Home Free

by Fern Michaels

  The guy simply lived high and didn’t worry about a rainy day or tomorrow. He had lots of friends but mostly drinking buddies or neighbors. He charged a lot of liquor on his Master-Card, which had a two-thousand-dollar limit. He had only seventy dollars of credit available. All he was doing was paying the interest every month. He had what Abner considered way too much porn on his computer. No secret e-mails, nothing in his files. He was seen having lunch last week with the new director of the DHS. A ninety-minute lunch, with each man drinking two glasses of wine. The director picked up the tab.

  Nothing here to ring any bells, Abner thought. He stacked the files neatly and added a sticky with a large question mark on top.

  Abner moved on to the last name on his list, Matthew Logan, or Matt, as everyone called him. His first assessment when he ran the files was that Logan was a stand-up guy. Good education, a veteran, well liked, played well with others, no known enemies. His bank accounts and charge accounts were normal. He drove a three-year-old Lexus; his wife of thirty-three years drove a Ford Taurus. Children scattered across the nation, two grandchildren, who visited from time to time. Wife, Claudia, was a buyer for a local department store. She would retire this year. Logan himself was just two years away from retirement. Friends all over the place. Both his and his wife’s friends. They did the Washington party scene in the spring and summer but stayed away in the fall and winter.

  He met from time to time with the other three, but it was always business and one director or the other hosted the meetings. Nothing there of any consequence.

  And yet, all four of these men had gone to Camp David for Thanksgiving. That meant Daniels’s and Logan’s wives stayed home by themselves. “That’s weird,” Abner muttered to himself.

  Abner mumbled and grumbled to himself as he stapled more papers. He really had nothing to show for all his hacking. He hated it when this happened because with no results, how could he bill a client? He couldn’t; it was that simple. So, back to the drawing board. And then an idea hit him.

  With all his power and knowledge he could send the four men an e-mail and arrange to intercept their replies by setting up a bogus e-mail account for all four men. Toss out the bait and see what hooks itself on your line. He’d done it before and always come away a winner. He smacked his hands together in glee, then flexed his fingers the way a pianist would before a recital and started to type away with a vengeance.

  Abner worked steadily for over an hour, lost in his own world, oblivious to the program he was running, which should, if he was successful, spit out who belonged to the initials JJ.

  Time lost all meaning for Abner, so much so that he didn’t hear the phone ringing to tell him Isabelle was going to be late because a walk-in client had appeared. He came up for air at three o’clock in the afternoon because his stomach started to protest.

  In his kitchen, Abner became the Abner in love. He sat down and munched on a ham-and-cheese sandwich, his expression dreamy. His world was so right side up, he made a fist and shouted it to the world.

  Across town in Georgetown, Maggie Spritzer wasn’t entirely sure her world was right side up. She hoped it was since Gus Sullivan had accepted her apology and her invitation to dinner. And he was coming without a nurse or a handler.

  Maggie knew she was an emotional mess, a feeling she hated but one she couldn’t seem to control. A hot shower to remove all the pine resin that coated her clothes, hands, and arms from working at Yoko’s nursery might be a good start. Maybe even a little perfume, perfume she’d bought herself, not perfume Ted had given her. She always felt better after a shower. As her thoughts trailed off, she sniffed appreciatively at the stew cooking in the Crock-Pot.

  Maggie was back in the kitchen thirty minutes later, dressed in gray flannel slacks, penny loafers, and a cherry red sweater. Her wild curly hair was tied back with a matching cherry-colored ribbon. Her skin glowed, and she thought she smelled wonderful.

  She had decided earlier on the ride home that she would serve dinner on the old plank table in the kitchen, which sat in the middle of the wraparound windows. As she was walking out the door, Yoko had shyly presented her with a beautiful evergreen centerpiece with a fat red bayberry-scented candle.

  The house smelled so good, the cooking scents vying with the fragrant odors from the Christmas tree in the living room and the centerpiece. She wondered if it was true that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach and his nose. She hoped so. She checked the mess in the Crock-Pot, sniffed, and then tasted the rich gravy. Perfect. She added the wine and covered the pot. Next, she set the table and held a match to the shiny red candle. The last thing she did was build a fire in the living room and turn on the tree lights. It was all perfect, so much so that she crossed her fingers the way she had when she was a little girl and wanted some good-luck fairy to make her wish come true.

  Her stomach in knots, Maggie sat down in front of the fire. She propped her elbows on her knees and let her mind race. This was a whole new ball game. Her emotions had never been this twisted, this unpredictable. She couldn’t ever remember not being in control. The feeling was so alien, she wanted to cry.

  Work versus love. Love versus work. Not exactly. Factor in the Sisters, and it wasn’t just work or love. Why did it have to be one or the other? Why couldn’t she blend it all together? Millions of women did it. But, she argued with herself, those millions of other women didn’t have a loyalty to the infamous vigilantes. Common sense told her to just let things play out. Whatever was meant to happen would happen.

  Maggie continued to watch the flames, mesmerized as they danced and frolicked and raced up the chimney. There was something about a good fire in the winter with a Christmas tree that was so comforting, she couldn’t put it into words. And I’m a reporter, she thought, so I should have the words. The best she could come up with was, it evoked childhood memories, belief in Santa coming down the chimney. She remembered asking someone, an aunt, she thought, why Santa’s pants didn’t catch on fire. She smiled at the memory just as the doorbell rang.

  Maggie uncurled herself and took a deep breath before she walked to the door. She actually wanted to run to the door, but she held herself back. She opened it, a welcoming smile on her face. The smile turned into a wicked grin when Gus said, “I’m staying the night.” He had a small canvas bag under one arm and was walking with two canes. “Because of the weather. I hope it’s okay. On Sundays, my therapy doesn’t start till one o’clock.”

  Maggie noticed for the first time that it was sleeting out. Gus’s curly hair was glistening with little ice crystals. “Sure it’s okay. When did it start sleeting?” she asked inanely.

  “Oh, about four hours ago.” Gus laughed as he made his way inside.

  “I didn’t notice. Well, I have a nice fire going and my tree is up, and if I do say so myself, it is spectacular. Follow me, and I’ll hang up your jacket. How about a glass of wine? Wow, Gus, you’re walking pretty good.”

  “I know. My doctors are pleased with my progress but not as much as I am. One more operation next month, more therapy, and they tell me I’ll be good to go by late spring. Everything depends on my progress, though. We’ve had to revise deadlines several times. Good thing I have lots of patience.”

  They were in the living room, and Gus turned to view the tree and the fire. “Oh, this is the perfect end to a great day. You were right. This is a spectacular tree. I love sitting in front of a fire and just daydreaming. The Christmas season really is here.”

  “I was doing that when you rang the doorbell. When I was a kid, I remember asking one of my aunts why Santa’s pants didn’t catch on fire coming down the chimney. I don’t remember if she answered me or, if she did, what she said. Grown-ups hated me because I was always the kid with the questions no one wanted to answer.”

  “I guess you were meant to be a reporter even back then,” Gus said, lowering himself to one of the chairs by the fireplace.

  Maggie laughed. “Yeah. You want some wine or a beer?�
�

  “I’m a beer kind of guy, Maggie. And I like drinking it right out of the bottle, and the brand doesn’t matter. Smells good in here.”

  “I need to tell you right up front, Gus, I am not much of a cook. I throw stuff in a Crock-Pot, cook it for hours, and hope for the best. We’re having stew. Kind of goes with the weather outside. You know, comfort food. Be back in a minute with the beer.”

  Gus leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He hoped the pain in his back and legs would abate a little so he could enjoy the evening. He looked from the fire to the beautiful tree and made that wish. Either he was dreaming, crazy, or he was out for the count, because the minute he made his wish, he felt like he could get up and dance a jig. “Thank you, God,” he whispered.

  Maggie was as good as her word. She was back in a minute with two bottles of beer. She handed one to Gus and then curled up at his feet by the fire.

  “We should make a toast. How about to Santa coming down the chimney, pants smoking, and we douse him with our beer?” Gus said, clinking his bottle against Maggie’s.

  Maggie laughed so hard she almost choked. “That’ll work.”

  “Before we get off on the wrong foot again, and I’m willing to take the blame for speaking out of turn, let’s talk about your last visit to the hospital. I don’t want anything hanging over our heads if you and I decide to go forward with . . . with whatever is happening between us.”

  Maggie bit down on her bottom lip. The rubber was about to meet the road. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Let me go first. Then if you want to say something, feel free to interrupt me.”

  Maggie nodded as she stared into the fire.

  “I’ve been at Walter Reed since June. I met the president in person in August. That’s just background. I had a lot of nurses, both male and female, and the females were always trying to take my mind off my pain, my body, and what I was undergoing. They were wonderful to me. The ladies would jab at me when they thought I was slacking and say things like they were going to sic the vigilantes on me. When I didn’t know what they were talking about, they enlightened me.

  “A lot of them had theories, and they weren’t shy about presenting them. One feisty grandma type had this theory that the Post was somehow involved with the ladies. Your paper always seemed to have a jump on what they were doing, and you had the banner headline when the ladies solved something. Which led the feisty nurse to come to that conclusion. I didn’t think much about it back then, but I put it all together the other day, when you went flying out of the hospital and didn’t return my calls.

  “I deduced, because I am a clever kind of guy, that you and the vigilantes were on a first-name basis, and you have a loyalty to them. What I want you to know, Maggie, is, I don’t care. I hope you are friends with them, and I respect your loyalty to them as a group. Maybe someday you will be comfortable enough with me to let me be part of that, but if not, I’m okay with that, too. I know how to compartmentalize, just as you do. Any questions so far?”

  Maggie shook her head.

  “I have tons of time to do nothing but think. I even try to shift my mind to other things when they’re trying to twist me into a pretzel. Sometimes, I think I have pretzel logic, but at least it’s logic of some kind.”

  Maggie turned from the fire and stared up at Gus. Her expression told Gus he needed to do a little more explaining.

  “I understand now why you wanted to know about those money guys who were at Camp David. I did my own little survey at the rehab ward by asking the guys and some of the women what, if anything, would make them give up their own Thanksgiving dinner with their families, and they all said pretty much the same thing, something earth-shattering. Even then, that didn’t satisfy me, so I turned to my laptop, the Internet, and Google. I have to say I didn’t come up with much. Then I remembered this four-star general who was getting daily therapy, along with the senior senator from Texas, who sits on just about every committee there is. In rehab, titles don’t count, at least where I was.

  “We were just a bunch of guys trying to get whole again. We’d try to bolster each other up if one of us was having a bad day. What I’m trying to say here is, I overheard quite a few conversations that I probably shouldn’t have listened to but at the time didn’t mean anything. I also heard private cell-phone conversations.

  “The general and the senator still come in for therapy twice a week, and most times they look me up and we chat a bit. When they found out I was invited to Camp David, they were a little . . . nonplussed . . . for want of a better word. Then, when they heard that you, the editor in chief of the Post, was going, they actually looked . . . I wouldn’t say worried but more like concerned. Any questions?”

  Maggie set her beer bottle down on the hearth and stretched her arms over her head. “But why?”

  “I don’t know, Maggie. I can tell you one thing, though. Both those guys hate the CIA. They aren’t fond of the FBI, and they think Homeland Security sucks. As for the Department of Justice, they said those guys don’t know their asses from their elbows.”

  Maggie shrugged. “A lot of people in this town don’t trust any of the alphabet agencies. So where does that leave us?”

  “With a problem. I’m unbiased, a freethinker, at least at the moment. I’m not a politician, thank you, God. That’s just another way of saying I don’t have a dog in this race. No pun intended. Cleo is not part of this. Just off the top of my head I’d say those guys are having trouble with their respective slush funds. If you think for one minute that an agency that suddenly needs money for something or other goes to the Treasury Department and they just hand it over, then you are out of your mind. But there has to be one major person, I’m thinking, who oversees it all, and I think because the CIA is the most powerful, it has to be someone there. Hey, like I said, that’s just my opinion. I’m probably so off base, you could hit a slam dunk and still have room to drive an eighteen-wheeler through the hole.”

  “Any idea who that could be?” Maggie asked.

  “Nope. Do you?”

  Maggie shook her head.

  “I can try and find out tomorrow. Both the senator and the general will be at rehab, even though it’s Sunday. The two of them like to do the weekends so they don’t eat into their office time. I sense a little self-importance there, like the Senate and the Pentagon can’t run effectively unless they’re in their respective offices. They might open up or let something slip. It’s worth a try if you want me to go for it.”

  Maggie grimaced. “Show me a politician who doesn’t think like that. Sure, see what, if anything, you can find out.”

  “Your turn, Maggie,” Gus said quietly.

  “You were right. I guess you could say I’m an honorary member of the vigilantes. I believe in them, and when we reported anything, it was true and accurate because we had the inside track. Have I myself broken any laws? Not really. But I have skirted the edges and danced away in the nick of time. I’d do it all over again if I had to. Thanks to all of those women, I have the job that I have, and I do have a fierce loyalty to them. Today they are ordinary citizens with full pardons. Or, as Annie likes to say, today they are on the side of the angels.”

  “Do you ever see them going back to their . . . original line of work?”

  Maggie laughed. “Never say never.” She wondered what Gus would do or say if she showed him her gold shield. She was tempted to follow Nikki’s advice but squelched the thought as soon as it popped into her head. “If you’re hungry, I think we can eat now.”

  “I’ve been ready since I got here. Even though the food is okay at the hospital, it’s not the same as home cooking. My mouth is watering. So, we’re okay, Maggie. I mean me and you.”

  Maggie thought about it for a few seconds. “We’re okay, Gus. Oh, oh, wait. We have to make a wish. You know, on the tree, like when we were kids.”

  Gus just looked puzzled.

  “You’re supposed to make a wish the first time you see someone’s tree. Okay, o
kay, I made that up, so let’s each just make a wish. Close your eyes and wish hard.”

  “Okay, I made my wish.”

  “I did, too,” Maggie said. “We can’t tell each other what it is unless it comes true. You know that, right?”

  Gus nodded solemnly and grinned.

  Maggie just smiled.

  “So, it’s okay for me to stay over. I have to do the couch, though. There’s no way for me to do those stairs of yours.”

  “It’s not a problem. The couch in here opens up. You’ll have the benefit of the fire and the tree at the same time.” And me, if you want me, she thought as she left to get the sheets and blankets to make up the sleep couch into a bed after dinner and more visiting.

  “Uh-huh,” Gus drawled.

  Chapter 20

  Gus Sullivan hobbled into the room using both canes. He looked around and was surprised to see that he was the only patient, but then again, he was twenty minutes early. Even his therapist wasn’t there yet. Not surprising, the weather being what it was. For all he knew, his two-hour therapy session might even be canceled. Doubtful but entirely possible.

  Most days the smell of stale sweat and the powerful disinfectant the cleaners used bothered him. Today he barely noticed it, his thoughts back in Georgetown with Maggie Spritzer. He wished he had someone to confide in. Someone like Cleo, who would listen and nuzzle with him, but Cleo came only during the week.

  Gus lowered himself to one of the benches, propped up his canes, and leaned back. He closed his eyes as he tried to project how much pain his therapist was going to put him through that day. And, of course, how cooperative his body would be. He thought about what he’d promised Maggie. He wondered how successful he would be. Four-star generals did not have loose lips, even though in this room they were just two guys fighting to get their bodies back into some kind of livable shape. In here were no spies, no secret recording machines. What there was, was a lot of cussing, moaning, and groaning—even tears. He had certainly shed his share and didn’t care who saw the tears rolling down his cheeks. He’d seen the general swipe at his eyes, and the senator had turned white and almost blacked out a few times. Therapy was a bitch. But the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.