The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  Her stomach flipped over on her. “That’s not true.”

  “What part? You didn’t throw yourself at him or he didn’t laugh?”

  “You’re disgusting. I want you to leave.”

  “No, you don’t want me to leave. You want to help me settle a score with Jack Swift. You want to see him sweat. You want him to suffer for humiliating you.”

  “He—he wasn’t prepared for the level of intimacy I offered, that’s all. He was scared.”

  “Scared, huh?”

  “He knows I’ve been there for him. Always. Forever.”

  Mowery’s gaze bored through her. “What do you have on him?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Barbie, I’m going to put the squeeze on Senator Jack. I’m going to bleed him. You’re going to watch, and you’re going to enjoy the show.” He reached over and touched her knee. “Revenge can be very sweet.”

  She said nothing.

  His eyes narrowed, and he smiled. “Only it’s not revenge you want, is it, Barbie? I get it now. You want Jack to suffer and come to you, the one woman who loves him unconditionally. This is precious. Truly precious.”

  “My motives,” Barbara said, “are irrelevant.”

  “In twenty years, has old Jack ever made a pass at you?”

  “He wouldn’t. For much of that time he was a married man.”

  Mowery laughed out loud. “God, you’re a riot. This is going to be fun.”

  She was on dangerous ground. Deadly ground.

  Her stomach heaved, and she ran to the bathroom and vomited.

  Oh, God. I can’t do this.

  But she had to. She’d given Darren Mowery all the signals. He knew this was what she wanted. Not just a chance to get back at Jack for spurning her, but a chance to provide him with the opportunity to come to her for help, to find solace in her strength and wisdom. She’d driven up to Vermont and harassed Lucy, hoping it would relieve the pressure of wanting to hurt Jack, too. But it hadn’t. She loved him, and she wasn’t one to give up easily on those she loved.

  When she’d confided her love to him, Jack hadn’t gotten angry with her or shown any passion, any heat, any depth of emotion. He’d been kind. Solicitous. Professional. He gave her the predictable speech about how much he appreciated her, how he felt affection for her as a member of his staff, and how together, over the past twenty years, they’d done so much good for the people of this great nation.

  Blah-blah-blah. He’d even offered her a way out of her embarrassment, saying they’d all been under tremendous pressure and she should take a few days off.

  Well, she had, hadn’t she?

  She splashed her face with cold water and stared at herself in the mirror. Her gray eyes were bloodshot from the effort of vomiting, the lashes clumped together from water and tearing. She was just forty-one, not old. She still could have children. She knew plenty of first-time mothers in their forties.

  But she couldn’t have Swift children. Jack didn’t want her. Twenty years of dedicated service, and what did she have to show for it?

  Lucy was the one with the Swift children.

  Barbara dried her face. She could have had Colin. She could have had the Swift children. Instead, she’d waited for Jack.

  Darren opened the door behind her, and she placed a hand on the sink to steady herself. “I’m sorry. My stomach’s a little off. It must be the heat.”

  He was so smug. “Blackmail’s not a game for someone with a weak stomach.”

  That was what they were tiptoeing around—and had been right from the beginning. Blackmail. She nodded, cool. It was to her advantage for him to think he was the security expert with the murky past, the dark and dangerous insider convinced he knew how the “real world” worked better than a super-competent, desk-bound bureaucrat possibly could.

  “Colin and I,” she began. She swallowed, met Mowery’s cold gaze. “We had an affair before he died. Jack doesn’t know. Neither does Lucy. No one does.”

  “And?”

  “And I have pictures.”

  Mowery nodded thoughtfully. “Kinky pictures?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Well, if it’s pictures of you two on his daddy’s campaign trail—”

  “By your standards, the pictures would be considered ‘kinky.’ By mine, they’re proof of the physical and emotional bond we shared.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you want to see them?”

  He rubbed his chin. “So you fucked the son, and the widowed daughter-in-law and the innocent grandkids don’t know it.”

  “Must you be so coarse?”

  “Listen to you, Barbie. You’re the one who had an affair with another woman’s husband. The boss’s son. And this you tell me not two weeks after you threw yourself at the boss, presumably because you’d like to get some of him, too. Let’s talk about who’s ‘coarse.’”

  She was silent. Stricken.

  “Well,” Mowery said, “it’s not pretty, but it could work.”

  “It will work. Jack will pay dearly to keep such information quiet.” She straightened, eyed him coolly. She wanted him to think he was in control, not that she was a complete ninny. “If you’re not convinced, walk out of here now. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”

  He gave a curt laugh and started back down the hall to the living room. Without turning around, he motioned with one finger for her to follow.

  Barbara joined him. She had to stiffen her muscles to keep herself from trembling. Goose bumps sprang up on her arms from the air-conditioning. She was cold now. Dehydrated. Not nervous, not afraid, she told herself. She was absolutely positive this was the best—the only—course of action.

  “Here’s the deal, Barbie. In for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t do cold feet.”

  She raised her chin and met his gaze directly. “I’m not some weak-minded twit.”

  She sat stiffly on a chair and crossed her legs and arms, steeled herself against the cold of the air-conditioning, the itching, stinging bug bites, the insidious feeling that Mowery knew more about her than she realized. She had to remember the kind of work he did, remain on her guard.

  Slowly, her shivering subsided.

  “Did you fuck the son,” he asked, “or are you just making that up because Jack doesn’t want you?”

  She remained calm, practicing the restraint she’d learned in twenty years as Jack Swift’s most trusted aide. “Men like you don’t understand loyalty and service, true commitment.”

  “Damn right we don’t.” He grinned, deeply amused by his own wit. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You can have whatever little fantasies you want, Barbie.”

  “I’m not a woman taken to fantasizing.”

  Indeed not, she thought. She wouldn’t have gone to Jack if she hadn’t believed with all her heart, soul and mind that he wanted her to speak up, finally, after all these years. She didn’t invent this sort of thing, not after two decades in Washington. She hadn’t misread the cues. Jack Swift simply wasn’t prepared to act on his own feelings. He had run. And now she needed to turn him back in the right direction, back to her.

  Darren jumped up, grabbed both her hands and lifted her onto her feet. Her breath caught. What now? What was he doing? He was very muscular and strong. She could never physically overpower him. She had to rely on her wits, her intelligence and incredible self-discipline.

  There was nothing sexual in the way he held her. “How long has it been, Barbie? How long since you’ve had a man?” He squeezed her waist, choking the air from her. “Not since Colin Swift? Not ever?”

  “That’s none of your business.” She kept her tone deliberately cold, in control. “Our relationship is strictly professional. We are partners in a scheme to blackmail a United States senator. That’s all.”

  He squeezed harder, painfully. She couldn’t move. “No surprises, Barbie. Understand? If this is going to work, I know everything.”

  “I told you—”

  “Did you ha
ve an affair with Colin Swift?”

  “Yes.”

  This had to be a test. She didn’t know what to do to pass. Run screaming? Beg him to make love to her? Slap him?

  No, she thought. Hold your ground. She wanted him to underestimate her, not to think he could roll over her.

  “You stereotype me at your own peril, Mr. Mowery,” she said. “I’m not some dried-up prune pining for a man I can’t have.”

  “Where were you last week?”

  “On vacation. I hit outlet stores all over New England.”

  “Vermont?”

  “What?”

  He moved his hands higher, squeezing her ribs. “Did you go to Vermont?”

  “I can’t breathe—”

  “You can say yes or no.”

  She nodded, gasping. “Yes.”

  “Did you see Lucy Swift?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “She decided to go to Wyoming at the last minute. She paid top dollar for the tickets. She took her kids. I want to know why.”

  “I can’t—breathe—I—”

  He eased up, just slightly.

  Barbara coughed, gulping in air. “Goddamn you—”

  “Tell me about Lucy.”

  “I don’t know anything. You’ll have to ask her yourself. I went outlet shopping in Manchester one day. That’s all.”

  Lying to him was dangerous, Barbara thought, but telling the truth had to be more dangerous.

  He traced the skin just under her breasts with his thumbs. He had no sexual interest in her. His focus on his mission was total. He wasn’t that complicated a man, Barbara thought, and she wasn’t that undesirable a woman. Obviously his obsession with Jack Swift was something she needed to better understand.

  His gaze was cold even as he released her. “Arnica,” he said.

  She rubbed her sides. “What?”

  “Rub in a little arnica oil for the bruises.”

  She headed back to the bathroom. This time she didn’t throw up. She washed her hands, closed the lid on the toilet and sat down. She was risking everything. She had a stimulating career, a nice apartment, a fabulous set of friends. There were men who wanted her. Good, successful men.

  She didn’t have to let a scummy Darren Mowery fondle her in her own living room.

  After Jack had dispatched her, so politely, as if she were pathetic, she’d learned he was seeing Sidney Greenburg, a curator at the Smithsonian—fifty years old, never married, no children. Why her? Why not Barbara?

  Sidney was one of Lucy’s Washington friends.

  I could have married Colin. I didn’t have to wait for Jack.

  “Barbara?”

  Darren was outside the door. She didn’t move.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go down,” he said. “I’ll approach Jack. I’ll put the squeeze on him. He’s not going to risk his own reputation or sully his dead son’s reputation. He’ll pay. And you’ll get ten percent.”

  She jumped up and tore open the door. “Ten percent! Forget it. I’ll call the police right now. You’d have nothing without me. I had the affair with Colin. I have the pictures.”

  “You won’t call the police,” Darren said calmly.

  “I will. You’re threatening a United States senator.”

  “Barbara. Please.” He was cold, supercilious. “If you make one wrong move once this thing gets started, I’ll be there. Trust me. You won’t want that.”

  Her stomach turned in on itself. She clutched it in silent agony. What if Lucy went crying to Sebastian Redwing because of her harassment campaign? “Bastard.”

  “Bingo. You got that one right.”

  Barbara held up her chin, summoning twenty years of experience at using other people’s arrogance to her own advantage. And to Jack’s. “Jack couldn’t survive a week in this town without me, and he knows it. When he comes to me, you’d better be far away. That’s your only warning.”

  “Oh, is it? Get this straight, Barbie.” Mowery leaned in close, enunciated each word clearly. “I don’t care if you fucked Swift father and son at the same time. I don’t care if you made up the whole goddamn thing. We’re putting this show on the road, and we’re doing it my way.”

  Acid rose up in her throat. “I can’t believe I let you touch me.”

  He laughed. “And you will again, Barbie. Trust me on that.”

  He swaggered back down the hall. She spat at his back, missing by yards. He laughed harder.

  “Fifty percent,” she yelled.

  He stopped, glanced back at her.

  She was choking for air. Dear God, what had she done? “I want fifty percent of the take.”

  “The take? Okay, Dick Tracy. I’ll give you twenty-five percent.”

  “Fifty. I deserve it.”

  He winked at her. “I like you, Barbie. You got the short end of the stick with the Swifts, and you keep on fighting. Yep. I like you a lot.”

  “I’m serious. I want fifty percent.”

  “Barbie, maybe you should think this through.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m not a very nice man. I expect you know that by now. My sympathy for you only goes so far.”

  She hesitated. Her head was spinning. This wasn’t a time for cold feet, any sign of weakness. “Twenty-five percent, then,” she said.

  Jack Swift poured himself a second glass of wine. It was a dry apple-pear wine from a new winery in his home state. He toasted Sidney Greenburg, who was still on her first glass. “To the wines of Rhode Island.”

  She laughed. “Yes, but not to this particular bottle. I love fruit wines, Jack, but this one’s pure rot-gut.”

  He laughed, too. “It is, isn’t it? Well, I’ve never been much of a wine connoisseur. A good scotch—that’s something I can understand.”

  It was a very warm, humid, still evening. They were sitting out in the tiny brick courtyard of his Georgetown home. Rhode Island, his home state, the state he’d represented first in the House, then in the Senate, seemed far away tonight. This was where he’d raised his son, where he’d nursed his wife through her long, losing battle with cancer. They were both gone now. He’d been tempted to sell the house. He’d bought it in his early days in Washington; it’d go for a mint. He’d even debated quitting the Senate. Barbara Allen had talked him out of both. Over twenty years, she’d saved him from many a precipitous move.

  “I don’t know what to do, Sidney.” He stared at the pale wine. He and Sidney had been discussing Barbara Allen most of the evening. “She’s been with me since she was a college intern.”

  “You’re not going to do anything.”

  “I can’t just pretend—”

  “Yes, you can, and you’ll be doing her a favor if you do.”

  Sidney set her glass on the garden table. That she had such affection for him was a constant source of amazement. He was an old widower, a gray-haired, paunchy United States senator who wasn’t eaten up with his own self-importance. She was a striking woman, with very dark eyes and dark hair liberally streaked with gray. She wore little makeup, and she complained about carrying more weight than she liked around her hips and thighs; Jack hadn’t noticed. She was intelligent, kind, experienced and self-assured, comfortable in her own skin. She’d worked with Lucy’s parents at the Smithsonian and had known Lucy since she was a little girl, long before Lucy had met Colin.

  “Listen to me, Jack,” she said. “Barbara is not a pathetic woman. You are not to feel sorry for her because she’s forty and unmarried. If she’s given herself to her job to the exclusion of her personal life, that was her choice. Allow her the dignity of having made that choice. And don’t assume just because she doesn’t have a husband and children, she must not have a full life.”

  “I haven’t! I wouldn’t—”

  “Of course, you would. People do it all the time.” She smiled, taking any edge off her words. “If Barbara Allen’s feeling a little goofy and off-center right now, accept it at face value and give her a chance to get over it.”


  Jack sighed. “She practically threw herself at me.”

  “And I suppose you’ve never had a married woman throw herself at you?”

  “Well…”

  “Come on, Jack. If Barbara’s nuts unmarried, she’d be nuts married.”

  He held back a smile. As educated and refined as Sidney was, she did know how to cut to the chase. “I didn’t say she was nuts.”

  “That’s my point exactly.” Her eyes shone, and she spoke with conviction, laughing at his frown. “You are a very dense man for someone who has to go before the people for votes. Jack, the woman made a pass at you. It’s been three years since Colin’s death, five years since Eleanor’s death. You’ve only just begun dating again. I see her actions as—” She shrugged. “Perfectly normal.”

  He drank more of his wine. The damn stuff all tasted the same to him, whether it was made from pears, apples or grapes. “Maybe so.”

  “But?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The unmarried forty-year-old in the office makes people nervous. They never know if she’s a little dotty, living in squalor with twenty-five cats.”

  “That’s archaic, Sidney.”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “It’s true. If Barbara were married and made a pass at you, you’d be flattered. You wouldn’t sit here squirming over what to do. You’d think she was a normal, healthy woman.” She grabbed up his hand. “Jack, I’ve been there.”

  “No one could ever think you were off your gourd.”

  She smiled. “I have two cats. I’ve been known to feed them off the china.”

  He saw the twinkle in her eye and laughed. That was what he treasured about Sidney most of all. She made him laugh. She was quick-witted, self-deprecating, irreverent. She didn’t take her job, herself, or life inside the Beltway too seriously.

  But Jack couldn’t shake a lingering sense of uneasiness. “There’s still something about Barbara.”

  “Then there’s something about Barbara. Period.”

  “I see what you’re saying—”

  “Finally!” Sidney fell back against her chair, as if his denseness had exhausted her. “Now, can we change the subject?”