Plato leaned in the doorway of J.T.’s room. “Kid’s packing for the new millenium,” he said to Lucy. “Your daughter’s worse. Maybe you better go on downstairs and pour yourself a glass of lemonade, Lucy. I’ll supervise.”
She nodded. “They’re nervous.”
“They’re packing too much. I didn’t bring the moving van. Go on. We’ll get it pared down in no time.” He unfolded himself from the doorway and joined J.T. by his bed. “J.T., where’d you get all this crap?”
“It’s not crap, it’s my stuff.”
“Well, it’s a shitload of stuff.” He picked up a Micro Machine. “Hey, I like this little helicopter here. I used to jump out of one of these babies.”
“Really?”
Lucy could see her son was smitten. A tough, handsome ex-parachute rescue jumper who swore and knew helicopters—Plato would end up paring him down to a change of undershorts. He’d probably find some way of working his charms on Madison, too.
Lucy slipped downstairs to the kitchen. She didn’t know where Sebastian was. Rob had gone off to Manchester on a supply run.
There was no lemonade made. She took out a frozen can of concentrate and set it in the sink, turning the hot water on to a trickle.
The phone rang, making her jump.
“Lucy? Thank God. It’s Sidney Greenburg.” She paused for air. “Jack’s in trouble.”
Blackmail trouble, Lucy thought. She wondered what her father-in-law had deigned to tell Sidney. “What kind of trouble?”
“He told me about the blackmail. How much do you know? Damned little, right? He’s such an ass. He thinks he’s being noble. Lucy...” Sidney groaned. “I hate this. I hate every single minute of it.”
“I know.” Lucy calmed herself by watching the ice melt on her can of frozen concentrate. “Tell me, Sidney. I can take it.”
“Of course you can. I told Jack you could. Some jackass named Darren Mowery is blackmailing him over an affair Colin may or may not have had shortly before he died. There are supposedly pictures. If Jack knows the name of the woman, he won’t tell me. I assume it’s someone who’d interest the media, but who the hell knows.”
Lucy stuck her finger in the hot trickle, ran it over the top of the still-icy can. An affair. Colin. “This is ridiculous. Colin didn’t have an affair. Even if he did, he’s dead, and it was a private matter.”
“I know! That’s what I told Jack! He said once something like this gets out in Washington, it can take on a life of its own. I said bullshit and told him to call you at once. He was so upset. He really thought he was protecting you and the kids by paying this bastard.”
“I don’t need him or anyone else to protect me from the truth. He can protect me from lions, tigers and bears if it comes to it, but never the truth.”
She could almost feel Sidney’s sad smile. “He meant well. He cares about you and his grandchildren so much. He’ll never get over Colin. He couldn’t save him on the tennis court—he can at least save his reputation.”
“Where’s Jack now? Did he put you up to calling me?”
“Lucy, there’s more.” Sidney took a deep breath. “Jack showed me. This Mowery character put up pictures of you on a secure Internet site. Recent pictures. Like from last week.”
“Jesus,” Lucy whispered.
“Jack was horrified. He took it as an implied threat that if he didn’t cooperate and follow instructions to the letter, this guy could get to you.”
Lucy shut off the hot water. “Sidney, he can get to me if Jack does cooperate!”
“I know. I have to say, when I saw those pictures of you, I didn’t think, either. I’d have cut Mowery a check for every dime I have. Now—” Her voice faltered, and she fought back a sob. “Lucy, Jack’s missing. I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“Missing? What do you mean, missing?”
“He was supposed to meet me at my office an hour ago. We were going to call you together. He didn’t show up. I called his office, and he never showed up there today. I went to his house—that’s where I am now—and he’s not here.”
“Call the Capitol Police, Sidney. Tell them everything. Okay? Tell them to send someone up here right away. Damn it. Damn it.” Lucy scooped up the frozen concentrate and banged it down onto the counter. “Jack and I both waited too long, trying to protect ourselves, Madison and J.T., each other. Colin. Oh, Sidney... I’m so sorry.”
“Lucy?”
“I’ve got a stalker,” she blurted. “I thought it was Barbara, but now—I don’t know, maybe someone’s using her as a decoy.” She rubbed her forehead, tired, frustrated, too much coming at her at once. “I can’t figure it out. I’ve got Plato Rabedeneira and Sebastian Redwing here. They’re like a couple of big, mean guard dogs.”
“Listen to me, Lucy. Listen!” Sidney spoke briskly, taking charge. She was a brilliant, kind woman Lucy had always admired. “A couple of weeks ago, Barbara Allen went a little nutty on Jack and told him she’s been secretly in love with him for twenty years.”
“Oh, no.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this Mowery character had taken advantage of her. She thinks she’s tough as nails, but she’s kind of like a turtle. Her hard outer shell protects a soft, mushy inside. She won’t be happy when she realizes Mowery’s manipulated her. My bet is, she’ll lash out before she admits a weakness. She’ll do anything to keep people from seeing that mushy inside.”
Lucy managed a smile. “I’m impressed.”
“Forget it, my mum’s a shrink, and I’m an anthropologist. I come from a family that thinks too goddamn much. You take care, do you hear me?” She spoke fiercely, her intensity palpable. “I’m counting on Costa Rica.”
Sidney hung up, and Lucy stood in the middle of the kitchen, shaking.
Sebastian fell in behind her. “I don’t know about you, but lions, tigers and bears would be fine with me right about now.”
Lucy whirled around at him. “You listened in? Goddamn it, Redwing! How dare you? How—” She slammed her foot into a cabinet. “That was a private conversation. Damn you!”
He grabbed her wrists and held them up close to his chest, nothing about him calm, nothing retreating deep inside him. “Damn me all you want, Lucy. I’m not here to make you feel comfortable or to live according to your rules. I’m here to keep Darren Mowery from killing anyone else.”
“This isn’t about you!”
“It is about me. It’s about me and a mistake I made a year ago. Mowery isn’t blackmailing Jack Swift over an old affair he and Barbara Allen cooked up. He isn’t after twenty grand or Jack’s vote on legislation. Jack doesn’t know this man. You don’t know him.”
“And you do?”
“Yes.”
“He wants you,” Lucy said abruptly. “Oh, my God. This is about revenge, isn’t it?”
Sebastian’s grip softened, and he released her, caught up one hand and kissed it. “Lucy, when I’m whitewater kayaking, I’ll do everything you say. I promise.”
She nodded, tried to smile. “I’ll hold you to that. Any guess where Mowery is?”
“Not here. Not yet. My guess is he’s already reined Barbara back in, recommitted her to the program. Sidney’s calling the Capitol police. They’ll get things into motion.”
“We should call the local police. They’re not a bunch of yokels. If I tell them to be discreet—”
“Lucy, I know who they are. I went to school with half of them. Let the Capitol police get them involved. Right now, if Mowery does have Jack, he has the advantage.”
“He’ll kill Jack—”
“He’ll kill everyone if it suits him.”
Lucy started for the back door. “I’m going up to warn Barbara she’s in over her head.”
“She won’t thank you for it.”
“I don’t care.”
She plunged out the door, leaped down the back steps even as she fought for calm, for control, for one quiet space in her mind where she could think.
Sebastian followed her. He didn’t seem to be moving as fast as she was. Longer legs, she thought, but she felt like a whirling dervish, spinning, spinning, but not centered.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
She ground to a sudden halt in the warm grass. Dark clouds were sweeping in from the west, and she could feel the humidity gathering around her. “You only want to come along because you don’t want me going alone. You’re a loner, Sebastian.” She tilted her head back, gave him a long, clear-eyed look and saw him as he was. “It’s easy to love me from a distance.”
He touched her mouth and, with no warning whatsoever, he kissed her, a quick, passionate kiss that almost sank her to the ground. He stood back and smiled. “It’s not easy to love you at all.”
“Sebastian—”
“Later. Let’s go.” She saw he’d grabbed her cell phone off the counter. He dropped it in his pocket. “Tough to believe Larry the Lump from ninth grade is the chief of police.”
* * *
Barbara slipped through the back door of Lucy’s converted barn, past the canoes, kayaks, life vests, rescue equipment and office supplies, and into her work space. How pathetic. Lucy had given up a job with a prestigious Washington museum for this, Barbara thought. Her desks were nothing but hardware-store doors set onto handmade trestles. Cows and horses had once trod across the wide-board floor. There was a woodstove to supplement the electric heating unit, and the walls were covered with posters of northern New England, the Canadian Maritimes, Costa Rica. Only because of her Swift connections in Washington could Lucy have survived in business this long.
She had one of those plastic cubes on her desk, filled with pictures of Madison and J.T. None of Colin, Barbara saw. None of Jack. It was as if Lucy had wiped them out of her life. She’d come to Vermont to start over, and start over, she had.
Now she had Sebastian Redwing wrapped around her little finger, and no doubt Plato Rabedeneira, too. Didn’t they see through her? But Barbara knew better. People were stupid. Men were particularly stupid. Twenty years in Washington had taught her that much.
If only Jack would admit he loved her, Barbara thought. If, when she’d finally come forward, he’d had the courage to say, as she’d fantasized countless times, “Oh, Barbara, I’ve been waiting all these years for you to give me the slightest hint you cared. Even when Eleanor was alive, I dreamed of us being together one day.”
Sentimental nonsense, of course. In real life, Jack had patted her on the head and sent her off. Good Barbara. Reliable Barbara. What if he were just another stupid man, after all? Twenty years of her life, gone!
She stroked the barrel of the Smith & Wesson .38 she’d appropriated from her father years ago. It was the same one he’d used to teach her and her sisters how to shoot. He still wandered around the house, grumbling about what had happened to it. “I hope some stupid bastard doesn’t hold up a gas station with my goddamn gun!”
A crude man, her father. It was an old gun, hopelessly out-of-date in a world of semiautomatics. But she had a silencer that fit it, and she knew it would do the job.
Plato Rabedeneira.
Madison had called from the phone in her room. “I’m packing,” she’d told Barbara. “Don’t tell anyone I called, okay? I just didn’t want you to think we were ignoring you. All kinds of weird things have been going on around here, and my mom’s friend Plato’s taking J.T. and me off somewhere.”
“Are you scared?”
“I’m trying not to be. We’re leaving in a few minutes.”
Barbara eased to the front entrance of the converted barn. Plato was out by his car. He was so handsome, but slowed down by his limp and out of his element in the hills of Vermont. She remembered his dropping to the ground when he was shot during the assassination attempt on Jack and the president. He hadn’t made a sound.
She tucked her gun into her waistband and pulled her shirt over it. She didn’t have a focused plan. She’d seen Sebastian and Lucy walking up along the edge of the field. Did they all suspect her? Had Lucy poisoned them against her?
Refusing to rush, Barbara walked out of the barn and across the yard toward the front porch. She would say she’d come to thank Lucy for the blueberry muffins. Maybe she’d invite them to dinner. Spaghetti. Kids always liked spaghetti.
They couldn’t leave.
She wouldn’t let them.
Madison stomped down the front porch steps. The hanging petunias needed watering. Lucy neglected them, just as she did her children.
The girl was complaining bitterly to Plato. “You’re not making J.T. leave his Micro Machines.”
Plato swore under his breath. “All right. Hurry up.”
“I’ll only be ten seconds.” Victory sounded in her voice. “This is going to be a fabulous quilt.”
A quilt? Dear God, Barbara thought. Madison would never be ready for the real world if she stayed here sewing quilts, snapping beans, wandering off in the woods by herself. Someone had to bring these people to their senses.
Barbara removed the Smith & Wesson from her waistband. She didn’t know why. A precaution, a necessity. She was following her instincts.
Plato saw her. “Madison, get down!”
The girl leaped at him, pulling on his arm as he reached for his gun. “No, no, it’s Barbara! She’s a friend!”
Plato backhanded the girl into the dirt. “Stay put.”
She scrambled to her feet, wild, out of control, then charged him. “You’re a maniac! You’re all maniacs!”
Barbara fired before Plato could get to his weapon. With the silencer, the shot hardly made a sound. Madison screamed, her interference and Plato’s quick reactions throwing off Barbara’s aim so that she only caught his upper right arm. She fired again, grazing the side of his head.
The girl went nuts, shrieking when Plato, semiconscious, collapsed onto the dirt driveway. Blood streamed down his face.
Barbara marched over to Madison and snatched her by the elbow. “Get up. Stop your screaming.”
The girl sobbed, her face streaked with tears. “You killed Plato!”
“I will kill him if you don’t shut up and come with me. Right now.” Barbara inhaled. Her head ached, but now she had a clear purpose. She knew what she needed to do. “Where’s your brother?”
“J.T.! Run! Run get Mom and Sebastian!”
Barbara slapped the girl across the face, half with her hand, half with the butt of her gun. Madison gulped back a scream. Barbara could see the fierce anger behind her terror. So like Colin, but corrupted by her mother.
Plato lay motionless on the driveway, blood from his wounds spilling into the dirt.
How like Lucy to abandon her children to a stranger.
There was no advantage to killing him. Barbara was more interested in the missing boy. He could be a problem.
Madison’s teeth were chattering. “Don’t—don’t kill Plato. Please. I couldn’t live with myself. It’s my fault. I trusted you!”
“Well,” Barbara said, “let’s not give Plato a clear shot so he can kill me, shall we?” She placed her father’s Smith & Wesson at the girl’s head. “Your mother doesn’t care about you, Madison. I’ll prove it to you. She rescued Sebastian Redwing from Joshua Falls. Do you think she’ll rescue you?”
Madison squared her jaw. “I’ll rescue myself.”
“There, you see? You’re used to being on your own, even at fifteen. Come on, Madison. That’s it. One step at a time.”
* * *
Jack held up his head, trying to retain his dignity. “You will never get away with kidnapping a United States senator.”
Darren Mowery grinned at him. “So?”
He was driving, and he was armed with a semiautomatic. They were within minutes of Lucy’s house. Jack still didn’t know exactly what had happened. A Senate colleague and personal friend had loaned him his private plane, which Jack, an experienced pilot, would fly to Vermont, where he planned to tell Lucy what had been going on and discuss their options.
Instead, Mowery intercepted him at the airport, and blackmail quickly turned to kidnapping. He’d piloted the plane. He had a car waiting in Vermont.
His threat to keep Jack in line was simple. He repeated it now, as he had every ten minutes since the start of this ordeal. “I’m the expert, Jack. You’re the pompous senator. If you try anything, it’ll just piss me off. I’ll kill you. Then I’ll kill Lucy. Then I’ll kill your grandchildren.”
“What do you want?” Jack croaked.
“You haven’t figured that out yet, have you, Jack?”
“If it’s money—”
“If it was money, I’d have fucked with a senator with a bigger trust fund than you have. Jesus, Jack. You’re not worth much by Washington standards, you know?”
“I have devoted my life to public service.”
“Yeah, and it pays shit.”
“Then what is it? Power? My vote? Is someone else paying you? If I knew, maybe we could work something out.”
“Nope. I had my chance at the brass ring. It was a once-in-a-lifetime deal. I knew it when I started down that road.” He drove smoothly, steadily; nothing seemed to bother him. “Redwing Associates had already cut into my business. Sebastian put the word out I was losing my edge.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Jack said.
“Who the hell ever tells a senator the truth? That’s why you have all those goddamn hearings. You have to dig through everybody’s bullshit to get at something.” He glanced over at Jack. “Doesn’t that get to you after a while?”
“No. No, it doesn’t.”
“Well, aren’t you fucking holier-than-thou. So, here I was, going broke, that son of a bitch I trained pulling in millions—I mean, we are talking millions. He lives like a goddamn monk, but he’s worth—well, shit, he didn’t have to borrow a plane to get here.”
Jack thought Mowery was exaggerating, but he chose not to say so. The man seemed to relish how put-upon he was. “It’s an old story, isn’t it? The student bests the master.”
“The bastard didn’t understand. I got wind of a kidnapping and ransom scheme and dealt myself in, but I always planned to make sure the real bad guys didn’t get away.”
“Weren’t you one of the ‘real bad guys’?”
“No, asshole, I was going to see to it the family got back safe.”
“What about the ransom money?”
“That was my only sin—wanting to take the money. I figured I’d deserve it for saving the family.”
“But if you put them in danger in the first place—”
They’d come to Lucy’s road. Darren made the turn. “You know, Jack, why don’t you shut the hell up?”
“It’s Sebastian you want?”
“Well, Jack, you did it. You figured it out. If I ever move to Rhode Island, you get my vote. Now, shut up.”