by Nora Roberts
the sugar bowl, added two generous servings. “I could keep checking, this and that and the other. I’m good at digging. But I won’t. I won’t do any more checking unless I tell you so first.”
“You won’t check as long as I have sex with you.”
His eyes burned green with hints of molten gold as he lowered the mug. “Don’t insult both of us. I won’t check because I won’t go behind your back, because we’re—whatever we are at this point. I’d like to sleep with you again, but that’s not a condition. I want to keep seeing you because we enjoy each other, in and out of bed. Is that accurate?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like to lie. Not that I haven’t and won’t in the line. But outside the job, I don’t lie. I won’t lie to you, Abigail, and checking on you without you knowing seems like kin to a lie.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“That’s up to you. All I can do is tell you. This is damn good coffee, and not just because I didn’t have to make it myself. Pancakes?”
“Yes.”
“Now you look even prettier than you did ten seconds ago. Am I going to find another gun when I get out dishes and such to set the table?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the most interesting woman of my acquaintance.” He opened the cupboard where he’d seen her take out plates for pizza.
“I thought you’d just stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Once we had sex, I thought you’d stop wanting to be here, stop wondering.”
He opened the drawer for flatware, noted the Glock. “You might have forgotten, but the earth stopped moving.” He set out the flatware as she ladled batter onto her griddle. “It’s not just sex, Abigail. It’d be easier if it were. But there’s … something. I don’t know what the hell it is yet, but there’s something. So, we ride it out, see what happens.”
“I don’t know how to do that. I told you.”
He picked up his coffee again, stepped over to kiss her on the cheek. “It looks to me like you’re doing it just fine. Where’s the syrup?”
What is character but the determination of incident?
What is incident but the illustration of character?
HENRY JAMES
14
WAKING UP WITH BROOKS, MAKING BREAKFAST, SIMPLY DEALing with the jolt in her routine, threw Abigail off schedule. He’d taken his time with breakfast. He always seemed to have something to talk about, and keeping up jumbled her thoughts out of order. By the time he’d left, she was more than an hour behind on her plans for the day, not to mention the time she’d lost the night before.
Now instead of arriving at the market as soon as it opened, she needed to complete her research and documentation of the Volkovs’ Chicago–to–Atlantic City money-laundering operation. If she didn’t get the data to her FBI connection within the next two days, they’d miss the month’s major delivery.
These things took time, she thought, as she settled down to work. Time to gather, to decrypt, to correlate, to send. Her information had to be pure and absolutely accurate.
And maybe this time something would stick to Ilya. Maybe this time he’d pay. Or at least, as before, she’d have caused him trouble, frustration, money and men.
In her fantasies her work brought the Volkovs to ruin, exposed them, stripped them clean. Korotkii, Ilya—all of them—spent the rest of their lives in prison. Keegan and Cosgrove were discovered, disgraced and convicted.
And when she let those fantasies spin out, somehow they all knew she was responsible for making them pay.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Julie would always be dead at eighteen. John and Terry would always be murdered trying to keep her safe.
It was better to be realistic, and to do what she could whenever she could to chip away at their profits, their routines, their equilibrium.
She worked until afternoon before she was satisfied. Better to step away for an hour or two, she decided, and come back fresh for a last check of the data before she sent it in.
She’d do the marketing now, even though it was the wrong time of day. Just the wrong time. Then she’d come home, take Bert out for some exercise and training.
Then she’d recheck the data, program her series of bounces to her contact’s e-mail. After that, she’d do some hard-and-sweaty training of her own, as she’d want that physical outlet after completing her task.
With the evening free, she’d put a few hours into work on the virus she’d begun developing over the last eighteen months.
She changed her weapon, strapping on her more compact Glock, covered it with a hoodie. Soon the temperatures would rise too high for a jacket, and she’d have to use an ankle holster.
As she checked and reset her alarm, let Bert out to put him on guard, she considered acquiring a new gun. She could treat herself to some weapon research that evening.
The idea relaxed her, and she admitted she found it pleasant to drive into town in the afternoon sunlight, to watch the way that light played through the tender, unfurling leaves.
She caught glimpses of the delicate drape of toothwort, the bold yellow of trout lily catching the dappled sun along the stream bank just before the water took a quick, tumbling fall over rocks. Among those tender green leaves, wild plum added color and drama.
Everything seemed so fresh and new and hopeful. Spring revived, she thought, offered that new beginning of the cycle. It was her first full spring in this new place, this place she so much wanted to be her home.
Twelve years. Couldn’t it be enough? Couldn’t this be her place to stay? To plant her garden and tend it, watch it grow and harvest. To do her work, pay her debt—and just live.
Why should they find her here, in these hills, in this quiet? How could they ever connect Abigail Lowery with that young girl who’d been so foolish, so careless—and such an easy target?
As long as she stayed prepared, stayed vigilant, remained unexceptional—invisible—she could make a home and a life.
Stay safe. As long as she stayed safe, she could continue to chip away at the Volkovs and pay that debt.
She liked the town so much, she thought, as she turned onto Shop Street. She loved the pretty streets and busy shops, the color sliding into it all with pots and barrels of sunstruck daffodils and candy-colored tulips. Tourists added more movement, strangers passing through. Some very likely returned, another holiday or short visit. But they came for the quiet, the landscape, the hiking, the local lore and crafts. Not for nightclubs and urban action, the sort of entertainment that lured men like Ilya.
Her confidence remained high that she’d never see him or anyone connected to him strolling along the streets here, fishing in the rivers, hiking in the hills.
And surely if anyone from the U.S. Marshals, the FBI, even the Chicago police, visited here, she wouldn’t be recognized. She was out of place, and a dozen years older, her hair a different color and style.
If they looked, they might see. But there was no reason to look for Elizabeth Fitch here in the pretty tourist town in the Ozarks.
If the day came, she knew how to run, how to change, how to bury herself in another place.
But it wouldn’t be today, she promised herself, as she parked near the market. And every day it wasn’t today was a gift.
She got out of the car, hit the key to lock it. Even as she heard the lock click into place, she saw Brooks crossing the street toward her.
She didn’t know what to do with the quick rise of her pulse, the little flutter of … something in her belly. He even walked as if he had all the time in the world, she thought, and still managed to cover ground quickly. He stood beside her before she could decide what to do, or say.
“This is either really good timing or really good luck.” He took her hand—he was always touching her—and just covered her with his smile.
“I’m going to the market.”
“Yeah, I figured. Take a walk with me first. You’re just what I need.”
“For what?”
“In general, let’s say. Rough morning, and I haven’t shaken it all the way off.”
“I need supplies.”
“Got any appointments later?”
“Appointments?” People were looking at them. She could feel the glances on the back of her neck. “No.”
“Good. Let’s walk down toward the park. I’m taking half an hour. You don’t usually go shopping this late in the afternoon.”
“I like mornings.” But she’d have to mix it up more, she realized. Routines should never be noticed.
“Do anything interesting this morning?”
Somehow they were walking, and he still had her hand. What was she supposed to do about that? “I’m sorry, what?”
“This morning, did you do anything interesting?”
She thought of money laundering, Russian mobs, the FBI. “Not particularly.”
“Now you ask if I did anything.”
“Oh. All right. Did you?”
“I spent a lot of it being yelled at or lectured to. As expected, Missy came in to claim she’d tripped, and wanted me to release Ty. She wasn’t happy with the charges against him, or the consequences of them. Now that he’s sober, Ty’s actually taking it better than she is.”
When Brooks lifted a hand in a wave to someone across the street, Abigail fought back a wince.
This was not being invisible.
“After she finished yelling at me,” Brooks continued, “she did a lot of crying. When I let them talk to each other, they both did a lot of crying. After that, she hunted up and hauled in a lawyer, one who’s been a pissant his entire life. That’s where the lecturing came into my day. He seems to feel I’m exceeding my authority by offering the rehab and counseling in lieu of a trial and possible jail time.”
“It isn’t within your authority to set a plea bargain.”
“You’re both right, so I informed the pissant that was fine. Ty could stay put until we went before the judge, held a bail hearing and so on. And how he could risk spending the next several years in jail.
“How you doing, Ms. Harris?” he called out to a tiny woman watering a tub of mixed bulbs outside Read More Books.
“I’m doing, Brooks. How about you?”
“Can’t complain. Where was I?” he asked Abigail.
She could feel the tiny woman’s eyes on her as she continued down the sidewalk, hand in hand with Brooks.
“You told the pissant lawyer Ty could risk spending the next several years in jail. I really need to—”
“That’s right. So, at that point, Missy and Ty started yelling at each other. Personally, I don’t understand people who stay together when they’ve got so much animosity and contempt for each other they can call each other those kind of names. But Ty got worked up enough to turn it on me, vow to finish what he started last night and kick my ass.”
“It all sounds dramatic and distressing.”
“Can’t say otherwise. Ty’s vow didn’t please the pissant, as it made his claim of diminished capacity or whatever the hell he was going for break apart like rotten lumber under a hammer. He was less pleased yet when Ty reached through the bars and got a hand around his pissant throat.
“Hey, Caliope. Those roses look mighty pretty.”
A woman in a long, colorful skirt, a huge straw hat and flowered gardening gloves waved from her yard. “I knew you were going to say that.”
He laughed. “Alma’s daughter. She’s a psychic.”
Abigail started to explain how doubtful it was that the lady with the gorgeous rosebushes had psychic ability, but Brooks was already continuing the story.
“I will admit my reflexes might have been just a tad slow pulling Ty off the pissant, due to all the yelling and lecturing.”
Her head might’ve been spinning a little, but she followed well enough. “You let your prisoner choke his lawyer, and found it satisfying, as you’d have liked to choke him yourself.”
Brooks gave her arm a swing and grinned at her. “Though it doesn’t reflect well on me, that’s about the truth of it. The pissant quit then and there—and Ty’s sentiments toward him, delivered at the top of his lungs as said pissant retreated, were suggestions of self-gratification I don’t believe the pissant can manage. Missy ran out after the pissant, screaming and sobbing. And as a result of drama and distress, I’m taking half an hour with a pretty woman.”
“I believe there are people who think the rules, or the law, shouldn’t apply to their particular situation because they’re poor or they’re rich, they’re sad or sick or sorry. Or whatever justification most fits their individual makeup and circumstance.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“But the court system often gives credence to that attitude by making deals to those who’ve broken the rules and the law for just those reasons.”
“I can’t argue that, either, but the law, and the system, have to breathe some.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Law needs some room, some flexibility, to consider the human factor, the circumstances.” At the toot-toot of a horn, he glanced toward the street, waved at a man with a huge black beard driving a rusty pickup. “The man who steals a loaf of bread,” Brooks continued without missing a beat, “because he’s starving and desperate shouldn’t be treated the same as the one who steals it planning to sell it at a profit.”
“Perhaps. But if the law had more uniformity, those who steal for profit would have fewer opportunities to repeat the offense.”
He grinned down at her in a way that made her wonder if she’d said something charming or foolish. “Ever think about being a cop?”
“Not exactly. I really should go back and—”
“Brooks! Bring that girl on over here.”
With a jolt, Abigail swung around, stared at the house with the dragons and mermaids and fairies. And saw Brooks’s mother climbing down a run of scaffolding. She wore paint-splattered bib overalls and paint-splattered sneakers. A bright red kerchief covered her hair.
The minute her feet hit the ground, the puppy who’d begun to yip and dance at her voice leaped so high he executed a midair flip before he tumbled into a sprawl.
The woman laughed, scooped him up as she unsnapped his lead.
“Come on!” she called again. “Come on and introduce Abigail to your little brother.”
“Her favorite son right now, too,” Brooks told Abigail. “Let’s say hey.”
“I really should get back to the market.”
“Haven’t I been yelled at and lectured to enough for one day?” He sent Abigail a pitiful, pained look. “Have some pity, will you?”
She couldn’t be invisible if people noticed her, she thought, and it was worse if she made it obvious that she wanted to be invisible. Though she wished Brooks would let go of her hand—it seemed too intimate—she crossed the short distance to the yard of what she thought of as the magic house.
“I was hoping you’d drop by for a visit,” Sunny said to Abigail.
“Actually, I was—”
“I talked her into a walk before she did her marketing.”
“No point wasting a day like this indoors. Meet Plato.”
“He’s very handsome.”
“And a rascal. I do love a rascal,” Sunny said, nuzzling the puppy, then Brooks. “He’s smart, too.”
“Me or the dog?”
Sunny laughed, patted Brooks on the cheek. “Both. This one sits when he’s told, but he won’t stay put yet. Watch. Plato, now, you sit.”
Sunny set the dog down, kept a hand on his rump as she dug in her pocket for a tiny dog treat with her free hand. “Sit now. There you go, a genius!” She let the dog gobble the treat when his butt