“If I knew, I wouldn’t need to be here, now would I?”
“You have an idea. Or you wouldn’t have come all this way.”
“When I was in Afghanistan, I helped put some psycho vigilante mercenaries out of business. It didn’t make the papers, but it was a pretty big deal. Most of them got away. A few didn’t, but they were low-level players.” Ethan didn’t like taking the kind of leap he was taking now, but he wasn’t a law-enforcement officer—he was just a guy trying to figure things out. “I think some vigilante psycho could be manipulating O’Farrell.”
“Does she realize it?”
“Now she does, at least to a degree.”
“Same guys as in Afghanistan?”
Ethan paused. “Maybe.”
“The president and I—” Nate hesitated, then went on, his tone more amiable, his manner more approachable. “We get along okay, but it’s Sarah he has the bond with—he’s one of her closest friends. She adores him, and Poe adores her.”
“This one’s not her fight.”
A darkness came into Nate’s eyes, and he was obviously remembering the caves and the snakes and the dead bodies from his first visit to Night’s Landing that spring.
“I’ll see to it Poe gets your message about O’Farrell,” Nate said abruptly, then shifted immediately into southern-host mode—Sarah’s influence, no doubt. Nate was another northern New Englander. “Do you have time to join us for dinner? Sarah made a congealed salad this afternoon that seems to involve coconut and fruit cocktail.”
“I didn’t think anyone ate congealed salads anymore.”
“She says they bring back memories of her grandmother.”
Ethan grinned. “It’s a shame I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“Do I want to know where you’re headed?” Nate asked quietly.
“North.”
Ethan only gave one word, but Nate obviously didn’t need more. “Juliet’s got a good career ahead of her, Brooker.”
Ethan took the comment for what it was—a warning not to screw up her life.
He left Winter on the dock and headed across the lawn, the grass he’d tended warm and soft under his feet. Sarah had come onto the porch. She smiled and waved to him. She was a beautiful woman with honey-colored hair and a strength people often didn’t realize she had.
With Juliet, people noticed her strength first.
Ethan waved back and gave her a cheeky smile that made her laugh. He’d damn near screwed up Sarah’s life when he’d pretended to be a good ol’ boy from Texas. Now he hoped it wasn’t too late for him to avoid screwing up Juliet’s life.
Mia pushed open the door to her hotel room and wheeled her suitcase into the small room, leaving it in the middle of the floor while she checked out her view. It wasn’t much of one. Her hotel was located on Central Park South, but she’d balked at paying for a room with a park view. Hers looked out on office buildings. She looked down at the street ten floors below and saw a man in a dark business suit running, flagging a cab.
The FBI agent, Joe Collins, and the chief deputy, Mike Rivera, had offered to fly to Washington to meet with her. Nate Winter must have given them her name. He’d been at the meeting when she and the president had asked Ethan Brooker to volunteer for the rescue mission. Nate hadn’t stayed for all the details.
She couldn’t give the FBI or the marshals Ham Carhill’s name or any details of the information he’d provided her, but there was a lot she could tell them. About Tatro and his henchmen. The timing of the rescue mission. How Tatro wasn’t there when Ethan and his team arrived at the camp. She’d cleared everything with her superiors. And she’d talked to the president. Now that Ham was safe and they’d acted on his information—and Ham was done, no longer a viable candidate for covert work—she saw no reason whatsoever she couldn’t cooperate with the FBI investigation.
Neither did President Poe, when she’d told him what she intended to do.
But she didn’t tell him all of it. About the anonymous calls, the tips—her mounting concern that her caller had manipulated her.
Turning from the window, Mia called room service and ordered the soup of the day—wild mushroom—and a glass of red wine. She’d relax tonight. She’d put up her feet, order a movie and let her subconscious do its work, and maybe, by morning, she’d have a better idea of who her caller was and what he wanted and how to stop him. Because this guy was still pulling strings. He wasn’t done.
Fifteen
Ham watched a rerun of Law & Order while he thumbed through a free Vermont guidebook in his room in a fleabag motel off I-89. All the decent hotels, motels and country inns were booked solid. Leaf-peeping season. He’d seen plenty of leaves on his drive north from New York. Supposedly “peak” foliage wasn’t until next weekend. He couldn’t tell.