Secrets (7 page)

“And let the bullet go over my head and hit one of them?”

Thomas smiled. “Good boy. You look out for the people in your care. Now, if you just applied that to your home life and took care of—”

Jeff cut his father off with a look, and Thomas went away, shaking his head.

On his way to the bookstore, Thomas thought that the real problem was that Cassie made their home life so very easy. It had crossed his mind many times that what would help them all is if something happened to unsettle their lives. Lately, every time Cassie did something nice for Jeff, like buy him a new set of gym clothes or cook his favorite meal, Thomas wanted to tell her not to do it. Sometimes he wanted to shout “Don't make him so damned comfortable!”

But Thomas didn't have the courage to upset their lives. The outcome could be good, but it could also mean that they'd lose Cassie, and he didn't think that he or Elsbeth could stand that.

He needed to think of something that would make his son see sense!

I
T WAS COOL BY THE WATER,
and Jeff hadn't brought a jacket. The little landing where he was to meet Roger was secluded but well lit with tall streetlamps. He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for Roger, who came with his usual loud movements. “You'd never make an agent,” Jeff said, frowning. He wanted to be in his warm house, away from the mosquitoes, but one look at Roger's face made him forget his complaints. “What's happened?”

“After you called, I made Althea tell me what she knew.” He grimaced. “Getting information out of that woman is nearly impossible. Dana and Cassie were at the beach this morning and heard shots coming from Althea's house.”

Immediately, Jeff flipped open his phone. “I'm going to kill that kid Goodwin. I knew he was too young to be put on a job like that.”

Roger put his hand out to stop Jeff from calling. “Althea did it. She put on a little play.”

“She did what?”

“After the housekeeper left on a long list of ‘errands' that Althea came up with, Althea faked a migraine and sent Brent off to get her some pills. Truth was, she saw the girls on the beach, fired some old prop pistol into the air, then arranged herself on the terrace. They came to rescue her.”

“I bet she didn't muss up her hair while she was being rescued,” Jeff muttered. “What lie did she tell them?”

“Althea made up some cock-and-bull story about her ex-husband, Kenneth Ridgeway, having fired at her because he wanted money.”

“That poor man,” Jeff said. “He hasn't been near her in…”

“Not since Althea made the whole country laugh at him,” Roger said. “Anyway, our ladies showed up, masquerading as angels, and offered to help. Althea served them tea.”

Jeff groaned. “And I'm sure they had a lovely time.” His head came up. “Could Cassie have seen you at Althea's tonight?”

“No. Not possible. We were in the back most of the time so—” Roger broke off. “Actually, there were about ten minutes when I was with Althea and Brent in the living room. The curtains were closed, but maybe…What happened to make you think I was seen?”

“Cassie came running into the house, out of breath, and holding on to a basket of cookies as if her life depended on it. Her face was white, and she looked as though she'd seen something she didn't like.”

“Damn!” Roger said. “Think she was taking cookies to Althea?”

“Yeah, that's something she'd do.”

“So now what do we do?” Roger asked.

Jeff looked at the river. “It was only a matter of time before Althea broke her promise to stay away from other people.”

“Why would she want to do that when you send such fascinating people to visit with her? There's Clyde from Accounting. He comes—what is it?—three times a week? Hoskins from Internal Affairs. And my favorite: Mrs. Simpson from Foreign. What a jolly lot they are.”

“And she has Goodwin to mow her grass. I hear he's half in love with her. Maybe she's the grandmother he never had.”

“Speaking of which, I think you'd better get a real gardener in there to look after the place. It looks good now, but it won't last. And my Dana knows good gardening.”

Jeff gave Roger a hard look. “You can't possibly be thinking of allowing Dana to visit her again.”

Roger gave a laugh. “What am I supposed to do? Forbid my wife to visit a woman I'm not supposed to know? Besides, Althea must have asked them to keep their visit a secret because Dana hasn't said a word to me about it. What about you? Did Cassie tell you she spent the morning having tea with the Great Lady?”

“Not a word,” Jeff said, “but I'll get it out of her.”

“Spoken like an unmarried man.”

“I was married,” Jeff spat out, “but you know how that ended.”

“Yeah,” Roger said, his voice lowered. “Listen, I know you just want to protect the women, but I don't know how to do it without telling them too much. I think we should let the three of them have their little secret. After all, what trouble could they get into? Althea is how old now?”

“Not even the United States government is powerful enough to find out
that
information. The woman has four passports that we know of, and each one has a different birth date.”

“Okay, but we agree that she's an old woman, so how much bad can she do? Her days of sticking her nose into the governments of foreign countries are over. Besides, maybe meeting a great actress will cheer Dana up.”

“Still down, is she?”

Roger rolled his eyes. “Skylar is a real bitch to her. Sometimes I want to…”

“Yeah, I know. Strangle her.”

Roger laughed. “I wouldn't quite put it that way, but I could see that. Is she really nasty to Cassie?”

“Horrible.”

“And Elsbeth?”

Jeff smiled. “Except for one hilarious incident involving a jacket, when Skylar makes one of her remarks meant to draw blood, Cassie just lowers her head and takes it. She's a pouter. She goes into her room and holds on to her wounds. But Elsbeth is like me.”

“What does that mean? She's devious, underhanded, and living more than one life?”

“Exactly,” Jeff said, smiling. “When Skylar makes a remark that Elsbeth doesn't like, my daughter gets her back. When we went on the trip to DC and had to go to the formal embassy party, Skylar was hysterical because her makeup bag was missing. It was night, we were late, and she didn't have so much as a tube of mascara. When my daughter is around, Skylar refuses to take off her shoes because of all the things she's found in them.”

Roger laughed. “With your daughter's ancestry, how can she be anything but devious? Tell me, have you ever
seen
Elsbeth do anything to Skylar's possessions?”

“Not one single thing,” Jeff said with pride. “Nor has Dad.”

Roger gave a low whistle. “I am impressed. And here I thought she was an ordinary little girl.”

“She is, and she's mad about Cassie.”

“Who isn't? Last time I saw her at the pool in that red swimsuit, I—” He broke off at the look Jeff gave him. “Just kidding. I'm happy with my wife, even if she is the gloomiest person on the planet right now.”

Jeff was frowning. He didn't like the references to Cassie in a swimsuit. She was built like a real woman: big on top, big on the bottom, with a twenty-four-inch waist in the middle. More than once when he'd seen her and his daughter getting ready to go to the club pool he'd had to leave the room and get into a cold shower. “Okay, we'll let the women have their little social mornings, but let's keep an eye on them.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Roger said mockingly. He looked at his watch.

“I have to go or Dana will think I'm having an affair.”

“I think she already does. Cassie hinted that she thinks you're doing something you shouldn't on that boat.”

“I am,” Roger said, grinning, then he lost his smile. “You don't mean…not another woman? Dana couldn't think I'm having—” He shook his head in disbelief. “Anyway, it's a good thing that young Brent didn't believe Althea's story. He did just as you've taught him and checked it out before calling for backup. He showed me tapes from two cameras that clearly show that she fired the shots.”

“Thank heaven for hidden cameras.”

Roger chuckled. “Hidden? I hope you don't mean you think they're hidden from Althea. She turned to the one that's embedded in the wrought-iron casing of a flowerpot and said, ‘I'm ready for my close-up now, Mr. Goodwin.'”

“Why was
I
given the job of guarding her?” Jeff groaned, running his hand over his face. “I'd rather take on the Mafia.”

“We know why you took it on,” Roger said quietly.

Jeff looked away for a moment. At the time, he had a pregnant wife, and the agency had offered him a low mortgage on a great house in an outstanding community. The catch was that his new house would be next door to a mansion that would house a living treasure: Althea Fairmont. At the time, all he knew about her was that she'd made some great movies and she'd helped the United States in time of need. He'd felt guilty to be given such a cushy job.

It was months before he found out the truth. An angry agent, embittered by his lack of promotion within the agency, had spent his last years writing a tell-all book. To Jeff's mind the man was the lowest form of scum. He'd betrayed his oath of secrecy. When he died, his will instructed his children to send the book to a publisher. Some smart lawyer for the publishing house, concerned about lawsuits, had called the CIA and e-mailed the manuscript to them. Within three hours, all copies of the book had been destroyed.

But even the government couldn't keep all the information secret. The names of people who had secretly helped the United States government, spies, were leaked. The agency was able to keep the public from knowing, but the inner circle of the espionage world knew. A man who'd helped during World War II was found facedown in his swimming pool. Another man disappeared one night and was never seen again. After the second death, the president of the United States got involved.

One of the names on the list was that of Althea Fairmont, the most beloved actress who had ever lived. There had been no sign of any attempts on her life, no threatening letters or phone calls, but the order came down from the highest offices that she was to be protected. If nothing else, the United States didn't want to bear the humiliation of the public knowing that an actress had helped them in every major war since the 1920s.

But how to protect her? They couldn't put one of the most famous people in the world in witness protection. How could such a famous person be anonymous? In the end, they decided to put her in a gated community near the military bases and the CIA school.

When she was told what needed to be done to protect her, Althea said she'd rather live in the Gulag than in suburbia.

But her desire for life won out. A mansion was built at government expense, with the plan that, later, after Althea passed away, the house would be used for visiting dignitaries.

Jefferson Ames and his well-trained, well-respected father were put in a house on one side of Althea's, and the attorney who'd take over her financial and legal affairs on the other side. Althea's house was liberally sprinkled with concealed buttons. If she pushed one of them, an alarm would go off in both Jeff's and Roger's houses, as well as in agency headquarters. But no alarm had ever sounded.

When Althea was told that a third man had to live in her house with her, she'd protested so loudly that they'd let her choose the man herself. She went through a stack of photographs and chose the rookie Brent Goodwin. He was a pupil of Jeff's and was to report to him by phone every day. Jeff hadn't liked the choice. He thought Goodwin was too young, didn't have enough training, and was too attractive to women. He didn't think the young man would keep his mind on the job.

But in spite of Jeff's worries, in the years since it was set up, it had worked out well.

Jeff had met Althea repeatedly and they'd been cordial, but he'd kept their relationship on a business level. Not so Roger. Brent said Althea kept Roger at her house for hours, and he told her all the gossip of the entire community.

“She knows more about the people who live here than I do,” Brent said, making Jeff frown. So far, nothing bad had happened, but Jeff spent his life expecting it to all fall apart. Now, here was the news that Althea had stupidly fired a prop pistol in the air. Why? To get the attention of the women who lived near her?

“I've warned you that something like this would happen,” Jeff said.

“That woman is smarter than you and me combined. And I don't trust her. You shouldn't—”

Roger cut him off. “Okay, so sue me. I like the woman. Not all of us can have hearts made of steel.”

Jeff gave him a sharp look.

“I apologize. You have your father and your beautiful daughter.” Roger sighed. “Lucky you.”

Jeff's anger left him. He well knew that what Roger wanted most in life was children. Jeff was missing a wife; Roger was missing kids. Put us together and we're one whole person, he thought.

“I'll deal with Althea later,” Jeff said. “I need a favor from you. Could I borrow your old cabin for the weekend after next? I, uh, thought I'd take Skylar up there.”

Roger gave Jeff a hard look. “The last person you want to be alone with is Skylar. You're meeting someone there, aren't you?”

Jeff hated the way Roger saw things he didn't want seen. Roger had every security clearance that Jeff had, but caution was built into him. “Yeah, I'm meeting an old friend of mine,” Jeff said.

“I heard Leo's in town. Couldn't be him, could it?”

Jeff said nothing. It had been instilled in him since he was a child to give out as little information as he could.

“Leo Norton,” Roger said thoughtfully. “I've met him. There's something about him…. What is it he does?”

Jeff gave a sigh. If he didn't tell, then he had no doubt that Roger would start snooping. Roger's lawyerly curiosity would get the better of him. “Leo is the most brilliant at disguise of any operative we have. What that man can do to change his appearance is fascinating. He'd give Andy Serkis a run for his money.”

Roger laughed. Serkis had played Gollum and King Kong. “Fan of his, are you?”

“Yeah.”

Roger waited, but when Jeff gave no more information, he asked, “Does he have anything to do with the mystery weekend?”

Jeff groaned. “Don't remind me of that thing. And, no, Leo has no part in it. That's just my burden to bear.”

Roger smiled. “Sure wish I could join you.”

Jeff grimaced. Next summer, at Althea's request, he was to go to a “mystery weekend” at the house of a man named Charles Faulkener, a man who'd once been a friend of Althea's. As a young man Faulkener had desperately wanted to be an actor, but his lack of talent got him few roles. But Faulkener couldn't face the fact that he didn't have the gift for acting. Instead, he blamed his lack of success on a murder that happened in his house in 1941. Over the decades, he'd become obsessed with the unsolved murder, and every ten years he re-created it. The problem was that since no new evidence had come to light in the ensuing years, the dramas produced nothing new.