The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 (18 page)

She rose to peer outside before leaving. The rain had tapered off at last and hints of watery sunlight burned through the thinning clouds. Behind her Conor's measured breathing changed, and when she turned from the window her own breath caught. He was awake, dark eyes fixed on her.

"You look nice." His sleepy voice contained more air than sound.

Kate glanced down at her selection for the evening—a simple, long-sleeved black dress—feeling the color rise on her face. "Thank you." After an awkward pause she offered him the glass of orange juice Abigail had left next to his bed but Conor groaned, shaking his head.

"I've had enough juice, thanks very much. She's been throwing it into me all day. My tonsils are floating." He squinted at the clock next to him. "Damn. Is that four o'clock already?"

Kate set the glass on the table. "Never mind the cows, I'll call Jared. Don't be stubborn, or bite my head off about it. You know this could be dangerous if you're not careful." She hesitated, worried and conflicted. "I'm supposed to leave for New Hampshire tomorrow morning. Maybe I should tell them I can't go."

"Oh, no." Conor lifted himself to sit against the headboard. "Don't use me as an excuse to avoid your family. Especially after they've been calling all week."

Kate had to admit canceling was out of the question. Each year, the charitable foundation her grandmother had founded showed its appreciation with an extravagant dinner at her favorite resort—the Mt. Washington in Bretton Woods. All of Kate's siblings had called during the week to confirm her attendance, and she understood why. The dinner this year had been planned to coincide with her thirtieth birthday, which was coming up on Sunday but she hadn’t mentioned that to Conor. Her family had a horror of anything that smacked of vulgarity, so she was sure the event would be marked with no more than a discreet cake at the end of the evening. The milestone itself was one she'd been secretly dreading, and she was anxious to discuss it with her grandmother. Also, she'd promised to take Jigger along with her to give Yvette a chance to rest.

"All right." Kate tucked the quilt up around Conor's shoulders. "I'd better not come home and find you in the hospital. Or the barn."

"Well it's late, so if you're going to call Jared you should go do it, otherwise that's where I'm headed." Peevishly, he pushed the quilt down again, and seeing her exasperation offered a sheepish grin. "Sorry. I'm the most churlish invalid you'll ever meet."

"Yes, I'm beginning to realize this." She gave him a light cuff on the head and headed for the door. "Go back to sleep. I'll send up some soup later."

"Send up a pint," Conor muttered. "I'm more likely to drink that."

"Soup," she said, bringing the door shut behind her.

"Guinness is good for you," came the insistent, muffled reply.

17

C
HRIST
,
THAT
CAN
'
T
BE
RIGHT
.

Conor swiveled his head to the window and met a blast of morning sunlight before swinging back to the clock—it was a little after eight in the morning. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept past five o'clock, let alone three hours beyond.

With some effort he rolled upright, and sat listening to the wheeze carrying on inside him like an independent life form. He'd downplayed the symptoms with everyone else but wasn't so foolish as to ignore them. He'd phoned his pulmonologist the previous afternoon, hoping for reassurance, and after a fashion the physician had tried to provide some when she returned his call later in the evening.
 

"Probably just pneumonia again," she said, and told him to report for an examination the following day.
 

Brilliant. Just pneumonia. Again. He wondered if all his past misadventures would keep repeating themselves like this—a series of open cadences without resolution.

Conor drew in breath for a long sigh of self-pity. Bad mistake. Once he'd stopped hacking he had another depressing thought for the start to his day—he sounded like his father, a pretty fucking uncomfortable idea to be sure. He'd been grateful to have inherited the musical talent of Thomas McBride, Sr., but he could do without the crap pulmonary genes.

A long steaming shower revived him a bit, and down on the ground floor he was relieved to find the place deserted. In the kitchen he drank a few mugs of tea, then after inspecting the barn and resisting the urge to clean what Jared had not—beggars can't be choosers—he drove off to Copley Hospital for another round of x-rays and antibiotics.

He was back a few hours later and ready for a nap, only to find Darla on the scene. He tolerated her effusive concern with what patience he could summon before excusing himself, shaking his bag of pills in apology. That worked only for the moment. As he lowered himself onto the couch in Kate's living room, Darla's face loomed over him.

"I come bearing gifts," she said brightly. "Abigail is on her way, but she called and asked me to heat up this nice bowl of chicken soup for you. Doesn't it smell wonderful? Don't you think you could eat a little?"

"Thanks very much, Darla. Sure I'll do my best. Maybe you could leave the bowl on the counter down the hall. I'll tackle it after I've had a rest."

"I think you'd better eat while it's hot—no, don't get up. I can manage."

The tray was heavy looking and she was a tiny thing, but Darla maneuvered with little effort in setting it down on the table in front of him. She irritated the hell out of him but Conor had to admire her spunk, and her manic, wiry strength. He obliged her by slurping up a few spoonfuls of the soup while she moved to the picture window, still chattering.

“What a beautiful day after so much miserable weather! Perfect for a drive to Mt. Washington. I think Kate's family will be so happy to see her. She didn't go last year you know, but they weren't going to let her get away with it this time. Seemed like every time I picked up the phone this week another one was checking in to make sure she was coming. I told Kate she might want to get a second phone for the front desk. Not that I mind answering a few personal calls—no, no, I don't at all. But it would be easier not to run into her office all the time, and then when a guest needs to use the phone—they can never get their cell phones to work here—I have to send them in and hope they don't run up the long-distance bill. Some of them take their sweet time, too . . .”

Conor abandoned the soup and sat watching her blather on, trying to identify which avian species she most resembled. Nut hatch? Shrike? He sank back into the cushions and closed his eyes, not caring anymore how long she might stand there, talking.

S
OMEONE
IS
LISTENING
.
 

It was like the air speaking into his face, riffling his hair, covering his hot skin with a puff of coolness.

Wake up, love. Someone is there. Someone is listening.

Not a puff now but a gust—a short, sharp hurricane piped directly into his ear, raising a line of gooseflesh up his back.

Wake up, Conor.

"I'm awake, Ma."

And he was. Completely awake. Wide awake. Conor remained still, his ear tuned to an interior conversation for about ten seconds before he leaped up, nearly falling over the coffee table where the bowl of soup sat, cold and gelatinous. He raced from the room, taking the stairs two at a time down to the lobby. When he exploded from the staircase next to the front desk, his face shining with sweat, Darla received him with a jittery scream.

"Who's been using the phone?" She stared at him, speechless for once in her life, and he slammed his palm against the countertop with a crack like a gunshot. "The bloody phone, Darla. You were talking about the phone in Kate's office. Which guests have been using—oh fuck it."

He came around the desk and flew past her into the office, pulling the phone line from the wall and grabbing the cordless handset from its base. Darla found her voice again, shrieking as Conor ransacked the drawers. He pulled out a letter opener and went to work on the phone, and heard Abigail's voice at the front desk.

"What the hell is going on out here?"

"I have no idea!" Darla wailed. "He's delirious! He looked ready to murder me!"

The letter opener merely bent in his hands. He threw it to the floor and picked up the granite paperweight near Kate's computer, bringing it down on the phone with a crash. He pulled the half-shattered remains apart and the electronic bug fell out into his hand.
 

"Jesus help me." Staring at it, Conor dropped heavily into the chair. "And we thought nothing was going on."

With his elbows on the desk he rested his hands over his eyes, and when he removed them his face was flat and composed. He got up and walked to the doorway where the two women stood staring in at him.

"Darla, I apologize for frightening you," he said evenly. "Abigail, I need a favor. I'll meet you in the parking lot."

Head twitching, Darla appeared ready to pose a shower of questions and Abigail seemed as though she wanted to speak as well, but Conor closed the door on both of them. He went to the breakfront behind the desk and unlocked the combination safe inside. The small leather bag seemed to wriggle in his hands as he removed it, the innards shifting and sliding against each other. He swept the wreckage of the phone into a drawer and opened the bag, spilling the contents onto the desk. A Sig-Sauer this time, he observed grimly. He pulled up his shirt to mop his face then briskly assembled the pistol, sliding the magazine into place with a click both familiar and repellant.

He found Abigail outside leaning against the truck, arms folded, wearing a battlefield expression that prompted him to come to the point without mincing words. "The phone's been tapped. For all I know the whole house is bugged and the cars as well."

Abigail popped away from the truck as though it had burned her. "Son of a bitch. How did you know?"

"A sudden intuition," Conor said.

"Who did it? And when?" she demanded.

"I don't know, and I don't have time to speculate." He swiped again at the perspiration beading on his forehead. "The point is, Durgan's people have been here already, and since they chose not to carry me off with them they're playing a trickier game than I figured. Do you have a mobile phone?"

Abigail shook her head. "They usually don't work up here, anyway."

“I need you to get to a phone somewhere off the property and try calling Kate to tell her I'm on the way."

"You think Kate's in danger?"

He nodded, rigid with the effort of standing still while every muscle in his body screamed for movement. Conor wished his mother's ethereal voice had blown something more helpfully specific into his ear but it hadn't, so he was operating on little more than inherited prescience, which was telegraphing a simple, repeating signal that Kate was in terrible danger.

"Tell her to stay where she is and to stay in a group, or at least in public. She shouldn't go anywhere alone, even to her room." He took out his wallet and removed Frank's ivory-colored calling card. "After that I need you to call the number on the back of this card. They'll ask for a password—it's Kreisler."

"Chrysler," Abigail repeated. "Like the car?"

"No, like the violinist, Fritz Kreisler." Conor rocked on his heels restlessly. "Listen, doesn't matter. Recite the bloody thing for whoever answers. They'll connect you to the agent I told you about—Frank Murdoch. No details. Tell him you're calling for me and I want to know what time his friend will arrive. That's the signal to get someone up here. He'll send an MI6 general staff officer from the embassy in New York, but this is a London number so you have to—"

"I know how to dial a London number. I'll call from home." Abigail snapped the card out of his hand. "Now, do
you
know how to get to the hotel?"

"Bretton Woods. I've a map in the truck, I'll figure it out."

"You look ready to pass out."

"I'm okay."

"You'd better be. I love you honey, but if anything happens to Kate I'll kick you until you're dead."

Her threat, delivered while throwing her arms around him, had little credibility. Conor returned the embrace before stepping away.

"Abigail, if anything happens to Kate I'll be begging you to."

B
RETTON
W
OODS
WASN
'
T
as far away as he'd feared and Conor made good time, especially after hitting the interstate in St. Johnsbury, a scenic but not heavily traveled section of highway. For long stretches his was the only vehicle in sight and he pushed the battered farm truck to its limit, cursing it for not being a Mustang. In a little over an hour he'd exited onto Route 302 and was sweeping through the White Mountains, only dimly aware that the landscape around him was magnificent.

He passed the sign welcoming him to Bretton Woods and began scanning the road on either side, anxious not to miss any clues as to the direction of the hotel. He needn't have worried. As he came around a tree-lined curve the resort abruptly materialized in the distance on his left, looking like a massive cruise ship on dry land—white-faced, red-roofed, flags flying.

Conor slammed on the brakes to make the turn onto the entrance road, and after leaving the truck in the parking lot he paused on the sloping driveway to take stock of his appearance. Not great. To hide the gun riding in a holster against his back, he'd layered a black-and-gold checked flannel shirt over a blue t-shirt. Both articles carried their share of mysterious stains, and his jeans were a long way from clean. He returned to the truck for the black duck jacket he'd left on the seat. It made him too warm but looked better than anything else he was wearing.

Walking onto the massive veranda and through the door of the Mt. Washington Hotel was like stepping onto the creaking floorboards of an earlier era. The cavernous lobby was typical for the grand hotels of the Gilded Age. It was an unusual combination of elegance and mountain rusticity—from the central chandelier and rows of stately columns to the rugged stone fireplace with its moose-head trophy. The space was generously furnished with deep sofas and wingback chairs, and in one of them near the fireplace Kate was sitting with her face to the entrance.