Abandoned

by Allison Brennan

  Pleased with herself—she had a meeting with Stephen Galbraith, the president of the Haven Point Sailing Club, first thing Friday morning—Max decided to reward herself with an early dinner. She’d eaten only snack food for lunch and was famished. The wind had picked up through the day, and the skies had turned gray—the forecast indicated rain tonight and on and off in the morning, but it was supposed to be clear by the weekend.

  Max didn’t mind. She enjoyed the rain, and after her meeting tomorrow morning she would need to regroup and figure out another way to convince Gabriel to talk about his brother. Gabriel Truman was simply a very private person who was protective of his family and angry that his brother was a criminal. At least, that was Max’s gut impression. She still felt that Gabriel had overreacted, but she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Family could make everything more complicated and emotional.

  She walked to the restaurant, the wind whipping her jacket and hair around her. A few drops of rain fell by the time she arrived five minutes later. She walked into the restaurant, shook off her jacket, and the hostess offered to hang it up for her. “I can get a driver to take you back to your cottage when you’re done, Ms. Revere,” she said. “The rain is going to be falling hard within the hour.”

  “Thank you.”

  Max asked to be seated by a window—it was early enough that there wasn’t a crowd, and with this weather she wondered if locals would venture out for dinner. She ordered wine and the crab cake appetizer—she really loved them—while she looked over the menu.

  A man in his early forties walked up to her table. He was attractive, with dark hair slightly graying on the sides, and wearing a suit. Based on the way he moved—and the gun in his belt under his jacket—she suspected he was a cop. “Ms. Revere?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Agent Ryan Maguire. You left a message for me yesterday. Three messages, in fact—the last one indicated you would be paying me a visit if I didn’t return your call.”

  “And your battery died?”

  He smiled, the kind of smile that said, I know I’m good-looking and smart. Almost arrogant, but with just enough boyish charm that Max didn’t immediately dislike him. “I thought in person was better.”

  He was blindsiding her—coming to visit on her turf, but when she hadn’t expected him. She had to admire the play.

  At least, he was attempting to blindside her. Maybe he wasn’t here to get under her skin, but to get under someone else’s skin, namely Gabriel Truman’s. More than likely, the feds had talked to Gabriel ten years ago when they opened the investigation into his brother.

  She considered having the restaurant box her food and taking Maguire to her cottage, but why should she be forced to change her plans because of this unscheduled visit?

  “Please, have a seat.”

  He did.

  “Wine? Beer?”

  “I have to drive back to Norfolk, but maybe with a meal.”

  “Have dinner with me then.”

  He assessed her. “I know who you are, I know about your cable show, I’m familiar with your articles. Tell me, what are you doing here investigating Jimmy Truman? Do you have information you’re withholding from a federal investigation?”

  If there was still a federal investigation that meant there was a long statute of limitations—or none—or that there were recent crimes they believed Jimmy Truman was responsible for.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not keeping secrets. You share, I share. I don’t bite, Agent Maguire.”

  “That’s not your reputation.”

  She kept her displeasure at the snide comment to herself as the waitress brought over Max’s wine and the crab cake appetizer.

  “Drink, sir?”

  “Whatever microbrew you have on tap is fine.”

  “We serve local Blue Mountain, stout or ale.”

  “Ale, please.”

  Max said, “So you are joining me for dinner.”

  “Shall I bring a menu?” the server asked.

  “Yes,” Maxine said. The waitress left and Max sipped her wine.

  “Don’t make assumptions about me, and I won’t make assumptions about you.” But she already had. Maguire wasn’t a by the book fed. On the surface he appeared to be—he wore a decent, but not too expensive suit and tie; he flashed his badge so he wasn’t hiding his identity; and he was straightforward without giving away too much information.

  Yet he had a spark that said he liked—really liked—his job. He had tugged at his tie twice since he’d walked in, telling Max he either didn’t always wear one, or he wasn’t comfortable in it. He’d come here after-hours—unless on call or working a major case, all feds basically worked eight to five. But another signal that he wasn’t completely by the book: his haircut. Feds tended to adopt strict dress code standards. Suits and ties, unless undercover, were usually required attire. That also included a neat, trim haircut.

  Maguire’s dark hair was a bit on the long side. It didn’t need a trim, but it was getting close and curled dramatically at the ends.

  And he wore Nike running shoes. They were black, didn’t completely stand out, but were certainly not shoes most people would wear with a suit.

  “Fair enough,” Maguire said. “Your messages were a bit cryptic.”

  “Cryptic? I thought I was excessively clear. My mother had been involved with Jimmy Truman and she disappeared here in Northampton County. I only recently learned this information when a private investigator I hired uncovered a car registered to Jane Sterling, abandoned near Oyster Bay, sixteen years ago this month. When I realized that one of her old boyfriends was from the area, I put two and two together. My PI is very good, learned that there was a federal investigation into Jimmy Truman, so I contacted you.”

  “That’s quite a jump.”

  “I have other details that led me here, but those are the highlights,” Max said.

  “You said your mother was Martha Revere.”

  “She was. She used the name Jane Sterling—Delia Jane Sterling is my great-aunt—and I have proof that her identity had been stolen years ago. It was cleaned up by family lawyers, but that time matches the car registered to D. Jane Sterling, an apartment in Miami, and a few other things.”

  “Such as?”

  “If I choose to work with you, I’ll show you everything I have.”

  “I don’t know how you think the FBI operates, but we don’t work with civilians on active investigations, especially not reporters.”

  So there was an active investigation into Jimmy Truman. Or was that an intentional information drop? A lie? Feds could be very sneaky.

  The waitress returned with Maguire’s beer, but Max waved her off before giving her order. “Five minutes, please,” she said.

  “Of course, Ms. Revere.”

  When she was out of earshot, Max said, “I don’t work with FBI agents on my active investigations, either. I called you to set up a meeting; you’re the one who chose to ‘surprise’ me at my hotel. The Norfolk office reopened this investigation just over ten years ago, connected to a Dallas case, so either Jimmy Truman has continued to commit similar crimes, or the statute of limitations is up—unless he killed someone.”

  “Are you suggesting that he murdered your mother?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far in my investigation. Those whom I have spoken with indicated that Jimmy Truman was a con man, petty thief, a jerk, but not violent. Still, people change, and I haven’t found one person who has claimed to have seen or been in contact with Jimmy Truman in more than ten years. My partner is in Miami following up on the Jane Sterling and J. J. Sterling identities that I believe my mother and Jimmy used there—we have confirmation that J. J. Sterling is in fact Jimmy, and he was last seen in Miami as J. J. Sterling the January before my mother disappeared. According to my PI, he stopped using the Sterling identity about the same time he left Miami. Fast forward nearly six years and your office opens an investigation.”

  Maguire drank his beer,
put the pint back down, never taking his eyes from her.

  “If it’s still active,” Max continued, “that means he’s still committing crimes, or that his crime is murder or major art theft.”

  He laughed. It was a real, hearty laugh.

  “Few people know that art theft carries a twenty-year statute of limitations.”

  “Art history was one of my majors.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Your other?’

  “How do you know I had two?”

  She simply raised her eyebrow. Few men went to college to major in art history. If they were artists, they went for a BFA. If they were idiots, maybe they would think art history was an easy major or a way to get girls. But Maguire wasn’t an idiot.

  She didn’t say anything. He wanted her to doubt herself, and she didn’t.

  “Economics. Yours?”

  “English lit. I had once upon a time wanted to run a museum.”

  “I wanted to own an art studio.”

  “And?”

  “I have an exceptional eye, but very little talent.”

  “We have something in common. College?”

  “Notre Dame. You?”

  Good school. “Columbia. So now that we’ve gotten our credentials out of the way, let’s order, because I’m starving and the crab cakes only made me hungrier.”

  Max motioned to the waitress. After she came over, Ryan quickly scanned the menu while Max ordered a shrimp salad. Ryan ordered a burger. “I’m simple,” he said when the waitress left.

  “I doubt that.”

  He laughed. “About some things.”

  “Tell me I’m right about Truman.”

  “Partly. I did know about his alias, J. J. Sterling, and about the woman, Jane Sterling. I didn’t know that Jane Sterling was also an alias. I caught the case only because it was passed to me by the Dallas office. Not every regional office has an art crimes expert.”

  “Why don’t you work out of national headquarters?”

  “Norfolk is close enough, and art crime isn’t my only area. I’m in the white-collar crimes unit.”

  Maguire, for all his charm and intelligence, didn’t play well with others. He didn’t say that, but Max knew enough about the FBI and how they operated to know that most specialists, like those in art crime, operated out of Washington headquarters or one of the major offices like New York or Los Angeles.

  “The investigation was opened nearly twenty years ago out of Dallas. Truman’s was only one of several names that surfaced. I wasn’t even an agent then, still in college, but I spent three years in Dallas after I graduated from Quantico and learned about the case. It went cold fast, and I was transferred to New York to work a major case with Interpol that necessitated me going undercover for two years. Then I was transferred to Norfolk and went about my business. The lead Dallas agent retired, sent me the Truman file because Truman was from Northampton and a piece we believe he stole in Dallas had resurfaced in DC. Because of my familiarity with the original investigation, HQ let me have the case. I reopened it, but couldn’t track him down fast enough before he sold the painting and the buyer left the country. Truman slipped away, and I’ve been looking for him ever since. It’s not the only piece he stole.”

  “Art theft.” It seemed far too intelligent a scam for Jimmy Truman.

  “You expected what? Drugs? Guns?”

  “No, it actually makes perfect sense.”

  That surprised him. “You know Jimmy?”

  “Barely. I met him when I was nine, when he hooked up with my mother. Let’s just say, Martha Revere would not win any mother-of-the-year awards. Yet, she loved art and she had talent. More talent than she deserved.”

  He caught on quick. “A forger?”

  “Not to my personal knowledge, and I doubt she was that good. But, she really knew art. She could look at a piece and know if it was real. She could price art like my grandmother can look at a diamond and know exactly how many carats and the quality of the cut.”

  “Was your mother a thief?”

  She had to respect him for flat-out asking her.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since I was a kid and she left me with my grandparents. She was declared legally dead nine years ago, seven years after she stopped withdrawing money from her trust fund. The last time I heard from her was a postcard sent sixteen years ago.”

  He hadn’t been expecting that information.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Do you have a photo of Jane Sterling?”

  “Only a driver’s license picture.”

  “From Florida.”

  “You’ve seen it.”

  “It’s my mother, but she went to great lengths to change her appearance—cut and dyed her hair, lied about her weight—I guarantee you that my mother never weighed 170 pounds in her life, even when she was pregnant with me. First, she was five foot four. Second, she was a bundle of energy. She can’t sit still. And the photo—yes, it was a head shot, but she was slender. Too skinny, maybe.”

  “I see your point.”

  “I don’t know what she was doing with Jimmy Truman, but my mother was all about fun. If Jimmy showed her a good time, she would stick around. As soon as he got boring, she’d leave.”

  “You must have had an interesting childhood.”

  She didn’t comment. Their food had arrived and she ordered a second glass of wine and started eating.

  After several minutes, Maguire said, “You didn’t know why the FBI was looking into Truman.”

  “No.”

  “I dug around about your mother’s disappearance. Called Lipsky, since he gave you my number. Said there’s no proof that your mother was Jane Sterling.”

  “I know it’s her.”

  “Okay.”

  She almost dropped her fork. “And?”

  “And nothing. You saw the photo, you’ve been tracking your mother, I believe you.”

  “Well.”

  “No one else does?”

  “The sheriff felt sorry for me—and trust me, I’m not a person anyone should feel sorry for. Lipsky just looked at the facts, and until I can show him unequivocal evidence that Jane Sterling is in fact Martha Revere, he’s not going to buy it. Or really care. It’s out of his jurisdiction, and there’s no evidence that anyone killed her. But it’s her, she’s dead, and if Jimmy Truman killed her or had something to do with her death, I will prove it. It’s what I do.”

  He nodded. “I looked into your background.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  “You’ve reported on some high-profile cases. The Adam Bachman murder trial. The Blair Caldwell trial. Others.”

  “Your point?”

  “Are you here simply to find out what happened to your mother, or is there a reason I’m not seeing?”

  “Does there have to be more?”

  “Usually.”

  Max was comfortable with Maguire, and she wouldn’t mind sharing with him some of her more personal thoughts on the matter, but he was still a federal agent and she wasn’t certain he would appreciate all of her reasons.

  But she didn’t really have a choice, because Gabriel Truman walked up to the table. She was about to comment, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared at Maguire, raw anger on his face.

  “I told you never to come back,” Gabriel said.

  Maguire was completely unfazed. “Hello, Gabriel.”

  “I want you gone. I haven’t talked to my brother in years, and I have nothing to say to you.”

  “I’m not here about your brother,” Maguire said calmly. “I’m looking into the disappearance and possible murder of Martha Revere, aka Jane Sterling. Know anything about it?”

  Gabriel was nearly red with anger, but his eyes … they were far off, almost wild. Max realized he was terrified, but about what she didn’t know. Did he know something about what happened to Martha? Why was he so scared?

  He turned to Max. He wanted to say something, she could see it in his
expression, but he didn’t. Instead, he said to Maguire, “Stay away from me unless you have a warrant. I have nothing to say to you.”

  He strode across the restaurant, so focused on the door he didn’t notice that the waiters and patrons were all watching him go. If he wanted to keep a low profile, confronting Max and Maguire and then storming off wasn’t the way to do it.

  Something was going on with Gabriel Truman, and Max had to figure out what it was.

  “I like to ruffle his feathers every so often,” Maguire said, completely nonchalant.

  She turned her attention back to the fed. “Why? Was he part of Jimmy’s schemes?”

  “No. If he was, he does a damn good job of hiding it. He doesn’t live above his means, he works hard for his living, and all his money is sunk into this business. But he lied to me, and I really hate it when people lie to me.”

  “We have something else in common.” Max took a bite of her salad, but she’d lost her appetite after Gabriel’s interruption. She really wanted to know what he was thinking—or what he thought he knew. “And?”

  “And … it’s part of my investigation.” He finished the last large bite of his hamburger and washed it down with the rest of his beer.

  “You don’t share, I don’t share.”

  “The difference is, I don’t have to share.”

  Max leaned back, drained her wine, put the glass down. “Neither do I.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “You’re a smart man, Ryan. Don’t make me think less of you now.”

  He stared at her. “You’re going to pull the reporter card.” But he didn’t say it with frustration or anger; he had a laugh to his voice, as if he admired her attitude.

  “It’s a heavy one, but it always works.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. “I had word that Jimmy Truman came to town ten years ago, in January. About the same time he sold one of the paintings he stole in Dallas. I have two witnesses who swore that Jimmy was here at the resort. They didn’t see him talking to his brother or anyone else, but one of the maids said he was staying in a cottage on the far end of the property—one that wasn’t open to the public yet, they were still renovating. He was there for at least three days, possibly longer. She only knows this because she walked by the cottage on her way home. I came back to talk to her, and she’d left employment and had moved.”