Steven Womack - By Blood Written

Her mother begins drinking heavily, becomes a recluse, goes on about a dozen different medications for anxiety, depression, insomnia.

Her parents begin fighting, worse than ever. Her father spends more and more time at the hospital.

Taylor spends her last year at home in a haze, retreats into her schoolwork, graduates with honors and goes on to Smith College. At the time she chose Smith, she had no idea why she chose it, other than it was away from home.

Her parents sell the house, divorce. Her father relocates to Miami and eventually marries a woman Taylor cannot stand. Her mother goes into rehab, comes out clean and sober, but depressed and miserable. The sound of her voice gives Taylor a headache.

The weight never completely goes away. That corner of her heart is locked away, leaden.

And filled with hatred for macho cowboy cops and their guns. Their stupid, goddamn fucking guns.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the voice said. “Are you okay?”

The voice was young, feminine. A woman’s voice. Taylor looked up. It was a young woman in a dark blue ski parka and jeans.

Taylor looked around. She was sitting on a concrete bench, so cold she couldn’t feel her hips, the backs of her legs. The bench was on a walk overlooking the East River. To her left and above, the Queensboro Bridge towered over it like the drawbridge to a castle.

Sutton Place. She’d walked up to Sutton Place. But when?

How long had she been there?

“Ma’am?” the voice asked again.

“What?” Taylor said, finally.

“You’ve been sitting there staring for a long time. I walked my dog like an hour and a half ago and you were sitting there staring out at the river. I saw you from my apartment.

I thought I’d just make sure you were okay.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said, standing up. Her legs tingled as the circulation was restored. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s a public bench. I just thought I’d make sure you were okay.”

Taylor looked into the young woman’s face. It was round, pale, with an aquiline nose and large blue eyes. It’s a myth , Taylor thought, that New Yorkers are cold and unfriendly .

“I appreciate that,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to work.

I don’t know where my mind was at.”

The young girl smiled. “Okay, have a good day. I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Yes,” Taylor said, lying. “I’m fine.”

Taylor realized she was cold, chilled almost completely through. As she walked the blocks back to her office, the movement began to warm her, and as it did, she started thinking in a more organized, focused fashion.

Powell, that was his name. Special Agent Powell of the FBI. He had come into her office and announced that the man she loved, the man she was going to marry, the man upon whom her fortune and reputation were built, was a psycho, a killer.

She had to think this through. She had to remember as much of the conversation as possible, everything that had happened in the short couple of minutes he was in her office.

What he had said stunned her, caught her off guard. But now she had her footing back, and, as always, she knew it was better to act, to do something, even if it was wrong.

She had looked at his badge, his credentials. They looked real enough, but fake ID cards could be purchased anywhere.

And as far as she knew, that badge could have come from a war surplus store. She wouldn’t know a real FBI badge from a fake if it ran up behind her and bit her on the ankles.

But why would a fake FBI agent concoct such a story?

What good would it do anyone?

Why?

As she walked, one scenario after another played in her head. This was a conspiracy by a rival publishing house.

Maybe Michael had made enemies somewhere in the past who now sought to cause him harm. Maybe she had enemies who wanted to hurt her and were using Michael to do it.

She turned left on Second Avenue and headed south toward East Fifty-third and her office, oblivious to the crowds around her on the sidewalk. There had to be a way to handle this. This had to be taken care of as quickly and as quietly as possible. This would be a public relations disaster if she made a single misstep.

Hank Powell reached over the front seat and handed cash to the painfully skinny, dark-skinned driver and climbed out of the cab at Federal Plaza. Five minutes later, he’d worked his way through the tight security and was on his way to the FBI New York City Field Office.

Once inside, he tracked down SAC Joyce Parelli in her office and threw his overcoat onto the chair across from her desk.

“You’re not going to believe the morning I’ve had,” he said.

Joyce Parelli, a third-generation Italian-three generations in America, three generations in law enforcement-who sounded like she’d rarely set foot out of her native Brooklyn, grinned. She was amused to see Hank Powell, normally so composed one could almost call him smug, exasperated.

“Ah, my poor delicate little rosebud,” she said. “Sit down and tell me all about it.”

Too agitated to sit, Powell paced back and forth, his arms in constant motion. “I just got thrown out of somebody’s office! You believe that? I’m an employee and a representative of the United States government and I got tossed out like a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman!”

Parelli laughed out loud this time. “And who threw you out, boobala?”

“Michael Schiftmann’s literary agent, that’s who! And if it won’t be a violation of the sex-discrimination statutes, would it be all right if I described her as a first-class bitch ?”

Joyce Parelli sat up. “Wait a minute!”

Hank stopped pacing. “What?”

Parelli leaned down behind her desk and pulled out a standard, government-issue black plastic wastebasket. She shuffled around in the garbage for a moment and extracted a crumpled roll of newspaper.

“What?” Hank repeated.

“Shush, it’s here somewhere.” Parelli spread the paper out on her desk and started thumbing through it. “I know I saw it here.”

Hank stood at her desk, leaning over slightly, as she scanned page after page.

“Damn it,” she muttered. “I know it’s- There! Found it.” She spun the paper around on her desk, facing Hank, and jabbed at an item with the bright red fingernail of her index finger.

Hank looked down. “Liz Smith? Who the hell is-?”

“Gossip column,” Parelli answered. “Read.”

Hank bent down and focused. ” ‘Who’s the hot new power couple in the N.Y. literary scene?’” he read aloud. ” ‘Word around the publishing campfire is that superstar novelist and tall, dark, handsome hunk Michael Schiftmann has popped the question to his glitterati literary agent, Taylor Robinson. When you’re making the kind of moolah these two are bringing in, you may as well keep it in the family.’”

Hank stood up, shocked. “May as well keep it in the family …” he muttered. “Serves me right for not reading the tabloids.”

Parelli nodded. “That would certainly explain why you weren’t a welcome guest in her office this morning.”

Hank nodded, thinking. “Yes, it certainly would, wouldn’t it?”

CHAPTER 23

Friday morning, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia Hank Powell was at his desk early the next morning, reexamining the stack of files in front of him and trying to figure out what to do next. He couldn’t get his mind off the interview with Taylor Robinson. It festered inside him like a wound gone septic. He was angry, but more than that, he was embarrassed.