“Not necessarily seduce as you mean, just sweet-talk you, that sort of thing.”
“To find out what I know,” she said quietly. “Know about what?”
“That’s just it, we have no idea. And, you know what, I don’t think you do either. In the last hours I’ve had time to think and to listen. Yes, I sneaked down the stairs—at great pain, I might add—and I listened to every word that lover boy said to you. He’s besotted, isn’t he? But then I can understand him. Under different circumstances—” He looked her up and down until she glared at him. Smiling, he looked back at his soup.
“Anyway, after much thought, I decided that you didn’t know anything and that what with your having a boyfriend, I wasn’t going to be able to do this the way the boss wanted me to. I don’t think I’m your type. Even when my face isn’t black and blue, I don’t think I’m your type. I think you like, well, boring men, like Granville.”
“If that’s supposed to make me tell you that I don’t like men like Brad Granville and that I really like lying, snooping, creeping prevaricators like you, then it won’t work.”
Jared grinned at her and put his empty tray on the chair by the bed. “I’ve been watching you, Ms. Palmer, and I decided that you were going to be too difficult for me to put on an act of being the kind of man you liked just so I could find out about Applegate.”
“Who is this man Applegate?” Eden asked, exasperated. She wanted this all to be a dream. Tonight she’d been offered what could be a wonderful job, something that would turn her life around in a way that she’d never imagined, but now she was being told that the FBI wanted something from her.
“He’s a spy. Hand me my wallet, would you?” He motioned to the dresser.
Eden got up, got the wallet, handed it to him, then sat back down on the end of the bed. The way she was feeling she might faint, and she didn’t want to fall out of a chair onto the hard floor.
He handed her a photo and pointed to one of three men. The man was frowning, as though he didn’t want his photo taken. “Have you ever seen him before?”
She studied the picture. “No, at least not for any length of time. I can’t say that I never saw him on an elevator or working for someone or walking through my publishing house. But I’ve never known him in a way that would make me remember him.” She handed the photo back to him, and he carefully put it in his wallet, then put the wallet on the chair.
He fluffed his pillows, leaned back against them, and put his arms behind his head. “That’s what I thought, and I think you’re telling the truth.”
“Why would I lie? What does this man, this spy, have to do with me?”
“When he knew he was about to be caught, he ate a piece of paper with your name on it. We found it in his stomach after he was dead.”
At that Eden stood up. She was going to her own bedroom and in the morning she would laugh about this. It had all been a hilarious dream.
Jared caught her arm and pulled her back to the bed, where she sat on the edge of it, facing straight ahead, her eyes glazed.
“Why?” she whispered.
“That’s what we want to know. As you can imagine, you’ve been pretty thoroughly investigated, but we could find nothing in your past or your current life that would link you to a spy of Applegate’s caliber.”
She looked at him. “I was investigated by the FBI? And you found nothing? Am I supposed to be grateful for that?”
“Look, I know this is a shock to you, but I took a big chance when I told you about this. My telling you is a gesture of respect, actually. My boss wanted me to make you fall in love with me, then I was to try to get you to talk and tell me what you know. But I’ve read every word about you, and I’ve spent a whole day listening to you and watching you, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t know anything. Or don’t know that you know it, that is. After much contemplation about this, I decided that I should just tell you what was going on and ask you to try to figure out what you know.”
“Respect?” Eden whispered. “Respect? You have respect for me? You’ve snooped and spied on me, and you’ve pretended to be much more injured than you are so I’d feel sorry for you. Where’s the respect in all that?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jared said with a one-sided grin. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“No, it didn’t work.” She stood up. “I don’t know anything about a spy, and I don’t know anything that would cause a spy to know about me. Did it ever occur to any of you that I was an editor at a major publishing house? Maybe the man wanted to write a book and he was given my name as someone to send his manuscript to. Maybe a book editor is nothing in your world, but I can assure you that to a person who wants a book published we are only just below God.”
He looked at her in surprise. “As far as I know, no one ever thought of that. It’s a strong possibility.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t relent. “Look, Ms. Palmer, I didn’t want this job. I pleaded with my boss to not assign me this. I said I’d rather deal with drug addicts and the underworld than with a church-going woman. ‘Deliver me!’ I told him.”
With every word the man spoke, Eden’s nails cut deeper into her palms. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“Not doing a good job of it, am I?” he said, obviously trying for humor.
“No, you’re not doing well at it at all. I’m going to my own room now, Mr. McBride, and I want you to leave my house in the morning. In fact, I want you to vacate your house and leave Arundel. I don’t know anything about a spy and I don’t know anything that he’d want to know. My guess is that he believed that idiot jewel story and that’s what he was after. I don’t think that people spy for love of their own country. I think they do it for money, so the Farrington jewels would have appealed to a man like him.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“So much for the thoroughness of FBI research,” Eden muttered as she glanced down at the bedside table. On the bottom shelf were several old paperbacks. Bending, she withdrew one and tossed it onto his lap. Missing Treasures was the title. “Since you’re a big-shot FBI man, I’ll tell you a little secret that not even the people of the other families in Arundel know. Mrs. Farrington’s ancestor sold the jewels to pay his debts so he could keep this house. To save his pride, he spread the rumor that the jewels were stolen. The story is a myth. Now, Mr. McBride, I’m going to my own room to do some research for a new job. Tomorrow, I want you to leave. If you’re not out of Arundel by six P.M., I’m going to the sheriff. I know the man. He used to play with my daughter when she was a baby. He’ll listen to me. Have I made myself clear?”
“Completely,” Jared said lightly. He was looking at the back of the book, which told about treasures that were missing around the United States, one of which was the Farrington sapphire necklace.
“I’ll call my boss and I’ll be out of here in the morning. No problem.” He looked back at her. “See you in the morning.”
When Eden got to her bedroom, she wanted to block out all that McBride had told her. How could such a lovely evening have turned so sour? FBI, indeed, she thought. Was she supposed to believe him? He had lied about everything else, so why was she expected to believe him now?
Obviously, the man was insane. That was the only explanation for what he’d told her. She was supposed to have been involved with a spy. When? was the first thing that came to her mind. When you’re a single mother, you’re father, mother, breadwinner. You’re everything to one or more children. There had been days when Eden had craved a mere fifteen minutes of time alone, but she couldn’t get it. She’d always had work to do, either the kind that earned money, or housework, or baby work. She’d always felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to play with Melissa as much as she would have liked, but she’d never had enough energy or time.
Yet here was some man saying that he thought she’d somehow, some way, at some time, become involved with a spy. Too, too ridiculous.
She tried to cl
ear her mind of McBride and was glad that he was going to leave her house and the town tomorrow. She went to the pine cabinet in the corner of the bedroom. That she hadn’t even opened the cabinet reminded her that she needed to do a thorough exploration of the house and the attic. What was left and what was missing? Inside the cabinet were about half of the books that Mrs. Farrington had bought for her.
Smiling, Eden took out a book on Thomas Jefferson’s gardening records. Opening it, she saw her notes in the margins. It seemed so long ago now. When she last held this book, Melissa had been a baby, and she’d spent most of the summer outside in the gardens. Only in inclement weather had she worked on cataloging. During the winters and the hottest summer days, she’d stayed inside and studied the history of the Farrington family.
She put the book back on the shelf and withdrew another one. It was a children’s book about what it was like to live in the “Big House.” She couldn’t help herself as she sat down hard on the end of the bed and ran her hand over the book. How quickly children grew up! It seemed only days ago that she’d bought this book for her daughter. They’d read it together several times before that night when they’d had to run away and leave everything behind.
Eden looked at the old room, at the restored molding around the ceiling, at the fireplace surround that had been stripped of layers of paint, then perfectly repainted a classic off-white. Tears came to her eyes. Brad said that Mrs. Farrington had sold a valuable piece of family silver so she could have the house renovated for Eden. The love that went into that action made the tears run down Eden’s cheeks. Mrs. Farrington had not deserved the life she’d had. She deserved children who loved her and cared for her in her old age. Instead, she’d turned to strangers.
Wiping away her tears, Eden put the book back in the cabinet, glanced at the other titles, and wondered where the rest of the books were. Mrs. Farrington had purchased every book she thought Eden might possibly need. It had never been said, but Eden was sure that Mrs. Farrington’s dream was for Eden to someday be the head of the Arundel Historical Society. To the outside world, it meant nothing, but to the people of Arundel, it was a job of high prestige. To be elected to it by members of the founding families, a person had to show extensive knowledge of restoration techniques and the history of the town. Historical gardening was part of that required knowledge. Eden remembered her one and only visit to Williamsburg, paid for by Mrs. Farrington. While Eden was away, Mrs. Farrington had hired three young girls to babysit Melissa (Mrs. Farrington was terrified that she’d be left alone with the child), all so Eden could go to a gardening symposium on eighteenth-century techniques. When she wasn’t in class, she wandered about the old town and drank in the beauty of the buildings and the gardens.
Yawning, Eden closed the doors to the cabinet. “But then I was actually spying on my country,” she muttered.
She was suddenly very sleepy, so sleepy that she could hardly make it to the bathroom to put on her nightgown. Ten minutes later, she was asleep in the bed that had once belonged to generations of Farringtons.
Chapter Seven
“BILL, calm down,” Jared said into his cell phone. “Stop yelling so loud. She’ll hear you. Yes, I did give her something to make her sleep. Poor thing, this has hit her hard. No, I’m not going soft on you.” He listened for a moment. “If you’ll calm down, I’ll tell you why I told her who I was and what I want. Are you ready to listen?”
Jared took a deep breath. “Something is going on around here, but I can’t figure out what it is. Some lawyer is acting like Ms. Palmer is the love of his life, but she only met him a couple of days ago. I don’t trust him. Something isn’t right. I think he wants something and he’s planning to get it. But she’s falling for him hook, line, and sinker. She seems to believe every word out of his mouth. He even told her some cock-and-bull story about being unfaithful to his ex-wife while the woman was dying of cancer, and she swallowed it. It was all I could do to not step in and tell her a few home truths.”
Pausing, he listened. “Yeah, I guess he could be on the up-and-up, but I doubt it. The point is that I saw that I didn’t have a chance with her. She isn’t what I thought she was going to be. She’s isn’t some desperate, lonely woman who swoons every time a man makes a move toward her.” He hesitated. “She’s more of a no-nonsense type of woman, so I took the chance of telling her the truth. Besides, she’d already figured out that nearly everything I’d said or done was a lie. She should have worked for us.”
Jared rolled his eyes and listened. “No, I’m not falling for her. It’s just that I made a judgment call and decided that the best thing to do was to tell her who I am, what I want, and see if she can help figure out why Applegate swallowed her name and Social Security number. By the way, I want you to see if Applegate was writing a book, maybe a tell-all about his life undercover. Maybe he just wanted her as his editor.” Jared smiled at the phone. “Yeah, she came up with that idea. She’s not dumb. Look, I didn’t call you to get yelled at. I need you to send someone here to do something for me. Ms. Palmer is a bit upset with me, so she’s told me to get out of her house, to get out of town, actually. What I need is for you to send a man down here and maybe fire a few shots so she’ll realize this is serious. No,” Jared said patiently, “not at anyone, just fire a few shots around. I need to have a reason to stay near her. If she thinks she’s in danger, she’ll be more receptive to my hanging around her as a bodyguard, so to speak.”
Jared listened, grimacing. “Yes, I know this is supposed to be an undercover assignment, and I know you think I shouldn’t have told her anything, but I did. Now I want you to send a man out here right away. Put him in a car tonight. She’s to meet Granville tomorrow at ten A.M., but I want her to miss that meeting. He’s getting too close too fast, and I don’t like it at all. Look, I gotta go. I put this red concoction on the cuts on my feet and it’s burning. I have to take a shower, and I need to get a couple of hours sleep so I’ll be ready for this man. Send somebody good, understand? I don’t want any cock-ups. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how everything went. Oh, and, Bill, thanks for doing this.”
Smiling, Jared hung up the phone, turned it off so it wouldn’t ring, then hid it under the bedsprings. Throwing back the covers, he got out of bed and pulled the sling off his arm. In the hospital they’d asked him if he thought he needed a sling, and he’d moaned that he did. Now he flexed his arm, made a fist of his hand, then dropped to the floor and did half a dozen one-arm push-ups. The arm was okay, but he was disgusted that so few push-ups could make him feel so sore.
He pulled off his clothes, dropped them on the floor, then picked them up and put them on the chair by the bed. In the shower, he let the hot water run over him and wash away all the “wounds” that he’d colored his body with. He’d wanted Eden to think that he was bleeding and in pain. He hoped she didn’t miss the red nail polish he’d taken from her bedroom. That, mixed with a little of her cocoa butter cream and some nail polish remover, had made a reddish mess that was burning his scabbed cuts.
He soaped himself and thought about how angry Bill had been when Jared told him that he’d told Eden the truth. But she’d made Jared feel like he had in the third grade when his teacher wouldn’t believe a word he’d said. Other teachers had believed him. He’d made up elaborate stories about why he was late or where he’d been, and they’d all believed him. But not Mrs. Lancaster. She’d looked him in the eye and told him he had to write lines as punishment for lying.
Eden was like Mrs. Lancaster. She didn’t believe him either. Clever girl! he thought. She’d seen that his clothes were too new, that there was no table saw in his garage, and she’d called the electric company about the houses being on the same circuit. If she knew he was a liar, how was he supposed to make her like him so much that she revealed secrets to him? And with Granville around, how could Jared get close to the woman as quickly as possible?
While he’d stood outside the dining room listening to her and Granville talk,
Jared had thought about telling Eden the truth. No lying, just the facts of the case. He’d present it to her as a problem and let her help solve it.
As he’d hobbled up the stairs, he told himself that wouldn’t work. If she was told about a spy, she’d throw him out, and he’d never find out anything. No, he thought, he’d better not do that. But then, he’d stood at the window and watched her and Granville in the moonlit garden, and he’d felt something that was rare for him: jealousy. Granville was older than Jared, not in as good shape, and had a boring office job, but it looked as though “the girl” was falling for him.
Jared had turned away from the window in disgust at himself for having such juvenile thoughts. This was a job, he told himself. It was the same as other jobs. But somehow it was already different. For one thing, he’d never before worked in a middle-class home situation. Gangsters, thugs, drug lords, the underworld had all been in his working life, but not this. This was a nice house, a nice woman, and a nice town—and they made thoughts of retirement and having a normal life come into his mind.
By the time Eden came up the stairs after Granville left, Jared was prepared for her. He had no doubt that she was going to tell him to get out, so he’d made his wounds look as though they were bleeding. She couldn’t throw out someone dripping blood, could she?
She hadn’t surprised him when she’d told him that she knew that everything he’d told her was a lie. But he was surprised when, even knowing that, she’d gone downstairs and made him a tray of food. It was while she was downstairs that he made the final decision to tell her the truth. He was aware that part of him was hoping she’d be so interested in what he told her that she’d spend more time with him. But she told him to leave. He was going to have to resort to other methods to get close enough to her to find out what she knew. By the time he got back into bed, he was smiling again. When he’d first surveyed the place, before Eden had arrived, he’d seen a cellar beneath the house. It looked old enough to have petroglyphs on the walls, and he didn’t relish spending any time down there, but it would do as a hideout for a few hours. Still smiling, he went to sleep.
First Impressions Page 10
