The Rapids

by Carla Neggers

  Lying atop her bedsheets, Libby noticed their lace edging and wondered if it was Belgian. Undoubtedly not. Too expensive for repeated washings, especially in a moderately priced hotel. She hadn’t wanted to go rock bottom, though. As a woman traveling alone, that would have drawn attention—but she hadn’t wanted to stay somewhere exclusive, either. Again, more attention.

  If Maggie Spencer had spotted Kopac even a minute earlier, everything might have gone differently that morning.

  “What if she becomes a problem?”

  Libby spoke out loud, articulating her concern in a calm, focused voice that by itself steadied her.

  She sighed. “Then you’ll deal with her.”

  Just as she’d dealt with Miss Maggie’s father.

  And would have to deal with his friend Bill Raleigh sooner or later.

  Her head throbbed. She blamed it on the sunlight during her drive to Brussels.

  She’d booked an afternoon flight back to New York tomorrow. Soon, she’d be home, back in her bed in Ravenkill. That had its own set of problems, but they seemed to pale now against what she faced staying in Europe.

  It was always the same, the restlessness and obsession after a killing. This time, she had acted out of necessity. She’d had no time to plan. Had she left behind clues, evidence, witnesses?

  Should she have killed the desk clerk?

  She shut her eyes, trying to rid herself of the repeated images of that morning. The American asking for her. Maggie Spencer calling him. He hadn’t heard her. He’d been focused instead on his quarry.

  “On me,” Libby said quietly.

  She wondered if she’d have acted differently if she’d known who he was. She’d motioned to him to join her along the river, and he’d come straight to her—which at least suggested he didn’t know she was a hired killer. He must have seen her with Janssen on Thursday and somehow figured out who she was. Perhaps he’d followed her to her hotel, but she didn’t think so. She assumed he wanted to talk to her about the now captured fugitive, but why? Kopac wasn’t in law enforcement.

  Libby had no choice but to put aside her questions. Tom Kopac was dead. He couldn’t harm her from the grave.

  She racked her brain for anyone who could have seen her with Kopac that morning and replayed every move she’d made in Den Bosch. If she’d screwed up, Nick Janssen would find someone else to do his killing, and her name would go onto his target list.

  She squirmed in her bed, knowing sleep would elude her.

  Maggie Spencer wasn’t on Janssen’s list, which didn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t consider the DS agent a threat if he found out she’d been in Den Bosch that morning—with Rob Dunnemore. He was on the list. Libby wished she’d seen him in time to cross off his name. It was a missed opportunity, but she’d had her hands full dealing with Kopac and avoiding Maggie Spencer.

  Janssen was in a Dutch jail. Janssen wouldn’t like the idea of an American diplomat tailing her, never mind turning up dead. But that, at least, bought her some time to get started on her work for him and, finally, deal with the blowback from Prague and what she’d done eighteen months ago.

  Maggie unzipped her suitcase on her bed at midnight, trying to think what she should pack. She’d made a reservation over the Internet for three nights at the Old Stone Hollow Inn in Ravenkill, New York. She hadn’t used a false name—she signed up as Maggie Spencer and gave her current address as The Hague, the Netherlands. She might not need to stay all three nights. Once she was convinced Raleigh’s tip—or whatever it was—was off the mark, she’d leave. But she wanted to check out the inn and Raleigh’s veracity herself. She owed her father that much if Raleigh indeed had tracked her down because she was Philip Spencer’s daughter.

  What did people wear for a stay at a country inn in the Hudson River Valley? Shorts, pants, shirts. Maybe a skirt. Underwear. Nightclothes. Her running shoes. According to the inn’s Web site it had woodland trails where she could go for a run. With any luck, this expedition would turn into a mini-vacation.

  The inn looked like a nice place. A renovated upscale nineteenth-century farmhouse with pale green clapboards and white shutters. Sunflowers. Vegetable gardens and orchards. A path along Ravenkill Creek.

  If it’d been a fleabag, Maggie thought, she might not have been so quick to go.

  George Bremmerton had found her at her computer at the embassy, doing a search for information on William Raleigh. If he was an economist, he wasn’t a very famous one. She couldn’t locate a single speech, article, book or mention of him. But that didn’t mean he’d lied about his identity.

  She’d told Bremmerton she needed to take a few days off and let him think it was because of Tom’s death.

  “Planning to leave the country?” he’d asked.

  “I’d like to go to New York. Someone else can keep an eye on Deputy Dunnemore. I think he’ll understand, actually.”

  “You’ve only been here a few weeks. Homesick already?”

  “It’s not that…”

  “Then what is it?”

  His eyes had bored into her, telling her he knew her story was, at best, incomplete.

  “All right. I’ve got a guy who thinks he’s a spy or something whispering in my ear.” She remembered how Rob had called him her Scarlet Pimpernel, but William Raleigh wasn’t nearly as romantic a figure as the fictional character. “He’s not the source of the Janssen tip—”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Fairly. I want to follow up some information he gave me.”

  Bremmerton had stiffened. “What kind of information?”

  “Highly questionable.” But, she thought, the e-mail that led to Janssen’s arrest had sounded nutty, too, and yet it had turned out to be legitimate. “Give me a few days to find out for sure if there’s anything to it.”

  Bremmerton had looked at her for a long time. “Is this personal or professional?”

  “Both.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Why not blow off this guy?”

  “I can’t. He could be a drunk or crazy, I don’t know, but I feel like I have to check this out. I’ve typed up everything I’ve got and put it on your desk.” She’d debated explaining further, then decided to leave it at that. “Let it just be me sticking my neck out.”

  “If you’re going to work for me, I need your trust.”

  She’d kept her eyes on him. “That’s a two-way street.”

  “A name, Maggie.”

  She’d looked away. “Raleigh. William Raleigh.”

  Bremmerton hadn’t responded at first. Then, quietly, he’d taken in a breath, his decision to go along with her obviously made. “You’re on an early flight?”

  She’d nodded.

  “I have a meeting first thing in the morning.” His misgivings showed in his clipped words, his straight back, but his answer revealed he trusted her. “I’ll read your report after the meeting gets out.”

  “Thank you.”

  He wasn’t looking for thanks, though. “You get a whiff—one goddamn whiff—that you’re not on a wild-goose chase after all, I want to know about it. First.”

  That Bremmerton had gone along with her was a demonstration of his faith in her—and in his own judgment, his own instincts, not to mention his power and influence within diplomatic security. He had twenty years of experience and built-up goodwill on her.

  Maggie pulled a pair of black pants out of a dresser drawer and tossed them in her suitcase.

  If a head rolled because of her excursion, they both knew it’d be hers.

  She grabbed a pair of jeans. Basically, she was packing what she owned. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of wardrobe choices, and there was no time to go shopping. She’d need her weapon, too. She placed it beside the suitcase, to remind herself of the protocol she’d need to follow to take it on the flight.

  She’d be on her way to Schipol airport in the morning when Rob started looking for her. She hated to sneak out
on him. He’d been decent to her that afternoon—suspicious, but decent, buying her a bowl of chicken soup, rubbing her hand.

  And those eyes. She couldn’t get over them. Gray with blue flecks, darker lashes than she’d have expected given his fair-haired good looks. Her own lashes were almost invisible without mascara.

  “God, you are tired.”

  She almost banged her fingers shutting the drawer.

  Her friendship with Tom would lend credibility to her cover story of needing a few days off.

  “Cover story” at least sounded better than “lie.”

  It was after one before she finally collapsed into bed, the mix of crushing fatigue and grief and agitation reminding her of her first days of training, when becoming a DS agent was still not quite a dream come true and when everything she might see in her work—everything she might screw up—was still only theoretical.

  When her father was alive, and she’d looked forward to meeting him on a level playing field.

  Things change, she thought. Things always change.

  Eight

  Maggie dragged her suitcase out to the street at six, uncertain she wasn’t acting precipitously, even less confident in William Raleigh and his “tip,” now that she had some rest.

  When she got to the curb, she found Rob half sitting on the hood of her Mini, drinking coffee, and she stopped abruptly. “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled at her. “I guess we’d better get moving if we’re going to make our flight. I thought I might have to pound on your door. Up late?”

  “Our flight? How—”

  “I’m good at what I do. I’ve never tracked a DS agent before.”

  She noticed that he had his carry-on bag with him. “You just got to the Netherlands. You’re not even over your jet lag.”

  “Don’t mind if I ride with you, do you? Or are you taking a cab?”

  Her suitcase was upright next to her. He had her flight information. There was no way she could deny she was heading to the airport. “Cab. It should be here any second.”

  “Good. We can split the fare.”

  Her head felt pinched, tight. If she told Rob to get his own cab, she wouldn’t be able to grill him about how he’d found out about her flight. And since he’d apparently already wrangled a ticket for himself, she’d only postpone having to deal with him.

  He was getting on that plane with her.

  “I thought you went back to your hotel and had a couple of drinks.”

  “I did.”

  “Someone gave me up. You must have made a few calls.”

  “Maybe I got a call or two myself.”

  Bremmerton? Had he sicced Rob on her?

  Rob spoke amiably, as if he expected her not to mind his interference. But Maggie had no intention of discussing her plans with him on the street, or at the airport, or on the flight. She peered down the narrow street. There was no sign of her taxi.

  “You could be heading to New York on information from a man who needs psychiatric care,” Rob said.

  “I’m taking a few days off.”

  “Ah.”

  He didn’t believe her, not even for a split second. That much was obvious. Not that she’d expected him to buy her story. She was just letting him know she wasn’t playing by his rules.

  Fortunately, the cab arrived. Rob grabbed both suitcases and dumped them in the trunk, then joined her in the back seat. The dark charcoal of his suit drew her attention to his eyes, a misty gray in the morning light.

  “Where are you staying in New York?” he asked as the cab pulled out into the street.

  Maggie decided to take a more direct approach. “I’m not telling you. You’re suspicious enough as it is.” Although not without cause, she thought with a minor stab of guilt. “Yesterday was a tough day. It must have rekindled bad memories for you. I’m sorry I dragged you to Den Bosch. I don’t blame you for looking for excuses to get out of here.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t have to look far, did I?”

  She gave him a long look. “You’re going to bird-dog me until you’re satisfied, aren’t you? I don’t need you snooping into my private life.”

  “I’m not so sure this trip of yours is personal. According to my sources, you don’t have much of a private life. All work, no play.”

  “Did you stay up all night checking me out?”

  “People say you’re at the top of your game. You made the Chicago bust happen. You got the tip that took Nick Janssen down. Yesterday was tough, no doubt about it. But an officer even half as dedicated as you are wouldn’t take off for a few days the morning after finding a friend dead. It just wouldn’t happen.”

  “It is happening.”

  “You’ve been on the job here, what, three weeks?”

  “About that.”

  He settled back in his seat, the cab on the motorway now, speeding east toward the airport. “No way are you taking a few days off, Maggie. No way.”

  She didn’t take the bait and respond. If Ravenkill was a wild-goose chase, it was going to be her wild-goose chase. Until she knew what she was dealing with, she wanted as few people to know about her little adventure as possible.

  It wasn’t that far to the airport. Even if Rob had managed to get a seat on her flight, odds were it wouldn’t be right next to her. She just had to endure the cab ride, then avoid him on the flight across the Atlantic and shake him when they arrived at JFK. She’d reserved a car rental. With a little luck, she’d be on her way to Ravenkill with Rob Dunnemore none the wiser.

  Magster.

  She told herself she’d have gone to Ravenkill and shut out the marshal next to her over the reasons for her trip even if William Raleigh hadn’t mentioned her father, alluded to his death. Whether Raleigh had ever been to Prague—had ever met Philip Spencer, murdered American businessman—mattered, but it wasn’t her only reason for heading to New York. She also owed Tom Kopac.

  “Your mother’s a painter in Boca Raton,” Rob said. “Pretty good, too. She and your dad were divorced when you were in high school. He died eighteen months ago in Prague. Some story about bank robbers.”

  He didn’t believe it, either. Did he know something she didn’t? But Maggie forced herself not to respond.

  “Must have been rough, losing him that way.”

  She took a breath. “It was. My family doesn’t have the greatest luck. I’ve never assumed I’ll be drinking lemonade in the shade and writing my memoirs at eighty.”

  “You just described my father.” His tone was gentle, as if he didn’t take his father’s long life and good health for granted. “Why New York? Why not visit your mother?”

  “It’s hot in south Florida in August.”

  He drank the last of his coffee and crushed the cup in one hand. “I can’t see you leaving town after yesterday. I can’t see Bremmerton letting you leave. So this trip isn’t without his blessing.”

  “Maybe it was his idea. Stress.”

  “Right.”

  Again that open, amiable disbelief. Maggie glanced over at him, wishing he wasn’t so damn attractive. “Why are you leaving?” she asked him.

  “Because you are.”

  Dumb question. “How did you find out?”

  “I know people.”

  He was matter-of-fact, not smug. After yesterday, she couldn’t blame him for checking her out. She’d hauled him to Den Bosch, on the pretense of seeing where Nick Janssen had been picked up, only to come upon a murder and a bizarre rendezvous with a man who was, at best, an eccentric.

  That she’d let Raleigh go without a fight couldn’t have helped Dunnemore’s early impression of her.

  “You’re not going to give me your source?” she asked him.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You think that Southern charm’s going to work on me, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “What Southern charm?”

  “It’ll only get you so far when you’re sticking your nose into someone else’s business. Is the source who fin
ked me out someone you know because you’re friends with President Poe, or someone you know because you’re a marshal?”

  “Could be someone who’s worried about you and called me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  A very short list of names came to mind, any of whom could be charmed by the fair-haired U.S. Marshal.

  When they reached the airport, Rob offered to carry her suitcase. Maggie refused, politely, trying not to let his easy manner and good looks get to her—or to go overboard in the opposite direction and be a witch. Either way, he won. She didn’t need a well-connected marshal following her, especially when she was on her way to check out a dubious tip from a man anyone else might have dismissed as mentally ill. But William Raleigh had brought up her father, and he’d been in Den Bosch the same morning Tom Kopac had been killed. If she could be sure going to New York was smart, having Rob as a witness might be more appealing.

  But she told herself it wasn’t just a matter of sparing herself a little embarrassment. If this escapade blew up in her face, she didn’t want Rob getting caught in the shock waves.

  There it was, she thought. She was being altruistic.

  “You can’t tell anyone about me, Maggie. No one. That’s very important for your own safety.”

  Histrionics. If she really thought safety was a serious concern, she’d have had more reason to let Rob in on Raleigh’s tip, or at least given Bremmerton more details.

  When they boarded the plane, it turned out Rob had the seat directly across the aisle from her.

  For the next seven hours.

  He’d probably planned it that way, Maggie thought. All feelings of altruism left her. If he wanted to interfere in her business and call in favors to find out what she was up to, fine. Let him. If he wanted to track her to Ravenkill, that was fine, too. His neck, his choice.