Her gray eyes narrowed slightly. “My son’s situation and yours had better be coincidence and nothing more.”
Or what? Nicholas almost asked her, almost called her bluff—fought an urge to threaten her and demonstrate just how dangerous he was. “I’m sure they will. In the meantime, they could cause us both problems. You’re not only the mother of a wounded marshal, you’re a friend of the president.”
“Don’t bring Wes into this.”
Janssen shrugged, rising so that he was a few inches above eye level with her. “Betsy, I’m an innocent man. I want to put my legal problems behind me and do good in the world. You can help me.”
She gave a small gasp that she must have wished she could have held back. “I have no intention of helping you!”
He smiled gently. “You already have. Just seeing you has made a difference to me.”
She took a breath. “Nick, please. Stay out of my life.”
“I had nothing to do with the attack on your son. It’s insane to think I did. But if you tell the authorities about me—”
“Are you suggesting I don’t? What, are you going to threaten me?”
But she regained her self-control and tilted her head back, studying him a moment through those half-closed eyes. They were beautiful eyes. Stormy and vivid, with just enough mystery.
“Why did you seek me out in the first place? The FBI’s going to want to know, if they don’t already.”
“Betsy, remember. I knew Wes Poe in college, too. He was my friend, too.”
She inhaled through her nose. “Don’t you even think—”
“Why, because he complicates everything for you? Or because you know you should have married him?”
“That’s it. I’m leaving. I don’t ever want to see you again. If your men come near me, I’ll call the police.”
“I’m a decent man, Betsy.” He ached to reach her, to convince her. “If I made a mistake in fleeing my country, it was because I wasn’t thinking. I want to go home. I want to see my mother’s grave.”
She stared at him, and he wondered if she was seeing him at eighteen, a misfit intellectually, socially and culturally. She’d tried to help him make more friends. She’d felt sorry for him then—she’d had sympathy for him.
But all that was gone.
He couldn’t count on convincing her to want to step in on his behalf with the president by being nice. He saw that now.
“A presidential pardon would clear my name.” He spoke softly and met her eyes, saw the shock in them. “You could make it happen.”
“Bastard,” she said through her teeth and ran for the door, pushing past a bodyguard who could have snapped her neck without breaking a sweat. Janssen motioned for him to let her go. She gave him one last, scathing look and started for the steep, curving stairs. “Don’t you
ever
try to contact me again.”
“Betsy. Don’t leave. Not just yet.” He lifted an envelope from a small side table. “There’s a picture of a woman in here.”
“I’m leaving.” But her voice faltered, and she didn’t move.
Janssen withdrew the photograph Charlene Brooker he’d cut out of an Amsterdam newspaper. “You recognize this woman, don’t you? She’s an army captain. You two met last fall.”
Betsy gasped. “What—Nick, what’s going on? Why was her picture in the paper?”
“She was found dead two days after you met with her. Shot in the chest. Point-blank range. Hookers found her in the red-light district.” Janssen set the picture faceup on the table. “Amsterdam’s a safe city, but—” He didn’t finish. “It’s a very sad story.”
“She’s dead? Murdered? My God, I had no idea. Stuart and I left for home a day or two after I saw her. She told me about your fugitive status.” Betsy spoke in a tight, rapid voice. “I didn’t mention her because I didn’t think it was any of your business. I never heard from her again.”
“Perhaps because she was dead.” Janssen eased back onto his chair, aware of how brittle with tension she was. He had to play this moment very carefully. “Another coincidence.”
Her eyebrows arched. He could see her fear now. “How do you know I met with her?”
“It’s not important. But if I know, Betsy, other people know. The FBI will want to know. The Dutch police.”
“I’ll tell them everything, of course, but I don’t even remember the poor woman’s name.”
Nicholas decided not to tell her. He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other.
In the silence, she bit her lower lip and grasped her stomach, as if she might vomit. “Do you believe her killer is also responsible for Rob—for shooting my son and the deputy who was with him? Nick, please. Tell me what you know.”
“Your captain was in army intelligence. Just because she told you about my situation doesn’t mean she was investigating
me
.” But, of course, that wasn’t true. “Betsy, I don’t need to remind you that your husband is an important man. He has important enemies inside and outside the government.”
“But not
violent
enemies.”
“Everyone’s violent these days, one way or another. People listen to your husband. The president listens. That makes him powerful.”
“I’m leaving. You’re deliberately trying to scare me.”
“This can all spin out of control, Betsy, if you aren’t careful. I know you want to protect your family. Let me help you.” He let his gaze connect with hers. “Then you can help me.”
But she fled, taking the steep, curving stairs as fast as she possibly could.
Janssen flopped back against his chair and stifled a moan of pain and despair. His head throbbed. He was so tired. But while their meeting could have gone better, it had gone about as well as he’d expected. He’d planted the seed. Soon she would realize that the only way to get him out of her life and to save her family was to use her influence with President John Wesley Poe and persuade him to pardon an old college classmate.
Before
his other activities came to light.
When he returned to his beer, there was a call for him. “Is the money ready?” the voice on the other end asked. “You’ll have your presidential pardon within twenty-four hours.”
“What? Who are you? Stay the hell out of my affairs!”
“The clock is ticking.”
“Wait—”
But the caller had already disconnected.
Rob was sitting up in bed, picking at a plate of hospital food, when Juliet arrived. She was relieved to see him in a private room. She didn’t like being around sick people. The doctors and nurses had him up walking as much as possible, but he was still weak—and he still had his marshal guards. They weren’t going anywhere, not with the investigation still ongoing, his sister receiving threatening letters and Rob unable to pick up a gun much less fire one.
That he couldn’t defend himself didn’t sit well with him. “I can’t wait to get out of here. What’s going on that nobody else will tell me?”
“Nothing,” Juliet said. “You’re a hundred percent in the loop.”
He snorted. “Right. Liar.”
“Joe Collins is covering all the angles, even the cranks.” His unsettling visit to her apartment last night was still fresh in her mind. “I think deep down he believes Hector’s our guy. Even if he had a handicap, he could have pulled off those two shots. People
saw
him—”
“Is that what you believe? That Hector Sanchez was the shooter and he overdosed celebrating his handiwork?”
Juliet sighed. One of Rob’s doctors had cornered her in the hall and warned her not to discuss the shooting with him. But, if she was the one bandaged up and stuck in the hospital, she’d want every damn detail she could get. She’d do all she could to get out of there so she could go catch the shooter herself. Rob was laid-back, but he wasn’t
that
laid-back.
“I suppose someone could have set him up, made sure people saw him to draw attention away from the real shooter, then paid him off with a drug overdose. Collins isn’t saying—”
Rob tried to give her the high sign, but it was too late. “Do I hear my name being taken in vain?” the FBI agent asked behind her.
Juliet spun around. “Rob was just asking a normal question. Damn.” She grinned at him. “You FBI types are sneaky.”
“We prefer ‘stealthy.’”
He had a good-natured manner, but Juliet sensed his underlying seriousness.
“How’re you doing today, Deputy?” he asked Rob.
“Not bad. They’ve got me eating regular food. I’m starving.”
“That’s got to be a good sign. Your doctors tell me you’re making an amazing recovery. All that triathlon training must be helping.” He shook his head and patted his gut. “Me, I wouldn’t have made it out of the park.”
“I almost didn’t,” Rob said softly.
“Don’t be thinking like that. Deputy Longstreet? A word?”
Rob immediately looked suspicious and Juliet didn’t blame him. She ran one hand through her hair. “Here or—”
“Out in the hall, if you don’t mind.”
“What’s up?” Rob asked.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” the FBI agent said. “I’ll be back in a minute to talk to you.”
It was clear Rob objected, but there was nothing he could do.
Collins led Juliet into the unoccupied waiting room and shut the door. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, rattling loose change, a gravity overcoming him that she hadn’t seen in him before, even in the first hours after the shooting. “The Dunnemores didn’t make it onto their plane in Amsterdam.”
“What do you mean, didn’t make it? Did something happen to them or did they just miss their flight?”
“We don’t know. They refused an escort. They’re a stubborn lot, the whole damn family.” He sighed through his teeth. “I’m putting someone on them. I don’t give a good goddamn if they don’t like it—” He broke off with another angry, frustrated sigh. “As soon as we find them.”
“Are you going to tell Rob?”
“No. He’s the reason I just put you in the loop on this one.”
Juliet saw his awkwardness and realized what he was getting at. “Oh, great,” she said without enthusiasm. “I get to tell him. Are you shoving it off onto Nate to tell the sister?”
Collins nodded with at least a small measure of guilt.
“Can we give it some time?” Juliet asked. “Wait and see if the parents show up?”
He poured himself a cup of stale coffee. “If you were in Rob Dunnemore’s position, would you want us dancing around the truth, or would you want to know straight out what was going on with your folks?”
She knew she didn’t need to answer.
Joe Collins stared at his grayish coffee. Juliet wondered what else he knew. What he wasn’t telling her. Today he had the look of a man preoccupied with unraveling what was increasingly
not
looking like a simple case of a drugged-out snitch going bad. Whatever was going on was more complicated—and possibly even more dangerous.
Juliet took a breath. “I’ll go tell him.”
Nate’s arm throbbed. A wonder he hadn’t killed himself making love to Sarah last night. He watched her stirring her tea punch with a cinnamon stick. He’d had two sips and decided it was too sweet for his taste. They were alone on the property, out on the porch waiting for word from her parents. Ethan Brooker had taken the truck and gone to town, and Conroy Fontaine wasn’t at the back door looking to discuss old southern recipes, currying favor with Sarah to get access to the president.
Nate assumed the FBI agents looking into the anonymous letter were checking out both the gardener and the journalist, but he’d made a few calls himself. So far, nothing back. He assumed Collins and his guys were doing the same.
The tea punch, Sarah had told him tonelessly, was another of her Granny Dunnemore’s recipes.
Nate supposed he should feel like a heel for taking advantage of her last night, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know if it was the shooting, the bullet wound or the river and the roses and azaleas around him—or if maybe he really was falling for her—but all he could think about was making love to her again. And then again.
Not a good situation. Probably he should call Longstreet and tell her to get her butt down here.
He sighed. “Maybe it would be better if we put an official security detail—”
“No,” she said. “Thank you, but no. And you don’t have to stay.”
He knew a part of her wasn’t on the porch with him. She’d already gone upstairs and dug out her passport to head to Amsterdam and hunt for her parents herself. If Nate hadn’t been there, she might already be on a plane. Impulsive. He’d seen some of that in her brother when he’d charged into the park to look at the damn tulips, but not on the job.
She broke her cinnamon stick into little pieces and lined them up on the porch rail. “Do you feel New York’s your home, or Cold Ridge?”
“I don’t think about it.”
“Ah. I was warned you’re pretty much a workaholic.” She glanced at him. “And something of a rake.”
“A rake? That’s an old-fashioned term.”
“I’m drinking tea punch in my grandmother’s rocking chair. I’m in an old-fashioned mood.”
“Did you miss this place when you were in Scotland?”
“It’s home.” She leaned forward, rearranging her pieces of cinnamon stick. “I missed walking in the fields and woods, boating on the river—just sitting out here listening to the crickets. But I haven’t lived here since college.”
“I cleared out of Cold Ridge after high school. I didn’t even go home for summers in college. Not to stay, anyway.” He tried more of the punch, just to see if he liked it any better, but no, it was too sweet. “I have a good relationship with my family. I just had things I wanted to do that I couldn’t at home.”
“Do you hike the ridge?”
From her tone, he guessed she was remembering that his parents had died on the ridge. “Every year since I was seven. My uncle took my sisters and me up in the beginning, before we could go on our own. He didn’t want us being afraid of it. It looms over the valley where we lived.”
“He never considered moving you out of there?”
“Gus?” Nate smiled, shaking his head. “He’d just gotten back from Vietnam. He wasn’t going anywhere.”
“My grandfather died when my father was young, but he had Granny. I’ve had both my parents for so long.”