Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

She didn’t want to win. She just wanted her brother safe and well, and if going home helped him in his recovery, even in a small way, then she’d go home.

Nate negotiated the city traffic with no indication that his injured arm bothered him in the least. “Mad?” he asked, unconcerned.

“Resigned to my fate.”

His laugh surprised her. “Is that a touch of the infamous Dunnemore drama?”

Sarah glanced over at him and saw that his color was off slightly. He had to be in at least some pain. “You’ve been researching my family?”

“Ten minutes on the Web last night. If all those reporters can do it, so can I. I found some paper you wrote on southern historical archaeology sites.”

“Did you read it?”

He gave her a quick, wry smile. “I only had ten minutes.” He made a turn into LaGuardia Airport, impervious to the crush of traffic. “Anyone else in Night’s Landing?”

“The property manager. Neighbors, friends. I won’t be alone.”

“This property manager lives in your house?”

“In a separate cottage.”

“Fancy.”

She smiled. “My grandmother used to live there. The place is lovely, and it’s very special to my family, but I wouldn’t say it’s fancy.”

“My uncle’s redecorating the house I grew up in. He did up the half bath like it’s a tropical paradise. It’s god-awful.”

Sarah laughed in spite of her determination to stay irritated. She didn’t want to let him off the hook for pressuring her, threatening her with arrest. “Why don’t you go up there to recuperate?”

He turned to her without warning, his eyes almost a navy blue in the afternoon light, then shifted his gaze back to the congested traffic ahead of him. “I wasn’t seriously injured.”

“But the trauma of being shot-”

“I’ve been shot at before.”

She didn’t push her point further. “The distinction being that the bullet didn’t actually hit you.”

“I don’t need to recuperate.”

“You want to find the real sniper before he tries again,” she said quietly, without any hint of accusation.

“Everyone does.”

“But you’re one of the victims. The FBI and your bosses can’t want you intruding-any more than you wanted me following you this morning.”

He kept his eyes pinned on the road. “I’m not worried about getting into trouble with the FBI or anyone else.”

“In a way, we’re in the same position.”

“No, we’re not.”

She decided to abandon that approach. “Does Special Agent Collins believe Hector Sanchez is their man?”

Nate didn’t answer. She started to point out the signs directing them to her gate, but he’d already made the turn.

“I see. Wrong question. You’re not going to or you can’t tell me. If the shooter, whoever it is, actually targeted you and Rob, he had to know you were going to be at that news conference. You can’t just pull off a sniper attack in Central Park without advance planning. Was Hector Sanchez capable of that kind of detailed planning?”

More silence.

“Then the real shooter-the guy who set up Mr. Sanchez-must have known he was one of Rob’s informants, manipulated him somehow because of it, and then killed him when he no longer needed him.” Sarah thought a moment. “No one’s going to think Rob slipped up, will they? Blame him because the real shooter found out about Sanchez?”

“Sarah, I’m not discussing the investigation with you.”

“Why not? I’m about to fly to Tennessee and spend the next few days baking prune cakes and fluffing pillows in anticipation of my brother’s arrival. I’m not going to meddle in the FBI’s and the Marshals Service’s business. Even if I wanted to, how could I?”

Nate glanced at her. “Time to change the subject.”

She wasn’t getting anything out of him. “How far did I really get before you were onto me this afternoon?”

“Not an inch. I saw you get into your cab.”

Sarah believed him. She told herself she wasn’t surprised and had no reason to be embarrassed, but felt a jolt of heat that, after he parked, prompted her to try to talk him out of escorting her to the gate. “I’ve got an hour. There’s no chance I’m not going to make my flight.”

“That’s right,” he said. “There isn’t.”

“You know, I’m not a prisoner you’re transporting.”

“It’d be a hell of a lot easier if you were,” he said, getting out of the car.

Sarah decided not to pursue that one.

In spite of the bullet wound in his arm, he insisted on carrying her bag, and bought her a bottle of water for her flight. He was a federal officer, and thus allowed to escort her all the way to her gate.

When her flight started to board, she felt a prick of panic at the idea of leaving. “If there’s any change in Rob’s condition-”

“I’ll let you know myself. I promise.”

She had the feeling Nate was a man who didn’t make many promises. “I’ll be on the first flight back to New York.”

“Understood.”

“All right. Fair enough.” She straightened, sighing, awkward. “Well. I guess that’s it. Take care of yourself, okay, Deputy Winter?”

He gave her that toe-curling smile. “Just get on that damn plane.”

She blew him a kiss, hoping to throw him off his hard-ass game and assert some control over her situation, but he grinned and winked at her, sending hot sparks right through her.

Just as well she was getting out of town. Another day with him, and they’d be in bed.

The thought propelled her down the jetway.

When she took her seat on the plane, the realization that she was alone hit her. Her throat tightened.

But wasn’t this what she was used to? Never mind that she’d been all but run out of town on a rail, she was on her own with no one to answer to, no one to rein in her impulses-and no one beside her, she thought with an unexpected rush of emotion. When she got to Night’s Landing, she could do as she pleased. Wasn’t it the way she liked it?

Whether she liked it or not, it was the way it was.

Nicholas Janssen waited until after midnight Amsterdam time for the call from Claude Rousseau, who should have arrived in New York yesterday afternoon. Janssen was still in the Dutch city, isolated in a suite of rooms in a seventeenth-century gabled house that had been converted into a very small, very private hotel along picturesque Herengracht, one of the finest canals in Amsterdam.

He was surrounded by men he paid well to protect him. He had no other relationship with them. Nicholas didn’t delude himself. They weren’t family, they weren’t friends.

Even at his chalet in Switzerland, he was isolated, his fugitive status in the United States hanging over him. His international jet-setter neighbors distrusted him. Swiss natives wanted nothing to do with him. He knew about the dubious origins of the fortunes of some of the people who snubbed him. Tax evasion was the least of what their fathers and grandfathers had done.

But it was the least of what he’d done, too.

Finally the call came. “Rob Dunnemore is improving and should make a full recovery,” Rousseau said. “His sister is on her way back to Tennessee.”

“The second marshal? Winter?”

There was the slightest hesitation. “He could become a problem.”

“But the FBI have their shooter, don’t they?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Janssen sat forward in his leather chair next to an open window. The low ceilings in the old building made him claustrophobic. The call was secure-the owner of the hotel, who understood his clientele, had the best technical people in Europe regularly sweep for bugs, check with their sources for any attempt to tap the phone lines, legally or otherwise. But, still, Janssen was careful with what he said. “You’ll do what needs to be done, won’t you?”