert’s head as he walked into the house, then he shifted his angle, laid his lips on Abigail’s. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine, thank you. I can take the bag to the kitchen.”

“I’ve got it.” He nodded toward the wine on the counter as he set the bag down. “Nice.”

“You said steak. This should go well with red meat.”

“Good, because I’ve got a couple of fat New York strips in here.”

“You didn’t say what you wanted to have with the steaks, so I wasn’t sure what to fix.”

“Nothing. I’ve got it.” He pulled out two boat-sized potatoes and a bag of salad mix.

“What is that?” Abigail tapped the bag.

“Salad. It’s a bag o’ salad.”

“Bag o’ salad.” Despite the nerves, her lips curved. “I have plenty of fresh vegetables for salad.”

“That you have to chop up and so on. The beauty of bag o’ salad is it’s already done. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get the potatoes on.”

She didn’t think she should sit. She hadn’t practiced sitting down. “Would you like to have our discussion before dinner?”

“Do we only get one?”

“I’m sorry?”

He glanced back at her as he took the potatoes to the sink to scrub. “Only one discussion? How about we talk before dinner, during, even after.”

“Well, yes, of course. But the discussion of the situation. Should we have that now, or would you prefer to wait until dinner?”

“What situation?”

“You and I … This social connection. The interpersonal relationship.”

He set the potatoes on the counter, and with a smile so warm it made something inside her ache, he took her face in his hands. “Interpersonal relationship. I’m next door to crazy about you.” He kissed her, strong, long, until the ache spread. “Would you mind pouring me some of that wine?”

“I … yes. No, I mean, I don’t mind pouring the wine. We need to discuss—”

“You know, ‘discuss’ sounds like we’re going to get into politics.” He frowned at the oven for a moment, then set it to bake the potatoes. “Why don’t we stick with talk?”

“All right. We need to talk.”

“About our social connection and interpersonal relationship.”

In reflex, her back stiffened. “You’re making fun of me.”

“A little. These are going to take a little while. Maybe we could go sit down. I could build us a fire.”

Too cozy, she thought. “Brooks.”

“So you can say it.”

“Say it?”

“My name. It’s about the first time you’ve used it.”

That couldn’t be true. Could it? “You’re confusing me. I haven’t even started and you’re confusing me.”

“You’re worried about what’s happening between us. Is that right?”

Relieved to begin, she took a breath. “While I find you attractive, and I enjoyed having sex with you, I’m not willing to engage in a relationship.”

“You already have.”

“I—what?”

“This is a relationship, Abigail, so you’ve already engaged in one.”

“I didn’t intend to. I’m not willing to continue to engage in a relationship.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m flattered by your interest, and I’ve enjoyed our conversations. However, my work requires a great deal of time, and complete focus. I prefer not to be distracted, and believe you require a more amenable and socially oriented companion.”

He took a sip of wine. “Did you practice that?” He pointed at her. “You did.”

Every inch of her body stiffened with mortification. “I fail to see why the fact that I wanted to be certain I articulated my thoughts and opinions clearly is amusing to you.”

The arctic tone of her voice did nothing to dim his grin. “I guess you’d have to be standing on my side of the room.”

“That’s just another way to say point of view, which is your rationale for a great deal.”

“Yeah, it counts a lot to my way of thinking. Abigail, I figure you had to work on that little speech awhile, because most of it’s just bullshit.”

“If you’re incapable of having a rational discussion, you should go.”

Wineglass in hand, body angled back to the counter, he remained as relaxed as she was rigid. “You weren’t planning a discussion. You were going to orate your practiced speech, then I was just supposed to mosey along. If you want me out, Abigail, then I think you’re going to have to tell me what’s bothering you, what you’re afraid of, and what you feel.”

“I said I wasn’t interested.”

“But you’re not being truthful. I don’t want to be with a woman who doesn’t want to be with me. So if that’s the case here, tell me, give me enough courtesy and respect to explain it, and I’ll grill up the steaks. We’ll have a decent meal, and I’ll go. That’s about as fair as I can make it.”

“I told you. My work—”

“Abigail.”

There was a world of patience in the word, and it lit a fire under her.

“Why doesn’t anything go the way it’s supposed to with you? Why can’t you respond logically? I can’t have a discussion with someone who refuses to be rational.”

“At the risk of setting you off, from where I’m standing I’m being about as rational as anyone could.”

“Then stop.”

“Stop being rational?”

She threw out her hands. “I can’t think!”

“Answer this. Do you have feelings for me?”

“I don’t want to.”

“I take that as a yes, qualified. Why don’t you want to?”

“I don’t know what to do with them. With you. With this. I just want it to be quiet again. I just want my routine. I think that’s reasonable.” Her voice pitched toward panic again, but she couldn’t stop it from rising. “It’s not quiet when you’re here, and everything’s off schedule and unpredictable. I can’t even go to the market because then I’m walking with you and talking to your mother and playing with a puppy, and your mother’s offering me peach sun tea. I just want to be left alone. I know how to be alone.”

“Let’s get some air.”

“I don’t want air!”

“Honey, you’re shaking, and you’re having trouble getting your breath. Let’s just take a minute, get some air, settle it down.”

“Don’t take care of me! I’ve been taking care of myself since I was seventeen. I don’t need anyone.”

Brooks unlocked the back door. “Come on, Bert.” And, taking Abigail’s hand, pulled her outside. “If that’s the case, then it’s long past time you had someone willing to look out for you now and again who gives a goddamn. Now, fucking breathe.”

“Don’t swear at me.”

“Breathe, and I won’t have to.”

She pulled away from him, leaned against the porch post. Tears came along with the breath, so she pressed her face to the wood.

“You want me on my knees, that’s the way to do it.” Rubbing his hands over his face, Brooks dug for composure. “Abigail, if I’m responsible for making you this unhappy, you’ve got my word I’ll leave you be. But I wish to God you’d let me help you.”

“You can’t help me.”

“How do you know?”

She turned her face toward his. “Why do you care?”

“I’d say you haven’t had enough social interaction or interpersonal relationships if you don’t understand why anyone would.”

“You’re making fun of me again.”

“Not this time.” He didn’t touch her, but his voice was a gentle stroke over raw nerves. “I’ve got feelings for you. I haven’t sorted them all out yet, but I like having them.”

She shook her head. “It’s just a chemical reaction.”

“So you’ve said. I took chemistry in high school. Sucked at it. Am I making you this unhappy?”

She wanted to say yes, because she believed he’d go and stay away. But she couldn’t lie when he looked in her eyes. “No. It makes me happy when I see you. I don’t want to be happy because of you.”

“So being happy makes you unhappy.”

“I know that doesn’t sound rational, but it’s accurate. I’m sorry I behaved that way.”

“Don’t apologize.”

He dug into his pocket, came up with a folded blue bandanna. “Here you go, now.”

Despising herself, she sniffled. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to ask you a question. If you’re not ready to answer, say so. But don’t lie to me. Is this about a husband, ex-husband, boyfriend, something on those lines, who hurt you?”

“No. No. There’s no one like that. No one’s hurt me.”

“You got hurt all over you. Are you saying no one physically hurt you?”

“Yes.” Calmer, she dabbed at her eyes with the soft, faded cloth, then stared out at her greenhouse. “I can take care of myself. I don’t have husbands or boyfriends or relationships.”

“You’ve got one now—the relationship.” Stepping over, he took her chin in one hand, brushed at the drying tears on her cheeks with the other. “You’re going to have to put that big brain of yours to work on how to deal with it.”

“I’m not like other people, Brooks.”

“You’re unique. Why shouldn’t you be?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand.”

How much could she tell him? If he understood, just enough, maybe it would end it.

“I want my wine.”

“I’ll get it.” Before she could comment, he’d stepped back inside. She took the moment to align her thoughts. No point in wishing for more time to prepare, she told herself.

“I don’t need you to do things for me,” she began, when he came out with their wine. “It’s important to me that I do for myself.”

“The wine? Seriously?” He took his own to the porch steps, sat. “Manners are important, too. Simple courtesies. My mother’s a very capable, independent woman, but I’d’ve gotten her glass of wine. From what I’ve seen, what I know, you’re as capable as they come. That doesn’t mean I can’t do you a courtesy.”

“It’s stupid.” A little lost, she looked down at the cloth, turned it in her hands. “I hate being stupid. And it wasn’t what I was going to say, anyway.”

“Why don’t you sit down here and say what you’re going to say?”

She hesitated, then signaled to Bert that he could go into the yard, and sat.

“I am capable of most things, but I don’t believe I’m capable of maintaining a relationship.”

“Because?”

“When my mother decided she wanted a child, she researched donors.”

“So she wasn’t involved with anyone.”

“No. No one she wanted to procreate with.”

Procreate, Brooks thought. That was a telling word.

“She’d reached a point in her life where she wanted a child. That’s not accurate,” Abigail decided. “She wanted an offspring, and she had very specific, very detailed, requirements for the donor. My mother is a very intelligent woman, and naturally she wanted to produce an intelligent … offspring. She required high intellect, good health, including family medical history. She had physical requirements, in appearance and body type, stamina.”

“I get the picture.”

“When she’d determined the donor, she scheduled the conception date, through artificial insemination, to correlate with her own personal and professional calendar. Naturally, she arranged the finest prenatal care available, and I was born through a scheduled cesarean section, and proved very healthy, of the proper weight and size. She had, of course, already arranged for a nurse, so I was given excellent care, and tested and examined regularly to be certain my development was strong.”

The birdsong, so happy, seemed out of place, as did the sudden jeweled whirl of a hummingbird toward a pot of scarlet dianthus.

“Do you know all this because you found out, or because she told you?”

“She told me. I always knew. The knowledge was part of my education. Education, along with my physical health, were priorities. My mother is exceptionally beautiful, and she had some disappointment in that while my features are pleasing enough, my coloring good, I didn’t reach the level in appearance she’d hoped for, but I made up for it with intellect and motor skills and retention. Overall, she was very satisfied.”

“Oh, baby.”

She hunched in when he put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“You’re just going to have to swallow that one.”

“I’m telling you this so you understand my basic genetic makeup. My mother, while satisfied with me on the whole, never loved me or wished to. She never accepted I might have my own goals or desires or plans. Hers, for me, were again very specific and detailed. For a very long time I thought she didn’t love me because I was lacking in some area, but I came to understand she simply didn’t love. She has no capacity or aptitude for love, and no skills at displaying affection. Factoring genetics and environment, I also lack the capacity. I may not have the skills for relationships, but I understand emotions and affection are primary needs in developing and maintaining them.”

Brooks thought, What a load of crap. But he structured his response more carefully. “Let me get this straight. Because your mother’s cold, selfish and appears to have all the finer feelings of a sand flea, you’re genetically predestined to be the same.”

“That’s very harsh.”

“I can be harsher.”

“There’s no need. When factoring both genetics and environment, what’s often termed nature and nurture—”

“I know what the hell it is.”

“Now you’re angry.”

“That’s a mild term for it, but not with you. Let me ask you something else. If you’re so genetically incapable of love and affection, how come you love that dog, and he loves you back. And don’t try to pass it off as training.”

“We need each other.”

“Need’s one part of it. If he got hurt or sick and couldn’t function as a guard dog, would you get rid of him?”

“Of course not.”

“Because it would be cold and selfish and downright mean, and you’re none of that. And because you love him.”

“He’s a dog, not a person. There are people who feel strongly for and about animals, and don’t have the same feelings for or about people.”

“You feel something for me.”

With no helpful answer, Abigail stared down into her wine.

“What about your father?”

“Donor.”

“Okay, what about the donor? If she didn’t tell you specifically who he was, you found out. You’re too smart to let that slide.”

“She wouldn’t give me his name or certain details. When I was twelve I … accessed the information.”

“She kept files.”

“My conclusion was—is—she felt it important to keep track of his health, any potential problem areas. So yes, she kept files. I hacked into them.”

“At twelve.”

“I’ve always had an interest in computers. He’s a physicist. Very successful and respected. He was in his early twenties when he donated, several years younger than my mother at the time.”

“Does he know about you?”

“No. It’s not done.”

“You could have contacted him.”

“Why? Why would I disrupt his life, his family? We have a biological connection and nothing more.”

“He has a family.”

“Yes, he married at thirty-one. At the time I accessed the information, he had one child and was expecting another. He has three children now. I’m not one of them. I’m the result of a donation.”

“Is he still married?”

“Yes.”

“So he can develop and maintain a relationship. You’ve got his genes, too.”

For a moment, a long moment, she watched the flight of the hummingbird—that sapphire blur—until it whizzed out of sight.

“Why would you want to be with someone whose skills and aptitude for personal connections are stunted?”

“Maybe I like the idea of watching them grow, and being part of it. Then there’s the fact I’m hung up on you. Factor those together.”

“There are other reasons I shouldn’t let this continue. I can’t tell you what they are.”

“Yet. I know you’re on the run from something, something that scares you enough you need that dog, all this security, all those guns. Whatever it is has you behind locks, actual and metaphorical. When you trust me enough, when you figure out that needing help isn’t the same as being weak and needy, you’ll tell me. But for now, I should fire up that grill.”

She got to her feet when he did. “How much of your interest in me is wondering what’s behind the locks?”

She needed honesty, maybe more than most, so he’d give her honesty. “It started out that way. I still wonder, partly because a cop always wonders. But mostly now? When you opened those locks, even a little, Abigail, you got me. You got me,” he repeated, taking her hand, pressing it to his heart.

She looked at her hand, felt that strong, steady beat. And let herself go, let herself lay her cheek there. When his arms came around her, she squeezed her eyes shut and the emotions rose so fast, so hard and fast. To be held like this on a cool spring night by someone who cared.

It was like a miracle, even for someone who didn’t believe in them.

“I still don’t know what to do with this, with you. With any of it.”

“Let’s see how it goes.”

“I can try. Will you stay tonight?”

He pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “Thought you’d never ask.”

She stepped back, steadied herself by looking into his eyes. “I’ll go make a dressing for the bag o’ salad.”

And saw that quick flash of humor light his face.

“That’d be great.”

When she went inside, he walked over, took the cover off her grill. Oh, she had him, all right, he thought, more than was comfortable. But he believed he’d get used to it, just like he believed easing open those locks, a little at a time, would be worth the effort.

In Chicago, only two blocks from the club where Ilya had met Elizabeth Fitch one summer night, he toured the dingy apartment that housed one of their most profitable computer scam operations. He often oversaw this area himself, so while his presence generated some nerves, work continued smoothly.

Several operators worked computers, blasting out spam advertising job offers for work at home, Canadian pharmacies, online dating, free downloads. Some would generate fees—handled by phone operators who conned those naive or desperate enough to call in. Others would simply steal credit card information, which could be translated into quick profit or identity theft.

Here, the overhead was low, the profit rich and regular.

He’d personally designed a variation on the tried-and-true Nigerian scam that continued to be their top moneymaker.

It brought him considerable pride.

He enjoyed the work, and considered it an intellectual exercise. Business was good, increased from the previous year. No amount of warnings posted online, touted on the nightly news exposés, curbed the hunger in human nature for easy money.

And the only weapons needed to strip the foolish from their wallets were a computer and a phone.

He accepted violence, inflicted it when necessary, ordered it when it was warranted. But he preferred bloodless crime.

He considered himself a businessman, and would soon take a wife, make a family of his own. He would teach his sons to be businessmen, and to leave the blood to others. Men like Korotkii would always be useful, but he had higher plans for the sons he’d make.

He enjoyed hearing the phones ring, and the “operators” read the prepared script, improvising when necessary. “Yes, you can earn money at home! Increase your income, set your own schedule. For a small fee, we’ll provide you with all you need.”

Of course, they’d provide nothing of use, but the fee would already be deposited. The mark would be out just under forty American dollars. Really, a small price for a lesson learned.

He spoke briefly with the supervisor, made a note of the day’s take, then strode for the door.

He enjoyed, too, the communal breath of relief behind him as he stepped out the door.

He’d been born for power, and wore it as naturally as his favored Versace suits.

He walked out of the apartment building to his waiting car. He slipped into the back, said nothing to the driver. As the SUV pulled away from the curb, he texted his mistress. He expected her to be ready for him in two hours. Then he texted his fiancée. He’d be late but hoped to be finished with his meeting and other business by midnight.

The car pulled to the curb again outside the restaurant, closed tonight for a private party.

His father insisted on this face-to-face meeting every month, though, in Ilya’s opinion, so much could have been accomplished more efficiently through Skype and conference calls.

Still, Ilya saw some value to the personal connections, and there would be good food, good vodka, and the company of men.

Inside, he handed off his cashmere topcoat to the pretty, sloe-eyed brunette. When time allowed, he’d like to fuck her while she wore those black-framed glasses.

His father already sat with several others at the big table set in the main dining room. Sergei’s smile spread wide when he saw his son.

“Come, sit, sit. You are late.”

“I had some business.” Ilya bent down, kissed his father’s cheeks, then his uncle’s. “I have the numbers for the Fifty-first Street operation. I wanted to give them to you tonight. You’ll be pleased.”

“Very good.” Sergei poured Ilya’s vodka himself before lifting his glass. At seventy, he remained robust, a man who enjoyed life’s pleasures and rewards to the fullest.

“To family,” he toasted. “To friends and good business.”

They discussed business while they ate, and always at these meetings ate traditional Russian food. Ilya spooned up borscht as he listened to reports from brigadiers and trusted soldiers. Out of respect, he asked questions only when he received his father’s nod. Over braised spring lamb, Ilya reported on the businesses he oversaw personally.

Problems were discussed—the arrest of a soldier on drug charges, a whore who’d required discipline, the interrogation and dispatch of a suspected informant.

“Misha will speak,” Sergei announced, “on the business of our people inside the police.”

Ilya pushed his plate aside. Too much food in the belly and he wouldn’t enjoy his mistress fully. He looked at his cousin as he sipped his wine.

“Pickto says he hasn’t yet been able to find how the information on some of our business is being fed to the FBI.”

“Then why do we pay him?” Sergei demanded.

“Yes, Uncle, I asked just that. He has warned us on some occasions in time for us to take steps to protect our interests, but he can’t identify the contact within the Bureau, or the method of information. He believes the contact is one of three people, but they keep a tight lid on this. He asks for more time, and resources.”

“More money.”

“For bribes, he says.”

Misha, now the father of four, continued to eat with gusto. Ilya knew his cousin didn’t have a mistress to satisfy. “I don’t question his loyalty, but I begin to think he, and the two others we have in place, aren’t high enough on the food chain to meet our needs.”

“We will look into these three people. Ilya, you and Misha will take this business. Whoever this FBI police is, whoever the informant, we will end it. This costs us money, men, time. And offends.”

Now Sergei pushed aside his plate. “This brings me to old business. We don’t forget Elizabeth Fitch.”

“There’s no contact with her mother,” Ilya began. “None with the police that we have ever found. If she continues to live, she lives in fear. She’s no threat.”

“As long as she lives, she’s a threat. And again, an insult. This Keegan, we pay him, and he’s useful. But he doesn’t find her. The others, they cannot find her. She is one woman.” He banged his fist on the table. “How can we hold our pride if we are defeated by one woman?”

“We won’t stop looking,” Ilya assured him.

“No, we will never stop. It’s a matter of honor. Yakov?”

“Yes, Uncle.” The years sat lightly on Korotkii, as they did on a man who enjoyed his work.

“Speak to Keegan. Remind him why this is important. And speak to Pickto as well. Money is motivation, yes. So is fear. Make them afraid.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Good. This is good. Now.” Sergei clapped his hands together. “We will have dessert.”

16

It seemed easy, almost natural. She wondered if she’d crossed some boundary and now lived in the normal she’d always yearned for. She didn’t know how it could possibly last, so every moment of that easy, natural normal glittered bright and precious as diamonds.

He was with her almost every evening. Sometimes she cooked, sometimes he brought food. They might sit outside or take a walk to her favorite spot overlooking the hills. He helped her in the garden, taught her to play gin rummy on a rainy night, then feigned disgust when she beat him every game.

He made her laugh.

When he touched her in the dark, all the worries, all the doubts, brewing inside her just dropped away. Every time she woke with him in bed beside her, the happy jolt of surprise stayed with her for hours.

She learned of the townspeople from him, putting pictures together in her mind from the funny stories or offhand comments he made. The clerk who often waited on her at the market stood as undisputed champion of the pie-eating contest held every July Fourth in the park. The manager of the bank was an amateur magician who performed at kids’ parties. Brooks’s oldest, closest friend was expecting his second child.

Brooks might be called away in the evening, and twice he had to handle a call in the middle of the night. Whenever she found herself alone, the house felt different. Not like it did during the day when her work, her routine, flowed along, but as if something essential was missing.

When it did, she tried to ignore the nagging sensation that when it all ended, nothing would ever feel completely balanced and whole again. So she focused on the moment, the hour, the day, the night. Then the next.

She tried to relax and see how it would go.

Together, they stood studying the flower bed they’d just finished. Most of the plants she’d nurtured along in her greenhouse, and seeing them in place as she’d pictured in her head brought her pleasure.

Having help, she discovered, didn’t diminish that pleasure at all.

She liked feeling a little grubby, a little sweaty, a little tired, and knowing the spinach lasagna she’d put together earlier only had to slip into the oven.

“It looks very attractive.”

“It looks great,” he corrected.

“It looks great. But it’ll look better in another few weeks. It was nice having help.”

He shot her a grin. “Really?”

“Really. Would you like a beer?”

“I’m on call, so better not. Could use a Coke.”

“All right.”

So simple, she thought, as she went inside. She liked getting him a drink, fixing him a meal. Cooking for someone besides herself, she’d discovered, brought serious satisfaction. Just as she liked him suggesting he bring home a pizza or Chinese or toss some burgers on the grill.

She’d thought it would feel crowded—the house, her life, her routine—with him in it, but somehow it felt bigger. She’d worried that her work—the business and her personal agendas—would suffer with someone else taking up her time and space, but she’d been very productive the last couple weeks. So many of the little tasks or chores took less time, as he pitched in to help or just did them himself.

They weren’t living together, she reminded herself, as she poured the Coke over ice. She couldn’t let it go that far. But he had a toiletry kit in the bathroom, a few clothes in the closet.

She liked looking at them when he wasn’t around. Just looking at his shirt, his razor, a pair of socks.

They served as tangible evidence he was in her life.

Or the life she was trying to build.

She glanced out the window as she heard the dog’s bark, Brooks’s laughter.

Bert chased the yellow tennis ball as if his world relied on its capture. The play equaled not only fun but good exercise. Still, it was odd to watch the dog respond so easily to the man.

Ami, she thought.

Yes, they’d become friends.

She picked up her glass of ice water, carried it and his Coke outside.

“Thanks. That dog would chase a ball to Texas if I could throw it that far.”

“He enjoys the run, and it’s good for him. He likes it when you throw the ball, because you can throw it farther than I can.”

“He’s giving me a workout. I won’t need any infield practice on Saturday at this rate.”

When the phone rang, it relieved her. He wouldn’t ask again, he wouldn’t pressure her. But she knew he’d like her to come to the park on Saturday where he played softball.

She wasn’t ready, and didn’t know if she’d ever be ready, to face all the people who’d come, who’d talk to her or about her.

She picked up the wet, mangled tennis ball, threw it so Bert could continue his game.

She heard Brooks say, “I’m on my way.” Then, when he stuck the phone back on his belt, “Crap.”

“There’s some trouble?”

“Spoiled rich kid gets high, trashes hotel suite, slugs hotel manager.”

“Oh. Your friend Russ Conroy?”

“Yeah. Justin Blake equals spoiled rich kid. He tried to fight with hotel security, and is now being held by same until I get there. I’m sorry.”

“It’s your job.”

“And this one’s going to take a while, as it involves a belligerent troublemaking asshole; his annoying, enabling and influential father; and the long-suffering lawyer the kid’s behavior keeps in Gucci loafers and Chivas Regal. I may not make it back tonight.”

“It’s all right.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not missing lasagna.”

“I’ll keep some for you. It holds well.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you either way. I’ve got to wash up some before I head in.” He took her hands, leaned in to kiss her. “I’ll miss you.”

She liked to think he would—a little, anyway. Being missed by someone was another first in her life.

The dog trotted up as Brooks went inside, then simply stood, panting a little, the ball clamped in his mouth, his eyes on the door.

“He’ll come back if he can,” Abigail said. “We have to be all right without him, too. It’s important we’re all right on our own.”

As she threw the ball again, she thought she’d just make a salad for her dinner. Eating the lasagna by herself seemed too lonely.

The Inn of the Ozarks stood on a gentle hill just inside the town limits. The four-story Victorian had been built by a successful bootlegger back in the twenties as a country home. His success had come to a hard stop just days before the end of Prohibition, when a rival had shot him with a Henry rifle while the man took a turn on his veranda with a Cuban and a glass of moonshine.

The widow had never returned to the house, and for some years thereafter, it fell into disrepair. The oldest son, who liked to play the ponies, sold it the minute it came into his hands.

Russ’s grandfather rebuilt and redesigned it largely on his own, and opened it as a hotel in the spring of 1948. While not a raging success during Cecil Conroy’s day, it held its own. As the artist community took shape in the seventies and eighties, it graced many canvases, one of which had the good fortune to catch the eye of a wealthy collector in New York.

Inspired by the painting, the collector, as well as some of his friends and associates, began to make the hotel the base for getaways, business/pleasure interludes and assignations.

As a result, by the turn of the century, the hotel had earned a face-lift and the addition of a spa and an indoor pool.

Its fourth floor included the perk of twenty-four-hour butler service, and held the most prestigious suite in the building.

With Russ beside him, Brooks stood in that suite, with its pale gold walls, its dark-toned, gleaming antiques, its glowing local art.

Glass sparkled on the polished chestnut floor from the broken prisms of the once grand parlor chandelier. The heavy blown-glass vase that had surely been thrown into the sixty-inch flat-screen TV lay shattered on the handwoven rug that bore stains from the contents of one of three empty bottles of red wine. The remains of a Tiffany lamp shone on the debris of dishes, wasted food, overflowing soap dishes filled with butts and a scattering of porn DVDs.

The blue-and-gold silk of the sofa fabric bore cigarette burns like ugly eyes.

“And you should see the bedroom,” Russ commented around a split and puffy lip. “Motherfuckers.”

“I’m sorry about this, Russ.”

“The master bath’s jet tub’s stained with this wine, with piss. One of them broke the faucet clean off. Don’t ask about the toilet.”

“We’re going to need pictures, before and after. Can you ballpark the monetary damage, just to give me a picture?”

“More than seventy-five thousand, probably closer to a hundred. Jesus, I don’t know, Brooks. Could be more once we get under what we can see. And smell.”

“How many were in here?”

“Three. Girls in and out, too. They booked it under Justin’s father’s name, used his card at check-in. Justin and a girl. That was last evening. Sometime last night—we’ll check the lobby security tapes—the other two boys—that’s his usual crew, Chad Cartwright, Doyle Parsins—and two more girls came in. Justin told the desk to let them up. No law against having guests in your room. They stayed the night. The desk and security fielded a few complaints about noise from the other guests. Best I can tell the girls left this afternoon, and the other three spent the day smoking weed, ordering room service, watching porn. About six we started getting complaints again—yelling, crashing, wild laughter, banging. They had the damn door barricaded, wouldn’t open it for the floor manager. I came up. Jesus, you could smell the weed in the damn hall.”

Brooks just nodded, let Russ spill it out. His friend’s hands still shook some from what Brooks understood was rage and a kind of grief.

“I told that little fuckhead if he didn’t unblock the doors I’d be calling the police and his father. Nothing against the fear and awe you generate, Brooks, but I think it was the threat to call his old man—and the rest of their parents—that got me in. Then that cocksucker sneered at me. Sneered, and told me to fuck off. The room was paid for. I could see what they’d done here, or some of it. See the other two sprawled out on the floor. I was too mad to let loose, you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“I told the floor manager who was with me to get security. That’s when that piece of shit sucker punched me.” Gingerly, he rubbed a fingertip over his abused lip. “Carolee—you know Carolee.”

“I do.”

“She grabbed her walkie, called for Ben, told him to bring a couple of the bigger bellhops. She thinks on her feet. I’ve got the fuckwit up against the door now, and the other two are so wasted they’re pissing themselves laughing. And he humps at the door, gives Carolee this shit-eating grin and tells her she oughta come on in, how he’ll fuck some life into her.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Struggling to calm, Russ pressed his fingers to his eyes. “He just wouldn’t quit, Brooks. Ben and the others came on the run, and that’s when he starts kicking, trying to punch, starts screaming. Carolee called the station, and Boyd came right quick. He sent for Ash for backup, and we all figured they should let you know.”

“Figured right. He likely stole the credit card from his father, but the parents, they’ll back him up, say they let him use it. Can’t prove otherwise, but the damage here, the assaults …”

Brooks realized he needed to calm a bit himself. “I’m going to have Boyd come in with Alma; she takes good pictures. She’ll document all of this, and Boyd’s going to do an official search, in her presence and yours or Carolee’s, for illegal substances. Even if they smoked and snorted everything they had, there’ll be trace. And God damn, I can see the joints mixed in with cigarettes in those soap dishes. His daddy won’t buy that vicious moron out of this one. Not if you press charges.”

“You can bet your ass on that.”

“Good. I’m going to call them in now. If you put Carolee on this, you can ride in with me. You can make an official statement, press charges. You get your insurance people on this, get me a good, solid inventory and assessment of damages.”

Russ nodded. The high color in his face began to fade to a sickly white that wasn’t much better. “I already called them.”

“All right, then. You need some time first?”

“No.” Russ covered his face with his hands, scrubbed hard. “God, I feel sick. I’ve got to tell my parents. It makes me sick what they did here, but I don’t need time.”

“Then let’s get started.”

Brooks thought he could have written it himself in three acts. Justin Blake goes on one of his personal rampages, the authorities are called and take the arrogant shithead into custody. Before you could say you have the right to remain silent, Lincoln Blake strides in, lawyer in tow.

In the time Brooks drove to the hotel, surveyed the worst of the damage, spoke with Russ, then drove to the station, Lincoln Blake had already arrived with his lawyer.

Blake pushed to his feet.

He cut an imposing figure with his broad chest in a well-cut suit, his bull neck caged in a striped tie. Cool blue eyes peered out above a sharp nose.

He wore his slate-gray hair cut military short, though rumor was Blake had successfully dodged the draft, when there’d been a draft to dodge.

“Russell, I understand my son and his friends may be responsible for a little breakage at your hotel. I want to assure that if this proves to be the case, we’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry, now.”

“Mr. Blake, I’ll apologize for being rude, though it doesn’t feel sincere at this moment, but I don’t want to talk to you. Brooks, I’m going to go sit in your office, if that’s all right.”

“Go ahead.”

“Now, Russell,” Blake began, but Russ kept walking. Blake’s face set hard. “A hotelier should understand that a certain percentage of overhead has to be earmarked for breakage and overuse.”

“Mr. Blake, I don’t much want to talk to you now, either.”

As Brooks topped him in height, Blake couldn’t look down his nose, but the sentiment was clear.

“You’re a paid employee of this town, and you won’t last a year in this position with that attitude.”

“I’ll take my chances. I assume you’re going to tell me Justin had permission to use your credit card for the suite at the hotel, for all the room service and miscellaneous charges.”

“Of course.”

“Then that’s your business. The rest is mine.”

“I want my son released immediately. We’ll pay for any damages incurred, naturally.”

“Then you ought to know those damages are going to approach, if not exceed, six figures. Yeah.” Brooks nodded when Blake’s eyes rounded, as his face reddened. “They did a number on those rooms.”

“If Russell Conroy or his father, whom I have always respected, think for one short minute they can inflate this business to exploit—”

“Two of my officers are at the hotel right now, documenting the damages. The insurance agent is also on his way to do the same. I’ve just come from there and seen it for myself. My officers will also be doing a search for illegal substances, as the place reeked of marijuana. I don’t know where your son or his friends got the red wine or the brandy, the beer and the other assorted alcohol, the containers of which were all over the damn place, but they are all under the legal drinking age. Added to it, your son assaulted Russ—don’t you bluster at me this time,” Brooks snapped. “He assaulted Russ, in front of witnesses. He also assaulted the security guard, in front of witnesses.”

“I want to speak to my son. Now.”

“No. I will speak with him, and his lawyer can be present and speak with him. But while he’s under the legal drinking age, he is also legally an adult. It may not make much sense, but that’s the law. You’ll speak to him when I’m done with him. And, Mr. Blake, you can’t buy the Conroys off like you have the others. They won’t be bought. This time, Justin’s going to pay for what’s he’s done.”

“Push too hard, Gleason, you push on this and you’ll lose your job.”

“Like I said, I’ll take my chances. Now, I assume Justin asked for a lawyer, but I’m going to check. Until I know he’s engaged that right, nobody talks to him.”

Brooks walked over to Jeff Noelle, one of his part-time deputies, who was doing his best to look invisible. “Did he ask for a lawyer, Jeff? Do you know?”

“Yessir. He was bitching about a lawyer when Ash and Boyd brought them all in, and yelling at the other two prisoners to keep their mouths shut.”

“All right, then.” Brooks walked back. “You’ve got a client, Harry.”

“I’d like to speak with my client privately at this time.”

“Sure. Jeff, you take Mr. Darnell to his client.”

“Yessir, Chief.”

Ignoring Blake, Brooks walked to his office, shut the door. “Justin lawyered up, as expected. They’ll have their confab, then I’ll talk to him. Want some coffee?”

“No. I got some water. I don’t think I can stomach anything else.”

“I’m going to take your official statement. We’re going to do this by all the steps, Russ. I’m going to warn you Blake’s going to try to pressure you and your family to take a payoff, let the kid slide.”

Color, nearly as red as his hair, rode up on Russ’s cheeks. “There isn’t enough money in the world. My mama bought that chandelier in Waterford, Ireland, had it shipped all the way back here just for that parlor. It was her pride and joy. For that alone, Brooks.”

“I know it. I’m going to record this.”

“Okay.” Russ closed his eyes a moment, nodded. “Okay.”

When they’d finished, Brooks took a long study of his friend’s face. That angry color had faded so the freckles stood out like mottling on the sick pallor of his face. “I’d like to have Jeff drive you home, but you’re going to want to go back to the hotel.”

“I have to.”

“I know it. He’ll take you. I’m going to be a while here. I’ll come over to your place when I’m done, if you want.”

“I’d appreciate it, Brooks. If you could call anyway, let me know how you think things stand.”

“I will, and I’ll come to where you are after I do. I don’t want anybody cleaning up that mess yet, all right?”

“How long do you think—never mind.” Russ held up a hand. “All right.”

“I told Boyd to put police tape on the door. I know it’s not what you’d like, but the tougher we make this, the better chance we have of getting it all the way through if the Blakes decide to go to court.”

“You do what you have to do.”

“There’s one last thing.” Brooks opened a drawer and took out a digital camera. “Say shit.”

Russ let out a little laugh, sighed. Then scowled at the camera. “Shit.”

When Brooks left his office, he noted Blake was no longer in the outer area. Probably gone off to hound the mayor, or burn up the cell towers with calls to the state rep, the freaking governor.

“It’s a sorry shame,” Alma said, and handed Brooks an envelope. “I took a boatload of pictures, like you said. About broke my heart, too.”

“This won’t.” Boyd held up a trio of evidence bags. “We got your marijuana, your cocaine and some Oxy to round it off.”

“That’ll work. Did you log it in?”

“All nice and official. We got the video camera like you said we should, and Ash ran it while I did the search. Can’t document much clearer.”

“Good work, all of you. Is Harry still back there?”

“He hasn’t come out.”

“I’m going back, starting with the ringleader. Boyd, why don’t you take Chad Cartwright, and Ash, you talk to Doyle Parsins. You remind them of their rights again, you hear? And you get everything on record. If either of them says ‘lawyer,’ you stop.”

“They didn’t ask for one yet, or for a call, either,” Ash told him. “Last I checked, both of them were passed out back there.”

“Give them a wake-up call.”

Brooks went back to the tiny conference room. He banged on the door, shoved it open. “It’s time you and I had a talk, Justin.”

Justin continued to sprawl in the chair, one arm thrown carelessly over its back. He only curled his lip.

“Chief, if I could have a word with you.” Harry got up, murmured something to Justin that had the boy jerk a shrug.

Harry came out, closed the door. He was a head shorter than Brooks and about fifteen years his senior. Back in the day, Harry had coached Brooks’s Little League team to a championship.

“Brooks, I realize that between the three of these young men there was some damage done to the hotel suite, and I understand there was some underage drinking. The fact is, they’ll make good on the damages, if indeed there are any, and my client is permitted an independent assessor in that matter. And we both know the drinking’s not going to go anywhere. Slap on the wrist, some counseling maybe. As for the claim of assault, Justin tells me Russ was understandably upset, and there was some mutual pushy-shovy. Now—”

Brooks pulled the digital print of Russ’s split and swollen lip out of his file. “Does that look like pushy-shovy to you?”

Harry stared down at the photo, then just sighed, raked his hands through his short thatch of brown hair.

“Don’t you ever get tired of doing this dance?”

Harry waved a hand, shook his head. “I’ve got to do my job, Brooks.”

“You know there are days I think my job sucks. Yours sucks more.” Brooks opened the door. He took out a tape recorder, put it on the table.

He noted the night had taken some of the shine off Justin’s gold and bronzed prince-of-the-city looks. Good, Brooks thought, looking into the cocky, bloodshot eyes.

“Were you read your rights, Justin?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the right to say fuck you.”

“Justin,” Harry warned.

“Freedom of speech.”

“I’ll exercise that same right. You want to look at these, counselor.” Brooks poured the photos on the table as he sat.

As Harry studied them, Brooks studied the boy.

Justin Blake, the only child of Lincoln and Genny Blake, had been born into money, prestige and good looks. Chiseled features, sulky mouth, sizzling blue eyes and thick sun-kissed hair likely ensured he’d had his pick of girls through his high school years.

He might have made something of himself, Brooks considered—maybe he still would—but up to this point the money, prestige and good looks had translated into arrogance, a mean temperament and a vicious disrespect for any kind of authority.

“Justin Blake, you’re charged with destruction of property, vandalism, underage drinking and three counts of assault.”

“Big fucking deal.”

“Oh, it will be. As will the possession charges. We have the weed, the coke and the Oxy you and your fellow morons had in the suite.”

Justin only smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve got your prints on file already. I’ll just bet we’re going to find them on that bag of weed, the bag of blow, maybe even on the pills. You’re on probation, and one of the terms of that probation is no drugs, no drinking, no trouble. You did the hat trick.”

“My father’ll have me out of here in an hour. If Harry wants to earn his big, fat fee, he’ll have the rest fixed before morning.”

“No, and no. Not this time. Russell Conroy has just officially pressed charges. My deputies have interviewed witnesses. We have, as you can see, photo documentation of the havoc you wreaked. We have the drugs, the alcohol and shortly we’ll be picking up the girls you entertained last night. I just think it would be icing on the cake if any one of them happens to be under the age of eighteen, ’cause then I get to add statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. But even without the icing, you’re not getting probation, counseling and community service this time. You’ll do some time.”

Justin lifted his middle finger. “An hour.”

“In violation of your probation, and look at the time! It’s after eight o’clock. Too late for a bail hearing tonight. You’ll be a guest of our fine facilities until ten tomorrow morning, at which time we’ll go before the judge and lay it all out.”

“Bullshit.”

“Chief Gleason,” Harry began, “my client’s parents are respected members of the community. I believe we can safely release Justin into their supervision for one night.”

Brooks leveled one look, hard as granite. “That’s not going to happen. He stays. I may not be able to stop the judge from granting bail tomorrow, but until then he’s mine.”

“You’re nothing. You’re just some glorified rent-a-cop trying to swing his dick around. My father could buy and sell you a dozen times out of fucking petty cash. You can’t do anything to me.”

“It’d be a shame if you thought of your own worth by your father’s bank account—if I gave a rat’s ass about your twisted inner child. What I can do to you is this. I can arrest you and charge you, which is already done. I can incarcerate you until such time a judge tells me different. I can—and believe me, I will—testify at your trial, should you choose to take this to trial, and detail every bit of your vicious, useless, destructive behavior.”

“I’d like another moment alone with my client.”

“You’ve had over a half-hour with him already.”

“Brooks, I need a moment with my client.”

“All right, then. When you’re done, he’s going in a cell.”

Brooks stepped out. It took less than ten seconds for the screaming to start. He knew it was small of him, and likely unprofessional on top of that, but damn if it didn’t do his heart good to hear Justin throw a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old brat.

17

In the quiet house with the dog snoring at her feet, Abigail scanned the hacked FBI files. It pleased her that Special Agent Elyse Garrison had pursued the lead she’d leaked to her, built on it. The five-point-six million the FBI’s operation had confiscated equaled a nice, solid chunk, enough to sting, in Abigail’s opinion. As would the six arrests.

It was hardly enough to put the Volkovs out of business, but it would annoy them and drive them to dig deeper into their organization, trying to find the source of the leaks.

Satisfied, she closed the files, told herself she should go to bed. It was nearly midnight, and she’d contracted two new jobs that week. She needed to be fresh to begin work in the morning.

But she wasn’t tired. What she was, Abigail admitted, was restless. And what she was doing, under the cover of work and research, was waiting for her phone to ring.

How many times, she wondered, had she read a book or watched a movie where she’d been baffled by a woman waiting for a man to call? It seemed to her women who did so not only lacked a sense of self-esteem but were simply foolish.

Now she could only be baffled at herself.

She didn’t like the sensation she experienced, this combination of nerves and anxiety. Faint, yes, but there.

She didn’t even want this relationship, she reminded herself, and she certainly didn’t want this uncomfortable and unattractive position she found herself in now.

She didn’t require phone calls or dinner companionship or conversations … or any of it. All of those things interfered with her routine, upset her schedule, and, more important, could only lead to complications she couldn’t risk.

Still, she had to admit it was nice to have those things, and to forget—even for minutes at a time—and simply be Abigail.

The Abigail he was attracted to, enjoyed being with.

But wasn’t that falling into the same trap she’d sprung on herself years before? Convincing herself she could be what she wasn’t, have what she couldn’t?

It was good, better—no, best—he hadn’t called. She could begin immediately readjusting herself, her life back to what it had been before he’d changed it.

She’d make herself some herbal tea. She’d take it upstairs and read herself to sleep. That was sensible. That was who she was.

When she rose, the dog came awake instantly. He followed her into the kitchen and, when he saw her fill the kettle with water, sat to wait.

A good dog, she thought, as she set the kettle on the stove, a comfortable, well-secured house and satisfying work. Those were the only things she required to be content, and contentment was all she required.

And yet when her alarm signaled, she didn’t feel her usual click of tension and readiness. Instead, she felt a quick surge of hope. Annoyed by it, she turned to her monitor to watch Brooks drive toward the house.

He presumed too much, she decided, coming to her door after midnight. She wished now she’d turned off the lights, gone to bed. If she had, at least he wouldn’t have any reason to think she’d waited for him.

She’d tell him she was on her way to bed and too tired for company. Simple, and again sensible, she thought, as she went to the door.

She opened it as he got out of the car, and in the glare of her security lights saw in his face, in his movements, layers of exhaustion, anger, sadness.

“Sorry.” He stood for a moment at the base of the porch steps, bathed in that bright light. “I should’ve called earlier. I should’ve gone on home.”

“You didn’t.”

“No. Things got complicated.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “And I was here before I thought about how late it is. You’re still up.”

“Yes.” Her resolve thinned and tore as she studied his face. “I was making tea. Do you want tea?”

“Sounds good.” He came up the stairs. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I’d be this long.”

“You have work. I’ve been working, too.”

Saying nothing, he put his arms around her, pressed his face to her hair. Not for pleasure, she realized. It took her a moment to decipher the tenor of the embrace. He sought comfort. He’d come to her for comfort, and no one ever had.

She started to pat his back—there, there—but stopped. And closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what she’d want. She rubbed his back instead, small, light circles, until she heard him sigh.

“The kettle’s boiling,” she told him, when she heard it whistle.

“Yeah.” But he held on for another moment before he stepped back.

“You should come in. I need to lock the door.”

“I’ll get it.”

“No, I …” Wouldn’t feel fully safe if she didn’t lock up herself.

“Okay. I’ll get the kettle.”

When she’d finished, she found him pouring hot water into the squat teapot where she’d already measured out leaves.

“Lemon balm, right? My mother does the same thing some nights.”

“It’s relaxing.”

“I could use some relaxing.”

She got out a second cup, saucer. “Is your friend all right?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.” Instantly shamed of her earlier annoyance, she turned. “He was hurt?”

“Not physically other than a fist to the face, but he’s had that before. He’s likely to again.”

In silence, she arranged the cups, the pot, the sugar bowl and spoons on the table. “You should sit down. You look very tired. We’ll have to share the tea strainer when it’s steeped. I only have one.”

“That’s fine.”

Unsure, she remained standing when he sat down. “Do you want food? I have the lasagna. It can be heated.”

“No. No, but thanks.”

“You’re so sad,” she blurted out.

“I guess that’s some of it. Got a lot of pissed off in there, too. I’ve got to shake both off before I deal with tomorrow.”

“Do you want to tell me, or should I change the subject?”

He smiled a little. “You should sit down, Abigail, and have your tea.”

“I don’t know if I’m good at this,” she said, as she sat.

“Drinking tea?”

“Comforting. Or defusing. Since you’re angry and sad, it should be both.”

He laid a hand over hers briefly, then poured out the tea. “Let’s find out. Russ’s family’s owned the hotel for three generations now. It’s not just a business, not just a livelihood, to them.”

“It’s an essential part of their family history, and their place in the community.”

“Yeah. There’s pride and love there. Justin Blake, have you heard of the Blakes?”

“Yes. They’re a very wealthy and influential local family.”

“Justin’s a spoiled, troublemaking fuckwit with a string of DUIs, a bad attitude. He’d have a sheet as long as my leg if his father didn’t use that money or influence, or political pressure—whatever works—to get him off. The kid has no respect for the law or any other damn thing.”

“It would be difficult to develop one if he’s allowed to behave badly with impunity. I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I’m supposed to listen.”

“There’s no supposed. Anyway, his latest. He and a couple of the assholes he hangs with booked the best suite at the hotel and trashed it. Destroyed it.”

“Why?”

“For kicks, out of boredom, because they could. Pick one.” Brooks shrugged, then scrubbed his hands over his face. “Russ went up this evening to deal with them when guests complained about the noise. Upshot is Justin punched him, took some swings at security, got himself arrested. And this time he won’t slide through. It’s looking like better than a hundred thousand in damages. Maybe more.”

“That’s a great deal.”

“Yeah, it is, and Russ and his parents won’t cave when Lincoln Blake pushes at them. I had a go-round with him and the kid tonight.”

“You won’t cave, either.”

“No, I won’t. Justin and his pals are spending the night in jail. They’ll make bail tomorrow, Blake will see to it. But Justin’s got two choices. He takes a plea and does time, or he stands trial and does time, but he goes down this time. And either way the Blakes pay every cent of the damages. Jesus, I’m pissed off.”

He shoved up, stalked to the window. “I should’ve gone home.”

“You wouldn’t be pissed off at home?”

“No, I’d be pissed off anywhere. That fat, self-satisfied, cigar-smoking fuckhead figures he can threaten me with my job, and I’ll scare off?”

“The father?”

“Yeah, the father.”

“Can he have you fired?”

“If he can, they can shove the job. I don’t want it if I can’t fucking do it. Not if some overprivileged asshole can do whatever the hell he wants and I’m supposed to look the other way.”

“Money is power,” Abigail said quietly, “but it’s not the only power.”

“I guess we’ll see. I went over to talk to Russ’s parents, and Russ and Seline—his wife—after I dealt with the lawyer. She cried. Mrs. Conroy. This sweet, funny woman who always had peanut butter cookies in the jar, just broke down and cried. I should’ve found a way to put that little bastard away before it went this far.”

“It’s useless to blame yourself for what this person did, or what his father has been able to do, especially when the pattern was set long before you took the position as chief of police. The rational thing to do is arrest him, which you have, and to compile evidence for the prosecutor to assist in getting a guilty verdict at trial. That wasn’t sympathetic,” she realized.

Brooks sat back down, picked up his tea. “Worked pretty well, though. I know the logic of it, Abigail.”

“But your friend and his family have been hurt. It’s emotional as well as financial and physical and criminal. People should pay for their actions. There should be consequences. There should be justice.”

Her hand balled into a fist on the table for a moment before she ordered herself to relax it. “It’s hard not to feel sad and angry and even hopeless when bad things happen, because fear and influence and money often outweigh justice.”

He leaned forward, laid a hand over hers. “Who hurt you?”

She shook her head, said nothing.

“Not yet, then.”

“What will you do tomorrow?”

“I’ve got a seven-thirty meeting with the prosecutor to go over everything again. We’ll have an arraignment, bail hearing. I expect they’ll cut Justin and the others loose until trial. I don’t figure he’ll go for a plea straight off. Maybe, once it gets closer, maybe if the lawyers don’t screw it up. The Conroys are just mad enough to go for a civil suit on top of it. I won’t be discouraging that. It’s time the pressure came from the other side.”

“Then you know what you have to do and how to do it. Are they violent?”

“The kid likes to bust things up.”

“I meant could or would they try to hurt you or your friend’s family? Using violence as intimidation.”

“Can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t go there. Money’s Blake’s weapon of choice.”

Abigail considered. “I don’t believe they can have you fired.”

“Don’t you?”

“Objectively, your family is a fixture in the community. Liked and respected. You’re also liked and respected in your own right. I assume as a multigenerational business family, with a key property in the community, your friend and his family are also valued. Their property was damaged through reckless and selfish behavior, so sympathy and outrage will be on their side. Those things are also weapons. Extrapolating from what you’ve said tonight, I’d posit that the Blakes are somewhat feared but not well liked. There are likely many people in the community who’d be pleased if the son is punished for his actions.”

“Extrapolating. Now, how can you use words like that and still manage to make me feel a whole hell of a lot better?”

“Did I?”

This time he laid a hand over hers and left it there. “You were right about the sad. I was, and pissed off, and frustrated, and we’ll have to toss in a dash of feeling sorry for myself. Now I’m down to sorry and mad with a whole fat scoop of looking forward to kicking some ass—legally speaking.”

“That’s good?”

“It’s real good.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I should go.”

“I wish you’d stay.”

He turned her hand over so their fingers linked. “Thank God.”

“We should go to bed.”

“Two minds, one thought.”

“It’s late,” she said, as she rose to gather the tea things. “You’re tired. And, I think, still a little sad. Sex releases endorphins, so for the short term you’d feel …” She trailed off when she turned and found him grinning at her.

“I’m half in love with you,” he told her, “and heading fast toward three-quarters.”

Something inside her burst like sunlight before it flooded away on a rise of panic. “Don’t do that.”

“I don’t think it’s something you do or don’t. It’s something that happens or doesn’t.”

“It’s a mixture of sexual and physical attraction, along with novelty and the tension between mutual interests and conflicts of interest. People often mistake hormonal reaction and certain compatibilities for what they think of as love.”

He continued to smile as he got to his feet, but something about the glint in his eyes had her taking a cautious step back as he walked to her.

He put his hands on her shoulders, lowered his head to brush his lips over hers. He said, “Hush,” and kissed her again. “You don’t want to tell me what I feel or don’t, or I might click back up to pissed off. We don’t want that, do we?”

“No, but—”

“Hush,” he repeated, with his lips whispering against hers. “Pretty Abigail, so full of suspicion and intellect. And nerves.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Nerves,” he repeated, skimming his thumbs along the sides of her breasts while his mouth continued to toy with hers. Rubbing, brushing, grazing. “When you’re not quite sure what’s next, when you haven’t worked out all the steps, or there’s a little detour. I like the nerves.”

“Why?”

“And I like the curious why.” He tugged her shirt up and off, watching the surprise—and, yeah, just a few nerves—flicker in her eyes. “I like knowing you haven’t figured it—me, this—all out.” His hands glided up her sides, over her breasts, down. “Action and reaction, right? I like your reactions.”

There were nerves, she admitted. They seemed to slither along her skin, under it, coil in her belly, squeeze around her heart to increase the beat. Everything inside her body felt soft, then sharp, loose then tangled. How could she keep up?

“We should go upstairs.”

She felt his lips curve against her throat, and his fingers trail up her back. “Why?” he murmured, and flicked open the catch of her bra. “I like your kitchen.” He shifted his feet, toeing off his shoes. “It’s warm. And efficient. I love the way you feel under my hands. Abigail.”

She fell into the kiss, headfirst, a breathless tumble that left her dizzy and weak. Seduction. Though she’d never allowed herself to be seduced—it was unnecessary—her mind recognized the sensation. And her body surrendered to it.

Craving the feel of his skin, his muscles, his bones, she shot her hands under his shirt, found the warm, the solid, the smooth. Her breath caught on a gasp when he hitched her up so she sat on her own kitchen counter. Before the shock of that had fully registered, his mouth closed over her breast.

So hot, so wet, so strong, she let out a quick cry of stunned pleasure. Later she would think the orgasm that shot through her was as much a result of the shock as the sensation. But now it caught her unprepared, left her shuddering and defenseless.

“Brooks.” She wanted to tell him to wait, to wait until she steadied herself, but his mouth was on hers again, taking her under so fast, so deep, she could only shudder and yield.

She’d never been taken before, he realized. Not like this, where her surrender was complete, not when she couldn’t separate some small part of herself to reach for control.

And God, he wanted to take her, to destroy that fascinating and innate control.

He yanked down her zipper and, half lifting her, peeled the jeans away. Giving her no time to recover, he closed his mouth over hers again, swallowing her instinctive protest. He stroked her, teasing and gentle. She was already hot, already wet, already balanced on the edge. He wanted her to ride that, hold that sensation until it overwhelmed and overcame.

He wanted to watch her as she did.

The air, so thick and sweet, made her feel drunk with every breath. The pleasure he brought her was so complete, so absolute, she seemed trapped in it, mired and steeped. He caught her nipple between his teeth, bringing her to an exquisite point just bordering on pain while he stroked that heat higher.

When she thought she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t contain it, everything went bright and free. She heard herself moan, the long, long throaty sound of it as her head dropped heavily on his shoulder.

She wanted to twine around him, curl inside him, but he angled her back, wrapped her trembling legs around his waist. And drove into her.

Fresh shock, fresh pleasure. Hard and fast and furious. A rising flood churning into the wild sweep of a tidal wave. He dragged her through it, drowned her in it, until that violent wave tossed her to the surface. She could only float there, wrecked, until he joined her.

Now, gradually, she felt his heart hammering against hers, and the rags of his breath tearing at her ear. She felt the smooth surface of the counter under her, the dazzle of the kitchen lights against her closed lids.

She needed a moment or two, just a moment or two to find her balance again, then she could—

He shocked her again when he scooped her off the counter, into his arms.

“You don’t have to—”

“Hush,” he said yet again, and carried her upstairs to bed.

She came down first in the morning and could only stop and stare. She’d left the lights on, a careless waste of energy. But she couldn’t seem to get too worked up about it. Clothes scattered the floor, hers and his.

She studied the counter with a kind of baffled wonder. She’d never understood the appeal for sex in odd or unusual places. What was the point when a bed, even a couch would be more comfortable and conducive? Though she did enjoy sex in the shower on occasion.

Obviously she’d been too narrow in her viewpoint, though she wondered how long it might take before she could perform basic kitchen duties with equanimity.

For now, she started the coffee, then gathered up all the clothes, folded them neatly. By the time Brooks came down—naked—she’d set the kitchen to rights and started breakfast.

“Seem to have left my clothes down here.” Obviously amused, he picked up the jeans she’d folded, put them on. “You didn’t have to get up this early, make breakfast.”

“I like getting up early, and don’t mind making breakfast. You have a difficult day ahead. You’ll feel better if you have a meal. It’s just an omelet and some toast.”

When she turned, he’d pulled on his shirt and was looking at her, just looking at her, with those clever, changeable eyes.

“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“I …” She turned away to pour the coffee. “I don’t know.”

He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist loosely, pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Rounding third and headed for home,” he murmured.

“That’s a baseball term. We’re not playing baseball. I don’t know what that means.”

He turned her around, kissed her mouth lightly. “Yes, you do. It’s nothing to get panicked about.” He rubbed at the tension in her shoulders. “We’ll take it easy. What kind of omelets?”

“Three-cheese with some spinach and peppers.”

“Sounds great. I’ll get the toast.”

He moved so easily around her kitchen, as if he belonged there. Panic tickled up her throat again. “I’m not—” How did people put it? “I’m not built for this.”

“For what?”

“For any of this.”

“I am.” He popped bread in the toaster, leaned on the counter. “I wasn’t sure about that, until you. But I’m built for all of this. From my point of view, so are you. So, we’ll see.”

“I’m not who you think I am.”

He studied her, nodding slowly. “Maybe not on all the details. Maybe not. But I’m looking at you, Abigail, I’m listening to you, and where it counts, you’re who I think you are.”

“That’s not …” She nearly told him that wasn’t her real name. How could she become this involved, this reckless? “That’s not something you can know.”

“I know that’s not what you were going to say. I’m good at reading people. It comes with the territory. I know you’re scared of something, or someone. You’ve taken a hard hit or two along the way, and done what you can to shield up. Can’t blame you for it.”

Light poured in the window at his back, shot a nimbus around his hair. Dark hair, still tumbled from the night, from her hands.

“I don’t know what to say to you.”

“You’ve got a lot of secrets behind your eyes, and a hell of a lot of weight on your shoulders. I’m going to keep believing that one day you’re going to share those secrets and that weight with me, and we’ll figure out the rest once you do.”

She only shook her head, turned away to put the omelets on plates. “We shouldn’t be talking about this, especially now. You’ll be late for your meeting, and I have two new contracts to work on.”

“Congratulations. Why don’t I pick something up for dinner tonight?”

“I have the lasagna.”

“Even better.”

She put the plates down when the toast popped, then sat with a jerk of temper. “I didn’t invite you.”

“We’re past that.”

“I don’t know how to be past that.”

He brought the toast over, set a slice on her plate as he took his seat. “This looks great.”

“You change the subject, or you agree rather than debate. Because you’re so certain you’ll get your way in the end.”

“You’re good at reading people, too.” He took a bite of omelet. “Tastes great. You could make a living.”

“You’re frustrating.”

“I know it, but I make up for it by being so good-looking.”

She didn’t want to smile but couldn’t help it. “You’re not that good-looking.”

He laughed and ate his breakfast.

When he’d gone, she considered her options.

She couldn’t tell him, of course, but hypothetically, what were the probable results if she did?

She was wanted for questioning in the murders of two U.S. Marshals. As a law enforcement official, he’d be obligated to turn her in. It was highly doubtful she’d live to give testimony. The Volkovs would find a way to get to her and eliminate her, most likely through one of their law enforcement plants.

But, hypothetically again, if Brooks believed her, and believed her life would be forfeit should he do his duty, he would be less inclined to fulfill that duty.

She tried to imagine being able to talk to him about John and Terry, about Julie, and everything that had happened since those horrible nights. She simply couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t theorize on how it might feel to be able to talk to him, to anyone, to share the burden.

He was kind, she thought, and dedicated to justice, to doing the right thing for the right reasons. In many ways, in basic, vital ways, he reminded her of John.

If she told him, if he believed her, he might be, like John, driven to protect her, to help her. And wouldn’t that put his life at risk?

Yet another reason to keep her own counsel, to go on as she’d gone on for a dozen years.

But everything had already changed, she reminded herself. Everything wasn’t as it had been. He’d done that; she’d allowed it.

So if she told him, because the balance had already shifted, she would have to be prepared to go, to run again, change her name again—whether he believed her or not.

Therefore, logically, rationally, she couldn’t tell him. Their relationship would gradually lessen in intensity until the balance shifted back again. Until her life was back to what it had been.

Her conclusions should have made her feel more confident, more calm and certain. Instead, they left her unhappy and unsettled.

18

The morning business went pretty much the way Brooks had figured, with a few extra points for the good guys.

He’d expected Justin and his idiot pals to make bail, and had calculated the judge would set it high enough to sting a little. He set it high enough to sting a lot.

Harry objected, of course—he had to do his job—but the judge held firm. The Conroys might not have been as deep in the pockets as the Blakes, but they were as well respected, and a hell of a lot more well liked.

Justin had kicked the wrong cat this time, in Brooks’s opinion.

From his position in the courtroom, he watched Blake seethe, Justin sneer, and the two others being arraigned keep their heads and eyes down while their parents sat stone-faced.

He had to fight back a mile-wide grin when the judge agreed to the prosecutor’s demand that all three under charges turn in their passports.

“This is insulting!” Blake surged to his feet at the judge’s ruling, and this time Brooks did a happy dance in his head. “I won’t tolerate the insinuation my son would run away from these absurd charges. We want our day in court!”

“You’re going to get that.” Judge Reingold, who played golf with Blake every Sunday, slapped his gavel down. “And you’re going to show respect in this courtroom, Lincoln. You sit down and keep your peace in here or I’ll have you removed.”

“Don’t think you can sit up there and threaten me. I helped put you in those robes.”

Behind his wire-framed glasses, Reingold’s eyes glittered. “And as long as I’m wearing them, you’ll show them respect. Sit down, be quiet, or sure as God made little green apples, I’ll hold you in contempt of court.”

Blake shoved Harry aside when the lawyer tried to intervene. “I’ll show you contempt.”

“You just did.” Reingold banged his gavel again. “That’s five hundred dollars. Bailiff, remove Mr. Blake from the courtroom before he makes it a thousand.”

Red-faced, teeth set, Blake turned on his heel and stalked out under his own power. He took a moment to pause, scald Brooks with a blistering stare.

Brooks sat through the rest of the legal wrangling, the instructions, the warnings, the scheduling. He waited until Justin and his friends were led back to their holding cells until their bail could be posted.

More than satisfied, Brooks had to control a little bounce in his step when he walked over to speak with Russ and his family. There was no doubt in his mind that having the entire Conroy family present—Russ’s split lip, Mrs. Conroy fighting tears—had influenced Reingold’s ruling.

“That pompous bully Blake made it worse for himself and those vicious boys.” Seline, dark eyes sparking in contrast to her usual easy-as-Sunday-morning temperament, kept her arm protectively around her mother-in-law’s shoulders. “I loved it. I only wished he’d opened his mouth again, so it cost him more.”

“I wasn’t sure Stan would stand up against Lincoln.” Mick Conroy nodded toward the bench. “I feel some better about it. I’m going to take your mom home,” he said to Russ.

“You want me to come?”

Hilly, her eyes still shadowed, the bright hair she’d passed to her son pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, shook her head. She kissed Russ’s cheek. “We’ll be all right. Brooks.” She kissed Brooks’s cheek in turn. “We’re grateful.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“She’s still sad,” Seline murmured, when her in-laws walked out. “She can’t find her mad through it. I want her to find that mad. She’ll feel better when she does.”

“You’re mad enough for all of us.”

Seline smiled a little. “God knows. I’ve got to get to school. The kids’ve probably traumatized the morning substitute by now.”

She gave Brooks a hard hug, turned to Russ, held on to him for a long minute. “Don’t fret too much, cutie,” she told him.

“Let me buy you a cup of coffee,” Brooks said to Russ when they were alone.

“I should get to the hotel.”

“Take a few minutes, decompress.”

“I could use it. Okay. I’ll meet you there.”

The minute Brooks walked into the diner, Kim grabbed a coffeepot and beelined toward him. She pointed at a booth, turned the mug on the tabletop over, poured.

“Well,” she said.

“Just coffee, thanks.”

She poked him on the shoulder. “How’m I supposed to maintain my status as News Queen if you don’t give me the dish? Do you want me to get demoted?”

“No, indeed. We can’t have that. They made bail.”

Her mouth turned down, ferociously. “I should’ve known Stan Reingold would play weasel for Lincoln Blake.”

“Now, I wouldn’t say that, Kim. I expected them to make bail. I didn’t expect the judge to set it as high as he did, and I can guarantee you Blake didn’t, either.”

“That’s something, then.”

“And he’s confiscating their passports until after the trial.”

“Well, now.” Lips pursed, she gave a satisfied nod. “I take it all back. That had to burn Blake’s fat ass.”

“Oh, I’d say he felt the heat. He mouthed off, and the judge fined him five hundred for contempt.”

This time she slapped Brooks’s shoulder. “You’re shitting me.”

“Swear to God.”

“I take it all back double. Next time Stan Reingold comes in, I’m giving him pie on the house. You hear that, Lindy?” she called to the man at the grill. “Stan Reingold fined Lincoln Blake five hundred for contempt.”

Spatula fisted at his hip, Lindy turned. “About time contempt cost him, ’cause the sumbitch has plenty of it. That coffee’s on me, Brooks.” Lindy lifted his chin toward the door. “And his, too.”

Kim spotted Russ when he came in, turned the second mug over. “You sit right on down here, sweetie.” She rose to her toes to kiss his cheek. “And no charge for the coffee or anything else you want. You be sure to tell your folks that anybody worth spit in this town is sorry as hell about what happened, and behind them a hundred percent.”

“I will. Thanks, Kim. It means a lot.”

“You look tired out. How about a big wedge of that French apple pie you like to perk you up?”

“Couldn’t right now. Maybe next time.”

“I’ll leave you to talk, then, but you need anything, you just holler.”

Brooks pretended to sulk. “She didn’t offer me any damn pie.”

Russ managed a wan smile. “She’s got to feel sorry for you first. Did you know about the passports?”

“I knew we were going to request it, but I didn’t figure Reingold would rule on our side. He surprised me, and maybe that’s on me.”

“He’s let the Blake kid slide on plenty before today.”

“Yeah, he has, and I think he’s feeling the weight of that. He may be Blake’s golf buddy, but he can’t—and I think won’t—brush off this kind of thing. I believe His Honor was well and truly pissed this morning. And I believe Blake isn’t going to let Harry talk his boy into a plea on this. He wants the trial because he absolutely believes he and his are too fucking important to bend to the law. That boy’s going down, Russ, and he may go down harder than I expected. I’m not sorry about it.”

“Can’t say as I am, either.”

Brooks shifted forward. “I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes because I’m dead sure Blake’s going to do whatever he can to buy you off or pressure you into dropping the assault charges. He gets that gone, he’s going to figure it’s mostly about money. Pay the two dollars, so to speak, try to manipulate community service and some rehab, a suspended sentence for the boy.”

Russ’s bruised mouth set like stone. “It’s not going to happen, Brooks. Did you see my daddy this morning? He looks ten years older. I don’t give a damn about taking the punch, and if it wasn’t for the rest, I’d let it go. But I’m not going to shrug this off so that little bastard slides through this.”

“Good. If Blake starts hounding you, let me know. I’ll mention harassment charges and restraining orders.”

Russ sat back, and his smile came easier. “Which one of them are you really after?”

“It’s two for one, as I see it. They both need a good, swift kick. I don’t know if Justin was born an asshole, but his daddy sure as hell helped make him a bigger one.” He stirred at his coffee but found he didn’t have a taste for it. “I didn’t see his mama in court.”

“Word is Mrs. Blake’s embarrassed and tired out. About done with it. And Blake’s ordered her to keep it shut. He runs that house.”

“That may be, but he doesn’t run this town.”

“Do you, Chief?”

“I protect and serve,” Brooks said, with a glance out the window. “The Blakes are going to learn what that means. How about you, Mr. Mayor?”

“It may be tougher to win an election with Blake backing whoever I run against, but I’m in it.”

“New times.” Brooks lifted his mug in toast. “Good times.”

“You’re pretty sassy this morning, son. Is it all about Reingold’s rulings?”

“That didn’t suck, but I’ve got me a fascinating, beautiful woman I’m falling for. Falling hard.”

“Quick work.”

“In the blood. My mama and daddy barely did more than look at each other, and that was that. She’s got me, Russ. Right here.” He tapped a fist on his heart.

“Sure it’s not considerably lower where she’s got you?”

“There, too. But, Jesus, Russ, she does it for me. I just think about her and I’m there. I look at her, and … I swear I could look at her for hours. Days.”

Brooks let out a half-laugh, edged with a little surprise. “I’m done. I’m gone.”

“If you don’t bring her over for dinner, Seline’s going to see to it my life’s not worth living.”

“I’ll work on it. I figure I’m going to have the women in my family making the same demand before much longer. Abigail’s the type who needs to be eased in. Something in there,” he added. “Something from before. She’s not ready to let me in on that yet. I’m working on that, too.”

“So she hasn’t figured out you’ll just keep digging, nudging and chewing until you know what you want to know or get what you want to get?”

“I’m blinding her with affability and charm.”

“How long do you figure that’ll last?”

“I’ve got a little more to spare. She needs help. She just doesn’t know it, or isn’t ready to take it. Yet.”

Abigail spent the morning happily at her computer, redesigning and personalizing the security system for a law firm in Rochester. She was particularly pleased with the results, as she’d gotten the job on referral, and had nearly lost it as the senior partner had balked when she’d refused to meet with him personally.

She believed he and the other partners would be more than satisfied with the system and her suggestions. If they weren’t? It was the price she paid for doing business on her terms.

To give her mind a rest, she shifted gears into gardening.

She wanted to create a butterfly garden along the south corner of her cabin, and had read and researched how to best accomplish the goal. With Bert by her side, she gathered tools, loaded her wheelbarrow. It pleased her to see the little vegetable garden she’d already planted doing so well, to smell the herbs soaking up the sunshine as she wheeled by. Her narrow stream bubbled along, and birds sang to its tune. Through the thickening trees, a frisky breeze danced and wild dogwood peeked out like flowery ghosts.

She was happy, she realized, as she marked off her plot with string and stakes. Really happy. With spring, with work, with her home. With Brooks.

Had she been really happy before? Surely there had been moments—at least during her childhood, in her brief time at Harvard, even moments after everything changed so completely—when she’d been happy.

But she couldn’t remember ever feeling quite like this. Nervous. Brooks was right about the nerves, and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked his being right. But over them and through them was a kind of lightness she didn’t know quite what to do with.

As she switched on her tiller, she hummed along with its churning grind, with the bubbling brook, with the birdsong. No, she didn’t know quite what to do with it, but if she could, she’d have held these moments, these feelings tight—so tight—forever.

She had satisfying work, had her gardening, which she enjoyed more than she’d ever imagined. She had a man she respected and enjoyed—more than she’d ever imagined—who would come to dinner, talk, laugh, be with her.

It couldn’t last, but what was the point in projecting, in making herself unhappy? Hold it tight, she reminded herself, as she added compost to her soil. For the moment.

She trundled her wheelbarrow back to the greenhouse, wandered through the smell of rich, moist earth; burgeoning flowers; sharp, strong greens, selecting the plants she’d nurtured for this particular project.

Good, steady physical labor in the warm afternoon. That made her happy, too. Who knew she had such a capacity for happy?

She made four trips, her Glock against her hip, her dog trotting at her heels before she began to lay out the plan she’d sketched out on chilly winter nights.

The cardinal flowers and coneflowers, the sweet-scented heliotrope mixed with airy lantana, the flow of verbena, the charm of New England asters, the elegance of oriental lilies for nectar. She had the sunflowers and hollyhocks and milkweed for host plants to tempt the adults to lay their eggs, the young caterpillars to feed.

She arranged, rearranged, grouped, regrouped, gradually veering away from her initial, somewhat mathematical layout when she found the less rigid and exact pleased her eye.

In case, she took out her phone and took pictures from several angles before she picked up her trowel to dig the first hole.

An hour later, she stepped back and checked her progress before going inside for ice to add to the tea she’d left steeping in the sun.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” she told Bert. “And we’ll be able to sit on the porch and watch the butterflies. I think we’ll draw hummingbirds, too. I’ll love seeing all this grow and bloom, the butterflies and birds. We’re putting down roots, Bert. The deeper they go, the more I want them.”

She closed her eyes, lifted her face to the sun.

Oh, she loved the way the air sounded, loved the way it smelled. She loved the rhythm of work and pleasure she’d found here, the quiet moments, the busy ones. She loved the feel of her dog leaning against her leg and the taste of tea cool on her throat.

She loved Brooks.

Her eyes popped open.

No, no, she’d just gotten caught up in the happy moments here. In this euphoria of having everything just as she wanted. And she’d let herself mix that with what he’d said to her that morning, how he looked at her.

Action and reaction, she told herself. Nothing more.

But what if it were more?

Her alarm beeped, stiffening her spine and shoulders as she laid a hand on the butt of the Glock.

She wasn’t expecting a package.

She walked quickly to the monitor she’d set up on the porch. She remembered the car even before she made out the driver. Brooks’s mother—dear God—and two other women.

Talking, laughing, as Sunny drove toward the house.

Before she could decide what to do, the car rounded the last curve. Sunny gave the horn a cheery toot-toot when she spotted Abigail.

“Hey, there!” Sunny shouted out the car window before the three of them piled out.

The woman in the front had to be Brooks’s sister, Abigail thought. The coloring, the bone structure, the shape of the eyes and mouth were too similar not to be genetic.

“Look at this! Butterfly garden.”

“Yes. I’ve been working on it this afternoon.”

“Well, it’s just going to be wonderful,” Sunny told her. “Smell the heliotrope! I’ve got Plato in the car. Do you suppose Bert would like to meet him?”

“I … I suppose he would.”

“Mama’s so busy worrying about introducing the dogs, she doesn’t worry about the humans. I’m Mya, Brooks’s sister, and our middle sister, Sybill.”

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Abigail managed, as her hand was gripped and shaken.

“We blew the day off,” Mya beamed out, a lanky woman with a pixie cut in streaky brunette. “Work, kids, men. We had ourselves a fancy ladies’ lunch, and now we’re heading in to do some shopping.”

“We thought you might like to come along with us,” Sybill said.

“Come along?” Baffled, off-balance, one eye on her dog, Abigail tried to keep up.

“Shopping,” Mya repeated. “After, we’re talking about frozen margaritas.”

The puppy bounced, rolled, nipped and generally went crazy around and over Bert, who sat, quivering, his gaze slanted toward Abigail.

“Ami. Jouer.”

Instantly, he hunkered, head down, tail up and wagging, and playfully knocked Plato into an ungainly roll.

“Aw, aren’t they cute!” Sunny declared.

“He won’t hurt the puppy.”

“Honey, I can see that. That big boy’s gentle as a lamb, and God knows Plato can use a little running-around time. He’s been in the car or on the leash all afternoon. Did you meet my two girls?”

“Yes.”

“We’re trying to talk her into putting away her trowel and coming along for shopping and margaritas.” Sybill offered Abigail a warm, easy smile that showed hints of dimples.

“Thank you for asking.” Abigail heard the stiffness in her voice when compared with the other women’s ease. “But I really need to finish planting. I got a later start than I’d planned.”

“Well, it looks just beautiful.” Sybill wandered over for a closer look. “I didn’t inherit Mama’s or Daddy’s green thumb, so I’m envious.”

“It was very nice of you to come over and invite me.”

“It was,” Mya agreed, “but mostly Syb and I just wanted to get a close-up look at you and check out the woman who’s got Brooks all tangled up.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not the type I imagined would hook him so good and proper.”

“Oh” was all Abigail could think of, again.

“Something’s in Mya’s mind,” Sunny began, hooking an arm around her daughter, “it just rolls right off her tongue.”

“I can be tactful and diplomatic, but it’s not a natural state for me. Anyway, I meant it as a compliment, a good thing.”

“Thank you?”

Mya laughed. “You’re welcome. Mostly, see, Brooks—in the past—tended toward the looks without necessarily much substance to back it up. But here you are, pretty and natural, strong and smart enough to live out here on your own, clever enough to plant a well-designed garden—I did get the green thumb—and you run your own business, from what I’m told. And I guess since you’ve got that big gun on your hip, you know how to take care of yourself.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Have you ever shot anyone?”

“Mya. Don’t mind her,” Sybill said. “She’s the oldest and has the biggest mouth. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come with us?”

“I really need to finish this garden, but thank you.”

“We’ll have a cookout Sunday afternoon,” Sunny announced. “Brooks’ll bring you around.”

“Oh, thank you, but—”

“Nothing fancy. Just a backyard barbecue. And I’ve got some yellow flags I need to divide. I’ll give you some. They’ll like that sunny spot over by the brook. I’ll round up that pup, and we’ll see you Sunday.”

“You’ve been seeing Brooks for a while now,” Mya commented.

“I suppose.”

“You know how he just chips amiably away at you until he gets his way?”

“Yes.”

Mya winked and grinned. “He comes by it naturally. We’ll see you Sunday.”

“Don’t worry.” Sybill surprised Abigail by taking her hand as her sister walked off to help their mother with the puppy. “It’ll be fine. Your dog’s all right with kids around?”

“He wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Unless I tell him to, she thought.

“You bring him along. You’ll feel easier having your dog with you. We’re pretty nice people, and inclined to like anyone who makes Brooks happy. You’ll be fine,” she said, and gave Abigail’s hand a squeeze before she released it and walked back to the car.

There was a lot of laughing and chattering, a lot of waving and honking. Shell-shocked, Abigail stood, her deliriously happy dog at her side, and politely lifted her hand as the O’Hara-Gleason women drove away.

It was like being rolled over by a steamroller made of flowers, Abigail thought. It didn’t really hurt, it was all very pretty and sweet-smelling. But you were still flattened.

She wouldn’t go, of course. It would be impossible on so many levels. Perhaps she’d write a polite note of regret to Brooks’s mother.

She put her gardening gloves back on. She wanted to finish the bed; plus, she’d used finishing it as an excuse, so finish it she must and would.

She’d never been asked to go shopping and have margaritas, and wondered as she dug what it was like. She knew people shopped even when they didn’t need anything. She didn’t understand the appeal, but she knew others did.

She thought of that day, so long ago, in the mall with Julie. How much fun it had been, how exhilarating and liberating it had been to try on clothes and shoes with a friend.

Of course, they hadn’t been friends. Not really friends. The entire interlude had been one of chance and circumstance and mutual need.

And that interlude had led to disaster and tragedy.

She knew, logically, the harmless rebellion of buying clothes and shoes hadn’t caused the tragedy. Even her own reckless stupidity of forging the IDs, agreeing to go to the club hadn’t caused the events that followed.

The Volkovs and Yakov Korotkii held that responsibility.

And yet, how could she not link them together, not feel the weight and the guilt even after all this time? The argument with her mother had lit the chain reaction that had ended with the explosion of the safe house. If not fully responsible, she had been one of the links in that chain.

And still, as she planted she wondered what it was like to ride in a car with women who laughed, to shop for unnecessary things, to drink margaritas and gossip.

And wondering took some of the bloom off the pleasure of the sounds and smells of her solitude.

She planted it all, added more, worked through the afternoon into soft evening wheeling bags of mulch to the bed. Filthy, sweaty, satisfied, she set up the sprinklers just as her alarm signaled again.

This time she saw Brooks driving toward the house.

She’d lost track of time, she realized. She’d meant to go in, put the lasagna on warm in the oven before he arrived. And had certainly hoped to have cleaned up at least a little.

“Well, look at that.” He got out, a bouquet of purple iris in his hand. “These feel a little dinky now.”

“They’re beautiful. It’s the second time you brought me flowers. You’re the only one who ever has.”

He made them both a silent promise to bring them often. He handed them to her, pulled out a rawhide for Bert. “Didn’t forget you, big guy. You must’ve worked half the day putting that bed in.”

“Not quite that long, but it took some time. I want butterflies.”

“You’re going to get them. It’s pretty as it can be, Abigail. So are you.”

“I’m dirty,” she said, backing up when he bent to kiss her.

“I don’t mind a bit. You know I’d’ve given you a hand with the planting. I’m good at it.”

“I got started, and caught up in it.”

“Why don’t I get us some wine? We can sit out here and admire your work.”

“I need to shower and put the lasagna in to warm.”

“Go on, get your shower. I can put the food in, get the wine. From the looks of things you worked harder than I did today. Here.” He took the flowers back. “I’ll put them in water for you. What?” he said when she only stared at him.

“Nothing. I … I won’t be long.”

Not sure what to do, he concluded, when offered the most basic and minimal help. But she’d taken it, he thought, as he went in, filled her vase. And without argument or excuses. That was a step forward.

He put the flowers on the counter, expecting she’d fuss with the arrangement later, and likely when he wasn’t around. He switched the oven, set it low, slid the casserole in.

He took the wine and two glasses out on the front porch, and, after pouring, carried his own glass over to lean on the post, study her flowers.

He knew enough about gardening to be sure the job had taken her hours. Knew enough about gardening artfully to be sure she had a knack for color and texture and flow.

And he knew enough about people to be sure the planting of it was another mark of ownership, of settling in. Her place, done her way.

A good sign.

When she stepped out, he turned to her. Her damp hair curled a little around her face, and she smelled as fresh as spring itself.

“It’s my first spring back in the Ozarks,” he said, picking up her glass to offer it. “I’m watching it come back to life. The hills greening up, the wildflowers bursting, the rivers streaming through it all. The light, the shadows, sunlight on fields of row crops freshly planted. All of it new again for another season. And I know there’s nowhere else I want to be. This is home again, for the rest of it.”

“I feel that way. It’s the first time I’ve felt that way. I like it.”

“It’s good you do. I look at you, Abigail, smelling of that spring, your flowers blooming or waiting to, your eyes so serious, so goddamn beautiful, and I feel the same. There’s nowhere else. No one else.”

“I don’t know what to do with how you make me feel. And I’m afraid of what my life will be if this changes and I never feel this way again.”

“How do I make you feel?”

“Happy. So happy. And terrified and confused.”

“We’ll work on the happy until you’re easy and sure.”

She set down her wine, went to him, held on. “I may never be.”

“You came outside without your gun.”

“You have yours.”

He smiled into her hair. “That’s something, then. That’s trust, and a good start.”

She didn’t know, couldn’t analyze through all the feelings. “We can sit on the steps, and you could tell me what happened this morning.”

“We can do that.” He tipped her face back, kissed her lightly. “’Cause I’m feeling good about it.”

19

He filled her in while the shadows lengthened and her new garden soaked up the gentle shower from her sprinklers.

She’d always found the law fascinating, the ins and outs of the process, the illogic—and, in her opinion, often the bias—infused into the rules and codes and procedures by the human factor. Justice seemed so clear-cut to her, but the law that sought it, enforced it, was murky and slippery.

“I don’t understand why, because they have money, they should be released.”

“Innocent till proven guilty.”

“But they are guilty,” she insisted, “and it has been proven. They rented the room and caused the damage. Justin Blake assaulted your friend in front of witnesses.”

“They’re entitled to their day in court.”

She shook her head. “But now they’re free to use money or intimidation against those witnesses and the others involved, or to run, or to craft delays. Your friends suffered a loss, and the people who caused it are free to go about their lives and business. The legal system is very flawed.”

“That may be, but without it, chaos.”

From her experience, chaos came with it.

“Consequences, punishment, justice, should be swift and constant, without the escape hatches of money, clever lawyers and illogical rulings.”

“I imagine most mobs think that when they get a rope.”

She frowned at him. “You arrest people who break the law. You know they’ve broken the law when you do so. You should be frustrated, even angry, knowing one of them finds a way through a legal loophole or, due to human failure, isn’t punished for the crime.”

“I’d rather see a guilty man go free than an innocent one go down. Sometimes there are reasons to break the law. I’m not talking about our three current assholes, but in general.”

Obviously relaxed, Brooks stretched out his legs, gave Bert a little rub with his foot. “It’s not always black and white, right and wrong. If you don’t consider all the shades and circumstances, you haven’t reached justice.”

“You believe that.” The muscles in her belly twisted, vibrated. “That there can be reasons to break the law.”

“Sure there are. Self-defense, defense of others. Or something as simple as speeding. Your wife’s in labor? I’m not going to cite you for breaking the speed limit on the way to the hospital.”

“You’d consider the circumstances.”

“Sure. Back when I was on patrol, we got called in on an assault. This guy went into a bar and beat the shit out of his uncle. We’ll call him Uncle Harry. Now, we’ve got to take the guy in on the assault, but it turns out Uncle Harry’s been messing with the guy’s twelve-year-old daughter. Yeah, he should’ve just called the cops and Child Services on it, but was he wrong to break Uncle Harry’s face? I don’t think so. You have to look at the whole picture, weigh those circumstances. That’s what the courts are supposed to do.”

“Point of view,” she murmured.

“Yeah. Point of view.” He trailed a finger down her arm. “Have you broken the law, Abigail?”

It was a door, she knew, that he invited her to walk through. But what if it locked behind her? “I’ve never had a speeding ticket, but I’ve exceeded the posted limit. I’m going to check the lasagna.”

When he wandered in a few minutes later, she was standing at the counter, slicing tomatoes.

“I harvested some tomatoes and basil from the greenhouse earlier.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“I like to be busy. I completed a contract a bit earlier than I projected, so I rewarded myself with gardening. And I had visitors.”

“Is that so?”

“Your mother and sisters.”

He was on the point of topping off her wine. “Say what again?”

“They were out this way. They’d had what your mother called a fancy ladies’ lunch, and were going shopping and to drink frozen margaritas. They invited me to join them.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mya explained they essentially came by to check me out. I liked her honesty, though at the time it was somewhat unnerving.”

Brooks let out a sound that might’ve been a laugh. “She can be.”

“They had Plato with them. Bert enjoyed playing with him.”

“I bet.”

“They laugh a lot.”

“Bert and Plato?”

“No.” And that made her laugh. “Your mother and sisters. They seem very happy. They seem like friends as well as relatives.”

“I’d say they are. We are.”

“Your other sister, Sybill, has a kind and gentle way. You appear to have qualities of both of your siblings. You also share a strong physical resemblance, particularly with Mya.”

“Did Mya tell you embarrassing stories about me?”

“No, though I would have been interested. I suspect she was more curious about me. She said when it came to women, to relationships …” Abigail paused a moment as she layered slices of buffalo mozzarella with the tomatoes. “In the past you tended toward the looks without necessarily much substance to back it up.”

Brooks watched her as she spoke, as she perfected the pattern on the dish. “I bet that’s word for word.”

“Paraphrasing can impart a different tenor, even a different meaning.”

“Can’t argue.”

“Is it true?”

He considered, shrugged. “I guess it is, now that I think about it.”

“I think it’s flattering.” And it also spoke to the novelty she’d brought up that morning. Novelty wore off.

“What surprises me is they had you three to one, and took no for an answer.”

“I was obviously, and honestly, deeply involved with the garden.” She picked up the wine now, drank. “Your mother did, however, invite me to an impromptu backyard barbecue this Sunday.”

He laughed, lifted his glass in salute. “See? They didn’t take no for an answer.”

She hadn’t considered that, and now saw Brooks was right. “Your mother seemed to ignore my reasonable excuse to decline. I thought it might be better to write her a polite note of regret.”

“Why? She makes great potato salad.”

“I have my gardening and household chores on my schedule for Sunday.”

“Chicken.”

“I’m sure your mother makes very nice chicken, but—”

“No. You’re a chicken.” He made a clucking sound that deepened her frown and stirred her temper.

“There’s no need to be rude.”

“Sometimes honest is rude. Look, there’s no reason to be nervous about hanging out in the backyard and eating potato salad. You’ll have fun.”

“No, I won’t, because I’ll have neglected my schedule. And I don’t know how to behave at a backyard barbecue. I don’t know how to have conversations with all those people I don’t know, or barely know, or how to meet the curiosity that would, I assume, be aimed at me because you and I have been having sex.”

“That’s a lot of don’t knows,” Brooks decided, “but I can help you with all of it. I can give you a hand with the gardening and household chores beforehand. You do just fine with conversations, but I’ll stick with you until you’re comfortable. And they may be curious, but they’re disposed to like you because I do, and my mother does. Plus, I’ll make you a promise.”

He paused now, waited until she lifted her gaze to his.

“What promise?”

“You give it an hour, and if you’re not having a good time, I’ll make an excuse. I’ll say I’ve got a call I have to handle, and we’ll go.”

“You’d lie to your family?”

“Yeah, I would. They’d know I’m lying, and understand.”

There, she thought, one of the complications that tangled into social duties and interpersonal relationships. “I think it’s best to avoid all of that and just send a note of regret.”

“She’ll just come fetch you.”

That stopped her slicing again. “That’s not true.”

“It’s gospel, honey. She’ll figure you’re too shy or too stubborn. If she decides on shy, she’ll mother you over there. If she decides on stubborn, she’ll push you every mile from here to there.”

“I’m not shy or stubborn.”

“You’re both, with some of that clucker tossed in.”

Deliberately, she brought the knife down on the board a little harder than necessary. “I don’t see the wisdom in insulting me when I’m preparing you a meal.”

“I don’t see being shy or stubborn as insulting. And everybody’s got a little clucker pecking around, depending on the circumstances.”

“What are your circumstances?”

“That’s a change of subject, but I’ll give it to you. Semiannual dentist visits, wolf spiders and karaoke.”

“Karaoke. That’s funny.”

“Not when I do it. Anyway, take my word. Give it an hour. An hour won’t hurt you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough. I’m repeating myself from last night, but that sure smells good.”

“Hopefully tonight will be more quiet and peaceful than last.”

It proved to be, until shortly after two a.m.

When her alarm sounded, she rolled out of bed, reaching for the gun on her nightstand and gripped it before her feet hit the floor.

“Take it easy.” Brooks’s voice stayed utterly calm. “Ease it down, Abigail. You, too,” he said to the dog, who poised at her feet, a low growl in his throat.

“Someone’s coming.”

“I got that. No, don’t turn on the light. If it’s somebody up to mischief, it’s better if they don’t know we know.”

“I don’t recognize this car,” she said, as she turned to the monitor.

“I do. Shit.” His sigh was more fatigued than annoyed. “It’s Doyle Parsins, so that would be Justin Blake and his pal Chad Cartwright and Doyle. Let me get my pants on. I’ll take care of it.”

“There are only two people in the car.”

Brooks jerked on his pants, grabbed his shirt, shrugging into it as he walked back to study the monitor. “Either Chad got some sense and stayed home, or they dropped him off to circle around the back. Since I don’t credit them with that many smarts, I’d say Chad skipped the party.”

Firmly, Brooks laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not about you, Abigail. Relax.”

“I don’t relax when someone sneaks onto my property at two in the morning. It’s not reasonable to expect me to relax.”

“Good point.” He took her arms, but loosely, rubbing his way up and down them. “I’m just saying they’re looking to cause me some grief. Not you. Most likely creeping up here—see there, they’re pulling off some ways from the house. Planning on slashing my tires, maybe spray painting some obscenities on my car. Figuring I’ll get a rude surprise come morning. Jesus, high as hot-air balloons, the both of them.”

“If they’re under the influence of drugs, they’re unlikely to be rational.”

“Rational isn’t Justin’s default position, straight or high.”

And coming here like this told Brooks he was escalating, as Tybal had been.

Watching them, he took the time to button his shirt. “Go on and call nine-one-one. Ash is on call tonight. You just give him the situation. I’ll go out and see to it.”

He pulled on boots in case he had to chase them down, strapped on his weapon.

“You and Bert stay inside.”

“I don’t need or want to be protected from a pair of delinquents.”

“Abigail, I’m the one with the badge.” His tone brooked no argument. “And I’m the one they’re here to screw with. No point getting them riled up toward you. Call it in, and wait for me.”

He went downstairs in the backwash of her outdoor security lights, taking his time. The bust would be clearer, stick harder, if he walked out on them doing something, or about to, rather than just creeping around, muffling the snorting giggles of the drunk and/or high.

Abigail would get her view of justice now, he thought, as the pair of them would spend the time until their trial in jail.

He watched them through the window, and as he’d anticipated, they crouched beside his cruiser. Justin opened a bag, tossed a spray can to Doyle.

He let them get started. The cruiser would need a paint job, but the evidence would be unarguable.

Then he stepped to the front door, dealt with the locks, and walked out.

“You boys lost?”

Doyle dropped the can and fell back on his ass.

“Sorry to interrupt your field trip, but I believe the half-wit pair of you are trespassing. We’ll add vandalism to that, and seeing as you’ve just vandalized police property, it’s a tough one for you. And I’m just betting I’m going to find controlled substances and/or alcohol in your possession and in your bloodstream. To sum up, boys? You’re royally fucked.”

Brooks shook his head when Doyle tried to scramble to his feet. “You run, Doyle, I’ll add on fleeing and resisting. I know where you live, you idiot, so stay down, stay put. Justin, you’re going to want to let me see your hands.”

“You want to see my hands?”

Justin punched the knife he held into the rear tire, then surged to his feet. “Gonna let the air out of you next, asshole.”

“Let me get this straight. You’ve got a knife. I’ve got a gun. See this?” Brooks drew it almost casually. “And I’m the asshole? Justin, you are deeply, deeply stupid. Now, toss that knife down, then take a look at your marginally brighter friend. See how he’s facedown with his hands linked behind his head? Do that.”

In the security lights, Brooks noted Justin’s pupils were the size of pinpricks.

“You’re not going to shoot me. You haven’t got the stomach for it.”

“I think he does.” With her favored Glock in her hand, Abigail stepped out from the side of the house. “But if he doesn’t shoot you, I will.”

“Hiding behind a woman now, Gleason?”

Brooks shifted, just a little. Not only to block Abigail if Justin was stupid enough to come for them with the knife, but because he wasn’t sure, at all, she wouldn’t shoot the moron.

“Do I look like I’m hiding?”

“I’d like to shoot him,” Abigail said, conversationally. “He’s trespassing, and he’s armed, so I believe I’m within my rights. I could shoot him in the leg. I’m a very good shot, as you know.”

“Abigail.” Torn between amusement and concern, Brooks stepped forward. “Drop that knife now, Justin, before this gets ugly.”

“You’re not putting me in jail.”

“How many ways can you be wrong tonight?” Brooks wondered.

Justin lunged forward.

“Don’t shoot him, for Christ’s sake,” Brooks shouted. He blocked the knife hand with his left arm, swung up his right elbow and jabbed it into Justin’s nose. He heard the satisfying crunch an instant before blood spurted. As the knife dropped, he simply gripped Justin by the collar, propelled him forward so he stumbled to his knees.

Out of patience, he shoved Justin down on his face, put a boot on his neck. “Abigail, do me a favor and go up and get my cuffs, will you?”

“I have them.”

Brooks lifted his brows when she pulled them out of her back pocket. “You’re a planner. Toss them over.”

He caught them, knelt down to yank Justin’s arms behind his back. “Doyle, you keep still now, or Ms. Lowery might shoot you in the leg.”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t know he was going to do that, I swear. We were just going to mess around with the cruiser. I swear to God.”

“Keep quiet, Doyle, you’re too stupid to talk.” Brooks glanced up as he heard the siren. “Jesus, what’s he doing coming in hot?”

“I saw the knife when I was relating the situation. Your deputy became very concerned.”

“All right. Hell. Justin, you just came at a cop with a knife. That’s assault with a deadly on a police officer. The prosecutor might even bump that to attempted murder when we add in the trash talk. You’re done, boy, and it didn’t have to go like this. You’re under arrest for trespassing, vandalism, defacing police property and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer. You have the right to remain silent.”

“You broke my fucking nose. I’ll kill you for that.”

“Do yourself a favor, take that right to silence to heart.” He finished the Miranda as he spotted the lights from Ash’s cruiser zipping down the road. “Doyle? Where’s Chad Cartwright?”

“He wouldn’t come. Said he was in enough trouble, and his daddy’s likely to kick his ass he gets in more.”

“A glimmer of sanity.” He got to his feet as Ash slammed out of his car.

“Chief! You all right? Jesus. You’re bleeding.”

“What? Where? Shit.” Brooks looked down, hissed in disgust. “That’s Justin’s nose blood. God damn it, I liked this shirt.”

“You should soak it in cold water and salt.”

Both Brooks and his deputy looked over to where Abigail stood, the dog at full alert at her side.

“Ma’am,” Ash said.

Sirens screamed out again.

“What the hell, Ash?”

“It’ll be Boyd. When Ms. Lowery reported she saw a knife, and only had a visual on two when this bunch usually runs in three, I thought I should call Boyd in for backup. Are you sure he didn’t cut you?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. He was stupid enough to try, so he’s charged with assault on a police officer. I guess you and Boyd can take the pair of them in. I’ll be along shortly.”

“All right, Chief. Sorry for the trouble, Ms. Lowery.”

“You didn’t cause it, Deputy Hyderman.”

Brooks stepped over to her. “Why don’t you take Bert and go on inside? I’ll be in in just a couple minutes.”

“Yes.” She signaled to the dog and went back the way she’d come.

In the kitchen, she rewarded Bert with one of his favorite cookies, then put on coffee. She considered a moment, then opened a container to put human cookies on a plate.

Somehow it seemed like the right thing to do. She sat at the table and watched Brooks and the others on the monitor. The boy he’d called Doyle cried a little, but she found she couldn’t feel any sympathy. Justin remained sullen, snarling like a bad dog, in her opinion, sneering out of eyes she expected would be swollen and bruised from the broken nose shortly.

Once the prisoners were secured in the back of the first deputy’s cruiser, Brooks spoke to his men for another moment, then said something that made them laugh.

Breaking the tension, she deduced. Yes, that would be a sign of a good leader. She started to rise and go unlock the front door, but saw Brooks head toward the back as she had. Instead she walked over and poured his coffee, adding the sugar as he liked it.

He stepped in, saw the plate. “Cookies?”

“I thought you might want something.”

“I might. I’ve got to go in and deal with this.”

“Yes, of course.”

He picked up his coffee, took a cookie. “I don’t have to ask if you’re all right. Steady as a rock, right on through it.”

“He’s a stupid, violent boy, but we were never in any real danger. You might have been cut, which would’ve been upsetting. Was he right?”

“Who, and about what?”

“Justin Blake, when he said you wouldn’t shoot him.”

Biting into the cookie, Brooks leaned back in that easy way he had. “Mostly. If I’d had to, yeah, but I didn’t have to. Better all around. Would you have shot him?”

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “I’d wondered if I could or would, as he’s young and stupid, but yes. If he’d cut you, I would have. But you have excellent reflexes, and he telegraphed his move, and was slow due, I suspect, to drugs or alcohol. You weren’t afraid.”

“You gave me a moment, initially. I told you to stay inside.”

“And I told you I didn’t need or want to be protected. It’s my property, and I was armed.”

“As always.” He took another bite of the cookie.

“Added to that, though nothing registered on the monitor, I wanted to be sure there wasn’t a third who might have flanked you.”

“I appreciate it.”

“You should soak that shirt before the stain sets.”

“I’ve got a spare at the station. Abigail, I’m going to need for you to give a statement. You can come in, or I can send one of my men to take it here.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. I couldn’t give you the statement under the circumstances.”

“No.”

“I think I’d prefer to go in. I could do it now.”

“Morning’s fine.”

“If I came in now, it would be done. I’d rather it be done. I’ll change and drive in now.”

“I can wait for you.”

“That’s all right. You should go now, do what you need to do.”

“Yeah. The way you handled this makes me think you’ve handled trouble before. I’m hoping you’ll trust me enough to tell me about that someday soon.”

Wanting the link, she curled her fingers around his wrists for a moment. “If I could tell anyone, it would be you.”

“Okay, then.” He set the coffee down, took her face in his hands and kissed her. “Thanks for the backup. And the cookie.”

“You’re welcome.”

Thirty minutes behind Brooks, Abigail walked into the station. The older deputy—Boyd Fitzwater, she remembered—immediately got up from his desk and came around to meet her.

“Ms. Lowery, we sure appreciate you coming in like this. The chief’s in his office, talking to the prosecutor and all. I’m going to take your statement.”

“Yes.”

“You want some coffee, something cold?”

“No, thank you.”

“We can sit down right here. Should be quiet. Ash is back with the paramedic we called in to treat the Blake boy’s nose.” He smiled when he said it. “It’s busted good.”

“I’m sure a broken nose is preferable to a bullet. I believe Chief Gleason would have been justified in firing his weapon when Justin lunged toward him with the knife.”

“I’m not going to argue. But if we could start this from the beginning. I’m going to record it so we get it all straight. I’ll be taking notes, too. All right with you?”

“Of course.”

“All righty, then.” Boyd switched on a tape recorder, read off the date, the time, the names of all involved. “Ms. Lowery, why don’t you just tell me what happened tonight?”

“At two-oh-seven a.m., my perimeter alarm signaled a breach.”

She spoke clearly, precisely.

“As Chief Gleason had indicated, Justin Blake most usually traveled with two individuals. I wanted to be certain there wasn’t indeed a third man who might have circled around. My alarms didn’t register, but I felt it best to be certain. After I spoke with Deputy Hyderman on the phone, I took my dog and went out the back of the house. My dog showed no sign of detecting anyone in that area, so I continued around to the front, where I saw Chief Gleason and the two trespassers. One, identified as Doyle Parsins, was already on the ground, and Justin Blake continued to crouch by the left-rear tire of Chief Gleason’s police cruiser.”

“Did you hear anybody say anything?”

“Oh, yes, quite clearly. It was a quiet night. Chief Gleason said to Justin, ‘You’re going to want to show me your hands.’ I should add that at this time, Chief Gleason’s weapon was secured in his holster. Justin responded, ‘You want to see my hands?’ and drove the knife he held in his right hand into the left-rear tire.”

She continued, giving Boyd a word-for-word, move-by-move statement. Boyd interrupted once or twice to clarify.

“That’s really detailed.”

“I have an eidetic memory—you might call it photographic,” she added, though it always irked her to explain with that inaccuracy.

“That’s really helpful, Ms. Lowery.”

“I hope so. He would have killed Brooks if he could have.”

Though he reached over to turn off the tape recorder, Boyd lifted his hand from it, sat back. “Ma’am?”

“Justin Blake. He would have stabbed Chief Gleason, and he would have killed him if he could have. His intent was very clear, as was his anger and, I think, his fear. It’s what he knows, you see? To hurt or eliminate what gets in his way, what interferes. There are people who simply believe their own wants and wishes are above everything and everyone else.”

She’d seen murder, she thought. The boy didn’t remind her of the cold, mechanical Korotkii. He lacked that efficiency and dispassion. But he’d made her think of Ilya, of the hot rage on Ilya’s face when he’d cursed and kicked his dead cousin.

“He might not have killed or caused serious physical harm before tonight. I think if he had, he wouldn’t have been so inept at this attempt. But if it hadn’t been this, tonight, it would have been someone else, another night, someone without Chief Gleason’s resources, reflexes and equanimity. There would have been more to clean up than a broken nose.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry. It was upsetting. More than I realized. My opinion isn’t relevant. If that’s all you need, I’d like to go home.”

“I can get somebody to drive you.”

“No, I’m fine to drive. Thank you, Deputy, you’ve been very kind.”

She started for the door, paused when Brooks called her name. He crossed over, laid a hand on her arm. “Be a minute,” he told Boyd, then led her outside.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I told you.”

“And you just told Boyd it was more upsetting than you realized.”

“It was, but that doesn’t mean I’m not all right. I am tired, though. I think I’ll go home and get some more sleep.”

“Good. I’ll call or swing by later, just to see how you are.”

“You can’t worry about me. I don’t need it.” Didn’t want it, any more than she wanted Justin Blake to remind her of Ilya Volkov. “Did you soak your shirt, cold water and salt?”

“I trashed it. I’d see his blood on there whether it was there or not. I don’t much care for that shirt anymore.”

She thought of a pretty sweater, stained with blood. “I understand. You’re tired, too.” She let herself touch his face. “I hope you can get a little sleep.”

“I wouldn’t mind it. You drive safe, Abigail.” He kissed her forehead, then her lips, before stepping over to open her car door. “You were right, what you said in there. It was only a matter of time before he pulled a knife or a gun, picked up a bat, before he did somebody serious harm.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“Then I won’t.” Leading with emotion, she threw her arms around him, held tight. “I’m very glad you have good reflexes.”

She slid into the car and drove away.

20

Just past three that afternoon, Abigail watched on her monitor as a dark Mercedes sedan cruised toward her house. The look of it sent a quick tingle up her spine. She didn’t recognize the car, the driver—late thirties, early forties, broad shoulders, short, dark hair—or the passenger—fiftyish, dark gray hair, wide face.

She keyed the license plate into her system, reminding herself she was prepared—for anything. Her quick search through DMV records popped Lincoln Blake as the owner, and her shoulders relaxed.

An annoying interruption but not a threat.

Blake looked prosperous, she noted, when he got out of the passenger side. It struck her that he looked deliberately prosperous in his perfectly cut suit and city shoes. The second man also wore a suit, and carried a briefcase.

She believed she saw a slight bulge on his right hip that disturbed the line of his jacket. He carried a weapon.

Well, she thought, so did she.

She considered ignoring the knock on her door. She wasn’t under any obligation to answer, to speak with the father of the boy who’d tried to kill Brooks. But she also considered the fact that a man like Blake, from everything she’d heard and intuited about him, wouldn’t simply walk away. In any case, she was a little curious.

With Bert at her side, she opened the front door.

“Miss Lowery.” Blake offered a wide smile and his hand. “Forgive the intrusion. I’m Lincoln Blake, one of your neighbors.”

“Your home is several miles away, in fact, on the other side of Bickford. Therefore, you don’t live close enough to my property to be considered a neighbor.”

“We’re all neighbors here,” Blake said jovially. “This is my personal assistant, Mark. I’d like to apologize for my son’s inadvertent trespass on your property last night. May we come in, discuss this situation?”

“No.”

It always puzzled her why people looked so surprised, even annoyed, when they asked a question and the response was negative.

“Now, Miss Lowery, I came out here to offer my apologies, as I understand my son caused you some inconvenience, and to sort this all out. It’ll be helpful if we could be comfortable while we talk this out.”

“I’m comfortable. Thank you for your apology, Mr. Blake, though it hardly applies, as it was your son who came on my property without permission in the middle of the night, and who attempted to stab Chief Gleason. I believe the police are sorting all this out, and we really don’t have anything to discuss at this point.”

“Now, that’s just why I came by. I dislike trying to have a conversation through a doorway.”

“I dislike having strangers in my house. I’d like you to go now. You can discuss this with the police.”

“I’m not finished.” He jabbed out a finger. “I understand you’re friendly with Brooks Gleason, and that—”

“Yes, we are friendly. He wouldn’t have been here at two in the morning when your son and your son’s friend came illegally onto my property with the intent to deface Chief Gleason’s police cruiser if we weren’t friendly. However, my relationship with Chief Gleason doesn’t alter the facts.”

“One fact is you haven’t lived here long. You’re not fully aware of my position in this community, or the history behind it.”

She wondered, sincerely, why he thought any of that was relevant, but didn’t bother to ask.

“I’m aware, and your position and history don’t alter the facts of what transpired here early this morning. It was very disturbing to be awakened in that manner, and to witness your son attack Chief Gleason with a knife.”

“Fact.” Blake slapped an index finger on his open palm. “It was the middle of the night, and therefore dark. I have no doubt Brooks Gleason goaded my boy, threatened him. Justin was simply defending himself.”

“That’s inaccurate,” Abigail said calmly. “My security lights were on. I have excellent vision and was less than ten feet away during the attempted assault. Chief Gleason clearly asked your son to show his hands, and when your son did so it was, first, to puncture the cruiser’s tire and, second, to threaten Brooks with the knife.”

“My son—”

“I haven’t finished correcting your inaccuracies,” she pointed out, and stunned Blake into momentary silence.

“Only then, when your son threatened him verbally and with gestures, did Brooks draw his weapon. And still your son would not drop the knife. Instead, even when I stepped out with my own weapon, your son lunged at Brooks with the knife. In my opinion, Brooks would have been fully justified in shooting your son at that time, but he chose to disarm him hand to hand at a greater risk to his own safety.”

“Nobody knows you around here. You’re an odd, solitary woman with no background or history in the community. If and when you tell that ridiculous story in court, my lawyers will rip your testimony to bits and humiliate you.”

“I don’t think so, but I’m sure your lawyers will do their jobs. If that’s all, I’d like you to leave.”

“You just wait a damn minute.” Blake stepped forward, and Bert quivered, growled.

“You’re upsetting my dog,” Abigail said coldly. “And if your assistant attempts to draw his sidearm, I’ll release my dog. I can assure you he’ll move faster than he can draw his weapon. I’m also armed, as you can plainly see. I’m a very good shot. I don’t like strangers coming to my home, trying to intimidate and threaten me. I don’t like men who raise violent, angry young men.”

Like Sergei Volkov, she thought.

“I don’t like you, Mr. Blake, and I’ll ask you to leave for the last time.”

“I came here to settle this with you, to apologize and offer you compensation for the inconvenience.”

“Compensation?”

“Ten thousand dollars. A generous apology for a mishap, for a misunderstanding.”

“It certainly would be,” Abigail agreed.

“The money’s yours, in cash, for your agreement that this was, indeed, a misunderstanding.”

“Your proposal is I accept ten thousand dollars in cash from you to misrepresent what happened here this morning?”

“Don’t be stubborn. My proposal is you accept the cash in my assistant’s briefcase as an apology, and you simply agree what occurred here was a misunderstanding. You’ll also have my word that my son will never step foot on your property again.”

“First, your word can hardly regulate your son’s behavior. Second, it would be your son, not you, who owes me an apology for this morning. And last, your proposal constitutes a bribe, an exchange of money for my misrepresenting the facts. I believe attempting to bribe a witness in a criminal investigation is a crime. The simplest solution, and certainly the best outcome for you, is for me to say no, thank you. And good-bye.”

She stepped back, shut the door, clicked the locks in place.

He actually beat on the door with his fist. It didn’t surprise her, Abigail realized. His son had inherited that same unstable temperament and illusion of entitlement. With her hand resting lightly on the butt of her gun, she walked back to the kitchen monitor, watched the assistant attempt to calm his employer down.

She didn’t want to call the police. More trouble, more interruptions, more ugly behavior.

It had shaken her a little, there was no shame in admitting it. But she’d stood up to the intimidation, the threats. No panic, she thought now, no urge to run.

She didn’t believe in fate, in anything being meant, but if she did, maybe—theoretically—she’d been meant to go through these two experiences, the reminder of Ilya, and now of his father, to prove to herself she could and would stand up.

She wouldn’t run again. If she believed in fate.

“We’ll give him two minutes, from now, to regain some composure and leave. If he doesn’t, we’ll go out again.”

But this time, she determined, her weapon would be in her hand, not in her holster.

As she meant it literally, she set the timer on her watch, and continued to observe him on the monitor.

His blood pressure must be at dangerous levels, she thought, as his face darkened, his eyes literally bulged. She could see the rapid rise and fall of his prosperous chest as he shouted at his assistant.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to call for medical assistance as well as the authorities.

All she wanted to do was finish her work and spend a little time working in her gardens. This man’s difficulties weren’t hers.

At the one-minute, forty-two-second mark, Blake stormed back to the car. Abigail let out a small sigh of relief as the assistant made the three-quarter turn and drove away.

All these years, she thought. Was it irony she was once again a witness to a crime, and once again the subject of threats and intimidation?

No, she didn’t believe in fate, and yet … it certainly felt as though fate had decided to twist her life, and circle it right back to where she’d begun.

It was something to think about.

She looked at her work, sighed again.

“I think we’ll take a walk,” she said to Bert. “I’m too annoyed to work right now.”

Her mood leveled out in the air, calmed when she walked through the trees, studied the progress of wildflowers, considered again her private seating area with its view of the hills. She would start a search for the proper bench very soon.

She felt … happy, she realized, when she received a text from Brooks.

How about I pick up some Chinese? Don’t cook. You’re probably tired.

She considered, texted back.

I’m not tired, but I like Chinese food. Thank you.

Moments later, she got another text.

You’re welcome.

It made her laugh, picked up her mood a few more notches. Since she was already out, she gave Bert a full hour of exercise, then went back home to work with a clear mind.

She lost track of time, a rarity for her, and was prepared to be annoyed when her alarm beeped again. If that disagreeable man had come back, she wouldn’t be so polite, she determined.

Her mood shifted yet again when she saw Brooks’s cruiser. A check of the time showed her she’d worked past six.

No gardening today, she thought, and put the lack of that pleasure on the head of the disagreeable man and his stony-faced assistant.

But she shut down and went to the door happy—again—at the prospect of having dinner with Brooks.

Her smile of greeting turned to concern when she saw his face.

“You didn’t sleep.”

“We had a lot going on.”

“You look very tired. Here, let me take some of that. You brought a great deal of food for two people.”

“You know what they say about Chinese food.”

“It’s not really true. You won’t be hungry an hour later if you eat properly. I see you brought pijin to go with it.”

“I did?”

“Chinese beer,” she said, as she led the way in. “Chinese villagers brewed beer as far back as 7,000 B.C.”

“I don’t think the Zhujiang I picked up is that old.”

“That’s a joke. It was used—not the beer you bought—in rituals. It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that modern beer brewing was introduced to China.”

“Good to know.”

“You sound tired, too. You should sit, have one of the beers. I slept another two hours, and had an hour’s walk. I feel rested. I’ll take care of the food.”

“I just told them to load me up. I didn’t know what you wanted, especially.”

“I’m not fussy.” She opened cartons. “I’m sorry you had a difficult day. You can tell me about it if you like.”

“Lawyers, arguments, accusations, threats.” He opened a beer, sat at her counter. “Paperwork, meetings. You don’t have to put all that in bowls. The beauty of Chinese is you can eat right out of the carton.”

“Which is rushed and less soothing.” She believed he required soothing. “I can fix your plate if you tell me what you’d like.”

“Whatever. I’m not fussy, either.”

“We should take a walk after dinner, then you should try a warm bath and try to sleep. You seem very tense, and you rarely are.”

“I guess I’m just annoyed at having lawyers in my face, who try to push and intimidate me and my deputies.”

“Yes, he’s a very annoying man.” She scooped rice out of the bowl, ladled sweet-and-sour pork over it, added a dumpling, some noodles, some butterfly shrimp. “I had to walk off my own mood after he left this afternoon.”

“Left? Here? Blake came here?”

“This afternoon, with his assistant. Ostensibly to apologize for his son’s ‘inadvertent’ trespassing. But that was just a ruse, not well disguised. He was displeased when I wouldn’t let him come in to discuss the situation.”

“I bet he was. He doesn’t like being refused. It’s good you didn’t open the door.”

“I did open the door, but wouldn’t invite him in.” She decided she’d try the beer straight out of the bottle, as Brooks did. “Are you aware his assistant carries a gun?”

“Yeah. Are you telling me he pulled a weapon on you?”

“Oh, no. No, don’t be upset.” She’d meant to soothe and had accomplished the opposite. “Of course he didn’t. I just noticed the line of his suit, and then his body language when Bert growled.”

Brooks took a long pull of beer. “Why don’t you tell me what was said and done?”

“You are upset,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Yes, you should have.”

“It wasn’t anything important, really. He said he’d come to apologize, then was clearly put out when I refused to invite them in. He termed what happened a misunderstanding, and indicated it was of your doing. I disabused him of that, as I was a witness. He implied I didn’t understand his position in the community, and that my relationship with you made my standing as witness suspicious. Not in those words, but that was the meaning. Do you want me to relay the exact conversation?”

“Not just yet. The gist is fine.”

“The gist. All right. He was displeased and angry as I told him to leave—and warned him and his assistant that if the assistant drew his weapon on Bert, I would release Bert, who would disarm the assistant handily. And reminded them I was also armed.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I was—clearly. It seemed best to point out the obvious. Mr. Blake reiterated he’d come to apologize, and added he’d come to offer compensation. In the amount of ten thousand dollars if I accepted it and agreed that what had happened was a misunderstanding. It annoyed me.”

“How many times did you ask them to leave?”

“Three. I didn’t bother to ask again, simply said good-bye and closed the door. He did bang on the door for nearly two minutes after that. He’s very rude. Then his assistant convinced him to get back in the car.”

Brooks pushed back from the counter, paced the kitchen. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“There wasn’t any need. It was relatively simple to deal with. Irritating, but simple. I—”

She broke off because when he turned to her, the controlled rage on his face snapped her throat closed.

“Listen to me. Two men you don’t know come to your door, one of them’s armed. They refuse to leave when you tell them to, multiple times. What’s the logical thing to do?”

“Close the door. I did.”

“No, Abigail. The logical thing to do is close the door, then call the police.”

“I don’t agree. I’m sorry if that makes you angry, but I don’t. They left.” She decided to avoid more anger by not mentioning she’d intended to go back out, weapon drawn, at the two-minute mark.

Later, she’d wonder if the avoidance equaled one of those interpersonal relationship tangles.

“I was armed, Brooks, and Bert was on alert. I wasn’t in any danger. In fact, Blake became so agitated, I would have called both you and medical assistance if he hadn’t left when he did.”

“Do you want to press charges?”

“No. You’re angry with me. I don’t want you to be angry with me. I did exactly as I felt best at that time, under those circumstances. If your ego’s threatened because I didn’t call for help—”

“Maybe some. Yeah, I’ll own that. And I’m not going to say it’s not a relief to me knowing I’m with a woman who can handle herself. But I know Blake. He tried to bully and intimidate you.”

“Yes, he tried. He failed.”

“Trying’s enough. And he attempted to bribe you.”

“I told him his attempt to bribe a witness in a criminal matter was illegal.”

“I bet you did.” Brooks shoved a hand through his hair, sat again. “You don’t know him. You don’t know the kind of enemy you made today, and believe me, you made one.”

“I think I do know,” she said quietly. “I think I know very well. But making him an enemy isn’t my fault, or yours.”

“Maybe not. But it’s what it is.”

“You’re going to confront him over it.”

“You’re damn right I am.”

“Won’t that just increase the level of animosity?”

“Maybe. But if I don’t deal with it, he’ll see it as a weak spot. He could come back, try again, figuring you didn’t mention it, are just angling for a bigger payoff.”

“I made my position very clear.”

“If you understand the kind of person you’re dealing with, you’ll realize that it doesn’t matter a damn.”

Twelve years of running, she thought. Yes, she understood. “You’re right, but it mattered to me on a very personal level that I made my position clear.”

“Okay, that’s done. Now I’m telling you, if he comes back, don’t open the door to him. Call me.”

“Subjugate my ego to yours?”

“No. Maybe. Shit, I don’t know about that part, and don’t much care.”

She smiled a little. “That would be another discussion.”

The way he took a breath told her he was trying to cool his temper.

“I’m telling you because he’ll only be more intimidating and bullying if he comes back. I’m telling you because I want him to understand action will be taken if he tries to harass you, or anyone else. I asked the same of Russ, his wife, his parents, told my deputies to tell their families.”

She nodded, felt less annoyed. “I see.”

“He’s in a rage, Abigail. His money and his position, as he sees it, aren’t making this one go away. His son’s behind bars, and very likely to be behind them for a very long time.”

“He loves his son.”

“I don’t know about that, either, honest to God. But I know his ego’s bound up in it. Nobody’s going to put his boy in jail. Nobody’s going to sully the Blake name. He’s going to put everything he’s got into fighting this, and if that means pushing at you, he’ll push.”

“I’m not afraid of him. It also matters to me I’m not afraid of him.”

“I can see that. I don’t want you to be afraid, but I want you to call me if he comes here again, if he tries to talk to you on the street, if he or anybody associated with him contacts you in any way. You’re a witness, and you’re damn well under my protection.”

“Don’t say that.” Her heart literally skipped. “I don’t want to be under anyone’s protection.”

“It is what it is.”

“No. No, no.” Now panic spurted, fast and hot. “I’ll contact you if he comes here again, because it’s unethical for him to try to influence me to lie and it’s illegal for him to bribe me to lie. But I don’t want or need protection.”

“Calm down, now.”

“I’m responsible for myself. I can’t be with you if you don’t understand and agree I’m responsible for myself.”

She’d taken several steps back, and the dog had ranged himself in front of her.

“Abigail, you may be—you are, as far as I can tell—capable of handling most anything that comes at you. But I’m duty bound to protect everybody within my jurisdiction. That includes you. And I don’t like you using my feeling for you as a weapon to get your own way.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“You damn well are.”

“I’m not—” She broke off, searched for calm, for sense. “It’s not what I meant to do. I apologize.”

“Screw apologize. Don’t ever use what I feel as a hammer.”

“You’re so angry with me. I didn’t mean to use your feelings. I didn’t. I’m clumsy in this kind of situation. I’ve never been in this kind of situation. I don’t know what to do, what to say or how to say it. I just don’t want you to feel particular responsibility for me. I don’t know how to explain how uneasy it would make me if you did.”

“Why don’t you try?”

“You’re angry and tired, and your dinner’s gone cold.” It appalled her to feel tears running down her cheeks. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I never thought you’d be so upset about Blake. I’m not doing the right thing, but I don’t know what is. I don’t mean to cry. I know tears are another weapon, and I don’t mean them as one.”

“I know you don’t.”

“I’ll—warm up the food.”

“It’s fine.” He rose, got a fork from the drawer, then sat again. “Fine,” he repeated after he’d scooped some up, sampled.

“You should use the chopsticks.”

“Never got the hang of them.”

“I could teach you.”

“I’ll take you up on that some other time. Sit down and eat.”

“I— You’re still angry. You’re pushing it down because I cried. So the tears are a weapon.”

“Yeah, I’m angry, and pushing it down some because you’re crying and obviously torn up about things you won’t tell me, or feel you can’t. I’m pushing it down some because I’m in love with you.”

The tears she’d nearly had under control flooded back, hot and fast as the panic. On a sob she stumbled to the door, fought the locks open, rushed out.

“Abigail.”

“Don’t. Don’t. I don’t know what to do. I need to think, to find some composure. You should go until I can speak rationally.”

“Do you think I’d leave you alone when you’re twisted up like this? I tell you I love you, and it feels like I broke your heart.”

She turned, her hand fisted over her heart, her eyes drenched with tears and emotion. “No one ever said that to me. In my life, no one’s ever said those words to me.”

“I’m making you a promise right here that you’ll hear them from me every day.”

“No—no, don’t promise. Don’t. I don’t know what I’m feeling. How do I know it’s not just hearing those words? It’s overwhelming to hear them, to look at you, and to see you mean them. Or it seems you do. How do I know?”

“You can’t know everything. Sometimes you have to trust. Sometimes you have to just feel.”

“I want it.” She kept her hand clutched over her heart, as if opening her fingers would allow it all to fly away. “I want it more than I can stand.”

“Then take it. It’s right here.”

“It’s not right. It’s not fair to you. You don’t understand; you can’t.”

“Abigail.”

“That’s not even my name!”

She slapped a hand over her mouth, sobbed against it. He only stepped to her, brushed tears from her cheek.

“I know.”

Every ounce of color draining, she stumbled back, gripped the porch rail. “How could you know?”

“You’re running or hiding from something, or someone. Maybe some of both. You’re too damn smart to run and hide under your real name. I like Abigail, but I’ve known it’s not who you are right along. The name’s not the issue. Your trusting me enough to tell me is. And it looks like we’re getting there.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Scares the hell out of you. I don’t like that. I don’t see why anyone else would know, or care. Have you let anyone else get as close as you’ve let me?”

“No. Never.”

“Look at me now.” He spoke quietly as he moved to her. “Listen to me.”

“I am.”

“I’m going to tell you I won’t let you down. You’re going to come to believe that, and we’ll go from there. Let’s try this part again. I’m in love with you.” He eased her into a kiss, kept it soft until she’d stopped trembling. “There, that wasn’t so hard. You’re in love with me. I can see it, and I can feel it. Why don’t you try the words?”

“I don’t know. I want to know.”

“Just try them out, see how it feels. I won’t hold you to it.”

“I … I’m in love with you. Oh, God.” She closed her eyes. “It feels real.”

“Say it again, and kiss me.”

“I’m in love with you.” She didn’t ease in, but flung herself. Starving for that knowledge, the gift, the light of it. Love. Being loved, giving it.

She hadn’t believed in love. She hadn’t believed in miracles.

Yet here was love. Here was her miracle.

“I don’t know what to do now.”

“We’re doing fine.”

She breathed in, out. Even that felt different. Freer. Fuller. “I want to heat up the food. I want to teach you how to use chopsticks, and have dinner with you. Can we do that? Can we just be for a while?”

“Sure, we can.” If she needed a little time, he could give it. “But I’m not promising anything on the chopsticks.”

“You changed everything.”

“Good or bad?”

She held on another minute. “I don’t know. But you changed it.”

21

Dealing with the meal settled her down—the simplicity and routine. He didn’t pressure her for more. That, she understood, was his skill and his weapon. He knew how to wait. And he knew how to change the tone, to give her room, to help her relax so her thoughts weren’t tied up in knots of tension.

His clumsiness with the chopsticks, though she suspected at least some of it was deliberate, made her laugh.

She’d laughed more since he’d come into her life than she had in the whole of it before him.

That alone might be worth the risk.

She could refuse it, ask for more time. He would give it to her, and she could use it to research another location, another identity, make plans to run again.

And if she ran again, she’d never know what might have been. She’d never feel what she felt now, with him. She’d never again allow herself to try.

She could—would—find contentment, security. She had before. But she’d never know love.

Her choice was to take the rational route—leave, stay safe. Or to risk it all, that safety, her freedom, even her life, for love.

“Can we walk?” she asked him.

“Sure.”

“I know you’re tired,” she began, as they stepped outside. “We should wait to talk about … everything.”

“Tomorrow’s as good as today.”

“I don’t know if I’ll have the courage tomorrow.”

“Then tell me what you’re afraid of.”

“So many things. But now, most of all? That if I tell you everything, you won’t feel the same about me—and for me.”

Brooks reached down, picked up a stick, threw it. Bert looked at Abigail, got her signal and chased after it. “Love doesn’t turn on and off like a light switch.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in love. I’m afraid to lose it, and you. And this. All of this. You have a duty, but more, you have a code. I knew a man like you, more like you than I realized at first. He died protecting me.”

“From whom?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Okay. Did he love you?”

“Not the way I think you mean. It wasn’t romantic or sexual. It was duty. But he cared about me, beyond that. He was the first person who cared for me.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “Not for what I represented or what I accomplished, or what I was expected to be. But who I was.”

“You said you don’t know who your father was, so not your father. A cop? Duty. Were you in witness protection, Abigail?”

Her hand trembled. Did he see it or just sense it? she wondered. But he took it in his, warmed and stilled it.

“I was being protected. I would have been given a new identity, a new life, but … it all went very wrong.”

“How long ago?”

“I was sixteen.”

“Sixteen?”

“I turned seventeen on the day …” John’s blood on her hands. “I’m not telling you the way I should. I never even imagined telling anyone.”

“Why don’t you tell me the beginning?”

“I’m not sure where it is. Maybe it was when I realized I didn’t want to be a doctor, and I knew that for certain in my first semester of pre-med.”

“After things went very wrong?”

“No. I’d completed pre-med, the requirement for medical school, by then. If I’d continued, per my mother’s agenda, I’d have continued into medical school the next fall.”

“You said you were sixteen.”

“Yes. I’m very smart. I took accelerated courses throughout my education. My first term at Harvard I lived with a family she selected. They were very strict. She paid them to be. Then I had one term on my own, in a dorm, but carefully supervised. I think my rebellion started the day I bought my first pair of jeans and a hoodie. It was thrilling.”

“Back up. You were, at sixteen, in Harvard, in pre-med, and bought your first pair of jeans?”

“My mother bought or supervised the acquiring of my wardrobe.” Because it still seemed huge to her, she smiled. “It was horrible. You wouldn’t have looked at me. I wanted, so much, to be like the other girls. I wanted to talk on the phone and text about boys. I wanted to look the way the girls my age looked. And God, God, I didn’t want to be a doctor. I wanted to apply to the FBI, to work in their cyber-crimes unit.”

“I should’ve figured,” he murmured.

“I monitored courses, studied online. If she’d known … I don’t know what she would have done.”

She stopped at the view where she’d wanted a bench, and wondered if she’d ever have reason to buy one now. Now that it was too late to stop in the telling.

“She’d promised me the summer off from studies. A trip, a week in New York, then the beach. She’d promised, and that had gotten me through the last term. But she’d made arrangements for me to participate in one of her associate’s summer programs. Intense study, lab work. It would have looked well on my record, accelerated my degree. And I—for the first time in my life—defied her.”

“About damn time.”

“Maybe, but it started a terrible chain of events. She was packing. She was covering for another associate, and keynoting at a conference. She’d be gone a week. And we argued. No, not accurate.” Annoyed with herself, Abigail shook her head.

At such times, accuracy was vital.

“She didn’t argue. There was simply her way, and she had no doubt I’d fall in line. She concluded my behavior, my demands, my attitude, was a normal phase. I’m sure she noted it down for my files. And she left me. The cook had been given two weeks off, so I was alone in the house. She left without a word while I was sulking in my room. I don’t know why I was so shocked she’d leave that way, but I was, sincerely shocked. Then I was angry, and maybe exhilarated. I took her car keys, and I drove to the mall.”

“To the mall?”

“It sounds so silly, doesn’t it? My first real taste of freedom, and I went to the mall. But I had a fantasy about roaming the mall with a pack of girlfriends, giggling about boys, helping each other try on clothes. And I ran into Julie. We’d gone to school together for a while. She was a year or so older, and so popular, so pretty. I think she spoke to me that day because she’d broken up with her boyfriend and was at loose ends. Everything just happened from there.”

She told him about shopping, how it made her feel. About the hair dye, the plans to make fake IDs and go to the club.

“That’s a lot of teenage rebellion in one day.”

“I think it was stored up.”

“I bet. You could make passable IDs at sixteen?”

“Excellent ones. I was very interested in identity theft and cyber crimes. I believed I’d have a career as an investigator.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“It’s flattering you’d say so. It mattered so much once. That day, in the mall, I took Julie’s picture, and I took my own later. I cut my hair, and I dyed it black. Very black, and I bought makeup, used it the way Julie showed me. And I’d studied the other girls in college, so I knew how to apply it.”

“Hold on a minute, I’m trying to picture you with short, black hair.” He studied her, narrowed his eyes. “A little Goth, a little funky.”

“I’m not sure, but I looked very different from the way my mother wanted me to look. I suppose that was the point.”

“Sure it was, and the other point is you were entitled to it. Every kid is.”

“Maybe that’s true. I should’ve stopped there. It should’ve been enough. The clothes, the hair and makeup. And the program she’d assigned me to started that Monday, and I’d made up my mind not to go. She would have been furious, and that should’ve been enough. But I didn’t stop there.”

“You were on a roll,” he commented. “You created the fake IDs and got into a club.”

“Yes. Julie picked the club. I didn’t know anything about them, but I looked up the one she wanted, so I knew it was owned by a family rumored—known, really—to be Russian Mafia. The Volkovs.”

“Rings a dim bell. We didn’t deal with the Russians as a rule in Little Rock. Some Irish, some Italian Mob types.”

“Sergei Volkov was—is—the pakhan, the boss of the Volkov bratva. He and his brother owned the club. I learned later it was run primarily by Sergei’s son, Ilya. His cousin Alexi worked there—ostensibly. Primarily, again, I learned later, Alexi drank there, did drugs and women there. I didn’t know or understand any of that when we met him.

“We drank Cosmopolitans, Julie and I. They were popular because of the television show Sex and the City. We drank and danced, and it was the most exciting night of my life. And Alexi Gurevich came to our table.”

She told him everything, how the club had looked to her, sounded. How Ilya had come, how he’d looked at her, talked to her. How she’d been kissed for the first time in her life, and by a Russian gangster.

“We were so young, and so foolish,” she continued. “I didn’t want to go to Alexi’s house, but I didn’t know how not to go. I felt ill, and when Ilya had to stay back, promising to meet us later, it was worse. Alexi’s house wasn’t far from my mother’s, really. I imagined just going home, lying down. I’d never been drunk before. It had stopped being pleasant.”

“It’ll do that.”

“Did you ever … when you were a teenager?”

“Russ and I got drunk and sick together a few times before we hit the legal age, and a few times after.”

“It was my first and last time, and I’ve never had another Cosmopolitan. Even looking at them makes me vaguely ill.” And a little afraid, she admitted to herself. “He had a beautiful home with a river view. Furnished with too much deliberation, I thought. Too consciously trendy. He made more drinks, put on music, but I felt ill, and I used the bathroom off the kitchen to be sick. Sicker than I’d ever been in my life. All I wanted to do—”

“Was curl up on the floor and die?”

“Yes. Yes.” She laughed a little. “I suppose it’s something a lot of people experience at least once. I still didn’t feel well when I came out, and I saw … Julie and Alexi were having sex on the sofa. I was fascinated and horrified at the same time, and so embarrassed. I went out through the kitchen to the terrace. It felt better in the air. I sat on a chair and fell asleep. And the voices woke me.”

“You’re cold.” Because she’d started to shiver, Brooks put an arm around her shoulders.

“I was cold that night, with the breeze off the water, or the sickness, or—with what happened next. This feels the same. I’d like to walk back. It may be easier to tell you when we’re walking.”

“Okay.”

“I planned to put a bench here, something organic. Something that looks like it just grew here. I like the view, and it’s so quiet, with just the stream gurgling and the birds. See how Bert likes to play in the water? It feels like it’s all mine. Silly.”

“It’s not.”

Silly, she repeated in her head.

“That night, I looked through the glass of the sliding doors, and I saw two men with Alexi. I didn’t see Julie. They were speaking Russian at first, but I’d studied Russian. I like languages, and I have an aptitude for them. I understood. The man, his name was Korotkii. Yakov Korotkii accused Alexi of taking money from the family. They argued, and at first Alexi was very arrogant. But that didn’t last. They said he’d informed to the police because he’d been arrested for drugs. The other man, he was big, forced Alexi to his knees, and Alexi became afraid. He tried to bargain, to threaten, then to beg. Would you hold my hand?”

He took it, squeezed gently. “Stop when you need to stop.”

“It needs to be finished. Korotkii shot him once, then twice at the temple. He shot him the way you might start your car or put on your shirt. An ordinary thing. Then Julie came out. She wasn’t dressed, she’d been sick. She barely spoke, barely saw, and Korotkii shot her, like a reflex, like you swat at a gnat. God. God.”

“Here, now, lean on me.” He released her hand but only to wrap an arm around her, tuck her in as they walked.

“He was angry, though, Korotkii, because he hadn’t known she was there, because his information hadn’t included her. Or me. They didn’t know about me, huddled outside the sliding door, frozen. Just frozen.”

She shouldn’t have come outside, Abigail thought. Her legs didn’t feel steady, and her stomach had begun to churn. She wished she could sit, wished she couldn’t—still—see and hear and feel it all so clearly.

“That’s enough now,” Brooks murmured. “Let’s get you back inside.”

“Ilya came. He’d kissed me, my first. He was so beautiful, and he’d kissed me and made me feel like I was real. I don’t think I’d ever felt quite real. Except when I’d bought the jeans and the hoodie, then when I dyed my hair. Then when Ilya Volkov kissed me.

“That’s not relevant.”

“Yes, it is.”

“He came in, and he was angry. Not that his cousin had been murdered, but because Korotkii was supposed to assassinate Alexi the next night. And I knew the man, the first man who’d kissed me, would kill me. He knew I was there, and they’d find me and kill me. He cursed Alexi, he kicked him, and kicked him. He was already dead, but Ilya was so angry, he kicked him.

“I saw that in Justin Blake last night. I saw what I saw in Ilya in him. It’s more terrifying than any weapon.”

She smelled her garden now, just a hint of it—spice and sweet—on the air. It comforted as much as Brooks’s arm around her.

“So I ran. I’d taken off my new shoes, but I didn’t think of that. I ran without paying attention to where. Just blind terror, running, sure they’d catch me and kill me because I’d defied my mother, done what I wanted to do, and Julie was dead. She was just eighteen.”

“All right. It’s all right now.”

“It’s not all right, and not all. It’s not nearly all. I fell, and my purse flew out of my hand. I didn’t even know I still had it. My phone was in my purse. I called the police. They came, the police, and found me. I told them what happened. I talked to two detectives. They were kind to me, Detectives Griffith and Riley. They helped me.”

“Okay, give me your keys.”

“My keys?”

“We’ll go inside now. I need your keys.”

She fished them out, handed them to him. “They took me to a house, a safe house. They stayed with me, and then John came. Deputy U.S. Marshal John Barrow, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Theresa Norton. You’re like him, like John. Patient, insightful and kind.”

“We’re going to sit down. I’m going to start a fire, make you some tea.”

“It’s too late in the season for a fire.”

“I want a fire. Okay?”

“Of course.” She sat obediently. “I feel a little strange.”

“Just sit there, rest a little till I’m done.”

“They called my mother. She came back. She didn’t want me to testify, or to stay in the safe house the marshals had waiting, or to go into witness protection.”

“She was worried about you,” Brooks said, as he set the kindling.

“No. She wanted me to start the summer project, to go back to Harvard, to be the youngest neurosurgeon ever on staff at Chicago’s Silva Memorial Hospital. I was ruining her agenda, and she’d gone to so much time and effort. When I wouldn’t go with her, she walked out, as she had the day it all began. I’ve never spoken to her again.”

Brooks sat back on his heels. “She doesn’t deserve a word, not one word from you.” He struck a match to the paper he’d crumbled, watched it flame up, catch the kindling. He felt like that, he realized, ready to flash and burn. That was the last thing she needed.

“I’m going to make that tea. Just rest for a few minutes.”

“I want to tell you all of it.”

“You will, but you take a break now.”

“Are you going to call the marshals? The FBI?”

“Abigail.” He took her face in his hands. “I’m going to make you tea. Trust me.”

He wanted to strike something, break something to pieces, to punch his fist into something hard that would bloody it. She’d been abused as surely as if she’d been found with bruises and broken bones, by a mother who could walk away from a traumatized, terrified child.

He put the kettle on. She needed to get warm again, feel safe and quiet again. He’d needed to know what she told him, but he wished he’d let it go, let it slide away, from both of them.

Still, as the kettle heated, he took out his notebook, wrote down all the names she’d given him. Then tucked the notebook away again, made her tea.

She sat very straight on the couch, very pale and very straight, her eyes shadowed. “Thank you.”

He sat beside her. “I need to say some things to you before you go on with this.”

She stared into her tea, braced. “All right.”

“None of this was your fault.”

Her lips quivered before she firmed them. “I have some responsibility. I was young, yes, but no one forced me to make the IDs or go to the club.”

“That’s just bullshit, because neither of those things make you responsible for what happened after. Your mother’s a monster.”

Her head snapped up, her shadowed eyes went huge. “My—that—she—”

“Worse. She’s a fucking robot, and she tried to make you one, too. She let you know from the get-go she’d ‘created’ you to her specs. So you’re smart and beautiful and healthy, and you owe her for that. More bullshit.”

“My genetic makeup—”

“Shut up. I’m not done. She made you dress as she wanted, made you study what she wanted, and I’ll lay odds made you associate with people she chose, read what she chose, eat what she de-fucking-creed. Am I wrong?”

Abigail could only shake her head.

“She may never have raised her hand to you, may have kept you clothed, fed, with a nice roof over your head, but honey, you were abused for the first sixteen years of your life. A lot of kids would have run away or worse. You cut your hair and snuck into a club. You want to blame somebody other than the shooter and his boss for what happened, blame her.”

“But—”

“Have you ever had any therapy?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“No, you’re not. I’m just asking.”

“I was in therapy as long as I remember until I left home. She engaged one of the top child therapists in Chicago.”

“You never had any choice on that, either.”

“No,” Abigail said with a sigh. “No, choices weren’t on her agenda.”

He took her face, laid his lips on hers. “You’re a miracle, Abigail. That you could come from something that cold-blooded, that coldhearted, and be who and what you are. You remember that. You can tell me the rest when you’re ready.”

“Will you kiss me again?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

Again, he took her face in his hands, leaned in to lay his lips warmly on hers. She curled her fingers around his wrists to hold him, hold there a moment longer.

She wasn’t sure he’d want to kiss her once she’d told the whole of it.

She told him about John, about Terry, the house itself, the routine of it, the legal delays. Stalling a bit, she admitted. She told him about Bill Cosgrove teaching her poker, and Lynda doing her hair.

“It was, in a terrible way, the best time of my life. I watched television, listened to music, studied, cooked, learned, had people to talk to. John and Terry—I know it was a job, but they were family to me.

“Then my birthday came. I didn’t think they knew, or would think anything of it. But they had presents for me, and a cake. John gave me earrings. I’d gotten my ears pierced that day at the mall with Julie, and he gave me my first real pair of earrings. And Terry gave me a sweater; it was so pretty. I went up to my room to put the earrings and the sweater on. I was so happy.”

She paused for a moment, working out how to explain to him what she’d never fully explained to herself.

“It wasn’t like the day in the mall. The happiness wasn’t fueled by rebellion and novelty and lies. It was so deep, so strong. I knew I’d wear that sweater set, those earrings, on the day I testified in court. That while I couldn’t bring Julie back, I would have a part in getting justice for her. And when it was done, I’d become who I wanted to be. Whatever name they gave me, I’d be free to be myself.

“And then … I don’t know everything that happened. I can only speculate. I’ve put it together so many ways. The most logical is that Bill Cosgrove and the agent who substituted for Lynda that night, his name is Keegan, came in through the kitchen, as usual. I think Terry was in there alone, and John in the living room. She must have sensed or suspected something. I don’t know what or why. They killed her, or at that point disabled her. But she managed to call out to John first, so he was alerted. But he couldn’t get to me, couldn’t get to the stairs without exposing himself.

“I heard the gunfire. Everything happened so fast. I ran out of the bedroom and saw John. When John got to me he was shot, several times. He was bleeding, from the leg, the abdomen. He pushed me back in the bedroom, and he collapsed. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

She looked down at her hands. “I couldn’t stop it. I knew what to do, but I couldn’t help. He didn’t have much time. There wasn’t much time. He told me to run. To take what I could and get out through the window. I couldn’t trust the police. If they had Cosgrove and the other, they’d have more. The Volkovs. I didn’t want to leave him like that. But I went out the window, with the money I had, with my laptop, some clothes, with his ankle weapon. I was going to try to call for help. Maybe if help came he wouldn’t die. I didn’t know if Terry was alive or dead. I’d barely gotten a block away when the house exploded. I think they’d planned to blow it up, with me in it. They’d have taken over from John and Terry, staged something and blown up the house.”

“Where did you go?”

“I went home. My mother would be at work, and the cook would have gone for the day. I still had my key. I went home so I could hide until my mother got home. And I found she’d boxed up all my things. Some were already gone. I don’t know why that upset me so much, considering.”

“I do.”

“Well. I opened her safe, and I took money from her. Ten thousand dollars. It was wrong, but I stole from my mother, and I left. I’ve never been back. I walked, tried to think. It had been storming, but now it was just rain. Just rainy and dark. I knew John and Terry were dead, and the last thing he’d told me to do was run. I saw a pickup truck with Indiana plates outside a coffee shop. I got in the back, under the tarp. I fell asleep somewhere along the drive, and when I woke up, I was in Terre Haute. I found a motel, paid cash. I went to a drugstore and bought bright red hair dye. It turned my hair orange, but I looked different. I slept again, a long time. Then I turned on the television. And I saw on CNN the report about John and Terry, about the house. About me. They thought I’d been in the house. They were looking for our remains. I nearly called the police. I had Detective Griffith’s card, but I was afraid. I decided I’d wait, buy a cell phone, a disposable, in case. I waited another day, eating in the room, barely leaving it, watching the news, trying to find out more through the Internet.”

She paused, took a long breath. “Then I found out more. They didn’t think I was in the house. They knew I wasn’t. There was speculation someone had abducted me, and other speculation that I’d snapped, shot John and Terry, blown up the house. Cosgrove and Keegan had each other to back up the story, how they’d gotten there just seconds too late. And Cosgrove was wounded.”

“John got a piece of him? What about ballistics?”

“It was through-and-through. They said the lights went off, and they couldn’t be sure who fired at them, but Keegan got Cosgrove out. The house exploded as he called it all in.

“So I ran. I took a bus to Indianapolis. I got supplies, another motel, and I made new identification, and with it and some of the cash I bought a used car from a junk dealer that got me to Nashville. I waited tables there for three months. Then I changed my hair again, my ID again, and moved on.”

She drew another breath. “There wasn’t much on the news anymore, and I wasn’t quite able to hack into the files—the U.S. Marshals and FBI. I went to MIT on a forged ID and transcripts, and monitored classes on computer science, and anything else that seemed helpful. I connected with a student there, a boy. He knew a lot about hacking. More than I did. I learned from him. I slept with him, then I left him. I think he cared for me a little, but I left him with only a quick note once I’d learned all he could teach me. I moved around every few months, a year at the most. Changed IDs, modified my appearance. The details aren’t really important.”

She paused again. “I’m wanted for questioning in the murder of two U.S. Marshals.”

He said nothing, just pushed to his feet, walked over to the window.

And the world dropped away for Abigail. He would be finished with her now, she thought. Everything would be finished now.

“Have you kept tabs on Cosgrove and Keegan over the years?”

“Yes. Keegan has been promoted several times.”

“Good, you know where they are, what they’re doing. That’ll save time and work.”

“I don’t understand.”

He turned back to her. “You don’t think we’re going to let those two bastards get away with murdering two good cops and implicating you? For keeping you running since the day you turned seventeen? For doing all that so another murderer and his murdering, thieving, son-of-a-bitching friends and associates could walk on killing an innocent girl?”

She could only stare at him. “You believe me.”

“Jesus, of course I believe you. I’d believe you even if I wasn’t in love with you, it’s so obvious you’re telling the truth.”

“You still love me.”

“Listen up.” He stalked back over to her, pulled her to her feet. “I expect—no, I demand—more respect than that from you. I’m not some weak-spined half-ass fuckhead who slithers off when everything’s not just exactly perfect. I loved you an hour ago. I love you now. I’m going to keep right on loving you, so get used to it and stop expecting me to let you down. It’s insulting, and it’s pissing me off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Good. You should be.” He yanked her in for a kiss, let her go. “Where’d you learn to shoot?”

“John taught me initially. I lived in Arizona for a time, and took lessons from an old man. He was a conspiracy theorist and a survivalist. He was interesting but not entirely stable. But he liked me, and was very knowledgeable. I spent time at a number of universities, under assumed names. I needed to learn.”

“What’s in the locked room upstairs?”

“I’ll show you.”

She led him up, unlocked the triple locks. “It’s a safe room,” she said, as she opened the door.

And a frigging arsenal, he noted. Handguns, long guns, knives. Shelves of packaged food, bottled water, a computer setup as elaborate as her station downstairs, a chem toilet, clothes, wigs, hair dye, batteries, he saw, as he wandered. Flashlights, dog food, books, a freaking grappling hook, tools.

“Did you set this up yourself?”

“Yes. I needed to learn, as I said. I learned. I have several alternate IDs and passports in here, in a lockbox. Cash, credit cards, and the laminate and paper I need to make still more IDs, if necessary. It’s against the law.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll arrest you later. Okay, you know how to protect yourself, and you think ahead. You’ve been at this how long now?”

“Twelve years.”

“Long enough. Time to stop running.”

“I want to. Today, I thought …”

“What?”

“It’s not rational.”

“Jesus, Abigail.” Despite it all, he had to laugh. “Be irrational.”

“It seemed like a circle. Seeing Ilya in Justin Blake, seeing what I thought of Sergei Volkov in Lincoln Blake. Seeing so much of what I admired in John in you. And finding I could stand up to the Blakes, I could do the right thing and not panic or run. It seemed like I could make the running stop, but I don’t know if I can.”

“You can. I want another beer. I want to think. We’ll figure this out, and we’ll fix it.”

“Brooks—”

“Beer, thinking, figuring and fixing. You’ve stopped being alone, Abigail. You’ll have to get used to that, too. What’s your real name, anyway?”

She took a breath. “Elizabeth.” Her voice sounded rusty on the word. “Elizabeth Fitch.”

He angled his head. “You don’t strike me as an Elizabeth.”

“For a little while, I was Liz.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I’m partial to Abigail, but I can see Liz. So.” He stepped forward, took her hand. “Nice to meet you, Liz.”

22

It wore her out, Brooks realized, as he sat drinking his beer and thinking. The telling of it and, he imagined, the reliving of it. She’d wedged herself into the corner of the couch, drooping. So he kept his silence, let her drift away awhile while the fire went to simmer and the breeze kicked up against the windows.

Storm coming on, he thought.

Twelve years on the run. She’d turned seventeen and had, or believed she’d had, nothing and no one to depend on but herself.

He pictured himself at seventeen, considered his biggest worry or problem at the time. Wishing he’d had a mightier bat, a faster glove, he remembered, to drive him toward his fantasy of living up to his name as a hot major-league third baseman.

And longing—lusting—for Sylbie.

And that, he concluded, had been pretty much that.

Some schoolwork stress, fights with the longed-for Sylbie, annoyance with parental demands and rules. But he’d had parents, family, home, friends, structure.

He couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her, being seventeen and in constant fear for her life. Witnessing cold-blooded murder, watching the man who’d given her a sense of security, even family, bleeding to death and trying so damn hard to obey his dying request.

John Barrow told her to run, no question saving her life with the order. And she’d never stopped.

He shifted, studying her while she slept. Time to stop running, he thought. Time to trust someone to help, to make it right.

Sergei and Ilya Volkov, Yakov Korotkii, Alexi Gurevich.

He needed to do some research on the players, or utilize Abigail’s research. He imagined anything that was or could be known about them was in her files. And in her head.

Marshals Cosgrove and Keegan—same deal.

A dirty cop earned a cell shared by those he’d sent over, in Brooks’s opinion. A dirty cop who killed another cop for profit or gain? There was a special circle of hell reserved for them. He wanted a part in putting Cosgrove and Keegan dead center of that circle.

He had some ideas, yeah, a few ideas, on that. He wanted to chew on them some, do that research, let it all sift around. After a dozen years, a few days, even weeks, of studying and formulating wouldn’t hurt. And he expected she’d need some of that time to adjust to the new situation. He’d need it to convince her to let him do what needed to be done, once he’d settled on exactly what that would be.

For now, he figured the best thing would be to cart her on up to bed. They could both sleep on it awhile.

He got up, started to lift her. And she kneed him dead in the balls.

He swore he felt them tickle his throat, then stick there when her elbow jabbed his larynx. He felt his own eyes roll up and back as he dropped like a stone. Airless.

“Oh God, oh God! Brooks. I’m sorry.”

Since the only sound he could make was a wheeze, he gave it up after one attempt. He’d just lie there for the moment, maybe forever.

“I must have fallen asleep. You startled me.” She tried to turn him over, brushed his hair from his face. The dog licked it sympathetically. “Can you breathe? Are you breathing? You’re breathing.”

He coughed, and that burned like fire to match the inferno raging in his crotch. “Shit,” he managed, and coughed again.

“I’m going to get you water and ice. Just take slow breaths.”

She must have told the dog to stay with him, as Bert laid down so they were eye to eye. “What the fuck?” When that hissed out of him, Bert licked his face again.

He managed to swallow, then roll cautiously to his hands and knees. He stayed there another moment, wondering if he’d complete the cycle and puke. He’d made it to sitting on the floor, stomach contents intact, when Abigail rushed back in with the cold pack and a glass of water.

“Don’t you put that on my balls. It’s bad enough.” He took the water, and though the first couple of sips ripped like drinking broken razor blades, the rawness slowly eased. “What the fuck?” he said again.

“It was reflex. I’m so sorry. You’re so pale. I’m so sorry. I fell asleep, and I was back there, at Alexi’s. Ilya found me, and … I think you touched me, and I thought it was Ilya, so I reacted.”

“I’ll say. God help him if he tries for you. We may never have kids now.”

“A minor insult of this kind to the genitalia doesn’t affect fertility,” she began, then looked away. She went considerably pale herself. “I’m very sorry,” she repeated.

“I’ll live. Next time I start to carry you up to bed, I’ll wear a cup. Now you may have to carry me.”

“I’ll help you.” She kissed him gently on the cheek.

“I’d say that’s not where it hurts, but if you kiss me where it does and I have the normal reaction, it may kill me.” He waved her away, pushed to his feet. “It’s not so bad.” He cleared his throat, winced.

“I’ll help you upstairs.”

“I’ve got it. I’m just going to … check things out. For my own peace of mind.”

“All right. I’ll let Bert out before I come up.”

When she came up, he’d stripped down to his boxers but stood by her monitor, studying it.

“Is everything … um.”

“Yeah. That’s some aim you’ve got, killer.”

“It’s a particularly vulnerable area in a man.”

“I can attest. I’m going to want you to show me how this system works sometime soon. How you switch from view to view, zoom in, pan out and so on.”

“It’s very simple. Do you want me to show you now?”

“Tomorrow’s soon enough. I figure you’ve got plenty of data on the Volkovs, and the agents in their pocket. I’m going to want to review that.”

“Yes.”

He caught the tone. “What?”

“I haven’t told you everything.”

“Now would be a good time for that.”

“I’d like to clean up first.”

“Okay.” And get her thoughts together, he concluded.

She took a nightshirt from the drawer. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told him, and went into the bathroom.

He wondered how much more there could be as he heard the water running, and decided there was no point in speculating. Instead, he turned down the bed, lowered the lights.

When she came out, she got two bottles of water out of her cold box. She offered him one, then sat on the side of the bed. “I think, if I were you, I’d wonder why I’d never tried to go to the authorities, tell everything that happened.”

“You didn’t know who to trust.”

“That’s true, at least initially. And I was afraid. For a long time I had nightmares and flashbacks, panic attacks. I still have occasional anxiety attacks. Well, you’ve seen. And even above that—though it took me time to understand it, I believed I had to do what John told me. He died protecting me. It all happened so quickly, so violently, and was so urgent, so insistent. I realize now we were both very much in the moment. And in that moment, my survival hinged on escape.”

“If you hadn’t run, you’d be dead. That’s clear.”

“Yes, I’ve never questioned that. In those first day, weeks, it was all panic. Get away, stay away, stay concealed. If the Volkovs found me, they’d kill me. If the authorities found me, and they were involved with the Volkovs, they’d kill me. If they weren’t involved, they might arrest me for murder. So I ran, and I hid, the way I told you.”

“No one could blame you for that.”

“Maybe not. I was young and traumatized. No matter what the intellect, seventeen is still immature, undeveloped. But after some time had passed, I began to think more clearly, think beyond the moment. There had to be others like John and Terry. Others who’d believe me, who’d listen, do whatever they could to protect me. How could I keep running, hiding? How could I do nothing when I was the only one who’d seen Julie’s murder, who knew the truth of how John and Terry had died?

“So I hacked into the FBI’s and U.S. Marshals’ databases.”

“You—you can do that?”

“I do it routinely, but I learned a considerable amount in the first year or two after I went into hiding. Some from the boy I told you about, some on my own. I wanted to learn everything I could about Cosgrove and Keegan, about Lynda Peski, too. She’d called in sick that day. Was that true? Was she another Volkov mole? Her medical records showed she’d been treated for food poisoning, so—”

“You accessed her medical records?”

“I’ve broken many laws. You said sometimes it’s necessary to break the law.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, I did. Let’s put that on the shelf. You were, what, about nineteen or twenty, and capable of hacking into the files of government agencies?”

“I would have been a very good cyber investigator.”

“Law enforcement’s loss.”

“I believed, and still believe, Lynda Peski wasn’t part of it. I can’t be sure, even now, but there’s nothing to indicate she was anything but a marshal in good standing—retired now, married with two children. I suspect Cosgrove put something in her food to make her ill that day. But I can’t prove it, and I didn’t feel safe contacting her. I believed, and still believe, Detectives Griffith and Riley are good, honest police officers. But I hesitated, as they’re Chicago police, not federal, and federal often takes over from the local police. Added to that, I worried I’d put their lives in danger. It seemed more productive, safer, to research and study. At the same time, I needed money. I had fifteen thousand when I ran, but there are expenses in flight, in generating documents, in transportation and clothing and so on. As my primary skill was in computers, I worked on programming. I developed some software, sold it. It was lucrative.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, and I developed a computer game, actually three connecting games. It was more lucrative.”

“What game?”

“It’s called Street Wars. My research indicated most game players are male and enjoy battle- or war-type games. I—”

“I’ve played that game.” Eyes narrowed, he pointed at her. “Russ and I used to have marathon tournaments whenever I came home from Little Rock. It’s bloody and brutal. And really cool.”

“My target demographic enjoys brutal and bloody in their gaming. Having three was also key. If the first gains popularity, the target audience will want, and pay, for a follow-up. I was able to sell the three-part package outright for a considerable amount. It seemed less complicated, under my circumstances, than a royalty-based contract.”

“You rich?”

“Yes. I have a great deal of money, which I add to with my current security business.”

He smiled at her. “I like having a rich girlfriend.”

“I’ve never been anyone’s girlfriend.”

“Well, I’m sewing you into that. Because you’re rich.”

He made her smile. “You said you loved me before you knew I was rich. It’s less complicated and stressful to relocate, to arrange private transportation, if necessary, to equip and secure a new location, if there’s money. I didn’t want to steal it.”

“And you could have?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I accessed Cosgrove’s and Keegan’s bank accounts, found what I believe are payments from the Volkovs. I could have siphoned funds from them. Even from the Volkovs themselves.”

“Wait.” Now he held up a hand, circled around. “You’ve hacked into the Volkovs’ network?”

“Yes. I’ll explain. I secured the money I made in several different accounts, under various identifications. I felt safer, less afraid with money, and with the information I’d gathered. I wanted more time. I’d started to study a particular FBI agent. I wanted to follow her, review her files, reports, her evaluations for at least a year before contact. I’d moved to New York. I felt safe there. So many people, all so busy. Too busy to pay attention to me. And by that time I could work almost entirely out of my brownstone.”

She thought back on it, a bit wistfully. “I had a very nice house in SoHo. It was there I considered getting a dog. For security, and companionship. I’d started my security business, and at that time dealt face-to-face with clients. I would go to them, evaluate their system, their needs.”

“When was this?”

“I located in New York six years ago. I was twenty-three, but my identification claimed I was twenty-six. Older is better in these cases. I started fairly small, designing and installing security systems for homes and small businesses, business computer networks. It gave me considerable time for my research. And in researching I found the agent I felt might be the one. I wanted what I wanted at sixteen. Friends, relationships, normal. And I wanted to do the right thing, for Julie, for John and Terry.

“I was there more than a year, the longest I’d stayed in one place. I thought about buying a home in the country, because I realized, though I enjoyed the convenience of the city, I preferred the quiet. But it felt safe there, in SoHo. All those people, the busy pace. And I’d landed a big account, a law firm. I’d done the personal security for one of the associates, and he’d recommended me. Six more months, I told myself. I’d stay in New York, complete the new contract, continue my research. Then, if I felt absolutely sure of this agent, I’d contact her and begin the process.”

“What happened?”

“I was nearly there, nearly ready. I’d completed the contract, and that had netted me another for one of the clients of the firm. My first corporation. It was good work, exhilarating, challenging. I believed, absolutely, my life was about to begin again. And I came out of the client’s building. Houston Street, downtown. I was thinking how I’d go home, change, go to the market and buy myself a good bottle of wine to celebrate. I was thinking the six months I’d set to contact the agent was nearly up. I was thinking of getting a dog, of where I’d want to live when I could really live again. I was thinking of anything but the Volkovs. And he was just there.”

“Who?”

“Ilya. Ilya Volkov and another man—his cousin, I found out later. They got out of a car just as I started for the curb to hail a cab. I almost walked into him. All those people, all that city, and I nearly walked into the man I’d run from for nearly eight years. He looked right at me, and I froze just as I had on the terrace that night. He started to smile, as a man does at a woman who’s staring at him, I suppose. And then he knew me, and the smile went away.”

“He recognized you? Are you sure?”

“He said my name. ‘Liz. Here you are.’ Just like that. He reached for me, he nearly had my arm. His fingers brushed my sleeve before I jerked away, and I ran. He came after me. I heard him shouting in Russian; I heard the car gun away from the curb. I thought, He’ll shoot me in the back, or catch me and drag me into that car.”

She pressed a hand to her heart, rubbed it there as the beat began to thud as it had that day in New York.

“I ran into the street. It was crazy; I was nearly run over. I didn’t care. Anything would be better. I lost my shoes. It was like that night again, running in my bare feet. But I was smarter now. Panicked at first, but more prepared. I knew the streets. I’d studied them, and I’d pulled away when I’d run into traffic, and his driver couldn’t make the turn. I don’t know how far I’d run before I realized I’d gotten away. I got on a crosstown bus, then I got in a cab.”

Too warm now, she thought, and crossed to a window to open it. “I didn’t have any shoes, but no one seemed to notice or care. It was a benefit of a large city.”

“I guess I’m a country boy, as that doesn’t strike me as a benefit.”

“It was that day. When I got home, I got out my go bag. I would have run again with only that, but I calmed down, packed up what I felt I’d need. I wasn’t sure how much time I had. If he’d seen which building I’d come out of, if he’d managed to dig out the name I was using, find my address. I kept a car, in another name, in a garage. It was, I’d thought, worth the expense. And it proved to be true. I called a private car service, had it take me to the garage. They might trace me there, but that would take time. By then I’d be gone, I’d buy a new car, change my ID.”

“Where did you go?”

“I stayed mobile for weeks. Motels, paid cash. I watched Ilya’s e-mail. I learned they hadn’t been able to trace me for several days. I didn’t have to leave so quickly after all. And they weren’t able to trace me once I left the brownstone. No one had seen, or paid attention to, me leaving. But I learned a lesson. I’d gotten careless. I’d let myself plan for a normal life, even in some way to live one. They’d never stop coming after me, so I had to accept the way it was. And do what I could to get justice for John and Terry and Julie another way.

“I’m tied in to the Volkovs’ network—e-mail, e-files, even text messaging. When I have something that seems worthwhile, I leak the data anonymously to the FBI agent I studied and cleared to my specifications. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be safe to use her as contact. If Volkov’s people connect her, they may eliminate her. I think, logically, they’d try to use her to find the source of the leaks before they eliminate her. But that may be worse. They could torture her, and she couldn’t tell them because she doesn’t know. I’d be safe, but she wouldn’t. Neither will you, if you involve yourself.”

“You’d have made a good cop, cyber or otherwise, to my way of thinking. But I am a cop. You’re just a cop’s rich girlfriend.”

“Don’t joke. If they connect you to me, in any way, they’ll kill you. But not just you. They’ll kill your family. Your mother, your father, your sisters, their children. Everyone you care about.”

“I’ll take care of my family, Abigail. I guess we’ll stick with Abigail for now.” He stroked a hand over her hair. “I’ll have to get used to Liz when this is finished.”

“It’s never going to be finished.”

“You’re wrong. I want you to promise me something.” To keep their eyes level, he shifted his hand to cup her chin. “I want your word on this. You won’t run out on me. You won’t run figuring you’re doing what’s best for me and mine.”

“I don’t want to make a promise I might break.”

“Your word. I’m going to trust your word, and you’re going to trust mine. You promise me that, and I’ll promise you I won’t do anything without your full knowledge and approval. That’s no easy promise for me to make, but I’ll make it.”

“You won’t do anything unless I agree?”

“That’s my promise. Now I want yours. You won’t run.”

“What if they find me, the way Ilya did in New York?”

“If you have to run, you run to me.”

“You’re like John. They killed John.”

“Because he didn’t know what was coming. Now, if you look me in the eyes and tell me you’re seriously worried the Russian Mafia’s going to infiltrate the Bickford Police Department, we’ll pack up Bert and whatever else we need and head out tonight. Name the place.”

“I don’t think that.”

“Good. Then promise me.”

“You won’t do anything without telling me. I won’t run without telling you.”

“I guess that’s close enough. You’ve had enough for tonight. We’re going to get some sleep. I’m going to think about all this. I may have more questions, but they can wait. And after I’ve thought on it awhile, we’ll talk about what we’ll do. That’s ‘we.’ You’re not alone anymore. You’re not going to be alone anymore.”

He urged her into bed, pulling her close after he turned off the light. “There. That feels right. Maybe I do have one question for tonight.”

“All right.”

“Did you hack into our system at the station?”

She sighed, and in the dark didn’t see him smile at the sound. “I felt it was important to know details about local law enforcement. The security on your network isn’t very good.”

“Maybe I should talk to the selectmen about hiring you to fix that.”

“I’m very expensive. But under the circumstances I could offer you a large discount on my usual fee.” She sighed again. “I’d secure your personal computer for free.”

“Jesus.” He had to laugh. “You’re in my personal e-mail and all that?”

“I’m sorry. You kept coming here and asking questions. You’d looked up information on me. Well, the information I generated, but it was disturbing.”

“I guess it was.”

“You should be careful, calling the current mayor a fuckwit, even in correspondence with your good friend. You can’t be sure who might see your personal e-mail.”

“He is a fuckwit, but I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned his head, kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”

She pressed her face to the side of his throat. “It sounds lovely in bed, in the dark, when everything’s quiet.”

“Because it’s true. And it’ll be true in the morning.”

She closed her eyes, held the words to her as he held her. And hoped, in the morning, he’d give them to her again.