Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  The red lights embedded in the heels of his sneakers flashed as he squealed to a stop and turned to face his father once more. “Yes, sir?”

  “How about a hug for your old man?”

  Jonah hesitated, then hurried over, heel lights flashing with every step.

  His father set the paper aside and hoisted him onto his lap. “How’s that summer camp going?”

  “It’s good. I can dive head first off the diving board.”

  “You can? Head first?”

  “Uh-huh. The low one, anyway. And I jumped off the high board yesterday, too. Three times. I didn’t go head first, though. But I did off the low board, lots of times. I can show you if you want. You can come and watch when we have our swimming lesson.”

  “I don’t know about that, pardner.”

  Jonah’s face fell and he nodded. “Yeah, I guess not.”

  Drum studied him for a moment. “You know what I’ve been thinking, though?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking it’s about time we had a boat. Got a dock, we should have something to tie up to it, shouldn’t we?”

  “Wow! Yeah! You mean it? Can we get a motorboat, with a steering wheel and everything?”

  “Why not? With a steering wheel and everything. Maybe we’ll get a chance to go out on the weekend and take a look. Would you like that?”

  “Yeah, Dad! That would be cool.”

  “Okay. You better get a move on now, but we’ll talk about it later, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  “Big hug?”

  Jonah threw his arms around his father’s neck and Drum held him close. When Jonah scrambled off his lap again, Drum’s silver head gave a curt nod in the direction of the center island and its abandoned dishes. “Something you forgot over there, pardner?”

  “Sorry,” Jonah said, returning to stack them.

  “It’s all right, sweetie. I’ll do that this morning,” Carrie told him. “It’s getting late and you need to gather up those newspapers Miss Mindy asked you to bring in. They’re making papier-mâché volcanoes at camp today,” she explained to Drum. Then, to her son, “Go on up and brush your teeth, but don’t make a racket, please. Let Nana sleep.”

  As Jonah headed out the door, Carrie turned back to the counter and started packing his sandwich, apple-sauce, juice and cookies into his red-and-blue Spider-Man lunch box. Behind her, she heard the legs of Drum’s chair scrape on the terrazzo floor.

  “You’re spoiling him, you know.”

  “I just—”

  “I’m trying to encourage him to take on some responsibility. I don’t appreciate it when you undermine me like that.”

  She turned. “Drum, he’s barely six years old, and he’s a really good little guy. All his teachers say how much they enjoy having him in class.”

  Once more, Carrie felt herself pinned by the ice-blue stare. “Don’t do that again, Carrie. Don’t try to turn me into the heavy while you play the good cop. Just because you get to be with him all day while I work my butt off to put food in your mouths, doesn’t mean I don’t know my own son or what’s best for him. I have no intention of being an irrelevancy in his life, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Just don’t do it again. I don’t appreciate it.” He picked up his suit coat from the back of his chair and turned to go. As an afterthought he stopped and reached into his pocket, withdrawing a wad of bills from which he peeled off a few twenties and laid them on the table.

  Carrie knew she should just leave well enough alone, but if good sense were part of her nature, she wouldn’t be in the pickle she was now. “Drum?”

  “What?”

  “A boat? Didn’t I suggest getting a boat?”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes, I did, when we were coming back from London. I wanted something to make up to Jonah for leaving early and him missing out on being on the softball team with Connor Jenks. But you said the currents were too dangerous.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I said that, Carrie. You must have misunderstood. I always ran boats off that dock when I was a kid. There’s no problem in good weather.”

  Like hell she’d misunderstood. “So now you think Jonah should have a boat?”

  “Maybe. Under close supervision, of course. We’ll see.”

  Carrie sighed, shook her head and started gathering up the dirty dishes and loading them in the dishwasher. Fine. If he wanted to be the hero now, let him. It might make what she had to do easier. Or harder, she thought suddenly. If she left, surely Drum wouldn’t fight her for custody, would he? On what grounds?

  “Make sure you take your cell phone with you when you go out,” Drum said. “And Carrie?”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t do any good if it’s not turned on. I need to be able to reach you in case of an emergency. Do you understand?”

  “It’ll be on.”

  “Good.” He came up behind her, one arm slipping around her waist as he pulled her toward him. She tensed, waiting for the routine kiss she thought was coming.

  Instead, he hissed softly in her ear, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  Her head snapped up, her heart hammering in her chest. “What are you talking about?”

  Instead of answering, he stepped away from her and flipped his suit jacket over his shoulder, his smile fixed, enigmatic and irritating. “I have to go now,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”

  He never did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TOP SECRET

  CODE WORD ACCESS ONLY

  NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

  INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

  (continued…)

  What was that business about getting a boat, Carrie?

  Oh, just an idea I’d had. I knew that the dock behind the house had been used in the past. There’s plenty of pictures of Drum and his sister when they were growing up, sculling and boating with friends on that section of the Potomac. I could understand Drum being nervous about a boat when Jonah was very small, but now that he’s bigger, I thought it would be a nice thing for us to do together as a family. But up to then, Drum had always turned the idea down flat. That’s why I was so taken aback when he suggested the other morning that he and Jonah might go out and look at boats.

  Did you know that your husband’s first wife had drowned in a boating accident?

  Yes, I did. That’s why I never pushed the subject. I thought it must be painful for him.

  It says here in the files that she died in November of 1993. The death was officially ruled accidental, but the circumstances look to have been a little murky. Seems there was a fairly lengthy investigation.

  I suppose so.

  You suppose so?

  Well, yes. I wasn’t around at the time, you know. I didn’t even meet Drum until two years later, and in Africa, besides. His wife’s death was still a pretty raw subject for him, so he didn’t really talk about it. What little I know comes from comments my mother-in-law or family friends have dropped in passing.

  To the effect that…?

  To the effect that Theresa might have been depressed before she died. You have to admit, it’s a little strange, taking a boat out in the middle of the night in November. Not exactly prime boating season.

  So, they think she killed herself?

  I don’t know. Maybe. The boat was found hung up on the shoreline several miles downstream, but the body wasn’t found until a month or two later, apparently, so it was difficult to say whether her drowning was accidental or intentional.

  Why was she depressed?

  I don’t really know. As I say, I’m not even sure she was, or whether it was just something people decided later to try to explain what happened to her. I gather she couldn’t have children, but I’m not sure if that was the source of the problem. My mother-in-law has suggested she was unstable, but you have to take that with a grain of salt, so who knows?

  You
think she made that up?

  Let’s just say my mother-in-law’s approval is an elusive commodity. I’m not sure she approved of Theresa any more than she does of me. I doubt anyone would really be good enough for her son—but then, that’s a mother for you. I do know that when it comes time for my own son to be bringing home a bride, I’m going to try to remember what I’ve learned from my own experience and handle things a little differently.

  So, getting back to the other morning, your husband left for this supposed meeting at the Bureau and said he’d call you later, right?

  Right.

  And that was the last time you saw him? You haven’t heard from him since?

  You know I haven’t. I left shortly after he did to take my son to day camp and run errands. By the time I got back home, police cars were blocking the driveway and the house was crawling with FBI agents and CIA Security. They’ve been flitting around me like flies ever since, so if he had been in touch, you guys would be the first to know.

  And you’re saying you had no idea what he was really up to that morning?

  Not a clue. When I first saw the police cars at the house, I thought there’d been a break-in. Then I panicked, thinking my son had been in some sort of accident.

  It never occurred to you that something might have happened to your husband?

  Not until I got inside and the people there showed me their IDs. When I realized some of them were CIA, I knew it must be about Drum, and I guessed it had to be serious. I thought maybe another terrorist attack. After everything we’ve been through in the past few years, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

  In fact, it would have solved a lot of problems, wouldn’t it?

  What are you talking about?

  If your husband were killed in something like a terrorist attack—it would be very convenient.

  That’s a terrible thing to say! I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

  Come on, Carrie. You weren’t just running errands that morning. You went to see a divorce lawyer. Divorce is messy. How much easier if he suffered a fatal mishap, instead.

  That’s truly perverse, you know that?

  Trust me, it happens more often than you might think.

  Yeah, well, not with me, it doesn’t. In the first place, if I were organized enough to plan something like that—not to mention connected enough—don’t you think I would have done it before I had to write a two thousand dollar retainer check to that lawyer?

  Maybe you’re just dumb like a fox.

  All I wanted was some space to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a divorce when I walked into the lawyer’s office that morning. I didn’t particularly relish the thought of raising my son in a single-parent household—although for all intents and purposes, that’s what I was doing, anyway. I certainly never wanted him to grow up without a father, though.

  Go ahead and talk to the lawyer if you don’t believe me. Heather Childers is her name. I give up my lawyer-client privilege. I’ve got nothing to hide.

  I can think of one person who might beg to differ.

  Who’s that?

  Your mother-in-law.

  Oh, Lord…Althea…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  McLean, Virginia

  August 12, 2002—8:09 a.m.

  A tomblike gloom hung over Althea MacNeil’s bedroom. The draperies were navy blue and lined with blackout fabric, so that only a bleak hint of the sunny day managed to peek around the dark edges of the heavy silk.

  She lay on her narrow bed in the dim light, studying the silver-framed photograph on her bedside table. The portrait of her late husband in full dress uniform had been taken the day he’d been named to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It had been his proudest moment. Hers, as well.

  The whole family had attended the Oval Office ceremony. President Nixon had shaken hands with her and the children in turn, solemnly asking Drummond, who was sixteen at the time, whether he planned to follow his father into a military career. Obviously, the President hadn’t been briefed about their son’s recent run-in with the Fairfax County Police, who’d found a plastic bag of marijuana in his car when they’d pulled him over for speeding. Naughton had managed to get the incident hushed up, but even so, Drummond’s flowing, shoulder-length hair should have been a tip-off to the President that this apple had rolled some distance from the paternal tree. Althea cringed in mortification even now at the memory of her son’s scruffy appearance that day.

  Eleanor, by contrast, had stood ramrod straight in her professional-looking brown tweed suit, hair pulled back into a tight bun that made her seem older than her nineteen years. She really should have been a boy, Althea thought. She was Naughton’s true heir. She’d always been a little daunting, just like her father, both of them knowing exactly what they wanted and where they were going. Vice president of a New York brokerage firm, Eleanor lived in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. A couple of years ago, when Businessweek had put her on their cover after she engineered some corporate merger or another, they’d called her “Ironside’s Daughter.”

  Althea had no idea how she’d managed to raise such an unladylike girl—so excruciatingly blunt. In fact, Ellie, she was sorry to say, had turned into the kind of woman men called a “ball-buster.” Althea had tried to tell her many times that there are other ways for a woman to get what she wants, but her daughter, she knew, found her utterly vapid. Ellie rarely came home anymore, now that Naughton was gone.

  She’d never married, although there had been a couple of long-term relationships—not to mention numerous casual affairs, Althea suspected. She really didn’t care to know the details. But at fifty-two, the ship of motherhood had sailed without Ellie aboard, so it looked as if Jonah was the only grandchild Althea would ever have. Thank goodness Drummond had produced a boy to carry on the family name.

  There’d been a time when both Althea and her husband had despaired that Drummond would ever make anything of himself. In his own way, though, their son had followed his father, after all, becoming a sort of warrior and a leader of men. Of course, Naughton had never really approved of the CIA. They all seemed a little shifty over there, he used to say. But surely he’d have been pleased to see how far Drummond’s career had advanced.

  From the kitchen downstairs came the addictive scent of fresh coffee brewing and the faint clatter of dishes and cutlery. She’d lived mostly on her own since Naughton had passed away twelve years earlier, but old habits die hard. Morning activity in the house could still cause long-dormant instincts to kick in. It was maternal guilt, she supposed, whispering that she should be down there making someone’s breakfast, ironing a last-minute shirt or packing lunches. But they didn’t need her anymore. She’d just be in the way if she went down now.

  In any case, she was loathe to move and didn’t really feel like facing anyone. Let them head off for their respective days. Then, she’d get up, make herself a cup of tea, and enjoy the quiet until they all burst back in on her again. Quiet was a rare enough treat.

  Rolling onto her back with a sibilant grunt, Althea nestled deeper into the pillows, inventorying her aches and twinges. Her hips, neck and back felt as if she’d slept wrong. When was it that there started being a wrong way to sleep? Children never did. They slept like logs and woke full of that pent-up energy that blew them out of bed and carried them through their frenetic days. Not her, though. Relentless arthritis was advancing on every joint in her body like some unstoppable army of dry rot.

  Bette Davis was right—old age is not for sissies. Althea hadn’t had an uninterrupted night’s sleep in years. Each evening, she fell into bed by nine-thirty or ten to watch the news on the television. These days, the set was perched on the cherry highboy opposite her bed, too close for comfort in this smaller room she’d had to squeeze into after giving up the master bedroom. But she never managed to stay awake long, anyway, and the television would shut itself off after the weather report that she always seemed to miss. Then, some time aro
und midnight, her bladder would wake her, and after that, those insomniac twin devils, regret and worry, would take over, taunting her for hours.

  The devilish glow of her bedside radio clock had read nearly 5:00 a.m. the last time she’d looked at it early this morning. She’d finally dropped off again, only to be woken by the clump of her grandson’s feet careening past her door and down the stairs to the kitchen. Really. Did no one teach children to walk indoors anymore?

  She was especially achy and stiff, she realized, more tired than when she’d lain down the night before. It must be the air-conditioning. When it was just her in the house, she never kept it on all night. She’d been raised in the South, and on muggy summer nights, you opened all the windows wide to catch whatever fresh breeze you could. If there was none, you slept out on the porch, but you never shut yourself up inside.

  Of course, she wasn’t on her own now. Drum was back with his family and their needs had to be considered. Carrie said the air-conditioning was better for Jonah’s asthma. As far as Althea was concerned, all this talk about asthma nowadays was just so much hooey—another scheme by drug companies to peddle medicine. Another excuse for inexperienced young mothers to pamper their little darlings. Children should breathe natural air. That was how Althea had raised her own children and they’d obviously turned out fine.

  But the young girls these days had different ways of doing things and thought they knew better. Carrie certainly never seemed willing to take advice. Just nodded thoughtfully when Althea gave her the benefit of her experience, then went ahead and did what she’d planned to do all along. Well fine. Althea was not one of those interfering mothers-in-law, no matter how many blunders the girl made.

  The furnace fan was already humming, pushing air-conditioned chill through the house’s massive system of ductwork. Not a good sign. Obviously it was going to be another scorcher.

  There’d been a time in Althea’s life when it couldn’t be too warm. She could stay out on the deck in the summer sun from morning till night, her skin turning as brown as an old nut, hair bleaching out to a soft, golden straw color, and never mind the heat or the intense humidity. But those days were long gone. For many years, now, she’d found the too-long summers oppressive and stifling. It was her heart, she supposed, and those extra pounds she’d gained during the change and never man-aged to shed. At seventy-three, her body no longer managed heat very well, and she found herself puffing and feeling faint after even the shortest excursions outside.