White Mountain
White Mountain
Dinah McCall
Why do the fingerprints of a recent murder victim in New York City belong to a man who has been dead for over thirty years? To find out, FBI agent Jack Dolan heads to the victim's last known address: a boardinghouse in Braden, Montana.Most of the guests at Abbott House are couples seeking help from the fertility clinic run by a team of dedicated doctors. So Jack's arrival is a pleasant surprise for owner Isabella Abbott, who finds herself wrestling with feelings she's never had before. Jack, too, shares the powerful connection, and is all too aware of the danger of letting personal desires get in the way of an investigation.He suspects someone ruthless is lurking in the shadows–someone with orders to kill. But what secrets are worth dying for in this peaceful place that offers miracles to desperate couples? And is Isabella part of the savage mystery that surrounds White Mountain?But the more Jack learns, the more he understands why the secrets of White Mountain must be kept hidden. At all costs.
“What I need is for you to pack for an undetermined stay in Montana. You will receive a packet tomorrow morning, including a plane ticket to a small town called Braden.”
Everything went through Jack’s mind, from militia-based groups to terrorists.
“Yes, sir. What am I facing?”
“Two days ago, a set of prints from a recent murder victim came through NCIC that didn’t match up with any we had on file. The body was discovered in Brighton Beach.”
“Isn’t that the place they call Little Russia?”
“Some do, I believe. The thing is…the prints rang a bell at Interpol. A really big bell.”
Suddenly the hair stood on the back of Jack’s neck.
“How big?”
“The prints belong to a Russian scientist named Vaclav Waller.”
“And?”
“Vaclav Waller died in a plane crash off the coast of Florida over thirty years ago.”
“Intense, fast-paced, and cleverly crafted.”
—Library Journal on Storm Warning
Also available from MIRA Books and DINAH MCCALL
STORM WARNING
THE RETURN
MIRA Books is also proud to publish Dinah McCall under her real name SHARON SALA
DARK WATER
White Mountain
Dinah McCall
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
The miracle of life is just that—a miracle. From the hour of our birth to the moment we draw our last breath, we are living. Some of us are better at it than others, but it’s the only chance we are given.
Each life is unique only to that person. All the thoughts, all the emotions, all the failures and successes, can be shared to a degree, but it is impossible to share a soul. When it is gone, the shell that it inhabited is cast aside, as worthless as the box in which a jewel is carried.
Because I believe that we are given only one life, one time, I choose to dedicate this book to my loved ones who have already left this earth for a better place, and especially to my sister, Diane, whose passing cost me so many tears.
Save me a place beside you, honey.
I miss you more than words can say.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u683eb1e6-5eae-5372-b92a-40c72ef49d8a)
Chapter 2 (#ub11ba963-2b95-5296-ae98-f93a545ec568)
Chapter 3 (#uac1af1b9-45ce-54d4-b011-8678406dfc66)
Chapter 4 (#u557c0348-981e-54fe-963e-b251aa34b267)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
1
Frank Walton was dying. He had suspected it for some time, but only last month his suspicions had been confirmed. And while he would have preferred to stay on this earth longer, he had accepted his fate just as he’d faced and dealt with every other adversity that had been thrust at him.
Deal with it, then get past it. That was his motto.
Or at least it had been until now. He would deal with his upcoming demise later. For now, uppermost in his mind had been the need to go home—to go back to the place of his birth and see the people and hear the language and the music. Just once. Before it was too late.
Only he couldn’t. To them, he was already dead.
Still, he’d had to know if what he’d done had been worth it. He’d needed to look at it again with a fresh view. Maybe then he would know if it had all been worthwhile.
But to do that, he’d had to leave Montana for the state of New York, then head to Brooklyn and Brighton Beach. It was as close as he could possibly come to his homeland—to eat the food of his childhood and hear the language of the place he’d called home. Now, after two weeks in Brighton Beach, he’d come to a grudging acceptance that it was too late to turn back time.
He exited the small café with a smile on his lips. The warm, dark-red borscht and savory bread he’d just had for his lunch had reminded him of the meals his mother had served during the short winter days and long cold nights in his Russian homeland. The food had been sparse but the love within his household overflowing.
Even though the September day was almost balmy, he knew if he would but close his eyes, he could recall every nuance of that time: his father sitting near the fireplace with his musette, smoking cigarettes that he’d rolled on his own and sipping vodka between songs, he and his brothers and sisters dancing wildly, mimicking the high kicks of a Cossack dance while his mother’s laughter rang out above the din.
Ah, God. He’d given it up—all of it—and for a higher cause. At least that was what he’d told himself for the past thirty-odd years. But now that he’d come to the end of his days, he was starting to question whether the sacrifices had been worth it. What had he accomplished? What had any of them accomplished?
A trio of gulls squawked noisily as they circled overhead, breaking Frank’s concentration. Squinting against the afternoon sun, he tilted his head, anxious not to miss their feats of derring-do as they dive-bombed the beach beyond the boardwalk. One did not see seagulls in Montana.
The sun was warm against his balding head. He inhaled briefly, then exhaled on a sigh, for the first time in his life, wishing he believed in a power higher than that of mortal man. Sunshine could not reach where he was bound.
A woman leaned out from a third-story window and yelled down into the street. A man just coming out of the building paused and looked up, then called back to her, their voices mingling with the sounds of traffic and people and the noise of the day. Steam from beneath the streets rose upward from the sidewalk grates, blending with the guttural mingling of vowels and consonants that made up the Russian language. It was all music to Frank Walton’s ears. He wanted to shout back—to sing the songs of his youth and dance until there was no more breath in his body. But he’d given up that part of his life too long ago. Not even now—when he was so close to his deathbed—could he take the chance and reveal his true self.
So he thrust his hands in his pockets and moved on down the street, satisfied for the moment just to be in this place.
Vasili Rostov cursed the ache in his knee as he stepped into an alcove away from the wind to light a cigarette. When the end caught and the tobacco began to burn, he took a deep drag and then held it, waiting for the nicotine to kick in. It came quickly, wrapping around his senses and easing the tension in his mind. He exhaled slowly, letting the smoke out through his nose as he turned. The old man he’d been trailing was still in sight. So he took another drag from the cigarette before he began to move, always staying at least a block behind. As he walked, his gaze moved from window to window, eying the opulence and abundance of that which was America. Not for the first time, he thought of staying. After the job was finished, of course. He loved his homeland, but the constant chaos in the government was disgusting to him—not like the old days. Then he’d been one of the youngest and best of Russia’s finest agents, revered in higher circles, and proud of his KGB status and the strength in his body. Women had fawned over him. Other agents had envied him. His superiors had depended on him.
Now he did nothing. They called it retirement. For Rostov, it was like being sent to an early grave. Even though he was in his mid-sixties, he was still strong. His belly was hard and flat, and the years had added character to his face rather than age.
Ironically, it wasn’t age that had sidelined him. It was his inability to keep up with the ever-changing modes of technology. These days, a good portion of the spy game depended upon understanding everything from lasers to computer chips, which left him out of the running. So his days were spent in taverns, reliving the past with others of his ilk, and the nights in his one-room flat, watching government-run television programs on a twelve-inch black-and-white set with the scent of a neighbor’s boiling cabbage and potatoes drifting in from the crack beneath his front door. Communism had been good to him and his family. It had made his country strong. With the coming of democracy, his world had crumbled as surely as the Berlin Wall. For several years afterward, people had stood in the streets selling personal belongings just to keep from starving. Homelessness had become rampant, and the long lines at bread bakeries and supermarkets were made even more tragic by the fact that there had been little food available to buy for those who still had money.
Now things were better, but they would never be the same. Democracy was as obscene to him as a four-letter word, and now the Russian Mafia had more power than the government. He’d learned to adjust, because it was what he did best. He’d settled into a routine that, while less than stimulating, was more luxurious than what he’d known as a child.
And then a week ago there had come a knock at his door. He’d opened it to find four dour-looking men who’d told him to pack a suitcase. Within hours, he’d been briefed, given American money and a cell phone, and put on a plane bound for New York City. The reason was almost comical to Rostov. He was back in action for the simple reason that he was part of the past. He’d come to America for one reason only. To find a ghost.
Now, here he was, tailing a stoop-shouldered old man with a fondness for borscht. He didn’t look like a ghost to Rostov, but from the color of his complexion, he wasn’t far from becoming one.
When the old man stopped at a crosswalk, Rostov paused, too, turning toward the windows of the jewelry shop by which he was standing. To the passersby, it would appear that his interest was on the display of rubies and pearls, but in truth, the window was his mirror to the sidewalk across the street.
He stood until the light turned green and the Walk sign began to flash, then he pivoted quickly. Dodging traffic, he bolted across the street, losing himself in the stream of pedestrians through which the old man was moving.
He knew the man’s name was Frank Walton. Supposedly a retired botanist from Braden, Montana, who had come to Brighton Beach for a holiday. But there was a particular reason why Vasili Rostov had been yanked out of retirement and sent on this mission, and the picture in his pocket was part of the mystery. Tonight he would meet this old man face-to-face. If what Rostov suspected was true, his name would once again be spoken with respect.
Frank laid his safety razor by the sink and then peered at his face in the foggy mirror before pronouncing himself shaved. His belly hurt—part of the growing cancer eating away at his inner parts—yet he was determined not to let it ruin the upcoming evening. The hotel concierge had told him about a wonderful restaurant only a few blocks from the hotel that offered a floor show with dinner. The chance to hear more music from his homeland was too enticing to miss. Ignoring the gnawing pain, he swiped a towel across his face, splashed on some pine-scented aftershave and went to finish dressing.
Tomorrow he would be going back to Montana—back to his friends and to Isabella. He smiled as he thought of her—dark, laughing eyes and a heart-shaped face—the daughter he’d never had. She called him Uncle, just as she did all of Samuel’s friends.
Samuel Abbott was Isabella’s father. He’d been their leader from the beginning. A frown turned his smile upside down as he glanced at the phone. They hadn’t wanted him to leave Braden, and yet he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell them why. They didn’t know about the cancer. He would tell them later—when he could no longer conceal the pain.
He glanced again at the phone. He should really call and let them know he was coming home tomorrow, but then he looked at the clock and changed his mind. It was getting late, and if he didn’t hurry, he would be late for his reservation. He didn’t want to miss the start of the show.
Shrugging off the thought, he told himself it wouldn’t really matter. He would be home by this time tomorrow, and then he could talk to his heart’s content.
A few minutes later he was in the hotel lobby, then out on the street. More than a dozen people were curbside, waiting for cabs. He frowned, realizing he should have called ahead for a cab, and then looked at his watch to check the time. If he waited much longer he would be late. The restaurant was about twenty blocks away, which, in his weakened state, might as well have been miles, yet he opted to walk.
It was a fine September evening. Traffic was brisk. The air had cooled since sunset, making the walk more pleasant. Obviously he wasn’t the only one who thought so. The sidewalk traffic was as busy as that in the well-lit streets. He walked with his head up and his shoulders back, and for a time he let himself believe he was young and strong—and home.
About five blocks from his destination, he heard someone call out a name. At first, it didn’t register, and he kept on walking. But then he heard it again.
Vaclav Waller. Someone had yelled the name Vaclav Waller.
He stumbled, then froze—afraid to turn around, afraid not to. Before he could move, a man stepped out of the alley to his right. The man spoke again, and only then did Frank realize the man was speaking to him in Russian.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pretending ignorance. “Were you speaking to me?”
This time the answer came back in perfect English.
“What do you think, old man?”
When Vasili Rostov stepped into the light, Frank Walton shuddered. He didn’t know him, but he knew his kind. He’d seen that cold, passionless gaze far too many times in his youth not to know the kind of man he was facing. And with recognition came the knowledge that they’d found him—after all these years, when he was almost at the end of his life.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” Frank muttered, and began to walk away. He’d taken only three steps when the man grabbed his arm.
“No mistake,” Rostov said, speaking Russian again. “We talk.”
Before Frank could call out for help, the man stuck a knife to his throat and forcibly pulled him into the darkened alley. Still speaking in Russian, the man lowered his voice and told Frank to keep quiet, then increased the pressure of the blade against Frank’s throat.
A sudden stinging sensation was all Frank needed to know that the man had drawn blood. Fear momentarily stilled his voice, but it was followed by sudden anger. He might be old and dying, but he would not be threatened—not now, and not by the likes of a man such as this.
“I know who you are,” the man said.
Frank answered in English. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
The sting against his throat became pain.
“Don’t lie to me, old man. I knew you in Minsk. I was assigned to guard you at a medical symposium. You were born and raised in Georgia and educated in Moscow. You are Vaclav Waller. You were nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1969 and reported to have died in a plane crash off the southern coast of the United States in 1970.”
Frank stifled a groan. He didn’t know how this had happened, but he could only blame himself. Someone here must have recognized him. He had come to Brighton Beach to pay homage to his roots and instead had brought down the fragile house of cards that he’d built for himself.
“What do you want?” Frank asked. “I have money. Take my wallet. It’s in my coat pocket.”
Rostov cursed. “I do not want your money, old man. I want the truth.”
Frank blinked. This time the man had spoken in English again. Was he starting to buy his story, or was he just playing along?
“I do not know the truth of which you speak,” Frank said. “Just take my money and let me go. I don’t want trouble.”
At that moment a car sped by outside the alley. Behind it the sound of approaching sirens could be heard, and Rostov’s hold tightened.
Frank saw how the sirens made the big man antsy. The police were obviously after someone else, but maybe he could make this work to his advantage.
“The police are coming,” he said. “Someone saw you drag me into this alley. Just let me go and I won’t tell. I am an old man. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Your trouble is just beginning,” Rostov said. “You don’t have to talk to me. You can talk to my superiors…when we get back to Moscow.”
Frank saw him reach toward his pocket with one hand. He knew the drill. Inside there would be a hypodermic syringe filled with some sort of drug that would render him unconscious. It only took a moment for the decision to be made. Yes, he’d wanted to go home once more before he died, but not like this. He was going to die anyway. Now was as good a time as any.
Before Rostov knew what was happening, Frank grabbed his hand and lunged forward, plunging the knife blade into his own chest.
Rostov grunted in surprise and took a sudden step backward, but it was too late. The damage was already done.
“What have you done?” he cried, as Frank Walton slumped to the ground.
The taste of blood was in Frank’s mouth. “Killed the messenger,” he mumbled, then exhaled slowly. So this is dying. Thought ceased. He’d cheated cancer after all.
Two police cars sped quickly past the entrance to the alley, in obvious pursuit of the car that had just passed, but Rostov was in a panic. He’d misjudged the old fool. Who would have thought he still had it in him?
Kneeling by the dead man’s side, he quickly removed all the identification from the body, then used Walton’s handkerchief to remove his fingerprints from the knife. Nervous now, and not wanting to be seen in the alley where a dead man was lying, he tossed the knife into a nearby Dumpster, then slipped over the fence at the back of the alley.
Ten blocks away, he stripped the cash and identification papers from the wallet, dropped Frank’s hotel key into his pocket and then tossed the empty wallet into a trash can by a bus stop. The body wouldn’t be found until morning. It would take even longer for it to be identified. Confident that the death would appear to have been a robbery, he headed for Frank’s hotel. That crazy old man had upset his plans completely. Now he was torn between having to lie to his superiors and admitting that he was too old for this job after all.
It wasn’t until he was standing at a street corner and waiting for the light to change that he realized the old man’s last words had been spoken in fluent and perfect Russian.
He cursed beneath his breath as he started across the street. All he could do was hope he would find a clue in Walton’s hotel room that would keep him in good standing with the powers that be.
A few minutes later, he entered the hotel and headed straight for the elevator, confident that he would not be noticed. He’d followed the old man more than once, so he already knew the floor and room number. There was no one in the hallway when he exited the elevator, so he headed straight for room 617 without hesitation.
Once inside, he began a thorough sweep of the room, hoping to find something that would give answers as to why Vaclav Waller had faked his own death, as well as what he had been doing for the past thirty years. All he found were some out-of-style clothes and a plane ticket to Braden, Montana. The flight was due out at 9:45 a.m. tomorrow.
He stood for a moment, contemplating the wisdom of what he was thinking, and then a slight smile broke the somberness of his face. He had Walton’s ID. It would be a simple matter to substitute his picture for Walton’s and fly back to Braden on Walton’s ticket.
He nodded to himself, slipped the plane ticket into his jacket pocket and began methodically packing Walton’s clothes into his suitcase. It wouldn’t do to have the hotel put out an alarm when the old man went missing. All he had to do was leave the room key on the bed and walk away with Frank Walton’s things. The hotel would assume the man was gone, bill the room to the credit card he would have had to show when checking in, and no one would be the wiser. Less than an hour later, room 617 was empty and Rostov was gone, taking the last vestiges of Frank Walton’s presence in Brighton Beach with him.
Detective Mike Butoli was nursing a hangover and a broken toe when he came in to work. The coffee he’d purchased from the coffee shop on the corner was too weak for the condition he was in. He needed some of his father’s recipe this morning, with a healthy shot of the “hair of the dog,” and then he just might be able to make it through the day. However, his father had been dead for years, and thanks to a weak moment last night, he was going to have to start all over on a new sobriety day.
He’d made it almost six months this time and was pissed at himself for giving in to temptation. When he drank, he had blackouts, so he had no idea which had come first, the broken toe or the first drink, and from the way he was feeling, it didn’t really matter. His goddamn foot hurt almost as much as his head.
“Hey, Butoli. You look like hell.”
Butoli glared at Larry Marshall and thought about tossing the sorry-assed coffee on the prick’s clean white shirt, then decided against it. He had yet to figure out how the man had ever made detective.
“You should know,” he muttered, as he set his coffee down on the desk and started to remove his suit coat.
“Don’t get too comfy,” Marshall said. “Flanagan is looking for you.”
Butoli pivoted without stopping and headed for the lieutenant’s office, limping with every step.
“Hey, Lieutenant, you wanted to see me?”
Barney Flanagan looked up, then frowned. Butoli was a damned good cop when he laid off the sauce, but something told him Butoli had suffered a “weak moment” last night.
“Are you drunk?” Flanagan growled.
“No, sir. Not now, sir.”
“Then why in hell are you leaning against my door? Stand up straight, damn it.”
“I broke my toe. This is as straight as I can stand.”
Flanagan muttered beneath his breath as he laid a file on the opposite edge of his desk.
“Sanitation found a stiff in the alley behind Ivana’s Bar and Grill. Go do your thing.”
Butoli took the file without comment and started out the door.
“Butoli!”
He stopped and turned. “Yes, sir?”
“I don’t give a damn what you do on your own time, but you better not drink on mine or I’ll have your ass.”
Butoli’s stomach rolled. God, but he needed something stronger than the coffee.
“Lieutenant, right now, my ass is the only thing on my body that doesn’t hurt, and I’d really hate to part with it.”
Flanagan smirked. “Life’s a bitch. Go find me a killer, and take Marshall with you.”
“But Evans is my partner.”
“Not since last night. His old man died. He’s gone to Tennessee. Won’t be back for at least a week.”
Butoli groaned. “Damn it, Lieutenant, not Marshall. He’s a prick.”
“Yes, but he’s a sober one. Now go do your job, and play nice while you’re at it.”
Butoli stifled a curse and limped back to his desk.
“Hey, Marshall, we got a new stiff, so get your pocketbook, you’re coming with me.”
Larry Marshall glared as he got up from his desk.
“That’s sexual harassment,” Marshall muttered as he took his handgun from his desk and slipped it into a shoulder holster.
“Are you gay?” Butoli asked.
Marshall’s nostrils flared angrily. “No.”
“Then it’s not sexual harassment, it’s only a joke. And while we’re at it, you’re driving.”
Marshall smirked as they headed for the elevator.
“Why? Too drunk to drive?”
“Not yet,” Butoli said, and then pointed to the hole he’d cut in the end of his best pair of loafers. “I broke my toe last night.”
“Shame it wasn’t your head,” Marshall muttered, as they exited the building toward the parking lot.
“I heard that,” Butoli said.
“Good. At least there’s nothing wrong with your ears,” Marshall said, as he got behind the wheel. “Where are we going?”
“Alley behind Ivana’s Bar and Grill.”
Larry Marshall floored the accelerator, taking small pleasure in the fact that Mike Butoli’s skin looked like it was turning green.
White Mountain Cemetery, Braden, Montana—The Same Day
A stiff wind lifted the hem of Margaret Watson’s dress, then tugged at the black wide-brimmed hat she’d been determined to wear. She grabbed at her skirttail with one hand and her hat with the other as she leaned toward her best friend, Harriet Tyler. Lowering her voice, she glanced toward the young woman in black sitting near the open grave.
“Poor thing. With her father dead and all, she’s all alone now. No husband. No kids. Just that big old hotel outside of town.”
Harriet stared at the woman in question as she whispered back.
“She’s not exactly alone. Her uncles are still there.”
Margaret sniffed. “They’re not really her uncles, you know.”
Harriet shrugged. “Well, yes, I suppose, but I don’t hold with blood being the only tie to family. They were Sam Abbott’s friends and colleagues. They’ve lived at Abbott House for as long as I can remember. When Sam’s wife, Isabella, died, they all did their part in raising that little girl. If she wants to call them her uncles, then who are we to argue?”
Margaret sniffed again, disapproval evident in her posture.
“It just doesn’t seem right,” she muttered. “All those men. You would have thought at least one of them would have married again.”
Harriet grinned. “You’re just peeved because Samuel Abbott didn’t return your affections.”
This time Margaret’s disapproval was directed at Harriet.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered. “Now do be quiet. The preacher is about to say a prayer.”
Isabella Abbott was numb. If it hadn’t been for the firm grip of her Uncle David’s arm around her shoulders, she might have thought she was dreaming. For the past fifteen minutes she’d been looking at a clump of dirt on the toe of the pastor’s shoe, trying to ignore the shiny bronze casket suspended over the open grave beside him.
Her father was dead. It had been so sudden. One minute he was laughing and talking, and the next he’d been clutching his chest. With two doctors beside him, he’d still died before the ambulance had arrived. For the past three days he’d been lying in state at the Jewel Funeral Home, and now they’d come to lay him to rest.
Her gaze slid from the toe of the pastor’s shoe to the mound of white roses covering the casket. Her vision blurred as she drew a deep, shuddering breath.
Oh, Daddy…how am I going to face life without you?
David Schultz felt every one of his seventy-eight years as he stared at the long bronze casket. One of these days he would meet a similar fate. They all would. And when that happened, Isabella would be alone. Worry deepened as he pulled Isabella a little closer within his embrace. Samuel’s death had caught them all unaware. Changes were inevitable, and he hated change.
Suddenly the preacher was saying Amen and people were starting to move. Isabella stood abruptly. He stood with her, looking around for the other uncles, but he need not have bothered. Like him, they were there—beside her, behind her—as always, sheltering her since the day she’d been born.
“Are you all right, darling?” Isabella looked up into the dear, familiar face of her Uncle David and nodded.
“I will be,” she said, trying to smile through tears. “I’m just sick about Uncle Frank, though. He will be so upset when he comes home and learns that Daddy died.”
“It’s his own fault for not giving us a way to contact him,” David said, still a bit miffed that his old friend had been so secretive about the trip he’d taken.
“I know, but it’s still too bad. He’s going to be riddled with guilt,” Isabella said.
“As he should be,” Thomas Mowry said, adding his own opinion to the conversation as he gave Isabella a hug.
Isabella let Uncle Thomas’s warmth enfold her, but the moment was brief, as well-wishers began gathering around her, anxious to pay their condolences. She glanced at her Uncle David, giving him a nod.
David quickly stepped forward and raised his hand as he made a brief announcement.
“Please,” he said. “We thank you so much for coming. Samuel loved this community and the people in it. Isabella is exhausted, so we are taking her home, but she has asked me to invite all of those who care to come to Abbott House. There is food and drink. Please make yourselves welcome.”
Isabella tried to smile, but the faces around her had become a blur. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and let herself be led to a waiting car. Moments later they were driving away from the cemetery toward White Mountain, the place that she called home.
She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the hours ahead. It would be nightfall before she would be able to shed the duties of hostess. Then she would grieve.
2
The grandfather clock in the hotel lobby was striking the hour as Isabella came out of her room. It was already midnight, and she still had not been able to sleep. Luckily the hotel was almost empty, although two guests had arrived to check in during the wake following her father’s funeral and she hadn’t had the heart to turn them away.
Her head ached. Her eyes were swollen from crying. Every time she closed them, she saw her father’s casket being lowered into the grave. Unable to lie still in her comfortable bed when she knew her father was in a box six feet under the ground, she’d crawled out of bed.
But it wasn’t sorrow that had pulled her out of her room. It was hunger. She felt guilty—almost ashamed of the fact—but it was the first time in three days that she’d felt like eating.
The family quarters were on the lower floor of the house, behind the main staircase, and as she came around the corner, she stopped at the foot of the stairs beneath the painting on the opposite wall. It was a massive canvas, almost life-size, and the first thing to be seen upon entering the hotel. Isabella paused in the shadows, looking intently at the first Isabella. The woman who’d been her mother, and who had died giving birth to her, was little more than a face with a name.
She stared at the painting, accepting the fact that, except for the different hairstyle and clothing, it could very well have been a portrait of herself. She sighed, the sound little more than a soft shifting of air in the silent room.
But for a vague longing for something she’d never known, she had no emotional ties to the woman, although her father had never been able to look at that painting without coming close to tears. At the thought of her father, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to cry. At least one positive thing had come out of this nightmare. Her parents were now together.
When her stomach rumbled again, she dropped her gaze and headed for the kitchen. The large commercial-sized refrigerators were full of leftovers from the wake, so she had a wide variety of foods from which to choose. Getting a plate from the cabinet, she settled on a piece of cold chicken and a small helping of pasta salad. The silverware drawer squeaked as she opened it to get a fork, and when it did, she winced. The uncles’ rooms were on the top floor, which was two flights up from where she was, yet it wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d gotten caught during a midnight snack attack.
She stood for a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps coming down the staircase, and when she heard nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock out in the lobby, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to talk any more today—not even to them.
She went onto the back stoop and sat down on the steps, balancing her plate on her lap as she took her first bite. The pasta in the salad was perfectly al dente and coated with a tangy vinaigrette. When the first bite of food hit her stomach, she inhaled slowly, allowing herself to get past the guilt of self-satisfaction and admit that it was good. As she ate, her gaze moved beyond the backyard of the hotel to the mountain looming on the horizon.
White Mountain.
For as long as she could remember, it had been the backdrop for her life. Somewhere in the ancient past of this land, a massive shift in the tectonic plates below the earth’s surface had created heat and pressure beyond man’s imagination, resulting in the birth of the mountain range of which White Mountain was a part.
She had often wondered why it was called White Mountain, because it was black as a witch’s heart, with a thick stand of trees halfway up its steep slopes. Her father had suggested that it must have been named during the winter months, because then it was usually covered with snow.
It was some time later before Isabella noticed she’d eaten all her food. As she stood, she also realized that part of her melancholy had eased. She wanted to smile, but her heart was too sore to allow herself the notion, although her father would have been pleased. He’d always said that the world looked far too grim on an empty stomach.
With one last look at the overpowering peak, she went back in the house, quietly locking the door behind her. She set her plate in the sink and then started back to her room. It wasn’t going to be easy without her father, but she accepted his death as an inevitable part of life. The uncles were all of the same generation as her father, and she didn’t want to think of the days when she would eventually have to give them up, too. The saddest thing was knowing that Uncle Frank had yet to learn of her father’s death. He was going to be devastated that he hadn’t known, and guilt-ridden at not being here to help her through the ordeal. Isabella just wished he would come back, or at least call. He’d never been away this long before.
A few moments later she entered her room and went back to bed. It wasn’t long before exhaustion claimed her and she finally fell asleep.
Detective Mike Butoli swung his sore foot over the curb and stepped up with a hop as he headed into the crime lab. The coroner’s office had yet to perform the autopsy on his latest case, and he was chafing under the delay.
An unidentified stiff in a Brighton Beach alley was not high priority, nor was it the only unidentified victim awaiting dissection, but for some reason the case was weighing heavily on Butoli’s mind. They’d put the stiff’s fingerprints into the system, hoping for a match, and at Lieutenant Flanagan’s suggestion had sent them to Interpol, as well. With the high concentration of Russian immigrants in Brighton Beach, it stood to reason that one or the other would result in an identification.
He had been a cop for almost twenty years, the last twelve as a detective. He’d seen far more of the evil and depravity of the human condition than anyone should be exposed to and couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a case personally.
Until now.
Maybe it was because his headache was competing with the pain in his foot to see which could rack up the most misery. Maybe it was the guilt he was feeling for having fallen off the wagon after six long months of sobriety. But whatever the reason, yesterday, as he stood in that alley looking down into the old man’s face, he kept wondering what journey the man’s life had been on would cause it to end in an alley in Brighton Beach.
Today he had a dead man with no identification, no witnesses to the crime, and he wanted answers to both. Information from the coroner’s office would have to wait, but he was coming to the crime lab with more optimism. If he got lucky, the analysis of the crime scene evidence would give him something to go on.
Since he was expected, he walked into the lab without knocking and headed toward the small middle-aged man who was feeding information into a computer.
“Hey, Yoda, what have you got for me?”
Malcolm Wise had long ago accepted his nickname, but not without some disgust. It wasn’t his fault that nature had doomed him to look more like the famous character from the Star Wars series than he did his own parents. He turned to see Detective Butoli coming toward him and hit Save on the keyboard before giving him his full attention.
“Why are you limping?” Wise asked.
“Broke my toe.”
Wise smirked. “I won’t ask how.”
“Well hell, now I am disappointed. I thought Yoda had all the answers.”
“Can the crap,” Wise said. “Short and balding is sexy to some women.”
“Then thank God I was born a man,” Butoli countered. “About my stiff…got anything that will help?”
Wise moved toward his desk. “The knife in his chest that was found in a Dumpster was Russian-made.”
Butoli rolled his eyes. “Damn, Yoda. This is Brighton Beach. It’s full of Russian immigrants. Give me something I can use.”
“The skin under his fingernails isn’t his own.” Butoli stifled a curse and popped a couple of breath mints in his mouth.
“Anything that might help me put a name to the man?”
Wise grinned as he lifted a plastic bag from a box and slid it across the table.
Butoli caught it before it slipped off onto the floor.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“The victim’s shirt.”
“What’s so special about a shirt?”
“Maybe the name underneath the tag might help you.”
Butoli’s eyes lit up.
“His name? As in a laundry mark?”
“At least part of it,” Wise said. “F. Walton. Now all you have to do is find someone missing a man named Walton and your mystery is solved.”
“Only part of it,” Butoli said, thinking of who had put the knife in the old man’s chest. “Anything else that might help?”
Wise shrugged. “You’re the detective. I just got through faxing a preliminary report to your office. It should be on your desk when you get back. Some of the tests will take longer. I’ll let you know when the lab work is done.”
Butoli slapped the little man on the back.
“Thanks, Yoda. This is the first good news I’ve had in two days.”
Wise smirked. “May the force be with you. Now go away. I have work to do.”
Butoli left the crime lab with a bounce in his step that had little to do with his sore toe. Finally a name to go with the face—at least most of a name. He was going to swing by the office, pick up Marshall and a picture of the victim, and then take a ride back down to Brighton Beach. Maybe someone would remember a man named Walton. Hell. Maybe he was kin to John Boy. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?
Five hours later, Butoli slid into the passenger seat as Larry Marshall got in behind the wheel. They’d been in and out of every place of business within a fifteen block radius of the area where the old man’s body had been found, with no response. It wasn’t until they’d gone into a small Russian restaurant adjacent to a thrift store that they’d gotten lucky.
The manager had frowned at their badges as he stubbed out a roll-your-own cigarette, glanced at the picture, then shook his head without looking up.
But Butoli had persisted.
“Come on, buddy. Look again. Somebody stuck a knife in his heart and left him to die in an alley alone. Somewhere he’s probably got family who are worried sick. I’m not asking you to ID a killer, just the man. It’s the least he deserves. Now look again. Have you seen him before?”
The manager looked up with a distrustful glare. His experience with public authority had begun at the age of seventeen, half a world away in a Soviet prison. He felt no need to cooperate. But the look on the cop’s face seemed less threatening than most, so when Butoli shoved the picture back toward him, he shrugged, then looked down.
“Yeah…maybe I see him before…two…three times. He liked my borscht.”
“Is he a local?”
“Nyet,” the manager answered, then qualified the Russian “no” with a negative shake of his head.
“How do you know?” Butoli asked.
“One time I think he pay with what you call traveler’s check.”
“Did you see anyone with him?”
The manager shook his head again.
Larry Marshall leaned against the counter, putting himself in the man’s personal space with only a small bit of wood and glass between them. The manager took a defensive step back as Larry fired his first question.
“Any idea where he was staying?”
The manager shook his head again. “But maybe not too far away.”
“What makes you say that?” Marshall asked.
“He was old…sick, too, I think.”
“How do you know?”
The manager shrugged again, then glanced nervously around. It wasn’t good business to be friendly with the police.
“His skin…it was not a good color. But he did not ask for cab, so maybe he had room not too far away.”
“Good deduction,” Butoli said, and slipped the picture in his pocket. “Sir, I thank you for your help. If you think of anything else…anything at all…give me a call.”
He handed the manager his card, and then they left.
“Next on the list, hotels and rooming houses,” Marshall said, as he started the car and pulled away from the curb.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky again,” Butoli said. “But in the meantime, don’t get pushy with these people. Few of them have any reason to trust authority.”
Marshall patted the part in his hair without heeding Butoli’s caution.
“They’re in America now. If they don’t like the way we do things here, they can go back where they came from.”
Butoli’s toe was killing him, and his patience was gone. He had the strongest urge to slap the back of Larry Marshall’s head just to see the look on his face. Instead, he popped a couple of painkillers and leaned back against the seat.
Less than half an hour later, Butoli’s prediction was proven right. The desk clerk at the Georgian Hotel identified the picture before Larry Marshall could get out his notebook.
“Oh my…he is dead?” the clerk asked.
Butoli nodded.
“Poor man, but glad it didn’t happen here.”
Marshall smirked. “Yeah, I see your point. Not good for business, huh?”
The clerk flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t say that right. I’m sorry Mr. Walton is dead. He seemed like nice man, but you know what I mean…right?”
Butoli frowned. No luggage had been found with the body. Maybe they’d just found their motive for the old man’s death. People had been killed for far less than a suitcase of clothes.
“What name did he register under?” he asked.
“Walton…Frank Walton. I remember I teased him and asked if he was related to John Boy. You know…from TV show.”
“Exactly when did he check out?” Butoli asked.
The clerk turned to the computer and typed in the name.
“Here it is. Yesterday morning.”
Butoli’s frown deepened. The coroner had told them that the old man had probably died between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. the night before his body was discovered. So if Walton was already dead, then he couldn’t have checked himself out. His pulse skipped a beat.
“You’re sure? Did he check out at the desk?”
The clerk scanned the screen and then looked up. “I was not on duty. All I know is room key was turned in and his bill put on credit card he gave on arrival.”
“We’ll need that credit card number,” Marshall said.
The clerk frowned. “I am not supposed to give—”
“It’s to confirm identification and to make sure it wasn’t a stolen card, understand?”
The clerk hesitated and then copied it from the screen to a piece of paper and handed it to Marshall.
“Had his room been slept in?” Butoli asked.
The clerk shook his head. “I don’t know. You have to check with housekeeping.”
“Then get somebody up here,” Butoli said. “We’ll wait.”
“Can you speak Russian?” the clerk asked.
“No,” Butoli said.
“Then I need to call manager, too, or you get nowhere with the help.”
“You don’t speak Russian?” Marshall asked.
“I am not Russian. I am Slovak.”
“Whatever,” Marshall muttered.
A short while later they were in the manager’s office, conducting a half-assed interrogation through a man who quite obviously wished them to be anywhere else but here. The reluctant hotel manager was standing beside a cowering housemaid, who obviously thought she was in some kind of trouble. Despite the fact that they’d assured her otherwise, she hadn’t stopped crying since she’d entered the room.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Butoli growled.
The manager, who was also of Russian descent, glared back at Butoli.
“I said nothing,” he snapped. “She makes her own conclusion.”
“Fine,” Butoli said. “So ask her this. Did she clean Mr. Walton’s room every day?”
The manager translated the question, and the housemaid quickly nodded.
“Ask her if he ever had any visitors.”
The little maid shrank even smaller against the chair, muttering beneath her breath as she shrugged.
“She says she saw no one but him in the room.”
Butoli nodded and smiled at the woman, hoping she would take that as a sign he meant her no harm. It didn’t seem to work. She covered her face with her hands and refused to look him in the eye.
“God almighty,” Butoli mumbled, then took a deep breath and started over. “Did she clean that same room on the morning Walton checked out?”
“She says yes, but that there was not much to do. He had not slept in his bed.”
Butoli’s attention sharpened. “What about his clothing…his luggage? Was it still in the room?”
The manager relayed the questions, then translated her answer again.
“She says everything was gone. She turn in room key she found on bed later, when she finish her shift.” Then the manager added, “It is the way we do it here. Sometimes guests use speedy checkout system. Checkout on room TV. It is very up-to-date process. Georgian Hotel is finest in Brighton Beach.”
Butoli looked at his partner. It was obvious from Marshall’s expression that he was thinking the same thing Butoli was. Someone had come back to Frank Walton’s room and removed every trace of the man’s presence. But why?
He sighed. This case was turning out to be more complicated than he’d first believed. They could no longer assume it was a run-of-the-mill mugging gone bad. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to delay the identification of a dead man by removing all his personal ID, then gone to his hotel and taken everything he had with him, making it appear as if he’d checked out.
But why?
He put his notebook in his pocket and gave the manager a card.
“Please tell your employee that we appreciate her help, and that if she remembers anything else that might help us catch the man who killed Mr. Walton, to please call us.”
The manager relayed the message.
The housemaid stood, gave the men a nervous glance and bolted out the door.
Butoli shook his head. “What’s she so scared about?”
The manager didn’t bother to hide a sneer. “Being sent back, of course.”
Larry Marshall looked up from his notepad.
“Back to where?” he asked
“Russia.”
Marshall’s gaze sharpened. “What? Are you hiring illegals? You can’t do that. You have to report them to—”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Butoli said, then grabbed his partner by the arm and all but dragged him out of the hotel.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Marshall yelped.
Butoli took a deep breath, mentally counting from one to ten before he trusted himself to answer.
“Marshall, for once in your life, just shut the fuck up.”
Larry Marshall’s face turned a dark, angry red. “It’s people like you who screw up the systems we have in place.”
“Maybe,” Butoli muttered. “But it was people like you who put the cockamamie systems in place to begin with. For God’s sake! We’re trying to get them to help us find a killer, and you’re threatening to call INS? What the hell were you thinking?”
Then he threw up his hands and headed for the car, leaving Marshall with no option but to follow.
Marshall got in and started the engine.
“Where to?” he asked.
Butoli glared. “Back to the precinct. We’ve got a name to go with the body, and a credit card number that should give us enough background information to find his next of kin.”
“But don’t you think we should—”
The look on Butoli’s face was enough to stifle what he’d been going to say. Instead, he pulled into the traffic and took a right turn at the next block.
Isabella handed a room key to the couple who’d just checked in. In the years since her father and Uncle David had opened White Mountain Fertility Clinic, she’d seen hundreds like them—people desperate for a child of their own and willing to try anything to make it happen.
“There is an elevator just to the right of the staircase,” she said.
“We’ll take the stairs,” the woman said. “Exercise is good for me.”
Isabella smiled. “Do you need help with your luggage?”
The man shook his head. “No. We only have the two bags. We can manage just fine. Oh…what time does the kitchen open? We have an appointment in town in the morning, and we don’t want to be late.”
“We start serving breakfast at six o’clock and if you need a taxi into Braden, you’ll need to call ahead and expect about a fifteen to twenty minute wait.”
The couple nodded their understanding and started up the stairs, their heads tilted slightly toward each other as they spoke in undertones.
Isabella hurt for their sadness. It was evident in every aspect of their expressions and posture. How sad to want a child so desperately and yet be unable to make it happen. Even sadder were the children who were born to people who didn’t care. It didn’t make sense. Why didn’t God just give babies to people who wanted them and let the people who were unfit to be parents be the ones who were barren? But she knew her thoughts were fanciful. Nothing in life was fair. She thought of her father dying so suddenly and leaving not only family, but waiting patients, behind.
The staff at White Mountain Fertility Clinic was well-trained and able to continue without her father’s presence. In the past few years he’d even talked about the time when he would retire and leave the creation of life to those younger than himself. Besides her father, Uncle David and Uncle Jasper still held active roles in the clinic, even though they took fewer and fewer new patients with each passing year.
Without thinking, her gaze automatically slid to the portrait above the staircase, unaware that the gentleness in the woman’s dark brown eyes mirrored her own. Her wandering thoughts stopped abruptly when the phone rang. Making herself concentrate on the present, she lifted her chin and picked up the phone.
“Abbott House.”
“This is Detective Mike Butoli with the Brighton Beach police. I need to speak to Samuel Abbott.”
Isabella’s breath caught as a quick film of tears blurred her vision. It was the first time this had happened since her father’s death, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last. She cleared her throat and made herself answer.
“I’m sorry, Detective, but Samuel Abbott recently passed away. I’m his daughter, Isabella Abbott. Maybe I can help.”
Mike Butoli frowned. He hated this part of his job more than spinach—and only God and his mother knew how much he hated spinach.
“Did you know a man named Franklin Walton?”
His use of the past tense made Isabella’s heart drop.
“Uncle Frank? What’s happened to him? Has he been injured? Is he all right?”
Butoli sighed. Damn. As many times as he’d done this, it never got easier.
“I’m very sorry to tell you, Miss Abbott, but Mr. Walton was found murdered in an alley a few days ago.”
The wail that came out of her mouth was a mixture of disbelief and despair.
“Nooo,” she cried, and staggered backward onto a chair.
John Michaels and Rufus Toombs, two of the men she called uncles, were just coming off the elevator from their third-floor apartments when they heard her cry. Without hesitation, they rushed forward.
“Isabella…darling, what’s wrong?”
She recognized the voices but couldn’t focus on the faces. Everything around her was fast going black. Before she could answer, she slid out of the chair onto the floor in a faint.
Rufus quickly knelt at her side, while John went for the phone dangling from her hand.
“Hello? Hello? Who’s there, please?”
Butoli knew the woman had not received the news well.
“This is Detective Butoli with the Brighton Beach P.D.”
“What did you say to Isabella? What has happened?” John cried.
“Are you her family?” Butoli asked.
“Yes, yes,” John muttered. “What has happened?”
“We just identified a murder victim as Franklin Walton, of Braden, Montana. The address on his credit card listed Abbott House as his home. Is this correct?”
John Michaels’s heart sank. Now it made sense. Now they knew why Frank had never called home.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, that is correct.”
“I’m sorry to ask, but someone must come and identify the body. Just to make sure. You understand.”
John’s fingers were trembling and he wanted to cry, but he made himself focus as he picked up a pen.
“Yes, I understand. Just tell me where we must go.”
As he wrote, Rufus was running for the house phone. Within seconds, he had David Schultz on the phone.
“Get down here,” he cried. “Isabella has fainted.”
John hung up the phone as Rufus made his way back around the desk.
“David is on his way,” Rufus said.
“He can’t help,” John said, and covered his face in his hands.
“What are you talking about?” Rufus muttered, as he dropped to Isabella’s side again. “She’s just fainted. She’s going to be okay. Isn’t she?”
“It isn’t Isabella. It’s Frank.”
Rufus’s eyes widened, rearranging the pond of wrinkles that age had settled on his face.
“What about Frank?”
“He’s dead. Murdered.”
Rufus blanched and sat down hard on the floor beside Isabella. Unconsciously, he grabbed her hand, clutching it tightly in his own.
“Dear Lord,” Rufus mumbled. “Do you think—”
“Don’t say it,” John muttered. “Don’t even think it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Go get him and bring him home to bury.”
“But—”
Isabella moaned.
“Hush,” John said sternly.
Rufus swallowed what he’d been about to say. Seconds later, David and Jasper came flying down the stairs, their speed belying their ages.
“What happened?” David asked, as he set his medical bag at Isabella’s side and pulled out a stethoscope.
“You won’t need that,” John said. “She fainted. Just pop some smelling salts and get her to her room. We’ve got bigger trouble.”
David rocked back on his heels. “What?”
“Frank’s dead. Murdered.”
David blanched.
“My God…where did it happen?”
“Brighton Beach.”
David frowned. “I’ve heard of it, but I can’t place the—”
“It’s part of Brooklyn, I think. Due to the large population of Russian immigrants, some call it Little Russia.”
Jasper Arnold’s gasp was the only vocal sign of the four men’s shock. Then Isabella began struggling to get up.
“What happened? Why did I—”
Suddenly she remembered, and her face crumpled as she was helped to her feet.
“Uncle Frank is dead,” she said, and began to sob.
The four aging men encircled her.
“We know,” they said. “Come with us, darling. You need to lie down.”
“The desk,” she mumbled.
“I’ll call Delia from the office. She can take care of it for the rest of the day.”
“What are we going to do?” Isabella asked, then covered her face in her hands.
The men looked at each other silently, but it was David who answered her.
“We’re going to get him and bring him home. That’s what we’re going to do.”
The sun was setting as Jack Dolan came out of his house and headed toward the deck surrounding his hot tub. Except for a bath towel wrapped loosely around his waist, he was completely nude. His house was on the outskirts of a Virginia suburb, only an hour or so’s drive from Washington, D.C. The eight-foot-high privacy fence surrounding his backyard provided coveted privacy. Besides, his nearest neighbor was over a quarter of a mile away and traveled more than he did.
Exhaustion was evident in his stride as he reached the tub of bubbling water. Modesty was last on his list of social graces as he dropped the towel from around his waist and stepped down into the water. A few steps farther, he sank down onto a built-in seat and leaned back with a sigh as the jets sent a rush of warm, bubbling water against his skin.
He had two knife scars on his back, an old gunshot scar on his upper thigh, and ribs that were still healing from the last case he’d been on. His personal life was nonexistent, and his career as a Federal agent had been ongoing since his graduation from Boston University. He was thirty-eight years old and had nothing to show for it but a house he rarely slept in and some investments he might not live long enough to spend.
The water roiled around his limbs, easing the aches from old wounds and relaxing the tension in his muscles. He leaned his head against the back of the tub and closed his eyes. Something inside him was starting to give. He’d known it for almost six months. There was a restlessness to his behavior that had never been there before, and a longing for something he couldn’t name. Although he couldn’t name his frustration, one thing was blatantly clear. Something needed to give. Whether it would be him or his lifestyle was yet to be determined.
He swiped a wet hand across his face and rolled his head. The beginnings of a headache he’d had since noon were starting to ease. A small squirrel scolded from the pine tree at the corner of his yard, angry at the invasion into its territory.
“Back off, Chester. It’s my yard, too,” Jack said, and then smiled at himself.
Now he was talking to squirrels. He really needed a change.
He had not taken a vacation in over four years. Maybe what he was feeling was a simple case of burnout. But whatever the diagnosis, the cure would be the same—a much-needed change of pace.
He sat in the hot tub until his legs felt like gelatin and watched the moon come up. It wasn’t until his phone began to ring that he dragged himself up and out of the tub. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he jogged into the house and picked up the phone.
“Dolan.”
“Jack, how are your ribs?”
Unconsciously, Jack straightened to attention as he recognized the director’s voice.
“They’re fine, sir. What do you need?”
The director’s chuckle rippled through the line.
“So you’ve taken up mind reading now, too?”
Jack grinned wryly. “Truthfully, sir, when was the last time you called just to chat?”
“Point taken,” the director said. “What I need is for you to pack for an undetermined stay in Montana. You will receive a packet tomorrow morning, including a plane ticket to a small town called Braden.”
Everything went through Jack’s mind, from militia-based groups to terrorists.
“Yes, sir. What am I facing?”
“Oh…I’d say at least a week, maybe more, at a fine old hotel called Abbott House. The air is clean. There aren’t any golf courses or rivers in which to fish, but I hear the scenery is great.”
“Sir?”
The director chuckled again. “Not what you expected, is it?”
“No, sir, but I’m certain you’re about to fill me in.”
The director sighed. “Yes, well…as Paul Harvey always says…‘now for the rest of the story.’ Two days ago, a set of prints from a dead man came through NCIC that didn’t match up with any we had on file.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack said. “Surely you aren’t wanting me to establish an identity? That’s a job for a homicide detective.”
“Let me finish,” the director said.
“Sorry,” Jack said.
“Yes, well, this is where it gets weird. The body was discovered in Brighton Beach.”
“Isn’t that the place they call Little Russia?”
“Some do, I believe,” the director said. “At any rate, I understand that because of the large number of immigrants in that area of Brooklyn, that from time to time when a situation warrants, the police also send prints through Interpol as a means of speeding up identification.”
A puddle had formed on the floor where Jack was standing, so he dropped the towel from around his waist, put his foot in the middle of the towel and began swiping at the water while he continued to listen.
“Yes, sir, but I still don’t—”
“I’m getting there,” the director said. “The thing is…the prints rang a bell at Interpol. A really big bell.”
Suddenly, the hair stood on the back of Jack’s neck.
“How big?”
“The prints belong to a Russian scientist named Vaclav Waller.”
“And?”
“Vaclav Waller died in a plane crash off the coast of Florida over thirty years ago.”
Jack kicked aside the wet towel and headed for the back of the house to get some clothes.
“But he’s dead now, right?”
“Oh yes, he’s dead, all right. I sent a man directly to Brighton Beach as soon as the prints were flagged. Trouble is…they’d already identified the man as Frank Walton of Braden, Montana. Had a credit card number and everything from the hotel where he’d been staying.”
Jack took a pair of sweats from the dresser and pulled them on with one hand as his boss continued.
“But…” the director added “…when my man ran a background check on the card owner, guess what he found?”
Jack dropped to the side of the bed.
“What?”
“The social security number the dead man was using belonged to a man named Frank Walton, only that Frank Walton died in 1955 at the age of twenty-four.”
“So we’ve got a dead Russian pretending to be a dead American who’s just died. Is that about it?”
The director’s appreciation for the humor of the situation was suddenly missing.
“That’s it, Jack, and I want to know what the hell is going on. The man who called himself Frank Walton has been living at a place called Abbott House for years. I want you in that hotel, and I want some answers to what the hell that man was up to. Considering Waller’s background, there could have been a lot more to his disappearance than just defecting. However, I don’t want you showing up there as FBI. For all intents and purposes, you are a man on vacation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep me updated on what you learn.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh…and Jack.”
“Sir?”
“You could send me a postcard.”
Jack grinned as the line went dead.
3
It was fifteen minutes after two in the afternoon when Jack pulled his rental car into the parking lot of Abbott House. He parked and got out, stretching as he stood. A twinge of pain rippled across his belly from his still healing ribs, but the cool, rain-washed air felt good on his face. He got out his bag and headed for the door, noting absently that the place looked deserted, but when he walked inside, a short, middle-aged woman looked up from behind the desk and smiled.
“Welcome to Abbott House.”
Jack nodded as he dropped his bag and pulled out his wallet.
“I’d like a room please.”
“For two?” she asked, looking past him toward the door.
“No, just me,” Jack answered and wondered why the woman looked surprised.
“Yes, sir, and how long will you be staying?”
“A week, maybe more,” Jack said. “I’m doing some research in the area.”
“Research?” the woman asked.
“For a book.”
“Oooh, a writer, how interesting,” she said. “Most of our guests are here because of the clinic, you know.”
“What kind of clinic would that be?”
“White Mountain Clinic. It’s a fertility clinic for women.”
“I see.” Then he gestured toward the parking lot. “Doesn’t look like there’s much business today. I thought the place was closed when I drove up.”
The clerk’s face fell. “Oh…that’s because everyone is at the funeral. So sad.”
Jack’s interest kicked in. “Someone local, I assume.”
She blinked back tears. “Yes, one of our residents, Franklin Walton. He’d lived here for many, many years, and his death was so unexpected.” She leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “He was murdered.” Then she added, “But not here, of course. Braden is a quiet little town. Nothing like that ever happens here, thank God. The tragedy is that it’s so soon after Dr. Abbott’s passing. Isabella is distraught, as we all are.”
Jack knew the name Franklin Walton. The man was the reason he was here. But he didn’t know who Isabella was, and the Abbott name meant nothing to him other than the name of the hotel.
“Dr. Abbott? Was he the owner of this hotel?”
She nodded. “Yes, but he and Dr. Schultz and Dr. Arnold also founded White Mountain Fertility Clinic. Most of the people who come to the clinic for help also stay here at Abbott House.”
“I see,” Jack said.
“I’ll need to see a credit card, sir.”
Jack pulled one out of his wallet and laid it on the counter. As she ran it through the system, he turned to survey the lobby. Like the house itself, it was quite grand to be in such an isolated location.
“This is quite a place,” he said.
The clerk smiled.
“Yes, isn’t it? It was built in the early nineteen hundreds by a well-to-do rancher who later went broke during the Depression. After that it went through a series of owners until Samuel Abbott bought it sometime during the seventies.”
“Interesting,” Jack said. “So am I to take it that Dr. Abbott and this Walton fellow were friends?”
The clerk looked up, a little curious as to the stranger’s interest.
“Yes. Mr. Walton lived here, as do Isabella’s other uncles.”
“Isabella?”
“Dr. Abbott’s daughter.”
“Other uncles? Are you saying that the murdered man was her uncle?”
“No, none of them are related by blood, but Isabella called them her uncles just the same.”
Jack nodded. “I know what you mean. Back home in Louisiana we sometimes call an elder member of our community by such a title. It’s our way of giving them respect.”
“Yes, exactly,” the clerk said, and then handed him a key. “You’ll be on the second floor, room 200. That’s the first one on your right at the top of the stairs.”
“I noticed this house has three floors. Are any of those available? I like heights.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. I’m sorry, but the third floor is the uncles’ apartments.”
One more bit of information to file away. “That’s fine,” Jack said, and smiled openly, not wanting her to question his curiosity. “It never hurts to ask, though, does it?”
Charmed by the big man’s smile, the woman felt herself blushing. He reminded her a bit of one of those hot young actors, only he was a bit older and had a much stronger jaw. Delia admired men with strong jaws.
“If we can be of any further service, don’t hesitate to ask. We begin serving breakfast at six o’clock but the kitchen stays open until eleven o’clock at night, so you can order à la carte any time you choose.”
“Thanks,” Jack said, and picked up his things and started toward the stairs. As he did, he glanced up, then froze, his gaze fixed on the painting above the stairs.
The woman in the portrait was stunning. A thick crown of black hair framed a heart-shaped face with features as delicate as fine china. But she had the saddest eyes he’d ever seen.
“So beautiful.”
“Yes, isn’t she?” Delia said. “That’s the late Isabella Abbott, Dr. Abbott’s wife.”
“She’s dead?” The thought brought real pain.
“Yes, almost thirty years ago. She died in childbirth.”
Jack took a step closer, locked into her enigmatic stare.
A phone rang behind him, and he jerked at the sound. Only after the clerk began to carry on a conversation with someone on the other end of the line did he manage to tear himself away from the portrait and move toward the stairs. Halfway up, he found himself at eye level with her face. She was looking straight at him, beseeching him for something he couldn’t understand.
Breath caught in the back of his throat, and his mouth went dry. It was only with great effort that he tore himself away and continued up the stairs. Still rattled from the unexpected communion with a ghost, his hands were shaking as he stuck the key in the lock, then opened the door to his room. Without paying any attention to the fine old world furnishings, he walked inside, turned the lock as he dropped his bag, and sat down on the bed with a thump.
The room smelled like his grandmother’s house—of lavender and roses, with a slightly musty air that had nothing to do with lack of cleanliness and more to do with age. A ripple of uneasiness made the skin crawl on his neck. He looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see Isabella Abbott looking back.
“I’ve got to get a grip,” he muttered. “I’ll unpack, scope out the place and make a preliminary report before dark.”
But weariness overcame his good intentions as he lay back on the bed, telling himself he would rest for just a few minutes.
When he next opened his eyes, the room was in darkness. He rolled over and sat up with a start, confused for a moment as to where he was at. Then the scent of lavender drifted past and he remembered. He was in Abbott House.
His belly growled as he glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. He’d missed dinner but was too hungry to wait until morning. Hopefully there would be a vending machine somewhere on the premises. All he had to do was find it.
As he slung his legs over the edge of the bed, he looked up and then out the window. The curtains had yet to be drawn against the night, and the silhouette of the mountain range behind the hotel was very visible. It loomed over the landscape—a dark and immovable force of nature against the blue-velvet texture of the sky.
Stretching tired muscles, Jack stood, then walked to the window. Below, the well-kept grounds of the hotel looked black outside the circle of illumination beneath the security lights. The place had a beauty of its own that was difficult to name. The grandeur of such a house seemed out of place in a land that still bore traces of wildness from its past. He thought of the man they had buried today. It was a good place in which to get lost.
But why he’d done it was the question of the day. Why had Vaclav Waller faked his own death? And why come here to Montana? There were any number of countries in which he could have chosen to hide.
He ran his fingers through his hair in quiet frustration and turned away from the window. Tomorrow was soon enough to worry about all that. Right now he wanted some food and the rest of a good night’s sleep.
Isabella couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she kept seeing her Uncle Frank’s face in the coffin. Even in death, she imagined she saw the horror he had experienced in knowing he was going to die.
They had laid Frank Walton to rest beside the man who’d been his best friend in life, but as the first shovel full of dirt had fallen onto his casket, Isabella had realized she had not known a thing about Frank Walton’s family. He’d always spoken of his past in vague references and of his family in the past tense, so she’d just assumed that he had outlived them all. But what if he hadn’t? What if there was the odd family member somewhere—a cousin, an in-law—someone who, if they had but known, would also have mourned his passing?
At the thought, she had looked up at the others and realized she knew little to nothing about them, as well. They had always been such constants in her life that she had taken them for granted, but she’d been jolted out of her complacency with the passing of her father and now her Uncle Frank. When this was over—when they could all think without wanting to cry, she was going to rectify her lack of knowledge. Family was everything, and now, except for five elderly men who were no blood kin at all, she had none.
The digital readout on her alarm clock read 12:10 a.m. She sat up with a sigh and swung her feet off the side of the bed. Maybe a glass of warm milk would help her sleep. It didn’t sound appetizing, but it still beat the chemical hangover that a sleeping pill always gave her. Grabbing her long white robe from the closet, she stepped into her slippers and headed for the door, confident that she would be able to slip in and out of the kitchen without disturbing anyone else’s sleep.
The soles of her slippers scooted silently along the polished hardwood floors as she moved down the hall. Seconds later, she circled the staircase and entered the lobby. Out of habit, she paused at the desk, checking the security of the hotel that was also her home. Satisfied that all was well, she started toward the kitchen. About halfway across the lobby, a hint of movement in the corner of the room caught her eye. Then, as the movement became mass and the mass became a man, her heart skipped a beat.
“Hello…who’s there?” she called.
She heard a catch in his breath, and when he spoke, the husky timbre of his voice made her shiver.
Jack was still prowling about the premises in search of a vending machine when he heard a door open, then close. Instinctively he stepped back into the shadows, waiting to see who was coming, only to find himself face-to-face with a ghost. Not trusting what he thought he was seeing, he blinked, then rubbed his eyes. But the image didn’t waver or fade away. For the first time in his life, he understood the life-altering fear of being unable to move.
It was the woman from the portrait, and she came out from behind the staircase and into the lobby, pausing at the desk as if in search of an unseen foe. The expression on her face was drawn, and although he knew it wasn’t possible, he imagined that he heard her sigh. But that didn’t make sense. Ghosts didn’t breathe.
What was her name? Oh yes, Isabella. The clerk had called her Isabella.
Her beauty was evident, but it was the heartbreak in her expression that made his gut knot. What terrible tragedy had she endured in life that would carry over to the grave? She started across the lobby, then suddenly stopped and looked into the shadows where he was standing. When she called out, he nearly jumped out of his skin. From all he’d ever read, ghosts didn’t carry on conversations, either. Hesitating briefly, he moved toward her without taking his gaze from her face and didn’t stop until there was less than six feet between them.
“Isabella?”
The man’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet her name on his lips echoed in Isabella’s ears as if he’d shouted. She was used to strangers, but she’d never seen this man before. How had he known her name?
“How do you know me?” she asked.
Jack took a deep breath and reached for her hand.
Isabella flinched at the unexpected intimacy.
The shock of solid flesh beneath Jack’s hand was as surprising to him as his touch was to Isabella.
“You’re real!”
Isabella frowned. “Sir…are you drunk?”
Jack combed a shaky hand through his hair.
“No, but I’m thinking I might like to be,” he muttered.
“Are you a guest here?”
He nodded. “I checked in this afternoon.”
“Ah,” Isabella said. “That must have been when we were all at the funeral.” Then she pulled her robe closer around her body and tightened the tie even more. “I’m Isabella Abbott. Is there something wrong with your room? Is there anything that you need?”
Jack couldn’t stop staring at her. Even though he now knew his first impression of her had been nothing more than a midnight fancy, he turned to look over his shoulder to the portrait hanging over the stairs.
Suddenly Isabella understood.
She hid a smile. “Did you think I was a ghost?”
Jack looked back at her and then shrugged, unwilling to admit where his thoughts had taken him. Government agents should believe in facts, not ghosts.
“Actually, I came down to look for some sort of vending machine. It seems I slept through dinner and everything else.” When she smiled, Jack felt his stomach tilt, and was pretty sure it had nothing to do with hunger.
“I was on my way to the kitchen to heat some milk. I don’t much like it, but it does help me sleep. If you don’t mind a little potluck, I’m sure I can find something to make you a sandwich.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I would certainly appreciate it.”
This time her smile shot straight to his heart.
“I said I’d feed you, but not if you’re going to call me, ma’am.” She extended her hand. “Please…call me Isabella.”
Jack hesitated, then clasped her hand. It felt soft and warm and fragile. He looked straight past her smile into her eyes and saw a wellspring of such sorrow that he was overwhelmed with contrition. He’d come here under false pretenses, and making friends with anyone, especially this woman, didn’t set well with him. Then he took a deep breath and readjusted his thoughts. He wasn’t making friends. He was simply getting himself some food.
“All right…Isabella, you have a deal.”
“This way,” she said, and led the way into the kitchen, flipping a switch as she entered.
Suddenly the room was bathed in light, and Jack was struck anew by her beauty. Her hair was thick and straight and black, and her eyes were the color of dark caramel. When she smiled, her eyebrows arched in an impish manner. But she was thin—almost too thin—and when she began to take food from the refrigerator to make his sandwich, he wanted to tell her to make one for herself, as well. Instead he made himself remember why he’d come and began a quiet but pointed questioning that would have made his supervisor proud.
“So, you said earlier that you were at a funeral. I hope it wasn’t family.”
Her posture stiffened, and then she paused in the act of putting mayonnaise onto the bread. When she answered, he had to strain to hear the words.
“Yes, actually, it was.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
She reached back into the refrigerator, took out a platter of meat and chose two of the leanest slices of ham, then laid them on the bread.
“Thank you. Do you like cheese?” she asked.
He knew she was trying to change the subject, but he was unwilling to let it go.
“Yes, please.” His mind was racing, trying to think of a way to keep their conversation going. He remembered what the desk clerk had told him about the place. Maybe that would work. “So, have you always lived in Montana?”
She nodded.
“This is quite a place. Did you build it?”
She turned. “No, it’s quite old, actually. My father bought it over thirty years ago. It’s been in the family ever since. I was born here.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“So you are following your father’s footsteps into the hotel business.”
Her chin trembled, and at that moment he hated himself for continuing with the charade. To his intense relief, she answered without any more coercion.
“The hotel was only a sideline,” she said softly. “My father was a doctor. He and Uncle David and Uncle Jasper founded the White Mountain Fertility Clinic in Braden.”
Jack quickly picked up on her use of past tense.
“Your father is no longer living?”
Isabella bit the inside of her mouth to keep from crying. She had to get used to talking about this. It was now a hard fact of her life.
“No. He died a little over a week ago.”
“So it was his memorial service today?”
Isabella shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. “No, today was for my Uncle Frank. He was on vacation. Someone killed him.” She took a quick breath and then turned around.
“I’m very sorry,” Jack said. “That’s got to be tough…losing two members of your family so close together.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
There was a long moment of silence as she completed the sandwich. He watched without comment, noting the methodical movements of her hands as she cut the sandwich at an angle, creating two triangular halves. Then she placed it on a plate, added pickles, olives and a handful of chips, and set it on a tray. Without wasted motion, she laid a white linen napkin beside the plate, then took a glass from the cabinet and turned to him, the glass held lightly in her hand. But there was nothing casual about the look she gave him. He felt pierced through by her stare.
“What would you like to drink?”
“What do you have?” he asked.
“This is a hotel. You can have pretty much anything you want.”
“Any soft drink will do.”
She took a can of cola from the refrigerator, added some ice to his glass, and then put them on the tray before handing it to him.
“Here is your food. I hope it will hold you until morning. We begin serving breakfast at six o’clock.”
Jack nodded and smiled. “It looks great. Thank you for going to so much trouble.”
Isabella folded her hands in front of her and tilted her head to one side. For a moment Jack had a vision of a certain teacher who used to chastise him for being tardy when he was a child.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Have a good night.”
He’d been dismissed. Without a reason to linger longer, he picked up the tray and started out of the room. He was almost to the door when she spoke.
“Forgive my emotional outburst,” she said softly. “The wound is still so fresh.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” he said, then looked at the tension on her face. “Will you be all right? I mean…I’d be happy to wait and walk you through the lobby.”
The offer was unexpected, and because it was, it was that much more precious.
“No, but thank you just the same, Mr….”
“Dolan. Jack Dolan.”
She tilted her head in the other direction, as if fitting the name to the man, then nodded, as if to herself.
“Good night, Jack Dolan.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“Good night, Miss Abbott.”
She turned her back on him to pour a serving of milk in a pan and set it on a burner to heat. At that point he remembered that she’d told him she’d been unable to sleep.
As he started up the stairs with his tray, he glanced at the portrait. The resemblance between mother and daughter was uncanny. No wonder he’d thought she was a ghost. He glanced down at the tray full of food and grimaced. If he ate all of this, he would be sleepless, too. And even if he slept, he suspected his sleep would not be dreamless—not after the encounter he’d just had.
He shook his head and tore his gaze from the painting.
Ghosts indeed.
4
Vasili Rostov stood with binoculars held close to his face, watching as the downstairs lights went out inside the hotel in the valley below. He watched until a light appeared at a second floor window before he dropped the binoculars onto his backpack and crawled into his sleeping bag. Whatever had been going on downstairs was obviously over.
He cursed softly in Russian, taking comfort in the familiar roll of the words on his tongue. Before they’d pulled him out of his anonymous existence, he had been able to convince himself that he was still as good as ever and that age had no bearing on his abilities. But now that he’d been on the move going on two weeks, he had to admit he was getting too old for this work. He missed his bed and his easy chair, where the cushions sank in all the right spots. And he missed his vodka. He always had a couple of shots before going to bed. Since he’d come to Montana, he’d been forced to endure cold camps and dried foods. The novelty of being back “on the job” was wearing thin. Couple that with a continuing urge to forget everything he’d been sent to do and get lost in America, as Vaclav Waller had done, and Vasili Rostov was an unhappy man.
He looked back down the mountain at the roof of the sprawling three-story hotel and grimaced. He needed to find a way to get inside without anyone knowing. It was the only place he knew to start looking for answers. But how to do that without arousing suspicion was, at the moment, beyond him.
The night sky was clear and cool, but despite the beauty of the stars, he would rather have been in a bed and under a roof. A pack of coyotes began to howl on a nearby hillside. He jerked in reflex and reached for his gun, cursing the fact that the only place to offer rooms on this forsaken bit of earth was the hotel below.
At the present time there was only one paying guest at Abbott House, a man who’d arrived earlier in the afternoon. Vasili had considered the wisdom of staying there himself and then discarded the notion. Since Frank Walton had known within seconds of their meeting who he was, Rostov couldn’t afford a repeat of that debacle.
And he couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for Waller, all of this would be over. If only they had told him more about why they wanted Waller back, he might have foreseen Waller’s drastic behavior and been able to prevent it. The very fact that the old man had been willing to die rather than let himself become Rostov’s prisoner was highly suspicious. Then he tossed the thought aside. Maybe he had opted to die now rather than being tortured later for information he wasn’t willing to give.
Rostov sighed and closed his eyes. If he’d learned one thing from living through the disintegration of the Soviet Republic, it was that there was no need for rehashing the past.
He shifted nervously within his sleeping bag and considered making a fire, then discarded the thought. The last thing he needed was for someone to get curious about a camper’s fire and come snooping around.
Another series of yips told him that the coyotes were on the move now, running in the opposite direction to his camp. With a sigh of satisfaction, he crossed his hands across his chest, then patted the gun lying on his belly one last time before falling asleep.
Southern Italy—3:00 a.m.
Three men moved across the small town square, taking care to stay in the shadows. This wasn’t the first time they’d set out to steal, but it was the first time they had agreed to rob God. Although the night was cool, a small man called Paulo was sweating profusely. He imagined the Devil’s hand tightening around his throat with every step that took them closer to the small village church.
“We will die for this sin,” he murmured.
Antonio, who was the eldest and the leader of the group, turned quickly and shoved Paulo roughly against the wall.
“Silence,” he hissed.
Francesco, who was Paulo’s cousin, tended to agree with his kin, but he was afraid of Antonio and rarely argued.
Hoping to soothe his cousin’s fears, Francesco gave Paulo a wink.
“Think of the money we are going to make on this one job. It’s more than we made all last year.”
But Paulo would not be appeased.
“Dead men have no need for money,” he said.
Antonio glared at the pair. “Then get out! I will do this job myself. I have no need for cowards.”
Neither one of them had the gumption to anger a man who had killed his own father, and so Francesco smiled, trying to ease the tension.
“Paulo will be fine, my friend, have no fear.”
“I’m not the one who’s afraid,” Antonio said. “So do we go?”
Reluctantly, the other two nodded, then followed him into the church. The massive double doors squeaked on ancient hinges as Antonio pushed them inward. Paulo flinched, then stopped just inside the doorway, again overwhelmed by the impact of what they were about to do.
“Quickly, quickly,” Antonio muttered, and shoved them forward.
Paulo genuflected in the aisle and muttered a prayer for forgiveness before moving toward a faint glow of light above the altar at the front of the church.
“There it is,” Antonio said. “Francesco, you’ve got the glass cutter. Paulo, you help him. I’ll keep watch. And if you don’t want a dead priest on your conscience, too, then get busy.”
Paulo crossed himself one more time, muttering as he followed his cousin up a series of steps toward what appeared to be an oblong box made almost entirely of glass. The dimensions were about two feet wide, no more than four feet long and two feet deep. A niche had been chiseled out of the thick stone walls where the glass box now lay. Francesco leaned forward, peering intently at the brass plaque mounted beneath.
St. Bartholomew 1705–1735
A shiver of foreboding ran up Francesco’s spine, but he shook it off, blaming it on Paulo’s ridiculous predictions. They weren’t going to be cursed for stealing a few old bones any more than they would be cursed for the sins they’d already committed.
“Help me,” he ordered, and together they pulled the glass coffin from the niche, then set it on the floor.
“Hold this,” Francesco said, and handed him a flashlight.
Paulo’s hands were shaking as he took the light, but when it flashed on the ancient and yellowing skull within, his stomach lurched.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, forgive me for this sin.”
Seconds later, the faint sound of metal against glass could be heard as Francesco carefully cut out a panel on the backside of the coffin.
One minute passed, then another and another. Despite the coolness of the evening, sweat dripped from Francesco’s forehead onto the glass. Paulo’s hands were shaking so hard that he once almost dropped the flashlight. It had taken a sharp word from Antonio and a slap on the head before he had regained his equilibrium.
Suddenly Francesco rocked back on his heels, holding a long, slim panel of the old handmade glass.
“I’m in,” he whispered.
Antonio spun, his eyes glittering eagerly as he took the glass from Francesco’s hands and carefully laid it on the altar. Then he pulled a cloth sack from inside his jacket and thrust it in Francesco’s face.
“Here. You know what we came for. Take it now.”
Francesco stared down into the small casket, eyeing the fragile bones. He knew people who prayed to this saint for healing—and he knew people who had been healed. He couldn’t bring himself to actually desecrate something that holy—not even for a whole lot of money.
“I can’t,” he whispered, and handed the sack back to Antonio.
Antonio cursed and shoved both men aside as he dropped to his knees.
“The light,” he whispered. “Hold the light so that I may see.”
Paulo angled the beam of the flashlight down into the casket, highlighting all that was left of the small man of God.
Antonio thrust his hand through the opening that Francesco had cut, fingering the bones as if they were sticks of wood from which to choose. Finally he settled on two of them, one a small bone from the lower part of the arm and another that had a minute bit of leatherlike tissue still adhering to a joint.
He pulled them out and thrust them into the sack, then stood abruptly.
“Do you have the glue?” he asked.
Francesco nodded.
“Then replace the glass and put the box back in place. We’ve been here too long.”
Francesco’s expression was anxious as he went about the task of doing what he’d been told.
“This patch will show,” he said.
Antonio sneered. “But not easily, and by the time someone discovers what has happened, we’ll be long gone.”
Within minutes, the earthly remains of St. Bartholomew, minus a bone or two, were back in the niche. The trio slipped out of the church and back into the streets with no one the wiser—except God. Hastily, they made for the edge of the village, and when they could no longer see the rooftops, Antonio did a little dance in the middle of the road.
“We did it!” he crowed. “We’re going to be rich!”
“We’re going to die,” Paulo moaned.
“When do we get our money?” Francesco asked. Antonio smiled, his teeth gleaming brightly in the moonlight.
“We take the left fork in the road and follow the path up to Grimaldi’s meadow. He will be waiting.”
“Who’s he?” Francesco asked.
Antonio shrugged. “I don’t know his name…only that he pays well for goods received.”
“How much is he paying us?” Francesco asked.
Antonio smiled. “We each get five thousand American dollars.”
The amount was staggering for men who had no vocation and who lived by their wits and their lies. Still, Francesco worried.
“You’ve done business with him before?”
Antonio hesitated. “No, but I can tell these things. He has fine clothes and manicured hands. Men like that have no need to lie.”
Paulo snorted beneath his breath, convinced that his life was over. Clean men were killers, too, but he had no intention of voicing his thoughts. If he hadn’t been so certain that fate would catch up with him wherever he went, he would have walked away right then. But he had no wish to die alone, and so he followed the other two men to the meeting place.
Before they had time to catch their breaths, a man stepped out from behind a rock. Paulo gasped and stumbled as Francesco stopped short, but Antonio swaggered up to meet him.
“You have it?” the man asked.
Antonio smiled and held up the sack. “We kept our end of the bargain. Do you have the money?”
“I will see the merchandise first,” the man said.
“And I the money,” Antonio retorted.
The man set down a satchel, then opened it, revealing three substantial bundles of American twenty-dollar bills.
Antonio handed over the sack and then went down on his knees, laughing as he thrust his hands into the satchel and pulled out the cash.
“See?” he cried. “See, I told you. We’re rich. We’re rich!”
Francesco grinned at his cousin and then dropped to his knees as greed overtook shame.
But Paulo couldn’t bring himself to touch the money any more than he would have touched the bones of the saint, and because of his hesitation, he was the first to see the man pull a weapon.
“He has a gun!” he cried.
And because of his diligence, he was the first to be shot. He hit the ground with a thud as a sharp, burning pain began to spread within his belly.
The man fired twice again in rapid succession, killing both Antonio and Francesco before they could look up. He grabbed the money-filled satchel, scattered a few cheap pieces of jewelry upon the ground, as well as a handful of rare coins he’d stolen last week in Cannes. Then he took another gun from his coat and fired it into the air before laying it down on the ground beside the men. He knew their reputation. When their bodies were found, it would be assumed that they’d fought over stolen property and killed each other in a fight. Without looking back, he disappeared into the night.
Paulo clutched at his belly with both hands, trying to hold back the flow of blood, but there was too much, and he was becoming too weak. What was left of Francesco’s face was on the ground near his shoe, and the back of Antonio’s head was completely gone. His one regret was that both men were no longer alive to see that his prediction had come true.
His voice was weakening, his breath almost gone. But he said it again, if for no one else’s benefit but his own.
“See…I told you we were going to die.”
Despite all the wrongs that he’d done, Paulo had always been a man of his word.
By the time their bodies were discovered two days later, the killer’s payoff was in a numbered account in a prestigious Swiss bank and the goods were en route to the buyer.
Jack woke with a start, momentarily confused by the unfamiliarity of the room. Then he saw the dirty dishes on the tray by the door and remembered the nighttime meal he’d almost shared with Isabella Abbott. He couldn’t quit thinking about how sad she’d been, and how beautiful her face was. Shaking off the feeling of miasma, he reminded himself that personal feelings had no place in his line of work. He couldn’t afford to feel empathy for someone he was investigating. He only dealt in facts.
As the blessed quiet of the old house permeated the room, he ran through a mental checklist of all the things he needed to do today. First on the list was checking in with the director to let him know he had arrived. With a reluctant groan, he threw back the covers and got up. A few minutes later, freshly showered and half-dressed, he sat down on the side of the bed and reached for his cell phone. With the punch of a few numbers, he was connected.
“Sir…it’s Dolan. I’m on the scene.”
“Fine. Remember, I want this played loose and easy. It’s entirely possible that no one there knew a thing about the old man’s background. If that’s so, then his reasons for deceit have died with him.”
Jack sighed. “Yes, sir, I understand, but in our business, we’ve always got to look for conspiracy, right?”
“Do I detect a note of ambivalence?”
“Maybe. And maybe I’m just more tired than I thought.”
“How are you healing?” he asked.
Jack flexed his stomach muscles, noting that each day brought a little more ease.
“Good. I rarely feel any pain.”
“That’s good. No need pushing yourself unnecessarily.” Then he added, “As a matter of curiosity, what’s your first impression?”
Other than the fact that I almost let myself get infatuated with a ghost? “Not much. I’ve only seen a desk clerk. Everyone else was at Frank Walton’s funeral. I did meet the owner briefly last night, but I didn’t have time to make any kind of connection.”
“Did he say anything about Walton’s death?”
“He is a she, and she referred to the old man as Uncle Frank. She also mentioned that her father had passed away less than two weeks ago, so she’s pretty devastated. I didn’t push.”
“Hmm, that’s quite a coincidence—two people living under the same roof and dying within weeks of each other. Check into the father’s passing. Make sure it was from natural causes.”
Jack’s pulse kicked up a notch. “Do we have any reason to assume otherwise?”
“Company intelligence thinks we’ve got a visitor.”
Jack stilled. “Soviet?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks, maybe more.”
“Do we have any background on Walton or, I should say…Waller? What was his line of expertise? Was it nuclear…? Biological…? What in hell did that old man know that would still be of interest after all these years?”
“He was a doctor. If there was a special project, we know nothing about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dolan.”
“Sir?”
“Watch your back.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line went dead. Jack dropped the phone on the bed and reached for his shirt. The leisurely week he’d been hoping for had just gone up in smoke.
Up one floor and at the far end of the hall, the uncles had gathered in David Schultz’s room. Their demeanor was morose, reflecting their depression. Jasper Arnold scratched his bald head as he looked about the room.
“What about the clinic?” he asked.
“What about it?” Thomas countered.
“Samuel was the heart of it,” he said. “David and I have wanted out for more than five years. The staff is well-trained. We’ve accomplished what we set out to do. I say let them have full authority and we officially retire.”
Rufus Toombs smoothed his hands over his paunch, then laid his hands on his knees and leaned forward.
“Samuel had plans, remember? He swore he’d perfected the process even more than before. Things have already been set into motion.”
Jasper waved away the comment. “Exactly my point. Samuel had plans…but Samuel is dead.” He took out his handkerchief and mopped the nervous sweat from his brow. “I have plans, too, and they do not include being murdered.”
David interrupted. “I think you’re all overreacting.”
Thomas Mowry had been listening quietly, but when he heard what sounded like derision in David’s voice, he had to speak up.
“There are facts that cannot be ignored. Please. We should concentrate on them and not run amok here, worrying unnecessarily and blaming each other for what is, ultimately, inevitable.”
“What are you talking about?” Jasper cried.
“Age has caught up with us,” Thomas said. “And…quite possibly our pasts. We knew this could not go on forever. Besides, we have Isabella to consider and protect.”
The other four looked at each other and then away, individually nodding or muttering.
“Yes, yes, Isabella,” David said. “We have to think of our precious girl.”
“Right,” Thomas said.
For a moment there was silence, then Jasper asked, “So, what are we going to do about the last project? You know how high Samuel’s hopes had been. He kept claiming to have corrected the final flaw in our earlier works.”
Rufus sighed. “Speaking of the works…I have news.”
The others grew silent, waiting, fearing, yet knowing that their sentence must be that they hear it, if for no other reason than the fact that they were the ones who had set it in motion.
“We have another self-destruct.”
There was a collective sigh of frustration and regret that went up within the room and then, moments later, Thomas asked, “Who?”
“Norma Jean Bailey.”
“The blonde?” Thomas asked.
Rufus nodded.
Thomas’s voice began to shake. “I had such high hopes for that one. She’d already done some modeling and had enrolled in acting school, remember?”
Each man there averted his eyes from the others, choosing instead to look away, as if afraid to see blame in the other men’s eyes. David Schultz simply bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.
Thomas Mowry stood abruptly. “This leaves only two of the original twenty alive. I find this an unacceptable reason to try once more.” Then he strode to the window and stared out at the valley and White Mountain beyond.
John Michaels, who up until now had remained silent, cursed beneath his breath, then, oddly enough, began to cry.
The others said nothing. What could they say that hadn’t been said before? Finally Jasper broke the silence.
“Does this mean we scrap Samuel’s last project?”
“I say we take it to a vote,” David said.
The five old men looked at each other. Finally they nodded in agreement.
“Then a vote it is,” Jasper said, and picked up a pen and a pad of paper from beside the telephone. “Yes means we give the project one last try. No means we quit. Now. With no regrets and no blame.”
“All right,” they echoed, and then each wrote his decision on a piece of paper and tore it off before passing the pad and pen to the next man.
David took a small porcelain bowl from a bookshelf, folded the paper his vote was on and dropped it into the bowl before passing it around.
One by one, the men dropped in their votes. Jasper Arnold was the last. He dropped in his paper, then set the bowl aside as if it contained something foul.
“It’s your bowl. You count them,” John said, and handed the bowl to David.
David Schultz felt every one of his seventy-eight years as he moved to his desk with the bowl in his hands.
“Once the count is made, there is no going back. Understood?”
“Understood,” they echoed.
He unfolded the first bit of paper.
“Yes. It reads yes.”
He laid it aside and picked up the next, unfolding it with methodical precision.
“No.”
He picked up the next and the next, until he had two votes for yes and two votes for no. The room was completely silent except for the occasional hiss of an indrawn breath and the faint scratchy sound of paper against paper.
“This is the last and deciding vote. Whatever it—”
“Just do it!” Jasper cried.
David nodded, then unfolded the paper. His nostrils flared. His expression went blank. He looked up.
The men held their breaths.
“Yes.”
A collective sigh filled the room, part of it tinged with disbelief, part of it echoing the inevitability of what lay ahead.
“Then that’s that,” David said. “One more time.”
“For Samuel,” Jasper added.
“And for Frank,” Rufus said.
They nodded, then stood. Without speaking, they left the apartment, adjourning to their own rooms to dress for breakfast. There was work to be done.
Isabella handed the room key to the couple who’d just checked in, directed them to the elevator, then watched them as they walked away. She didn’t have to ask. She knew they were here for the clinic. There had been so many over the years that she’d come to recognize the quiet look of desperation they all wore. Saying a silent prayer for their success, she filed away their credit card information, then turned to answer the phone. As she did, she missed seeing Jack Dolan’s descent down the stairs.
But he didn’t miss her.
He’d heard her voice before he’d seen her, and despite his hunger for a hearty breakfast, he had to see her again—in broad daylight, when he could be absolutely certain she wasn’t the ghost he’d first imagined her to be.
“Good morning.”
Isabella turned around and found herself face-to-face with the man from the lobby last night. Her first impression was one of surprise. The night before, she’d been so wrapped up in her own grief that she’d failed to pay him much attention. To her, he’d just been a lost and hungry guest whom she’d fed and sent on his way. But now, with the early morning sunlight coming in through the mullioned windows over the entry doors, she had ample light by which to see. She took a deep breath. There was plenty to see.
He was tall—taller even than her Uncle David, who was six feet two inches. His hair was thick and straight, a warm, chocolate brown, and clipped very short. His eyes were blue, with a tendency to squint. She could tell by the tiny fans of wrinkles at the corners of both eyes. He had the physique of a runner—lean and fit, without a spare ounce of flesh. His shoulders were broad, as was the smile he gave her when he leaned across the desk.
“Good morning to you, too,” Isabella said. “I trust you slept well after your midnight snack.”
Jack’s gaze swept the delicate curve of her cheek and neck, then back up to her face, looking for signs of exhaustion. They were still there, behind the smile.
“I think I slept better than you,” he said. “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The dull ache in her heart shifted slightly as his concern gave her momentary ease.
“Thank you.” Then she changed the subject. “I’m guessing you’re headed to breakfast. The dining room is across the lobby and to your left.”
Realizing he’d been politely dismissed, he nodded his thanks and turned away from the desk just as an odd assortment of elderly gentlemen exited the elevator and headed for the desk.
“Isabella…darling…you have no business working like this so soon. Where is Delia?”
Isabella blew Thomas Mowry a kiss. “Good morning, Uncle Thomas, and quit fussing about me. She’ll be here any moment, I’m sure.”
Jack nodded politely as, one by one, the men gave him a studied look. These, he suspected, would be the men she referred to as her uncles.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Jack said.
They nodded and smiled, but Jack could tell they were only being polite.
“I’m Jack Dolan,” he said, and held out his hand to the nearest man.
David Schultz hesitated, but only briefly, then accepted Jack’s offered hand.
“Dr. David Schultz,” he said. “The gentleman to my right is Dr. Jasper Arnold, then Rufus Toombs, John Michaels, and the last one on my right is Thomas Mowry. We are Isabella’s uncles. Are you visiting family in the area?”
“Nope,” Jack said. “All my family is still in Louisiana. I’m in the area gathering some research for a book.”
John Michaels clapped his hands in delight.
“A writer! I always wanted to write, didn’t I, Thomas?”
Thomas Mowry shifted his glasses to a more comfortable position on his bulbous nose as he gave Jack a closer look.
“So you’re a writer, are you? Are you published?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah…I see.”
Jack felt a little like he used to feel when his father would look at his report card. The disappointment was always there, even though he had tried hard not to show it.
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Dinah McCall
Why do the fingerprints of a recent murder victim in New York City belong to a man who has been dead for over thirty years? To find out, FBI agent Jack Dolan heads to the victim's last known address: a boardinghouse in Braden, Montana.Most of the guests at Abbott House are couples seeking help from the fertility clinic run by a team of dedicated doctors. So Jack's arrival is a pleasant surprise for owner Isabella Abbott, who finds herself wrestling with feelings she's never had before. Jack, too, shares the powerful connection, and is all too aware of the danger of letting personal desires get in the way of an investigation.He suspects someone ruthless is lurking in the shadows–someone with orders to kill. But what secrets are worth dying for in this peaceful place that offers miracles to desperate couples? And is Isabella part of the savage mystery that surrounds White Mountain?But the more Jack learns, the more he understands why the secrets of White Mountain must be kept hidden. At all costs.
“What I need is for you to pack for an undetermined stay in Montana. You will receive a packet tomorrow morning, including a plane ticket to a small town called Braden.”
Everything went through Jack’s mind, from militia-based groups to terrorists.
“Yes, sir. What am I facing?”
“Two days ago, a set of prints from a recent murder victim came through NCIC that didn’t match up with any we had on file. The body was discovered in Brighton Beach.”
“Isn’t that the place they call Little Russia?”
“Some do, I believe. The thing is…the prints rang a bell at Interpol. A really big bell.”
Suddenly the hair stood on the back of Jack’s neck.
“How big?”
“The prints belong to a Russian scientist named Vaclav Waller.”
“And?”
“Vaclav Waller died in a plane crash off the coast of Florida over thirty years ago.”
“Intense, fast-paced, and cleverly crafted.”
—Library Journal on Storm Warning
Also available from MIRA Books and DINAH MCCALL
STORM WARNING
THE RETURN
MIRA Books is also proud to publish Dinah McCall under her real name SHARON SALA
DARK WATER
White Mountain
Dinah McCall
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
The miracle of life is just that—a miracle. From the hour of our birth to the moment we draw our last breath, we are living. Some of us are better at it than others, but it’s the only chance we are given.
Each life is unique only to that person. All the thoughts, all the emotions, all the failures and successes, can be shared to a degree, but it is impossible to share a soul. When it is gone, the shell that it inhabited is cast aside, as worthless as the box in which a jewel is carried.
Because I believe that we are given only one life, one time, I choose to dedicate this book to my loved ones who have already left this earth for a better place, and especially to my sister, Diane, whose passing cost me so many tears.
Save me a place beside you, honey.
I miss you more than words can say.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u683eb1e6-5eae-5372-b92a-40c72ef49d8a)
Chapter 2 (#ub11ba963-2b95-5296-ae98-f93a545ec568)
Chapter 3 (#uac1af1b9-45ce-54d4-b011-8678406dfc66)
Chapter 4 (#u557c0348-981e-54fe-963e-b251aa34b267)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
1
Frank Walton was dying. He had suspected it for some time, but only last month his suspicions had been confirmed. And while he would have preferred to stay on this earth longer, he had accepted his fate just as he’d faced and dealt with every other adversity that had been thrust at him.
Deal with it, then get past it. That was his motto.
Or at least it had been until now. He would deal with his upcoming demise later. For now, uppermost in his mind had been the need to go home—to go back to the place of his birth and see the people and hear the language and the music. Just once. Before it was too late.
Only he couldn’t. To them, he was already dead.
Still, he’d had to know if what he’d done had been worth it. He’d needed to look at it again with a fresh view. Maybe then he would know if it had all been worthwhile.
But to do that, he’d had to leave Montana for the state of New York, then head to Brooklyn and Brighton Beach. It was as close as he could possibly come to his homeland—to eat the food of his childhood and hear the language of the place he’d called home. Now, after two weeks in Brighton Beach, he’d come to a grudging acceptance that it was too late to turn back time.
He exited the small café with a smile on his lips. The warm, dark-red borscht and savory bread he’d just had for his lunch had reminded him of the meals his mother had served during the short winter days and long cold nights in his Russian homeland. The food had been sparse but the love within his household overflowing.
Even though the September day was almost balmy, he knew if he would but close his eyes, he could recall every nuance of that time: his father sitting near the fireplace with his musette, smoking cigarettes that he’d rolled on his own and sipping vodka between songs, he and his brothers and sisters dancing wildly, mimicking the high kicks of a Cossack dance while his mother’s laughter rang out above the din.
Ah, God. He’d given it up—all of it—and for a higher cause. At least that was what he’d told himself for the past thirty-odd years. But now that he’d come to the end of his days, he was starting to question whether the sacrifices had been worth it. What had he accomplished? What had any of them accomplished?
A trio of gulls squawked noisily as they circled overhead, breaking Frank’s concentration. Squinting against the afternoon sun, he tilted his head, anxious not to miss their feats of derring-do as they dive-bombed the beach beyond the boardwalk. One did not see seagulls in Montana.
The sun was warm against his balding head. He inhaled briefly, then exhaled on a sigh, for the first time in his life, wishing he believed in a power higher than that of mortal man. Sunshine could not reach where he was bound.
A woman leaned out from a third-story window and yelled down into the street. A man just coming out of the building paused and looked up, then called back to her, their voices mingling with the sounds of traffic and people and the noise of the day. Steam from beneath the streets rose upward from the sidewalk grates, blending with the guttural mingling of vowels and consonants that made up the Russian language. It was all music to Frank Walton’s ears. He wanted to shout back—to sing the songs of his youth and dance until there was no more breath in his body. But he’d given up that part of his life too long ago. Not even now—when he was so close to his deathbed—could he take the chance and reveal his true self.
So he thrust his hands in his pockets and moved on down the street, satisfied for the moment just to be in this place.
Vasili Rostov cursed the ache in his knee as he stepped into an alcove away from the wind to light a cigarette. When the end caught and the tobacco began to burn, he took a deep drag and then held it, waiting for the nicotine to kick in. It came quickly, wrapping around his senses and easing the tension in his mind. He exhaled slowly, letting the smoke out through his nose as he turned. The old man he’d been trailing was still in sight. So he took another drag from the cigarette before he began to move, always staying at least a block behind. As he walked, his gaze moved from window to window, eying the opulence and abundance of that which was America. Not for the first time, he thought of staying. After the job was finished, of course. He loved his homeland, but the constant chaos in the government was disgusting to him—not like the old days. Then he’d been one of the youngest and best of Russia’s finest agents, revered in higher circles, and proud of his KGB status and the strength in his body. Women had fawned over him. Other agents had envied him. His superiors had depended on him.
Now he did nothing. They called it retirement. For Rostov, it was like being sent to an early grave. Even though he was in his mid-sixties, he was still strong. His belly was hard and flat, and the years had added character to his face rather than age.
Ironically, it wasn’t age that had sidelined him. It was his inability to keep up with the ever-changing modes of technology. These days, a good portion of the spy game depended upon understanding everything from lasers to computer chips, which left him out of the running. So his days were spent in taverns, reliving the past with others of his ilk, and the nights in his one-room flat, watching government-run television programs on a twelve-inch black-and-white set with the scent of a neighbor’s boiling cabbage and potatoes drifting in from the crack beneath his front door. Communism had been good to him and his family. It had made his country strong. With the coming of democracy, his world had crumbled as surely as the Berlin Wall. For several years afterward, people had stood in the streets selling personal belongings just to keep from starving. Homelessness had become rampant, and the long lines at bread bakeries and supermarkets were made even more tragic by the fact that there had been little food available to buy for those who still had money.
Now things were better, but they would never be the same. Democracy was as obscene to him as a four-letter word, and now the Russian Mafia had more power than the government. He’d learned to adjust, because it was what he did best. He’d settled into a routine that, while less than stimulating, was more luxurious than what he’d known as a child.
And then a week ago there had come a knock at his door. He’d opened it to find four dour-looking men who’d told him to pack a suitcase. Within hours, he’d been briefed, given American money and a cell phone, and put on a plane bound for New York City. The reason was almost comical to Rostov. He was back in action for the simple reason that he was part of the past. He’d come to America for one reason only. To find a ghost.
Now, here he was, tailing a stoop-shouldered old man with a fondness for borscht. He didn’t look like a ghost to Rostov, but from the color of his complexion, he wasn’t far from becoming one.
When the old man stopped at a crosswalk, Rostov paused, too, turning toward the windows of the jewelry shop by which he was standing. To the passersby, it would appear that his interest was on the display of rubies and pearls, but in truth, the window was his mirror to the sidewalk across the street.
He stood until the light turned green and the Walk sign began to flash, then he pivoted quickly. Dodging traffic, he bolted across the street, losing himself in the stream of pedestrians through which the old man was moving.
He knew the man’s name was Frank Walton. Supposedly a retired botanist from Braden, Montana, who had come to Brighton Beach for a holiday. But there was a particular reason why Vasili Rostov had been yanked out of retirement and sent on this mission, and the picture in his pocket was part of the mystery. Tonight he would meet this old man face-to-face. If what Rostov suspected was true, his name would once again be spoken with respect.
Frank laid his safety razor by the sink and then peered at his face in the foggy mirror before pronouncing himself shaved. His belly hurt—part of the growing cancer eating away at his inner parts—yet he was determined not to let it ruin the upcoming evening. The hotel concierge had told him about a wonderful restaurant only a few blocks from the hotel that offered a floor show with dinner. The chance to hear more music from his homeland was too enticing to miss. Ignoring the gnawing pain, he swiped a towel across his face, splashed on some pine-scented aftershave and went to finish dressing.
Tomorrow he would be going back to Montana—back to his friends and to Isabella. He smiled as he thought of her—dark, laughing eyes and a heart-shaped face—the daughter he’d never had. She called him Uncle, just as she did all of Samuel’s friends.
Samuel Abbott was Isabella’s father. He’d been their leader from the beginning. A frown turned his smile upside down as he glanced at the phone. They hadn’t wanted him to leave Braden, and yet he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell them why. They didn’t know about the cancer. He would tell them later—when he could no longer conceal the pain.
He glanced again at the phone. He should really call and let them know he was coming home tomorrow, but then he looked at the clock and changed his mind. It was getting late, and if he didn’t hurry, he would be late for his reservation. He didn’t want to miss the start of the show.
Shrugging off the thought, he told himself it wouldn’t really matter. He would be home by this time tomorrow, and then he could talk to his heart’s content.
A few minutes later he was in the hotel lobby, then out on the street. More than a dozen people were curbside, waiting for cabs. He frowned, realizing he should have called ahead for a cab, and then looked at his watch to check the time. If he waited much longer he would be late. The restaurant was about twenty blocks away, which, in his weakened state, might as well have been miles, yet he opted to walk.
It was a fine September evening. Traffic was brisk. The air had cooled since sunset, making the walk more pleasant. Obviously he wasn’t the only one who thought so. The sidewalk traffic was as busy as that in the well-lit streets. He walked with his head up and his shoulders back, and for a time he let himself believe he was young and strong—and home.
About five blocks from his destination, he heard someone call out a name. At first, it didn’t register, and he kept on walking. But then he heard it again.
Vaclav Waller. Someone had yelled the name Vaclav Waller.
He stumbled, then froze—afraid to turn around, afraid not to. Before he could move, a man stepped out of the alley to his right. The man spoke again, and only then did Frank realize the man was speaking to him in Russian.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pretending ignorance. “Were you speaking to me?”
This time the answer came back in perfect English.
“What do you think, old man?”
When Vasili Rostov stepped into the light, Frank Walton shuddered. He didn’t know him, but he knew his kind. He’d seen that cold, passionless gaze far too many times in his youth not to know the kind of man he was facing. And with recognition came the knowledge that they’d found him—after all these years, when he was almost at the end of his life.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” Frank muttered, and began to walk away. He’d taken only three steps when the man grabbed his arm.
“No mistake,” Rostov said, speaking Russian again. “We talk.”
Before Frank could call out for help, the man stuck a knife to his throat and forcibly pulled him into the darkened alley. Still speaking in Russian, the man lowered his voice and told Frank to keep quiet, then increased the pressure of the blade against Frank’s throat.
A sudden stinging sensation was all Frank needed to know that the man had drawn blood. Fear momentarily stilled his voice, but it was followed by sudden anger. He might be old and dying, but he would not be threatened—not now, and not by the likes of a man such as this.
“I know who you are,” the man said.
Frank answered in English. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
The sting against his throat became pain.
“Don’t lie to me, old man. I knew you in Minsk. I was assigned to guard you at a medical symposium. You were born and raised in Georgia and educated in Moscow. You are Vaclav Waller. You were nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1969 and reported to have died in a plane crash off the southern coast of the United States in 1970.”
Frank stifled a groan. He didn’t know how this had happened, but he could only blame himself. Someone here must have recognized him. He had come to Brighton Beach to pay homage to his roots and instead had brought down the fragile house of cards that he’d built for himself.
“What do you want?” Frank asked. “I have money. Take my wallet. It’s in my coat pocket.”
Rostov cursed. “I do not want your money, old man. I want the truth.”
Frank blinked. This time the man had spoken in English again. Was he starting to buy his story, or was he just playing along?
“I do not know the truth of which you speak,” Frank said. “Just take my money and let me go. I don’t want trouble.”
At that moment a car sped by outside the alley. Behind it the sound of approaching sirens could be heard, and Rostov’s hold tightened.
Frank saw how the sirens made the big man antsy. The police were obviously after someone else, but maybe he could make this work to his advantage.
“The police are coming,” he said. “Someone saw you drag me into this alley. Just let me go and I won’t tell. I am an old man. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Your trouble is just beginning,” Rostov said. “You don’t have to talk to me. You can talk to my superiors…when we get back to Moscow.”
Frank saw him reach toward his pocket with one hand. He knew the drill. Inside there would be a hypodermic syringe filled with some sort of drug that would render him unconscious. It only took a moment for the decision to be made. Yes, he’d wanted to go home once more before he died, but not like this. He was going to die anyway. Now was as good a time as any.
Before Rostov knew what was happening, Frank grabbed his hand and lunged forward, plunging the knife blade into his own chest.
Rostov grunted in surprise and took a sudden step backward, but it was too late. The damage was already done.
“What have you done?” he cried, as Frank Walton slumped to the ground.
The taste of blood was in Frank’s mouth. “Killed the messenger,” he mumbled, then exhaled slowly. So this is dying. Thought ceased. He’d cheated cancer after all.
Two police cars sped quickly past the entrance to the alley, in obvious pursuit of the car that had just passed, but Rostov was in a panic. He’d misjudged the old fool. Who would have thought he still had it in him?
Kneeling by the dead man’s side, he quickly removed all the identification from the body, then used Walton’s handkerchief to remove his fingerprints from the knife. Nervous now, and not wanting to be seen in the alley where a dead man was lying, he tossed the knife into a nearby Dumpster, then slipped over the fence at the back of the alley.
Ten blocks away, he stripped the cash and identification papers from the wallet, dropped Frank’s hotel key into his pocket and then tossed the empty wallet into a trash can by a bus stop. The body wouldn’t be found until morning. It would take even longer for it to be identified. Confident that the death would appear to have been a robbery, he headed for Frank’s hotel. That crazy old man had upset his plans completely. Now he was torn between having to lie to his superiors and admitting that he was too old for this job after all.
It wasn’t until he was standing at a street corner and waiting for the light to change that he realized the old man’s last words had been spoken in fluent and perfect Russian.
He cursed beneath his breath as he started across the street. All he could do was hope he would find a clue in Walton’s hotel room that would keep him in good standing with the powers that be.
A few minutes later, he entered the hotel and headed straight for the elevator, confident that he would not be noticed. He’d followed the old man more than once, so he already knew the floor and room number. There was no one in the hallway when he exited the elevator, so he headed straight for room 617 without hesitation.
Once inside, he began a thorough sweep of the room, hoping to find something that would give answers as to why Vaclav Waller had faked his own death, as well as what he had been doing for the past thirty years. All he found were some out-of-style clothes and a plane ticket to Braden, Montana. The flight was due out at 9:45 a.m. tomorrow.
He stood for a moment, contemplating the wisdom of what he was thinking, and then a slight smile broke the somberness of his face. He had Walton’s ID. It would be a simple matter to substitute his picture for Walton’s and fly back to Braden on Walton’s ticket.
He nodded to himself, slipped the plane ticket into his jacket pocket and began methodically packing Walton’s clothes into his suitcase. It wouldn’t do to have the hotel put out an alarm when the old man went missing. All he had to do was leave the room key on the bed and walk away with Frank Walton’s things. The hotel would assume the man was gone, bill the room to the credit card he would have had to show when checking in, and no one would be the wiser. Less than an hour later, room 617 was empty and Rostov was gone, taking the last vestiges of Frank Walton’s presence in Brighton Beach with him.
Detective Mike Butoli was nursing a hangover and a broken toe when he came in to work. The coffee he’d purchased from the coffee shop on the corner was too weak for the condition he was in. He needed some of his father’s recipe this morning, with a healthy shot of the “hair of the dog,” and then he just might be able to make it through the day. However, his father had been dead for years, and thanks to a weak moment last night, he was going to have to start all over on a new sobriety day.
He’d made it almost six months this time and was pissed at himself for giving in to temptation. When he drank, he had blackouts, so he had no idea which had come first, the broken toe or the first drink, and from the way he was feeling, it didn’t really matter. His goddamn foot hurt almost as much as his head.
“Hey, Butoli. You look like hell.”
Butoli glared at Larry Marshall and thought about tossing the sorry-assed coffee on the prick’s clean white shirt, then decided against it. He had yet to figure out how the man had ever made detective.
“You should know,” he muttered, as he set his coffee down on the desk and started to remove his suit coat.
“Don’t get too comfy,” Marshall said. “Flanagan is looking for you.”
Butoli pivoted without stopping and headed for the lieutenant’s office, limping with every step.
“Hey, Lieutenant, you wanted to see me?”
Barney Flanagan looked up, then frowned. Butoli was a damned good cop when he laid off the sauce, but something told him Butoli had suffered a “weak moment” last night.
“Are you drunk?” Flanagan growled.
“No, sir. Not now, sir.”
“Then why in hell are you leaning against my door? Stand up straight, damn it.”
“I broke my toe. This is as straight as I can stand.”
Flanagan muttered beneath his breath as he laid a file on the opposite edge of his desk.
“Sanitation found a stiff in the alley behind Ivana’s Bar and Grill. Go do your thing.”
Butoli took the file without comment and started out the door.
“Butoli!”
He stopped and turned. “Yes, sir?”
“I don’t give a damn what you do on your own time, but you better not drink on mine or I’ll have your ass.”
Butoli’s stomach rolled. God, but he needed something stronger than the coffee.
“Lieutenant, right now, my ass is the only thing on my body that doesn’t hurt, and I’d really hate to part with it.”
Flanagan smirked. “Life’s a bitch. Go find me a killer, and take Marshall with you.”
“But Evans is my partner.”
“Not since last night. His old man died. He’s gone to Tennessee. Won’t be back for at least a week.”
Butoli groaned. “Damn it, Lieutenant, not Marshall. He’s a prick.”
“Yes, but he’s a sober one. Now go do your job, and play nice while you’re at it.”
Butoli stifled a curse and limped back to his desk.
“Hey, Marshall, we got a new stiff, so get your pocketbook, you’re coming with me.”
Larry Marshall glared as he got up from his desk.
“That’s sexual harassment,” Marshall muttered as he took his handgun from his desk and slipped it into a shoulder holster.
“Are you gay?” Butoli asked.
Marshall’s nostrils flared angrily. “No.”
“Then it’s not sexual harassment, it’s only a joke. And while we’re at it, you’re driving.”
Marshall smirked as they headed for the elevator.
“Why? Too drunk to drive?”
“Not yet,” Butoli said, and then pointed to the hole he’d cut in the end of his best pair of loafers. “I broke my toe last night.”
“Shame it wasn’t your head,” Marshall muttered, as they exited the building toward the parking lot.
“I heard that,” Butoli said.
“Good. At least there’s nothing wrong with your ears,” Marshall said, as he got behind the wheel. “Where are we going?”
“Alley behind Ivana’s Bar and Grill.”
Larry Marshall floored the accelerator, taking small pleasure in the fact that Mike Butoli’s skin looked like it was turning green.
White Mountain Cemetery, Braden, Montana—The Same Day
A stiff wind lifted the hem of Margaret Watson’s dress, then tugged at the black wide-brimmed hat she’d been determined to wear. She grabbed at her skirttail with one hand and her hat with the other as she leaned toward her best friend, Harriet Tyler. Lowering her voice, she glanced toward the young woman in black sitting near the open grave.
“Poor thing. With her father dead and all, she’s all alone now. No husband. No kids. Just that big old hotel outside of town.”
Harriet stared at the woman in question as she whispered back.
“She’s not exactly alone. Her uncles are still there.”
Margaret sniffed. “They’re not really her uncles, you know.”
Harriet shrugged. “Well, yes, I suppose, but I don’t hold with blood being the only tie to family. They were Sam Abbott’s friends and colleagues. They’ve lived at Abbott House for as long as I can remember. When Sam’s wife, Isabella, died, they all did their part in raising that little girl. If she wants to call them her uncles, then who are we to argue?”
Margaret sniffed again, disapproval evident in her posture.
“It just doesn’t seem right,” she muttered. “All those men. You would have thought at least one of them would have married again.”
Harriet grinned. “You’re just peeved because Samuel Abbott didn’t return your affections.”
This time Margaret’s disapproval was directed at Harriet.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered. “Now do be quiet. The preacher is about to say a prayer.”
Isabella Abbott was numb. If it hadn’t been for the firm grip of her Uncle David’s arm around her shoulders, she might have thought she was dreaming. For the past fifteen minutes she’d been looking at a clump of dirt on the toe of the pastor’s shoe, trying to ignore the shiny bronze casket suspended over the open grave beside him.
Her father was dead. It had been so sudden. One minute he was laughing and talking, and the next he’d been clutching his chest. With two doctors beside him, he’d still died before the ambulance had arrived. For the past three days he’d been lying in state at the Jewel Funeral Home, and now they’d come to lay him to rest.
Her gaze slid from the toe of the pastor’s shoe to the mound of white roses covering the casket. Her vision blurred as she drew a deep, shuddering breath.
Oh, Daddy…how am I going to face life without you?
David Schultz felt every one of his seventy-eight years as he stared at the long bronze casket. One of these days he would meet a similar fate. They all would. And when that happened, Isabella would be alone. Worry deepened as he pulled Isabella a little closer within his embrace. Samuel’s death had caught them all unaware. Changes were inevitable, and he hated change.
Suddenly the preacher was saying Amen and people were starting to move. Isabella stood abruptly. He stood with her, looking around for the other uncles, but he need not have bothered. Like him, they were there—beside her, behind her—as always, sheltering her since the day she’d been born.
“Are you all right, darling?” Isabella looked up into the dear, familiar face of her Uncle David and nodded.
“I will be,” she said, trying to smile through tears. “I’m just sick about Uncle Frank, though. He will be so upset when he comes home and learns that Daddy died.”
“It’s his own fault for not giving us a way to contact him,” David said, still a bit miffed that his old friend had been so secretive about the trip he’d taken.
“I know, but it’s still too bad. He’s going to be riddled with guilt,” Isabella said.
“As he should be,” Thomas Mowry said, adding his own opinion to the conversation as he gave Isabella a hug.
Isabella let Uncle Thomas’s warmth enfold her, but the moment was brief, as well-wishers began gathering around her, anxious to pay their condolences. She glanced at her Uncle David, giving him a nod.
David quickly stepped forward and raised his hand as he made a brief announcement.
“Please,” he said. “We thank you so much for coming. Samuel loved this community and the people in it. Isabella is exhausted, so we are taking her home, but she has asked me to invite all of those who care to come to Abbott House. There is food and drink. Please make yourselves welcome.”
Isabella tried to smile, but the faces around her had become a blur. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and let herself be led to a waiting car. Moments later they were driving away from the cemetery toward White Mountain, the place that she called home.
She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the hours ahead. It would be nightfall before she would be able to shed the duties of hostess. Then she would grieve.
2
The grandfather clock in the hotel lobby was striking the hour as Isabella came out of her room. It was already midnight, and she still had not been able to sleep. Luckily the hotel was almost empty, although two guests had arrived to check in during the wake following her father’s funeral and she hadn’t had the heart to turn them away.
Her head ached. Her eyes were swollen from crying. Every time she closed them, she saw her father’s casket being lowered into the grave. Unable to lie still in her comfortable bed when she knew her father was in a box six feet under the ground, she’d crawled out of bed.
But it wasn’t sorrow that had pulled her out of her room. It was hunger. She felt guilty—almost ashamed of the fact—but it was the first time in three days that she’d felt like eating.
The family quarters were on the lower floor of the house, behind the main staircase, and as she came around the corner, she stopped at the foot of the stairs beneath the painting on the opposite wall. It was a massive canvas, almost life-size, and the first thing to be seen upon entering the hotel. Isabella paused in the shadows, looking intently at the first Isabella. The woman who’d been her mother, and who had died giving birth to her, was little more than a face with a name.
She stared at the painting, accepting the fact that, except for the different hairstyle and clothing, it could very well have been a portrait of herself. She sighed, the sound little more than a soft shifting of air in the silent room.
But for a vague longing for something she’d never known, she had no emotional ties to the woman, although her father had never been able to look at that painting without coming close to tears. At the thought of her father, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to cry. At least one positive thing had come out of this nightmare. Her parents were now together.
When her stomach rumbled again, she dropped her gaze and headed for the kitchen. The large commercial-sized refrigerators were full of leftovers from the wake, so she had a wide variety of foods from which to choose. Getting a plate from the cabinet, she settled on a piece of cold chicken and a small helping of pasta salad. The silverware drawer squeaked as she opened it to get a fork, and when it did, she winced. The uncles’ rooms were on the top floor, which was two flights up from where she was, yet it wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d gotten caught during a midnight snack attack.
She stood for a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps coming down the staircase, and when she heard nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock out in the lobby, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to talk any more today—not even to them.
She went onto the back stoop and sat down on the steps, balancing her plate on her lap as she took her first bite. The pasta in the salad was perfectly al dente and coated with a tangy vinaigrette. When the first bite of food hit her stomach, she inhaled slowly, allowing herself to get past the guilt of self-satisfaction and admit that it was good. As she ate, her gaze moved beyond the backyard of the hotel to the mountain looming on the horizon.
White Mountain.
For as long as she could remember, it had been the backdrop for her life. Somewhere in the ancient past of this land, a massive shift in the tectonic plates below the earth’s surface had created heat and pressure beyond man’s imagination, resulting in the birth of the mountain range of which White Mountain was a part.
She had often wondered why it was called White Mountain, because it was black as a witch’s heart, with a thick stand of trees halfway up its steep slopes. Her father had suggested that it must have been named during the winter months, because then it was usually covered with snow.
It was some time later before Isabella noticed she’d eaten all her food. As she stood, she also realized that part of her melancholy had eased. She wanted to smile, but her heart was too sore to allow herself the notion, although her father would have been pleased. He’d always said that the world looked far too grim on an empty stomach.
With one last look at the overpowering peak, she went back in the house, quietly locking the door behind her. She set her plate in the sink and then started back to her room. It wasn’t going to be easy without her father, but she accepted his death as an inevitable part of life. The uncles were all of the same generation as her father, and she didn’t want to think of the days when she would eventually have to give them up, too. The saddest thing was knowing that Uncle Frank had yet to learn of her father’s death. He was going to be devastated that he hadn’t known, and guilt-ridden at not being here to help her through the ordeal. Isabella just wished he would come back, or at least call. He’d never been away this long before.
A few moments later she entered her room and went back to bed. It wasn’t long before exhaustion claimed her and she finally fell asleep.
Detective Mike Butoli swung his sore foot over the curb and stepped up with a hop as he headed into the crime lab. The coroner’s office had yet to perform the autopsy on his latest case, and he was chafing under the delay.
An unidentified stiff in a Brighton Beach alley was not high priority, nor was it the only unidentified victim awaiting dissection, but for some reason the case was weighing heavily on Butoli’s mind. They’d put the stiff’s fingerprints into the system, hoping for a match, and at Lieutenant Flanagan’s suggestion had sent them to Interpol, as well. With the high concentration of Russian immigrants in Brighton Beach, it stood to reason that one or the other would result in an identification.
He had been a cop for almost twenty years, the last twelve as a detective. He’d seen far more of the evil and depravity of the human condition than anyone should be exposed to and couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a case personally.
Until now.
Maybe it was because his headache was competing with the pain in his foot to see which could rack up the most misery. Maybe it was the guilt he was feeling for having fallen off the wagon after six long months of sobriety. But whatever the reason, yesterday, as he stood in that alley looking down into the old man’s face, he kept wondering what journey the man’s life had been on would cause it to end in an alley in Brighton Beach.
Today he had a dead man with no identification, no witnesses to the crime, and he wanted answers to both. Information from the coroner’s office would have to wait, but he was coming to the crime lab with more optimism. If he got lucky, the analysis of the crime scene evidence would give him something to go on.
Since he was expected, he walked into the lab without knocking and headed toward the small middle-aged man who was feeding information into a computer.
“Hey, Yoda, what have you got for me?”
Malcolm Wise had long ago accepted his nickname, but not without some disgust. It wasn’t his fault that nature had doomed him to look more like the famous character from the Star Wars series than he did his own parents. He turned to see Detective Butoli coming toward him and hit Save on the keyboard before giving him his full attention.
“Why are you limping?” Wise asked.
“Broke my toe.”
Wise smirked. “I won’t ask how.”
“Well hell, now I am disappointed. I thought Yoda had all the answers.”
“Can the crap,” Wise said. “Short and balding is sexy to some women.”
“Then thank God I was born a man,” Butoli countered. “About my stiff…got anything that will help?”
Wise moved toward his desk. “The knife in his chest that was found in a Dumpster was Russian-made.”
Butoli rolled his eyes. “Damn, Yoda. This is Brighton Beach. It’s full of Russian immigrants. Give me something I can use.”
“The skin under his fingernails isn’t his own.” Butoli stifled a curse and popped a couple of breath mints in his mouth.
“Anything that might help me put a name to the man?”
Wise grinned as he lifted a plastic bag from a box and slid it across the table.
Butoli caught it before it slipped off onto the floor.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“The victim’s shirt.”
“What’s so special about a shirt?”
“Maybe the name underneath the tag might help you.”
Butoli’s eyes lit up.
“His name? As in a laundry mark?”
“At least part of it,” Wise said. “F. Walton. Now all you have to do is find someone missing a man named Walton and your mystery is solved.”
“Only part of it,” Butoli said, thinking of who had put the knife in the old man’s chest. “Anything else that might help?”
Wise shrugged. “You’re the detective. I just got through faxing a preliminary report to your office. It should be on your desk when you get back. Some of the tests will take longer. I’ll let you know when the lab work is done.”
Butoli slapped the little man on the back.
“Thanks, Yoda. This is the first good news I’ve had in two days.”
Wise smirked. “May the force be with you. Now go away. I have work to do.”
Butoli left the crime lab with a bounce in his step that had little to do with his sore toe. Finally a name to go with the face—at least most of a name. He was going to swing by the office, pick up Marshall and a picture of the victim, and then take a ride back down to Brighton Beach. Maybe someone would remember a man named Walton. Hell. Maybe he was kin to John Boy. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?
Five hours later, Butoli slid into the passenger seat as Larry Marshall got in behind the wheel. They’d been in and out of every place of business within a fifteen block radius of the area where the old man’s body had been found, with no response. It wasn’t until they’d gone into a small Russian restaurant adjacent to a thrift store that they’d gotten lucky.
The manager had frowned at their badges as he stubbed out a roll-your-own cigarette, glanced at the picture, then shook his head without looking up.
But Butoli had persisted.
“Come on, buddy. Look again. Somebody stuck a knife in his heart and left him to die in an alley alone. Somewhere he’s probably got family who are worried sick. I’m not asking you to ID a killer, just the man. It’s the least he deserves. Now look again. Have you seen him before?”
The manager looked up with a distrustful glare. His experience with public authority had begun at the age of seventeen, half a world away in a Soviet prison. He felt no need to cooperate. But the look on the cop’s face seemed less threatening than most, so when Butoli shoved the picture back toward him, he shrugged, then looked down.
“Yeah…maybe I see him before…two…three times. He liked my borscht.”
“Is he a local?”
“Nyet,” the manager answered, then qualified the Russian “no” with a negative shake of his head.
“How do you know?” Butoli asked.
“One time I think he pay with what you call traveler’s check.”
“Did you see anyone with him?”
The manager shook his head again.
Larry Marshall leaned against the counter, putting himself in the man’s personal space with only a small bit of wood and glass between them. The manager took a defensive step back as Larry fired his first question.
“Any idea where he was staying?”
The manager shook his head again. “But maybe not too far away.”
“What makes you say that?” Marshall asked.
“He was old…sick, too, I think.”
“How do you know?”
The manager shrugged again, then glanced nervously around. It wasn’t good business to be friendly with the police.
“His skin…it was not a good color. But he did not ask for cab, so maybe he had room not too far away.”
“Good deduction,” Butoli said, and slipped the picture in his pocket. “Sir, I thank you for your help. If you think of anything else…anything at all…give me a call.”
He handed the manager his card, and then they left.
“Next on the list, hotels and rooming houses,” Marshall said, as he started the car and pulled away from the curb.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky again,” Butoli said. “But in the meantime, don’t get pushy with these people. Few of them have any reason to trust authority.”
Marshall patted the part in his hair without heeding Butoli’s caution.
“They’re in America now. If they don’t like the way we do things here, they can go back where they came from.”
Butoli’s toe was killing him, and his patience was gone. He had the strongest urge to slap the back of Larry Marshall’s head just to see the look on his face. Instead, he popped a couple of painkillers and leaned back against the seat.
Less than half an hour later, Butoli’s prediction was proven right. The desk clerk at the Georgian Hotel identified the picture before Larry Marshall could get out his notebook.
“Oh my…he is dead?” the clerk asked.
Butoli nodded.
“Poor man, but glad it didn’t happen here.”
Marshall smirked. “Yeah, I see your point. Not good for business, huh?”
The clerk flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t say that right. I’m sorry Mr. Walton is dead. He seemed like nice man, but you know what I mean…right?”
Butoli frowned. No luggage had been found with the body. Maybe they’d just found their motive for the old man’s death. People had been killed for far less than a suitcase of clothes.
“What name did he register under?” he asked.
“Walton…Frank Walton. I remember I teased him and asked if he was related to John Boy. You know…from TV show.”
“Exactly when did he check out?” Butoli asked.
The clerk turned to the computer and typed in the name.
“Here it is. Yesterday morning.”
Butoli’s frown deepened. The coroner had told them that the old man had probably died between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. the night before his body was discovered. So if Walton was already dead, then he couldn’t have checked himself out. His pulse skipped a beat.
“You’re sure? Did he check out at the desk?”
The clerk scanned the screen and then looked up. “I was not on duty. All I know is room key was turned in and his bill put on credit card he gave on arrival.”
“We’ll need that credit card number,” Marshall said.
The clerk frowned. “I am not supposed to give—”
“It’s to confirm identification and to make sure it wasn’t a stolen card, understand?”
The clerk hesitated and then copied it from the screen to a piece of paper and handed it to Marshall.
“Had his room been slept in?” Butoli asked.
The clerk shook his head. “I don’t know. You have to check with housekeeping.”
“Then get somebody up here,” Butoli said. “We’ll wait.”
“Can you speak Russian?” the clerk asked.
“No,” Butoli said.
“Then I need to call manager, too, or you get nowhere with the help.”
“You don’t speak Russian?” Marshall asked.
“I am not Russian. I am Slovak.”
“Whatever,” Marshall muttered.
A short while later they were in the manager’s office, conducting a half-assed interrogation through a man who quite obviously wished them to be anywhere else but here. The reluctant hotel manager was standing beside a cowering housemaid, who obviously thought she was in some kind of trouble. Despite the fact that they’d assured her otherwise, she hadn’t stopped crying since she’d entered the room.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Butoli growled.
The manager, who was also of Russian descent, glared back at Butoli.
“I said nothing,” he snapped. “She makes her own conclusion.”
“Fine,” Butoli said. “So ask her this. Did she clean Mr. Walton’s room every day?”
The manager translated the question, and the housemaid quickly nodded.
“Ask her if he ever had any visitors.”
The little maid shrank even smaller against the chair, muttering beneath her breath as she shrugged.
“She says she saw no one but him in the room.”
Butoli nodded and smiled at the woman, hoping she would take that as a sign he meant her no harm. It didn’t seem to work. She covered her face with her hands and refused to look him in the eye.
“God almighty,” Butoli mumbled, then took a deep breath and started over. “Did she clean that same room on the morning Walton checked out?”
“She says yes, but that there was not much to do. He had not slept in his bed.”
Butoli’s attention sharpened. “What about his clothing…his luggage? Was it still in the room?”
The manager relayed the questions, then translated her answer again.
“She says everything was gone. She turn in room key she found on bed later, when she finish her shift.” Then the manager added, “It is the way we do it here. Sometimes guests use speedy checkout system. Checkout on room TV. It is very up-to-date process. Georgian Hotel is finest in Brighton Beach.”
Butoli looked at his partner. It was obvious from Marshall’s expression that he was thinking the same thing Butoli was. Someone had come back to Frank Walton’s room and removed every trace of the man’s presence. But why?
He sighed. This case was turning out to be more complicated than he’d first believed. They could no longer assume it was a run-of-the-mill mugging gone bad. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to delay the identification of a dead man by removing all his personal ID, then gone to his hotel and taken everything he had with him, making it appear as if he’d checked out.
But why?
He put his notebook in his pocket and gave the manager a card.
“Please tell your employee that we appreciate her help, and that if she remembers anything else that might help us catch the man who killed Mr. Walton, to please call us.”
The manager relayed the message.
The housemaid stood, gave the men a nervous glance and bolted out the door.
Butoli shook his head. “What’s she so scared about?”
The manager didn’t bother to hide a sneer. “Being sent back, of course.”
Larry Marshall looked up from his notepad.
“Back to where?” he asked
“Russia.”
Marshall’s gaze sharpened. “What? Are you hiring illegals? You can’t do that. You have to report them to—”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Butoli said, then grabbed his partner by the arm and all but dragged him out of the hotel.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Marshall yelped.
Butoli took a deep breath, mentally counting from one to ten before he trusted himself to answer.
“Marshall, for once in your life, just shut the fuck up.”
Larry Marshall’s face turned a dark, angry red. “It’s people like you who screw up the systems we have in place.”
“Maybe,” Butoli muttered. “But it was people like you who put the cockamamie systems in place to begin with. For God’s sake! We’re trying to get them to help us find a killer, and you’re threatening to call INS? What the hell were you thinking?”
Then he threw up his hands and headed for the car, leaving Marshall with no option but to follow.
Marshall got in and started the engine.
“Where to?” he asked.
Butoli glared. “Back to the precinct. We’ve got a name to go with the body, and a credit card number that should give us enough background information to find his next of kin.”
“But don’t you think we should—”
The look on Butoli’s face was enough to stifle what he’d been going to say. Instead, he pulled into the traffic and took a right turn at the next block.
Isabella handed a room key to the couple who’d just checked in. In the years since her father and Uncle David had opened White Mountain Fertility Clinic, she’d seen hundreds like them—people desperate for a child of their own and willing to try anything to make it happen.
“There is an elevator just to the right of the staircase,” she said.
“We’ll take the stairs,” the woman said. “Exercise is good for me.”
Isabella smiled. “Do you need help with your luggage?”
The man shook his head. “No. We only have the two bags. We can manage just fine. Oh…what time does the kitchen open? We have an appointment in town in the morning, and we don’t want to be late.”
“We start serving breakfast at six o’clock and if you need a taxi into Braden, you’ll need to call ahead and expect about a fifteen to twenty minute wait.”
The couple nodded their understanding and started up the stairs, their heads tilted slightly toward each other as they spoke in undertones.
Isabella hurt for their sadness. It was evident in every aspect of their expressions and posture. How sad to want a child so desperately and yet be unable to make it happen. Even sadder were the children who were born to people who didn’t care. It didn’t make sense. Why didn’t God just give babies to people who wanted them and let the people who were unfit to be parents be the ones who were barren? But she knew her thoughts were fanciful. Nothing in life was fair. She thought of her father dying so suddenly and leaving not only family, but waiting patients, behind.
The staff at White Mountain Fertility Clinic was well-trained and able to continue without her father’s presence. In the past few years he’d even talked about the time when he would retire and leave the creation of life to those younger than himself. Besides her father, Uncle David and Uncle Jasper still held active roles in the clinic, even though they took fewer and fewer new patients with each passing year.
Without thinking, her gaze automatically slid to the portrait above the staircase, unaware that the gentleness in the woman’s dark brown eyes mirrored her own. Her wandering thoughts stopped abruptly when the phone rang. Making herself concentrate on the present, she lifted her chin and picked up the phone.
“Abbott House.”
“This is Detective Mike Butoli with the Brighton Beach police. I need to speak to Samuel Abbott.”
Isabella’s breath caught as a quick film of tears blurred her vision. It was the first time this had happened since her father’s death, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last. She cleared her throat and made herself answer.
“I’m sorry, Detective, but Samuel Abbott recently passed away. I’m his daughter, Isabella Abbott. Maybe I can help.”
Mike Butoli frowned. He hated this part of his job more than spinach—and only God and his mother knew how much he hated spinach.
“Did you know a man named Franklin Walton?”
His use of the past tense made Isabella’s heart drop.
“Uncle Frank? What’s happened to him? Has he been injured? Is he all right?”
Butoli sighed. Damn. As many times as he’d done this, it never got easier.
“I’m very sorry to tell you, Miss Abbott, but Mr. Walton was found murdered in an alley a few days ago.”
The wail that came out of her mouth was a mixture of disbelief and despair.
“Nooo,” she cried, and staggered backward onto a chair.
John Michaels and Rufus Toombs, two of the men she called uncles, were just coming off the elevator from their third-floor apartments when they heard her cry. Without hesitation, they rushed forward.
“Isabella…darling, what’s wrong?”
She recognized the voices but couldn’t focus on the faces. Everything around her was fast going black. Before she could answer, she slid out of the chair onto the floor in a faint.
Rufus quickly knelt at her side, while John went for the phone dangling from her hand.
“Hello? Hello? Who’s there, please?”
Butoli knew the woman had not received the news well.
“This is Detective Butoli with the Brighton Beach P.D.”
“What did you say to Isabella? What has happened?” John cried.
“Are you her family?” Butoli asked.
“Yes, yes,” John muttered. “What has happened?”
“We just identified a murder victim as Franklin Walton, of Braden, Montana. The address on his credit card listed Abbott House as his home. Is this correct?”
John Michaels’s heart sank. Now it made sense. Now they knew why Frank had never called home.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, that is correct.”
“I’m sorry to ask, but someone must come and identify the body. Just to make sure. You understand.”
John’s fingers were trembling and he wanted to cry, but he made himself focus as he picked up a pen.
“Yes, I understand. Just tell me where we must go.”
As he wrote, Rufus was running for the house phone. Within seconds, he had David Schultz on the phone.
“Get down here,” he cried. “Isabella has fainted.”
John hung up the phone as Rufus made his way back around the desk.
“David is on his way,” Rufus said.
“He can’t help,” John said, and covered his face in his hands.
“What are you talking about?” Rufus muttered, as he dropped to Isabella’s side again. “She’s just fainted. She’s going to be okay. Isn’t she?”
“It isn’t Isabella. It’s Frank.”
Rufus’s eyes widened, rearranging the pond of wrinkles that age had settled on his face.
“What about Frank?”
“He’s dead. Murdered.”
Rufus blanched and sat down hard on the floor beside Isabella. Unconsciously, he grabbed her hand, clutching it tightly in his own.
“Dear Lord,” Rufus mumbled. “Do you think—”
“Don’t say it,” John muttered. “Don’t even think it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Go get him and bring him home to bury.”
“But—”
Isabella moaned.
“Hush,” John said sternly.
Rufus swallowed what he’d been about to say. Seconds later, David and Jasper came flying down the stairs, their speed belying their ages.
“What happened?” David asked, as he set his medical bag at Isabella’s side and pulled out a stethoscope.
“You won’t need that,” John said. “She fainted. Just pop some smelling salts and get her to her room. We’ve got bigger trouble.”
David rocked back on his heels. “What?”
“Frank’s dead. Murdered.”
David blanched.
“My God…where did it happen?”
“Brighton Beach.”
David frowned. “I’ve heard of it, but I can’t place the—”
“It’s part of Brooklyn, I think. Due to the large population of Russian immigrants, some call it Little Russia.”
Jasper Arnold’s gasp was the only vocal sign of the four men’s shock. Then Isabella began struggling to get up.
“What happened? Why did I—”
Suddenly she remembered, and her face crumpled as she was helped to her feet.
“Uncle Frank is dead,” she said, and began to sob.
The four aging men encircled her.
“We know,” they said. “Come with us, darling. You need to lie down.”
“The desk,” she mumbled.
“I’ll call Delia from the office. She can take care of it for the rest of the day.”
“What are we going to do?” Isabella asked, then covered her face in her hands.
The men looked at each other silently, but it was David who answered her.
“We’re going to get him and bring him home. That’s what we’re going to do.”
The sun was setting as Jack Dolan came out of his house and headed toward the deck surrounding his hot tub. Except for a bath towel wrapped loosely around his waist, he was completely nude. His house was on the outskirts of a Virginia suburb, only an hour or so’s drive from Washington, D.C. The eight-foot-high privacy fence surrounding his backyard provided coveted privacy. Besides, his nearest neighbor was over a quarter of a mile away and traveled more than he did.
Exhaustion was evident in his stride as he reached the tub of bubbling water. Modesty was last on his list of social graces as he dropped the towel from around his waist and stepped down into the water. A few steps farther, he sank down onto a built-in seat and leaned back with a sigh as the jets sent a rush of warm, bubbling water against his skin.
He had two knife scars on his back, an old gunshot scar on his upper thigh, and ribs that were still healing from the last case he’d been on. His personal life was nonexistent, and his career as a Federal agent had been ongoing since his graduation from Boston University. He was thirty-eight years old and had nothing to show for it but a house he rarely slept in and some investments he might not live long enough to spend.
The water roiled around his limbs, easing the aches from old wounds and relaxing the tension in his muscles. He leaned his head against the back of the tub and closed his eyes. Something inside him was starting to give. He’d known it for almost six months. There was a restlessness to his behavior that had never been there before, and a longing for something he couldn’t name. Although he couldn’t name his frustration, one thing was blatantly clear. Something needed to give. Whether it would be him or his lifestyle was yet to be determined.
He swiped a wet hand across his face and rolled his head. The beginnings of a headache he’d had since noon were starting to ease. A small squirrel scolded from the pine tree at the corner of his yard, angry at the invasion into its territory.
“Back off, Chester. It’s my yard, too,” Jack said, and then smiled at himself.
Now he was talking to squirrels. He really needed a change.
He had not taken a vacation in over four years. Maybe what he was feeling was a simple case of burnout. But whatever the diagnosis, the cure would be the same—a much-needed change of pace.
He sat in the hot tub until his legs felt like gelatin and watched the moon come up. It wasn’t until his phone began to ring that he dragged himself up and out of the tub. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he jogged into the house and picked up the phone.
“Dolan.”
“Jack, how are your ribs?”
Unconsciously, Jack straightened to attention as he recognized the director’s voice.
“They’re fine, sir. What do you need?”
The director’s chuckle rippled through the line.
“So you’ve taken up mind reading now, too?”
Jack grinned wryly. “Truthfully, sir, when was the last time you called just to chat?”
“Point taken,” the director said. “What I need is for you to pack for an undetermined stay in Montana. You will receive a packet tomorrow morning, including a plane ticket to a small town called Braden.”
Everything went through Jack’s mind, from militia-based groups to terrorists.
“Yes, sir. What am I facing?”
“Oh…I’d say at least a week, maybe more, at a fine old hotel called Abbott House. The air is clean. There aren’t any golf courses or rivers in which to fish, but I hear the scenery is great.”
“Sir?”
The director chuckled again. “Not what you expected, is it?”
“No, sir, but I’m certain you’re about to fill me in.”
The director sighed. “Yes, well…as Paul Harvey always says…‘now for the rest of the story.’ Two days ago, a set of prints from a dead man came through NCIC that didn’t match up with any we had on file.”
“I don’t get it,” Jack said. “Surely you aren’t wanting me to establish an identity? That’s a job for a homicide detective.”
“Let me finish,” the director said.
“Sorry,” Jack said.
“Yes, well, this is where it gets weird. The body was discovered in Brighton Beach.”
“Isn’t that the place they call Little Russia?”
“Some do, I believe,” the director said. “At any rate, I understand that because of the large number of immigrants in that area of Brooklyn, that from time to time when a situation warrants, the police also send prints through Interpol as a means of speeding up identification.”
A puddle had formed on the floor where Jack was standing, so he dropped the towel from around his waist, put his foot in the middle of the towel and began swiping at the water while he continued to listen.
“Yes, sir, but I still don’t—”
“I’m getting there,” the director said. “The thing is…the prints rang a bell at Interpol. A really big bell.”
Suddenly, the hair stood on the back of Jack’s neck.
“How big?”
“The prints belong to a Russian scientist named Vaclav Waller.”
“And?”
“Vaclav Waller died in a plane crash off the coast of Florida over thirty years ago.”
Jack kicked aside the wet towel and headed for the back of the house to get some clothes.
“But he’s dead now, right?”
“Oh yes, he’s dead, all right. I sent a man directly to Brighton Beach as soon as the prints were flagged. Trouble is…they’d already identified the man as Frank Walton of Braden, Montana. Had a credit card number and everything from the hotel where he’d been staying.”
Jack took a pair of sweats from the dresser and pulled them on with one hand as his boss continued.
“But…” the director added “…when my man ran a background check on the card owner, guess what he found?”
Jack dropped to the side of the bed.
“What?”
“The social security number the dead man was using belonged to a man named Frank Walton, only that Frank Walton died in 1955 at the age of twenty-four.”
“So we’ve got a dead Russian pretending to be a dead American who’s just died. Is that about it?”
The director’s appreciation for the humor of the situation was suddenly missing.
“That’s it, Jack, and I want to know what the hell is going on. The man who called himself Frank Walton has been living at a place called Abbott House for years. I want you in that hotel, and I want some answers to what the hell that man was up to. Considering Waller’s background, there could have been a lot more to his disappearance than just defecting. However, I don’t want you showing up there as FBI. For all intents and purposes, you are a man on vacation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep me updated on what you learn.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh…and Jack.”
“Sir?”
“You could send me a postcard.”
Jack grinned as the line went dead.
3
It was fifteen minutes after two in the afternoon when Jack pulled his rental car into the parking lot of Abbott House. He parked and got out, stretching as he stood. A twinge of pain rippled across his belly from his still healing ribs, but the cool, rain-washed air felt good on his face. He got out his bag and headed for the door, noting absently that the place looked deserted, but when he walked inside, a short, middle-aged woman looked up from behind the desk and smiled.
“Welcome to Abbott House.”
Jack nodded as he dropped his bag and pulled out his wallet.
“I’d like a room please.”
“For two?” she asked, looking past him toward the door.
“No, just me,” Jack answered and wondered why the woman looked surprised.
“Yes, sir, and how long will you be staying?”
“A week, maybe more,” Jack said. “I’m doing some research in the area.”
“Research?” the woman asked.
“For a book.”
“Oooh, a writer, how interesting,” she said. “Most of our guests are here because of the clinic, you know.”
“What kind of clinic would that be?”
“White Mountain Clinic. It’s a fertility clinic for women.”
“I see.” Then he gestured toward the parking lot. “Doesn’t look like there’s much business today. I thought the place was closed when I drove up.”
The clerk’s face fell. “Oh…that’s because everyone is at the funeral. So sad.”
Jack’s interest kicked in. “Someone local, I assume.”
She blinked back tears. “Yes, one of our residents, Franklin Walton. He’d lived here for many, many years, and his death was so unexpected.” She leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “He was murdered.” Then she added, “But not here, of course. Braden is a quiet little town. Nothing like that ever happens here, thank God. The tragedy is that it’s so soon after Dr. Abbott’s passing. Isabella is distraught, as we all are.”
Jack knew the name Franklin Walton. The man was the reason he was here. But he didn’t know who Isabella was, and the Abbott name meant nothing to him other than the name of the hotel.
“Dr. Abbott? Was he the owner of this hotel?”
She nodded. “Yes, but he and Dr. Schultz and Dr. Arnold also founded White Mountain Fertility Clinic. Most of the people who come to the clinic for help also stay here at Abbott House.”
“I see,” Jack said.
“I’ll need to see a credit card, sir.”
Jack pulled one out of his wallet and laid it on the counter. As she ran it through the system, he turned to survey the lobby. Like the house itself, it was quite grand to be in such an isolated location.
“This is quite a place,” he said.
The clerk smiled.
“Yes, isn’t it? It was built in the early nineteen hundreds by a well-to-do rancher who later went broke during the Depression. After that it went through a series of owners until Samuel Abbott bought it sometime during the seventies.”
“Interesting,” Jack said. “So am I to take it that Dr. Abbott and this Walton fellow were friends?”
The clerk looked up, a little curious as to the stranger’s interest.
“Yes. Mr. Walton lived here, as do Isabella’s other uncles.”
“Isabella?”
“Dr. Abbott’s daughter.”
“Other uncles? Are you saying that the murdered man was her uncle?”
“No, none of them are related by blood, but Isabella called them her uncles just the same.”
Jack nodded. “I know what you mean. Back home in Louisiana we sometimes call an elder member of our community by such a title. It’s our way of giving them respect.”
“Yes, exactly,” the clerk said, and then handed him a key. “You’ll be on the second floor, room 200. That’s the first one on your right at the top of the stairs.”
“I noticed this house has three floors. Are any of those available? I like heights.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. I’m sorry, but the third floor is the uncles’ apartments.”
One more bit of information to file away. “That’s fine,” Jack said, and smiled openly, not wanting her to question his curiosity. “It never hurts to ask, though, does it?”
Charmed by the big man’s smile, the woman felt herself blushing. He reminded her a bit of one of those hot young actors, only he was a bit older and had a much stronger jaw. Delia admired men with strong jaws.
“If we can be of any further service, don’t hesitate to ask. We begin serving breakfast at six o’clock but the kitchen stays open until eleven o’clock at night, so you can order à la carte any time you choose.”
“Thanks,” Jack said, and picked up his things and started toward the stairs. As he did, he glanced up, then froze, his gaze fixed on the painting above the stairs.
The woman in the portrait was stunning. A thick crown of black hair framed a heart-shaped face with features as delicate as fine china. But she had the saddest eyes he’d ever seen.
“So beautiful.”
“Yes, isn’t she?” Delia said. “That’s the late Isabella Abbott, Dr. Abbott’s wife.”
“She’s dead?” The thought brought real pain.
“Yes, almost thirty years ago. She died in childbirth.”
Jack took a step closer, locked into her enigmatic stare.
A phone rang behind him, and he jerked at the sound. Only after the clerk began to carry on a conversation with someone on the other end of the line did he manage to tear himself away from the portrait and move toward the stairs. Halfway up, he found himself at eye level with her face. She was looking straight at him, beseeching him for something he couldn’t understand.
Breath caught in the back of his throat, and his mouth went dry. It was only with great effort that he tore himself away and continued up the stairs. Still rattled from the unexpected communion with a ghost, his hands were shaking as he stuck the key in the lock, then opened the door to his room. Without paying any attention to the fine old world furnishings, he walked inside, turned the lock as he dropped his bag, and sat down on the bed with a thump.
The room smelled like his grandmother’s house—of lavender and roses, with a slightly musty air that had nothing to do with lack of cleanliness and more to do with age. A ripple of uneasiness made the skin crawl on his neck. He looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see Isabella Abbott looking back.
“I’ve got to get a grip,” he muttered. “I’ll unpack, scope out the place and make a preliminary report before dark.”
But weariness overcame his good intentions as he lay back on the bed, telling himself he would rest for just a few minutes.
When he next opened his eyes, the room was in darkness. He rolled over and sat up with a start, confused for a moment as to where he was at. Then the scent of lavender drifted past and he remembered. He was in Abbott House.
His belly growled as he glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. He’d missed dinner but was too hungry to wait until morning. Hopefully there would be a vending machine somewhere on the premises. All he had to do was find it.
As he slung his legs over the edge of the bed, he looked up and then out the window. The curtains had yet to be drawn against the night, and the silhouette of the mountain range behind the hotel was very visible. It loomed over the landscape—a dark and immovable force of nature against the blue-velvet texture of the sky.
Stretching tired muscles, Jack stood, then walked to the window. Below, the well-kept grounds of the hotel looked black outside the circle of illumination beneath the security lights. The place had a beauty of its own that was difficult to name. The grandeur of such a house seemed out of place in a land that still bore traces of wildness from its past. He thought of the man they had buried today. It was a good place in which to get lost.
But why he’d done it was the question of the day. Why had Vaclav Waller faked his own death? And why come here to Montana? There were any number of countries in which he could have chosen to hide.
He ran his fingers through his hair in quiet frustration and turned away from the window. Tomorrow was soon enough to worry about all that. Right now he wanted some food and the rest of a good night’s sleep.
Isabella couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she kept seeing her Uncle Frank’s face in the coffin. Even in death, she imagined she saw the horror he had experienced in knowing he was going to die.
They had laid Frank Walton to rest beside the man who’d been his best friend in life, but as the first shovel full of dirt had fallen onto his casket, Isabella had realized she had not known a thing about Frank Walton’s family. He’d always spoken of his past in vague references and of his family in the past tense, so she’d just assumed that he had outlived them all. But what if he hadn’t? What if there was the odd family member somewhere—a cousin, an in-law—someone who, if they had but known, would also have mourned his passing?
At the thought, she had looked up at the others and realized she knew little to nothing about them, as well. They had always been such constants in her life that she had taken them for granted, but she’d been jolted out of her complacency with the passing of her father and now her Uncle Frank. When this was over—when they could all think without wanting to cry, she was going to rectify her lack of knowledge. Family was everything, and now, except for five elderly men who were no blood kin at all, she had none.
The digital readout on her alarm clock read 12:10 a.m. She sat up with a sigh and swung her feet off the side of the bed. Maybe a glass of warm milk would help her sleep. It didn’t sound appetizing, but it still beat the chemical hangover that a sleeping pill always gave her. Grabbing her long white robe from the closet, she stepped into her slippers and headed for the door, confident that she would be able to slip in and out of the kitchen without disturbing anyone else’s sleep.
The soles of her slippers scooted silently along the polished hardwood floors as she moved down the hall. Seconds later, she circled the staircase and entered the lobby. Out of habit, she paused at the desk, checking the security of the hotel that was also her home. Satisfied that all was well, she started toward the kitchen. About halfway across the lobby, a hint of movement in the corner of the room caught her eye. Then, as the movement became mass and the mass became a man, her heart skipped a beat.
“Hello…who’s there?” she called.
She heard a catch in his breath, and when he spoke, the husky timbre of his voice made her shiver.
Jack was still prowling about the premises in search of a vending machine when he heard a door open, then close. Instinctively he stepped back into the shadows, waiting to see who was coming, only to find himself face-to-face with a ghost. Not trusting what he thought he was seeing, he blinked, then rubbed his eyes. But the image didn’t waver or fade away. For the first time in his life, he understood the life-altering fear of being unable to move.
It was the woman from the portrait, and she came out from behind the staircase and into the lobby, pausing at the desk as if in search of an unseen foe. The expression on her face was drawn, and although he knew it wasn’t possible, he imagined that he heard her sigh. But that didn’t make sense. Ghosts didn’t breathe.
What was her name? Oh yes, Isabella. The clerk had called her Isabella.
Her beauty was evident, but it was the heartbreak in her expression that made his gut knot. What terrible tragedy had she endured in life that would carry over to the grave? She started across the lobby, then suddenly stopped and looked into the shadows where he was standing. When she called out, he nearly jumped out of his skin. From all he’d ever read, ghosts didn’t carry on conversations, either. Hesitating briefly, he moved toward her without taking his gaze from her face and didn’t stop until there was less than six feet between them.
“Isabella?”
The man’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet her name on his lips echoed in Isabella’s ears as if he’d shouted. She was used to strangers, but she’d never seen this man before. How had he known her name?
“How do you know me?” she asked.
Jack took a deep breath and reached for her hand.
Isabella flinched at the unexpected intimacy.
The shock of solid flesh beneath Jack’s hand was as surprising to him as his touch was to Isabella.
“You’re real!”
Isabella frowned. “Sir…are you drunk?”
Jack combed a shaky hand through his hair.
“No, but I’m thinking I might like to be,” he muttered.
“Are you a guest here?”
He nodded. “I checked in this afternoon.”
“Ah,” Isabella said. “That must have been when we were all at the funeral.” Then she pulled her robe closer around her body and tightened the tie even more. “I’m Isabella Abbott. Is there something wrong with your room? Is there anything that you need?”
Jack couldn’t stop staring at her. Even though he now knew his first impression of her had been nothing more than a midnight fancy, he turned to look over his shoulder to the portrait hanging over the stairs.
Suddenly Isabella understood.
She hid a smile. “Did you think I was a ghost?”
Jack looked back at her and then shrugged, unwilling to admit where his thoughts had taken him. Government agents should believe in facts, not ghosts.
“Actually, I came down to look for some sort of vending machine. It seems I slept through dinner and everything else.” When she smiled, Jack felt his stomach tilt, and was pretty sure it had nothing to do with hunger.
“I was on my way to the kitchen to heat some milk. I don’t much like it, but it does help me sleep. If you don’t mind a little potluck, I’m sure I can find something to make you a sandwich.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I would certainly appreciate it.”
This time her smile shot straight to his heart.
“I said I’d feed you, but not if you’re going to call me, ma’am.” She extended her hand. “Please…call me Isabella.”
Jack hesitated, then clasped her hand. It felt soft and warm and fragile. He looked straight past her smile into her eyes and saw a wellspring of such sorrow that he was overwhelmed with contrition. He’d come here under false pretenses, and making friends with anyone, especially this woman, didn’t set well with him. Then he took a deep breath and readjusted his thoughts. He wasn’t making friends. He was simply getting himself some food.
“All right…Isabella, you have a deal.”
“This way,” she said, and led the way into the kitchen, flipping a switch as she entered.
Suddenly the room was bathed in light, and Jack was struck anew by her beauty. Her hair was thick and straight and black, and her eyes were the color of dark caramel. When she smiled, her eyebrows arched in an impish manner. But she was thin—almost too thin—and when she began to take food from the refrigerator to make his sandwich, he wanted to tell her to make one for herself, as well. Instead he made himself remember why he’d come and began a quiet but pointed questioning that would have made his supervisor proud.
“So, you said earlier that you were at a funeral. I hope it wasn’t family.”
Her posture stiffened, and then she paused in the act of putting mayonnaise onto the bread. When she answered, he had to strain to hear the words.
“Yes, actually, it was.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
She reached back into the refrigerator, took out a platter of meat and chose two of the leanest slices of ham, then laid them on the bread.
“Thank you. Do you like cheese?” she asked.
He knew she was trying to change the subject, but he was unwilling to let it go.
“Yes, please.” His mind was racing, trying to think of a way to keep their conversation going. He remembered what the desk clerk had told him about the place. Maybe that would work. “So, have you always lived in Montana?”
She nodded.
“This is quite a place. Did you build it?”
She turned. “No, it’s quite old, actually. My father bought it over thirty years ago. It’s been in the family ever since. I was born here.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“So you are following your father’s footsteps into the hotel business.”
Her chin trembled, and at that moment he hated himself for continuing with the charade. To his intense relief, she answered without any more coercion.
“The hotel was only a sideline,” she said softly. “My father was a doctor. He and Uncle David and Uncle Jasper founded the White Mountain Fertility Clinic in Braden.”
Jack quickly picked up on her use of past tense.
“Your father is no longer living?”
Isabella bit the inside of her mouth to keep from crying. She had to get used to talking about this. It was now a hard fact of her life.
“No. He died a little over a week ago.”
“So it was his memorial service today?”
Isabella shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. “No, today was for my Uncle Frank. He was on vacation. Someone killed him.” She took a quick breath and then turned around.
“I’m very sorry,” Jack said. “That’s got to be tough…losing two members of your family so close together.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
There was a long moment of silence as she completed the sandwich. He watched without comment, noting the methodical movements of her hands as she cut the sandwich at an angle, creating two triangular halves. Then she placed it on a plate, added pickles, olives and a handful of chips, and set it on a tray. Without wasted motion, she laid a white linen napkin beside the plate, then took a glass from the cabinet and turned to him, the glass held lightly in her hand. But there was nothing casual about the look she gave him. He felt pierced through by her stare.
“What would you like to drink?”
“What do you have?” he asked.
“This is a hotel. You can have pretty much anything you want.”
“Any soft drink will do.”
She took a can of cola from the refrigerator, added some ice to his glass, and then put them on the tray before handing it to him.
“Here is your food. I hope it will hold you until morning. We begin serving breakfast at six o’clock.”
Jack nodded and smiled. “It looks great. Thank you for going to so much trouble.”
Isabella folded her hands in front of her and tilted her head to one side. For a moment Jack had a vision of a certain teacher who used to chastise him for being tardy when he was a child.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Have a good night.”
He’d been dismissed. Without a reason to linger longer, he picked up the tray and started out of the room. He was almost to the door when she spoke.
“Forgive my emotional outburst,” she said softly. “The wound is still so fresh.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” he said, then looked at the tension on her face. “Will you be all right? I mean…I’d be happy to wait and walk you through the lobby.”
The offer was unexpected, and because it was, it was that much more precious.
“No, but thank you just the same, Mr….”
“Dolan. Jack Dolan.”
She tilted her head in the other direction, as if fitting the name to the man, then nodded, as if to herself.
“Good night, Jack Dolan.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“Good night, Miss Abbott.”
She turned her back on him to pour a serving of milk in a pan and set it on a burner to heat. At that point he remembered that she’d told him she’d been unable to sleep.
As he started up the stairs with his tray, he glanced at the portrait. The resemblance between mother and daughter was uncanny. No wonder he’d thought she was a ghost. He glanced down at the tray full of food and grimaced. If he ate all of this, he would be sleepless, too. And even if he slept, he suspected his sleep would not be dreamless—not after the encounter he’d just had.
He shook his head and tore his gaze from the painting.
Ghosts indeed.
4
Vasili Rostov stood with binoculars held close to his face, watching as the downstairs lights went out inside the hotel in the valley below. He watched until a light appeared at a second floor window before he dropped the binoculars onto his backpack and crawled into his sleeping bag. Whatever had been going on downstairs was obviously over.
He cursed softly in Russian, taking comfort in the familiar roll of the words on his tongue. Before they’d pulled him out of his anonymous existence, he had been able to convince himself that he was still as good as ever and that age had no bearing on his abilities. But now that he’d been on the move going on two weeks, he had to admit he was getting too old for this work. He missed his bed and his easy chair, where the cushions sank in all the right spots. And he missed his vodka. He always had a couple of shots before going to bed. Since he’d come to Montana, he’d been forced to endure cold camps and dried foods. The novelty of being back “on the job” was wearing thin. Couple that with a continuing urge to forget everything he’d been sent to do and get lost in America, as Vaclav Waller had done, and Vasili Rostov was an unhappy man.
He looked back down the mountain at the roof of the sprawling three-story hotel and grimaced. He needed to find a way to get inside without anyone knowing. It was the only place he knew to start looking for answers. But how to do that without arousing suspicion was, at the moment, beyond him.
The night sky was clear and cool, but despite the beauty of the stars, he would rather have been in a bed and under a roof. A pack of coyotes began to howl on a nearby hillside. He jerked in reflex and reached for his gun, cursing the fact that the only place to offer rooms on this forsaken bit of earth was the hotel below.
At the present time there was only one paying guest at Abbott House, a man who’d arrived earlier in the afternoon. Vasili had considered the wisdom of staying there himself and then discarded the notion. Since Frank Walton had known within seconds of their meeting who he was, Rostov couldn’t afford a repeat of that debacle.
And he couldn’t help thinking that if it hadn’t been for Waller, all of this would be over. If only they had told him more about why they wanted Waller back, he might have foreseen Waller’s drastic behavior and been able to prevent it. The very fact that the old man had been willing to die rather than let himself become Rostov’s prisoner was highly suspicious. Then he tossed the thought aside. Maybe he had opted to die now rather than being tortured later for information he wasn’t willing to give.
Rostov sighed and closed his eyes. If he’d learned one thing from living through the disintegration of the Soviet Republic, it was that there was no need for rehashing the past.
He shifted nervously within his sleeping bag and considered making a fire, then discarded the thought. The last thing he needed was for someone to get curious about a camper’s fire and come snooping around.
Another series of yips told him that the coyotes were on the move now, running in the opposite direction to his camp. With a sigh of satisfaction, he crossed his hands across his chest, then patted the gun lying on his belly one last time before falling asleep.
Southern Italy—3:00 a.m.
Three men moved across the small town square, taking care to stay in the shadows. This wasn’t the first time they’d set out to steal, but it was the first time they had agreed to rob God. Although the night was cool, a small man called Paulo was sweating profusely. He imagined the Devil’s hand tightening around his throat with every step that took them closer to the small village church.
“We will die for this sin,” he murmured.
Antonio, who was the eldest and the leader of the group, turned quickly and shoved Paulo roughly against the wall.
“Silence,” he hissed.
Francesco, who was Paulo’s cousin, tended to agree with his kin, but he was afraid of Antonio and rarely argued.
Hoping to soothe his cousin’s fears, Francesco gave Paulo a wink.
“Think of the money we are going to make on this one job. It’s more than we made all last year.”
But Paulo would not be appeased.
“Dead men have no need for money,” he said.
Antonio glared at the pair. “Then get out! I will do this job myself. I have no need for cowards.”
Neither one of them had the gumption to anger a man who had killed his own father, and so Francesco smiled, trying to ease the tension.
“Paulo will be fine, my friend, have no fear.”
“I’m not the one who’s afraid,” Antonio said. “So do we go?”
Reluctantly, the other two nodded, then followed him into the church. The massive double doors squeaked on ancient hinges as Antonio pushed them inward. Paulo flinched, then stopped just inside the doorway, again overwhelmed by the impact of what they were about to do.
“Quickly, quickly,” Antonio muttered, and shoved them forward.
Paulo genuflected in the aisle and muttered a prayer for forgiveness before moving toward a faint glow of light above the altar at the front of the church.
“There it is,” Antonio said. “Francesco, you’ve got the glass cutter. Paulo, you help him. I’ll keep watch. And if you don’t want a dead priest on your conscience, too, then get busy.”
Paulo crossed himself one more time, muttering as he followed his cousin up a series of steps toward what appeared to be an oblong box made almost entirely of glass. The dimensions were about two feet wide, no more than four feet long and two feet deep. A niche had been chiseled out of the thick stone walls where the glass box now lay. Francesco leaned forward, peering intently at the brass plaque mounted beneath.
St. Bartholomew 1705–1735
A shiver of foreboding ran up Francesco’s spine, but he shook it off, blaming it on Paulo’s ridiculous predictions. They weren’t going to be cursed for stealing a few old bones any more than they would be cursed for the sins they’d already committed.
“Help me,” he ordered, and together they pulled the glass coffin from the niche, then set it on the floor.
“Hold this,” Francesco said, and handed him a flashlight.
Paulo’s hands were shaking as he took the light, but when it flashed on the ancient and yellowing skull within, his stomach lurched.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, forgive me for this sin.”
Seconds later, the faint sound of metal against glass could be heard as Francesco carefully cut out a panel on the backside of the coffin.
One minute passed, then another and another. Despite the coolness of the evening, sweat dripped from Francesco’s forehead onto the glass. Paulo’s hands were shaking so hard that he once almost dropped the flashlight. It had taken a sharp word from Antonio and a slap on the head before he had regained his equilibrium.
Suddenly Francesco rocked back on his heels, holding a long, slim panel of the old handmade glass.
“I’m in,” he whispered.
Antonio spun, his eyes glittering eagerly as he took the glass from Francesco’s hands and carefully laid it on the altar. Then he pulled a cloth sack from inside his jacket and thrust it in Francesco’s face.
“Here. You know what we came for. Take it now.”
Francesco stared down into the small casket, eyeing the fragile bones. He knew people who prayed to this saint for healing—and he knew people who had been healed. He couldn’t bring himself to actually desecrate something that holy—not even for a whole lot of money.
“I can’t,” he whispered, and handed the sack back to Antonio.
Antonio cursed and shoved both men aside as he dropped to his knees.
“The light,” he whispered. “Hold the light so that I may see.”
Paulo angled the beam of the flashlight down into the casket, highlighting all that was left of the small man of God.
Antonio thrust his hand through the opening that Francesco had cut, fingering the bones as if they were sticks of wood from which to choose. Finally he settled on two of them, one a small bone from the lower part of the arm and another that had a minute bit of leatherlike tissue still adhering to a joint.
He pulled them out and thrust them into the sack, then stood abruptly.
“Do you have the glue?” he asked.
Francesco nodded.
“Then replace the glass and put the box back in place. We’ve been here too long.”
Francesco’s expression was anxious as he went about the task of doing what he’d been told.
“This patch will show,” he said.
Antonio sneered. “But not easily, and by the time someone discovers what has happened, we’ll be long gone.”
Within minutes, the earthly remains of St. Bartholomew, minus a bone or two, were back in the niche. The trio slipped out of the church and back into the streets with no one the wiser—except God. Hastily, they made for the edge of the village, and when they could no longer see the rooftops, Antonio did a little dance in the middle of the road.
“We did it!” he crowed. “We’re going to be rich!”
“We’re going to die,” Paulo moaned.
“When do we get our money?” Francesco asked. Antonio smiled, his teeth gleaming brightly in the moonlight.
“We take the left fork in the road and follow the path up to Grimaldi’s meadow. He will be waiting.”
“Who’s he?” Francesco asked.
Antonio shrugged. “I don’t know his name…only that he pays well for goods received.”
“How much is he paying us?” Francesco asked.
Antonio smiled. “We each get five thousand American dollars.”
The amount was staggering for men who had no vocation and who lived by their wits and their lies. Still, Francesco worried.
“You’ve done business with him before?”
Antonio hesitated. “No, but I can tell these things. He has fine clothes and manicured hands. Men like that have no need to lie.”
Paulo snorted beneath his breath, convinced that his life was over. Clean men were killers, too, but he had no intention of voicing his thoughts. If he hadn’t been so certain that fate would catch up with him wherever he went, he would have walked away right then. But he had no wish to die alone, and so he followed the other two men to the meeting place.
Before they had time to catch their breaths, a man stepped out from behind a rock. Paulo gasped and stumbled as Francesco stopped short, but Antonio swaggered up to meet him.
“You have it?” the man asked.
Antonio smiled and held up the sack. “We kept our end of the bargain. Do you have the money?”
“I will see the merchandise first,” the man said.
“And I the money,” Antonio retorted.
The man set down a satchel, then opened it, revealing three substantial bundles of American twenty-dollar bills.
Antonio handed over the sack and then went down on his knees, laughing as he thrust his hands into the satchel and pulled out the cash.
“See?” he cried. “See, I told you. We’re rich. We’re rich!”
Francesco grinned at his cousin and then dropped to his knees as greed overtook shame.
But Paulo couldn’t bring himself to touch the money any more than he would have touched the bones of the saint, and because of his hesitation, he was the first to see the man pull a weapon.
“He has a gun!” he cried.
And because of his diligence, he was the first to be shot. He hit the ground with a thud as a sharp, burning pain began to spread within his belly.
The man fired twice again in rapid succession, killing both Antonio and Francesco before they could look up. He grabbed the money-filled satchel, scattered a few cheap pieces of jewelry upon the ground, as well as a handful of rare coins he’d stolen last week in Cannes. Then he took another gun from his coat and fired it into the air before laying it down on the ground beside the men. He knew their reputation. When their bodies were found, it would be assumed that they’d fought over stolen property and killed each other in a fight. Without looking back, he disappeared into the night.
Paulo clutched at his belly with both hands, trying to hold back the flow of blood, but there was too much, and he was becoming too weak. What was left of Francesco’s face was on the ground near his shoe, and the back of Antonio’s head was completely gone. His one regret was that both men were no longer alive to see that his prediction had come true.
His voice was weakening, his breath almost gone. But he said it again, if for no one else’s benefit but his own.
“See…I told you we were going to die.”
Despite all the wrongs that he’d done, Paulo had always been a man of his word.
By the time their bodies were discovered two days later, the killer’s payoff was in a numbered account in a prestigious Swiss bank and the goods were en route to the buyer.
Jack woke with a start, momentarily confused by the unfamiliarity of the room. Then he saw the dirty dishes on the tray by the door and remembered the nighttime meal he’d almost shared with Isabella Abbott. He couldn’t quit thinking about how sad she’d been, and how beautiful her face was. Shaking off the feeling of miasma, he reminded himself that personal feelings had no place in his line of work. He couldn’t afford to feel empathy for someone he was investigating. He only dealt in facts.
As the blessed quiet of the old house permeated the room, he ran through a mental checklist of all the things he needed to do today. First on the list was checking in with the director to let him know he had arrived. With a reluctant groan, he threw back the covers and got up. A few minutes later, freshly showered and half-dressed, he sat down on the side of the bed and reached for his cell phone. With the punch of a few numbers, he was connected.
“Sir…it’s Dolan. I’m on the scene.”
“Fine. Remember, I want this played loose and easy. It’s entirely possible that no one there knew a thing about the old man’s background. If that’s so, then his reasons for deceit have died with him.”
Jack sighed. “Yes, sir, I understand, but in our business, we’ve always got to look for conspiracy, right?”
“Do I detect a note of ambivalence?”
“Maybe. And maybe I’m just more tired than I thought.”
“How are you healing?” he asked.
Jack flexed his stomach muscles, noting that each day brought a little more ease.
“Good. I rarely feel any pain.”
“That’s good. No need pushing yourself unnecessarily.” Then he added, “As a matter of curiosity, what’s your first impression?”
Other than the fact that I almost let myself get infatuated with a ghost? “Not much. I’ve only seen a desk clerk. Everyone else was at Frank Walton’s funeral. I did meet the owner briefly last night, but I didn’t have time to make any kind of connection.”
“Did he say anything about Walton’s death?”
“He is a she, and she referred to the old man as Uncle Frank. She also mentioned that her father had passed away less than two weeks ago, so she’s pretty devastated. I didn’t push.”
“Hmm, that’s quite a coincidence—two people living under the same roof and dying within weeks of each other. Check into the father’s passing. Make sure it was from natural causes.”
Jack’s pulse kicked up a notch. “Do we have any reason to assume otherwise?”
“Company intelligence thinks we’ve got a visitor.”
Jack stilled. “Soviet?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Two weeks, maybe more.”
“Do we have any background on Walton or, I should say…Waller? What was his line of expertise? Was it nuclear…? Biological…? What in hell did that old man know that would still be of interest after all these years?”
“He was a doctor. If there was a special project, we know nothing about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dolan.”
“Sir?”
“Watch your back.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line went dead. Jack dropped the phone on the bed and reached for his shirt. The leisurely week he’d been hoping for had just gone up in smoke.
Up one floor and at the far end of the hall, the uncles had gathered in David Schultz’s room. Their demeanor was morose, reflecting their depression. Jasper Arnold scratched his bald head as he looked about the room.
“What about the clinic?” he asked.
“What about it?” Thomas countered.
“Samuel was the heart of it,” he said. “David and I have wanted out for more than five years. The staff is well-trained. We’ve accomplished what we set out to do. I say let them have full authority and we officially retire.”
Rufus Toombs smoothed his hands over his paunch, then laid his hands on his knees and leaned forward.
“Samuel had plans, remember? He swore he’d perfected the process even more than before. Things have already been set into motion.”
Jasper waved away the comment. “Exactly my point. Samuel had plans…but Samuel is dead.” He took out his handkerchief and mopped the nervous sweat from his brow. “I have plans, too, and they do not include being murdered.”
David interrupted. “I think you’re all overreacting.”
Thomas Mowry had been listening quietly, but when he heard what sounded like derision in David’s voice, he had to speak up.
“There are facts that cannot be ignored. Please. We should concentrate on them and not run amok here, worrying unnecessarily and blaming each other for what is, ultimately, inevitable.”
“What are you talking about?” Jasper cried.
“Age has caught up with us,” Thomas said. “And…quite possibly our pasts. We knew this could not go on forever. Besides, we have Isabella to consider and protect.”
The other four looked at each other and then away, individually nodding or muttering.
“Yes, yes, Isabella,” David said. “We have to think of our precious girl.”
“Right,” Thomas said.
For a moment there was silence, then Jasper asked, “So, what are we going to do about the last project? You know how high Samuel’s hopes had been. He kept claiming to have corrected the final flaw in our earlier works.”
Rufus sighed. “Speaking of the works…I have news.”
The others grew silent, waiting, fearing, yet knowing that their sentence must be that they hear it, if for no other reason than the fact that they were the ones who had set it in motion.
“We have another self-destruct.”
There was a collective sigh of frustration and regret that went up within the room and then, moments later, Thomas asked, “Who?”
“Norma Jean Bailey.”
“The blonde?” Thomas asked.
Rufus nodded.
Thomas’s voice began to shake. “I had such high hopes for that one. She’d already done some modeling and had enrolled in acting school, remember?”
Each man there averted his eyes from the others, choosing instead to look away, as if afraid to see blame in the other men’s eyes. David Schultz simply bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.
Thomas Mowry stood abruptly. “This leaves only two of the original twenty alive. I find this an unacceptable reason to try once more.” Then he strode to the window and stared out at the valley and White Mountain beyond.
John Michaels, who up until now had remained silent, cursed beneath his breath, then, oddly enough, began to cry.
The others said nothing. What could they say that hadn’t been said before? Finally Jasper broke the silence.
“Does this mean we scrap Samuel’s last project?”
“I say we take it to a vote,” David said.
The five old men looked at each other. Finally they nodded in agreement.
“Then a vote it is,” Jasper said, and picked up a pen and a pad of paper from beside the telephone. “Yes means we give the project one last try. No means we quit. Now. With no regrets and no blame.”
“All right,” they echoed, and then each wrote his decision on a piece of paper and tore it off before passing the pad and pen to the next man.
David took a small porcelain bowl from a bookshelf, folded the paper his vote was on and dropped it into the bowl before passing it around.
One by one, the men dropped in their votes. Jasper Arnold was the last. He dropped in his paper, then set the bowl aside as if it contained something foul.
“It’s your bowl. You count them,” John said, and handed the bowl to David.
David Schultz felt every one of his seventy-eight years as he moved to his desk with the bowl in his hands.
“Once the count is made, there is no going back. Understood?”
“Understood,” they echoed.
He unfolded the first bit of paper.
“Yes. It reads yes.”
He laid it aside and picked up the next, unfolding it with methodical precision.
“No.”
He picked up the next and the next, until he had two votes for yes and two votes for no. The room was completely silent except for the occasional hiss of an indrawn breath and the faint scratchy sound of paper against paper.
“This is the last and deciding vote. Whatever it—”
“Just do it!” Jasper cried.
David nodded, then unfolded the paper. His nostrils flared. His expression went blank. He looked up.
The men held their breaths.
“Yes.”
A collective sigh filled the room, part of it tinged with disbelief, part of it echoing the inevitability of what lay ahead.
“Then that’s that,” David said. “One more time.”
“For Samuel,” Jasper added.
“And for Frank,” Rufus said.
They nodded, then stood. Without speaking, they left the apartment, adjourning to their own rooms to dress for breakfast. There was work to be done.
Isabella handed the room key to the couple who’d just checked in, directed them to the elevator, then watched them as they walked away. She didn’t have to ask. She knew they were here for the clinic. There had been so many over the years that she’d come to recognize the quiet look of desperation they all wore. Saying a silent prayer for their success, she filed away their credit card information, then turned to answer the phone. As she did, she missed seeing Jack Dolan’s descent down the stairs.
But he didn’t miss her.
He’d heard her voice before he’d seen her, and despite his hunger for a hearty breakfast, he had to see her again—in broad daylight, when he could be absolutely certain she wasn’t the ghost he’d first imagined her to be.
“Good morning.”
Isabella turned around and found herself face-to-face with the man from the lobby last night. Her first impression was one of surprise. The night before, she’d been so wrapped up in her own grief that she’d failed to pay him much attention. To her, he’d just been a lost and hungry guest whom she’d fed and sent on his way. But now, with the early morning sunlight coming in through the mullioned windows over the entry doors, she had ample light by which to see. She took a deep breath. There was plenty to see.
He was tall—taller even than her Uncle David, who was six feet two inches. His hair was thick and straight, a warm, chocolate brown, and clipped very short. His eyes were blue, with a tendency to squint. She could tell by the tiny fans of wrinkles at the corners of both eyes. He had the physique of a runner—lean and fit, without a spare ounce of flesh. His shoulders were broad, as was the smile he gave her when he leaned across the desk.
“Good morning to you, too,” Isabella said. “I trust you slept well after your midnight snack.”
Jack’s gaze swept the delicate curve of her cheek and neck, then back up to her face, looking for signs of exhaustion. They were still there, behind the smile.
“I think I slept better than you,” he said. “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The dull ache in her heart shifted slightly as his concern gave her momentary ease.
“Thank you.” Then she changed the subject. “I’m guessing you’re headed to breakfast. The dining room is across the lobby and to your left.”
Realizing he’d been politely dismissed, he nodded his thanks and turned away from the desk just as an odd assortment of elderly gentlemen exited the elevator and headed for the desk.
“Isabella…darling…you have no business working like this so soon. Where is Delia?”
Isabella blew Thomas Mowry a kiss. “Good morning, Uncle Thomas, and quit fussing about me. She’ll be here any moment, I’m sure.”
Jack nodded politely as, one by one, the men gave him a studied look. These, he suspected, would be the men she referred to as her uncles.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Jack said.
They nodded and smiled, but Jack could tell they were only being polite.
“I’m Jack Dolan,” he said, and held out his hand to the nearest man.
David Schultz hesitated, but only briefly, then accepted Jack’s offered hand.
“Dr. David Schultz,” he said. “The gentleman to my right is Dr. Jasper Arnold, then Rufus Toombs, John Michaels, and the last one on my right is Thomas Mowry. We are Isabella’s uncles. Are you visiting family in the area?”
“Nope,” Jack said. “All my family is still in Louisiana. I’m in the area gathering some research for a book.”
John Michaels clapped his hands in delight.
“A writer! I always wanted to write, didn’t I, Thomas?”
Thomas Mowry shifted his glasses to a more comfortable position on his bulbous nose as he gave Jack a closer look.
“So you’re a writer, are you? Are you published?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah…I see.”
Jack felt a little like he used to feel when his father would look at his report card. The disappointment was always there, even though he had tried hard not to show it.
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Dinah McCall
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Why do the fingerprints of a recent murder victim in New York City belong to a man who has been dead for over thirty years? To find out, FBI agent Jack Dolan heads to the victim′s last known address: a boardinghouse in Braden, Montana.Most of the guests at Abbott House are couples seeking help from the fertility clinic run by a team of dedicated doctors. So Jack′s arrival is a pleasant surprise for owner Isabella Abbott, who finds herself wrestling with feelings she′s never had before. Jack, too, shares the powerful connection, and is all too aware of the danger of letting personal desires get in the way of an investigation.He suspects someone ruthless is lurking in the shadows–someone with orders to kill. But what secrets are worth dying for in this peaceful place that offers miracles to desperate couples? And is Isabella part of the savage mystery that surrounds White Mountain?But the more Jack learns, the more he understands why the secrets of White Mountain must be kept hidden. At all costs.