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March 6th, 2013 Burnt Ash, Virginia
VERITY was going through the jumble of morning mail on her desk when she felt herself being kicked in the stomach. Or maybe it had been a punch. The child inside her had started moving around early in her pregnancy, according to the doctor. Now it was getting rambunctious. He or she seemed as anxious to get out as Verity was to have the baby—and there were three months to go yet. They were both going to have to learn some patience.
Her mixed feelings on learning that Turner had gotten her pregnant on their wedding night had given way to pure wonder and joy at the life growing on the inside of her. That had gradually become mitigated by the increasing discomfort, and supposedly the worst was yet to come. She could blame Turner for all of that, rather than the child.
Thinking about her husband always started her speculating, at least with the corner of her mind not occupied with her job—which right then was sorting the office mail. Some of it was junk mail to be recycled, most of it was routine business for her to handle, and a few choice pieces got through to Mr. Hollingsworth. She knew a lot more about her employer after working here for several months than she’d ever known about her own husband. For the umpteenth time, Verity wondered if she had rushed into matrimony. Wedded bliss would be inapt.
She had been so captivated by the man from the first time they met that she’d resolved to hook, then land Turner with a steady determination that she’d only applied to her work before. And to her astonishment, it had worked. She’d captured his interest almost too easily, he’d stubbornly resisted any real intimacy, and then suddenly there’d been the whirlwind courtship and wedding and—
Witness where it had left her. She had a bun in the oven and a missing husband. Who was a time-traveler from the future, and that was the only concrete detail she knew about his life. She thought she knew his character, and that he had good genes. If it weren’t for those two things, she could cry when she thought of the child she was carrying—whose father was either lost somewhere in time, or dead.
Verity took a deep breath and reminded herself that there were people with bigger problems. Karat for one—the woman’s husband had been murdered and she was hiding out with a new identity and newborn child. Verity had quite a lot to be grateful for, like this job. With a sigh she stopped thinking about herself, took Mr. Hollingsworth’s small pile of mail, and walked into his office holding it all atop her protruding belly.
The lawyer looked up and watched her drop his mail into the antique wooden inbox on his desk and shook his head. “It’s a good thing I gave up my office in Manhattan. It was too classy there to have a secretary so obviously pregnant—I would’ve had to insist you take maternity leave.”
“You’re a dinosaur, sir, living in the last century. I’d have had to sue.”
He ran his finger down his mustache as he considered that. “You’d have had to get another lawyer, of course. Conflict of interest. Which also applies if you decide to sue Turner for abandonment. Technically I represent him as well. Still no word?”
As if she would’ve failed to mention it if she had heard from her husband. “Not a peep. And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve no intention of suing anyone. I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction, and I have all I’d want from Mr. Belue already.” And then some. She caught that snide thought, then tossed it into her mental trash can. It wasn’t true. But Verity found herself becoming more snarky as her pregnancy advanced. At least that was what she blamed it on.
Hollingsworth shook his head. “I suspect, Mrs. Belue, that you know much more about Turner and the rest of those Travelers’ Trust people than you let on. Can you really not know where he is or what he might be up to?”
She sighed and shifted to stand more comfortably. “I know a lot less than you’d think, sir. But any secrets aren’t mine to share—theirs or yours—which brings me to your mail. Take that package sitting on your desk. The return address reads ‘Secret Admirer’, and you can confide in me about who she is, sir. I promise I won’t tell your wife.”
The lawyer snorted. “You and my wife are thick as thieves, so I know how far I’ll trust that.” Picking the package out of the pile, he read aloud the return address. “General Delivery, New York City.”
“Of course it might be a bomb, sir. I’m sure you have plenty of enemies. Do you want me to run the package under some water in the sink?”
“I doubt if that would work with modern explosives. And all my enemies—thank you for that complement, by the way—would be more subtle.”
Verity sniffed. “Then I guess you’ll have to take your chances and open it.”
Hollingsworth raised his head and looked up at her. “I certainly wouldn’t let you open it, not in your condition.”
“Careful, sir. I might reconsider that lawsuit.”
“That’s your prerogative, certainly. But at least go across into the house and stay with my wife until I’ve seen if this is safe.”
“Staying here to watch you open that is also my prerogative, sir. If it’s from your girlfriend, you’d be advised not to have such things mailed here. Or not to work from home.”
The lawyer grinned. “My wife already knows all the worst about me, and she’s still here.”
“And she’d likely appreciate it if you spent more time away from home then, wouldn’t she, sir?” The former Mrs. Cooper had welcomed Verity replacing her as her husband’s secretary.
“She’s enjoying her time away from the office, I know. And dreading the day you do take maternity leave. You don’t have to, you know. You can have the baby here if you want, as long as I’m not around at the time. Like women used to, you could just pop it out and get right back to work.”
“You’re a Neanderthal, sir, and I’ve got thirteen weeks before my due date—a bit early for Mrs. Hollingsworth to worry about working for you again.”
Her employer squinted at her for a moment. “I suppose you must feel pretty confident this isn’t really a bomb or you wouldn’t be in here?”
Verity looked at the package he was holding. “It was sent by Express Mail, which would be unusual—unless they wanted to blow you up right away, or on a particular day.” Of course she didn’t believe there was any danger, or she would have removed herself to a safe distance. “And the Postal Service takes lots of precautions these days, sir. After everything.”
“After all this fuss, would it be anticlimactic if I just opened it?” He took the sharp, gold-plated letter opener from its sheath on his desk, slit one end of the bulging envelope open, and dumped the contents out. What plopped onto his desk was a small, square box with rounded corners.
“Apparently your secret admirer is sending you some jewelry. Cufflinks? Or maybe she’s not aware you have a wife, and that’s a ring with a proposal? It looks like they got it from an outlet store, though. I would send it back if I were you.”
Hollingsworth gave her a withering glare before returning his attention to the box. “Your condition must be impairing your sense of humor—it’s getting worse and worse all the time. So if it’s something so cheap I don’t want to keep it, I can give it to you.”
“I should sell it if you did, sir.”
“Quite right, too.”
He returned the letter opener to its sheath, then pulled the box open. “Well, what do you know. It’s a man’s watch. Not my style, but it does seem a bit familiar. What do you think?” He took it out of its setting and handed it to her.
Verity couldn’t hide her astonishment—a watch just like Turner’s. She turned it over to see the inscription on the back. H—6. The one Matt had lent her for their disastrous trip, the one she kept stowed away in the back of her closet, that one was marked H—5. This could be its twin.
As she had been examining the watch, Hollingsworth had lifted the cardboard platform it had been sitting on and removed a couple items from the bottom of the box. One was a folded up sheet of paper which he held in one hand, the other a small object that he held out to her in his other palm. “And what, exactly, is that?”
“It’s a USB drive, sir. For storing digital files—like for a computer. You wouldn’t know about that, sir, being a dinosaur.”
The lawyer unfolded the paper and read silently to himself before looking back at her. “This is from a contact of mine with the FBI. They ask me to see that watch handed over to Anya Walker, or another responsible party. That can be you, by the way, for the time being. As for the other thing, they only say it’s something that will help Mrs. Silverman.”
Verity cocked her head at him. “You have an informant inside the FBI?” That would be a real help to Karat. One of the things Hollingsworth had been able to discover was the fact that Senator Souseman had sicced the Feds onto Karat with an allegation of blackmail.
The lawyer gave her a funny look. “We’ve both got our secrets to keep, Mrs. Belue. Now, how do I go about finding out what’s on that thing?” He nodded at the drive he was still holding out.
With a sigh she took it from him, and Hollingsworth refolded the letter and slipped it into his jacket’s inside pocket. “I’ll need to get my laptop.” The lawyer refused to have a computer marring the antique glamour of his office.
He coughed discreetly and rose from his chair. “You’ll do no such thing. I’ve kept you standing long enough. We’ll adjourn to your office where you can sit down, and I’ll stand looking over your shoulder. I just hope this is something I can use.”
He followed her to the outer office, and she was glad to settle herself into the deluxe executive chair he’d gotten for her—and that was before Verity had discovered she was expecting. His wife’s influence, no doubt.
As she waited for the laptop to boot up, she requested an update. “Are Karat and the baby managing alright? Have you heard anything recently?”
Hollingsworth grunted. “I’ve not heard a thing. I set her up with that new identity to protect her, so I’m not going to risk getting in contact just to chat. She knows she should only get in touch in case of an emergency. So I assume they’re both alright.”
Verity shook her head and turned her attention back to her computer. She hesitated a moment before inserting the drive, but she’d set up her system to be as well-protected from viruses and every other potential threat as she could. And her employer did seem to trust his source in the FBI.
The window that opened showed only one large file. “It’s a video, sir.”
“Can we see it on that thing? If we can, is it safe to watch?”
Now he asks. “We can. I don’t see how it could hurt just to look at it, but maybe I’d better avert my eyes in case.” It might be something she didn’t want to see.
“If you’re worried about seeing something confidential, what good are you as my secretary?”
She double-clicked the icon.
What they both viewed then was a high-resolution video taken from the ground, looking up. Two men in dark suits walked to the edge of the roof of a multistoried building—carrying a third man, seemingly unconscious between them. Then they casually tossed him over.
Verity and Hollingsworth both stared in silence for a long moment. Then she played the video again in full-screen mode and paused it where the face of that third man was clearly visible. “I’ve never seen a picture of Mr. Silverman. But you knew him.”
The question was implicit, and of course he understood. “He’s quite a bit older than the last time I’d seen him, but I recognize the man well enough.”
“Now we know it was murder, and we can prove it, sir.” She’d still had her doubts, but no more. She did wonder, though, who had taken that video, and how and why.
“Prove it to whom?” The lawyer started combing his mustache with his finger again, meaning he was deep in thought. “Those two men may be wearing sunglasses, but they can still probably be identified by facial recognition. If they are what they look like, though, that could be a problem.”
“How? Do you recognize them too?”
“I know the type. They’re spooks of some sort—CIA, military intelligence, or maybe an agency I’ve never heard of. It hardly matters.”
Verity felt her jaw harden. “If government spies murdered Karat’s husband, what can we do?”
“Senator Souseman made a mistake, I think, involving the FBI. Whatever agency those men came from who killed Silverman, I’m confident they were not acting officially.”
Verity looked up into his face. “Are you sure?”
Hollingsworth looked down into her eyes. “I do have some experience with these kinds of people. I know there are some bad apples among our national intelligence agencies who aren’t too picky about the legality of what they do or who they do it for. Such as whoever Souseman had spying on his mistress.”
“But if the FBI already had this video, why send it to you, unless they couldn’t or wouldn’t do something about it?”
“I don’t think they did have this. But that explanation will have to wait. The point is—if the Bureau can identify those two men in the video, then I may be able to get them looking for a connection to Senator Souseman. That’s where I think he erred. The FBI won’t like it if they think he’s been playing them for fools. They’re not. They’re slow, but they’re tenacious, thorough, and methodical. All I have to do is get them started on the right trail.”
Verity nodded. “I see. And at least if the FBI is investigating Souseman, they’ll leave Karat alone.”
“Probably, but it probably won’t be safe for her to come out of hiding until the senator’s been dealt with, and possibly not even then. That’s why I gave her a new identity she should be able to live with as long as she needs to.”
If it were Verity, and her husband who had been murdered like that, and she had a new child to care for, she doubted she’d want to go back to an old life that held only grief and danger. “Anyway, the important thing obviously is to use this video and your contact at the FBI to sic them on Souseman.”
Hollingsworth grinned. “Indeed. I think being investigated by the Bureau would at least constrain him from trying too hard to find Mrs. Silverman—it also holds out the hope of justice for her husband.”
Verity smiled back. “And you’ll have to get back in contact with her to let her know. Finding out the truth will be important to her. And you can ask how the baby’s doing.”
“And I’ll make sure to tell her about your condition as well. Now, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and you’ll be doing most of it, so stop stalling.”
“Yes, sir.” First she’d help Hollingsworth fight this battle. Then it would be time to turn her focus to finding her husband and having her baby. She’d see which of those she accomplished first.