The Rapids

by Carla Neggers

  Libby quickly recovered the rock she’d used to hit him, but before she could finish off Brooker, Maggie Spencer arrived.

  Libby managed to slip away without being seen. She’d stayed within the woods and avoided open ground, then walked boldly through the cornfield back up to the asters.

  Brooker must have also spotted the DS agent on her walk and planned to intercept her, find out what she was doing in Ravenkill, share notes. Something.

  Should have left well enough alone, Libby thought.

  “I’ll put these out on the tables,” she said, collecting up her half-dozen vases of brightly colored asters.

  “Maggie Spencer’s upstairs changing,” Star said, her voice slightly stronger. “The marshal who was with her yesterday is out on the porch waiting for her.”

  “Does that make you nervous?”

  “It all makes me nervous. Where’s Andrew? Have you seen him?”

  Libby shook her head. “Not this morning.”

  “I hope he—” Star pulled her upper and lower lips between her teeth, fighting back tears. Finally, she let out a breath and waved a hand. “Never mind.”

  God. Libby almost dropped the vases. Star thought that Andrew had done something?

  Warning herself not to read too much into Star’s dramatics, Libby exited to the porch, where, indeed, Deputy Dunnemore was sitting at an empty table. He really was even more good-looking than he was in all the pictures of him in the paper and on TV last spring.

  Libby set five of the small vases on one table, then started distributing them one by one to other tables.

  “You picked those flowers just now?” Dunnemore asked.

  “Mmm. Pretty, aren’t they?” She set another vase in the middle of a table, pretending to admire the splashes of pink, orange and red against the pale green and white decor. “I understand Agent Spencer had a mishap in the river. Do you know what happened?”

  “More or less.”

  He left it at that. Did he know about Brooker? Had Spencer told him? Of course—why wouldn’t she? But why hadn’t she called the police, or at least an ambulance? The only explanation Libby could think of was that Brooker wasn’t seriously injured and had told her not to.

  Where the hell was the army major now?

  “The riverbank can be deceptive,” Libby said. “I grew up here and I’ve made a few wrong steps myself.”

  Maggie Spencer came downstairs and breezed out onto the porch. She smelled faintly of the lilac soap Star had in all the rooms. Her hair was still damp from her shower, and she’d changed into long pants and a denim jacket.

  Libby placed the final vase.

  Too bad Spencer hadn’t hit her head when Brooker pounced on her. Maybe he blamed her for how he’d ended up in the river?

  My life’s not that simple, Libby thought.

  Dunnemore turned to her, his Southern charm, she thought, less in evidence than his marshal demeanor. “Nice talking with you, Ms. Smith.”

  “Same here, Deputy.”

  The two federal agents left, and Libby returned to the kitchen, realizing she wasn’t shaking or nervous.

  If anything, she was exhilarated.

  With William Raleigh humming to himself two steps behind him, Ethan staggered out of the woods onto a gravel turnaround that marked the end of the road that led from the village to the inn. The creek, shallower and wider than farther downstream where Maggie Spencer had found him, sounded almost like the wind.

  His entire body ached. His head felt like it might blow into a million pieces.

  Fine with him, he decided. Maybe it’d end his misery.

  “You can’t remember anything?” Raleigh asked for at least the third time. “Are you sure?”

  “No, I can’t. Yes, I’m sure. I can’t remember anything after I got to the river.” He turned to the older man, pushing back a wave of pain and nausea, trying not to let Raleigh see just how injured he was. “Relax, okay? You look worse on a good day than I do on a bad one.”

  Raleigh didn’t smile. “Do you need a doctor?”

  “I just need some time for my head to clear.”

  He’d made off with Juliet’s cell phone that morning before she woke up. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time. He’d headed to Grand Central Station and boarded a train north to Ravenkill. When he got off in the village, he followed the directions he’d memorized from the inn’s Web site and walked the mile to the Old Stone Hollow Inn.

  Something had distracted him before he got to the inn, but he couldn’t remember what. Had he spotted Agent Spencer taking a jaunt through the woods? It was all a blur.

  He’d dumped his backpack out of sight under a tree. For some reason, he could remember that. Next thing he knew, he was looking into Maggie Spencer’s eyes and thinking she was trying to kill him.

  He’d been out of his head, belligerent, paranoid. His reaction to her had been instinctive and defensive, but he’d known he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Some reptilian part of his brain must have recognized she wasn’t a threat, because he remembered checking the water behind her to make sure it was deep enough to take her fall, that she wouldn’t hit her head on rocks.

  But he’d taken a risk, attacking a federal agent.

  He hadn’t gotten far before she’d caught up with him. That annoyed him. But if his fall wasn’t an accident, he figured Spencer’s arrival may have spooked his attacker and saved his life.

  That didn’t sit well with him, either.

  “You have a car?” he asked.

  Raleigh shrugged. “Not really.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not really’? That was a yes or no question.”

  “It means no.”

  “So we have to walk? Are you up to it? Do you want me to use your cell phone to call a taxi?”

  Ethan’s head was spinning. “Then what? Even if I could get a taxi to take me, they’d kick me off the train. I stink now, and I’ll stink worse when my clothes dry. Hell. I’ve got dead mosquitoes in my hair. Blood on my shirt.” He didn’t think he sounded all that coherent but kept going. “And you—you’re not much better. You look like you should be sleeping under a bridge.”

  “Then it’s just as well I arranged a ride for you.”

  “What?” Ethan felt fogged in, as if his vision were being pinched. “What ride?”

  “Deputy Longstreet. She was on her way up here, anyway.” A flicker of a smile. “On your case, I’d say.”

  “Fuck. I’m going to barf.”

  “Sit down. Try to relax.” Raleigh half shoved him to the pavement and sighed. “You’re a wreck. She can take you to the ER.”

  “I’ll be fine.” It was his mantra, Ethan decided. I’ll be fine. He closed his eyes, hoping the nausea passed. “It wasn’t you who dumped me in the river?”

  “We’re on the same side, Major.”

  “Right.” Ethan didn’t know if he sounded sarcastic and dubious or just half-dead. His stomach rolled over again, but he shut his eyes and went still, managing to keep the contents where they belonged. “Raleigh—”

  But when he opened his eyes, the old man had disappeared, and a battered pickup with Vermont plates rattled to a stop in the turnaround.

  Juliet Longstreet climbed out, armed and not real happy. “Oh, man. Look at you, Brooker. Your friend, whoever he was, should have called an ambulance.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  The mantra again. He got on all fours, then onto his knees, then got one foot flat on the gravel ground. The river water and the New York bagel he’d picked up in Grand Central Station bubbled in his stomach, and his head throbbed. He heaved himself up, staggering toward the blond marshal with the blue eyes and the scowl.

  She slipped a shoulder against him and took his weight, easing an arm around his middle. “What are you doing?” she asked, the softness of her voice catching him by surprise. “When are you going to give it up and get your life back?”

  “Char…” He could see his wife’s face, hear her voice, even as he leaned in
to Juliet and let her take more of his weight. She wasn’t a small woman. He wouldn’t crush her.

  “I know. Come on. Let me help you.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “No, you hate needing help. There’s a difference.”

  She tugged open the passenger door of her truck and maneuvered him up onto the seat. “Don’t throw up in my truck. Understood?”

  As weak as he was, he grinned at her. “How come I keep seeing you after I’ve ended up in a river?”

  “Karma. Watch your foot, I’m shutting the door.”

  She locked him in, as if he might fall out or jump out on the interstate, and came around to the driver’s seat. Her movements were stiff, and he could see she was, on the one hand, irritated with her situation and on the other hand, resigned to doing something she knew she shouldn’t do.

  She stuck the key in the ignition. “I want my phone back.”

  “Why’d you let me borrow it?”

  “You didn’t borrow it. You stole it. That’s what I told Mike Rivera.”

  Ethan felt his eyes starting to close against his will. “You’re full of shit, Longstreet. You were awake.”

  She made a face. “Look at you. Damn, Brooker. Are you done bleeding? I shouldn’t get you to the E.R. and get that head looked at? Head injuries can be tricky.”

  “I just need clean clothes and a cigarette.”

  “There’s no smoking in my truck.”

  “I only smoke when I’m in pain.”

  She shifted the truck into Reverse, checking her rearview mirror. “Why Ravenkill? Did you know Maggie Spencer was here? You must have.”

  Even as out of sorts as he was, he knew not to get into his reasons for being in Ravenkill with a U.S. Marshal. “My head hurts.”

  “How did it happen? The bump on the head.”

  “I told you. I fell into the river.”

  She braked hard, putting the truck into first gear as she glanced over at him. “Like Thomas Kopac?”

  “Well, he had a .22 round in the back of his skull. I just hit a rock—”

  “Or got banged on the head with one. Which is it?”

  “I think I fell.”

  “You think? You don’t know. Goddamn it, Brooker—”

  “I’ve slept with your plants and fish.” The contents of his stomach were oozing up his throat, and the pounding in his head hadn’t even begun to let up. “We should be Ethan and Juliet to each other by now.”

  She had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “You rattled my brain showing up last night.”

  He smiled. “First piece of good news I’ve had today.”

  “You don’t remember anything about what happened? Don’t tell me you slipped. You don’t slip. I saw you jump forty feet into the Cumberland River that day in Tennessee. You had a guy with a gun at your head, two dead guys at your feet—”

  “At the point I jumped, the gun was at your head.”

  “God.” She raked a hand through her short curls. “I don’t trust you, Brooker.”

  “Ethan. And, yeah, you do.”

  She softened again, and he could see the tension going out of her shoulders, her blue eyes shining with a depth of compassion that he suspected she preferred to keep at bay. He saw it because he was that way himself. It was easier. Less chance of getting your heart ripped out of your chest.

  She gulped in a breath and averted her gaze, as if looking at him would just make her fall apart. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  He couldn’t involve her in his mess. Raleigh, Kopac, Janssen. Ravenkill. Whatever they all amounted to, he wasn’t sucking Juliet into it. He’d crossed lines, but he could—he didn’t answer to anyone. She did.

  “Relax, Juliet,” he said. “I’ve hurt my head worse than this fixing my car. I’ll be fine. I just need some time.”

  “You are hurt, then?”

  “I don’t remember what happened. Until I do—”

  “You’re not trusting anyone. You’re not talking to anyone.”

  He let his silence be his response.

  “Ethan…” She sighed. “Damn.”

  His stomach settled down. He wasn’t going to vomit, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open, felt his body sinking and his fatigue overtake him.

  “You don’t scare me,” she said.

  He tried to focus on her through his pain and exhaustion. “I don’t want to scare you.”

  It was all he could manage, but he saw her look of shock and confusion before he closed his eyes again, unable to stop himself from drifting off.

  “Sleep well, Major Brooker,” she whispered. “You’ve come too far to get killed on us now.”

  He didn’t have the strength even to open his eyes.

  Char…

  His wife was gone, her memory like a stab of heat and guilt.

  He thought he heard Juliet sigh. Or maybe it was his dead wife’s ghost, leaving him alone to sleep and dream.

  Nate Winter would rather be on Cold Ridge where he grew up in the White Mountains, immersed in a thick fog and fierce wind, than more or less alone in a room with the President of the United States.

  John Wesley Poe, however, never showed any sign he noticed Nate’s discomfort or shared it. His focus was on his reasons for calling Nate to the White House.

  They were in a sitting area, Poe on a wing chair, Nate on a love seat.

  Nate was surprised at how quiet it was.

  Poe shook his head. “Rob’s got himself mixed up with Philip Spencer’s daughter and William Raleigh. I can’t believe it. It’s like I saw this coming, knew it would get here, but couldn’t admit it.”

  Nate shifted positions, trying to get comfortable on the love seat. “Mr. President?”

  “They were a pair. Raleigh and Spencer. Before my time.”

  “Intelligence operatives?” Nate asked, guessing.

  But Poe didn’t give a direct answer. “Friends. Good friends. Spencer was killed eighteen months ago in Prague.” He sighed. “It was before my time in office, not that it matters.”

  Poe’s emotional involvement—his dread—was palpable, beyond what Nate could understand. “Philip Spencer was killed when he walked into the middle of a bank robbery—”

  “That’s the story.”

  “There was no bank robbery?”

  “Oh, there was a bank robbery.” Poe sank back into his chair, looking tired, a rarity for a man with his renowned stamina. “I don’t know how much it had to do with what happened to Spencer. Raleigh wants his killer. Some people think he’s responsible for Spencer’s death—that he screwed up, plain and simple. He’d retired, supposedly. Went back to drinking. Again, supposedly. There are rumors he talked out of turn, bragged to the wrong person.”

  “So Raleigh’s not only looking for a killer,” Nate said. “He wants vindication.”

  “From what I understand, the man’s a riddle. I’m not sure anyone really knows what he’s up to. He could simply want to look after a friend’s daughter, no matter how competent and skilled she is.”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  Poe shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “Mr. President,” Nate said, leaning forward, folding his hands over his knees as if somehow it would help him understand this man who meant so much to the Dunnemores, who was so much a part of their lives. “What’s worrying you?”

  He averted his eyes. “I’ve been waiting for this moment. It’s like watching a drought in the west, knowing the fire season’s coming and that there’s nothing you can do. The conditions are there. They’re perfect. All it takes is a dropped match, a lightning strike, a spark of a dragging muffler.”

  Poe sometimes had a metaphorical way of talking that he seemed to think drove home his point. He could spin a story—Sarah said it was a Night’s Landing tradition, a skill born and developed on their quiet stretch of the Cumberland River. But Nate was from the Granite State, raised by a Vietnam vet uncle. He tended to be more direct. “Mr. President?” />
  “Rob’s not going to stay in the Marshals Service.”

  There was nothing Nate could add. He knew what Poe said was true. He’d known it the minute he’d met Rob earlier in the year, when Rob had been assigned to the southeastern New York district. It wasn’t that he didn’t belong in the USMS. He just wasn’t staying.

  “He’s suited to intelligence work. William Raleigh will reel him in, just as he reeled in Philip Spencer. And it scares me.” Poe sighed heavily, no longer dancing around the truth about Raleigh and Spencer. “It scares the hell out of me.”

  “Because Rob’s a Dunnemore,” Nate said.

  “Leola and Violet wanted me to stay in Night’s Landing,” Poe went on, referring to the two unmarried sisters who’d raised him. “They worried about me all the time, from the day I left home.”

  Orphaned at seven, Nate had faced different kinds of fears. “I think it comes with the turf.”

  “I know Rob can take care of himself. It’s just—” He broke off. “Damn. He thinks his father and I don’t believe in him, but that’s not it. It’s a visceral thing, Nate. This fear. I’ve never had a son of my own.”

  “Is anyone in touch with Raleigh? You could get him to back off—”

  “No, I couldn’t. Whether I could get in touch with him or not, I could never interfere that way.”

  “You wouldn’t, you mean.”

  “That’s right. I wouldn’t.”

  “I respect that, Mr.—”

  “Wes,” he said, managing a ragged smile. “Just once can you call me Wes?”

  “Maybe when you’re out of office, Mr. President.”

  Poe rose, and Nate followed his lead, the Washington humidity noticeable even in the air-conditioned White House. “What’s Sarah up to today?” the president asked.

  Nate relaxed at mention of his future wife. “Digging in her dump.”

  “She’ll know—”

  “She already does. She denies there’s a twin connection between her and Rob, but it’s there. She knows he’s in trouble. This Raleigh character—he’s not drinking now?”

  “There are rumors he had a mental breakdown. But I’m told William Raleigh is one of the most clear-eyed people we have.”