by Ellen Crosby
Summer opened the door. “After you.”
Senator Cameron Vaughn’s hideaway was a mixture of personal and patriotic, but it was a restful retreat rather than a working office. The walls were painted butter yellow; the woodwork was white. A primitive carved wooden statue of an eagle dominated a fireplace mantel with an American flag folded in the shape of a triangle behind it. The fireplace itself had been freshly laid with firewood and the room held a faint tinge of wood smoke. Silver-framed pictures of Vaughn’s good-looking wife and four teenage children adorned the walls and sat atop a credenza, which held bottles of top-drawer alcohol. Law books filled the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. A yellow-and-white-striped sofa and two patterned upholstered armchairs were grouped around a coffee table, which had a box of Cohiba cigars sitting on it. Through a tall slim window I caught a slivered view of the Mall with the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.
“Have a seat,” Summer said. “How about a drink?”
She dropped into one of the armchairs and kicked off her shoes. I took the sofa.
“No, thanks; I’m fine.”
“I’ll have one, if you don’t mind.” She jumped up and padded over to the credenza, where she fixed herself a gin and tonic. I hadn’t noticed the minifridge tucked inside.
She flung herself into the chair again and put her feet up on the coffee table, crossing her legs. I thought she seemed nervous, keyed up.
“Why’d we have to meet like this?” I asked.
“Because as far as anyone knows, you were never here. Neither was I. Lana slipped me the key. Hopefully the senator won’t walk in on us.”
I glanced automatically at the door to the suite. “Why the secrecy?”
“Do you really think Ian drowned in that hot tub?” she asked.
I still wanted an answer to my question but I answered hers anyway. “No.”
She threw back her head and gulped her drink. “I don’t, either.”
“I think his death had something to do with testifying before your committee,” I said.
Her voice was grim. “I’m sure it did.”
“Why?”
“Cameron got pressured this morning to cancel the hearing altogether now that we don’t have a witness.”
“Pressured by whom?”
“Harlan Jennings.”
I blew out a breath. Harlan, again. Deeper and deeper. “What did he say?”
She shrugged. “Cameron didn’t go into detail, but apparently Jennings said the publicity surrounding Rebecca Natale was already making investors at Thomas Asher Investments so uptight it was affecting the markets. Did we want to be responsible for pushing things closer to the edge—or even over it—based on one person’s unsubstantiated allegations?”
“Harlan actually said that?”
“Strongly hinted would be more accurate,” she said.
“Or threatened?”
“You say tomato.” She shrugged. “He also brought up the hoopla surrounding that antique Asher’s ancestor stole from the White House. Another unflattering development. Now the news about Ian. They don’t need this on top of everything else.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t so good for Ian, either.”
She made a face. “You know what I meant. Look, our hearing would have probably merited a lousy paragraph somewhere on the federal page or what passes for the business section in the Trib or the Post these days. Instead we’re in the A Section. Asher’s supposedly so mad he’s talking to the paintings on his boardroom wall. His people are pulling out all the stops to shut down any negative publicity that’s out there. Especially a Senate hearing.”
She slugged more of her drink.
“And now you’ve decided to do more digging on your own?”
“CYA, baby, CYA. I want to know what’s going on.”
Cover your ass. I wonder if she meant hers or her boss’s.
“I can’t believe Harlan would lean on Senator Vaughn like that,” I said.
“Why not? He’s probably got Tommy Asher breathing down his neck,” she said. “Not something I’d relish. I met Sir Thomas. Once. He intimidated the hell out of me, though I have to admit he’s enthralling. A shameless name-dropper. The guy could probably talk God into leaning on Cameron.”
“Asher and Harlan go way back,” I said. “They met when Harlan’s father was the British ambassador and Asher’s was an embassy driver.”
“Are you serious?” Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? Don’t tell me you know Harlan Jennings personally?”
“I’ve known him for ages. He lives in Middleburg. It’s a small town. Our parents used to socialize together.”
She sat up straight and slid her feet to the floor. “Whoa, there. Hang on. Who are you, anyway? First I meet you with Ian, now I find out you and Harlan Jennings are childhood buddies. Whose side are you on, Lucie?”
“No one’s. I could ask you the same thing.”
Summer stood up and moved to the window, looking out at the view. “I’m keeping an eye out for Cameron. Until I find out what’s what, I want to keep it under the radar.”
“Why? Are you worried someone’s watching you like they were watching Ian?”
She spun around. The afternoon sunlight shining through the window cast her in shadow, making her seem somehow less substantial.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Someone was watching Ian?”
“He thought so.” I half-wished I’d accepted her offer of a drink. Now I needed it.
“What was Rebecca Natale going to tell Ian, Lucie? What did he tell you last night?”
“I have no idea what Rebecca wanted to tell him,” I said. “But he thought Thomas Asher Investments is no more than a giant Ponzi scheme.”
Summer put her hands in front of her mouth like she was praying. “That would be a financial catastrophe.”
“No fooling.”
“Rebecca must have known if that was true,” she said.
“Apparently she didn’t believe Ian at first when he confronted her about it,” I said. “But she might have changed her mind.”
“And now she’s dead and so is he.” She paused. “Wow, that’s pretty damn scary.”
“I know,” I said. “And Rebecca is still missing. No one’s found her body.”
We both heard footfalls in the corridor and a man and a woman talking loudly. Summer went rigid, her eyes fixed on the door. The voices receded.
Our eyes met and she let out a long breath.
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really after you.” Her laugh was nervous.
“You said no one knows we’re here,” I said. “Let’s try not to scare ourselves over nothing.”
She nodded and finished her drink. “How did you get dragged into the middle of this? You own a vineyard. What’s Asher Investments to you?”
“Rebecca is an old friend,” I said. “And it’s a lot more complicated than you know.”
“Meaning what?”
“Nothing I can talk about right now.”
Summer glanced at an antique clock on the mantel. “I’ve been gone too long. No one is going to believe I had my phone turned off all this time.”
“Then maybe you should get me out of here,” I said.
“We need to talk again. Will you get in touch with me if you find out anything?”
So she could cover her ass?
“Only if you agree to do the same.”
“I’ll call you in a few days,” she said. “Let’s see where we are then.”
We walked back to the Rotunda in silence and took an elevator to the basement. She led me to a doorway to the portico under the east steps to the Capitol.
“It’s less conspicuous than letting you walk down that big marble staircase,” she said. “Sorry to deny you your Jimmy Stewart moment.”
We swapped my jacket for her lanyard and the papers.
“Watch yourself,” she said.
When I turned around she was
gone and I was alone in the darkened passageway with only the noise of the wind whipping past me, howling in my ears.
Chapter 16
It was just after four thirty when I crossed the visitor center plaza and headed for my car. A dark-suited man with a craggy face and snow-white hair surrounded by aides who enveloped him like a cloud swept past me. It wasn’t hard to understand the heady sense of power that pervaded this place and how it could be seductive—even addictive—if one worked here long enough. How difficult would it be not to succumb to feeling invincible or entitled—above the laws made here for everyone else in the country to obey? Is that what had happened to Harlan, strong-arming Cameron Vaughn to cancel that hearing looking into Asher Investments now that Ian was dead?
What I couldn’t figure out was why Harlan was playing such a high-stakes game of chicken. Did he know something the police hadn’t yet figured out about Rebecca’s disappearance and Ian’s so-called accidental drowning? Was he covering up for his blood brother Tommy Asher—or himself?
I reached the Mini as a police officer strolling down A Street tucked parking tickets behind the windshield wipers of cars whose owners had violated the two-hour limit for nonresident parking. I pulled out of my space when he was still half a block away, aware that I’d been there more than two hours. I wondered if he’d chalked my tires.
He looked up as I drove away.
* * *
It took forty-five minutes to drive the twenty-odd blocks down Constitution Avenue and across the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge. The second-worst traffic in the country after L.A. Somewhere I’d read how many days per year Washingtonians wasted sitting in their cars in traffic. Days, not hours. A radio traffic reporter rattled off the daily litany of pileups and jammed roadways clogged with what he called “volume.” It would be a long trip home.
Just after seven o’clock I exited onto Route 15 in Leesburg, the traffic now settling into the thinned-out remnants of rush hour. At Gilbert’s Corner I put on my headlights as I turned west onto Mosby’s Highway, the home stretch. Another car turned off 15 and pulled up behind me. He was still there, too close for comfort, when I slowed for the twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit through the village of Aldie. At the Snickersville Turnpike, I sped up. The other car did, too. On this winding two-lane road, with a solid yellow line painted down the middle, I was stuck with him until we reached a stretch that allowed passing.
But even when the road opened up and I dropped below the speed limit hoping he’d take the hint and pass me, he didn’t budge. From what I could see in the rearview mirror, the other car was big and dark, like a Navigator or a Suburban. Maybe it was only kids clowning around or someone on a cell phone who wasn’t paying attention.
We were back to the no-passing zone so I sped up. The speed limit was fifty, but I pushed it to sixty, then sixty-five. He was like a shadow, right there behind me, just the two of us with no other cars on the road. My heart began rabbiting in my chest. This couldn’t be whoever had followed Ian, could it?
Mosby’s Highway was a dark ribbon of twists and turns the rest of the way to Middleburg, and that was five more miles on what was now a deserted country lane. Except for the occasional light from a farmhouse window and the wash of moonlight on treetops or the crest of a hill, the only other light came from his headlights. I checked my rearview mirror at the exact moment he flashed his brights. It was like looking into the flash of a camera or directly at the sun. I swerved. These were not kids fooling around.
Thank God I knew every hill and bend in this road. With any luck, whoever was following me wasn’t a local. I pushed the Mini to seventy and sped away from the big car. Seconds later he gunned his engine and caught up with me again. Now I’d provoked him. If he wanted to, he could sideswipe me, send me into the ditch, and drive on.
It looked like that was exactly what he had in mind. His headlights disappeared from my rearview mirror as he shifted left into the lane for oncoming traffic. As he did so, a deer leaped over a low stone wall on his side of the road. For a second the animal stopped on the shoulder, like a lawn ornament frozen in the glare of our headlights. The other car’s brakes screeched and the deer darted across Mosby’s Highway, disappearing into the brush. Where there’s one deer, there are usually two or even three. The second one emerged almost immediately from a pine grove beyond the wall. It was a buck with six, maybe eight points. I swerved once again, this time onto the right shoulder as the other car hit the deer head-on. I heard a crack, followed by a loud thump and breaking glass. Probably his windshield. I slalomed back onto the road and prayed there would be no third animal. When I finally dared to look in the mirror, his headlights were receding in the distance. The buck lay sprawled across his hood, and neither the car nor the animal was going anywhere.
I sped through Middleburg even though I knew the driver could no longer be following me, running the lone traffic light at the intersection of Washington and Madison. Businesses were shuttered for the night and the streets were dark and quiet. For the rest of the trip home, I had the road to myself. This time I’d been lucky. What about next time, or the one after that?
When I finally reached the entrance to the winery and turned onto Sycamore Lane, our private drive, I was thinking more clearly. What if he hadn’t been the only one pursuing me? What if a companion was waiting here, at my house? At the split by the trunk of the two-hundred-year-old sycamore tree that gave the road its name, I went left instead of right, turning into the cul-de-sac where Quinn’s and Antonio’s cottages were located. Even though it was only eight o’clock on a Wednesday night, Quinn’s place was dark. But lights burned from every one of Antonio’s windows.
I parked in his small gravel driveway and banged on the front door. When he finally opened it, his jet-black hair was wet like he’d just showered. He was barefoot and wearing an undershirt and faded jeans. The planes of his face were in shadow, backlit by the cheery lamplight inside, but I could see the alarm in his eyes when he realized who I was.
“Lucie! What are you doing here? You okay? Everything okay in the winery? What is it?”
Antonio was only the third farm manager to work at the vineyard since my parents founded the place, but he reminded me of Hector Cruz, who’d managed the crew and taken care of the equipment for most of the last twenty years. Antonio was a young double for Hector with his strong good looks and even-tempered personality. I’d hired him the day we met. The men liked and respected him; he had good instincts with the vines; and what he didn’t know about fixing broken equipment wasn’t worth knowing. It hadn’t taken long before he became as indispensable in the field as Frankie was in the winery.
“Are you okay?” he asked again. “Something’s wrong?”
“Someone was following me on Mosby’s Highway. They started back on Fifteen when I got off the Toll Road,” I said. “I lost whoever it was when he hit a deer. I’m sorry, Antonio … I feel stupid bothering you.”
“Don’t be silly. Come in.” He put a brotherly arm around my shoulder and pulled me inside.
His dining room table had been set for two and the place smelled of onions, garlic, and roasting meat. A man didn’t go to all this trouble if a guy was joining him for dinner. Antonio was expecting a woman.
“You have a guest coming.”
“It’s okay. Can I get you something? Wine? A beer?”
“Just water, please.”
He led me to a brown leather sofa with a colorful serape draped across the back. The rest of his living room was simply furnished—coffee table, armchair, and television—but it looked like someone’s home, unlike Quinn’s place, which reminded me of a combination locker room and monastic cell. Brick-and-board shelves held a collection of music and movies. Two primitive paintings that looked Mexican hung on the wall above the sofa.
He returned with a glass of water. I needed both hands to hold it.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
When I was done he said, “Do you want to stay here tonight? You
could have the couch, if you wouldn’t mind? I, uh, might have, uh—”
The smell of something burning drifted into the living room.
“Your dinner,” I said. “I think you’d better rescue it.”
He muttered in Spanish and bolted for the kitchen. I followed and leaned against the doorjamb, watching him stir the contents of an ironstone casserole dish as he checked what was in the oven with the ease of a practiced chef.
“You’re welcome to stay and eat with us,” he said.
Before the near disaster with his dinner he’d been about to tell me that his guest probably planned to spend the night as well. Antonio kept his personal life to himself and I’d never pried, but I was glad to learn he had a girlfriend. As for me staying, three was a crowd.
“I nearly ruined your meal. I’m not about to ruin your evening. Thanks, but I’ll be okay. I feel better now, I’ve calmed down. When I get home I’ll lock all the doors and windows.”
He gave his casserole another stir. “You need a gun? You can take my hunting rifle.”
I’d never shot a weapon in my life, even though Leland had a gun cabinet that could outfit a small militia.
“I’ve got plenty of guns, thanks.”
“I will go with you to make sure you’re all right, check around the house and make sure everything is good. But if anything happens—you hear something or you get worried—I want you to call me right away. ¿Entiendes?”
“Sí, entiendo. I understand.”
“I can be there like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And if you change your mind, you come back here, okay?”
“Thanks, Antonio.”
“Give me a minute.”
