“I want out,” Barbara said. “I want out now.”
Darren Mowery smirked at her from his chair in front of the cold stone fireplace. He’d shown up ten minutes ago, without warning. “Barbie, Barbie.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m Barbara, or Ms. Allen, or Miss Allen. I’m not ‘Barbie.’”
She was on her feet, pacing, trying to look calmer than she felt. He’d swooped in so silently, so unexpectedly, catching her coming from the shower. Again, she’d detected no physical interest in her. He was single-minded, totally focused on his mission: the blackmail of a United States senator. Of her boss. She shuddered, horrified.
“Okay, Barbara.” He drew it out, sarcastic, laughing at her without humor. He wore tan chinos and a white polo shirt, nothing that made him stand out. “You won’t call the police.”
“I will. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll call the Capitol Police. I never should have gone along with you. I wasn’t thinking.” She’d been caught up in wanting to lash out at Jack, force him to acknowledge his love for her. But this was an unholy alliance. There were other ways to get to Jack.
Darren scratched the side of his mouth, looking unworried. “I warned you, if you’ll recall. No cold feet, no surprises.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Oh, it is. You see, Barbie, if you go to the police, they get my pictures of you stalking Lucy Swift.”
At first she didn’t understand what he meant. Pictures of her stalking Lucy? What was he talking about? She wasn’t a stalker. Then she digested his words. Understood. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe. She could feel him watching her with satisfaction.
“You don’t understand—” Her voice cracked. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“Oh, no, I understand. It’s simple. You hate her guts, and you took it upon yourself to scare the shit out of her. I tell the Capitol Police how I’ve been on your case for the past month. I tell them everything, start to finish.”
“Jack will know the truth. He knows you’re a blackmailer.”
“And he’ll know you’re a stalker, a nutcase lurking in the bushes to get at his daughter-in-law. It’ll all make sense to him. He won’t say a word about me. You know he won’t, Barbie. He’s too scared. He doesn’t care what I do so long as I don’t squeal about Colin and his little shenanigans.” Mowery smiled smugly. “I’ll be the hero.”
Barbara tried to stand up straight. “You followed me? You’ve known all this time—”
“Barbie.” He was chastising, indulgent, arrogant. “You forget what I did for a living for the better part of thirty years.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
Darren crossed one leg over the other, as if to emphasize that he was relaxed, in control. “If I talk, you lose everything. Your job, your reputation, any hope you have of snaring your boss. At best, you get sent to the loony bin for a little head-shrinking. If the jury’s like me and doesn’t buy a nutcase plea, you’re up the river for a good, long stay.”
Barbara ignored the pain that swept through her. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind.”
“So you go for a plea bargain. Barbara Allen, the stalker.” He yawned. “I thought the bullet on the car seat was goddamn brilliant, myself. Made Lucy’s skin crawl, I bet.”
Barbara sniffed, regarding him as if he were an insect on her carpet. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. I was merely trying to shock her into doing right by Jack’s grandchildren.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m hardly the first woman to despise a phony like Lucy.”
“Yeah, right. You hate Lucy because she’s everything you’re not.”
“That’s not true.”
He ignored her. “She married a Swift, she has Swift children, she has a fun, challenging career, she has a house. You hate her, Barbara, because she has a life and you don’t.”
“I do have a life! It’s Lucy who has no life.”
“When our buddy Jack told you to take a hike, you let your obsession with her get away from you.” Darren smiled, supercilious, almost enjoying himself. “It relieves the pressure, doesn’t it? Upsetting Lucy, throwing her off her stride. Makes you feel better, at least for a little while.”
Barbara held up her chin, summoning every last shred of pride she had. “I gave up everything for Jack. I’ve worked night and day for him for twenty years. I’ve put his interests ahead of my own. Lucy’s not half the woman I am.”
“But she signs her checks ‘Swift,’ and you don’t.”
“Bastard.”
“See? I know these things, Barbie. I’m an expert.”
She tried to swallow, but her throat was too constricted. He could never understand. No one could. “I just want out.” God, she sounded pathetic.
Darren dropped both feet to the floor and leaned forward. “Get this straight, Barbie.” He enunciated each word precisely, as if he were talking to a dunce. “I don’t care about your dirty little secret. You can turn Lucy Swift into a babbling lunatic for all I care. You are in this for the long haul. Understood?”
“I hope Sebastian Redwing finds you and kills you.”
Mowery grinned. “That’d be kind of fun, wouldn’t it? He tried to kill me once. I’d like to see him try again.”
“Darren,” she said, sinking onto the floor in front of him, knowing she looked pitiful—the obsessed spinster in love with the boss. God! But somehow, some way, she had to get through to him. “Listen to me, I don’t care about my share of the money—I don’t care about any of it. You can do whatever you want to do. I won’t say a word. I just want to stop.”
“Barbie.”
“Please go on without me. Please.”
“I don’t think so.”
So cocky, so arrogant. She got to her feet, hoping she wouldn’t crack, throw up, cry. Her stomach hurt. She pushed back her hair with both hands and went to the windows that looked out on the woods, the brook. Lucy should have stayed in Washington. None of this would have happened if she’d stayed.
“I’ve gotten all the satisfaction I want from hurting Lucy,” she said, and added in a small voice, “And I can wait for Jack.”
“Yeah, so?”
She turned back to him. “I’m done. I won’t say a word to anyone about what you’re doing. Just go on about your business and leave me out of it.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“Either way.”
She started to shiver. He would see it as a sign of weakness. He had used her, manipulated her. Now there was no way out. It was Lucy’s fault. All of it, Lucy’s fault. Barbara could feel a fresh wave of rage building. She was trapped, and it was Lucy’s fault.
“All right,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Right now, you’re doing fine just being up here.” Mowery walked over to her, stared out the windows at the picturesque scenery. “Vermont gives me the fucking creeps. I hate the woods. You okay, Barbie?”
“Yes. Certainly.” No more being mealymouthed. It hadn’t gotten her anywhere with him. She would hold her head high. “I have no apologies for what I did to Lucy. She deserved it.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“You’ve known from the beginning?”
“Why do you think we’re in this gig together?”
“You had to have something on me so you knew you could manipulate me when the time came.”
“So I could use your fucked-up little mind to my advantage.” He winked at her. “So far, so good. You forget, Barbie. I’m better at this than you are.”
“That was my mistake.”
“There’s only one man who’s ever outsmarted me. He’ll be knocking on your door before too long.”
“Sebastian Redwing,” she said.
Darren winked at her, patted her on the butt and left.
Fifteen minutes later, as he’d predicted, Redwing walked up onto the deck where Barbara was still contemplating her options. She had few.
Darren knew. Darren would have his way. So, what did she want? Jack. At the very least, satisfaction. Lucy suffering. Lucy miserable.
Sebastian introduced himself. He was, Barbara thought, breathtakingly sexy. He wore jeans and a faded polo shirt, but it would be impossible for him to blend into a crowd, even if he wanted to. She was aware of her own prim attire, simple slacks and a blouse, casual yet still professional.
“I’m staying at the house with Lucy and the kids,” he said. “It belonged to my grandmother. I sold it to them after Colin died.”
“Yes, I know.”
His eyes were an unusual mix of grays, she saw. He seemed to take in more of her than she’d have liked—an unsettling quality. But even if he knew she had secrets, he would never guess what they were. That was what was so unnerving about Mowery: he knew, only because he was incapable of trust.
“Do you mind if I talk to you a minute?” Sebastian asked.
“No, of course not.” She recovered, reminded herself she wasn’t a woman who played up her physical attractions to manipulate men; that was for weaker, less intelligent and capable women. She smiled, poised, professional. “I suppose Madison told you I was in Vermont renting a house for her grandfather?”
“She didn’t plan to tell anyone anything. She got caught sneaking up here this morning and came clean.”
Barbara nodded. “I never meant for her to lie for me. I suppose asking her not to say anything was bad enough. A sin of omission rather than commission. I hope Lucy isn’t too annoyed with me.”
“Madison’s fifteen. She knows the score.”
In other words, Lucy was punishing her daughter. Acid rose in Barbara’s throat. The woman was disgusting. “How long do you plan to stay in Vermont?” she asked, keeping her tone conversational.
“I don’t have any firm plans. Lucy stopped in when she was in Wyoming, and I decided to come on out, see my old haunts.”
“Had Colin mentioned anything about buying your grandmother’s house and moving to Vermont one day?”
Sebastian shook his head. “Not Colin. He loved Washington.”
“Madison’s like that,” Barbara said, smiling to take the edge off her words.
“That’s what I understand. I didn’t get to see a lot of Colin in the four or five years before he died.”
“It’s easy to take the young for granted.”
Barbara couldn’t help the subtle criticism in her tone, but Sebastian didn’t react. She was thinking of herself and Jack, too, and how he’d taken her for granted for years...and years. She was always there, always capable, always willing to do whatever he asked, without complaint. Unlike too many of his senior staffers, he could rely on her without worrying about her stabbing him in the back.
And what had her loyalty gotten her? Nothing.
Jack had to love her.
“When do you go back to Washington?” Sebastian asked.
“In a day or two. I’m open. I’ll have to help Jack tie up a few loose ends before he comes up for August.”
“I’m surprised he can manage without you right now. Isn’t this a busy time of year in Washington?”
“Usually, yes.”
He didn’t comment, and she wondered if he could see through her. Did he know? Did he suspect? Lucy, the sniveling coward, would have told him about the incidents by now. That was why he was here, of course. Not to see his grandmother’s house, but to protect her. It was sickening.
Barbara didn’t need a man to protect her. Maybe that was why Jack was afraid to admit his love for her—he knew she didn’t need him for protection, an income, all the things an ordinary woman wanted in a man. She was different. Stronger.
Sebastian smiled, and it was spine-melting. It would be so easy for someone as weak as Lucy to turn her problems, her individuality, over to a man like Sebastian Redwing. Barbara was more self-reliant. Tougher. “Well,” he said, “I don’t pretend to know the workings of Washington. Lucy asked me to invite you to dinner tonight.”
“How sweet. Please thank her for me, but I have other plans.” Of course, Lucy would think Barbara was up here longing for her company, incapable of managing on her own. “And I hope she won’t be too hard on Madison. I put her in a difficult position.”
“No problem.”
He started down the steps, but stopped halfway and glanced back up at her. His expression was impossible for her to read, and she was very, very good at reading people. “A former colleague of mine might be in the area. Darren Mowery. Know him?”
So this was the reason for his visit. Not Madison, not Lucy. “I’ve heard of him.”
“He went bad last year. It’s a long story. I hope I’m wrong and he’s nowhere near here. If he tries to contact you, find me or call the police.” His gaze leveled on her, probing, uncomfortable. “He’s dangerous. I can’t emphasize that enough.”
“I understand. Thank you for the warning.”
* * *
Lucy, Madison and J.T. had sorted the quilt pieces by color. Now they had three hundred little hexagons in piles on the dining room table. The colors were faded, the fabric worn. “It’ll look like an antique quilt when we’re done,” Madison said happily.
“It’s called a ‘grandmother’s garden’ quilt. It’ll be pretty.”
“It’ll be perfect.”
Lucy fingered a blue-and-white striped broadcloth, imagining Daisy carefully cutting her dead husband’s shirts into hexagons. Had the work helped her make peace with his death? Or was it frugal Daisy Wheaton making use of what was at hand? “Joshua died sixty years ago. This fabric’s old.”
J.T., who’d given up on sorting after the first hundred pieces, wandered out to the front porch with a couple of his Star Wars Micro Machines. He was making war noises, totally into his own twelve-year-old world.
“Mom!” he called excitedly. “Someone left flowers!”
Madison dropped a stack of hexagons. “Flowers? Oh, cool. I wonder—”
Lucy stopped her in mid-sentence, grabbing her arm. “Stay here.”
“Why? Mom, you should see your face. You’re white as a sheet! Over flowers?”
“Just stay put.”
Lucy ran to the front door and banged it open, catching J.T. by the arm before he could pick up the bouquet of flowers. Black-eyed Susans, daisies. They were scraggly, wilted. If she’d spotted them first, she’d have thought they were from J.T. or Georgie. “Go inside with your sister.”
“Mom, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me!”
“It’s okay, J.T. Just go inside.”
He started to cry, but did as she asked. Lucy could feel her legs giving way. She had to make herself calm down. She was scaring her children, scaring herself. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the flowers were Georgie’s doing, even if he hadn’t been around today. Maybe he’d stopped by while they were inside sorting hexagons and had just wanted to surprise them.
The flowers were tied with a string. There was a note. Lucy plucked it out carefully, unfolded it.
To Lucy,
I love you with all my heart.
Forever,
Colin
It was as though the words reached up from the paper and choked her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. She tripped on her own feet, stumbled down several steps, reeling.
“Lucy.” Sebastian’s voice. His arms came around her. “Lucy, what is it?”
She gulped for air. “The son of a bitch. The son of a bitch!” Every muscle in her body tensed. She glared up at him. “Is it Barbara? Is it? Because if it is, I’m going up there now and—and—” She couldn’t get the words out. “Goddammit!”
Sebastian half carried, half pushed her to the porch steps. “You’re hyperventilating. If you don’t stop, I’m getting a paper bag and putting it over your head.”
Hyperventilating. Too much oxygen in the blood. She knew what to do. She snapped her mouth shut, counted to three, breathed through her nose, let it out slowly through her mouth.
“Two more times,” Sebastian said.
“Madison and J.T.”
“Two more times, Lucy. You won’t do them any good passed out cold.”
She knew he was right. In another minute, she was calmer, breathing normally. He snatched up the note and read it. A slight tightening of the jaw was his only visible reaction.
“I didn’t expect it,” she said. “I knew it was something, but not this. What kind of sick person would do something like that?”
She got to her feet, held on to his arm to help steady herself. Maybe he didn’t have running water or electricity, maybe he’d renounced violence, maybe he had his demons to fight, but he was there, rock-solid.
When she regained her balance, she climbed the steps. Forever, Colin. Sick, sick, sick. She got to the front door. “Madison, J.T.—it’s okay, you can come on out.”
“I’ll get rid of the flowers,” Sebastian said.
Lucy nodded. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll call Plato.”
* * *
Sebastian’s take on Barbara Allen was direct and to the point. “She’s up to her eyeballs in something.”
Lucy smiled. “Is that your professional opinion?”
“Gut.”
They were at the kitchen table, drinking decaf coffee long after dinner. Madison and J.T. had gone up to bed. Lucy asked, “Is your gut always right?”
“About whether or not I want a cheeseburger. With who’s lying, hiding, contriving, plotting to rape and pillage—” He shrugged. “It’s almost always right. I’ve been wrong on occasion.”
“I sometimes forget what you do for a living. When you’re here, you seem so normal.”
“I’m not,” he said quietly.
She ignored a warm shudder, remembered pulling up to his shack with the dogs and the dust. No, not normal. “How does Redwing Associates manage without you?”
“I hired good people.”
“About Barbara.” Lucy sipped her decaf, which was a little stale. “Up to her eyeballs in what? You have an idea, don’t you?”
Nothing.
“Sebastian, I deserve to know.”
“It’s not a question of deserving. It’s a question of what you’ll do with the information.”
“You don’t trust me.”
He frowned at her. “I don’t know what that means. Do I trust you to sit back and do everything I tell you? No. Do I trust you to do what you think is right for the sake of your children? Yes.”
“That’s too specific. I mean trust in general.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Yes, there is. It’s when you trust someone to have an internal compass that will always point them in the right direction, not toward no mistakes—everyone makes mistakes—but toward at least trying to make good decisions.”
“I’m not sure your idea and my idea of a ‘good decision’ are the same.”
“That’s not the point, either. It’s not about thinking alike. It’s about trusting a person to be who they are.”
He drank his coffee. If he thought it was stale, he gave no indication. “You’ve been sitting out here in these hills too long and talking to too many crunch-granola types. Lucy, I trust you. There.”
“Good.” She sat up straight. “Then tell me what you think Barbara’s up to her eyeballs in.”
“Blackmail.”
She dropped her mug, coffee spilling over her hand and onto the table. He got up, tore off a couple of paper towels and handed them to her. She was shaking. She blotted the spilled coffee, not looking at him. “My God. Blackmail?” Then the realization hit. “Not Darren Mowery. Sebastian, please tell me—”
“I wish I could, Lucy. I’ve been holding back on you, hoping I could tell you Darren’s not involved in what’s been happening to you. But he is.”
Lucy nodded, breathing rapidly. “I understand.”
“No, Lucy, you don’t. Darren was my boss, he was my mentor, and he was my friend. He went bad, and I went after him. I knew I might have to kill him.” Sebastian returned to his seat; he was calm, as if they were discussing whether the tomatoes were ripe enough to pick. “I should have made sure he was dead or in jail before I left Colombia. I didn’t.”
“And now—” Lucy frowned, trying to make sense of the bits and pieces she had. She left the coffee-soaked paper towels in a mound on the table. “Is he blackmailing you?”
“Would that he were. That’d be easy. No, he’s blackmailing your father-in-law.”
“What?”
“Darren contacted him while you were in Wyoming. Jack paid him off, and when it wasn’t enough and Darren came back for more, he got in touch with my office.”
“And they got in touch with you,” Lucy said, her head spinning.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the falls.”
“Well, you’re a hell of a better liar than I am. Or Madison, even. Jesus. You’ve known that long?”
“Jack wouldn’t give Plato the details. I let him sweat a few days. He still won’t budge.”
“But you know it’s this Darren Mowery character,” Lucy said.
Sebastian nodded.
“Then arrest him!”
“That’s the thing about blackmail, Lucy. The victim doesn’t want to go public. He doesn’t care about whether the blackmailer goes to jail. He just wants him to keep quiet.”
Unable to sit still another second, Lucy jumped to her feet. She ran outside, down the back steps, into the grass. It was cool on her bare feet. She could hear crickets as she fought back tears. Blackmail! Jack was being blackmailed!
Sebastian followed her out into the grass, not standing too close. The more he had to think about, Lucy thought, the more he seemed to go deep inside himself and maintain an outward calm. It was a skill she didn’t have, except on the water. When a crisis hit while kayaking or canoeing, she operated on training, instinct, skill. She couldn’t afford to panic.
But this was what he did, she remembered. He dealt with blackmailers. Blackmail victims.
“How much did Jack pay—do you know that much?”
“Twenty grand in two installments.”
“That’s all?”
“For now.”
She exhaled toward the starlit sky. “I just want to make a quilt with my daughter. I want to take my son fishing. I want to live my life. Damn.”
“Plato will be here tomorrow.”
She nodded.
“Lucy.” He touched her cheek with one finger. “Oh, God, Lucy. If I could make this all go away, I would, even if it meant you never came to Wyoming and I didn’t get to see you.”
She shut her eyes, squeezed back tears. “Do you think Barbara’s involved in the blackmail?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with me?”
“Yes. I don’t know how, but yes.”
She sank her forehead against his chest and let her arms go around him. He held her. She recovered slowly, stopped crying. “I hate crying,” she said. “I haven’t cried in years, except when I stubbed my toe last summer, and really, it was more because I was pissed.”
“Lucy, you’re one of the strongest women I know.”
“I’m not. I just get up every day and do the best I can.”
“There,” he said, “you see what I mean?”
She opened her eyes and saw his smile, and she kissed him lightly, savoring the taste of him, the feel of his hands and the night summer breeze on her back. “If I could,” she whispered, “I’d ask you to make love to me tonight.”
“Lucy—”
“My children are upstairs in bed. They’re afraid, and they need to know where I am.”
“I love you, Lucy Blacker.” He touched her hair, her mouth, then kissed her in a way that made her know he meant what he said. “I always will.”
“Thank you.”
He laughed suddenly, so unexpectedly it took her breath away. “Thank you?”
“Well—I don’t know. Yes, thank you.”
He smacked her on the behind. “Go upstairs to your kids before I toss all honor to the stars and carry you off to bed.”
“That’s very tempting, you know.”
“Believe me, I know.”
J.T. was asleep when Lucy entered his room. As if drawn by an invisible force, she turned to the picture of him with his father. “Colin,” she whispered, touching his image. “Thank you for what you were to me. For Madison and J.T. and our years together. Thank you.”
She went down the hall and listened at Madison’s closed door, then slipped into the guest room. She gazed out at the darkening sky, thinking of blackmail and Jack and a dangerous man who wasn’t dead, and when she crawled into bed and pulled her quilts up to her chin, she thought of Sebastian. And she smiled. The Widow Swift was falling in love again.
* * *
The memo came across his desk late, around nine, and at nine fifteen, Jack Swift gave up on working until midnight as he’d planned and got a cab home. It was a routine memo. His staff was aware Sebastian Redwing had once saved his life and had been Colin’s friend, and they regularly passed along pertinent information on Redwing Associates.
Happy Ford, a Washington, DC-based consultant for Redwing Associates, was shot this evening here in the city. She’s in critical condition. Prognosis optimistic. Unknown if injury sustained in work-related activity. No suspects at this time.
Mowery.
In his bones, Jack knew Darren Mowery had shot this woman.
He got to his house, ran upstairs, started throwing clothes into his suitcase. Lucy, the children. He had to get to them. Somehow, he’d crossed Mowery. Somehow, he’d screwed up.
“I did everything the bastard asked!”
His suitcase fell off his bed, its contents spilling across the floor. He collapsed onto the thick rug amidst boxer shorts and chinos and sobbed. He pulled his knees up under his chin, wrapped his arms around his ankles and cried like a two-year-old. He couldn’t stop. Colin, Eleanor. Gone. Dead. Buried. Everything he’d lived and worked for about to go up in smoke.
He had nothing left. Nothing.
And now Lucy and his grandchildren—he didn’t know. He didn’t know what Mowery would do.
“Jack?” Sidney’s voice, calling from downstairs. “Jack, are you here? I called your office, and they said you lit out like a bat out of a burning cave. What’s going on?”
In another minute, she was in the doorway.
She gasped. “Jack.”
“Oh, Sidney. Sidney, what am I going to do?”