“Done. I’ll trade you my bullet wound for your road rash.”
“You’d get my right thigh with the deal. You might not like that.”
“I like your right thigh just fine.”
His comment was that of a friend who’d once been a lover, a man who was facing a long recovery, who hadn’t had a chance to fight his own attacker. Juliet sat on the edge of his bed, a hospital no-no, careful to avoid touching anything to her road rash. “It could have been a couple of mad reporters for all I know.”
“That’s not what you think.”
No. She thought it was the guy his sister had seen in Central Park. She tried to grin, but it hurt. “You don’t look so good today, Dunnemore.”
“You should see yourself, Longstreet.”
She laughed. “Collins asked me a bunch of pointed questions. I think he’s suspicious of me. Thinks I might have faked my own kidnapping. For all I know, he’s got it in his head that I shot you and Nate.”
“FBI’s suspicious of everyone. Collins is no exception.”
“
I’m
suspicious of everyone, but he’s carrying it too far. He barged in on me in the E.R. I practically had my ass hanging out—”
“Juliet. Jesus Christ.”
“Sorry. I grew up as one of the boys. I can be—”
“I wasn’t talking about your language. Collins. He doesn’t really suspect you. You got a description of the guys who grabbed you?”
She nodded. “I’m not supposed to discuss the details with anyone.”
“Understood.”
“You want to get back in bed? You look like you’re fading. My God, Rob. I can’t believe…” But she stopped herself, knowing it wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on how close he’d come to being dead. “Maybe I’ll just tell Collins I fell while I was on my run and made up the kidnapping just to cover for my embarrassment.”
“This thing, whatever’s going on—it’s not a marshal’s deal. Nate knows about you?”
Although he was up, Rob looked more haggard this morning, with dark circles under his eyes. Maybe the doctors and nurses were pushing him too hard. “Collins called him after he got through grilling me.”
Rob sank his head back against his chair and exhaled at the ceiling, his chest bandage peeking out of his hospital gown.
Juliet eased back to her feet. “It’s hard to look macho in a hospital gown, isn’t it?”
“Hard to look macho with a big goddamn bullet hole in you.” She’d tried to make him smile, but failed. He had to know she was holding back on him. “You did great, Longstreet. Getting away. I’m glad you had a chance.”
“I should have gotten the plate number. Collins would be happier with me if I had.”
“Fuck Collins.”
She smiled. “No way. He’s got a wife and kids, not to mention that gut—”
That drew something of a smile. “You are going straight to hell, you know that, don’t you?”
“Just trying to cheer up a fellow deputy. Think the FBI’s got me under surveillance? And Nate—I wonder—”
“You and Nate’d sniff out a G-man within a thousand yards of you.”
“They can monitor my calls and e-mails all they want—I don’t care. I just don’t like the idea of someone tailing me.”
“You’re unnerved, Longstreet. That’s not a good place to be.”
“How would you know? You’ve never been unnerved in your life.”
“I’m there now. My parents turning up missing yesterday, Sarah and this anonymous note.” He shook his head, his distress at his immobility palpable. “And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
He shifted in his chair, giving an involuntary moan of pain. Juliet remembered laying her hand on his chest, but all the passion and the romance they’d had for each other was gone now, replaced by a steady, resilient friendship that surprised her. For the most part when men were done with her, they ran like hell.
“Come on, Juliet. Quit beating yourself up.”
“I should have gotten more out of these guys before I jumped.”
“If the car had picked up speed and you jumped, you’d have broken bones instead of bruises.”
Or she’d be dead. “They realized they hadn’t locked the doors about the time I did. But still—I could have done better.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Collins is interviewing witnesses himself. He really must think I staged the whole thing.” She blinked back infuriating tears. “God, listen to me. You’re the one who almost died.”
Rob didn’t respond.
Juliet sniffled and pulled herself together. What the hell had the doctor given her to make her so pathetic? “I’ve decided to fly down to Tennessee and talk to Nate, maybe talk to your sister. Don’t worry, I’m not going to step on FBI toes.”
“Going to ask their permission?”
“No. I don’t answer to them. And it’s my damn day off. I can do what I want. Rivera tried to put a security detail on me, but I’m still armed and able to take care of myself.”
Rob grinned at her, a spark of his former self shining through his pain and weakness. “Tough as nails Deputy Longstreet.” But his humor ebbed quickly, and he tightened a fist, staring at his pale skin. “I really need to get out of this goddamn hospital.”
“You will.” She kissed him on the top of the head. “I’ll call you from Tennessee and let you know if Nate’s been behaving himself.”
“Juliet—”
“Your sister’s really pretty. You know that, right? And her and Nate—whoa, when she followed him—”
Rob made a face. “Sarah’s always thought she’d fall for some mild-mannered academic, but, watch, it’ll be some hard-ass like Nate.”
“Think he could fall for her, or will you kill him if he does?”
“You’ve seen her. You’ve seen them together. What do you think?”
Juliet pretended to think a moment, but she didn’t have to—she had a fair idea of what Winter and Rob’s twin sister were like together. “I think the wolf’s guarding the proverbial henhouse.”
“Sarah can be tough on men,” Rob said. “She’s had too many go after her just because of her looks. She’s got herself convinced now that she wants someone ‘safe.’”
Juliet laughed. “That’s what we all think when we see Nate, isn’t it? Here’s a safe guy. Hang in there, okay? They’re both adults. Worse thing that can happen is your sister gets pregnant and has a little Nate—or little Nate twins, since they run in the family.”
“I wish I had the strength to throw something at you.” Rob settled his gray eyes on her, a reminder that beneath the southern charm and easygoing facade was a serious, experienced federal law enforcement officer. “Be careful.”
“Of course.”
“Think of me languishing up here while you’re eating prune cake and drinking sweet tea punch on the porch.”
“Trust me,” she said, “I’m not eating anything called prune cake.”
“You already have. I made it to celebrate my assignment up here.”
“You said it was spice cake with caramel frosting.”
“Prune cake. I didn’t want to prejudice you.”
“Gross.”
“You loved it.”
She’d loved him. But it hadn’t worked, the two of them in the same district. She was more ambitious than he was—hell, a frog was more ambitious. “I’m glad we’ve stayed friends.”
He winked at her in the way that used to make her want to jump his bones. It didn’t anymore. It just made her feel good. “Me, too.”
Nate left Sarah digging through old pictures and yearbooks and found Brooker on the small front porch of the cottage, a green-painted kitchen chair tilted back as he strummed on an acoustic guitar. It sounded as if he knew how to play.
“You want to tell me who you are?” Nate asked.
“I’m the gardener.” Brooker looked up from his guitar, an old one, nothing about him suggesting he gave a damn whether Nate planned to cuff him on the spot. “Go ahead. Check me out.”
He already had. “The Dunnemores hired you in early April after they found you trespassing. What were you doing here?”
“Fishing.” He tweaked a middle string on his guitar, making a twanging sound, and dropped his chair back down onto all four legs. “I didn’t shoot you. I was here with Sarah when her brother called. I didn’t hire anyone to shoot you. What other people did or didn’t do, I can’t speak for.”
“You were questioned in your wife’s murder.”
Brooker kept his stony gaze on Nate. “Well, good for you, Deputy. You’ve done your homework. I was questioned. Dutch authorities still don’t have a suspect in custody.” The muscles in his arms tensed visibly, as if he wanted to snap the guitar in two. “It’s been eight months. Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Your wife was an army captain based in Germany. She worked in intelligence.” Nate remained on the grass, still damp from overnight showers. “You’re a West Point graduate and an army major yourself. Special Forces. Your missions are all classified, but you’re supposed to be one of the best at what you do.”
Brooker got up with his guitar, holding it by its neck. “I’m not in the army anymore. I quit in March. I didn’t give the Dunnemores my history because it’s complicated and they didn’t ask. I’m trying to get on with my life.”
“You didn’t use an alias.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Your wife was killed in Amsterdam. The Dunnemores—”
“I know. Amsterdam. They left town just before Char was killed. The rest is coincidence.”
Nate didn’t believe him. Brooker was an adept actor and liar. “Why Night’s Landing?”
He shrugged. “I had reason to believe the Dunnemores were among the last people to see my wife alive. I wanted to ask them how she was, what they talked about. I never did.”
“Doing a little investigating of your own?”
“Trying to make peace with myself. Char and I—we didn’t see much of each other the two years before she died. Twenty-one days total, to be exact. I wanted to find a way to connect with her after she’d died. The Dunnemores took me for a down-and-out type. After meeting them, I realized they wouldn’t know anything about Char, her murder. I don’t know, I was a wreck. I just started in with the good ol‘ boy act, and here I am.”
Nate didn’t know what of what Brooker said was true and what was bullshit. The man had his own agenda, but who could blame him? “Nicholas Janssen?”
“I read the papers, that’s all.” Brooker opened the front door to the cottage, no sign he was veering out of control, ready to rip it off its hinges; but that could be his military training and experience. “Relax, Deputy, I’m on your side. Whatever’s going on, Sarah’s up to her eyeballs in it. Look after her. I’ll look after myself.”
He walked into the cottage and let the door bang shut behind him.
Nate returned to the house, going around to the back where a half-dozen fat bumblebees hovered in a sprawling rosebush thick with pale pink blossoms. He smelled frying onions, heard the sizzle of something Sarah had dumped into her frying pan. When he entered the kitchen, she smiled at him as if he’d just come in from working in the garden and all in her life was normal. A defense mechanism. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows as she broke up raw hamburger into her frying pan.
“I found some hamburger in the freezer, so I’m making a casserole,” she said. “Egg noodles, hamburger, tomato sauce, cheese, green olives. It’s another of my grandmother’s recipes.”
Nate said nothing. He could feel the weight of the bandage on his arm, a steady throb that reminded him he hadn’t taken any Tylenol that morning and that nothing about this scene was ordinary.
“She lived well into her eighties,” Sarah went on. “I guess her cooking didn’t kill her. She worked hard all her life, right up to her last days. She endured so many tragedies.”
The telephone rang, but Nate picked up the extension before Sarah could get to it. “Dunnemore residence.”
“Nate? Hell, you sound like a butler.” It was Rob, more alert than he had since the shooting. “You’re the one I want to talk to, anyway. Juliet’s on her way down there. Getting snatched this morning threw her.”
“What the hell does she want down here?”
“To talk to you. You might want to sit on her when she gets there.”
No kidding. Nate glanced at Sarah, who was now using a spatula to break up the hamburger in the frying pan. It was smoking, sizzling, but he had no illusions—she was listening to every word he said. He hadn’t told her yet what he’d learned about their “gardener” from his own sources. He wasn’t sure if he would, or if he’d tell Rob. He’d told Joe Collins, not that the FBI agent had returned the favor and told him anything.
“Talk to me about Conroy Fontaine,” Nate said.
He could see Sarah stiffen, but her brother didn’t seem to be caught off guard. “He checks out as a reporter from Memphis,” Rob said. “That’s as far as I got. I was going to dig deeper after he tracked my folks down in Amsterdam. Where is he now?”
“Last we saw, smoking cigarettes with an old fisherman.”
“What else?” Rob asked. “There’s more, Nate. I can tell.”
“Fontaine had a picture of Nicholas Janssen with him. Name ring a bell with you?”
“Yeah, sure. Rich tax evader on the lam in Switzerland.”
“He and your mother and President Poe all spent their freshman year together at Vanderbilt.”
Rob was silent. Sarah turned off the heat under her frying pan and shoved it aside, her attempt to distract herself obviously failing her. Her ponytail had nearly worked itself out of its covered rubber band.
“Sarah?” her brother asked.
“Hanging in there.”
“My parents will be in New York tonight. Maybe they can straighten this out.”
Nate went ahead and filled him in on what he’d learned about Ethan Brooker.
“This all could be a coincidence,” Rob said quietly. “My parents have a way of attracting drama to them. A rich tax evader, a reporter looking for a bombshell, this character Brooker maybe grasping at straws—what a mess. But they don’t necessarily have anything to do with the attack on us. I get to sit here and blow into this air thing, and you get to hang out on the river and wait for Longstreet to show up. And the FBI. They’ll be back knocking on your door soon.”
“I imagine so. Collins has everything I have. It’s up to him now.”
Sarah ran out the back door. Nate tried to smile into the phone, hoping it’d somehow take the edge off his words. “Take care of yourself. I’ll be in touch.”