US Marshall 03 - The Rapids (20 page)

“Maggie?”

She looked up from the paper and realized she had tears in her eyes. “I’m okay.”

“We can pack up and head to the embassy—”

She shook her head. “Another minute. I won’t read every word.”

In that same matter-of-fact style, Tom explained how surprised he was to realize that her father’s trip to the States hadn’t included a visit with his daughter—it turned out to be their last opportunity to see each other. Shortly after he returned to Prague, he was
killed. Tom had felt guilty for not tearing himself away from his work to attend his longtime friend’s funeral.

He’d started asking questions. Researching his friend’s death. At first, curiosity drove him. Then concern. Other entries detailed how he’d checked out Ravenkill and figured out that Philip Spencer had developed an apparent interest in antiques.

But Tom didn’t believe it.

He found out about the Old Stone Hollow Inn and Libby Smith and the Franconias and put the word out to a few people he knew to alert him if their names popped up. He didn’t identify his sources in his log. He indicated that he believed his friend Philip Spencer had gone to Ravenkill after Libby. Andrew and Star were in Prague—but that he’d never stayed at the inn. On Wednesday, the day before Nick Janssen’s arrest, one of Tom’s sources tipped him off that Libby had arrived in the Netherlands and was staying in Den Bosch.

Maggie made herself look up from her reading. Her steaming coffee was untouched at her elbow, but Rob was sipping his. “You’re polite,” she said. “You’re not reading over my shoulder.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

“Just what I need then, sugar and caffeine.” She tried to smile but couldn’t pull it off, and he wasn’t smiling, either. She pushed that first stack of papers across the table. “Here. Have at it.”

But he kept his gaze on her. “Your father—”

“He had his own life. It was a good one. He made his choices.”

“He didn’t choose to be killed.”

Maggie wasn’t shocked at Rob’s blunt words. They were what she needed. She picked up her coffee, took a sip and focused on the beautiful day. The cars, the bicyclists, fellow travelers stopping for coffee and a bite to eat.

“I don’t think I could have done this right after his death,” she said. “And Tom…he was killed because he and my father were friends.”

“He was killed because a ruthless woman didn’t want to be found out.”

Rob’s tone was kind without being patronizing or condescending. “He was a seasoned foreign service officer, Maggie. He knew the score.”

“He came out to Den Bosch looking for an antiques dealer who might know something and found an international fugitive and a killer.” She pulled off the paper clip and blank cover sheet to another stack. “Jesus.”

She held up a photograph of Nick Janssen and Libby Smith together on a bench overlooking the Binnendieze.

Maggie read another of Tom’s journal-type entries. Rob came around the table and stood over her reading along with her. “Tom thought Libby might be an undercover agent,” she said almost to herself. “Someone my father worked with before his death.”

“An intelligence operative posing as an antiques dealer,” Rob said. “He was afraid of mucking things up.”

“Poor Tom. He sent me the tip because he figured I’d handle it—I’d know if we really wanted the Dutch police to pick Janssen up, or if Libby was an undercover agent—”

“He didn’t mention her in his e-mail.”

“He wouldn’t have risked it. He gave me the chance to ignore it if he was stepping into something—if my father had stepped into something—”

“He wasn’t just covering his own butt and trying not to compromise an investigation. He was protecting you.”

Maggie quickly shoved the papers and photos back into the envelope.

Rob was still beside her. “That bothers you, doesn’t it? Having someone looking after you.”

“It’s not what I’m used to, and look what happened—”

“Kopac knew your father had been murdered. He went into this thing with his eyes wide open, Maggie,” Rob said softly. “Give him credit for that.”

She reclasped the envelope. Tom had said he’d keep Janssen put for an hour—he must have planned to intercede if necessary, chat him up about the boat tour, or maybe Krispy Kremes. He’d given Maggie every opportunity to do her thing.

She’d called in George Bremmerton and set Janssen’s arrest in motion.

Because of Tom, Nick Janssen and Libby Smith both were in custody.

Maggie didn’t need to read the explanation of what Tom had done that Saturday. He had his package of information to give to William Raleigh, but he’d stopped at Libby’s hotel just to reassure himself she wasn’t an innocent caught up in events out of her control.

Maggie made herself focus on her surroundings. A young couple sat at a table in the sun, their bicycles nearby. Life in Den Bosch, back to normal. But it wasn’t as if people were pretending a murder hadn’t taken place there, or a notorious fugitive hadn’t had a safe house on its pretty shaded streets—it wasn’t callousness or denial that had the locals back on the Binnendieze.

Maybe there was just a desire to get out on a pretty summer day.

“I should have pushed for more answers months ago,” she said.

Rob shook his head. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

His words were without bitterness, but Maggie felt their impact in her gut, knew he wasn’t talking just about the past week. “You think you should have pushed harder to find out what was going on in the spring. That’s what haunts you. Your mother, your sister—Janssen hates them now because he didn’t get
his pardon. Hell, Rob. You were almost killed yourself.”

He didn’t answer, and looked at him across the table, taking in the blue-flecked gray eyes, the fair hair, the good looks. They could mislead, make people think he’d never suffered, he’d never had problems and obstacles—and that he wasn’t meant for the work he did.

He pushed aside his coffee. “I tell myself that all we can do is get up in the morning and do the best we can.”

“Are there days you believe it?”

He smiled. “Some.”

“Mistakes—” Maggie managed a quick smile. “I don’t like making mistakes.”

She nibbled on the cookie that came with her coffee, realizing she was neither hungry nor not hungry. Her body didn’t know what time it was. And she could see her father, blue eyes crinkled as he laughed, as he promised her there’d be time—years and years—when he’d be in a rocking chair and they could spend all the time they wanted together.

“Did you really take a cab over here?” she asked Rob suddenly.

“What?”

And she had him. She knew she did. “Come on, Dunnemore. Who gave you a ride?”

He smiled mysteriously and got to his feet. “Let’s go offer up a prayer.”

A prayer…

St. John’s.

William Raleigh.

They found the old spook with his arms sprawled over the back of a middle pew in the massive cathedral. He was cleaned up, dressed in neat olive-green pants and a navy polo shirt. He’d put on a pair of loafers, although Rob thought they looked tight. The man had dedicated his life to public service, secret battles, putting his own life and even the lives of the people he cared about at risk. Rob had no intention of judging him. Raleigh had endured private losses that he could share with very few people.

The death of Maggie’s father was one of those losses.

She sat next to him, and Rob sat next to her. She still clutched Kopac’s envelope. “You and Rob were on the same flight back to Amsterdam?”

“Coincidentally, yes.”

“I doubt there’s much in your life that’s a coincidence.”

He glanced at her, his eyes no longer as pain-racked. “Or yours.”

“Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me that several thousand milligrams of ibuprofen won’t cure. Libby’s probably wishing now that she’d killed me when she had the chance.”

“She tried. She just didn’t want to use bullets.”

“Apparently her father was a self-centered, incorrigible drunk. It’s a terrible way to grow up. He never got a grip on his alcoholism. But it’s not the reason she became a killer.”

“Are rumors of your drinking problems fact or fiction?” Maggie asked without judgment.

“A fiction, at least for the most part. But I knew how to play it. My own father was an alcoholic. He died in a bar fight when I was in my early twenties. There’s no question his drinking had an effect on me. I just refuse to use it as an excuse.”

“Raleigh—”

He smiled sideways at her. “William. Remember, it’s not Bill, Will or Willie. We were a very correct family, despite my father’s alcoholism. We all knew our lines. It’s strange,” he went on, turning away from Maggie. “No matter their failings, we always seem to say goodbye to our fathers too soon.”

“My father’s death wasn’t your fault. Neither were his shortcomings as a father.”

“I was on to Libby. I
knew
we had a new killer at work—someone both reckless and ruthless. Phil and I had tapped into the outer fringes of the Janssen network.”

“Samkevich?”

Raleigh smiled, obviously pleased. “Very good. Yes, Samkevich. He gave Libby her first jobs.”

“How long had she been at work at that point?”

“Months. No more than a year. Samkevich still was testing her.

“What about Charlene Brooker?”

He looked pained. “She was interested in Samkevich herself. She took the bit in her teeth after your father was killed. She focused on Samkevich and Janssen. I focused on our emerging assassin.” He paused, letting his arms drop from the back of the pew. “It was a difficult time. We had very little to go on. In essence, we were stumbling around in the dark.”

Rob remembered that Captain Brooker had told everyone she was going to Amsterdam for a vacation, not to track Nick Janssen. But he was staying out of this conversation, sensing where it might lead.

“How did Char Brooker end up in Ravenkill? Did she discover that my father had been there?”

“I’m not positive, but I don’t think so. I didn’t know, either. It looks as if she’d discovered a connection between Libby and Vlad Samkevich and was checking it out—”

“One doesn’t expect to find a paid killer in such a beautiful spot as Ravenkill, New York,” Maggie cut in. “She was there a month before she was killed. But it was Janssen who ordered her murder and hired one of his men to do the job—not Libby.”

“Things must have unraveled quickly for Captain Brooker.” Raleigh sighed heavily, his regret palpable. “I wish I’d had half the instincts she or your father had.”

But Philip Spencer and Charlene Brooker were dead, Rob thought; William Raleigh was in a Dutch cathedral, trying to learn to live with his mistakes.

“American investigators have permission now to interview Janssen in prison,” Rob said. “He’s crying foul over Libby’s arrest. There’s no such thing as assassin-client privilege. But she’s not talking.”

“She might as well talk,” Raleigh said. “Janssen will find a way to have her killed no matter what she does. Why not tell her story?”

“Why not tell yours?” Maggie asked him quietly.

He gave her a dry smile. “Write my memoirs in my retirement?”

She smiled in return.

“Nick Janssen wants to see where his mother was buried,” Raleigh went on. “She died last winter while he was on the lam. He wants to put flowers on her grave. It’s something we can use.”

Rob felt his stomach twist, and Maggie arched an eyebrow at her father’s friend. “We?”

Raleigh shrugged. “The collective we’re-all-in-this-together we.”

“Right,” she said dubiously.

“You’re born to do this work, Maggie.” The old spook faced the front of the cathedral and didn’t look at her. “Your father knew it. Your mother knows it.”

“My mother…” But Maggie didn’t go on.

“She has more courage than you know. It takes
courage to paint, to express yourself that way and put it out there for others to see and comment on. She found a way to live with who Phil was, who you are.”

“She and my father were divorced.”

“But he was still a part of her life.”

Rob wondered if he should go for a walk, but Maggie seemed to sense his awkwardness—in restlessness—and took his hand. “I like my work in diplomatic security,” she said.

“Rob likes his work in the Marshals Service.” Raleigh turned and looked across Maggie at him. “Don’t you, Rob?”

“Yes.”

Raleigh inhaled through his nose and rose stiffly, the lingering pain of his injuries obvious. However much he wanted to pretend otherwise, he had suffered at the hands of the assassin he’d chased for months. “It’s quite a cathedral, isn’t it? It makes me wonder what would be here today if people over the centuries hadn’t stepped up and done what they could.” He glanced down at Rob and Maggie. “You’ll find your way out of here?”

“No problem,” Rob said. “You okay? Not going to collapse on us?”

“Libby’s more efficient with her Beretta than with her baseball bat, but she still managed to bruise the hell out of me.” He withdrew a bottle of ibuprofen from his pants pocket and rattled it, smiling. “I’m due another dose. I’ll see you two around.”

Rob would bet on it.

Maggie watched Raleigh make his way out of the pew into the aisle. “He’ll go on awhile longer,” she said, “but it won’t be forever.”

“I think a part of him wanted to die the other day.”

“With his boots on.” But she shifted to Rob, her hand still on his. “I suppose you want a ride back to your hotel?”

Suddenly he thought of her in his bed in his apartment in Brooklyn, pictured her in the early-morning light. “I don’t have a hotel.”

She squeezed his hand. “Good.”

A week after his escapade in Ravenkill, Ethan showed up in northern Virginia for fried apricot pies, prune cake or whatever Sarah Dunnemore might have cooked up. They’d shared a tough time in Night’s Landing in the spring, and he’d cut out on her when she’d been injured. Paramedics had been on their way, but Ethan had never felt entirely right about his conduct that day.

Sarah forgave him and showed her around the historic Virginia house and her archaeological dig—which he figured out was an old dump—and served him pecan pie on her shaded porch.