by Paula Graves
She wasn’t Katie’s mother. She’d never be that, not really. She’d always make sure her niece knew all about Marianne and Toby, thought of them as her parents and never forgot she was their daughter.
But, for all intents and purposes, Lacey was truly Katie’s parent now, and it had happened without her realizing it.
The urge to cry was suddenly overwhelming. She rose quickly to her feet and crossed to the window over the sink, gazing out at the snowy backyard as she fought against the tears beating at the backs of her eyes.
Behind her, she could hear the sounds of Jim taking charge of Katie, extracting her from the high chair and wiping up the remains of her breakfast of oatmeal and orange slices. When she brought her emotions back under control, she turned to watch him finish wiping orange juice from Katie’s sticky hands with a wet cloth and lower the little girl to the floor.
“I’m going to take her outside to make another snowman,” Jim said quietly, clearly pretending he hadn’t noticed Lacey’s struggle with her emotions. “I left the phone number for the Becketts on the table in the parlor in case you didn’t keep my résumé. You may want to give them a call and talk to them yourself before you decide what to do.”
“Thank you.”
He gave a shrug as if to say it was no problem and herded Katie out of the kitchen.
She found the number Jim left for her and made the call. She had spoken to Cade Beckett when she’d called to check Jim’s references, but this time, it was a woman who answered the phone. In the background, Lacey could hear a little girl laughing.
“Mrs. Beckett? This is Lacey Miles. Jim Mercer works for me as a nanny.” Among other things.
“Oh, yes! He said you’d be calling.” Julie Beckett’s voice was low and warm, with just a hint of the Midwest in her accent. “He’s told you about what Alexander Quinn proposed?”
“He did, but I’m not sure why you and your husband agreed.”
“Because Jim told us about your situation. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Unexpected tears pricked Lacey’s eyes. Julie Beckett sounded genuinely sympathetic. “Thank you.”
“Quinn told us you and Jim need to go out of town for a couple of days to investigate a lead, and you need someone to watch your niece.”
“Yes. Katie’s two. She can be a handful, and I don’t want to put her in any more dangerous situations.”
“I understand completely.” Julie’s voice softened as if she could sense Lacey’s sudden vulnerability through the phone line. “I can give you references. For my FBI work, anyway.”
“What field office?”
“Louisville for the past five years. I spent my rookie years at a variety of field offices and resident agencies.”
Lacey knew an agent in the Louisville field office. She’d give him a call later this morning. “When do you plan to get here?”
“It’s about a seven-hour drive, so we were hoping to get on the road early today. Do we need to bring air beds? Samantha loves camping, so it wouldn’t be a big deal if we need to rough it a little.”
“It’s a huge house with six bedrooms. I’ll air out a couple of rooms for you.” Was she really agreeing to having strangers come into her house and stay with her niece?
Yes, a treacherous little voice answered, because they’re Jim’s friends and he trusts them.
“I’m looking forward to meeting you. I’m a big fan of your reporting, and Jim speaks so highly of you.”
“He speaks well of you, too. We’ll have rooms ready for you when you arrive. I’ll go shopping, too, so you’ll have plenty of food in the pantry. Any food allergies I should know about?”
“No, we’ll eat anything!” Julie laughed.
They worked through a few logistics before they hung up, and, despite her earlier misgivings, Lacey had begun to agree with Jim that having the Becketts come to the farm to watch Katie just might be a good idea.
* * *
BY THE TIME Cade and Julie Beckett arrived with their daughter, Samantha, Lacey and Jim had managed to wash and dry fresh linens for the guest bedrooms, and Jim had made a trip into town to pick up groceries.
Jim was looking forward to seeing the Becketts again, especially Samantha. He’d received a few letters and cards from her and the Becketts since he’d left their employ, but it wasn’t the same as seeing them every day. He’d jumped in when their previous nanny quit to get married, and he’d begun to feel as if he was part of the family. While he’d understood Julie’s decision to work from home so she could be with Samantha, he hadn’t been happy about looking for a new job.
“When I left the Marine Corps,” he confessed to Lacey over lunch, “I was at loose ends. I had joined up thinking it was a life about as far from my crazy, close-knit family as I could get, and at that time in my life, I guess, that was the escape I’d needed. But after a few years, I knew that I wouldn’t be happy doing that kind of work. I missed being part of a family. My own brother and sisters are all grown up, and while we see each other on holidays, it’s not the same.”
“You thought working with children would help you recapture that feeling?” Lacey observed him over the rim of her coffee cup, her gray eyes sharp, making him feel as if she were trying to read the emotions behind his words. It was a disconcerting sensation but also a strangely welcome one. Her curiosity suggested she wanted to know what made him tick.
Maybe that was a good sign. If she cared what he thought, maybe she could eventually forgive his lies of omission.
“I thought it might. It didn’t really fill in all the gaps in my life, but it did make me realize that what I’d been running from when I joined the Marine Corps was the life I really want. A home. Wife and kids and maybe a dog in the backyard or a cat or two.”
Lacey’s lips curved in the first genuine smile he’d seen from her in what seemed like days. “Domestic bliss?”
“More like the knowledge that there’s somewhere in the world you belong, no matter how far you roam.”
A suspicious brightness glittered in her eyes, and she blinked a couple of times as if to keep tears from forming. Her gaze settled on her niece’s face. “Katie is that for me now. You know?”
Katie looked up at Lacey and grinned around her bite of cheese sandwich, making Lacey laugh.
“I know,” he said, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his. She didn’t pull away. Progress. “Julie and Cade will take good care of her. They’re both trained to handle dangerous situations. She couldn’t be in better hands. And she’ll love playing with Samantha.”
“Mantha!” Katie repeated with another big grin. Jim and Lacey had prepared her for the arrival of their visitors, and she was almost as excited to see the Becketts as Jim was.
The phone rang as she and Jim were cleaning up the kitchen after lunch. It was Detective Miller of the DC Metro Police. “I thought you’d want to know, we’ve made an arrest in the Ken Calvert murder case.”
Lacey gripped the phone more tightly, looking across the kitchen at Jim. “Who killed him?”
“His ex-wife. She confessed an hour ago to hiring someone to shoot him. They were tangled up in a custody battle over their two kids, and it looks like the ex–Mrs. Calvert decided killing him was easier than coming to some sort of agreement.”
“My God. How awful.”
“Yeah, ain’t love grand?” Miller’s flat tone suggested he’d seen too many senseless murders in the course of his police career. “Thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks for calling.” She hung up and turned to Jim. “It looks like Ken Calvert’s murder really was a coincidence. His ex-wife hired someone to kill him. She just confessed.”
“My dad used to say, always look at the spouse first.” Jim folded the dish towel he’d used to wipe the table and laid it on the counter. “Well, at least it
’s one loose end tied up.”
“Yeah, but poor Ken. And those poor kids.” Lacey looked at Katie, who was sitting in the corner of the kitchen, trying to get the top off her empty sippy cup. “The death of a parent is never fair to the kids.”
“Yeah,” Jim said with a sigh. “I know.”
“But I still don’t know what Ken was going to tell me.” She sighed. “What if it was important?”
Jim put his hand on her shoulder, leveling his gaze with her. “Then we’ll find out another way.”
The Becketts arrived a little after three that afternoon, rumpled from the long drive but smiling as soon as they saw Jim in the open doorway. After a round of hugs, Jim introduced them to Lacey and Katie.
Julie was a tall, slim woman with a shoulder-length bob of shiny dark hair and eyes the color of black coffee. She spoke with a soft Midwest accent and was quick with a smile. Her husband, Cade, was tall, fit and quiet, with sharp blue eyes beneath a rusty buzz cut that made him look as if he was fresh out of boot camp.
As expected, Samantha and Katie took to each other immediately, heading outside with Cade to play in the snow that lingered in the yard from the snowfall the day before.
Julie stayed behind, happily accepting a cup of hot chocolate at the kitchen table. “Anything new happen while we were on the road?”
“No, just handling all the last-minute details.” Jim glanced at Lacey. She met his gaze calmly enough, but he could see thoughts sparking behind her eyes. This must be what she looked like when she sniffed out a hot new story, he thought. Part excited, part anxious and part pure, gritty nerve.
“There’s a guy I know in Stamford,” Julie said in a casual tone that Jim knew was anything but casual. “His name is Mickey Grimes, and he used to be in the Bureau. He left the FBI a few years ago, but if there’s anybody in Connecticut who can get you a meeting with one of the Whittier brothers, it’s Mickey.”
Lacey apparently picked up the undertones in Julie’s words. “He left the FBI...of his own volition?”
“He was encouraged to retire early.” Julie shrugged one shoulder. “He’s not squeaky clean, but he’s also not a monster. He’s been working security for Justin Whittier for the past couple of years. He’s loyal to Whittier, but his loyalty doesn’t extend to condoning murder.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Julie took a long sip of her hot chocolate, as if she was carefully considering her next words. “I know you think that the Whittiers are being treated as untouchables, but the FBI was investigating them both at the time I left the Bureau. There are details I’m not at liberty to share with you, but I can tell you this much. Of the two brothers, Carson is the wild card. Justin has secrets, but they’re personal, not criminal. And from a few things Mickey let drop the last time I talked to him, I think Justin may be getting a little tired of being lumped in with his brother’s misadventures.”
“So if Mickey could get us a face-to-face meeting with Justin Whittier...” Jim began.
“He might be willing to tell you whether or not the threats against you are coming from his family. Just to get it off his chest.” Julie set her cup down on the table in front of her. “I’d better go see what my crew is up to,” she said with a smile that belied the seriousness of the previous conversation. She gave Jim’s shoulder an affectionate pat and headed out to retrieve her coat from the mudroom.
“I like her,” Lacey said bluntly.
“I knew you would.” Jim gathered up the empty hot-chocolate cups and put them in the dishwasher. “She was a real go-getter in the FBI. Driven to succeed. Reminds me of you.”
“That’s how you see me?” Lacey gave him a thoughtful look. “A go-getter, driven to succeed?”
“Isn’t that what you are?” He leaned his hips against the kitchen counter, folded his arms over his chest and met her gaze. “It’s not a bad thing.”
“Julie left that life behind to be with her daughter.”
“She did.”
“Nobody at my office expects me to do that for Katie, you know.” She stood and crossed to the window over the sink, close enough that Jim could feel the warmth of her body wafting over him. She gazed out at the backyard, where the Becketts and Katie were finishing up a small lopsided snowman. It had taken nearly all of the two-inch snowfall in the yard to build, but Katie wouldn’t be denied. “They’re surprised I haven’t already returned to work, if you want to know the truth. I can hear it in their voices when I call in for my messages. They’re confused and worried that I haven’t met their expectations.”
“Do you think you’re ready to go back?”
She shook her head. “I thought I’d be climbing the walls here by the end of the first week, but it’s turned out to be much more comfortable than I’d anticipated. I’ve had my own investigation into the car bombing to keep me occupied, of course. I suppose that might be part of the reason I haven’t been as restless as I thought I’d be. But I don’t miss the hustle and bustle of the newsroom, and I really thought I would.”
“I don’t miss the Marine Corps the way I thought I would, either. Change is constant, and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
Lacey gave him another thoughtful look, then turned back to the window, her gaze following Katie as the little girl ran ecstatic circles around the off-kilter snowman.
* * *
THE TRAIN ARRIVED in Stamford on time, shortly before noon. On the busy concourse, a stocky man with thinning black hair stood with a sign that read “Jim Mercer.”
Lacey pointed out the man to Jim as they grabbed their overnight cases. “That must be Mickey Grimes.” At Jim’s request, Julie Beckett had called Grimes to set up a meeting with him once they arrived in Stamford. Instead, Grimes had insisted on meeting their train.
“Do you think we’re crazy to trust him?”
“I’m not sure I’d call this trust,” Jim murmured, draping the canvas strap of his overnight bag over his shoulder. “But Grimes has access to the Whittiers. We need that access.”
Grimes flashed a friendly smile when he spotted their approach. But Lacey perceived a certain wariness there as well, as if he realized he was walking a thin edge between honest work and illegal activity. When they were close enough, he spoke in a quiet tone. “Justin Whittier is waiting in his limousine. He wants to speak to you. But I have to search you for weapons and wires before he’ll talk to you. He’s arranged for a room where we can conduct the search.”
“That’s out of the question.” Jim’s tone was tight with fury.
Lacey put a hand on his arm. “I’m willing to meet that requirement.”
Jim looked at her, frustration seething in his hazel-green eyes. Whatever he saw in her expression seemed to calm his anger, for he simply nodded.
The room Grimes took them to looked to be little more than a closet a few dozen yards down the concourse from where they’d exited the train. Grimes entered first, took a quick look around as if to ensure that they were alone, then nodded for them to follow.
Inside, the room was crowded and smelled of antiseptic. Bottles on a shelf at the back of the room suggested it might be a place where the train station stored cleaning supplies.
“Either of you armed?”
“No,” Jim answered.
“Lift your shirts.”
Lacey did so without hesitation. She had gone through more humiliating searches during her reporting career, conducted by men who were far less businesslike about the process.
Jim grimaced as he showed Grimes he wasn’t wearing a wire. “Does Justin Whittier require this sort of degradation from everyone he talks to?”
Grimes didn’t answer. “Let’s go.
They followed him out of the station to a long black limousine parked in what should have been a no-parking zone. But if the security personnel at the Amtrak sta
tion had noticed, they showed no sign of trying to move the vehicle along. There was a driver standing outside the passenger compartment doors, apparently awaiting their arrival.
“You can leave your bags here. Jaffe will watch them for you,” Grimes said as they reached the vehicle.
Reluctantly, Lacey set her bag on the curb in front of the driver. Jim did the same as Grimes opened the car door and waved them into the limo.
Jim went first, pausing for a moment, blocking the door. After a moment, he continued into the car, turning to give Lacey a warning look.
“In,” Grimes said firmly when she considered making a run for it.
Reluctantly, she stepped into the limousine and sat next to Jim, who was staring at the occupants of the bench seat opposite them. Lacey found herself face-to-face with Justin Whittier and another man she’d never seen before. But what arrested her attention about the stranger was the bruise on his cheek that matched almost perfectly the bruise on her own cheek where she’d hit the window of the SUV when the blue truck had tried to run them off the road.
“Ms. Miles, a pleasure to finally meet you,” Justin Whittier said smoothly. He had a cultured, easy tone, nearly accent-free, and if he found anything worrisome about this impromptu meeting, he hid it well.
“I think we both know this has nothing to do with pleasure,” she said flatly. Beside her, Jim’s body felt tightly sprung, as if he was just waiting to jump into action. She hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
“Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I want to make an apology on behalf of my brother, Carson. I believe he may have been involved in the accident you had a couple of days ago.”
Chapter Fourteen
Justin Whittier looked sincerely apologetic, but Jim knew better than to take anyone, especially a politician, at face value.
“Can you be more specific about your brother’s involvement in the accident?” he asked, his voice taut with rising anger. Who the hell did this man think he was, pulling a stunt like this? Did he think the show of power and wealth would impress him or Lacey in the slightest?