The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  The dogs suddenly went silent. The yellow Lab mix yawned and stretched. The German shepherd mix plopped down and scratched himself. The smallest of the three—an unidentifiable mix that had resulted in a white coat with black and brown splotches—paced and panted.

  “You kids hear anyone call them off?” Lucy asked. J.T. shook his head, his eyes wide. This was more adventure than he’d bargained for, out in the wilds of Wyoming with three grouchy dogs and no friendly humans in sight. “No, did you?”

  Madison huffed. “Plato should have sent us with an armed guard.”

  Lucy sighed. “Madison, that doesn’t help.”

  “You’re scaring me,” J.T. said.

  “You two stay here while I go see if we have the right place.” Lucy unfastened her seat belt and climbed out of the car. The air seemed hotter, even drier. The dogs paid no attention to her. She smiled at her nervous son. “See, J.T.? It’s okay.”

  He nodded dubiously.

  “Relax, Lucy.” The male voice seemed to come from nowhere. “You’ve got the right place.”

  J.T. swooped across the back seat and pointed at the cabin. “There! Someone’s on the porch!”

  Lucy shot her children a warning look. “Stay here.”

  She mounted two flat, creaky, dusty steps onto the unprepossessing porch. An ancient, ratty rope hammock hung from rusted hooks. In it lay a dust-covered man with a once-white cowboy hat pulled down over his face. He wore jeans, a chambray shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, cowboy boots. All of it was scuffed, worn.

  Lucy noted the long legs, the flat stomach, the muscled, tanned forearms and the callused, tanned hands. Sebastian Redwing, she remembered, had always been a very physical man.

  The yellow Lab lumbered onto the porch and collapsed under the hammock in a kalumph that seemed to shake the entire cabin.

  “Sebastian?”

  The man pushed the hat off his face. It, too, was dusty and tanned, and more lined and angular than she remembered. His eyes settled on her. Like everything else, they seemed the color of dust. She remembered they were gray, an unusual, surprisingly soft gray. “Hello, Lucy.”

  Her mouth and lips were dry from the long drive, the low western humidity. “Plato sent me.”

  “I figured.”

  “I’m in Wyoming on business. I have the kids with me. Madison and J.T.”

  He said nothing. He didn’t look as if he planned to move from the hammock.

  “Mom! J.T.’s bleeding!”

  Madison, panicked, leaped out of the car and dragged her brother from the back seat. He cupped his hands under his nose, blood dripping through his fingers.

  “Oh, gross,” his sister said, standing back as she thrust a paper napkin at him.

  Lucy ran toward them. “Tilt your head back.”

  The German shepherd barked at J.T. Sebastian gave a low, barely audible command from his hammock, and the dog backed off.

  J.T., struggling not to cry, stumbled up onto the porch. “I bled all over the car.”

  Madison was right behind him. “He did, Mom.”

  Sebastian materialized at Lucy’s side. She’d forgotten how tall and lean he was, how uneasy she’d always felt around him. Not afraid. Just uneasy. He glanced at J.T. “Kid’s fine. It’s the dry air and the dust.”

  Madison gaped at him. Lucy concentrated on her bleeding son. “May we use your sink?”

  “Don’t have one. You can get water from the pump out back.” He eyed Madison. “You know how to use an outdoor pump?”

  She shook her head.

  “Time you learned.” He was calm, his voice quiet if not soothing. “Lucy, you can bring J.T. inside. Madison and I will meet you.”

  She shrank back, her eyes widening.

  Lucy said, “It’s okay, Madison.”

  Sebastian frowned, as if he couldn’t fathom what about him would be a cause for concern—a dusty man in an isolated cabin with three dogs and no running water. He started down the steps. Madison took a breath and followed, glancing back at Lucy and mouthing, “Unabomber.”

  Lucy got J.T. inside. The prosaic exterior did not deceive. In addition to no running water, there was no electricity. It was like being catapulted back a century to the frontier.

  “It’s just a nosebleed,” J.T. said, stuffing the paper napkin up his nose. “I’m fine.”

  Lucy grabbed a ragged dish towel from a hook above a wooden counter. The kitchen. There was oatmeal, cornmeal, coffee, cans of beans, jars of salsa and, incongruously, a jug of pure Vermont maple syrup.

  In a few minutes, Madison came through the back door with a pitted aluminum pitcher of water. Lucy dipped in the towel. “I think you’ve stopped bleeding, J.T. Let’s just get you cleaned up, okay?” She glanced at her daughter. “Where’s Sebastian?”

  “Out taming wild horses or hunting buffalo, I don’t know. Mom. He doesn’t even have a bathroom.”

  “This place is pretty rustic.”

  Madison groaned. “Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven. I told you.”

  Sebastian walked in from the front porch. “What’s she doing watching R-rated movies? She’s not seventeen.”

  “That’s without a parent or parental permission.” Lucy stifled an urge to tell him to mind his own damn business, but since he hadn’t invited her to come out here, she kept her mouth shut. “Madison’s a student of film history. I watched Unforgiven with her because it’s so violent.”

  He frowned at her. “I’m not violent.”

  Lucy had always considered him a man of controlled violence in a violent profession, but before she could say anything, Madison jumped in. “But you live like Eastwood in that opening scene with his two children—”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t have hogs.”

  That obviously settled it as far as he was concerned. Lucy shook her head at Madison to keep her from arguing her point. For once, her daughter took the hint.

  “How’s J.T.?” Sebastian asked.

  “He’s better,” Lucy said. “Thanks for your help.” J.T. kept the wet towel pressed to his nose. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Good.” Sebastian didn’t seem particularly worried. “You two kids can go down to the barn and look at the horses while I talk to your mother. Dogs’ll go with you.”

  “Come on, J.T.,” Madison said, playing the protective big sister for a change. “The barn can’t be any worse than this place.”

  She and her brother retreated, both getting dirtier with every passing minute. If the dry air, dust and altitude bothered Madison, she’d never admit it.

  Sebastian grunted. “Kid has a mouth on her.”

  “They’re both great kids,” Lucy said.

  He turned to her. She was intensely aware of the silence. No hum of fans or air-conditioning, no cars, not even a bird twittering. “I’m sure they are.”

  “Plato said you were on some kind of sabbatical.”

  “Sabbatical? So that’s what he’s saying now. Hell. I have to remember his mother’s a professor.”

  “You’re not—”

  Something in his eyes stopped her. Lucy could count on one hand the times she’d actually seen Sebastian Redwing, but she remembered his unnerving capacity to make her think he could see into her soul. She expected it was a skill that helped him in his work. She wondered if it was part of why he was living out here. Perhaps he’d seen too much. Most likely, he just didn’t want to be around people.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” he said.

  “I promised Colin.” It sounded so archaic when she said it. She pushed back her hair, too aware of herself for her own comfort. “I told him if I ever needed help, I’d come to you. So, here I am. Except I really don’t need your help, after all.”

  “You don’t?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Good. I’d hate for you to have wasted a trip.” He started back across the worn floorboards toward the porch. “I’m not in the helping business.”

  She was stunned. “What?”
<
br />   “Plato’ll feed you, get you back on the road before dark.”

  Lucy stared at his back as he went out onto the porch. In the cabin’s dim light, she saw an iron bed in one corner of the room, cast-off running shoes, a book of Robert Penn Warren poetry, a stack of James Bond novels and one of Joe Citro’s books of Vermont ghost stories. There was also a kerosene lamp.

  This was not what she’d expected. Redwing Associates was high-tech and very serious, one of the best investigative and security consulting firms in the business. Sebastian’s brainchild. He knew his way around the world. If nothing else, Lucy had expected she might have to hold him back, keep him from moving too fast and too hard on her behalf.

  Instead, he’d turned her down flat. Without argument. Without explanation.

  She took a breath. The dust, altitude and dry air hadn’t given her a bloody nose like they had J.T. They’d just driven every drop of sanity and common sense right out of her. She never should have come here.

  She followed him out onto the porch. “You’re going to take my word for it that I don’t need help?”

  “Sure.” He dropped back into his hammock. “You’re a smart lady. You know if you need help or not.”

  “What if it was all bluster? What if I’m bluffing? What if I’m too proud and—”

  “And so?”

  She clenched her fists at her sides, resisting an urge to hit something. “Plato fudged it when he said you were on sabbatical, didn’t he? I’ll bet Madison was more right than she realized.”

  “Lucy, if I wanted you to know about my life, I’d send you Christmas cards.” He grabbed his hat and lay back in the hammock. “Have you ever gotten a Christmas card from me?”

  “No, and I hope I never do.”

  She spun around so abruptly, the blood rushed out of her head. She reeled, steadying herself. Damn if she’d let herself pass out. The bastard would dump a pitcher of well water on her head, strap her to a horse and send her on her way.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. Things change.” She couldn’t tell if he’d softened, but thought he might have. “I guess you know that better than most of us.”

  She turned back to him and inhaled, regaining some semblance of self-control. She was furious with herself for having come out here—and with Plato for having sent her when he had to know the reception she’d get. She was out of her element, and she hated it. “That’s it, then? You’re not going to help me?”

  He gave her a half smile and pulled his hat back down over his eyes. “Who’re you kidding, Lucy Blacker? You’ve never needed anyone’s help.”

  Plato didn’t come for Sebastian until early the next morning. Very early. Dawn was spilling out on the horizon, and Sebastian, having tended the horses and the dogs, was back in his hammock when Plato’s truck pulled up. He thumped onto the porch, his gait uneven from his limp. It’d be two years soon. He’d have the limp for life.

  “You turned Lucy down?”

  Sebastian tilted his hat back off his eyes. “So did you.”

  “She didn’t come out here for my help. She came for yours.”

  “She hates me, you know.”

  Plato grinned. “Of course, she hates you. You’re a jackass and a loser.”

  Sebastian didn’t take offense. Plato had always been one to speak out loud what others were thinking. “Her kid bled on my porch. How am I going to protect a twelve-year-old kid who gets nosebleeds? The daughter’s a snot. She kept comparing me to Clint Eastwood.”

  “Eastwood? Nah. He’s older and better-looking than you.” Plato laughed. “I guess Lucy and her kids are lucky you’ve renounced violence.”

  “We’re all lucky.”

  Silence.

  Sebastian felt a gnawing pain in his lower back. He’d slept in the hammock. A bad idea.

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Plato asked.

  “Tell her what?”

  “That you’ve renounced violence.”

  “None of her business. None of yours, either.”

  If his curtness bothered Plato, he didn’t say. “Darren Mowery’s hanging around her father-in-law.”

  “Shut up, Rabedeneira. You’re like a damn rooster crowing in my ear.”

  Plato stepped closer. “This is Lucy, Sebastian.”

  He rolled off the hammock. That was what he’d been thinking all night. This was Lucy. Lucy Blacker, with the big hazel eyes and the bright smile and the smart mouth. Lucy, Colin’s widow.

  “She should go to the police,” Sebastian said.

  “She can’t, not with what she has so far. Jack Swift would pounce. The Capitol police would send up a team to investigate. The press would be all over the story.” Plato stopped, groaning. “You didn’t let her get that far, did you?”

  “Plato, I swear to God, I wish you were still jumping out of helicopters rescuing people. I could sell the company and retire, instead of letting some dipshit busybody like you run it.”

  “You didn’t even hear her out? I don’t believe it. Jesus, Redwing. You really are an asshole.”

  Sebastian started down the porch steps. He was stiff, and he needed coffee. He needed to stop thinking about Lucy. Thinking about Lucy had never, ever done him any good. “I figured she told you everything. No need to make her go through it twice.”

  “Lucy deserves—”

  “I don’t care what Lucy deserves.”

  Sebastian could feel his friend staring at him, knowing what he was thinking, and why he’d slept out on the porch. “Yeah, you do. That’s the problem. You’ve been in love with her for sixteen years.”

  That was Plato. Always speaking out loud what was best left unsaid. Sebastian walked out to his truck. It was turning into a beautiful day. He could go riding. He could take a run with the dogs. He could read ghost stories in his hammock.

  The truth was, he was no damn good. About all he hadn’t done in the past year since he’d shot a friend gone bad was kick the dogs. He’d renounced violence, but not gambling, not carousing, not ignoring his friends and responsibilities. He didn’t shave often enough. He didn’t do laundry often enough. He could afford all the help he needed, but that meant having people around him and being nice. He didn’t have much use for people. And he wasn’t very nice.

  “I can’t help Lucy,” he said. “I’ve forgotten half of what I knew.”

  “You’re so full of shit, Redwing. You haven’t forgotten a goddamn thing.” Plato came and stood beside him. The warm, dry air, he said, helped the pain in his leg. And he liked the work. He was good at it. “Even if you’re rusty—which you aren’t—you still have your instincts. They’re a part of you.”

  Then the violence was a part of him, too. Sebastian tore open his truck door. “I hate bullshit pep talks.”

  “Redwing—goddamn it. You’ve never felt sorry for yourself for one minute of your life, have you?”

  He had. The day he watched Lucy Blacker walk down the aisle and marry another man.

  Sebastian squinted at the dawn. “Tell me what’s going on with Lucy.”

  Plato told him. He was succinct and objective, and Sebastian didn’t like any of it. “It’s the kids and their friends,” he said. “Maybe just their friends.”

  “It’s Mowery, and you know it.”

  “Mowery’s not my problem.”

  “I had your plane gassed up,” Plato said. “They haven’t taken your pilot’s license, have they?”

  Sebastian smacked the dusty roof of his truck. Damn. “I’d rather go through drown-proofing again than fly to Vermont.”

  “You never went through drown-proofing. That was part of my training. I’m the ex-parachute rescue jumper.”

  “You are?” Sebastian grinned at his old friend. It had been a bad day when he’d learned Plato Rabedeneira was finished jumping out of helicopters, might not even walk again. “I thought that was me.”

  Plato grinned back. “Lucy’s prettier than ever, isn’t she?”

  “Shut up, Rabedeneira, before I find a helicopter an
d throw you out of it.”

  “Been there, done that.” Plato stood beside him. “I’ll have someone look after the dogs and horses.”

  “Damn,” Sebastian said under his breath.

  He knew what he had to do. He’d known it the minute Lucy Blacker Swift had rolled into his driveway. Arguing about it with Plato was just a delay tactic.

  He climbed into his truck and followed Plato out the dirt road.

  Four

  Jack knew he should call the Capitol Police and have them arrest Darren Mowery and bodily remove him from the premises. There really was no question. The bastard was threatening a United States senator. This was blackmail.

  But Jack didn’t reach for his phone or stand up and yell to his staff. He just glared at Mowery, paralyzed. Like most of Washington, Jack had thought Darren Mowery dead, or at least out of the country for good. Instead, here he was in a senator’s office.

  “Think hard, Senator,” Mowery said. “Think hard before you say anything.”

  Jack summoned his tremendous, hard-won capacity for self-control. “Damn you. I’d like to wipe that smirk off your face.”

  Mowery shrugged. “Go ahead and buzz the Capitol Police. They look bored today. I think they’d get a kick out of bouncing a blackmailer from a senator’s office.”

  “Don’t you think walking into my office has raised a few eyebrows already?”

  “That’s not my concern.”

  Jack could feel the pain gnawing in his lower abdomen. Nerves. Outrage. That Mowery had confronted him in his office only added to the effrontery, the sheer insult of the man’s presence.

  What he did now, Jack knew, would determine his legacy as a United States senator. This was what his thirty years in Washington would boil down to—this moment. How he responded to blackmail.

  He glanced around at the framed pictures and the letters of thanks, the awards, all the evidence of his long, proud career in public service. He wasn’t an arrogant, power-hungry politician. To him, public service was a high and honorable calling.

  “You’re a cocky bastard, Mowery.” He was surprised at how calm he sounded, how restrained. Inside, his guts were roiling. “You’ll never get away with blackmailing a United States senator.”