“Seven, six, five—” I saw Serena and Josephine’s smiles change from happy to excited.
“Four, three—” I saw Walter reach out and clap someone on the shoulder as I felt a warm hand slide down my left arm and take my hand.
“Two, one—” I looked down at my hand, then up into a pair of blue eyes with a little bit of green around the pupils.
“Happy New Year!”
The shouts were in my ears, but all I heard was Ben’s voice saying quietly, “Happy New Year, Lucy. I’m so sorry.”
I chose to believe him.
“Kiss me,” I said, a smile rising up inside me and onto my face. He took my face in his hands and did as he was told.
FORTY-SIX
“But I thought you didn’t go undercover,” I said. Then I arched an eyebrow. “Or is that some tosh you told me two months ago to get my goat?”
We’d moved to the back parlor, which mercifully had been devoid of both other people and ghosts. I’d shut the door, Ben had locked it, and we hadn’t spoken for several minutes as our lips were otherwise engaged.
Finally, when my neck ached from tilting my head back, he seemed to remember I was short and led me to one of the leather sofas. He sat—my goodness, did he look handsome in a tux—and pulled me down gently onto his lap, careful not to jar my right side. There we didn’t speak for several more minutes.
Finally coming up for air, he began explaining how he’d ended up ghosting me.
“I had to go to DC right after what happened with Senator Applewhite, but you already know that. I was only supposed to be there for a couple of days, but this other situation came up. I can’t discuss it, but I understand you know the gist of it from Roselyn Sutton?” Now his eyebrow arched. “And, ah, maybe from being an amateur sleuth again and nearly blowing Roselyn’s and my cover?”
“I plead the Fifth,” I said. “And this is not about me, but about your explanation. Please continue, Special Agent Turner.”
“I’m never going to stop you from poking your nose in, am I?” he said.
“Probably not,” I replied. “At least, not if my genealogy skills can help save someone. It’s not within me to back away if someone is in danger.”
He nodded. “I figured as much.” Then he grinned and kissed me again.
“Hey,” I said, pulling away a bit breathlessly. “What gives? More explaining and less lip-locking, sir. How did you, specifically, get roped into going undercover?”
“This guy we just put away today, he fancied himself a sophisticated gangster of sorts. He liked to be around highly educated people who could talk history and art. Made him feel better for his men to ‘look like gentlemen and speak like gentlemen,’ as he put it.” Ben shrugged. “I fit the bill.”
I leaned back and looked him up and down, still digging his longer hair and dressed-up Han Solo vibe. “Heck, yeah, you do. Can you wear this outfit more often?”
He assumed his Fed Face. “We’ll see, Ms. Lancaster.”
For some reason, that sounded all kinds of hot now. We spent another few minutes not talking. After a while, he started chuckling.
I swatted his arm. “Hey, that’s not a nice thing to do when a woman’s kissing you!”
“No,” he said, giving me his oh-so-charming grin. “That part is awesome. I was remembering the funny thing about my cover name.”
I eyed him. “Do tell.”
“It was Brent Embry, but that wasn’t what it was in the beginning.”
I remembered Pippa telling me Roselyn had a Brent Embry in her contacts and several calls from him. Things were making more and more sense …
“Do you want to know what it was supposed to be?” He put his lips close to my ear, sending delicious shivers down my spine, and whispered, “Brent Ebrington.”
When my jaw dropped and I stared at him, he nodded his confirmation.
“I couldn’t believe it, either. I’d gotten your email telling me about my ancestor named Ebrington Chaucer FitzHugh—which, you’re right, it’s a great name—but it’s hardly a common one. So, I asked the guy who prepared my cover identity how he chose it. He said there’s a pub in England with that name and he liked it, simple as that.”
Ben’s smile widened and linked his fingers through mine. “I had to tell him I knew a smart and seriously beautiful woman who was also a little more curious than is sometimes good for her.” He gently stroked my bruised right arm, giving me more good chills that dulled the pain better than acetaminophen ever could. “I told him this smart and beautiful woman would recognize the name Ebrington and might be compelled to ask questions if she heard it. So, he changed it to Embry.”
He was darn right I would have recognized it and asked questions, but I didn’t get to say so because he kept talking. Really, this was the most I’d ever heard Special Agent Ben Turner say anything. I was quite enjoying it.
He swallowed, then looked up at me, giving me a clear view of his pretty eyes. “You know, I don’t normally believe in signs, but I have to admit, I took the fact that they chose my ancestor’s name—the ancestor you found for me—as a sign that you might forgive me for going radio silent on you without any warning or explanation.”
I took his face in my hands. I’d been seeing some signposts, too.
“First of all,” I said, “as the granddaughter of a tried-and-true spy who did what he had to do for our country’s safety, I get your job requirements now more than ever. Next, as a history buff, I could name more examples than you can count of people like you who have set aside their own personal safety and reputation for the greater good, including, if you remember, your own ancestors.”
He grinned, but I put a finger to his lips.
“Third, I couldn’t call myself a professional genealogist if I didn’t understand that people don’t get a free ride in life, and making hard decisions from time to time is what got our ancestors to a place where you and I could be born and live and sometimes make hard decisions of our own.”
I grinned, then felt my voice catch. He hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t taken credit, but I now knew who Grandpa’s good Samaritan was.
I stroked his cheek with my thumb. “But right now, the best and most important reason why there is no doubt I forgive you is that you saved my grandfather’s life, Ben. After Mrs. P. tried to kill him with her car, you called nine-one-one, stayed with him, talked to him, and made him feel safer by letting him know I would be contacted. You must have told him who you were, because he told you the code name Greenfinch.”
My voice went to an emotional whisper. “Then you got a guard placed on him, ensuring both his and my peace of mind. And now I know that was you I saw at the hospital, which means you went to visit him—all because you’re a good man, and not to earn points with me. That, Ben Turner, descendant of Ebrington Chaucer FitzHugh, is why I’m eternally grateful to you.”
I put my arms around his neck, letting my fingers run through his hair, and I kissed him with more passion than I’d ever kissed any man, and he responded in a way that left me without any more words. For a minute, at least. I still had to know a thing or two.
“Why were you in Wimberley in the first place, though?” I asked. “Did you know you were driving behind my grandfather?”
Ben replied, “To the first question, it was the base for my undercover assignment. The guy we put away liked living in a small town. To your second question, I didn’t know it was your grandfather at the time, but I recognized him as soon as I saw him. Plus, he was able to tell me his name. I was just in the right place at the right time.”
“But how did you know it was my grandfather before he told you his name?” I asked, still baffled. “Do you have some sort of dossier on me?”
Ben tilted his head back, a deep, sexy laugh erupting in his throat. “No. I’ve been in your condo, remember? You have at least five photos with your granddad in them, including that cool one from World War Two.”
“So you were snooping?” I teased, arching one eyebrow.
>
“Observing my surroundings,” he corrected, then changed the subject. “You saw me at the hospital?”
“Getting out of the elevator, yeah.” I gave him another once-over. “I really liked that look with the scruff and motorcycle jacket.” I gave him two thumbs up for extra emphasis.
“More than the tux?” he asked, pulling at his bow tie, which had gone decidedly crooked.
“I like both looks equally,” I replied, straightening it again. “I’m a complicated woman with many facets, Agent Turner. Like it or lump it.”
“Ms. Lancaster, I’m just fine with you being complicated and many-faceted.” His smile faltered a bit. “However, speaking of complications, it turns out I’m not too bad at the undercover work. It seems I’ll be doing more of it.”
I thought about how I felt about that. As an independent person, I didn’t need someone at my side every minute of the day. I just wanted someone who wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with them, however much time we got to spend together. I said as much to Ben, but added, “I do reserve the right to worry about you, though.”
“I’m okay with that,” he said. “And on that note, I do have one other thing to give you.”
“Here?” I said, and he laughed.
“That, I hope, will come later, but it’s actually something else. Something you were working on, that your granddad told me about and I was able to help with it. Would you go get Pippa and Roselyn?”
I was about to ask why, but his face smoothed into that infuriating look that said I wouldn’t get any more out of him, so I slid off his lap and went in search of my client and her mother.
“I’ll bring her right back,” I told Alan with a wink. He looked like he’d been shot with cupid’s arrow for sure.
The three of us walked into the back parlor, where Ben was unfolding a piece of paper that looked to be an email. I caught the address and saw it was Sean Nelson’s.
“How do you know Sean?” I asked.
Ben grinned. “I’m a part-time history professor and I generally handle fraud cases, remember? I’ve worked with Sean many times on many subjects. He’s a great guy.”
He turned to Roselyn and Pippa as I stood, staring at him with all sorts of feelings rushing through me, including curiosity.
“Roselyn, I’m going to come right to the point,” he said. “You explained to Lucy that you didn’t want your genealogy traced because your German American grandfather was shot for being a traitor. That he was selling secrets to the Nazis, and they still shot him.”
“What?” Pippa said, looking at her mother in shock. For her part, Roselyn’s eyes snapped with embarrassed anger, and she had them trained on me.
Ben’s voice was calming. “Before you decide to be upset with Lucy, let me continue. Now, Lucy here had already done some preliminary research on your family.”
I blushed, and Ben gave me a hand motion that encouraged me to explain.
“I did, yes,” I said, directing my words to Roselyn, “but I stopped looking at your paternal grandparents, Wilhelm and Anna Fischer, when I realized you weren’t interested in me tracing your line.”
I looked back and forth between mother and daughter, looking so much alike, and with so many traits of their ancestors.
“I’d requested your grandfather Wilhelm’s service records at the same time I’d requested those of James Sutton’s,” I said to Roselyn. “James’s still haven’t come in, of course, but your grandfather’s did. They were flagged with a request for posthumous commendation.”
Roselyn’s lips parted. “You must have the wrong man, then. Mine was a traitor. There’s no way he would have been given a medal.”
I shook my head. “I do have the right man. I went back and traced everything again, just to be sure. Then I asked my friend Sean at the National Archives to expedite the reason behind the posthumous commendation, but I haven’t heard back.”
Ben smiled. “That’s where I come in. I wanted to do something special for Lucy. And when her grandfather mentioned that she’d contacted Sean about this information, I called Sean and asked that he send the report to me instead.”
Now there were three women gaping at Ben. He cleared his throat a bit nervously, which almost made me laugh, and handed Roselyn the email. “This is what Sean found out.”
Roselyn read it with Pippa looking over her shoulder. Their faces went from disbelief to shock to hope.
“Is this true?” Pippa asked. “Wilhelm volunteered to pretend to be a Nazi sympathizer to gain intelligence for the Allies?”
Ben nodded. “It was an eleventh-hour sort of Hail-Mary-pass kind of thing, or so it seems. They didn’t have time to get a trained OSS or SOE agent in place, and Wilhelm, or Wil, as everyone called him, volunteered. He was a German immigrant and spoke the language fluently. As you read, he almost succeeded. By coincidence, one of the Nazis he had to engage recognized him as a childhood friend and knew Wil and his parents had moved to America.”
Ben’s expression was sober. “Roselyn, your grandfather was tortured, then killed. In order to retain the cover of the rest of the mission, they had to play him off as a traitor. But he wasn’t. Just like Pippa’s grandparents, your grandfather was a hero.”
Roselyn stood, shocked, then her face crumpled. Later, she would tell me she wasn’t upset for herself, but for her grandmother, father, and aunt, who, much like Mrs. P.’s grandmother and father, had been tainted by association with a traitor.
After a minute, Ben cleared his throat, his voice becoming very much the formal government official.
“Roselyn, both for your efforts to help us put away a very dangerous criminal, and also for what you and your family have been through, we would like to put forth a recommendation that your grandfather be finally, posthumously, awarded for his selfless bravery during the war. With your agreement, we’ll start things rolling as soon as possible.”
Ben would claim later he was attacked by two blondes. The smile on his face told everyone how much he loved it.
“Look,” Pippa said, pointing out the window to Sarah Bess’s lit-up knot garden. “It’s snowing!”
It wasn’t just some flurry, either. Fat flakes of white snow were coming down. The boxwood hedges were already covered in a thin layer of white, as was the grass.
“Want to go outside?” Ben whispered in my ear, hearing my excited squeal. He was already taking off his tux coat and putting it over my shoulders before I’d even said, “Heck, yeah!”
Roselyn said to her daughter, “Let’s go get our coats and go outside, too.”
The grandfather clock chimed one gong—it was an hour into the new year. Ben took my hand and led me out the French doors into the winter wonderland, the white fairy lights making the falling snow glitter like diamonds.
Ben kissed me again as the snow fell gently all around us. “Happy New Year, Lucy Lancaster.”
“Happy New Year, Special Agent Ben Turner,” I replied, making him laugh and kiss me again.
“Lucy!” Pippa called out. I turned to see Pippa and Roselyn on the porch. Her arm was around her mother’s waist and they both looked happier than I’d ever seen them.
“Thank you,” she said, “for everything.”
I blew her a kiss, then extended my arm with the silver cuff, holding out my first two fingers. Pippa grinned and did the same to me in return.
“Peace?” Ben asked.
I smiled. “V for Victory.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m incredibly grateful to my fabulous agents, Christina Hogrebe and Jess Errera of Jane Rotrosen Agency, and to everyone at Minotaur Books for all their enthusiastic support of me and my books. Thanks especially to my incredible team: Hannah (both of you) and Nettie in editorial, Kayla in publicity, Steve and Mac in marketing, and my copyeditors and proofreaders. David Rotstein also deserves a special thanks for designing another utterly gorgeous cover.
Many thanks go to Alice Braud-Jones for letting me interview her about genealogical proce
dures, for taking the time to read over my book for accuracy, and for giving me extra fascinating facts to add to Lucy’s world. Thank you so much as well to Mary Anthony Startz for discussing genealogical research tips with me, and for introducing me to Alice.
I’m also indebted to my wonderful uncle, Doug Perkins, for talking genealogy with me over the years and for being a great writer, editor, and inspiration who has always cheered me on.
Another round of thanks goes to my friend Sergeant Doug Thomas of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, for once more being my go-to person for answering all manner of police-related questions.
And huge thanks to my writer friend Catherine B. Custalow, MD, PhD, who graciously answered all my questions about how a certain character could have died, with the amused understanding that I might have taken some liberties with the knowledge to suit my purposes.
Last, but not least, thank you so much to the International Spy Museum and the unnamed yet very helpful advisory board member for so kindly answering my questions about microdots, and to the lovely specialist at the National Archives for giving me such great information about World War II research.
If there are any errors in the genealogy/research world, medical world, spy world, or the law-enforcement world, they’re definitely mine.
To all my friends and to all the readers and book clubs who have embraced my taco-loving genealogist Lucy, thank you. Y’all are amazing, truly.
Of course, I’m forever grateful to my parents for their love, encouragement, and absolutely everything else. I’m so incredibly lucky in my lineage, that’s for sure.
ALSO BY S. C. PERKINS
Murder Once Removed
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. C. Perkins is a fifth-generation Texan who grew up hearing fascinating stories of her ancestry and eating lots of great Tex-Mex. Her first book, Murder Once Removed, was the winner of the 2017 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery competition, and an Agatha Award nominee. She resides in Houston, and when she’s not writing, she’s likely outside in the sun or on the beach. You can sign up for email updates here.
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