Breakwater (Cold Ridge/U.S. Marshals #5)

When he returned to his office, Gerard was surprised to have Oliver Crawford on the line. They’d already exchanged condolences over Alicia’s death. The last thing he wanted to do was to dwell on the tragedy, keep being reminded of it. If he could just dive into his work, he could pretend that he’d never heard the terrible news, at least for a little while.

But he shut his door and sat at his desk, then picked up the phone. “Ollie. What’s up?”

“I saw your Quinn Harlowe today.”

Gerard squirmed. “I wouldn’t say she’s ‘my’ Quinn Harlowe-”

Crawford laughed softly. “No, of course not. I can see why you didn’t want to let her go. She’s an attractive, intelligent, determined woman.”

“There’s nothing romantic between us. I admire her though-”

“Bullshit. You can’t fool me, Gerry. She kayaked out here. She gave my security people fits. She’s a wreck because of her friend’s death, but still she’s asking questions, trying to make sense of such a tragedy.”

Gerard took a breath, picturing Quinn in her kayak, twenty-four hours after finding her friend drowned. He hadn’t lied-there was nothing romantic between them. He would keep at her to come back to work for him, provided he thought he had a chance of persuading her. He’d half hoped she’d crash and burn on her own and have to turn to him for help, but he’d just heard that she was being asked to sit on an independent, privately funded council tasked to assess and prioritize key emerging international crime threats. A coup for anyone, but for someone as young as Quinn, newly out of the Justice Department, it was impressive. As a historian, she would bring a different perspective from the politicians, the lawyers, the law enforcement people.

Although his interest in her was primarily professional, Gerard did think of her paddling on the Chesapeake.

“We’re all still reeling here because of Alicia,” he said, sounding lame even to himself.

“You must be. My staff tells me she was out here early Monday morning. I was in Washington in meetings all day-I had no idea. I gather she was very upset and not making a lot of sense. Hysterical, really. It’s so sad.”

Gerard didn’t want to get into any details about Alicia’s mental state, even with a friend. “It’s a tough one, that’s for sure.”

“The FBI was here earlier. They know all we know.” Another awkward, halfhearted chuckle. “I want to stay on law enforcement’s good side, especially with this new security services company just getting up and running.”

“You know I can’t intervene-”

“Of course not. We’ll see you out here soon?”

“I plan to get my boat out on the water again in a week or two. I haven’t-I don’t know if Yorkville will be the same now.”

“Make it the same,” his longtime friend said with an intensity-an urgency-that was palpable. “Make it better.”

But when he hung up, Gerard could only think how much he wanted to turn in his resignation and go away somewhere. All his ambition had seemed to flatten in the past few days. He felt spent and useless, and, he thought, decidedly uneasy.





20




On her way back to Washington, Quinn stopped in Fredericksburg, parking at the brown-and-white marker for Lee’s Headquarters. She’d put on dry clothes and a fleece vest before heading out from Yorkville, but now they felt slightly warm to her. She climbed up the steep hill, the only hiker on the old, well-traveled path. The trees weren’t fully leafed out yet, but they would have been bare when the Battle of Fredericksburg was fought in mid-December 1862, the last Virginia battle of that difficult, bloody year.

She found her grandfather at one of the cannons atop the hill, where he said he’d meet her when she’d called from her car. The breeze lifted his thinning white hair, and the clear April air seemed to make his eyes, the same hazel color as hers, look even brighter and more alert. A slight man of eighty-two, Murtagh Harlowe had never had the restless soul of his father and grandfather.

As she walked along the cold hill, Quinn imagined Robert E. Lee directing his commanders. The Confederates had won the battle, but at enormous cost to both sides-nearly eighteen thousand injured and dead.

“Hey, Granddad,” she said. “Aren’t you freezing?”

He shrugged. “It’s a fine day for a walk. I’m just glad I can still make it up that hill.”

Her grandfather had met Alicia back when she and Quinn were at the University of Virginia together. Alicia’s interest in the Civil War was minimal, but she’d loved listening to Murtagh Harlowe tell stories. Quinn had dragged her along on a battlefield tour, explaining how Lee had entrenched his army on the hills above town and fought off Union assaults-too much detail, too much history, for Alicia, the budding, ambitious lawyer. She liked the views of the Rappahannock River and their lunch after the tour in a quaint restaurant in Fredericksburg ’s historic downtown.