Taylor Smith - The Innocents Club

“Tucker.”

“Frank! You’re there! I thought I was going to have to send out a search party.”

“Mariah? Where are you? Lindsay said you’d gone to L.A.”

“I did. I am—there, I mean. That’s where I am. In Los Angeles.” She paused to quell the fluster that had suddenly turned her into a stammering fool, then started again. “You’ve been talking to Lindsay?”

“A little while ago. I called to let Carol know I was back.”

“Back from where?”

“I was away for a couple of days.”

A non-answer if ever she’d heard one. It was like pulling teeth, talking to him sometimes. “You’ve changed offices again. What’s going on?”

“They needed my cubbyhole upstairs for some summer intern, so they gave me a broom closet down in the basement.”

“The basement? Good Lord! Why do you let them do that to you? With your service—”

“I’ve got no complaints. Suits me fine.”

Mariah slumped down onto a chair and leaned forward, elbow on the round glass table next to the bed, forehead in the palm of her hand. “Frank,” she said wearily, “it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“To come out from that rock you’ve been hiding under.”

He said nothing for a moment, and she sensed she’d crossed an invisible line. She had known this man for eighteen years, ever since he’d first recruited her. There was no question they were bound to one another by something beyond mentoring, beyond professionalism, beyond friendship. They’d been through good times together, and sad. She’d known his wife; he’d known her husband. Once, she might have been able to talk to Frank about anything. Now, there was that invisible line.

Beyond this point there be dragons.

When he finally did respond, it was only to change the subject. “What’s this about you covering the Zakharov visit? How did you get dragged into that?”

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said. Why should he always get to define the placement of the line? “You first. This trip of yours—where did you go?”

“That’s a long story.”

“I see. Holding out on me? You didn’t happen to go to Florida by any chance, did you?” she asked playfully, trying to draw him out of the tight, defensive corner in which he seemed to live full-time these days.

“No,” he said curtly.

Oops. She’d hit a nerve. Not surprising. Patty Bonelli had been at his side a long time, after all, and without her now, he seemed totally adrift, his last tether cut. It wasn’t right or fair. He was solid, hardworking, capable. A good man, who looked as though he could carry the weight of the world on those broad shoulders of his—and had, professionally and personally, for years and without complaint. She was one of the few who knew the full price Frank had paid for that blind, stoic fidelity. Now he seemed to have closed himself off completely, to her, and maybe to everyone else, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

The line fell silent, but when Frank spoke again, she was relieved to hear a little of her old friend in his voice. “It’s okay. The trip was business. That other, with Patty—it’s just not happening, that’s all.”

“Have you spoken to her lately?”

“A couple of weeks ago. She called to say hi.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Seems happy enough down there. Got a cocker spaniel, apparently.”

Poor Frank, Mariah thought. Replaced by a dog.

“Now tell me,” he said, “what are you doing out there? I thought you and Lindsay were supposed to be on vacation.”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh. And explain to me why you, of all people, got dragged into covering the Zakharov visit?”

“That, too, is a long story, if you know what I mean.”

“All right, not on the phone,” he conceded. “Just tell me this—whose idea was it?”

“Hmm…well, remember Wanetta’s old buddy?” Wanetta Walker had been a secretary in Frank’s old Soviet section, rescued by him from the clutches of a certain Jack Geist from Operations, who’d been making her life miserable.

“He sent you? Son of a bitch.” Tucker muttered. “You don’t work for him, Mariah. You should have said no.”

“I tried, but he pulled an end run on me. By the time he called me up to his office, he’d cleared it six ways to Sunday and it was pretty much a fait accompli. Anyway, not to worry. Job’s just a twenty-four-hour deal. I’m heading out shortly, in fact. But, Frank? On an altogether different matter, I need a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s kind of a hassle. It involves running over to the Courier Express distribution center in Falls Church. If you don’t have time for this, I want you to tell me, okay?”

“No problem. What’s the deal?”

“They tried to deliver a letter to my house this morning, but I’d already left for the airport. Apparently, it had to be signed for, so they couldn’t leave it. I called Courier Express and they said I could sign a release allowing a third party to collect it. There’s an office just down the street from my hotel. I was going to stop in on my way out of here and do the paperwork. I wanted to give them your name, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s this about?”

“It’s from my father’s old agent, Chap Korman.”

“Korman,” he repeated, and Mariah had the impression he was writing down the name. “You want me to hold the letter till you get back, or ship it to you out there?”

“I was going to ask you to send it with Lindsay, but now that I think about it, I’d rather you open the envelope as soon as you get it. I want to know what the hell’s inside.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

She exhaled heavily. “Chap Korman sent me a copy of a letter he received from some professor at UCLA who’s working on a biography of my father. Apparently, this guy’s come up with some kind of cockamamy theory that this manuscript I found—” She paused. “Maybe you didn’t hear about that? I came upon an unpublished novel and some other personal papers of my father’s a couple of months ago.”

“Yeah, I read about it in the paper.”

Mariah felt a tremor of guilt at the thought of Frank getting his news of her out of the newspaper. And seeing her photographed on Paul Chaney’s arm. Damn. “Right,” she said. “Anyway, this professor is apparently of the view that the manuscript was something my father stole. And it gets weirder. He’s also suggesting Ben was murdered.”

She expected derision or blunt dismissal of such an obviously stupid claim. A few pointed questions, at least. But all Frank said was, “I’ll check it out.”

“I just want to know where he’s coming from before I see him while I’m out here. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

“You’re not. I’m glad you called.”

She’d called because there was no one else she trusted more, Mariah thought, struck by the realization of how much she’d missed Frank these past months. The line went quiet again, but this time it was one of those comfortable silences between kindred spirits, like an easy hand on the shoulder—more like the way things used to be before everything had gone so sour for them both.

She wished he weren’t so far away and she weren’t so pressed for time. Now that they’d reconnected, she wanted to talk—about a lot of things, including the worst part of this assignment Jack Geist had dumped in her lap—the possibility that it would bring her face-to-face with her father’s old lover. But that, too, was a long story, and she had to get going to the museum. It was enough for now to know Frank was there.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said. “I knew I could count on you.”