—
Half an hour later she was sitting in her favorite spot down by the creek, watching a school of minnows throw darts of light and thinking about how this day would end, when she heard someone approaching from behind. Joe. With Marta Severs. Marta walked across the grass in her sock feet, wrists bound behind her, Joe steering her elbow with one hand and his other poised near his holster. If this had been Randall, Andy, even Violet, June’s reaction would have been exasperation. An assumption that her will was being thwarted, however well-meant the thwarting. But Joe was a rare man: steady, slow to anger, slow to action. Careful without being timid. If Joe was bringing Marta Severs to June’s quiet place by the creek, he had a reason.
“What’s this?” she asked him.
“She had something to say that I thought would interest you,” Joe said.
June nodded. “Cut her loose. I don’t think she’s going to run for it. Are you?”
Marta shook her head.
Joe took a pocketknife from a pouch in the quilted fishing vest he always wore, drew it open, and sliced through Marta’s zip tie. Marta rubbed the insides of her wrists across her hips.
“You can sit,” June told her. She indicated the grass beside her. Marta peered at the ground, then lowered herself gingerly to her bottom, drawing her knees up and sitting rigidly, balls of her feet lifted, back arched.
June laughed. “You may as well stand if you’re that uncomfortable.”
“I was bitten on our way out here, sitting on grass just like I’m doing now. I don’t want to repeat the experience.”
“Fair enough,” June said. “Let’s make this short, then. What’s on your mind?”
“You should keep me here,” Marta said. “I’m not saying to keep me instead of Wes. Keep us both. But don’t send me back.”
“You like it here that much?”
Marta took a deep breath. Swallowed. “I can help you. I’m useful to you. More than you realize. More than Wes, maybe.”
June waited.
“My last name isn’t Severs. It’s Perrone.”
June had a meager electronic dossier on David Perrone—some information Andy had been able to turn up for her (photographs, birth records, real estate transaction records, a portion of a medical file indicating that Perrone was being treated for Addison’s disease)—and she now realized what had been nagging her about Marta Severs. There was one photograph in the dossier, taken at long range with a telephoto lens, of David Perrone, his wife, and their twin sons. They were at the funeral of David’s predecessor, and so June could be forgiven for not putting the face from that image—mid to late thirties, lips a pop of bright red, high cheekbones framed with a glossy near-black bob—together with the fiftysomething, shorn, unmade woman before her. But yes, June could see it now: the cheekbones, the full lips, the severe brow line, and the dark eyes.
“My husband is David. Our sons are Salvador and Lorenzo. They’re in England right now, and the only demand I have is that no one touches them, ever.”
“Done,” June said softly. Though that was rich, really. The idea that June could order hits on people living in England. Or protect them. “So what is this? You’re here to spy for your husband?” She tried to make sense of how that would have worked. How could Marta have known she’d end up here? Did that mean Andy was working for David Perrone?
“No,” she said. “I don’t know how to convince you of that. Well, the fact I got bitten because I didn’t know to take my vitamins. That’s something, maybe. But other than that, you’ll have to take my word for it. David sent me and our boys off because he said something big was happening. That he was making some kind of move. He owns shares in OLE, so he said this would be a safe bet. I thought I was going on a camping trip, nothing more. The rest is coincidence.” Something passed over her face.
“What?” June said. “You’re leaving something out.”
“He wanted me to keep an eye on Wes, get to know him. He didn’t tell me why.”
“Well, the suit deal,” June said.
“I can see that now,” Marta said, somewhat testily. “I’m just telling you he didn’t explain himself when he sent me off. He never explains himself.”
A crow cawed. The sunlight was golden, warm at their backs, and a broad yellow leaf detached from a branch above them, spun, then landed in the water and was carried off toward the Little Tennessee. June felt her love of this place powerfully and painfully—a love made larger and dearer because it seemed borrowed. Ephemeral. She was willing to sell her soul to protect this thing she had built. But what if even that wasn’t enough?
“What are you proposing?” she asked Marta.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Marta said. “You could let my husband know you have me. That might give you some leverage. Or not. The truth is that I don’t know my value to him. Our marriage is . . .”
“What?”
“Complicated,” Marta said. “I feel safe saying that he’s possessive, if not loving. He won’t like that you have someone who belongs to him. It will get his attention.”
June, who knew the self-spiting way that David Perrone’s possessiveness had played out in the past, wasn’t encouraged.
“Or maybe I have information about him you can use. I’m not being cagey when I say maybe. I just don’t know. Question me. I’ll tell you everything I can tell you. I’ve lived with him for almost thirty years. I don’t know his secrets, but I know his ways.”
“Like what?” June asked.
“Like, you were right about one thing.” Marta held June’s gaze. “If he thinks you pose a threat to his deal with Wes, he’ll make you go away. That’s how he handles problems. And even if you make the deal with Wes the way you’ve planned . . .” She trailed off. “I don’t know. He holds grudges. And he has ambitions back home. Political ambitions. He won’t like loose ends.”
“Political ambitions,” June repeated with scornful wonder.
“I can tell you everything I know about it. Some campaigns he’s donated to, politicians he’s done deals with—backroom or otherwise. Who he’s been working with. There’s a woman on his staff now who’d been on the president’s staff. She—”
June held up a hand. “OK. Stop for now. I need to think about this,” she said. “Where to go from here.” She looked up at Joe. “Take her back to the others. Let Andy know she’s staying with us. The rest go as scheduled.”
“Thank you,” Marta said.
“Don’t thank me yet.” June considered the creek, the minnows. She let her mind go out with them, along the current, around the bend, over the rocks to the Little Tennessee, its course steady and true. Marta had no idea how radically her own course might have diverged. “We’ll talk,” she said. “Later.”
Fifteen