Carla Neggers - The Rapids

She nodded. “We could go there, too.”

“Maybe it has window boxes.”

His sarcasm was barely detectable, which, Maggie decided, only made him more dangerous. She’d underestimated him. Dismissed him as not serious, indulged in stereotypes because she hadn’t wanted to deal with him—she’d had better things to do than take care of a deputy marshal who counted among his friends the U.S. president. But Deputy Dunnemore was proving himself to be a much more complicated case than she’d anticipated.

She got onto the motorway, the traffic relatively light on a Saturday morning. “If you don’t want to go to Den Bosch, I can drop you off somewhere else.”

“I’m into the idea now. Have you seen many sights since you’ve been here?”

She reached for her espresso and took too big a sip, nearly burning her mouth, then shook her head, putting the coffee back in the cup holder. “I’ve only been here three weeks. I haven’t had much time. I vary my run just so I can see more of the streets in The Hague.” She made herself smile through her tension. She didn’t like hiding her real purpose for going to Den Bosch from him. “I could get into castles.”

“All work, no play,” Rob said, looking up from his map. “Does that describe you, Maggie?”

“I don’t know. I’m not that introspective.”

“Interesting, since you’re the new kid, that you should be the one to get the tip on where to find our guy Janssen.”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

“Where were you before here?”

“Chicago.”

“And you grew up in…”

“South Florida, for the most part. We moved around a lot before my parents were divorced.”

“They still live there?”

“My mother does.” She left it at that.

But Rob persisted. “Your father?”

“He died a year and a half ago.”

“I’m sorry.” No hesitation, no awkwardness. He had the social graces down pat, when he wanted to use them. “Any theory why Janssen was in Den Bosch?”

She shook her head, reminding herself that Rob’s family had nearly all been killed because of Nick Janssen and she should cut him some slack. But he wasn’t going to change the subject, obviously. He’d keep grilling her about Janssen and Den Bosch and the tip until she put a stop to it. She didn’t know if he was suspicious of her because of the tip or just tenacious—or both.

“Why do you think the marshals sent you here?” she asked casually. “Given your personal connection to Janssen—”

“No one sent me. I asked to come here.”

It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. “They let you?”

Janssen’s arrest stirred up the media. “I had a lot of reporters on my tail. This way I’m out of sight, out of mind.”

“Or out of sight and they’ll all want to know why and show up here next?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think so. Have you had many reporters contact you?”

“Not directly. A few have contacted Public Affairs.”

“I guess it’s not nearly as interesting to have an international fugitive arrested as a presidential connection exposed.”

She tried more of the espresso. Rob had done fine yesterday at the embassy. He was good at small talk, at ease with people. His connection to President Poe made people eager to meet him and be on their best behavior, but in the end, Maggie thought, it hadn’t made that big a difference. The guy was likable. The mistake, she suspected, was to assume that translated into being a soft touch.

He again consulted his map. “Janssen was picked up on a canal?”

“The Binnendieze. I wasn’t sure of what it was, either. It’s a shallow river, but it looks and feels like a canal. Den Bosch is located in a triangle where the Aa and the Dommel join to form the Dieze River, which eventually runs into the Maas.”

“Ah. So I see on the map.”

“Water’s a big deal in the Netherlands. About a third of the country’s below sea level. We tend to think in terms of the North Sea, but river flooding is a concern, too.”

“Binnendieze—does that mean ‘little Dieze’?”

“Aren’t you the one who speaks all the languages?”

He finished his espresso without answering.

“I heard it was seven,” Maggie persisted.

“Well, one of them isn’t Dutch.”

She laughed. “Binnen means inner, or inside. It’s the section of the Dieze that runs within Den Bosch’s original city walls—it’s sort of a natural moat. They’ve cleaned it up and run boat tours on it these days.”

“Bet it used to be the town sewer.”

“That’s what I understand. The tour’s unusual because it takes you under the city, actually under people’s houses. For safety reasons, centuries ago, people could only build inside the city walls. When they ran out of room, they started building over the waterway.”

“Very clever.”

“It sounds like a fascinating tour, doesn’t it?”

“Better than the cathedral, if you ask me.”

Maggie got off the A2 motorway and drove toward the city center, Rob pointing out a stunning fountain featuring a gold dragon in the middle of a roundabout. Remembering directions she’d gotten from a Dutch police inspector, who hadn’t questioned her reasons for asking, she found her way to the boat-tour entrance and parked nearby.

It was a pleasantly warm morning under a clear Dutch-blue sky, a perfect day to play tourist—except that wasn’t why she and Rob were there, Maggie reminded herself as they walked along a shaded street. The narrow, shallow waterway flowed next to them, below street level. Steps lead down to a small dock for the boats, a crowd gathering for the next tour.

“Janssen had two dogs,” Rob said, stopping along the open black-iron fence above the waterway. “Rhodesian ridgebacks.”

“Big dogs.”

“Do we know what happened to them?”

“They weren’t with him when he was arrested. I doubt he had them with him when he took off in May.”

“How long do we think he was in Den Bosch before you got the tip?”

From his tone, Maggie knew he didn’t expect her to have an answer. “Not long, but that’s not a guess at this point. Den Bosch strikes me as an unlikely place for the leader of an international criminal network to turn up. It’s possible he—”

She stopped. Who was that? A man in front of a café just down the street…balding, rumpled.

Tom Kopac?

Rob was instantly alert. “What is it?”

“I think I recognize someone. Hold on.”

Maggie started toward the café, but Tom had disappeared. She pushed past the outdoor tables, where a few tourists were enjoying coffee, and checked inside, her eyes quickly adjusting after being in the bright sun.

Nothing.

Had she mistaken someone else for Tom?

No. She was positive it’d been him.

He must have continued past the café or cut down another street.

She headed back outside and scanned the scene.

Rob stood behind her. “What’s going on?”

“A colleague at the embassy is here. Maybe he’s like us, just checking out where Janssen was picked up.”

“Did he work the case?”

She shook her head. “No. But he’s a good guy. A friend.”

“What’s his name?”

“Kopac. Tom Kopac. He works in economic relations.”

Rob frowned at her. “He came by my hotel last night.”

“Tom did? Why?”

“Checking me out. Are you two—”

“No.”

She thought she detected a flicker of amusement at her forceful answer. “You DS agents are the expert drivers. Could he have followed us out here?”

“It’s not like I’m on a secret mission or driving around the secretary of state. I wasn’t paying that close attention, but I doubt—” She realized she sounded very serious and deliberately lightened up. “I’m sure he didn’t follow us.”