“Major Queller.” Barlow made a point of turning his head toward Jasper. “How is it that your family knows Mr. Harp?”
“Nick’s been with us for years.” Jasper’s tone was even, which was surprising because he had never cared for Nick. “We’ve taken him on vacations, spent holidays together. That sort of thing.”
Andrew added, “His family lives on the East Coast. Nick was sort of orphaned out here. Mother and Father welcomed him as one of the family.”
Barlow asked, “He was sent out here at the age of fifteen, wasn’t he?” He waited, but no one spoke. “Got into some trouble with the police back home? Mother shipped him across the country to live with his granny?”
“Nick told us all about it.” Andrew glanced nervously at Nick. “It was a tough road, but he still managed to get into Stanford.”
“Right.” Barlow looked back at his notes. They were doing the silent thing again.
Nick affected indifference. He brushed imaginary lint from his trousers. He gave Jane a quick wink. Only she could feel the tension inside his body. His arm behind her shoulders had gone taut. She could feel his fingers digging into her skin.
Was he mad at her? Should she be defending him? Should she tell the agents that Nick was a good man, that he’d managed to pull himself up from the gutter, that they had no right to treat him this way because he was—
Losing.
Nick didn’t see it now, but he had lost the game the minute he’d walked into the room. He had been making fun of the government agents for days, railing against their stupidity, bragging about his own cleverness. He had not realized that they were just as capable of putting on an act as he was.
Jane took a stuttered breath. She had started to cry again. Nothing was more terrifying than watching him try to punch his way out of a tight spot.
“Mr. Queller.” Barlow looked up at Andrew. “Did Mr. Harp mention to you that he attended one of Dr. Maplecroft’s lectures?”
Andrew shot Jane a frightened look that mirrored her own feelings: What should they say? What did Nick want?
“I can answer that one,” Nick offered. “If you’d like me to?”
“Why not?” Barlow sat back on the couch.
Behind him, Danberry opened and closed another box.
Nick made them wait.
He reached for the cigarette in the ashtray. He inhaled audibly, then blew out a stream of smoke. He tapped off some ash. He lined the cigarette up with the groove in the marble ashtray. He leaned back against the couch. His arm went behind Jane.
Finally, he looked up, pretending to be surprised that they were all waiting on him. “Oh, you want my answer now?”
Danberry crossed his arms.
Jane swallowed back a flood of bile that rushed up her throat.
Nick asked Barlow, “Do you have a record of my attendance at this lecture?”
“According to her assistant, Dr. Maplecroft didn’t believe in keeping attendance.”
“Pity.”
“We’ll be talking to other students this week.”
“That must be quite an undertaking,” Nick said. “How many kids are at Berkeley now? Thirty, forty thousand?”
Barlow gave a heavy sigh. He opened his notebook again. He resumed the game, directing his words toward Andrew. “At the conference, when Mr. Harp approached Laura Juneau, who was at that time posing as Dr. Maplecroft, Mr. Harp mentioned attending one of Dr. Maplecroft’s lectures. The police officer and the girl working the check-in table both heard him say the same thing.”
Andrew said, “I wasn’t there for that part of the conversation, but I’m sure Nick can—”
“Are you aware that Mr. Harp has a drug conviction?”
Nick snapped, “Are you aware that Mr. Queller does?”
“Christ,” Jasper muttered.
“Just making sure they have the facts,” Nick said. “It’s a felony to lie to an FBI agent. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Danberry?”
Danberry kept silent, but Jane could tell he’d picked up on the fact that Nick had not been here when the agents had introduced themselves. Jane could’ve told him that he was likely listening at the top of the stairs. She had learned the hard way that Nick was a stealthy eavesdropper.
Andrew volunteered, “Two years ago, I was convicted for possession of cocaine. I performed community service in exchange for my record being expunged.”
Nick added, “That kind of thing doesn’t stay a secret in times like these, does it?”
Barlow quipped, “It does not.”
Jane tried not to wince as Nick ran his fingers roughly through her hair. He told Barlow, “I met Laura Juneau in the KLM lounge at Schiphol. We were both en route to Oslo. She approached me. She asked if the seat next to me was taken. I said no. She introduced herself as Dr. Alexandra Maplecroft. She said she recognized me from one of her lectures, which could be true, but honestly, gentlemen, I was stoned out of my mind during most of my classes, so I’m hardly a reliable witness.”
“Hardly,” Barlow echoed.
Danberry still said nothing. He’d made it to the B?sendorfer Imperial Concert Grand on the other side of the room. Jane tried not to bristle when he soundlessly glided his fingers over the extra bass keys.
Barlow said, “So, Mr. Harp, as far as you can recall, you met Dr. Maplecroft for the first time at the Amsterdam airport, then you met her for the second time in Oslo?”
“That’s right,” Nick agreed. Jane could have cried with relief when he returned to the script. “In order to be polite, I pretended to recognize the woman whom I thought was Dr. Maplecroft. Then I saw her again at the conference and again pretended in order to be polite.” His shoulder went up in a shrug. “I think the operative word here is ‘pretend,’ gentlemen. She pretended to know me. I pretended to know her. Only one of us had darker intentions.”
Barlow made a mark in his notepad.
Andrew picked up his part. “At the conference, Nick introduced me to the Juneau woman as Dr. Maplecroft. I recognized the name, if not the face. There aren’t many photographs of Maplecroft in circulation, as I’m sure you’ve realized now that you’re searching for her. I believe I said something to the fake Maplecroft about being on Father’s panel. She didn’t have a badge, so I asked if there was a problem with the check-in.” He shrugged the exact same way that Nick had shrugged. “That was the extent of my interaction with the woman. The next time I saw her, she was murdering my father.”
Jane flinched. She couldn’t help it.
Barlow said, “That’s a very tidy explanation.”
Nick said, “Most explanations are. The ones that are complicated are the ones I’d look out for.” He smoothed out the leg of his trousers. “But you know, gentlemen, it seems to me that I’ve already told this to your compatriots. We all have, endlessly. So, I think I’ll make my exit.”
Neither agent moved to stop him.
Nick hesitated only slightly before he kissed Jane on the mouth, then crossed the room in long strides. Jane felt her heart drop when he took a left instead of a right. He wasn’t going upstairs to wait for her.
He was leaving.
The front door opened and closed. She felt the sound reverberate like a knife to her heart. She had to part her lips again to take in breath. She was torn between relief to have him gone and fear that she would never see him again.
“I’m sorry Nick is such an ass,” Jasper told Barlow. “But he does have a point. We can’t keep doing this. The answers are not going to change.”
Barlow said, “This is an active investigation. The people who orchestrated the Oslo assassination still have Dr. Maplecroft.”
“Which is a tragedy,” Jasper said. “However, there’s nothing my family can do about it.”
Barlow said, “The ransom note for Dr. Maplecroft asked for an admission of guilt from your father’s company. They blame him for Robert Juneau’s murderous spree.”
“It’s the family’s company.” Jasper had been sensitive about this since taking over last year. “The kidnappers also asked for one million dollars, which is preposterous. We can’t take responsibility for the actions of a madman. Do you know how many homes Queller Healthcare runs? Just in the Bay Area?”