The Rapids

by Carla Neggers

  He looked down at her, his eyes shining in the near darkness. “I’ve almost died doing stupider things.”

  She urged him deeper into her, giving herself up to a release that came out of nowhere and overtook her, and he responded by pounding into her, letting her claw at his arms and forcing her orgasm to go on and on.

  She was spent, couldn’t move.

  He gave her a little half smile. “I’m not done yet.”

  “Oh, God.”

  When he finally came, she came again, with him, shocking herself as she felt him shudder, then collapse next to her.

  They were both slick with sweat, breathing hard.

  The storm was on them now.

  Maggie pulled on some clothes and sat on a club chair in the window, watching the storm.

  She could feel Rob watching her.

  “I don’t think I can make it to my room,” he said.

  He could. He just didn’t want to. Maggie rolled off her chair and went to him, smiling as she traced the perspiration on his taut abdomen. “I guess I’m not as repressed as you thought.”

  “As you thought, you mean.”

  When he sat up, she was struck again by how damn good-looking he was. But he was serious now, brushing a hand over her hair. She took a breath. “I won’t have any regrets in the morning.” She smiled at him, making sure she didn’t avert her eyes. “Ever.”

  He kissed her on the forehead, the nose, the mouth, lingering there. “I could fall in love with you,” he whispered. “It wouldn’t be hard at all.”

  Then he gathered up his clothes, got dressed and left her room without another word.

  Seventeen

  Maggie came downstairs early, wishing she’d brought some hagelslag with her from the Netherlands. Chocolate sprinkles on buttered bread would go down well after the night she’d had.

  She pictured Tom in the Dutch bakery, making his crack about Krispy Kreme doughnuts not even a week ago. They’d just become comfortable with each other, and now he was dead. The image of his smile quickly changed to that first glimpse she’d had of his body floating in the Binnendieze.

  She never wanted to get used to murder. Not ever.

  But last night with Rob wasn’t about Tom’s death, or William Raleigh and his bizarre ways, or about her father. It was about something else, although she couldn’t quite pin down what, except that she had no regrets and wasn’t embarrassed. And yet she didn’t expect ever to repeat such a night. She felt certain Rob didn’t, either.

  As she touched the latch to the porch door, Maggie heard someone sobbing in the kitchen and backed up, peeking in the doorway.

  Star stood at the sink in a baggy denim jumper with a white chef’s apron tied around her waist. She was running water over a colander of blueberries, tears streaming down her face. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”

  “Mrs. Franconia?” Maggie stepped into the sun-washed room, the air crisp and clear now that last night’s storm had pushed out the heat and humidity. “Star?”

  She spun around, hands dripping. “Agent Spencer. I didn’t realize you were awake.” She reached behind her and switched off the water, then grabbed a dish towel and brushed at her tears with it. “I had a bad night. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You’re not here to take on my problems. You’re here for a break.” She spoke with bitter sarcasm and lowered her towel, scrunching it into one bony hand as she glared at Maggie. “But that’s just a line you gave us, isn’t it? You’ve lied to us from the beginning.”

  Maggie crossed the kitchen with its cheerful terra-cotta tile floor and blue pottery vase of sunflowers on a round oak table, a contrast to Star Franconia’s troubled, sarcastic mood. “Why don’t we sit down? You can tell me what’s going on.”

  Star took in quick, shallow breaths, one after another, in danger of hyperventilating, but she stumbled to the table, in a corner of windows that overlooked more flowers. Sunlight shone on raindrops on vines and leaves. Maggie imagined going off with Rob for a long, romantic weekend in such a place, but that wasn’t why she was here, nor was it why Rob was here. And Star knew it.

  She had to have had her suspicions last night when Maggie had asked her to look up her father and Tom in any database the inn had. Staring out the window as if Maggie weren’t there, Star got control of her breathing. But her hands shook, and she hugged herself, goose bumps on her bare arms. “I should have worn a sweater,” she mumbled.

  “It’s a beautiful morning.”

  As if to corroborate Maggie’s words, a cool breeze floated through the cracked window.

  Star released several heavy sighs and gulps, until finally she pushed back her chair an inch or so and shot Maggie an angry, accusatory look. “You think my husband is involved with Nick Janssen, don’t you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You think he has something to do with your father’s murder in Prague, with the murder of that diplomat in Holland and now this Russian in London.” She shifted back to the view, the bones in her shoulders visible under her thin pink T-shirt. “That’s why you’re here. I know it is.”

  Remaining on her feet, Maggie tried not to let Star’s emotions affect her. “We know Tom Kopac was killed on Saturday morning, because I was there. Where was your husband over the weekend?”

  “Andrew? You mean did he have time to fly to Holland, kill your friend and fly back again?” There was a hard, sarcastic edge to her voice that Maggie understood but didn’t like. “He was here. But he could have hired someone to do his dirty work for him. He could have arranged for Mr. Kopac’s murder, Mr. Samkevich’s murder. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Star flopped back in her chair, her arms still crossed over her chest. “He was here. We had a full house, remember? I told you—”

  “I remember.” Maggie let her tone soften. “Ever want to chuck it and sell the inn, travel, go back to the life you had before you got tied down here?”

  “No. I don’t.” Tears, probably unwelcome, welled in her eyes, and she struggled not to cry. “Andrew, maybe. I’m more the homebody.”

  “Where is he now?” Maggie asked.

  “I have no idea. Where’s your marshal friend?”

  “I haven’t seen him yet this morning.” Maggie pulled out a chair and sat down, focusing her attention on the woman next to her. “Mrs. Franconia, what did you find out about the names I gave you last night?”

  With a small cry, Star jumped up, ripped off her apron and flung it on the floor, then ran outside onto the porch.

  Maggie followed her, birds twittering in the flowers and shrubs, everything clean and fresh in the bright morning sun. Libby Smith lifted screened covers and cloths from the breakfast laid out on a wooden buffet table. Steam rose from a tower of freshly baked muffins. Apple-cinnamon, Maggie thought.

  “Coffee?” Star asked her abruptly.

  “What? Sure. That’d be fine.”

  Libby, obviously aware that Star was very upset, held up a hand. “It’s okay. I’ll get it.” She filled a white mug from a stainless-steel coffee urn. She had on jeans and a sweatshirt with a picture of the inn silk-screened across its front, more appropriate for the cool air than Star’s T-shirt and jumper. “Deputy Dunnemore’s up. He took a mug of coffee off to the gardens a little while ago. Star? Can I get you anything?”

  Star shook her head, gulping in a breath, and plunged down the steps onto the stone path.

  “Maybe I should go with her,” Libby said, handing Maggie the mug of coffee. “She looks like she’s coming undone altogether. I know having you and Deputy Dunnemore here has bothered her. Fair or unfair, you guys make her nervous.”

  Maggie held the mug with both hands, appreciating its warmth. “I’ll go talk to her.”

  “Um, cream and sugar?”

  “This is fine, thanks.”

  The stones were still wet and slippery from last night’s rain, the gra
ss sparkling with dew, and Maggie fought a visceral urge to get away, leave Ravenkill, abandon her questions—her mission there—and just drive north along the Hudson River and see where she ended up.

  She found Star on her hands and knees in front of the fairy statue, picking weeds from a bed of miniature dahlias and baby’s breath. “The fairy’s nose is chipped,” she said. “Did you notice? Libby says her father whacked it with a wine bottle one night when he was drunk.”

  “Was she watching?”

  “Oh, yes. She was ten or eleven at the time. But it’s a beautiful statue, isn’t it? I think the chipped nose adds character.”

  Maggie nodded, trying to be conversational and resist the urge to pelt Star with questions. “It seems to belong here.”

  “That’s what I think.” Star rocked back against her heels, shaking mud off her fingers, a brown worm wriggling out of the dirt she’d disturbed. “It’s too wet still to get anything done out here.”

  “The gardens here are something. I have only one lowly orchid.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s supposed to be unkillable, but I think I killed it.”

  “Nothing’s unkillable,” she said sadly, then got to her feet, the front of her jumper from the knees down soaked. “I didn’t find a reservation for either your father or Mr. Kopac.”

  Maggie nodded. “All right.”

  “But I did—” Star faltered, sniffling as if she couldn’t go on. “I did for the army captain who was killed in Amsterdam last year.”

  “Charlene Brooker?”

  “I remembered her name from all the news stories in the spring. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I guess the Dutch connection got me.”

  “Captain Brooker was here? Or did she just make a reservation and—”

  “She stayed for two nights around this time last summer.”

  A month before Nicholas Janssen had her killed. Eight months before he went after a presidential pardon and the Dunnemore family was nearly wiped out.

  “Janssen,” Star said, her voice half-strangled. “He ordered her murder, didn’t he? That’s what they say. And he was captured last week—”

  Maggie could see that Star was very pale, her thin hands purple as she hugged herself. “I’ve learned the hard way to try to avoid speculating. It’s natural, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. Do you remember Captain Brooker?”

  Tears leaked out of Star’s eyes, and she choked back a sob. “Oh, yes. She was alone. She said she was taking a break. Like you.”

  “What did she do while she was here?”

  “Took walks. Rested. She had most meals here at the inn. We talked about antiques.” Star brushed idly at her tears, the anger and bitterness gone out of her. “I know I read about her death, but I never made the connection between the army captain killed in Amsterdam and our former guest. Andrew couldn’t have, either. He’d have said something. I know he would have.”

  Who was she trying to convince? Maggie touched Star’s thin arm. “We should go back to the house. You’ve got goose bumps. You do need a sweater.”

  But Star didn’t seem to hear her. “We read the news accounts this spring when the two marshals were shot in Central Park and that whole business with President Poe and the Dunnemores came out….”

  “I was in Chicago then,” Maggie said. “I remember.”

  Star gave a weak smile and walked back to the stone path, then stopped abruptly, doubling over as she started to cry.

  “Mrs. Franconia,” Maggie said, standing behind her, “if there’s more—”

  “There is.” She straightened, her cheeks red and blotchy from crying; the rest of her skin was deathly pale. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I was going to pretend—” But she stopped herself. “Never mind.”

  “Pretend what?” Maggie prodded.

  “That I didn’t know. That it never happened.”

  “Star—”

  “Your father never stayed here at the inn, but he bought a piece from us. It’s in our records. A crystal vase.”

  Maggie forced herself to stay focused on what Star Franconia had to say. “Here? He bought the vase from you here in Ravenkill?”

  She shook her head. “No. In Prague.”

  Star’s entire body was convulsed in shivering, more, Maggie suspected, from fear and a realization of the importance of what she’d discovered than from the cold. Her lips were stretched thin, a purplish blue, her veins in her hands and wrists bulging against her pale skin.

  Maggie shoved her mug of coffee at her. “Take a sip. It’s nice and hot.”

  “I want to find Andrew.”

  “Were you in Prague? You and your husband?”

  She nodded dully.

  “When?”

  “Three months before he was killed. How—” She tensed her muscles visibly, as if to stop herself from shivering. “How is that possible? Then Captain Brooker was here a month before she was killed? And now you…you and Deputy Dunnemore, just days after…after—” She brushed at tears that had dribbled into her mouth. “There’s been so much death.”

  “Mrs. Franconia, I want you to go inside. I’ll get Rob Dunnemore, and I’ll find your husband. Okay? Come on.”

  “Your father,” Star whispered. “I didn’t connect the two of you. I doubt I would have if you hadn’t asked me to look up his name. The sale wasn’t that big a thing. Even if I’d remembered, I never would have guessed he had a daughter who’s a federal agent. He was just this nice man who was interested in an antique crystal vase. Austrian. Libby was the one who found it.”

  Maggie held her elbow and got her to start walking. “Libby was in Prague with you?”

  “We met her there. She was on her own buying trip. It was our last big travel extravaganza before we opened this place. We opened in the winter deliberately, to get our feet under us before our first summer season.” But Star looked abruptly at Maggie and gave a small gasp. “You have your father’s red hair. I didn’t think of that until just now.”

  When they reached the porch, the muffins and fruit were covered again, and Libby Smith was gone. “Are there other guests at the inn?” Maggie asked. “You said it was quiet—”

  “It was just you and Deputy Dunnemore last night. I think…I think that’s for the best, don’t you?”

  “Probably.”

  Maggie escorted her inside and found a sweater on the back of a chair in the kitchen. She carefully folded it over Star’s shoulders.

  Star tried to smile. “You’re very kind, Agent Spencer. I know you have a job to do. Your father—” She wiped more tears with her fingertips, her sensitive skin raw from the chilly air and her crying. “I can’t imagine. That must be so awful. This has something to do with your father’s death, doesn’t it?”

  “I can’t answer that right now. Do you have any idea where your husband is?”

  “He’s not…he’s not a killer, Agent Spencer.”

  “I just want to talk to him.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she sank onto a chair at the table, fingering a sunflower in the blue pottery vase. “In the shop in the barn, I would guess. He wanted to work on some projects there today.”

  “Can I get you some coffee or tea, anything warm to drink?” Maggie asked.

  She shook her head. “I can get something if I want it. I’ll be fine. Andrew and I haven’t discussed what I found out—what I remember about Captain Brooker and your father.” She sniffled, slightly more composed. “You’ll let me know when you find him?”

  “I will.”

  When Maggie left, Star was looking forlorn but not as dramatically upset as she picked bits of yellow blossom off a sunflower and laid them neatly in a row in front of her.

  Ethan saw the news of the Russian arms dealer’s murder when he woke up on Juliet’s couch and flipped on the television.

  Samkevich.

  So somebody had taken out the bastard.

  Hell.

  His bruises less painful this mornin
g, Ethan rolled off the couch and tried to find coffee in the small New York kitchen. He checked the cupboards, the refrigerator, the freezer. No coffee. It was just another reason to clear out.

  He and Raleigh had tracked Samkevich to London, hoping he’d lead them to Nick Janssen—hoping they could turn both lying, murdering sons of a bitches over to authorities.

  Now old Vlad was dead, and Nick was in the pokey.

  Ethan gave up on his coffee hunt and ducked into the bathroom to get washed up. The lump on the back of his head had gone down, but it was an ugly mix of purple, red and smudgy-looking black. He had scrapes and bruises here and there, and his eyes were sunken and bloodshot.

  If he’d been Juliet, he’d have left him by the Ravenkill.

  If he’d been Agent Spencer, he’d have left him in the damn river.

  But he was lucky in that way. Always had been.

  Not Char.

  He washed his face and brushed his teeth, then returned to the outer room. He picked up his backpack and headed out. He didn’t feel bad at all about cutting out on his blond marshal friend. Juliet would likely thank him when she crawled out of bed and realized he’d cleared out. Less complicated that way.

  When he got to the sidewalk, he considered stealing her truck. The thought of navigating the New York City public transportation system didn’t sit well with him on a good day, never mind the morning after he’d tumbled into a rock-strewn creek. But if he went back upstairs and found Juliet awake, hair tousled, ripping apart the place because he’d slipped out on her, who the hell knew what’d happen?

  He had work to do. He had to find Raleigh. He had to figure out what was going on with Samkevich, Kopac, Philip Spencer, Maggie Spencer. What the connection among them was. And what, if anything, it had to do with Char.

  Halfway down the block, he realized he’d forgotten his toothbrush.

  He gritted his teeth. Goddamn it. He wasn’t going back up there.

  He heard footsteps approaching him from behind. Fast steps. New Yorker steps.

  “You damn ingrate,” Juliet said calmly, easing in next to him. “You could have left me a note.”