Jude Deveraux
Authors: First Impressions
JUDE DEVERAUX
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
First
published in Great Britain in 2005 by
Simon
& Schuster UK Limited
London
Copyright
© 2005 by Deveraux, Inc.
All
rights reserved
This
book is for Brenda and Judith. 'I want
her
to be my age,' Brenda said. 'And I want
her
to find a fabulous man and to have an
adventure.'
'And funny,' Judith said. 'I want
the
book to have a lot of laughter in it.'
Hope
you guys like it.
The
moment he saw the smirk on Bill's face, Jared knew he was going to be given a
job he wouldn't like. So what did a man have to do to finally be able to choose
his own assignments? he thought for the thousandth time. Get shot? Naw, he'd
done that three times. How about getting kidnapped? That had happened twice.
Hey! How about being home so seldom that his wife leaves him for some other
guy, a used car salesman who is now the father of their three kids? Nope. That
had happened too. So how about getting too old for the field? Too late. At
forty-nine, Jared felt that he'd reached that age about six years ago.
'Don't
look at me like that,' Bill said, holding his office door open for Jared to
enter.
Groaning,
Jared put on a pronounced limp as he hobbled toward the chair opposite Bill's
overloaded desk, WILLIAM TEASDALE on a plaque in front. Sticking his leg out
stiffly in front of him, he ostentatiously rubbed his knee, as though he were
in great pain.
'You
can cut it out,' Bill said as he sat down behind his desk. 'I have no sympathy
for you, and even if I did, I couldn't let you out of this one.' He picked up a
folder, then looked across the top of it at Jared. 'Most agents are glad to get
out in the field. Why not you?'
Jared
leaned back in his chair. 'Where should I begin? With pain? I was in the
hospital for three weeks after the last job. And life. I like living. And then
there's — '
'Got a
new girlfriend?' Bill asked, his eyes narrowed.
Jared
gave a bit of a grin. 'Yeah. Nice girl. I'd like to see her sometimes.'
'She's
a reformed what?'
'Stripper,'
Jared mumbled, giving Bill a sheepish grin. 'So sue me. After a wife like Patsy
— '
'Spare
me,' Bill said, and once again he was the boss. 'We need somebody to find out
something, and you can do it. Remember that agent we found out had been a spy
for the last fifteen years?'
'Yeah,'
Jared said, bitterness in his voice. He'd worked with the man about ten years
ago, and had filed a report saying that something wasn't right about the guy,
but he didn't know what. No one paid any attention. A few months ago, they'd
found out that the agent was a spy and that he'd been feeding information to
his mother country for years. 'So what did you find out from him?'
'Nothing.
Suicide before we could get to him.'
'Please
tell me that you don't want
me
to travel to wherever he was from, go
undercover, and find out — '
'No,'
Bill said, waving his hand. 'Nothing like that. The truth is that we can't
figure out what his last big project was. He knew we were coming about ten
minutes before we got there, so he had time to destroy a lot of evidence. But
we found disks hidden under the floors, and a list of names inside a lightbulb.
He had time to get rid of it all, so why didn't he destroy it?'
'But he
didn't,' Jared said, feeling the old wave of curiosity well up inside of him
and trying hard to suppress it. Why? was the question that had caused most of
the problems in his life. Even after a case was considered cold, Jared's 'why'
often made him continue. 'What
did
he do?'
'He
wadded up several pieces of paper into tiny balls and swallowed them.'
'I bet
somebody had fun retrieving them.'
'Yeah,'
Bill said with a half smile. 'We lost most of what went down him, but forensics
managed to get a name and part of a Social Security number.' He pushed a clear
plastic folder across the desk, and Jared picked it up. Inside was a small
piece of paper that seemed to have some writing on it, but Jared couldn't make
it out.
'Eden
Palmer,' Bill said. 'That name and a few numbers were the only things the crime
lab could recover.'
'Who's
he?'
'Her.
As far as we can figure out, she's nobody.' He pulled a piece of paper from the
folder in front of him. 'She's forty-five, had a baby when she was eighteen, no
husband then and not one since. She worked at one low-level job after another
until her kid started college, then she went back to school and got a degree.'
He looked at the paper. 'A couple of years after she graduated, Eden Palmer
moved to New York, where she worked in a publishing house. When we first heard
about her, she didn't know it, but an old woman she knew had died and left her
a house in eastern North Carolina. The lawyer taking care of the case was
looking for her, but we fixed it so he was delayed in finding her. We wanted to
find out about her first.' Putting the papers down, he stared at Jared.
'So how
did she get connected to somebody who's been spying on the U.S. for umpteen
years?'
'We
have no idea.' He was still looking at Jared, as though he expected him to
figure out something.
'Maybe
it was personal,' Jared said. 'Maybe the guy was in love with her. Or is she
too ugly for that?'
Bill
unclipped a photo from the file and pushed it across the desk.
'Not
bad,' Jared said, looking at the photo. It was her driver's license picture, so
Jared figured she was actually three times that good looking. He studied the
picture and the information. She was short, only five three, her eyesight was
good, and she was an organ donor. Limp, blondish hair with a bit of curl in it
surrounded blue eyes, a small nose, and a pretty mouth. She looked tired and
unhappy in the photo. Probably had to wait in line for three hours, he thought.
He gave the picture back to Bill. 'So where do I come in?'
'We
need you to find out what or who she knows.'
Jared
blinked a couple of times. Bill had said that only he, Jared, could do this,
but this was a job for a rookie, not a senior agent. They could bring her in
for questioning and find out what she knew. Probably something that
she didn't know she knew. That wouldn't be too difficult. Where had she
been in the last few years? Carried any packages for anyone? Jared almost
smiled at the last thought, then he glanced at Bill's intense stare. What was
he missing?
It hit
him all at once: they wanted him to seduce the information out of her. Cozy up
to a lonely spinster, then ask her what she knew. 'Oh, no, you don't. I will
risk my
life
for the agency, but I don't kiss for it.'
'But
James Bond — '
'Was a
made-up character,' Jared said, ignoring Bill's smirk. 'James Bond doesn't
really exist. He — ' Jared ran his hand over his eyes, calmed himself, then
looked at Bill. 'I respectfully request that I not be given this assignment.
Sir.'
Leaning
back against his chair, Bill folded his hands over his well-toned stomach.
'Look, Jared, old friend, this case has us baffled. We don't want to haul her
in here and scare her into telling us whatever she knows. If she knows
anything, that is. And, as you said, maybe this was personal. This woman lived
in New York for a while, so maybe she met this guy' — he glanced at the paper —
'Roger Applegate — good American name, huh? — in New York. Maybe he met her,
liked her, maybe they fell in love. Maybe he was planning to retire and marry
her. Maybe when he knew that he'd been found out, his only thought was of
protecting her name. He didn't seem to care if we investigated the criminals
whose names were on the disks, but maybe he did care that we didn't involve the
love of his life in something sordid. On the other hand, maybe this Ms. Palmer
had no idea this man had a crush on her. He was a mousy-looking little thing
who nobody noticed, so maybe Ms. Palmer was the secret object of his affection
and she never knew about his great love for her.'
'Or
maybe she knows everything,' Jared said tiredly. 'And maybe you want me to find
out one way or the other.'
'You
always were heavy in the brains department,' Bill said, smiling.
Jared gave
a sigh. In all his years in the agency, he'd tried hard to never get personally
involved with the people connected to his investigations. Emotions kept you
from seeing things clearly. But now, if he was understanding this, he was being
asked to get to know this woman in a personal way and find out what she knew.
She wasn't some underworld figure, wasn't a reformed anything. She was a — He
looked at Bill. 'She go to church?'
'Every
Sunday.'
Jared
groaned. 'But she did have a child out of wedlock.' There was hope in his
voice.
'She
was seventeen and walking home from choir practice when a man leaped on her.
Her parents kicked her out when she came up pregnant.'
Jared
looked like he was going to cry. 'Lord! A persecuted heroine. Tragic happenings
to an innocent,' Jared said, his mouth a tight line. 'Deliver me!' He glared at
Bill, but Bill just grinned. Jared knew
that he'd been chosen because of his age
and his looks. He had dark hair, dark blue eyes, and a body kept trim by years
spent in a gym. If he drank gallons of beer and ate lots of doughnuts, could he
get fat in about four days? 'So who left her the house?'
Bill
leafed through the papers in the folder. 'Alice Augusta Farrington. Born rich,
but her druggie son spent everything. At least he had the courtesy to die
before his mother did, so she had a few years of peace. She left the house and
what was left of her fortune to our Ms. Palmer.'
'How
did our perfect heroine meet the rich old broad?'
'Seems
the old gal took her in when Ms. Palmer was just a kid and pregnant. She, the
old one that is, wanted someone to sort out all the papers in her attic. The
house was built in' — he glanced down — 'about 1720 by one of the ancestors of
the old woman's. Ms. Palmer spent years cataloging the family papers.'
'Another
virtue and another talent,' Jared said with a grimace. 'Truly an angel. Let me
guess, Ms. Palmer and her kid stayed for years, beloved by all.'
'She
stayed until her daughter was five years old, then left in the middle of the
night.' Bill looked at Jared hard. 'The old woman's son was a registered sex
offender. Little kids. Girls, boys, he didn't care which. We have no way of
knowing, but we figure he went after Ms. Palmer's daughter, and she left her
comfortable home in a hurry.'
Jared
looked away for a moment. He really hated people who hurt children. He looked
back at Bill. 'Okay, so she's not had an easy life. A lot of us haven't. But it
sounds to me as though she's been enough places and seen enough that she could
have met this guy Applegate. Maybe if you just
ask
her what she knows
she'd tell you. Maybe — '
'Remember
Tess Brewster?'
'Sure,'
Jared said, his jaw muscle working. 'But what do you mean, remember?'
'About
a month ago, we started making some discreet inquiries about Ms. Palmer. New
York turned up nothing. Neither did the town where she was born. But we moved
Tess into Arundel, that's where the old house is. We rented a place for Tess
down the road from the one Ms. Palmer has inherited. Well, last week Tess was
killed in a hit-and-run. We investigated as quietly as we could; it looks like
it was a professional job.'
Jared
sighed. He'd liked Tess. She could drink any man under the table, and she'd
been a good agent. 'Do you think it's the house or the angelic Ms. Palmer?'
'We don't
know, but we're sure something's there. One of the two is being watched very
closely, and that's one reason we need
you.'
'I see.
I have managed to keep my mug out of the paper.'
'Yeah,
for the most part, you've been hidden from public view. Tess — '
'Was
easily recognized. Her face was all over the papers for about six weeks when
she testified against that mobster.' Jared's head came up. 'Maybe he
'Maybe
that hoodlum she testified
against killed her? He died two years ago, and we don't think he was powerful
enough or beloved enough that anyone would risk killing a federal agent on his
behalf. And why wait seven years? No, we think someone recognized Tess for what
she was and she was killed so she wouldn't find out what Ms. Palmer knows — or
what's in that house.'
Jared
felt that Bill knew more than he was telling, and he doubted if anyone really
thought the woman was innocent. 'Do you have any idea
what
this Palmer
woman knows? Is it someone's name? Or is it information? Or is it something
that she has? Maybe she knows what's buried in the backyard.'
Bill
lifted a file box from the floor onto his desk. 'This is full of info about
her. Everything we could find. Tess made two reports before she was murdered
but found out nothing. I'll tell you what, you take that box home, read it over
the weekend, then tell me what you think on Monday. If you agree to do it,
fine. If you don't, then that's fine too.'
Jared
had worked with Bill for too many years to fall for that. If he knew Bill — and
he did — a new identity was already waiting for him. Jared reached for the file
box. 'What's my cover?' he asked.
Bill
tried to keep from smiling but failed. 'We rented the house next door to her. It's
just a fishing cabin that used to belong to the old woman, but she had to sell
it to pay her son's debts. Between drugs and lawyers, he cost her millions.
You're to be a retired policeman, out early on account of
your knee, your wife of twenty-six years has just died, and
you've rented this house in the middle of nowhere so you can go fishing and
hunting and forget all your troubles. You need something to cry on her shoulder
about. Women like that.'