Rebecca York: Sudden Insight

A sudden image flashed into Rachel’s mind of a much younger Evelyn Morgan leaping off a bridge just before it exploded. And shattering her leg as she landed.

DRESSED IN A BLACK POLO shirt and faded jeans, Jake Harper was sipping a mug of strong, chicory-laced New Orleans coffee as he looked over the receipts from Le Beau, a restaurant he owned in the French Quarter. It wasn’t his biggest business interest in the city, not by a long shot, but he liked working in the office at the back of the restaurant because the chef served him his favorites, like crawfish étouffée and oysters bienville for lunch.

Acquired tastes for a kid who’d run away from a dysfunctional foster home at the age of fifteen. In the seventeen years since, he’d carved out a niche for himself in the city’s business community. Starting at the bottom, scrounging junk from back alleys and selling it to antique shops and dealers with tables outside the French Market. With his initial earnings, he’d graduated to garage-sale purchases and then estate sales. He’d bought his first antique/junk shop five years later—the same year he’d gotten his GED.

He might lead a comfortable life now, but the early experiences on the streets had made him tough and cautious. And always prepared for violence. In his experience, a situation could spin out of control with very little provocation.

He looked up as Salvio, the headwaiter, knocked on the door.

“Yes?”

“A lady wants to speak to you.”

“About what?”

“Says it’s personal.”

“Young or old?”

The guy grinned. “Past her prime but keeping up appearances.”

Well, it probably wasn’t some chick trying to claim he was the father of her child. Not that he was ever careless about sex. He knew it could get someone into trouble faster than anything else.

Jake leaned back in his seat, wondering what the woman wanted. Maybe a donation for one of the charities he gave to on a regular basis? He’d slept in some of the city’s shelters after he’d left his foster family, and he knew what it was like to live from hand to mouth, which was why he regularly gave back to the community.

The woman who walked in had a slight limp. She appeared to be in her mid- to late-sixties with dyed brown hair and a fully made-up face. She was nicely dressed in a summer-weight black suit and low heels.

She gave him a long look, as though she had been studying him and was interested to find out what he was like in person.

“Thank you for seeing me. I’m Evelyn Morgan.” Her accent told him she was from somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region. Obviously not from a local charity, unless she’d just moved to the city and thrown herself into community activities.

He stood and shook hands. “What can I do for you?”

She half turned and glanced over her shoulder. “I’d rather not talk about it here.”

“Uh-huh.” He waited for more information.

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?”

“It has to do with your … past, but I don’t want to say any more.”

He tipped his head to the side, studying her. “That sounds mysterious.”

“I don’t mean to be. Could you come to my hotel room tomorrow night at eight?”

He might have declined, but something about the way she lowered her voice made him hesitate. That and the sense of urgency she gave off. He was good at picking up vibrations from people—favorable and unfavorable. That was one of the reasons he’d been so good at climbing the success ladder. He usually knew when to trust someone and when to run as fast as he could in the other direction.

This time, he wasn’t quite sure.

“You’re not going to give me a clue?” he asked, calling on the charm that was part of his persona. When in doubt, sweeten them up with a little honey.

“I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it here. But it’s something you’ll want to know.” She said the last part with conviction, then gave him the name of her hotel and her room number, before exiting as quickly as she had come, making him wonder what was really going on.

He waited a beat, then walked through the restaurant to the front door, staying in the shadows under the wrought-iron balcony above. She was about ten yards away, walking at a leisurely pace, stopping to look in the window of an art gallery. She turned her head one way and then the other, as though she was examining the paintings in the window, but he had the feeling she was really looking in the window’s reflection, making sure she wasn’t being followed.

He wasn’t certain how he surmised that, but he was pretty sure it was true.

What was she up to? Some kind of scam? After watching her continue down the street and turn the corner, he went back to his office and sat down at the computer. When he put in the name Evelyn Morgan, there were several hits, but none of them seemed to match up with the woman who had come to him with her mysterious request.

Probably she’d taken the name recently.

He paused, wondering why he’d come to that conclusion on very little evidence. But he thought it was true.

He could skip the meeting, but the whole situation intrigued him, and somehow he knew he was going to keep the appointment.

IN PORTLAND, OREGON, a tall, white-haired man who now called himself Bill Wellington clicked on an email that had just arrived in his in-box.

Once, his office had been within sight of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. He’d headed up a clandestine agency called the Howell Institute that had taken on some interesting jobs for the federal government and other entities that wanted discreet, reliable services performed.

Now he was nominally retired, living across the country, enjoying long lunches at the club and golf lessons—activities he hadn’t had time for when he’d been playing the power game. He’d worked hard for thirty years, and he was taking advantage of the perks he’d earned. Like the name he was currently using. He’d been Bill Wellington for only a few years. When he’d been at the Howell Institute, he’d been someone else, a persona that he preferred to keep buried.

His occupation had put him in danger. In fact, he still had a few loose ends to tie up. And the email he’d just received had to do with one of them.

It read:

The woman you’re looking for is going under the name Evelyn Morgan. She is currently in New Orleans, registered at the Bourbon Street Arms .

Because he’d learned not to get excited until he had all the facts, he went on to read the rest of the text, taking in details of her movements since she’d arrived in the Crescent City and studying the attached video clip that had been taken from across the street as she stepped into a restaurant called Le Beau.

The picture certainly looked like his former executive assistant, with a few years on her, although she’d dyed her hair brown and had some facial surgery to change her nose and her lips. But even with physical therapy, she hadn’t been able to completely eliminate her limp. She’d been a daredevil in her time, and she’d shattered her right leg leaping off a bridge just before it had gone down in an explosion.

She’d been careful to stay out of circulation for the past five years, but Wellington had his sources, and he’d been confident that he’d eventually catch up with her. One of the men he kept on retainer had finally located her. She’d had a top-secret security clearance, and he’d trusted her with all sorts of confidential information—unfortunately.

She’d left with files that a more cautious man would have destroyed years ago. But Wellington was too much of a pack rat, and he wasn’t willing to just forget about projects that might come back to haunt him in the present D.C. atmosphere where politicians set up a circular firing squad at the drop of a scandalous whisper.