Night's Landing. Carla Neggers
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He and my father go way back. My mother went to college with him. She almost married him.” Sarah winced, wondering why she’d brought that up. “Supposedly. You never know with my family.”
“Jesus Christ,” Juliet said under her breath, then snapped up straight, looking every inch the federal agent she was. “All right. No goddamn way am I leaving you to your own devices tonight. Either we switch to a double room and I camp out with you, or you take the futon at my place.”
“Would I be sleeping with the fish or the plants?”
She managed a crooked smile. “Both. You’ll see.”
Since she’d be sleeping in a strange bed no matter what she did, Sarah rose and grabbed her suitcase. She had no intention of making Juliet spend the night in a hotel after the day they’d both had—and there was no way Sarah was going to talk Deputy Longstreet into leaving her alone.
“Rob never mentioned we were friends with President Poe?”
“No.”
“He didn’t want it to affect him on the job—”
“We weren’t always on the job.” Juliet bit off a sigh. “We worked out okay before he was transferred to New York. I knew your family was white bread, but—” She tore open the door, grinding her teeth. “You didn’t happen to mention your friendship with the president to the FBI, did you? Collins? He talked to you, right?”
“He asked me about my phone call from Rob. Our friendship with the president didn’t come up.”
“Trust me,” Deputy Longstreet said, walking out into the hall, “it will.”
Five
Ethan switched off CNN and listened to the crickets out in the dark. He had the windows in his cottage open. The breeze had died down, making the crickets even more noticeable. He almost turned the television back on, but he didn’t think he could take one more idiot talking about the possible firearm the sniper could have used. What the hell difference did it make? Two federal agents were in the hospital. Go find the fucker.
He put his feet up on the old flat-topped trunk set up as a coffee table, its wood varnished to a high gloss, probably hurting its value as an antique. The Dunnemores didn’t seem to think much in terms of antiques. A different sort of family, for sure. Eccentrics. Ethan’s parents were ranchers in West Texas. Hard working, well-respected. They had no idea what their younger son was up to.
Char’s father was a widower, career military, who pretty much thought Ethan had killed her.
He wasn’t that far off.
FOX News had done a diagram of the kind of wound Rob Dunnemore might have suffered in his left upper abdomen. Explained how he could live without a spleen. About the risks of blood loss, the strain it put on the kidneys. Luckily, he’d gotten medical attention within the “golden hour.”
Char hadn’t.
Because Ethan hadn’t been there.
He hadn’t been there a lot during their two-year marriage.
He jumped to his feet and tore open the small refrigerator, grabbed a glass container of leftover barbecue and popped it into the microwave. It was an ancient microwave. It must have been one of the first ones off the assembly line. The Dunnemores weren’t into gadgets.
He got out dill pickle slices and found a dried-up sesame-seed bun in the bread box. He softened it up in the microwave and put the whole mess together and ate it leaning against the sink, wondering what in hell he thought he was doing. Night’s Landing. The Dunnemores. President Poe’s boyhood home just up river. Ethan knew better than to turn into some kind of nut-ball loose cannon, but here he was.
He’d read Sarah Dunnemore’s dissertation on the Poe house and how the Poe family fit into the post-Civil War South. Thought he’d go blind. She’d just finished producing and directing a documentary. There was talk of her becoming the director of the Poe House and working to open it to the public as an historic site. Now that he’d met her, Ethan couldn’t see Sarah Dunnemore spending her time figuring out where the visitors’ center should go, doing fund-raising, training docents—she needed a new project.
Ethan had taken his own private, illicit, midnight tour of the Poe house downriver from the Dunnemores. It hadn’t produced a single thing except a spider bite on his ankle. His search of the Dunnemore house hadn’t produced much more. He’d gone through file cabinets, photo albums, old yearbooks. The father had written plenty of boring papers of his own. The mother was into art.
He’d found Sarah’s locked diary from when she was fifteen but decided he wasn’t low enough to break into it and read it.
But he might yet. He was that goddamn frustrated.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to find in Tennessee. A connection, a hint, a link. Something that explained Charlene’s interest in the Dunnemores. Why she’d contacted Betsy Dunnemore in Amsterdam two days before she was killed. What it had to do with her death.
She’d gone to Amsterdam on her own. On holiday, she’d told her friends and superiors, Euro-style. Ethan had shown up at her base in Germany without notice, found her gone, figured out where she was and headed to Amsterdam to join her. He could track down anyone, so he’d tracked down his ambitious, incredible wife.
He hadn’t considered the importance of her trip until she’d turned up dead. Then he wanted to know everything. Why Amsterdam? What had Char been up to?
Weeks of probing, spying and prowling in Europe had landed him on the Cumberland River in middle Tennessee, playing gardener.
Waiting like a damn fool for answers to fall into his lap.
Ten days ago, he’d bought a ticket back to Amsterdam.
But he hadn’t yet used it. Because Sarah Dunnemore had returned from Scotland. And now her brother had been shot in Central Park.
Suddenly Ethan realized the crickets had stopped chirping.
He set his plate in the sink and went still, listening, aware of the .38 semiautomatic strapped to his ankle under his overalls.
“Mr. Brooker? It’s me, Conroy Fontaine.” The accent was distinctly Southern, the voice amiable, familiar. “Would you mind if I had a word with you?”
Ethan stifled a groan. Just what he needed, a bottom-feeding reporter who liked to pass himself off as a legitimate journalist-historian. Before he could respond, Fontaine was at the door. He was working on an unauthorized, tabloid-style biography of the president. He’d set up shop a couple weeks ago at a cabin he’d rented at a fishing camp farther up river from the Poe house. He was worming his way into Sarah’s good graces, presumably in an attempt to get access to the president and dig up any dirt he could find—not that she was anyone’s fool. As far as Ethan had seen, so far she hadn’t told Fontaine much more than what kind of mint extract she used in her sweet tea punch.
He and Ethan were about the same age, but Conroy Fontaine seemed like a throwback to another generation, pre—World War II, maybe even pre—World War I. He was unfailingly polite and tended to dress in penny loafers with no socks, chinos, polo shirts and a retro Timex watch. He wore rimless glasses and his sandy-colored hair was getting thin on top, but he kept himself in decent shape. Nearly every morning, Ethan would see him up on the road jogging what he said was a six-mile route. He must also pump iron, given his muscle mass, but where he did that, Ethan didn’t know or care.
He opened up the screen door, then remembered his good ol’ boy act. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fontaine?”
“I’m sorry to bother you so late. I’ve been working all day on my book. I didn’t have the radio on. I just heard the news—”
“Yes, sir, it’s an awful situation.”
Conroy shook his head in obvious despair. He had a broad forehead, a strong jaw—not a bad-looking guy. “It’s