Jeffery Deaver - Ice Cold

I turned my blue eyes on him and fluttered my lashes. “That’s me—irresistible.”

He chuckled. “Apparently.”

Truthfully, it hadn’t taken much more than a little flirting to get hired by Henry as an errand girl. Once I’d gained his trust, I’d secured a marriage proposal and shown Mutti and my superiors that I was serious about undercover work.

Roy brought us back to the present by brandishing a folder. “Ready to sign that offer?”

I’d come to a decision in the early fall: I was tired of taking care of my old house. I reserved a spot at the Home and hired Roy to list the property in September. Two months later, we had an offer from a New Jersey nurse. A good offer.

“No time like the present.” I sat down at the kitchen table while Roy pulled papers from his file. The children flicked channels in the other room.

“As we discussed, the buyer is willing to pay cash and meet your price. You sure you can clear out of here in two weeks?”

“I can’t wait.” I took the papers from him and initialed several pages.

“Come on, you’ll miss living on the bay, won’t you?”

“I can walk to the water whenever I want. Where do I sign?”

Roy indicated the last page. “Right here.”

I scrutinized the buyer’s signature, a messy scrawl of unrecognizable letters. “Is this supposed to be her name?”

He nodded.

“But her handwriting… I can’t even read it. Is this legal?”

“Sure. You can sign your name with an X and it’s legit.”

“How insulting,” I continued. Proper penmanship had always been a thing with me, perhaps because my schools had been so strict when it came to writing. “I’ll admit it, I’m offended.”

“Come on, Rachel—who cares? So Miss Julie Lamont from Lyndhurst has a messy signature. All that matters is her bank account, and I assure you, it’s strong.”

I signed and handed him the papers. “I hope I don’t meet her,” I said. “Because if I do, I’m going to say that she ought to be ashamed.”

“Really?” He gave me an odd look.

“It’s rude and disrespectful, that’s all.” I gathered my jacket. “Is that all you need? I’m going home.”

I stomped out of Roy’s house, barely saying goodnight to his children and grandchildren.

The next day I called to apologize. “It’s a strange quirk with me,” I said. “You’re right—getting upset about a signature is ridiculous.”

He was silent for a few seconds.

“I’ll forgive you—if you make goulash with some of this leftover turkey.”

“Yes, but only if you’ll join me to have some.”

Roy brought a plateful of turkey over that afternoon and returned in the evening for supper. His company had gone back to southern Maine, and we were enjoying a glass of wine while our dinner simmered on my stove.

“I was thinking about Vienna,” Roy said, swirling the ruby red liquid in his glass. He was seated at the table, a big man who was comfortable in his skin. “I guess that’s why I craved the goulash, huh?”

I smiled. “Hungarian food always was your favorite—Henry’s too—and it certainly was plentiful there.”

He nodded. “What a fabulous city. I don’t think you’ve ever told me what brought you to Vienna in the first place?”

“Curiosity, I suppose,” I gave a little shrug to add credence to my lie. I had been sent to Vienna: there had been no choice about it. “It was such a lively spot once the war was over.”

“Yes.” He knocked back the rest of his wine. “It was a wonderful listening post, too.”

I stood, reached for the bottle, and refilled his glass. “What are you talking about?”

He chuckled. “Rachel, you know what I mean. Certainly Henry told you the real reason we were stationed in Vienna. It was fertile ground for information… for espionage.”

I moved to the stove and stirred. “Don’t tell me you and Henry were spies?” I kept my voice very light. “I can see my exposé now: I Slept with an Agent.”

“Rachel.” Roy rose from the table and walked to me. Put his hands on my shoulders. “Henry told me that you knew about our cover.”

I turned and regarded him with wide eyes. “I would have been a total dummy not to suspect something, especially once you both got transferred to Berlin. What about Sally? She must have known, too?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sally had a very trusting nature.”

“And you’re saying I don’t?”

I watched as he walked back to the table and picked up his wine glass and seemed to study it. “We had a mole in the Berlin office,” he said quietly. “Lost several good men because of leaks we couldn’t plug.” He paused. “I always suspected Henry.”

“That’s ridiculous! Henry would never have betrayed his country. He didn’t have the…” I stopped. “He wasn’t like that.”

“What were you going to say? That he didn’t have the nerve? The imagination?”

“No, I—”

“You’re right, you know, Henry didn’t have the guts. He was the type that followed orders to the letter. You, on the other hand—”

“Me? Now you’re making no sense at all.”

“I’ve speculated about you for years.”

“What?” I faked a lilting laugh. “Roy, I think your days of drinking burgundy are over. Of all the crazy things to say! It’s the nonstop stories about the Berlin Wall. It’s put you into some kind of fantasy land.”

“Come on,” his voice was soft, cajoling. “After all this time, after everything we’ve shared, you can’t keep pretending. Not to me, Rachel. Admit it: you were an East German spy working right under our noses.”

“I see.”

“I’m not going to do anything about it, so why not come clean? It’s not like anyone would care at this stage of the game.”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. I knew people who would care very much. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes were boring into mine, his jawline taut. “Who was your contact?”

I turned, removed the lid of a pot, and slammed it down on the stove with more force than I intended. “I’m not talking about this anymore. You’re accusing me of terrible things.” I stirred the noodles for the goulash and hefted the pot to the sink. Steam rose as the water poured out and they drained, fogging the window that looked out to the bay.

I carried the noodles back to the stove and added them to the turkey mixture. “Set the table, Roy,” I instructed him in a quiet voice, “and stop talking nonsense.”

He turned to the cabinets, opened one, and pulled down plates. They clattered as he placed them on the table.

“I’ve never had any real proof,” he said, opening a drawer for silverware. He pushed it shut with his hip. “That is, until yesterday.”

I reached up to a shelf where I kept spices. “Oh really? What gave me away, the type of cranberry relish I ate for Thanksgiving?”

“Signing that contract. Your strange reaction to the buyer’s signature.”

The house was silent except for the bubbling of the goulash. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t either, at first, but then I remembered a man Henry and I interrogated.”

“This gets more and more complicated.” I sprinkled the contents of a jar into the goulash and stirred.

“Bear with me. This guy told us about a spy who was extremely fastidious about penmanship.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” My voice sounded flat.

“He described a young German woman whose father was a Jewish doctor. In 1933 her family fled the Nazis for Switzerland, eventually settling in Moscow.”

I swallowed, and he went on.

“She was educated at elite Party schools and trained for undercover work. After the war, she went to the Soviet-occupied zone of Berlin, becoming part of the East German foreign intelligence service. Sound familiar?”