Abandon. Carla Neggers
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Or, if it came to it, the FBI.
Harris would calculate the benefit to himself and act accordingly.
Rook drank more of his water, although he was only a notch less impatient than he’d been five minutes ago. “It looks like she might be expecting someone to join her. A date?”
“Oh, no.” Harris shook his head as if Rook couldn’t have come up with a dumber idea. “She hasn’t started dating again since her divorce was finalized earlier this month. Cal still lives with her, you know. Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“Maybe it was an amicable divorce.”
“No such thing.”
Her marriage to Cal Benton, a prominent Washington attorney, had surprised people far more than their divorce two years later. It was her second marriage; her first, to another lawyer, had lasted three years. No children.
“Supposedly he’s not getting a dime from her,” Harris continued, his voice more shrill now, as if he was growing impatient himself. “That can’t make him happy, but it doesn’t matter—Cal will never be satisfied. He’ll always want more of everything. Money, recognition, women. Whatever. For some people, there’s never enough. Cal is one of them. I’m one of them.”
“I can’t launch an investigation because you think Bernadette Peacham deserved better than Cal Benton—”
“I’m well aware of what you require to proceed.” Harris regarded the woman in the hall with a sudden, almost palpable sadness. She’d been a protégée, and she’d left him in the dust in terms of her career, her reputation, her ever-widening circle of friends. His expression softened and he said quietly, “We’re not here because of Bernadette’s love life or lack thereof.”
Rook didn’t respond. Harris had lived in social and professional exile for a long time, but, as prickly as he was, he was observant, experienced and very smart. He had a long career behind him, and even now, people owed him favors and came to him, quietly, for advice.
He gave Rook a supercilious smile. “Thinking you’d be smart not to underestimate me, aren’t you?”
“I’m thinking you need to get to the point.”
Harris leaned over the small table and said in a dramatic whisper, “Don’t forget. I know where a lot of the bodies in this town are buried.” He sat back abruptly and grinned, his teeth yellowed from age, cigarettes, drink and neglect. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Rook sucked in his impatience. “If you’re looking for action at my expense, Judge, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Understood.” Harris nodded wistfully at the middle-aged woman in the hall. “Bernadette used to stop by my office just to say hello, grab a cup of coffee. We don’t see each other that often nowadays.”
“It’s to her credit she didn’t drop you altogether.”
“I suppose it is. Ah. Here we are.” Harris seemed relieved. “Finally.”
Another woman came into their line of sight.
Rook took in her dark red hair, her big smile as she greeted Bernadette Peacham.
Hell.
Harris’s eyes lit up. “Mackenzie Stewart,” he said with relish.
She was barely thirty and slim, wearing a slip of a deep blue and carrying an evening purse just big enough for a .38 caliber pistol. Rook didn’t know women’s purses. But he knew guns.
“She’s a deputy U.S. marshal,” Harris added. “A fugitive hunter, a protector of the federal judiciary. A fellow federal agent. Doesn’t look like Wyatt Earp, does she?”
Rook kept his reaction under tight wraps. He wasn’t there to entertain Harris. “All right. You’ve had your fun. What’s going on?”
The old man’s eyes lost some of their spark. “Deputy Stewart isn’t here in a professional capacity. She’s not protecting Bernadette. In fact, she’s known Bernadette all her life.”
Well, hell, Rook thought. A half-dozen dates, and more or less all he’d learned about Mackenzie was that she was new in Washington, new to the Marshals Service and a native New Englander blessed with great legs, a kissable mouth and an unstoppable sense of humor.
They hadn’t gotten around to discussing which state she was from and what friends she might have in Washington.
The two women continued on down the hall toward the ballroom.
“Bernadette saved her,” Harris said.
“Saved her how?”
“When she was eleven, her father was maimed in a terrible accident while building a shed for Bernadette at her lake house. He was laid up for months, and Mackenzie was left on her own for much of the time. She got into trouble. Stole things. She blamed herself for what happened.”
“Why? She was eleven.”
“You know kids.”
Actually, Rook thought, he didn’t. He tried to picture Mackenzie at eleven. Freckles, he guessed. He bet she’d had a million freckles. She still did.
Harris lifted his glass, almost in a toast, and took a long drink, his eyes darker, more focused, ending any doubt in Rook’s mind whether the outcast judge should have faced charges for his gambling shenanigans five years ago. The man thrived on risk, playing it close to the edge. “You didn’t know your marshal grew up across the lake from Bernadette, did you, Special Agent Rook?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“They call Bernadette Beanie. Everyone in her hometown. Not here in Washington. Beanie Peacham. I never have.” Without waiting for a response, Harris belched and got to his feet, gesturing to his near empty glass. “Government will pay?”
“I’ll pay. Hang on, and I’ll walk out with you.”
The old man laughed, clapping a bony hand on Rook’s shoulder. “You’ve taken this news well, I have to say.” The affected lockjaw accent was back. He dropped his arm to his side and winked with amusement, a sense of drama. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk again.”
Rook let Harris go. Management of confidential informants was a tricky business under the best of circumstances. As a prosecutor, a judge and an advisor to two presidents, J. Harris Mayer had seen all kinds who’d come forward with tips, information, theories, evidence, although he’d probably never imagined himself in that role. But he would know how to play it.
Even now, after almost a month, Rook couldn’t say for certain if he was dealing with a man in the know, with secrets that troubled him, or a rambling, self-important has-been desperate to be part of something important again.
Or both, Rook thought, watching Harris turn briskly down the hall toward the hotel’s main entrance. Whether he was on the level or a phony, he clearly hadn’t made up the friendship between Mackenzie Stewart and Judge Peacham.
“Just your luck, pal.”
Rook had met Mackenzie three weeks ago, on the night Harris had sent him to a Georgetown restaurant to witness Bernadette Peacham having dinner with her ex-husband, the significance of which remained a mystery to Rook. As he’d left the restaurant, the oppressive heat had given way to a steamy, torrential downpour. He’d found himself ducking into a coffee shop to wait out the rain, at the same time as a slim, blue-eyed redhead.
Not entirely a coincidence, apparently.
They’d exchanged phone numbers and met for a movie a couple of nights later.
So much for his relationship with Mackenzie Stewart, Rook thought. He couldn’t date someone who was even peripherally involved in his investigation. He left a few bills to cover his and Harris’s tab. He and Mackenzie had a date for dinner at his place tomorrow night. His nineteen-year-old