Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

“There’s DNA these days.”

She smiled slightly. “Yes, there is. Shall we go, or do you want to hear more? I hope it’s been a distraction, at least.”

“I could do worse for distractions.” And better, he thought, noting the curve of her hip. “My uncle would have me wallpapering my sister Carine’s old room.”

“Wallpapering could be therapeutic.”

“You haven’t seen Gus’s taste in wallpaper.”

She headed across the lawn and back onto the path along the river, warning him about mosquitoes, chiggers and ticks, telling him how the river was higher now, because of the dams, than it had been when the Poes had built the house after the Civil War.

No more pleasant, exaggerated southern accent. No more charm and laughter and relaxed talk.

Something about him had gotten under her skin. Nate had no idea what.

Finally she spun around at him on the narrow path, her face flushed with exertion and emotion. “Has it occurred to you that the letter from New York has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you? That it’s a ruse-the shooter or whoever sent it saw me in New York and decided to throw you off the scent.”

“I’m not on the scent. I’m one of the victims.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? You’re not here just out of a noble concern for my safety, or to put Rob’s mind at ease. You’re here because you think Joe Collins and his team are on the wrong track.”

Nate hated to see the fear back in her gray eyes. “I don’t know what track they’re on.”

“Hector Sanchez. Agent Collins hasn’t given up on him.”

“Because witnesses place him-”

“It doesn’t matter. You think the answers to the shooting are here.”

“It’s not that clear-cut,” Nate said. He found himself wanting to see her smile, to ease her tension and fear-maybe because it would help ease his own. He smiled. “Except for one thing. I doubt I’m putting Rob’s mind at ease. He thinks I’m here because you’re pretty.”

She gave him a direct look. “Are you?”

He met her gaze, one she’d probably used to wither more than a few men by now, and shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

She sighed. “I see now why Juliet warned me about you.”

“Juliet? What did she say?”

“That you’re hell on women.”

She turned and started back down the path, the late afternoon sun catching the pale highlights in her hair.

He grunted. “And exactly what are you on men?”

She glanced back at him and smiled. “Nothing. I’ve been too busy for men.”

Afraid of men, maybe. At least distrustful. She must have had a man or two who’d wanted her because of her looks and never saw beyond them to the woman underneath. Nate wasn’t so sure he wasn’t one of them-although the past few days had been a crash course in what made Sarah Dunnemore tick. The trauma of the attack on her brother had stripped away her defenses. Nate didn’t know what the hell it had done to him.

“You’re not busy anymore,” he said to her back.

She stumbled, but grabbed a thin tree and righted herself. And pressed on without so much as a backward glance. Which was a good thing, because Nate didn’t think he could hide just how much he wanted her. But she was a smart woman. She probably knew that.

Even before Claude Rousseau spoke, Janssen realized the news from New York wasn’t good. “Nate Winter left for Tennessee this morning,” Rousseau said without preamble. “I don’t know why.”

Nicholas sat back in the black leather chair in the sitting room of his Herengracht suite. It was time to leave Holland and go back to Switzerland. But the Dunnemores were still here. Betsy.

“Sarah Dunnemore’s a pretty young woman,” he said.

“Agreed.” But Rousseau, a meticulous though unimaginative man, would be merely stating a fact, not extrapolating from it any reason for Winter to head south. “Do you want me to go down there?”

“If you have to. What’s Rob Dunnemore’s condition?”

“Improving.”

Why had someone shot him? Janssen stood up under the low, slanted ceiling and looked out his window at the street, bicyclists pedaling past the picturesque canal. His instincts seldom lead him astray.

“The FBI agent in charge of the investigation went to see Deputy Dunnemore again today,” Rousseau went on. “I doubt it was a courtesy call.”

“You think something’s up?”

“I don’t have any additional information. Until I do, it’s my advice that you go back to Switzerland and lay low until this thing gets cleared up.”

Always the thundercloud. It was why Rousseau would never be a real player. Nicholas opened an expensive humidor and lifted out a fat, fragrant cigar. “Find out why Sarah Dunnemore went back to Night’s Landing. Find out why Deputy Winter is there. I don’t want any interference in what you have to do. Again, no footsteps back to me. None. Understood?”

“Of course.”

Janssen hung up and lit his cigar. Europeans, at least, weren’t as fixated as Americans were on tobacco as one of the world’s great evils-a small consolation to living in exile.

He had to trust that Rousseau was up to the job. Tax evasion was a nonviolent crime, one for which many people had at least some sympathy, but the attempted murder of two federal agents and the fear generated by a sniper attack in Central Park weren’t something he wanted tied back to him in any way, even peripherally. He was under enough federal scrutiny as it was.

Rob Dunnemore and his sister were children of privilege and position, if not of immense wealth. Nicholas didn’t know what to make of them. They’d never had to struggle. Neither had Betsy, but she was naturally gracious and well-mannered.

It was possible Sarah had seen him at the Rijksmuseum. Likely, even.

Did it matter?

He was a fugitive simply because he’d failed to turn up for his trial on tax charges.

But the Dunnemores were friends with the president. They had their own reputations to protect. Having a wanted man turn up out of Betsy’s past would be a cause for concern.

Nicholas savored the flavor of his cigar as he put his questions out of his mind. He debated whether he should take the risk of hiring a prostitute tonight, then envisioned himself with Betsy, beautiful Betsy.

Oh, God.

Choking on a mouthful of smoke, he ran into the bathroom and stabbed out his cigar in the sink. He drank from the faucet, pushing back the image. Even now, he could see her at eighteen, smiling at him, taking an interest in him. What a misfit he’d been. An outsider.

The tension of not knowing what was happening in New York was getting to him. He hated waiting.

A prostitute, even in permissive Amsterdam, brought with it certain hazards, to his health, to his mental well-being-to his freedom if he had the wrong prostitute, one who recognized him, who talked. It had happened once. But he’d dealt with the problem before it had got out of hand. As he had Charlene Brooker.

As he would deal with any problem in New York.

His phone rang again. It wouldn’t be Rousseau. He had his orders. But few people had Janssen’s number in Amsterdam.

He picked up the extension but said nothing.

“I’m going to have something you want within forty-eight hours,” the voice on the other end, indistinguishably male or female, said. “Be prepared to wire five million U.S. dollars into my account. I’ll call with the number when I have what you want.”

Janssen sank back onto the leather chair. “Brooker?”

But the person on the other end had already disconnected.

Nicholas tensed the muscles in his hands to keep himself from throwing the phone across the room, instead carefully, quietly cradling it. Control was essential. He had to maintain his grasp of the situation at all times, or he’d never win.