US Marshall 03 - The Rapids (10 page)

“My father was only fifty-seven when he died.”

The path widened, and Rob eased in next to her. “What was he doing in Prague?”

“He was a business consultant. He traveled a lot. It finally drove him and my mother apart.”

“You joined diplomatic security because of him?”

“Because I have the same sense of wanderlust, yes.” She smiled suddenly, trying to lift her mood. “As you can see—”

“Being here has nothing to do with wanderlust.” He glanced at her, gave her one of his half smiles. “Or with just lust, from what I can see.”

She could feel heat on the back of her neck. “What, you don’t think I have a guy hiding in my room?”

“No, ma’am.”

Since even the way he said
ma’am
got to her, Maggie decided she had low blood sugar on top of jet lag and mounted the steps to the back porch. She could hear the clicking of ice in glasses and smelled mint and charcoal, as if someone had been grilling. Three tables were filled. Breakfast was for guests only, but lunch and dinner were open to the public.

A slender woman cheerfully seated them at a small round table. “I may have gotten you in trouble, Agent Spencer,” she whispered; despite her short gray hair, she couldn’t have been more than in her midthirties. “Star and Andrew are in such la-la land, they might never have known about the shooting if I hadn’t said anything. I saw it on the news.”

“That’s not your fault,” Maggie said.

“I feel bad. They’re under a lot of stress.” She handed Rob and Maggie each a printout of the day’s menu. “I understand the victim was a friend of yours.”

“We’d only known each other three weeks, but, yes, Tom was a friend.”

“What a shame. My name’s Libby, by the way—Libby Smith.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Maggie said.

“You’re smart to get away for a few days after such a tragedy. How’d you end up in Ravenkill? Do you have family here?”

Maggie shook out her napkin and placed it on her
lap, noticing Rob eyeing her over the top of his menu, wanting answers himself. “No, no family here. It’s just something I picked on a whim. I’m glad I did. It’s beautiful.”

“Well,” Libby said, obviously not satisfied, “enjoy your stay. What can I get you two to drink?”

“Iced tea would be fine,” Maggie said.

Rob smiled up from his menu. “Make that two, Miss Smith.”

“Just Libby is fine. My family owned this place for generations.” She grinned irreverently. “Star and Andrew saved it from a wrecking crane. I help out when I can. I live on the first floor in a little ell my dad used as his trash room. He had problems. Two iced teas it is.”

When Libby withdrew to fetch their iced tea, Maggie leaned over the table. “I think there’s a subtext around here, don’t you?”

“I’d say that’s a fair guess, Agent Spencer.”

She smiled. “At least you still have a sense of humor.”

Libby returned with two glasses of tea with sprigs of orange mint, and Maggie, starving now, felt like ordering everything on the menu. She settled on the carrot-orange soup, the walnut-pear salad with goat cheese and the grilled salmon.

“The goat cheese is local,” Libby said. “Star toasts it.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

Rob chose the chicken salad with grapes and pulled off his sunglasses after Libby left with their orders. “Nate Winter has my description of your old guy. Nate’s my future brother-in-law, and a marshal.” We’re going to find out who your guy is.”

“You’re relentless, aren’t you? I suppose it’s a good quality in someone who catches fugitives for a living.”

Maggie tilted back her iced tea and wished she could just keep drinking all afternoon and avoid those eyes. But she set the glass down, observing a middle-aged couple sharing a salad at another table.

Rob said nothing. He was, she suspected, trying to use silence to his advantage.

“He says his name is William Raleigh. He’s a retired economist.” She ran a finger down the frosty side of her glass. “He gave me the name of the inn. It was my decision to actually come here.”

“Any contact with him before Saturday?”

“No.”

“He had to have said something significant to make you go to the trouble of flying to New York at the last minute, giving me the slip—”

“He referred to my father and his death.” She heard the sharpness in her tone but couldn’t do anything about it now. “You saw him. He’s down and out. He smelled like stale cigarettes and looked like he just finished a drinking binge.”

“You think it could be a bad lead.”

She tried to smile. “I’ve been to worse places on wild-goose chases. I have a four-poster bed in my room and forget-me-not wallpaper.”

“Do you?”

“Damn it, Dunnemore—”

“You’re the one who brought up beds and forget-me-nots.”

“Do you even know what a forget-me-not is?”

“Flower.” He grinned at her. “Bluish purple.”

Andrew Franconia trotted up the porch steps and beelined for their table, saving Maggie from further talk of her bedroom. But he was annoyed. “I didn’t mean for the marshals to come up here,” he said through clenched teeth. He was sweating, in shorts and an orange polo shirt that was neatly tucked in. “You’re Deputy Dunnemore, aren’t you? I recognize you from the news—”

Rob got to his feet and shook hands politely, taking some of the steam out of Franconia’s irritation. “Maggie and I are enjoying your inn,” he said. “We just ordered lunch. Would you care to join us?”

“No, no, that’s all right. Thank you. I was just—” He glanced around at the occupied tables, then lowered his voice. “It struck me that whoever murdered that diplomat on Saturday is still at large. If Agent Spencer is someone who protects diplomats—”

“I’m not here because of Tom Kopac’s murder,” Maggie said.

Andrew glanced at her. “But you made your reservation just hours afterward.”

“It’d been a bad day.” She kept her tone even. “Have you ever been to Den Bosch? It’s full name is ’s-Hertogenbosch. There’s a lovely gothic cathedral there, and they do boat tours on the water-way—”

“No, I’ve never been there, but I’ve been to Holland, of course, many times. Star and I travel frequently in our work—well, we used to.” His voice softened slightly, became less rat-tat. “It’s harder for us both to get away now that we have the inn.”

“You go on solo trips?” Maggie asked.

He narrowed his gaze on her. “Is this an interrogation?”

“A friendly conversation, Mr. Franconia.”

“I’m sorry,” he said in a half whisper. “I don’t mean to be rude. Please, enjoy your lunch.”

He couldn’t get away fast enough.

“He embarrassed himself,” Rob said. “You make him nervous.”

“You don’t help matters,” Maggie said. “He knows marshals arrest people, but he’s not sure what diplomatic security agents do. And he knows you’re pals with the president. That’d make anyone nervous.”

“Doesn’t seem to affect you.”

“Sure it does. I’m just better at containing my emotions.”

Libby Smith returned with the carrot-orange soup, a dollop of sour cream melting in its center.

“I’m not that hungry anymore,” Maggie said. “Maybe I should cancel the salmon.”

“As you wish,” Libby said, smiling. “Don’t you just hate jet lag? I never know whether I’m supposed to eat, sleep or just be cranky.”

Maggie laughed. “Some people would say I always know when to be cranky.”

Libby laughed, too, but when she left, Rob picked the mint sprig out of his iced tea and set it on his place mat. “I want to know everything you know about your Sir Walter Raleigh character. Start to finish. When he contacted you, how, what he said, why St. John’s, what happened there. All of it.”

Maggie dipped her spoon into her soup. “Why should I tell you?”

“Because we’re in this thing together.”

“That’s what I was trying to avoid—”

“Not that hard. If you’d wanted to disappear once you got to New York, you’d have figured out a way to do it.” He nodded to her. “Go ahead. Eat your soup and talk to me.”

Whether he meant to or not, he managed to sound rational and calm and reasonable—not dictatorial, not panicked, not annoyed. It was a skill, Maggie thought. If their positions were reversed, she’d never have pulled it off.

“It’s William,” she said. “Not Walter.”

“He doesn’t think he defeated the Spanish Armada?”

“As far as I know, no.”

And she told Rob everything.

Start to finish. All of it.

A
fter lunch, they ran across Libby Smith folding cloth napkins at the dining room table, and she offered to show them around the place. “I’ll give you the secret grand tour.”

She had an eager but somewhat self-deprecating manner that Rob attributed to the awkwardness of being reduced, basically, to the live-in help in a house that had been in her family for generations. She pretended not to mind, that she loved what the Franconias had done to the place and appreciated having it off her hands. But it had to stick in her craw.

Before Rob could bow out of any tour, Maggie accepted for both of them. A minute later, they were standing on the front steps and Libby had them listening for sounds of the nearby creek.

“Its official name is the Raven Kill,” she said. “
Kill
is an old-fashioned Dutch word for river or
creek, but nobody knows that anymore. So, we generally say Ravenkill Creek. Technically it’s redundant, but otherwise, who’d know what we were talking about? Do you speak Dutch, Agent Spencer, since you’re assigned to the American embassy in The Hague?”

“I’ve picked up the grammar, and I know a few words.”

“And you, Deputy,” Libby said. “They say you speak eight or nine languages.”

“Not quite that many,” Rob said.

“It’s such a gift. I can get along in French, but that’s about it. Anyway, it used to be farmland right down to the creek. The woods are relatively recent. They’ve grown up in the past seventy years or so. The orchards and gardens are all my family’s doing, revitalized, of course, by Andrew and Star.”

“When did your family arrive in Ravenkill?” Maggie asked.

“Just before this house was built in 1846. There wasn’t a lot of money until my great-grandfather’s day in the early 1900s. My grandfather added on to the house and turned it into more of a country estate—a gentleman’s farm—than a homestead.” She trotted down the steps onto the front lawn. “Then my father squandered the family fortune. You know the old adage. First generation makes it, second generation spends it, third generation loses it. That about sums it up as far as the Smiths go.”

Rob followed Maggie down the steps. “What was your great-grandfather’s fortune in?” he asked.

“Investments. I don’t know.” Libby waved a hand, her tone cheerful and dismissive. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Rob noticed the grass was virtually without weeds. Everything about the Old Stone Hollow Inn was picture-perfect. “Your parents—”

“Dead. First my mother, then my father. They were both gone before I was out of college.”

“When did you sell the property to the Franconias?” Maggie asked.

“Four years ago. It was that or the wrecking crane. I never thought I’d stay here, but Andrew and Star wanted someone on the premises during renovations and I didn’t mind. It was fascinating, actually.” She shrugged. “I just haven’t left yet. I’m collecting antiques to open my own shop. Quality stuff. My father was a drunk, but he knew a bit about antiques and taught me. It’s taking some time to pull the right pieces together. I do a little dealing, but it’s not enough so that I can afford to strike out on my own.”

“Are those your pieces in the barn?” Maggie asked.

Libby shook her head. “No, they’re Andrew and Star’s. They made their money in the antiques business. They think of themselves as sort of my mentors. Come on. I’ll show you my pieces. They’re on the tour.”

She led them around to the side of the house, pointing out old rose bushes and lilacs, a sugar maple where her grandmother had once had a swing and a marble fairy statue that her grandfather had picked out because it so looked like her grandmother. She was still talking when she led them down a slope to a full-size cellar door.

“You
have
to see the wine cellar,” she said, hefting the heavy door open. “My grandfather had it built almost a hundred years ago.”

A switch just inside the door turned on a naked yellow lightbulb in the middle of a narrow hall. An old dehumidifier rumbled against one wall. Maggie sneezed. “Dust sensitivity,” she said, sneezing again.

“You can’t keep the dust out of here,” Libby said. “The original cellar is all stone. Can you imagine? They built it one big old rock at a time. There was a dirt floor, but it got paved over with concrete. This part’s newer, but, still, there’s just not much that can be done about the dust.”

Rob nodded to an arched wooden door. “Is that the wine cellar?”

Libby smiled. “Good guess. Doesn’t it remind you of a Vincent Price movie? Alas, no bats and vampires down here.”

She pulled open the door, which was heavy for her. The room was small and windowless, naturally cool, its concrete walls lined with mostly empty wooden wine racks. Only a few dust-encrusted bot
tles remained. Libby pulled on a string, and another naked yellow lightbulb came on.

“It gives a lot of people the creeps to be down here, but not me,” she said. “During the winter and bad weather, I’d hide in here with a book. Of course, my father cleaned out any last remaining bottles of wine. Andrew talks about actually using it again, but he’s very picky about temperature and humidity controls.”

“What’s through that door?” Maggie asked, pointing to a more ordinary door in the corner of the small room.

“Storage. It’s interesting to see a house from the inside, don’t you think? But maybe I’m just a frustrated architect. My antiques room is just up the hall.”

They returned to the hall, passing a battered wooden canoe and broken paddles. “Are these some of your antiques?” Maggie asked.

“Junk. Andrew thinks he can restore the canoe. I don’t.”

“Was it in your family?”

“Everything down here was in my family.”

Rob didn’t think the canoe had much hope. “Are the Franconias originally from Ravenkill?” he asked.

“Poughkeepsie,” Libby said, tackling a combination lock on another door. In a few seconds, she had it unlocked and the door pushed open. “Voilà.”

The room was stacked nearly floor to ceiling with
old furniture and crates of glass pieces. Another dehumidifier rumbled and rattled in a corner. Rob noticed desks, tables, chairs, dressers, sofas, cupboards and bookcases, but he couldn’t place any value or determine the origin of any of them.

Libby sighed proudly. “I know it all looks like dusty old junk to most people, but I can see how it’ll all fit into a shop in the village. I even know which one I want.”

“Do you specialize in a particular country or era?” Maggie asked, peering at the eclectic jumble of pieces.

“I just buy what I like. I spend a lot of time and money traveling to find things, keep track of all the documentation. There’s a lot to it.”

More, Rob was certain, than he wanted to know.

But the cellar tour ended, and they made their way up the back stairs to a small laundry and supply room, then continued their tour through the main rooms of the first floor. Libby pointed to the door to the ell where she had her minisuite. “It’s very cute,” she said.

“Anyone else live here full-time?” Rob asked.

Libby shook her head. “Just the Franconias and me.”

“Do they have any children?”

“Two grown daughters. I’m sure they’ll end up inheriting the place.” She spoke without apparent bitterness. “Andrew and Star are such planners. I’m
more spontaneous—which is probably why I don’t have a husband, kids or much money.”

She pointed out several items the Franconias had ended up buying from her, never mind their own expertise in antiques. An early twentieth-century sofa, a Victorian piano stool, an 1840s quilt. “I’d dreamed for so long of what this place could look like,” Libby said. “It was easy to come up with the perfect pieces.”

They headed upstairs, where she took them through unoccupied guest rooms and sitting rooms, pausing at a hall window with a breathtaking view of the Hudson River. They were near the narrows, Libby explained, where the famous river forced its way between the Appalachians and was at its deepest and most treacherous.

She turned away from the window. “I never thought I’d have to give up this view.”

They returned to the main floor and wandered out to the back porch. Libby put her hands on her hips and breathed in the summer air as if to counter all the dust and the nostalgic memories stirred up on her tour.

Rob dredged up something to say. “It’s humid. Maybe we’ll get rain.” God, he thought, he sounded like his father, talking about the weather. “Think it’ll storm?”

“A forty-percent chance of thunderstorms, according to the latest weather report,” Libby said.
“I should pick the beans before one hits. Thanks for indulging me.”

“Our pleasure,” Maggie said.

“That’s very gracious of you to say.” Libby gave an irreverent smile. “I’ve never shown the place to a couple of feds. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon.”

She set off happily down the driveway.

“Either it doesn’t kill her that she lost the place to a brittle couple she doesn’t like that much,” Rob said, “or she’s good at hiding it.”

“Maybe she knows that without the Franconias the gardens and orchards would be a golf course by now.”

He shrugged. “The golf course might have kept the fairy statue.”

Rob said he wanted to check in with Mike Rivera, and they ended up in Maggie’s room. He didn’t comment on the four-poster bed or the forget-me-not wallpaper. Maggie ducked into her bathroom while he made his call and checked her face for dust and smudges after crawling around the inn’s cellar.

Libby Smith. Andrew and Star Franconia.

A country inn.

Antiques.

It wasn’t a lot to go on.

“It’s not
anything
to go on,” Maggie said to herself, then rejoined Rob in the bedroom.

He’d finished with his conversation and stood at
her window. “Juliet Longstreet thinks Ethan Brooker must have had something to do with the Janssen tip.”

“Brooker? We don’t have any indication he was even in the Netherlands last week, never mind on Janssen’s heels. I doubt he’d have bothered with a tip.”

“He wouldn’t have killed Janssen—”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant he’d have grabbed Janssen himself and hauled him to the police station. He wouldn’t have risked an anonymous e-mail tip. I could have not gotten it in time, I could have ignored it, the Dutch SWAT team could have missed Janssen. Brooker doesn’t sound the sort to take that kind of chance.”

“Maybe he had a contingency plan if the tip didn’t work out.”

“Possible. Does Deputy Longstreet trust him?”

“She doesn’t trust anyone.”

Maggie hesitated, remembering what she’d read about Rob and Longstreet. “You two—”

She didn’t have to go further. Rob shook his head. “Long and well over.”

“I don’t even know why I asked.”

“Because you’re curious,” he said. “You want to know.”

She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “Why would I want to know?”

“Because you want to dismiss me as some stereotype—”

“The well-connected Southern frat boy who speaks five languages—”

“Seven.”

“And who’s friends with the president and is a guest at diplomatic receptions, not just the protection—”

“I can be the protection, too. But, yes. That sums up the stereotype you want to lay on me to keep from getting too close—”

“Rob, you
are
a well-connected Southern frat boy who speaks seven languages.”

He smiled. “I never joined a fraternity. And it doesn’t matter. You like me, anyway.”

“I suppose one shouldn’t mistake charm for a lack of confidence—”

“No, one shouldn’t.”

He spoke with an ease and natural humor that somehow only underlined the edge to him, the air of danger that had nothing to do with posturing and everything to do with self-assurance and purpose.

He’d had a hell of a year, Maggie reminded herself. He’d been shot. His family had nearly been destroyed. He’d had a long recovery that, in some ways, was probably still ongoing.

A little flirtation and attraction that she could keep under control she could handle. But they were fast passing that point.

“Your father’s a diplomat,” she said.

“The first in the family. My ancestors were riv
erboat workers and brawlers. Most of them probably looked like Southern frat boys, too.”

“Okay. So I won’t pigeonhole you.”

“It’d be smarter not to. Less likely you’ll get in over your head.”

“How would I—”

“By thinking I’m something I’m not. Like not interested in redheaded DS agents who have clandestine meetings in Dutch cathedrals and a penchant for trouble—”

“I don’t always have that penchant. Only this week.”

He touched her hair. “You’re not that easy to draw out, are you, Maggie?”

The way he said her name. She shut her eyes a moment to collect herself. “Christ, Rob. I’m supposed to be checking out this inn.”

“You did check it out. You had a tour of the cellar and you saw the fairy statue and the view of the Hudson.”

His voice was so quiet, and he was standing close enough to her that she could feel his hips, the brush of his chest against her. He let his hand linger on her arm. Even as she warned herself against the impulse, Maggie leaned into him, and he dropped his hand to her waist, gently turning her into him. She thought he whispered her name. She could feel the warm air, moist and heavy with the increasing humidity.

“Rob…it’s okay, it’s…” She smiled, raising her
mouth to his, answering the unspoken question. “Yes.”

Their kiss started out tentative, but that didn’t last. Maggie opened her mouth, eager to taste him, let him explore her. He lowered an arm to her hips and pulled her against him. She felt the tight, strong muscles in his shoulders and back, the tautness of his hips as her hands skimmed over him, everything about him suddenly firing her senses.

He lifted her onto him, and she could feel that he was as aroused as she was, as if their close proximity to each other since he’d arrived in Holland—together with the violence and chases and diversions—had built up, erupting now with more intensity than either of them could have anticipated.

He skimmed his thumbs over her breasts, eliciting a soft moan from her that had nothing to do with fatigue or jet lag. It would be so easy just to fall into bed with him. Her pretty four-poster was right there, a few feet way, in the path of the afternoon breeze.