The Rapids

by Carla Neggers

  Rivera suggested something along those lines himself before stalking back to his office.

  When Juliet Longstreet arrived in the office twenty minutes later, she had a similar reaction. Bad luck in the Netherlands. Not good to have Maggie Spencer on the loose given the circumstances. In her usual blunt fashion, Juliet added, “I think she’s up to something. So do you.”

  “Federal agents get to take time off.”

  Juliet rolled her eyes. “Within a few hours of finding a body? The body of a friend?”

  It was a fair point. It was a point Rob had made himself. “I’m on her,” he said.

  “But of course.”

  He was still contemplating just how he’d go about finding Maggie when he answered a call from a guy who identified himself as Andrew Franconia.

  “My wife and I own an inn in Ravenkill, New York,” Franconia said, sounding stressed and irritated. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Franconia?” Rob asked.

  “Diplomatic security agents deal in passport and visa fraud, don’t they? Are we under investigation?”

  Rob sat forward. “Why are you asking me?”

  “Don’t be cagey, Deputy. You know goddamn well why. I’ve read the papers. You and a DS agent came upon a murder on Saturday in the Netherlands. I didn’t make the connection at first, but I think it’s awfully damn coincidental she shows up here—”

  “Who?”

  “Agent Spencer.” Franconia gave a hiss of impatience. “I’m sorry, it’s been a difficult morning. I knew something wasn’t right yesterday when she arrived, and I did some checking. I read about the diplomat’s murder. Kopac. I’m very sorry. It must have been terrible. But I have my own considerations.”

  “I understand,” Rob said. “What’s the name of your inn?”

  “The Old Stone Hollow Inn. It’s about a mile from the village. I’d feel better about having Agent Spencer here if she hadn’t just been involved in two high-profile criminal events. She got the tip that led to Nick Janssen’s arrest, too, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “Mr. Franconia, I can’t speak for Agent Spencer, but if you’re concerned that you or your wife or your guests are in any danger—”

  “It’s not that. We just don’t want any trouble. We run a quiet inn here, and we’re law-abiding—” He broke off. “Christ, that sounds stupid to say. But we are. We’re law-abiding citizens.”

  “What’s Agent Spencer doing now?”

  Franconia paused. “Taking a walk in the herb garden.”

  Hell, Rob thought. Maybe she was just taking a few days off to clear her head. He smiled into the phone. “That doesn’t seem too suspicious, does it, Mr. Franconia?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  He sounded only slightly chastened. Rob decided to give him a little more to chew on. “I flew back with her yesterday. She told me she was taking some time off.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  Not even a little, Rob thought. “No reason not to. Why did you call me?”

  “It seemed the thing to do. I wasn’t sure if you were still in the Netherlands. Thanks for your time.”

  After they disconnected, Rob didn’t have a chance to stand up before the phone rang again. He picked up and identified himself.

  “Andrew Franconia beat me to you, didn’t he?” Maggie said, not sounding remorseful at all.

  “You’re scaring the hell out of him.”

  “Upsetting his applecart, maybe. He’s not scared.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Right now? Looking at the sunflowers from my bedroom window. I just got in from a walk in the herb gardens. It’s a beautiful day, Deputy. But I almost wish it was snowing. Then you’d be more likely to stay put in New York.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Just a half beat’s hesitation. “How long do I have before you get here?”

  “Ninety minutes at the most, unless traffic’s bad.”

  “Good,” she said. “I won’t tell you where I’ll be. You can find me. It’ll be more fun for you that way.” He almost smiled. “I’ll try the sunflowers first.”

  A click told him she’d hung up.

  Rob stood in Rivera’s office doorway. “She’s in Ravenkill. It’s on the Hudson.”

  “Ravenkill?” Rivera squeaked back in his chair. “My wife dragged me up there once to go antiquing. I thought I’d hang myself, but it’s a cute village. Your DS agent into antiques?”

  “No idea.”

  “Go up there,” Rivera said. “Find out.”

  Maggie was sitting in a screened gazebo, amid summer roses and ivy, when Rob found her. He had on sunglasses that only made him look sexier, reminding her—as if she needed reminding—not to get ahead of herself around him.

  “You haven’t been here a full day,” he said, “and you’re already scaring the locals.”

  “They’re more irritated than scared.” She’d put on capri pants, a tank top and her denim jacket and wondered if he was thinking she looked sexy—or if he, too, was irritated with her. “At least they won’t be calling the media. I figure the Franconias don’t want reporters sniffing around here any more than I do.”

  “The old guy in St. John’s sent you here?”

  She angled a look up at him. “You cut to the chase, don’t you? Have a seat. Enjoy the moment. You can smell the roses and listen to the birds twittering.”

  “I like birds,” he said, but didn’t sit down.

  “The Franconias have bluebird houses set out on the edges of the fields and orchards. It’s a different kind of life, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “I used to live this kind of life, except not this fancy.”

  “On the Cumberland River, you mean.”

  “That’s right.”

  Next to President Poe’s boyhood home. “There are snakes down there.”

  “Mostly you don’t see them.” He seemed to be laying on the Tennessee accent. “The snake you see first is always better than the snake you surprise.”

  Maggie smiled. “That could be my motto. Well, I didn’t grow up in a country inn or on a Southern estate. We moved around a lot. Don’t you want to sit?”

  “I’ve been in the car for more than an hour, and I sat all day yesterday.” The knotty cedar floor creaked as he moved toward her. “Nice spot.”

  “The inn’s lovely. I only had a peek at Ravenkill. I’m not much on shopping, even if I lived here and didn’t have to haul my purchases back to the Netherlands.”

  “First time here?”

  “First time in the Hudson River Valley at all.”

  He was silent.

  “I talked to George Bremmerton this morning,” Maggie said. “Tom left the embassy early on Thursday. Right after lunch.”

  “The day Janssen was arrested.”

  “Tom was such a loner. No one knew where he went. He didn’t say anything to anyone. He didn’t leave a note.” She paused, physically forcing herself not to picture him in the Binnendieze. “He came to work like normal on Friday. Then he shows up in Den Bosch on Saturday.”

  “But he had nothing to do with the Janssen case?”

  She shook her head. “Not even remotely.”

  “Investigators will be all over him taking off early.”

  “He wasn’t the type to take off, ever. He loved his work. He—”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It can be a damn cruel world,” she said tightly, leaving it at that.

  “Bremmerton knows where you are?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it wasn’t his idea for you to come here,” Rob said.

  She burst to her feet. “Come on, let’s have lunch. The food here is very good—lots of stuff from the garden. Makes me want to be careful where I step, in case it lands up in my salad.”

  “Maggie—”

  “I don’t know anything, Rob. Nothing worth knowing, anyway.”

  He followed her out of the gazebo a
nd onto a stone path warmed by the midday sun. A tidy vegetable garden with carefully staked and marked plants sprawled to one side, with grapevines and gladiola in a half-dozen colors on the other. Maggie wondered what it’d be like to spend three days here on a romantic getaway, then pushed the thought far away. Men and romance were not in her cards, at least for the immediate future. She needed to get her feet under her in her first foreign assignment. Then, maybe, she could consider a relationship.

  “No dogs?” Rob asked in that slow, Southern way he had. “You’d think a country inn would have dogs. My granddaddy had hounds. I never knew him. Died before I was born. Some kind of logging accident. We Dunnemores live long if we don’t get killed.”

  “My father was only fifty-seven when he died.”

  The path widened, and Rob eased in next to her. “What was he doing in Prague?”

  “He was a business consultant. He traveled a lot. It finally drove him and my mother apart.”

  “You joined diplomatic security because of him?”

  “Because I have the same sense of wanderlust, yes.” She smiled suddenly, trying to lift her mood. “As you can see—”

  “Being here has nothing to do with wanderlust.” He glanced at her, gave her one of his half smiles. “Or with just lust, from what I can see.”

  She could feel heat on the back of her neck. “What, you don’t think I have a guy hiding in my room?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Since even the way he said ma’am got to her, Maggie decided she had low blood sugar on top of jet lag and mounted the steps to the back porch. She could hear the clicking of ice in glasses and smelled mint and charcoal, as if someone had been grilling. Three tables were filled. Breakfast was for guests only, but lunch and dinner were open to the public.

  A slender woman cheerfully seated them at a small round table. “I may have gotten you in trouble, Agent Spencer,” she whispered; despite her short gray hair, she couldn’t have been more than in her midthirties. “Star and Andrew are in such la-la land, they might never have known about the shooting if I hadn’t said anything. I saw it on the news.”

  “That’s not your fault,” Maggie said.

  “I feel bad. They’re under a lot of stress.” She handed Rob and Maggie each a printout of the day’s menu. “I understand the victim was a friend of yours.”

  “We’d only known each other three weeks, but, yes, Tom was a friend.”

  “What a shame. My name’s Libby, by the way—Libby Smith.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Maggie said.

  “You’re smart to get away for a few days after such a tragedy. How’d you end up in Ravenkill? Do you have family here?”

  Maggie shook out her napkin and placed it on her lap, noticing Rob eyeing her over the top of his menu, wanting answers himself. “No, no family here. It’s just something I picked on a whim. I’m glad I did. It’s beautiful.”

  “Well,” Libby said, obviously not satisfied, “enjoy your stay. What can I get you two to drink?”

  “Iced tea would be fine,” Maggie said.

  Rob smiled up from his menu. “Make that two, Miss Smith.”

  “Just Libby is fine. My family owned this place for generations.” She grinned irreverently. “Star and Andrew saved it from a wrecking crane. I help out when I can. I live on the first floor in a little ell my dad used as his trash room. He had problems. Two iced teas it is.”

  When Libby withdrew to fetch their iced tea, Maggie leaned over the table. “I think there’s a subtext around here, don’t you?”

  “I’d say that’s a fair guess, Agent Spencer.”

  She smiled. “At least you still have a sense of humor.”

  Libby returned with two glasses of tea with sprigs of orange mint, and Maggie, starving now, felt like ordering everything on the menu. She settled on the carrot-orange soup, the walnut-pear salad with goat cheese and the grilled salmon.

  “The goat cheese is local,” Libby said. “Star toasts it.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  Rob chose the chicken salad with grapes and pulled off his sunglasses after Libby left with their orders. “Nate Winter has my description of your old guy. Nate’s my future brother-in-law, and a marshal.” We’re going to find out who your guy is.”

  “You’re relentless, aren’t you? I suppose it’s a good quality in someone who catches fugitives for a living.”

  Maggie tilted back her iced tea and wished she could just keep drinking all afternoon and avoid those eyes. But she set the glass down, observing a middle-aged couple sharing a salad at another table.

  Rob said nothing. He was, she suspected, trying to use silence to his advantage.

  “He says his name is William Raleigh. He’s a retired economist.” She ran a finger down the frosty side of her glass. “He gave me the name of the inn. It was my decision to actually come here.”

  “Any contact with him before Saturday?”

  “No.”

  “He had to have said something significant to make you go to the trouble of flying to New York at the last minute, giving me the slip—”

  “He referred to my father and his death.” She heard the sharpness in her tone but couldn’t do anything about it now. “You saw him. He’s down and out. He smelled like stale cigarettes and looked like he just finished a drinking binge.”

  “You think it could be a bad lead.”

  She tried to smile. “I’ve been to worse places on wild-goose chases. I have a four-poster bed in my room and forget-me-not wallpaper.”

  “Do you?”

  “Damn it, Dunnemore—”

  “You’re the one who brought up beds and forget-me-nots.”

  “Do you even know what a forget-me-not is?”

  “Flower.” He grinned at her. “Bluish purple.”

  Andrew Franconia trotted up the porch steps and beelined for their table, saving Maggie from further talk of her bedroom. But he was annoyed. “I didn’t mean for the marshals to come up here,” he said through clenched teeth. He was sweating, in shorts and an orange polo shirt that was neatly tucked in. “You’re Deputy Dunnemore, aren’t you? I recognize you from the news—”

  Rob got to his feet and shook hands politely, taking some of the steam out of Franconia’s irritation. “Maggie and I are enjoying your inn,” he said. “We just ordered lunch. Would you care to join us?”

  “No, no, that’s all right. Thank you. I was just—” He glanced around at the occupied tables, then lowered his voice. “It struck me that whoever murdered that diplomat on Saturday is still at large. If Agent Spencer is someone who protects diplomats—”

  “I’m not here because of Tom Kopac’s murder,” Maggie said.

  Andrew glanced at her. “But you made your reservation just hours afterward.”

  “It’d been a bad day.” She kept her tone even. “Have you ever been to Den Bosch? It’s full name is ’s-Hertogenbosch. There’s a lovely gothic cathedral there, and they do boat tours on the water-way—”

  “No, I’ve never been there, but I’ve been to Holland, of course, many times. Star and I travel frequently in our work—well, we used to.” His voice softened slightly, became less rat-tat. “It’s harder for us both to get away now that we have the inn.”

  “You go on solo trips?” Maggie asked.

  He narrowed his gaze on her. “Is this an interrogation?”

  “A friendly conversation, Mr. Franconia.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a half whisper. “I don’t mean to be rude. Please, enjoy your lunch.”

  He couldn’t get away fast enough.

  “He embarrassed himself,” Rob said. “You make him nervous.”

  “You don’t help matters,” Maggie said. “He knows marshals arrest people, but he’s not sure what diplomatic security agents do. And he knows you’re pals with the president. That’d make anyone nervous.”

  “Doesn’t seem to affect you.”

  “Sure it does. I’m just better at containing my emoti
ons.”

  Libby Smith returned with the carrot-orange soup, a dollop of sour cream melting in its center.

  “I’m not that hungry anymore,” Maggie said. “Maybe I should cancel the salmon.”

  “As you wish,” Libby said, smiling. “Don’t you just hate jet lag? I never know whether I’m supposed to eat, sleep or just be cranky.”

  Maggie laughed. “Some people would say I always know when to be cranky.”

  Libby laughed, too, but when she left, Rob picked the mint sprig out of his iced tea and set it on his place mat. “I want to know everything you know about your Sir Walter Raleigh character. Start to finish. When he contacted you, how, what he said, why St. John’s, what happened there. All of it.”

  Maggie dipped her spoon into her soup. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because we’re in this thing together.”

  “That’s what I was trying to avoid—”

  “Not that hard. If you’d wanted to disappear once you got to New York, you’d have figured out a way to do it.” He nodded to her. “Go ahead. Eat your soup and talk to me.”

  Whether he meant to or not, he managed to sound rational and calm and reasonable—not dictatorial, not panicked, not annoyed. It was a skill, Maggie thought. If their positions were reversed, she’d never have pulled it off.

  “It’s William,” she said. “Not Walter.”

  “He doesn’t think he defeated the Spanish Armada?”

  “As far as I know, no.”

  And she told Rob everything.

  Start to finish. All of it.

  Eleven

  After lunch, they ran across Libby Smith folding cloth napkins at the dining room table, and she offered to show them around the place. “I’ll give you the secret grand tour.”

  She had an eager but somewhat self-deprecating manner that Rob attributed to the awkwardness of being reduced, basically, to the live-in help in a house that had been in her family for generations. She pretended not to mind, that she loved what the Franconias had done to the place and appreciated having it off her hands. But it had to stick in her craw.

  Before Rob could bow out of any tour, Maggie accepted for both of them. A minute later, they were standing on the front steps and Libby had them listening for sounds of the nearby creek.