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She climbed the stairs and turned down the hall. At the apartment she stopped. The door hung half open, the jamb splintered.
She heard movement inside.
A burglar?
Impossible.
She shoved the door all the way open.
And saw Danny Daniels.
“What in God’s name are you doing here?” she asked, still standing outside. “Did you break in?”
He shook his head. “That’s the way I found it. Someone else did, though.”
Her gaze darted around the room but immediately settled on the desk. Her iPad was still there, but not the key.
“Come back to steal more from me?”
“I see you figured out who has your brother’s notebook.”
“I’m calling the police,” she said.
“That’s a good idea. I think it’s time they got involved.”
He stood across the room, dressed in a suit and tie, tall and smug, staring her down.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The Knights of the Golden Circle.”
She stepped past the broken door into the apartment, ignoring his attempt to rattle her. “Why did you take that notebook?”
“To finish what Alex started.”
“He talked to you?”
“I know exactly what you, Vance, and your brother are planning.”
Rage rose inside her. Her husband was dead, yet here was another man, one she’d resented for a long time, trying to keep her down. “What we’re doing is perfectly legal.”
“But murder isn’t.”
Was he bluffing? Hard to tell. “What are you insinuating?”
He did not answer her.
“I asked you a question. Answer me, dammit.” Now she was yelling.
“You should be concerned,” he said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it’s not. But whatever the person who broke in here took should concern you.”
“And how did you just happen to be around?”
“The guy who broke in here killed a man last night. He may also have shot a federal agent. I want him. He has a port wine stain on his neck and used to have brown curly hair. Now it’s cut short.”
What had Grant said?
“I need a haircut.”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Really? Because the guy you sent in here a few days ago to take that notebook and Alex’s books, which I saw in your study, had brown curly hair and a port wine stain.”
How in the world did he know any of that?
Her rage boiled over. “Get out. Get out. Now.”
She had to be careful. Her anger and the despairing rhetoric was betraying a grinding anxiety.
One she did not want him to see.
“That necklace I returned to you is the symbol for the Knights of the Golden Circle,” he said. “You have one, by your own admission. Alex threw his away. He rejected what you, your brother, and Vance are planning. And now he’s dead. What an incredible coincidence.”
“You’re a pompous, arrogant ass. That’s what you’ve always been. Finally Pauline saw you for what you are and got out. Good for her. Too bad your daughter never got that chance.”
* * *
Danny’s eyes flashed hot. She’d crossed the line. But he’d pushed her hard, hoping for an admission. Instead she’d gone on the offensive, hitting him at the one spot where he remained vulnerable. Yet he’d be damned if he was going to allow her to use his dead daughter as a weapon.
“Mary, God rest her soul, is gone because of my carelessness. That’s a fact. And the pain will never leave me. You, on the other hand, seem to have no pain at the loss of your husband. I watched you at the funeral. Yes, you played the part of the grieving widow. But then it all seemed forgotten later, out on the deck, with Lucius Vance.”
He watched her as carefully as he had Vance, noting she was not near as good as he was at concealing surprise.
“I saw the kiss. I heard what you said to each other. You’re a cheating, lying adulteress. And I suspect a murderess, too. I can’t prove it. Not yet. But I will. You can count on it.”
He headed for the door.
“I have only two words left for you,” she muttered.
Which he could easily imagine. But she needed to understand the severity of the situation. So he turned to face her and pointed an accusing finger. “A woman I care deeply about is fighting for her life in a hospital, thanks to your partner, whoever he is. I’ll get him, along with you.”
He left.
Outside, in the hall, he caught the cracked-open door across the hall and saw Taisley’s face. Surely she’d heard everything that had been said thanks to the busted door. It had been her, on the phone, who’d told him about the killer’s changed appearance. Their eyes met, and he shook his head, motioning for her to go back inside and close the door.
As yet, she hadn’t become a part of this.
And he intended on keeping it that way.
* * *
He descended the stairs and exited the building. He should head back to the hospital and be with Stephanie. The Magellan Billet agent on guard had called earlier and said there’d been no change. She was still in a coma. The doctors were allowing her to rest, which they said was the best medicine at the moment. The surgery seemed to have been successful. No more bleeding or trauma.
All of which sounded good.
But she was still listed as critical.
He needed a cab, but realized one would not be found on this quiet side street, so he turned and walked down the sidewalk toward the far corner and a busier boulevard. He heard the thrum of an approaching vehicle from behind him and, ever alert, caught its profile out of the corner of his eye. A change in the engine’s throaty pitch signaled that the vehicle was slowing.
Then it stopped.
As did he, turning to see a black sedan, not unlike a thousand others that roamed the DC streets. The rear door opened and Congressman Paul Frizzell stepped out.
“Someone would like to talk with you,” his old friend said, the eyes holding neither welcome nor hostility.
“Do I want to talk to them?”
Paul nodded. “I think you should.”
Icy fingers of apprehension clutched his gut. “There’s more to this than you told me, isn’t there?”
“A lot more, Danny.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Cotton and Rick Stamm climbed steps to the front porch of Frank Breckinridge’s house. Evening had passed into night, the time nearly 8:00. No lights burned inside, the front door still swung open. He knocked on the jamb and stared past the screen into the foyer. Last time it had taken several tries before the old man had responded.
So he knocked again.
Still nothing.
“Mr. Breckinridge,” he called out. “It’s Captain Adams. From earlier.”
Stil
l no reply.
So he opened the door.
“Is that wise?” Stamm asked.
“In my line of work it’s vital.”
They stepped inside.
Everything was quiet, like a church on Monday.
“Let’s make a quick search to see if the old man is here,” he said.
And they did, finding nothing except a house in good order.
“Maybe he went to see a neighbor?” Stamm said.
But something wasn’t right about any of this. He still had doubts about whether he’d been played during his first visit. Now an empty house with the front and back doors wide open? Had the old man wandered away? Or did someone with dementia really live here?
He started to pay closer attention to things he’d overlooked during his first visit. The threadbare carpet, scarred wall desk, worn sofa, sagging armchairs. And the decorations. Some porcelain. Lamps. Vases. A mirror. Nothing, though, that stood out. One noteworthy point was the absence of technology, except for a flat-screen television. Framed prints adorned the faded wallpaper. Not many. All historical. Battle scenes. Yellowed and old.
He surveyed them.
One was of Fredericksburg, 1862, the South’s most lopsided win. Union losses were two-to-one versus Confederate. Another showed the Battle of Chickamauga, which stopped the 1863 Federal advance into Tennessee. A maritime print depicted nine Union ironclads being repelled during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor. One more illustrated the end of the Housatonic, when the Confederate Hunley became the first submarine to ever sink a ship in combat.
It was like the South’s greatest hits.
And where before the rooms seemed sterile, now they began to fill with the presence of Breckinridge’s passion.
“Cotton.”
Stamm stood in the dining room, pointing at another frame.
He stepped over.
“He got this the day he retired.”
The certificate, embossed and headlined with SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, thanked Breckinridge for thirty-six years of service and awarded him the Legion of Merit, signed by Robert Adams, as secretary, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist, chancellor. Dated October 6, 1992. Two color photographs were also matted inside the frame. One showed Breckenridge shaking hands with Rehnquist, a woman standing beside him whom Cotton assumed was Mrs. Breckinridge. The other was a family picture in front of Joseph Henry’s statue that stood outside the Castle. Breckinridge, the same woman, and a young boy, maybe eleven or twelve.
