Dinah McCall - White Mountain

“What happened? Why did I—”

Suddenly she remembered, and her face crumpled as she was helped to her feet.

“Uncle Frank is dead,” she said, and began to sob.

The four aging men encircled her.

“We know,” they said. “Come with us, darling. You need to lie down.”

“The desk,” she mumbled.

“I’ll call Delia from the office. She can take care of it for the rest of the day.”

“What are we going to do?” Isabella asked, then covered her face in her hands.

The men looked at each other silently, but it was David who answered her.

“We’re going to get him and bring him home. That’s what we’re going to do.”

The sun was setting as Jack Dolan came out of his house and headed toward the deck surrounding his hot tub. Except for a bath towel wrapped loosely around his waist, he was completely nude. His house was on the outskirts of a Virginia suburb, only an hour or so’s drive from Washington, D.C. The eight-foot-high privacy fence surrounding his backyard provided coveted privacy. Besides, his nearest neighbor was over a quarter of a mile away and traveled more than he did.

Exhaustion was evident in his stride as he reached the tub of bubbling water. Modesty was last on his list of social graces as he dropped the towel from around his waist and stepped down into the water. A few steps farther, he sank down onto a built-in seat and leaned back with a sigh as the jets sent a rush of warm, bubbling water against his skin.

He had two knife scars on his back, an old gunshot scar on his upper thigh, and ribs that were still healing from the last case he’d been on. His personal life was nonexistent, and his career as a Federal agent had been ongoing since his graduation from Boston University. He was thirty-eight years old and had nothing to show for it but a house he rarely slept in and some investments he might not live long enough to spend.

The water roiled around his limbs, easing the aches from old wounds and relaxing the tension in his muscles. He leaned his head against the back of the tub and closed his eyes. Something inside him was starting to give. He’d known it for almost six months. There was a restlessness to his behavior that had never been there before, and a longing for something he couldn’t name. Although he couldn’t name his frustration, one thing was blatantly clear. Something needed to give. Whether it would be him or his lifestyle was yet to be determined.

He swiped a wet hand across his face and rolled his head. The beginnings of a headache he’d had since noon were starting to ease. A small squirrel scolded from the pine tree at the corner of his yard, angry at the invasion into its territory.

“Back off, Chester. It’s my yard, too,” Jack said, and then smiled at himself.

Now he was talking to squirrels. He really needed a change.

He had not taken a vacation in over four years. Maybe what he was feeling was a simple case of burnout. But whatever the diagnosis, the cure would be the same—a much-needed change of pace.

He sat in the hot tub until his legs felt like gelatin and watched the moon come up. It wasn’t until his phone began to ring that he dragged himself up and out of the tub. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he jogged into the house and picked up the phone.

“Dolan.”

“Jack, how are your ribs?”

Unconsciously, Jack straightened to attention as he recognized the director’s voice.

“They’re fine, sir. What do you need?”

The director’s chuckle rippled through the line.

“So you’ve taken up mind reading now, too?”

Jack grinned wryly. “Truthfully, sir, when was the last time you called just to chat?”

“Point taken,” the director said. “What I need is for you to pack for an undetermined stay in Montana. You will receive a packet tomorrow morning, including a plane ticket to a small town called Braden.”

Everything went through Jack’s mind, from militia-based groups to terrorists.

“Yes, sir. What am I facing?”

“Oh…I’d say at least a week, maybe more, at a fine old hotel called Abbott House. The air is clean. There aren’t any golf courses or rivers in which to fish, but I hear the scenery is great.”

“Sir?”

The director chuckled again. “Not what you expected, is it?”

“No, sir, but I’m certain you’re about to fill me in.”

The director sighed. “Yes, well…as Paul Harvey always says…‘now for the rest of the story.’ Two days ago, a set of prints from a dead man came through NCIC that didn’t match up with any we had on file.”

“I don’t get it,” Jack said. “Surely you aren’t wanting me to establish an identity? That’s a job for a homicide detective.”

“Let me finish,” the director said.

“Sorry,” Jack said.

“Yes, well, this is where it gets weird. The body was discovered in Brighton Beach.”

“Isn’t that the place they call Little Russia?”

“Some do, I believe,” the director said. “At any rate, I understand that because of the large number of immigrants in that area of Brooklyn, that from time to time when a situation warrants, the police also send prints through Interpol as a means of speeding up identification.”

A puddle had formed on the floor where Jack was standing, so he dropped the towel from around his waist, put his foot in the middle of the towel and began swiping at the water while he continued to listen.

“Yes, sir, but I still don’t—”

“I’m getting there,” the director said. “The thing is…the prints rang a bell at Interpol. A really big bell.”

Suddenly, the hair stood on the back of Jack’s neck.

“How big?”

“The prints belong to a Russian scientist named Vaclav Waller.”

“And?”

“Vaclav Waller died in a plane crash off the coast of Florida over thirty years ago.”

Jack kicked aside the wet towel and headed for the back of the house to get some clothes.

“But he’s dead now, right?”

“Oh yes, he’s dead, all right. I sent a man directly to Brighton Beach as soon as the prints were flagged. Trouble is…they’d already identified the man as Frank Walton of Braden, Montana. Had a credit card number and everything from the hotel where he’d been staying.”

Jack took a pair of sweats from the dresser and pulled them on with one hand as his boss continued.

“But…” the director added “…when my man ran a background check on the card owner, guess what he found?”

Jack dropped to the side of the bed.

“What?”

“The social security number the dead man was using belonged to a man named Frank Walton, only that Frank Walton died in 1955 at the age of twenty-four.”

“So we’ve got a dead Russian pretending to be a dead American who’s just died. Is that about it?”

The director’s appreciation for the humor of the situation was suddenly missing.

“That’s it, Jack, and I want to know what the hell is going on. The man who called himself Frank Walton has been living at a place called Abbott House for years. I want you in that hotel, and I want some answers to what the hell that man was up to. Considering Waller’s background, there could have been a lot more to his disappearance than just defecting. However, I don’t want you showing up there as FBI. For all intents and purposes, you are a man on vacation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep me updated on what you learn.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh…and Jack.”

“Sir?”

“You could send me a postcard.”

Jack grinned as the line went dead.

It was fifteen minutes after two in the afternoon when Jack pulled his rental car into the parking lot of Abbott House. He parked and got out, stretching as he stood. A twinge of pain rippled across his belly from his still healing ribs, but the cool, rain-washed air felt good on his face. He got out his bag and headed for the door, noting absently that the place looked deserted, but when he walked inside, a short, middle-aged woman looked up from behind the desk and smiled.