“What’s going on, Michael? Please don’t tell me you’re in trouble, too.”
“Can you get it?”
“Yes, of course. But-”
“Where can we meet?”
Abigail descended shallow, mossy steps and knocked on Jessup’s door. She knocked again, then opened the door and stepped into the low, spare room. Dim light filtered through covered windows. A teakettle whistled on a small stove in the kitchen alcove. “Jessup?” She lifted the kettle from the heat. It was light, most of the water boiled away. The whistle died, and she turned off the stove. “Jessup?”
The bedroom door stood ajar. Inside, she saw Jessup. He wore a crisp, white shirt, buttoned at the cuffs, black pants, a black tie and shoes that had been recently shined. He sat on the edge of a narrow bed that was tightly made. His back was rigid and straight, head bent so that his neck creased at the collar.
“Do you remember when you gave this to me?”
He kept his head down, but lifted a hand so she could see the small cross that swung from a platinum chain. She’d given it to him for Christmas on their fifth year together. They’d become very close, and he’d told her one cold night that he believed in hell. Not the vague concept of it, but the physical place: a lake of fire and remembrance. There’d been weight on his shoulders when he said it, tears in his eyes and sweet, dark whiskey on his breath. He was one of the strongest men she knew, and he was breaking. She’d always imagined some terrible thing that haunted him: the barbarism of war, a breach of faith or some poor woman broken to the marrow. But he would never talk about it.
“I remember.”
She stepped closer, rounding the end of the bed. His eyes were sunken, cheeks drawn. The nine millimeter lay on the bed beside his leg.
He let the cross swing. “Did you know then that we would spend our lives together?”
“How could I have known such a thing? I was barely into my twenties.”
She stared at the gun. Jessup shook his head. “Yet, here we are, twenty years later.”
“And you have been the most perfect friend.”
He laughed, but the laugh was broken.
Abigail hesitated. “Is that Michael’s gun?”
His hand moved unerringly to the gun, and Abigail was reminded that Jessup Falls was a dangerous man. That was the reason her husband hired him. Ex-special forces. Ex-cop. Her driver and bodyguard.
“Yes.”
His voice remained empty, and Abigail thought of screaming kettles and boiled-off water. She wondered how long he’d been sitting in the dark, a cross in his hands and a gun by his side. For that instant, Abigail felt as if she knew nothing of this man at all, but when he looked up, his gaze was familiar and fresh and raw. “I thought for a long time that you loved me…”
“Jessup, we’ve discussed this.”
“You’re married, I know.” He smiled, and was suddenly the same old Jessup. “It’s just that I’m torn.” He met her eyes, then lifted the gun. “Do I do what you want me to do? Or do I do what’s right?” He put the gun down. “What I
“You’re speaking of Michael.”
“He’s dangerous.”
Abigail saw it, then. She understood what he wanted to do, and why he was so torn. “You want to give the gun to the senator.”
“To his people,” Jessup said. “The gun. The photographs. Everything we know about him and Otto Kaitlin.”
“You can’t do that.”
“His arrest would take the pressure off everybody. The cops would have a warm body and the media would have its story. A year from now, this would all be a fading memory. Our lives would go on.”
“And what of the truth?”
“No one wants that.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Then call it a sacrifice for the greater good.”
Abigail sat beside him, the gun between them. “Such a sacrifice would be my decision.”
“And yet, you don’t always make the right choice.”
She put her hand on the gun; his hand settled on hers.
“You are a good and decent man, Jessup, but you’ve never told me no, and this is not the time to start.”
His hand tightened. “They’ve pulled three bodies from the lake, Abigail. How long before they link them to you?”
She smiled, but it was tired. “I didn’t kill anyone, Jessup.”
“But you brought them here. You tracked them down; you paid them. The cops will figure that out.”
“What I did, I did for Julian. No one here had ill intent.”
He shook his head. “There will be witnesses somewhere. A paper trail. A girlfriend. Someone at the law firm you hired. Something will lead the cops here, to you.”
“I didn’t kill those men, and neither did Julian. That’s all that matters.”
“You should let me do this, Abigail.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because Michael matters.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I don’t expect you to.” He peered down, his deep eyes filled with strong emotion. She stared back until he lifted his hand. Then she kissed his cheek and stood with the gun. “It’s been a good twenty-five years, Jessup.”
“It’s been grand.”
“As for what might have been…”
He swallowed hard, and let two fingers brush her leg. “In another life,” he said.
She pressed a palm to his face, felt her own eyes soften.
“In another life.”
Michael met Abigail at eleven o’clock in a drugstore parking lot on the far edge of town. The building was tired, with a flat roof and lime-white streaks that ran from the mortar. An empty lot stretched away to the left, and another ran out behind the building, both of them overgrown and littered. Traffic was sparse. Michael approved of the choice. Few people around. Good sight lines. Easy to find.
He parked in back.
Abigail came in the beat-up Land Rover. Damp mud coated the wheels and splattered paint as high as the mirrors. She swung out, dressed in high boots and crisp khaki pants. A green vest hung over a white shirt that clung damply. She saw him looking at the truck. “Reporters,” she said.
He understood. The rear of the estate was un-walled, protected only by three thousand acres of woods. She’d gone off-road to slip out unseen. He looked at his watch. “Thank you for doing this.”
“Tell me what’s happening.” Michael hesitated, and she spoke bluntly. “You want a gun. I brought it. Now, tell me why.”
They stood at the rear of the Land Rover. Her gaze was unflinching and he was out of time, so
