by Jan Coffey
When he took a gun out of a shoulder holster inside his jacket, Ellie’s heart almost stopped. He was an FBI agent, it was natural that he would be armed, but before tonight she’d never noticed that he carried a weapon.
“What…what are we doing?” she asked in a whisper.
“It appears that Teasdale might have had some unwelcome company today.”
“Are we going to call the police?” Ellie realized how stupid that sounded as soon as she said it. “For help, I mean.”
He took his cell phone from his belt and handed it to her. He also handed her the car keys.
“Stand on the walkway over there and call the police. Give them my name and tell them who I am. Give them the address and tell them I suspect a possible burglary. I’m going inside to check for possible victims.”
She didn’t want to be left out there alone. Still, though, she moved to where he told her and pressed her back against the house. The back door slid open easily, and Nate called out, identifying himself before disappearing inside.
Her hands were shaking when she dialed 911. Her voice sounded even worse. But she managed to pass on the information Nate had given her to a dispatcher.
A light went on inside, and Ellie felt a little better, as it illuminated the area around her somewhat. What she could see of the backyard was well kept and carefully landscaped. But beyond that, the dark woods were too close. She glanced toward the partially open door, wishing Nate would come out.
Ellie let out a small scream when a black cat landed right at her feet. Her heart almost stopped, and she glared at the animal. She turned her gaze upward, realizing he must have been perched on the deck above. The cat rubbed up against her legs and meowed loudly. As she reached down to pet it, though, the complaining animal spotted the partially open door and ran inside the house.
Unable to stay outside any longer, she followed the cat in. The basement had been set up as a workshop. Two rows of benches stood at angles off the walls. Wooden shelves housed an array of tools and served as a bookcase. One section had a compartment with dozens of small drawers. Rolls of material were set up on a pipe rack. A door in the back of the room led to the rest of the basement, and the cat disappeared through it.
Ellie was going to follow the animal when something on her right caught her attention. On a board above a workbench, an array of Betsy Ross flag sketches had been pinned up. Looking closer, she saw that Teasdale had small pieces of fabric, and even a couple of square inches of what looked to be a faded old flag. She double-checked the package under her arm. It had definitely not been opened. A drawer right above the bench had been left partially open, and Ellie noticed a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it. Surprised, she started to open the drawer.
“Don’t touch anything.”
She turned and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Nate standing in the doorway. “Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, I did. Teasdale’s sitting at the kitchen table with his throat cut. I’m going to need my cell to let them know we’ll need the coron—”
The bile rose up quickly in her throat. Ellie ran out the back door and doubled over at the edge of the grass. Even as she retched, she was conscious of the sound of approaching sirens.
Twenty-One
Sunday, June 27
The police report, with its usual flair for elegant prose, identified the victim as Henry Teasdale, aka Hank Teasdale. Male. White. Sixty-seven years old. No known relatives. Found sitting facedown at the kitchen table. Clothing at the time of death: blue shirt, gray pants, no shoes. Preliminary judgment for cause of death: five-inch incision severing the left-side carotid artery and the windpipe. Preliminary judgment regarding instrument of death: victim’s own kitchen knife. Instrument recovered on scene.
Milt drove over and took Ellie back to the Murtaugh house sometime before midnight. As much as Nate wanted to keep her totally out of it, standard procedure had dictated that the detective in charge take down some basic information from her. After she was gone, Nate participated fully in the homicide investigation.
The crime scene was secured, and the work inside the house proceeded, even though the outside search had to be postponed until daylight. Nate requested that the locals extend the boundary of the investigation to include the entire length of the gravel drive.
Other than the murder itself, there was no evidence of a struggle. It was obvious that someone had gone through the dresser drawers and closets and taken whatever he’d found there, as well as all the cash from Teasdale’s wallet. Despite the fact that there was evidence of forced entry, Nate was not ready to let this murder go down in the books as a random burglary gone bad. Though the policeman’s rule was to go with the obvious, the fact that Teasdale was killed two days before his meeting with Nate was just too coincidental. It was also the policeman’s rule to go with your gut feeling, and looking around the place, Nate sensed that this was a first-class job done by a true professional.
At around four in the morning, Nate called Hawes at home and brought him up to date on everything that had happened. The assistant director didn’t raise his voice once, listening without argument to Nate’s reasons for quietly going about finding someone else to duplicate the flag. The only thing Hawes insisted on was having the agents from the FBI field office in Albany take over the investigation, in cooperation with the Saratoga Springs Police Department, thereby freeing Nate to stay on-course with his assignment.
To stay on-course was to play a waiting game, though, something that Nate was not too good at.
Dawn was just breaking across the eastern sky when he headed back to his parents’ house. His mind continued to race as he drove. Next week at this time, everything had to be in place. A flag had to hang proudly behind the podium at Independence Hall, where the President was announcing the start of his Spirit of America celebration. But the casualties were adding up. Two men who excelled in forgeries, men he had only gotten as close to as a phone call through Ellie, were dead. McGill had come close to being killed. Chris was still scared, but at least he was safe in Philadelphia. Three others had died as a result of the explosion, as well.
Crime scenes, reports, eyewitnesses, backgrounds—Nate’s mind reeled as he tried to connect all of these people and events.
The moment Nate turned into the driveway, he felt the sense of peace that imbued this house wash over him. This was the place where he and his brothers had grown up. This was the rock on which he’d built his world. His family represented the ideal that he hoped someday to emulate. He parked behind the line of his brothers’ cars, knowing his mother would be leaving in a few hours on her Sunday morning doughnut quest.
He got out of the car and looked at the stretches of stone walls they used to hide behind during snowball fights every winter. He saw the old oak tree and the special limb they would hang a rope from to crash-test their Tonka trucks. At the far end of the field, he could see the brook that disappeared into the woods. Down the path a hundred yards was their swimming hole, where the stream dropped in a series of falls, eventually carving a slide in the rock that ended in a shallow pool before continuing down into the gorge. While growing up, Nate and his brothers and their friends spent hours swimming there.
As a kid, this had been a great place to grow up. In his late teens, he’d been naturally restless and ready to move away. Except for August, when the horse races ran, there was little action here and less excitement. Now that he was a thirty-six-year-old workaholic with increasingly jaded views of the world, this was becoming the place that he enjoyed returning to. This was the place where he could leave the problems of the world behind.
He looked up at the windows of the guest room above the garage and imagined coming back here with Ellie. The image of her snuggled up in his arms on the porch swing last night came into his mind. The way she looked wrapped in a towel as she stepped out of the bathroom in her apartment. He was becoming addicted to her smiles—to the quick wit with which she cut him no slack. He wa
s looking forward to having sex with her. She was right about that, too. It was going to be an experience. He’d make sure it was.
There was so much that they didn’t know about each other, but still everything felt right.
Of course, she was slow to warm up and accept him. Look at what she’d had growing up. He glanced around at the fields. She didn’t have anything like this. She was slow to trust. He thought of his family. Who had she ever been able to trust growing up? She was slow to open her heart, but Nate already knew that when she did, it would be forever.
“Are you going to stand there all morning?”
The quiet voice came from the porch. Nate went up the steps, surprised to see Ellie cuddled up on one of the wicker chairs.
She pushed the throw blanket aside. “Good morning.”
“Have you been waiting there all night?”
“Not all night. I couldn’t sleep.”
One of the dogs was jumping about excitedly behind the screen door. Ellie got up and let him out. She was barefoot and wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Nate watched the vulnerability play across her face, and he pulled her into his embrace. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head tightly against his chest. They stood silently wrapped in each other’s arms like that for a few minutes.
Nate spoke first. “I’m sorry that I took you there last night.”
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you by getting sick. I was just so scared and confused. Then I just hit overload, I guess.” She pulled away and tugged on her sneakers.
“You didn’t embarrass me.” He caught her hand when she started folding the blanket. “Are you okay now?”
She nodded.
“And you’re not mad at me this time for not calling you?”
She shook her head and smiled. One of the cats meowed at the window, and the golden retriever Ellie let out came back up on the porch. He sat at the door smiling at them, waiting to get back in.
“Do you think we should go in and feed them?”
Nate glanced at his watch. “It’s only five-fifteen. We don’t want to throw their schedule off, or there’ll be hell to pay with Dr. Murtaugh.” He opened the door and the other two dogs ran out. “Let’s take them out for a walk. Mom usually feeds them about eight on Sundays. They should last that long.”
“The air is cool.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Let me run in and get a jacket.”
He grabbed the blanket and draped it over her shoulders. “The sun will be heating things up pretty quick now. And between me and this thing, we should keep you warm.”
They started down the steps and across the field. His knee was stiff, so he set a casual pace. The grass was still wet with dew. Nate watched Ellie’s profile when she lifted her face to the sun and filled her lungs with the fresh morning air.
“Is this a routine I should get used to?” He pushed the loose tendrils of hair out of her face. “Anytime if I have to skip a night of sleep because of work, you don’t sleep, either?”
She stared at the path that was leading into the woods. The two springer spaniels ran ahead, and the golden retriever walked beside her. “I guess…I guess that’s true as long as we’re partners on this assignment.”
Nate took her hand and stopped. He lifted her chin until he could look into her dark eyes. “Is that what we are? Partners on an assignment?”
“I guess…I thought so. Or at least, that’s what I wanted us to be when we started,” she explained softly. “But somehow, over these past few days, you’ve managed to confuse me about so much.”
“And how have I done that?”
“By bringing me here. By introducing me to your family. Even by taking me with you last night to check on Teasdale.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Ellie shook her head. “No. I’m glad you did. Being there, experiencing firsthand the danger you face in doing your job, made your world more real to me. It made me realize how artificial this perfect little world is that I’ve been trying to create for myself.”
“Don’t romanticize what I do, Ellie. It’s just a job.”
“I don’t,” she quickly answered. “It’s just the opposite. Now I know why we have to cherish every moment that we have together. Every moment that we’re alive.”
She started walking again. He stayed beside her.
“I’m mad at myself because for so long, I’ve been solely focused on putting together the kind of life that I didn’t have as a kid.”
“I think we all try—consciously or unconsciously—to do better than what we think our parents did.”
“It’s more than that. In my case, it’s been close to an obsession. I had to have the perfect, successful business. I had to have important friends. Fancy cars. Belong to the right clubs. I even had to have the right boyfriends.” She let out a frustrated breath. “For me, it’s been more than compensating for not having a mother, or for seeing my father go to jail at the time in my life when I needed him most, or for having a pretty unconventional childhood. This thing just…became a monster. I needed perfection at the expense of losing the opportunities that could fix my…my psyche. I forgot about me, the real person. Instead, I’ve focused on how others should perceive me. Somewhere along the line, I even forgot about, or lost interest, in what always mattered most to me.” She pulled the blanket tighter around her. “I’ve flat-out avoided sitting down with my father and trying to thrash out whatever we’re both so wound up about.”
A couple of times during this past week, Nate had been ready to make a comment to Lou or Ellie about this ignoring game the two of them played so well with each other.
“Don’t put that one off. Sit down with Lou this week, tomorrow. Force him to get it all off his chest—and do the same thing yourself. Life is too short. It’d be very sad to have regrets about that years down the road…after he’s gone.”
Ellie turned to him. “This is the big difference between us. Rather than tossing and turning and losing sleep, you do something about whatever it is that’s bothering you. Rather than having the same argument eighteen different ways with yourself—without ever solving the problem—you know what to say.”
“And I say it,” he admitted. They were walking alongside the brook, and the water was running clear and strong.
“And you say it.” She nodded. “No beating around the bush. You want something? You ask for it. You have a problem? You fix it.”
“You’re making me look pretty darn good. Maybe I could get this all on tape and play it back to you the next time you think I’m a pain in the ass.”
Ellie lifted her face to him. “The reason I’m saying all this is to let you know that I’m going to work at not being a pain myself. Spending time with you has changed my perspective, Agent Murtaugh. From now on, I’m going to do my best to be Miss Congeniality.”
“This could change Bureau policy, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“We may have to institute a ‘Take an agent home with you’ program to change everyone’s attitude toward the FBI.”
“I’m serious.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “And this has nothing to do with the FBI, really.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to be nice to everybody.”
“Not everybody. Just people I should care about. You know, the riffraff like you.” She smiled.
Nate pulled her against him. His head bent over hers. “How nice?”
“It all depends,” she drawled.
There was a splash right next to them. They both turned and found the two spaniels chasing after a family of ducks across the water hole. The retriever was standing on the edge, looking back at them expectantly.
“Nice enough to go swimming with me?”
“When?”
“Right now.” He motioned with his head to the water. “You and me and the dogs and the ducks.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You’re crazy.”
“So?” He pulled the blanket off h
er shoulders and threw it on a flat rock that extended out over the water. He took off his shoes and socks. “You told me yourself—I want something, I go for it. Right now, I want to go swimming.”
“That water is probably freezing.” She took a step back. “And I don’t have a bathing suit, and your family will be getting up any minute.”
“The water is warmer than you think.” He peeled his shirt off. “And I promise not to stare if you take all your clothes off. And those guys won’t get up for at least another couple of hours.” Nate unbuckled his belt.
“You wouldn’t.”
He unbuttoned his pants and lowered the zipper. “Come on, city girl.”
She turned around, her cheeks burning. “What about your mother’s rule about—”
“We’re not under her roof.” Nate tossed his pants and boxers over on the rock. Moving up behind Ellie, he pulled her against his chest and kissed the silky skin of her neck. “And who said anything about sex? This is considered morning exercise.”
To prove his point, he let her go and stepped off the stony ledge into the shallow section of the pool. The water was freezing. Nate bit back a curse and walked a few steps in until he was waist deep.
“It’s like bathwater.”
The golden retriever standing next to Ellie barked, calling his lie. So much for man’s best friend.
“How many stitches did you get on your back?” she asked gently.
“Twelve.”
She’d turned around and was watching him. “When do they come out?”
“In another week or so.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Like hell,” he lied, “especially when they get wet.”
Before his teeth started chattering, he dived headfirst into the deeper section of the pool. The water was much more bearable once he was completely wet. When he came up, she was standing on the stones near the shallow end and was reaching down to put a hand in.
