“And your commanding officer?”
Flaherty shrugged. The gesture said a lot, however.
She swallowed hard. He could well lose his career, even his freedom. Disobeying a direct order could have significant penalties. “You should go.”
“I’m not ready to surface. Not until I hear what Eachan has to say. But you can.”
“Do you really think we can trust this Eachan?”
“He has some questions of his own, it seems,” he said. “Apparently his cousin has been having some unsettling encounters.”
“Sally Eachan?”
He nodded.
“They like picking on women, don’t they?” she observed indignantly.
“Easier targets than an Assistant Deputy Secretary of State.”
“And a CID officer.”
“I think the bad guys knew Eachan just wanted to bury the entire matter.”
“And you?”
“They probably thought they could buy me off with a new assignment, get me out of the country.”
“So the promotion didn’t just happen?”
He didn’t answer.
“Where are we going to meet?”
“Here,” he said.
She looked at him curiously.
“It’s as good as any place.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night. I want to meet with them when the park is full of sailors.”
“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“They won’t. I’ll meet them in Newport News and drive them here. I’ll make sure no one follows.”
“Them?”
“His cousin is coming.” He paused. “I can try to find some place for you to stay … just for the evening. Maybe even with the chief.”
She shook her head. “The violence seemed to have started with me.” She knew her face must have shown uncertainty, or he wouldn’t have pressed her to leave. It wasn’t what he thought. She wasn’t reluctant to meet with them. But she knew she and Irish would have to leave here then. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to do that.
The trailer had become a temporary refuge.
And the place where she’d fallen in love.
“I’m not going to leave,” she declared. Then she changed the subject. “I made a list of everyone my grandfather specifically mentioned in the papers. Of thirty-one, twenty-two are dead. I found addresses for three of the others; I couldn’t find anything on six of them.” She decided to leave her biggest find to the end, to lead him there.
He sat down in a chair. “How many of the thirty-one survived the war?”
“Fifteen were reported as killed in action in the war.”
“That’s a high number,” he said. “What about the others?”
She gave him the list. She had listed the dates of their deaths next to name and rank. All were either high-ranking officers, sergeant majors, or staff sergeants. He leaned forward in his chair, studying the list. His eyes were that piercing blue she saw when he was focusing on something.
She watched his eyes pass over the names, then linger over the three names and addresses she’d found as well as the six names that remained elusive. She knew the second when he continued on and noted the dates of death of those who had died. Flaherty’s grandfather and her grandfather both died in 1980. Nothing unusual about that. They were both elderly. What was unusual was that they died within a month of one another. Flaherty of a heart attack; her grandfather, a suicide.
“Coincidence?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I didn’t look at the dates. I should have.”
“We haven’t exactly had time.”
“Or we found something better to do with it,” he countered.
The low, sexy tone sent tingles up and down her spine. How well she remembered the “something better.”
She tried to return to the subject at hand. It was safer. “It seems that some of my thirty-one were murdered,” she said.
“I wonder whether they were involved in the warehousing of the treasure. I have to see the investigators’ notes and interviews.”
“I would think that should be easy, particularly for you.”
“It should be,” he said. “I requested them but they are still being ‘reviewed for security reasons.’”
“What security reasons?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s what I asked. That’s why we’re headed to Washington. I want to know who has restricted access and try to get it. In the meantime, we’ll try to find out more about these deaths.”
“How?”
“We can’t use my cell phone,” he said. “They can probably track that. Your computer should be safe enough. I’ll check with the jurisdictional police departments where the murders may have occurred and see whether there were any arrests or convictions. Then we’ll have to find the death certificates and police reports.”
“How can I help?”
“You’ve already done it, love, and very well. You may have found the only clue, which is a lot better than I did. But only one of us can use the computer, and I can get into sites you can’t.”
His gaze met hers. They knew time was running out for both of them. He had already jeopardized his career. Her tenure hearing was less than a week from now.
Just as she knew he couldn’t disobey orders and keep his career, neither could she ignore her tenure hearing. Postponements were rare. And what was her excuse? A growing number of dead bodies and destruction?
It wasn’t exactly what a private, conservative college wanted to hear.
Time. Neither of them had it.
And yet she could barely think about leaving him. They had been in a cocoon these last few days. A cocoon built from danger, but still a world of its own and far from ordinary life.
He leaned over and touched her face with his fingers. “It will be over,” he said.
She wondered what her face had just revealed. Obviously not what she had really been thinking. It wasn’t solving the puzzle, it was losing him. Losing this partnership, intimacy, whatever it was. She swallowed hard and nodded.
He sat at the computer.
She moved her chair next to his. There was nothing else she could do now except watch.
After five hours, Irish stretched. This was a job that should take half a dozen skilled people days. The simple fact was, they didn’t have several days.
He had hunted down only two of the nonmilitary deaths. Both murders. Both unsolved. One was a captain who had been stabbed to death eight months after the war ended. A street robbery, according to the report. No suspects.
The other was a staff sergeant who had received a dishonorable discharge after being charged with pilfering items from a government warehouse. He’d been found hanging from a light fixture. Initially it had looked like a suicide, but according to a police report one of the investigating detectives insisted it was murder. It was never solved. Irish found the name of the detective. He would be in his seventies now.
She sat by his side for most of the time, then together they prepared a supper of salad and hamburgers. The air between them was intimate, full of energy and intensity and power. Even watching her eat incited desire in Irish.
That desire was dangerous. He knew it was dangerous. In both the short and the long term. He needed to keep his mind free and clear, and yet.…
The longer he stayed with her, the more he liked her, the more he wanted to be with her.
Irish tried to keep his mind on the list, but his gaze kept wandering to her face, to her gray eyes that always said so much, to her breasts straining against the T-shirt. He remembered exactly how they felt, how they had hardened under his fingers.…
They had hours of work to do tonight.
But then.…
Her eyes seemed to darken, the usual clear gray turning to heated, smoky depths.
Hours of work.
And then.…
Twenty-four hours later, Irish picked up Sally and Dustin Eachan. He liked Sally immed
iately. He disliked Dustin just as quickly. He didn’t like to think it was the cock of the walk syndrome. As a military man, he knew that attitude well.
Perhaps it was the disquiet he felt in leaving Amy alone. Every decision he made had consequences, and he would have to live with them. Would she be safer at the trailer park or with him? After weighing all the factors, he opted for the trailer park. He asked the chief to look after her.
If Dustin Eachan was indeed a part of whatever conspiracy was in the offing, the greatest danger would be in those first few minutes of their meeting. If his senses picked up anything, anything at all, he would not return to the trailer park. He was even having second thoughts about bringing these two to the park at all, but he’d discovered Amy had much to offer. Her researcher’s mind was the equal of his investigative one. Amy knew her grandfather; she was the only one who could answer questions about him.
If Eachan really was as concerned as he had sounded on the phone, then the four of them needed to meet and exchange the various threads of information that each had.
They met as planned. Irish had told Eachan to be at a restaurant at noon, and he had called him there, watching from the parking lot of a nearby hotel he’d staked out earlier. It did not appear that they were followed.
He knew that one of them—Eachan or his cousin—could easily be carrying a tracer just like the one that had been placed in his car.
Once he had picked up the cousins, he had gone through her purse and patted Dustin down, which did not improve the State Department official’s mood. All the way back to Norfolk, Irish had watched for someone who might be following them. He’d then changed over to the purple car in the apartment parking lot.
He had, quite simply, taken every possible precaution. He’d used the rental car to pick them up. Once the meeting was over, he planned to drive Dustin back to his car, and then he and Amy would leave the trailer park. There would be one more stop for them: the warehouse in Kentucky where Amy kept her grandfather’s desk. It was probably a wild goose chase, but at this point Irish was willing to try anything.
Eachan had been silent most of the way, as if he, too, was wary. Sally Eachan, on the other hand, tried to find out everything there was to know about him. Irish quickly decided it was not guile on her part, but the never-met-a-stranger quality that she had. She tried to draw him out while revealing very little about herself.
Dustin had grimaced when they transferred to the old purple car. Irish shrugged. “You can stay here,” he said.
Dustin ignored the jibe and opened the car door for Sally, then squeezed in beside her. Irish noticed that there was more than a little protectiveness in the gesture, and he didn’t miss the quick, familiar glances between the two.
He was acquainted with those kinds of glances. He’d exchanged a few of them with Amy in the past few days. Filing away the observation, he asked Dustin questions about his position at the State Department. He didn’t want to ask anything else until all of them were together. He had come to value Amy’s instincts.
He was already well aware of Eachan’s position and responsibilities. He specialized in western African nations, and was considered one of the rising stars of the State Department. He was one of the people who recommended humanitarian and military aid to some of the poorest countries in the world. He would move to another desk soon.
Irish looked at him and saw an ambitious bureaucrat with more than a little arrogance, but perhaps that was because of everything he’d learned and heard about the man. He had the classic good looks of a young Brahmin and wore casually elegant clothes. He was everything Irish disliked.
“Where in the hell are we going?” Dustin asked him.
“You’ll find out.”
“I have to be back in Washington tonight.”
“You will be,” Irish said. He glanced at Sally Eachan, and some of his belligerence faded. She was an extraordinarily pretty woman, but she looked strained and tired.
“Your cousin said you were attacked,” Irish said.
“Someone tried to slip something into my drink,” she corrected him. “I wasn’t exactly attacked.”
“A stranger to you?”
She nodded.
“What did he look like?”
“Forties. Dark hair. Solid build. Brown eyes.”
It could have been one of the men in the Jekyll Island attack. But that description would fit thousands of people.
“How did you get away?”
“A bartender saw him do it and warned me. I was able to leave without him seeing me.” She paused, then said, “Dusty said another woman had been attacked.”
Dusty. He kept the surprise from his face and looked at Eachan, who met his gaze, the slightest chagrin in his eyes.
Irish wondered whether he would have to change his opinion.
“You’ll meet her. Now, in fact,” he added as he turned in the trailer park and drove to their temporary home.
The lights were on. He left the car and waited until his two passengers did the same, then knocked on the door.
To his surprise, the chief opened it, a beer in his hand. He saw Amy rise from a chair and approach them.
“Mighty fine woman you have here,” the chief said as Irish stepped inside. “Knows a hell of a lot about baseball.”
Irish chuckled. He should have known. Amy seemed to know a lot about everything. “Thank you for looking after her.”
“My pleasure,” the chief said gallantly, and Irish had the impression he didn’t say that often. “I see you have company, so I’ll leave. You just let me know if you need any little thing.” The message was clear. He knew something was up, and he was going to be on watch.
He passed the Eachans with the barest nod as he went out the door, though he had thoroughly investigated them with his eyes. He had judged Dustin Eachan much as Irish originally had. Irish had seen the flash of almost contemptuous disregard with which many enlisted men eyed authority.
Once he left, the four of them regarded each other cautiously. Suspicion and wariness and uncertainty radiated between them.
It was Amy who made the first move. She stuck out her hand to Sally.
“Let’s see if we can find out what in the blazes is going on.”
twenty-three
NORFOLK
Amy felt the tension in the room. Not knowing what else to do, she did what she’d done most of her life. She’d thrust out her hand and butted in.
“I’m Amy,” she said.
The woman who’d entered was attractive. Very attractive. Perfect blond hair and blue eyes that were darker than Irish’s but every bit as startling. She smiled, and it was a natural, spontaneous smile.
“Sally,” the woman said.
Amy’s gaze went to the man. He was not quite as tall as Irish. And they—Irish and the newcomer—seemed as different as day and night. The latter, blond with green eyes, looked uncomfortable in the trailer. He was slender, leaner than Irish, and wore an expensive shirt and creased slacks.
Irish wore jeans and an inexpensive sport shirt, and lounged quite comfortably against the wall of the trailer. He was at home anyplace. She had noticed that before. Possibly because he had moved so much, he made anyplace he was at, home.
“Mr. Eachan?” she said after a momentary silence.
The stranger smiled then. It was a cool expression, yet there was an odd charm about it. She suspected one could succeed in diplomacy without having some of the latter.
“Now that the pleasantries are over, can we begin?” Irish didn’t like Eachan, and he didn’t care that he showed it.
Amy held out her hand toward the chairs in the living room. “I have coffee.…”
“I’d like some,” Sally said. “I’ll help you.”
The kitchen wasn’t far enough from the living area that they could not hear.
“Were you responsible for my transfer?” Irish’s voice was low but angry.
“You should be grateful.” Eachan’s voice was smooth, confid
ent.
“You can take your damn promotion and stuff it up your ass.”
Amy looked at Sally. “It seems to be going well.”
Sally grinned at her. “Dusty can be rather obnoxious.”
“Dusty?” It suddenly made the man human.
“He hates the name. I’m the only one allowed to use it.”
Amy noted the fond way she said it. It was said in the same way that Amy thought of Irish. She poured the coffee. “Cream or sugar?”
“I like it black. He likes cream.”
Amy poured it. Both she and Irish liked it black.
They took two cups each to the table. The two men were glaring at each other.
“What else did you do, Eachan?” Irish said. “Did you hire someone to burn down Amy’s house?”
“No, but I imagine your interference probably had something to do with it. If you hadn’t started dredging up the past.…”
“Why, what do you have to hide?” Amy had heard the edge in his voice before. This time it was like the sharp edge of a knife.
“Look, I don’t know what you thought to gain by dredging up a fifty-year-old episode, but it was your grandfather who was the commanding officer, and therefore responsible. I don’t appreciate your spreading the dirt to my family.”
“There was dirt?”
The words were low. Probing. Dangerous.
Eachan wasn’t cowed. “I don’t know what you want, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you put my cousin in danger and ruin our family’s name.”
“If your grandfather didn’t do anything, there wouldn’t be anything to ruin.”
“At least I don’t leave a trail of dead bodies behind me. The authorities are looking for you, you know. Both of you.”
Sally set the coffee down and put her hand on Eachan’s arm.
Amy was more direct. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I’m the one everyone seems to want to kill.”
They all looked at her. Irish had the grace to turn a little red. Dustin Eachan looked taken aback. Sally gave her an approving glance, then said, “And I’m the one they burglarized and tried to kidnap or worse. If you two want to see who has the biggest.…” She stopped, then winked at Amy.
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