Authors: First Impressions
'It
worked, didn't it?' Jared said with a one-sided grin. 'I'm here, aren't I?'
'No, it
didn't work.' She stood up. 'I don't know anything about a spy, and I don't
know anything that would cause a spy to know about me. Did it ever occur to any
of you that I was an editor at a major publishing house? Maybe the man wanted
to write a book and he was given my name as someone to send his manuscript to.
Maybe a book editor is nothing in your world, but I can assure you that to a
person who wants a book published we are only just below God.'
He
looked at her in surprise. 'As far as I know, no one ever thought of that. It's
a strong possibility.' He smiled at her, but she didn't relent. 'Look, Ms.
Palmer, I didn't want this job. I pleaded with my boss to not assign me this. I
said I'd rather deal with drug addicts and the underworld than with a
church-going woman. 'Deliver me!' I told him.'
With
every word the man spoke, Eden's nails cut deeper into her palms. 'Are you
trying to make me feel
better?'
'Not doing
a good job of it, am I?' he said, obviously trying for humor.
'No,
you're not doing well at it at all. I'm going to my own room now, Mr. McBride,
and I want you to leave my house in the morning. In fact, I want you to vacate
your house and leave Arundel. I don't know anything about a spy and I don't
know anything that he'd want to know. My guess is that he believed that idiot
jewel story and that's what he was after. I don't think that people spy for
love of their own country. I think they do it for money, so the Farrington
jewels would have appealed to a man like him.'
'I have
no idea what you're talking about.'
'So
much for the thoroughness of FBI research,' Eden muttered as she glanced down
at the bedside table. On the bottom shelf were several old paperbacks. Bending,
she withdrew one and tossed it onto his lap.
Missing Treasures
was the
title. 'Since you're a big-shot FBI man, I'll tell you a little secret that not
even the people of the other families in Arundel know. Mrs. Farrington's
ancestor sold the jewels to pay his debts so he could keep this house. To save
his pride, he spread the rumor that the jewels were stolen. The story is a
myth. Now, Mr. McBride, I'm going to my own room to do some research for a new
job. Tomorrow, I want you to leave. If you're not out of Arundel by six P.M.,
I'm going to the sheriff. I know the man. He used to play with my daughter when
she was a baby. He'll listen to me. Have I made myself clear?'
'Completely,'
Jared said lightly. He was looking at the back of the book, which told about
treasures that were missing around the United States, one of which was the
Farrington sapphire necklace.
'I'll
call my boss and I'll be out of here in the morning. No problem.' He looked
back at her. 'See you in the morning.'
* * *
When
Eden got to her bedroom, she wanted to block out all that McBride had told her.
How could such a lovely evening have turned so sour? FBI, indeed, she thought.
Was she supposed to believe him? He had lied about everything else, so why was
she expected to believe him now?
Obviously,
the man was insane. That was the only explanation for what he'd told her. She
was supposed to have been involved with a spy. When? was the first thing that
came to her mind. When you're a single mother, you're father, mother,
breadwinner. You're everything to one or more children. There had been days
when Eden had craved a mere fifteen minutes of time alone, but she couldn't get
it. She'd always had work to do, either the kind that earned money, or
housework, or baby work. She'd always felt guilty that she hadn't been able to
play with Melissa as much as she would have liked, but she'd never had enough
energy or time.
Yet
here was some man saying that he thought she'd somehow, some way, at some time,
become involved with a spy. Too, too ridiculous.
She
tried to clear her mind of McBride and was glad that he was going to leave her
house and the town tomorrow. She went to the pine cabinet in the corner of the
bedroom. That she hadn't even opened the cabinet reminded her that she needed
to do a thorough exploration of the house and the attic. What was left and what
was missing? Inside the cabinet were about half of the books that Mrs.
Farrington had bought for her.
Smiling,
Eden took out a book on Thomas Jefferson's gardening records.
Opening it, she saw her notes in the margins. It seemed so long ago now. When
she last held this book, Melissa had been a baby, and she'd spent most of the
summer outside in the gardens. Only in inclement weather had she worked on
cataloging. During the winters and the hottest summer days, she'd stayed inside
and studied the history of the Farrington family.
She put
the book back on the shelf and withdrew another one. It was a children's book
about what it was like to live in the 'Big House.' She couldn't help herself as
she sat down hard on the end of the bed and ran her hand over the book. How
quickly children grew up! It seemed only days ago that she'd bought this book
for her daughter. They'd read it together several times before that night when they'd
had to run away and leave everything behind.
Eden
looked at the old room, at the restored molding around the ceiling, at the
fireplace surround that had been stripped of layers of paint, then perfectly
repainted a classic off-white. Tears came to her eyes. Brad said that Mrs.
Farrington had sold a valuable piece of family silver so she could have the
house renovated for Eden. The love that went into that action made the tears
run down Eden's cheeks. Mrs. Farrington had not deserved the life she'd had.
She deserved children who loved her and cared for her in her old age. Instead,
she'd turned to strangers.
Wiping
away her tears, Eden put the book back in the cabinet, glanced at the other
titles, and wondered where the rest of the books were. Mrs. Farrington had
purchased every book she thought Eden might possibly need. It had never been
said, but Eden was sure that Mrs. Farrington's dream was for Eden to someday be
the head of the Arundel Historical Society. To the outside world, it meant
nothing, but to the people of Arundel, it was a job of high prestige. To be
elected to it by members of the founding families, a person had to show
extensive knowledge of restoration techniques and the history of the town.
Historical gardening was part of that required knowledge. Eden remembered her
one and only visit to Williamsburg, paid for by Mrs. Farrington. While Eden was
away, Mrs. Farrington had hired three young girls to babysit Melissa (Mrs.
Farrington was terrified that she'd be left alone with the child), all so Eden
could go to a gardening symposium on eighteenth-century techniques. When she
wasn't in class, she wandered about the old town and drank in the beauty of the
buildings and the gardens.
Yawning,
Eden closed the doors to the cabinet. 'But then I was actually spying on my
country,' she muttered.
She was
suddenly very sleepy, so sleepy that she could hardly make it to the bathroom
to put on her nightgown. Ten minutes later, she was asleep in the bed that had
once belonged to generations of Farringtons.
'Bill,
calm down,' Jared said into his cell phone. 'Stop yelling so loud. She'll hear
you. Yes, I did give her something to make her sleep. Poor thing, this has hit
her hard. No, I'm not going soft on you.' He listened for a moment. 'If you'll calm
down, I'll tell you why I told her who I was and what I want. Are you ready to
listen?'
Jared
took a deep breath. 'Something is going on around here, but I can't figure out
what it is. Some lawyer is acting like Ms. Palmer is the love of his life, but
she only met him a couple of days ago. I don't trust him. Something isn't
right. I think he wants something and he's planning to get it. But she's
falling for him hook, line, and sinker. She seems to believe every word out of
his mouth. He even told her some cock-and-bull story about being unfaithful to
his ex-wife while the woman was dying of cancer, and she swallowed it. It was
all I could do to not step in and tell her a few home truths.'
Pausing,
he listened. 'Yeah, I guess he could be on the up-and-up, but I doubt it. The
point is that I saw that
I
didn't have a chance with her. She isn't what
I thought she was going to be. She's isn't some desperate, lonely woman who
swoons every time a man makes a move toward her.' He hesitated. 'She's more of
a no-nonsense type of woman, so I took the chance of telling her the truth.
Besides, she'd already figured out that nearly everything I'd said or done was
a lie. She should have worked for us.'
Jared
rolled his eyes and listened. 'No, I'm not falling for her. It's just that I
made a judgment call and decided that the best thing to do was to tell her who
I am, what I want, and see if she can help figure out why Applegate swallowed
her name and Social Security number. By the way, I want you to see if Applegate
was writing a book, maybe a tell-all about his life undercover. Maybe he just
wanted her as his editor.' Jared smiled at the phone. 'Yeah, she came up with
that idea. She's not dumb. Look, I didn't call you to get yelled at. I need you
to send someone here to do something for me. Ms. Palmer is a bit upset with me,
so she's told me to get out of her house, to get out of town, actually. What I
need is for you to send a man down here and maybe fire a few shots so she'll
realize this is serious. No,' Jared said patiently, 'not
at
anyone, just
fire a few shots around. I need to have a reason to stay near her. If she
thinks she's in danger, she'll be more receptive to my hanging around her as a
bodyguard, so to speak.'
Jared
listened, grimacing. 'Yes, I know this is supposed to be an undercover
assignment, and I know you think I shouldn't have told her anything, but I did.
Now I want you to send a man out here right away. Put him in a car tonight.
She's to meet Granville tomorrow at ten A.M., but I want her to miss that
meeting. He's getting too close too fast, and I don't like it at all. Look, I
gotta go. I put this red concoction on the cuts on my feet and it's burning. I
have to take a shower, and I need to get a couple of hours sleep so I'll be
ready for this man. Send somebody good, understand? I don't want any cock-ups.
I'll call you tomorrow and let you know how everything went. Oh, and, Bill,
thanks for doing this.'
Smiling,
Jared hung up the phone, turned it off so it wouldn't ring, then hid it under
the bedsprings. Throwing back the covers, he got out of bed and pulled the
sling off his arm. In the hospital they'd asked him if he thought he needed a
sling, and he'd moaned that he did. Now he flexed his arm, made a fist of his
hand, then dropped to the floor and did half a dozen one-arm push-ups. The arm
was okay, but he was disgusted that so few push-ups could make him feel so
sore.
He
pulled off his clothes, dropped them on the floor, then picked them up and put them
on the chair by the bed. In the shower, he let the hot water run over him and
wash away all the 'wounds' that he'd colored his body with. He'd wanted Eden to
think that he was bleeding and in pain. He hoped she didn't miss the red nail
polish he'd taken from her bedroom. That, mixed with a little of her cocoa
butter cream and some nail polish remover, had made a reddish mess that was
burning his scabbed cuts.
He
soaped himself and thought about how angry Bill had been when Jared told him
that he'd told Eden the truth. But she'd made Jared feel like he had in the
third grade when his teacher wouldn't believe a word he'd said. Other
teachers had believed him.
He'd made up elaborate stories about why he was late or
where he'd been, and they'd all believed him. But not Mrs. Lancaster. She'd
looked him in the eye and told him he had to write lines as punishment for
lying.
Eden
was like Mrs. Lancaster. She didn't believe him either. Clever girl! he
thought. She'd seen that his clothes were too new, that there was no table saw
in his garage, and she'd called the electric company about the houses being on
the same circuit. If she knew he was a liar, how was he supposed to make her
like him so much that she revealed secrets to him? And with Granville around,
how could Jared get close to the woman as quickly as possible?
While
he'd stood outside the dining room listening to her and Granville talk, Jared
had thought about telling Eden the truth. No lying, just the facts of the case.
He'd present it to her as a problem and let her help solve it.
As he'd
hobbled up the stairs, he told himself that wouldn't work. If she was told
about a spy, she'd throw him out, and he'd never find out anything. No, he
thought, he'd better not do that. But then, he'd stood at the window and
watched her and Granville in the moonlit garden, and he'd felt something that
was rare for him: jealousy. Granville was older than Jared, not in as good
shape, and had a boring office job, but it looked as though 'the girl' was
falling for
him.
Jared
had turned away from the window in disgust at himself for having such juvenile
thoughts. This was a job, he told himself. It was the same as other jobs. But
somehow it was already different. For one thing, he'd never before worked in a
middle-class home situation. Gangsters, thugs, drug lords, the underworld had
all been in his working life, but not this. This was a nice house, a nice
woman, and a nice town — and they made thoughts of retirement and having a
normal life come into his mind.
By the
time Eden came up the stairs after Granville left, Jared was prepared for her.
He had no doubt that she was going to tell him to get out, so he'd made his
wounds look as though they were bleeding. She couldn't throw out someone
dripping blood, could she?
She
hadn't surprised him when she'd told him that she knew that everything he'd
told her was a lie. But he was surprised when, even knowing that, she'd gone
downstairs and made him a tray of food. It was while she was downstairs that he
made the final decision to tell her the truth. He was aware that part of him
was hoping she'd be so interested in what he told her that she'd spend more
time with him. But she told him to leave. He was going to have to resort to
other methods to get close enough to her to find out what she knew. By the time
he got back into bed, he was smiling again. When he'd first surveyed the place,
before Eden had arrived, he'd seen a cellar beneath the house. It looked old
enough to have petroglyphs on the walls, and he didn't relish spending any time
down there, but it would do as a hideout for a few hours. Still smiling, he
went to sleep.