by Nora Roberts
“It’s good to see you, Captain.”
“Son of a bitch,” Anson repeated, then gave Brooks a one-armed hug while he measured up Abigail. “Are you going to introduce the lady?”
“Abigail Lowery, Captain Joe Anson.”
“Nice to meet you, Abigail. Man, Nadine’s going to be sorry she missed you. She took her mom on a girl’s trip—a spa thing—for her mom’s birthday. She won’t be back till Sunday. Well, come on in.”
The living room looked comfortable, Abigail thought, lived in and easy, with framed family photographs on a wall shelf and prettily potted houseplants on the windowsill.
“I was catching the game back in the den. Just let me switch that off.”
“Sorry to interrupt, to drop by like this.”
“No need. It’s my second night baching it. I’m boring the hell out of myself.” He slipped into an alcove off the living room. Seconds later the sound went off, and an ancient yellow Lab followed Anson creakily out of the den.
“He’s harmless,” Anson said to Abigail.
“I like dogs. He has a very intelligent face.”
“Huck was always smart. Mostly blind now, and more’n half deaf, but he’s still got his smarts. Why don’t we go on back to the great room, have a seat? How’s your dad doing, Brooks?”
“He’s good. Really good.”
“That’s good to hear. And the job?”
“I like it, Captain. I like where I am and who I am there.”
“He’s a good cop,” Anson said to Abigail. “I hated losing him. How about a beer?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“I would,” Abigail said, then realized the simple truth sounded rude. “I mean, if I could have some water.”
“Sure. I got some lemonade. It’s not half bad.”
“That would be nice, thank you.”
At Anson’s direction, they settled into a seating area off the large, open kitchen. At the back, wide glass doors led out to a patio, where she saw what she assumed was an enormous grill under a black cover, and several outdoor chairs and tables.
As Anson got the drinks, the old dog shuffled over, sniffed at her, then rested his head on her knee.
She stroked his head, rubbed his ears.
“If he bothers you, just tell him to go sit.”
“He isn’t bothering me.”
“Abigail’s got a dog. Great dog. Bert’s out in the car.”
“What the hell did you leave him out there for? Go get him. We’ll take this out back, let the two of them get acquainted and pal around.”
“Bert would like that. If you’re sure, I’ll go get him. I ordered him to stay, so he wouldn’t get out of the car for Brooks.”
“You go ahead, and just bring him on around the back. Side gate’s on the left.”
“Thank you.”
When she went out, Anson handed Brooks the beer, jerked a thumb toward the sliders. “What’s going on, Brooks?” he asked, as they stepped out.
“A lot.”
“Your lady covers it well, but she’s got enough nerves lighting her up to power the whole city of Little Rock.”
“She’s got reason for them. I talked her into coming here, to you, because she needs help. And because I’m in love with her.”
Anson let out a breath, took a long swallow of beer. “What kind of trouble is she in?”
“I want her to tell you, and I need you to hear her out. All the way. I’m counting on you, Captain.”
“She’s not from around here, or up where you come from, either.”
“No, but Bickford’s her home now. We both want it to stay that way.”
They heard the gate open and shut. Huck’s head went up—not at the sound, Anson knew—at the scent.
Anson’s eyebrows lifted when Abigail walked around the house with Bert.
“That’s one big, handsome bastard.”
“He’s very well behaved,” Abigail assured him. “Ami,” she said when Huck, quivering, walked over to sniff the newcomer. “Ami. Jouer.”
Tails slashing the air, the dogs sniffed each other. Huck walked over to the fence line, lifted his leg. Bert followed suit. Then they wrestled.
“Huck’s got some life in him yet.” Anson offered Abigail the lemonade, gestured to a seat. “Brooks said you had a story to tell me, Abigail.”
“Yes. I should start by saying my name isn’t Abigail Lowery. Technically. It’s Elizabeth Fitch. When I was sixteen I witnessed a man named Yakov Korotkii, who is a lieutenant in the Volkov crime organization, murder his cousin Alexi Gurevich and my friend Julie Masters.”
Anson sat back. After a moment, he glanced at Brooks. “You did say a lot.”
Then he turned those steely eyes back on Abigail. “Why don’t you tell me about that?”
25
SHE COULDN’T KNOW IF HE BELIEVED HER. HIS FACE SHOWED nothing, no surprise, no doubt, no understanding. As Brooks had, he interrupted the flow a few times with questions, then only nodded so she’d continue.
Before she finished, the dogs came back for rubs, and were both sprawled out, exhausted from the play, when she stopped.
“I remember some of what you’re telling me,” Anson began. “It was big news at the time, especially within law enforcement. Two U.S. Marshals killed, another wounded, the witness in a Mob-related double murder missing. Your name and face was all over the national media for some weeks, and there were a number of interagency memos on you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“As well as an outstanding warrant for fleeing a scene. A BOLO and APB. You’re wanted for questioning in the matter of those agents’ deaths, and the explosion of the safe house.”
Her fingers linked together, painfully tight, in her lap. “Interoffice communication indicates that Keegan and Cosgrove have been taken at their word. Wanted for questioning is simply a ruse in order to charge me for murder, or accessory to murder.”
“How would you be privy to interoffice communication?”
Saying nothing, Brooks reached over, unlaced her fingers, kept his hand on hers.
“I’m a computer scientist, and specialize in security. I’m also a hacker.”
“And you’re telling me you can access confidential files and memos inside the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI?”
“Yes. I’m very skilled, and this has been a priority for me. Both Keegan and Cosgrove made statements which claim they came in, found Terry down in the kitchen and her weapon missing. As they began to call it in, they were fired on by persons unknown, and Cosgrove sustained a wound. As Keegan returned fire, the lights went out. Keegan was able to get Cosgrove outside, call in the incident. But before he could go back in for Terry, or to find me or John, the house exploded. He also claimed he believed he saw someone fleeing.”
“That about sums up what I remember from it,” Anson agreed.
“One of the prevailing theories is I grew panicked, or perhaps bored, and contacted the Volkovs to make a deal. They tracked me to the safe house, and I fought with Terry as I tried to get out. Either I or persons unknown associated with the Volkovs shot John, fired on Keegan and Cosgrove, and I either escaped in the confusion or was taken. The assassins then blew up the house to cover the tracks—or I did it.”
“A sixteen-year-old girl getting the draw on two marshals and blowing up a house.” Brooks shook his head. “I wouldn’t buy it.”
“A highly intelligent girl who’d been trained personally by one of those marshals in firearms, who’d requested and received five thousand in cash from her trust fund, who’d forged IDs, had spent a summer while the legal wheel slowly turned, thinking about what would happen to her once she testified.” The logic of it stood firmly enough for Abigail. “It’s reasonable to believe that girl snapped, tried to make it all go away.”
“Reasonable,” Anson commented, “when there’s nothing to contradict the statements and timelines, such as a conflicting statement from an eyewitness.”
“I don’t believe t
he theory I murdered John and Terry, or had a part in their murders, will hold,” Abigail told him. “But I do believe if I’m taken in, that won’t matter. I’ll be dead within twenty-four hours. It might be staged as a suicide, but I favor direct elimination.”
“You’re very cool about it,” Anson observed.
“I’ve had a number of years to consider what they’d do to me if they could.”
“Why come in now?”
She looked at Brooks. “If I don’t, nothing changes. And so much already has. Brooks asked me to trust him, and in doing so, to trust you. I’m trying.”
“She’s been feeding, anonymously, an FBI agent based in Chicago with intel on the Volkov organization.”
“And you have that intel because you’re hacking into the Volkov network?” Puffing out his cheeks, Anson sat back. “You must be one hell of a hacker.”
“Yes, I am. The Volkov organization is very computer-centric, and they believe they’re very safe, very well shielded. They have excellent techs,” she added. “I’m better than they are. Also, Ilya is consistently careless in this area. It’s, in my opinion, a kind of arrogance. He uses e-mail and texts routinely for both business and personal correspondence.”
“They’ve made a number of arrests on that intel, Captain,” Brooks said.
“Who’s your FBI contact?”
Abigail looked at Brooks, got his nod. “Special Agent Elyse Garrison.”
“Why didn’t you go to her with your story?”
“If it leaked—and I know there’s at least one Volkov mole inside the Chicago office—she could be taken, tortured, killed. Killed outright. She could be used to lure me in. They haven’t been able to trace the contact to me. Once they do, her life and mine are put at serious risk.”
“You want someone to make contact for you, someone who isn’t—as far as any check would show—connected in any way to Elizabeth Fitch.”
“Someone,” Brooks continued, “with a sterling record in law enforcement, someone with position and authority, credibility. Someone this Garrison is likely to believe.”
“And if I buy into this, I go to Chicago and make this contact, what then?”
“It opens the door for us to set up a meet between her and Abigail, at a location we choose.”
“I would continue to monitor law enforcement chatter and communications, so I’d know if they’d attempt a trap, or if any of the people I believe or suspect to be in league with the Volkovs learn of the communication.”
“You’re crossing a lot of lines here.” He turned a cool, hard eye on Brooks. “Both of you.”
“Tell me, Captain, what do you think her chances are of living to testify if she goes in straight, with the moles in place, the Volkovs whole?”
“I believe in the system, Brooks. I believe they’d protect her. But I can’t blame her for not believing it. If it was someone I loved, I’m not sure I’d believe it, either.”
He exhaled deeply.
In the quiet yard with the dogs softly snoring, a little garden fountain gurgling, Abigail wondered the scrape of her nerves under her skin didn’t screech like nails on a blackboard.
“We may be able to do this your way, smoke out Keegan and Cosgrove, and those like them,” Anson began. “We may be able to make some key arrests that put a hard dent in the Volkov organization. And then? Are you willing to go into witness protection?” he asked Brooks. “To give up where you like to be, who you like to be?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Abigail said immediately. “No. I wouldn’t have agreed to come here if I believed that would be a result. Elizabeth Fitch will meet Special Agent Garrison, will testify. Only three people know Elizabeth Fitch and Abigail Lowery are the same person, and that has to remain constant. If a connection is made between them, I’ll disappear. I can do it.”
“Abigail.”
“No,” she said again, quietly, fiercely, to Brooks. “You need to do the right thing, and you need to protect me. You can do both. I’m trusting you to do both. You have to trust me. I’ll be Elizabeth again, for this, and then she’s gone. She’ll disappear, and Abigail can live her life. I know how to bring down the Volkovs, and in a way I believe they’ll never fully recover from. It’s not about guns and knives and blood. It’s about keystrokes.”
“You’re going to take them down with a computer?” Anson demanded.
Her eyes, calm and green, met his. “That’s exactly right. If I can do what I’ve theorized, and the authorities listen and act, this will be over. I’m putting my life in your hands, Captain Anson, because Brooks trusts and respects you without qualification.”
“Let’s go in, have some coffee,” Anson said after a moment, “and talk this through.”
SHE INSISTED ON DRIVING BACK. Brooks had barely slept in thirty-six hours, and would be on duty within another six. So he kicked back the seat and caught a little sleep on the drive.
And gave her time to go over everything, again.
Joseph Anson would go to Chicago, make contact. He would not use or reveal the name Abigail Lowery but tell Agent Garrison that Elizabeth Fitch had come to him, told him the story, given him the agent’s name. He’d relate information Abigail had previously funneled to Garrison.
If Garrison followed her previous pattern, she would report only to her direct superior. Then the process would begin.
So many things could go wrong.
But if they went right …
She could belong to the man sleeping beside her. She could learn what to do at backyard barbecues. She could become Abigail so that everything that happened from that point on would be real.
She would finally look out from the witness chair in the courtroom, stare into the eyes of Korotkii, Ilya, Sergei Volkov, and speak the truth. As Elizabeth.
No, as Liz, she thought. At least in her mind, she’d speak as Liz for Julie, John and Terry.
And she’d use everything she’d learned in the past twelve years to strip the bones of the Volkov organization clean.
HE STIRRED AS SHE TURNED toward her cabin.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“Some of both.” He brought the seat back up, scrubbed at his face with his hands. “So I was thinking you should ask me to move in with you. I’m practically living here now,” he added, when she said nothing. “But maybe you could make it official.”
“Do you want to live here so you can protect me?”
“That would be a side benefit. Other side benefits include having my stuff handy, some closet and drawer space, and easy access to sex. All of those are pluses, but the main reason I want to live here is because I love you and I want to be with you.”
She sat for a moment, looking at her cabin. Hers, she thought. The house, the gardens, the greenhouse, the little creek, the woods. She’d come to think of them as hers, to feel that belonging. For the first time, she’d come to think of a place as home.
Hers.
“If you moved in, you’d need security codes and keys.”
“They’d sure be handy.”
“I’d like to think about it, if that’s all right.”
“Sure.”
The single word, so easy as he got out of the car, opened the back for the dog to jump out, told her he was confident he’d overcome any objections she might voice, and have his way.
It should have irritated her, she thought. It should even insult her. And yet it did neither. It simply reminded her who he was.
