So many nights in faraway places, he had imagined himself as he was now, on the edge of the lake on a biting fall night. Sometimes Jo would be there with him. Not always, but when she was, he would see her clearly-the sharp angles of her face, the spray of freckles on her cheeks and nose, the spark of her eyes. He would hear her laugh and be soothed by her smile. He hadn’t considered it a vision or a fantasy. Just Jo being with him out here on the lake.
He’d often wondered if she ever thought about him and had hoped she didn’t.
He turned away from the lake. Jo’s cabin was dark now.
His father had only bought the lakefront property a few years ago, after finally wearing down old Pete Harper, the original owner, an eccentric ninety-year-old cousin of Jo’s grandfather, who had since died.
Elijah returned to his woodpile. He’d gone out to his father’s grave in his first days back home. Still recuperating in Germany, he’d missed the funeral. As he’d stared at the simple stone marker, he’d understood, at least in his own mind, that whatever had occurred on Cameron Mountain last April still required a reckoning. Answers. Justice, even.
He knew himself, and he wouldn’t stop until he had a clear picture of everything that had happened in Black Falls that spring.
His father would expect no less of him.
But Jo Harper was back in town, and as Elijah reached for another log, he debated which was the bigger problem-that she was as pretty as ever, or that she was a federal agent with a gun and the power of arrest.
Not that it mattered. Either way, Jo had never been one to break rules.
Except, of course, with him.
Three
Thomas Asher folded the Washington Post and set it to the side of his table with a chuckle of amusement after reading a rip-roaring, tongue-in-cheek op-ed on the Jo Harper incident. It focused on her and the vice president’s beloved, unruly family-the point being, how could anyone expect the Secret Service to keep track of such incorrigible rascals?
The furor over Jo’s encounter with Charlie Neal should have abated by now, but it went on because politicians and media hounds wanted it to.
And because there was that video, of course.
To Thomas-and to most people, he had no doubt-Jo came across as a competent professional who hadn’t lost control but had simply, finally, done what the vice president or his wife should have done a long time ago: take their one and only son by the ear and read him the riot act.
Thomas settled back in his upholstered chair. The restaurant was on the first floor of an elegant, historic hotel a few blocks from Lafayette Park and the White House. He’d walked from his office where he worked as a political scientist for a respected think tank. Alex Bruni had called late yesterday afternoon to ask Thomas to breakfast. Of course, Alex was late. It was an annoyance, but not a surprise.
Thomas thought about Jo again. He suspected she was finished in the Secret Service, if only because it prized anonymity and discretion and both had gotten away from her after Charlie Neal’s prank.
Unfair, perhaps, but he was secretly glad. She was capable of doing more with her life than working for the Secret Service. An elitist position on his part, he supposed, but an honest one. He’d met Jo in February on a long weekend in Vermont with his daughter. The trip was against his better judgment, but Nora, then a high-school senior, had pleaded with him to go. He was still licking his wounds after his wife-his ex-wife-had married Alex, one of Thomas’s closest friends, and Nora was desperate to find a way for them to make peace with each other. She’d wanted beautiful Black Falls, Vermont, to be their common ground. It wasn’t that simple, of course, but Thomas would do anything for his daughter. They’d gone snowshoeing in an apple orchard one morning, and he’d spotted an attractive woman battling her way up an icy, treacherous incline-Jo Harper, as it turned out. He remembered his surprise at discovering she was not only a Black Falls native but a federal agent with an impeccable reputation.
When he returned to Washington, he’d debated asking Jo out, but she hadn’t shown an interest in a romantic relationship. In the end, he hadn’t risked more rejection.
Now he realized his hesitation had worked in his favor. In April, when he’d gone back to Black Falls with his daughter, a lovely woman had asked to share his table at a bustling, popular village café. She’d introduced herself as Melanie Kendall and said she was taking a few days to get away from New York and her work as a self-employed interior decorator.
Thomas’s life hadn’t been the same since. With Melanie, he finally understood how dull and routine his first marriage had become. He wouldn’t have ended it if Carolyn hadn’t made the first move, but now, in retrospect, he could see how tedious their relationship must have become for her, too.
His waiter had left him a heavy silver pot of strong coffee and a small, chilled silver pitcher of cream-Thomas knew he should request low-fat milk, but he didn’t. Go with the real stuff. He was, after all, meeting the man who’d stolen Carolyn from him, and passing on cream in his coffee struck him as something that Alex would seize upon as a sign of weakness.
When he’d called yesterday Alex claimed he wanted to discuss Nora, but Thomas couldn’t imagine that Alex really cared that she’d dropped out of Dartmouth and moved to Black Falls to work in a café. The same café, in fact, where Thomas had met Melanie seven months ago.
He suspected Alex’s motives for inviting him to breakfast weren’t that simple-nothing with Alex ever was.
And everything, Thomas thought with a fresh surge of annoyance, was always on Alex’s terms. When to meet. Where. What they’d discuss. But not only would Thomas do anything for his daughter, he also had to admit he was curious about what else was on Alex’s mind-something, certainly. He had called instead of e-mailed and insisted on speaking directly to Thomas, refusing to leave a message with his secretary.
“We need to talk about Nora and Vermont,” Alex had said. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain when I see you.”
Alex had obviously assumed Thomas would drop everything and show up, which was exactly what he’d done. He’d also kept their meeting to himself, not out of paranoia, he told himself, but habit and discretion.
And because it was Alex. He had recently ended a stint as the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Speculation about what he’d do next was rampant. Persistent rumors put him in consideration for a very high-level appointment, possibly even Secretary of State. Washington thrived on gossip and scandal, turning the innocent into the sensational. Alex Bruni was born knowing how to play such games; Thomas had never quite learned.
He opened up another section of the Post, flipped through it, studied the ads, read the commentaries and drank his coffee.
Ten minutes ticked by. Where the hell was Alex?
Thomas glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes late. Any lingering amusement over the op-ed on Jo faded. Although he’d cleared his calendar for the entire morning, he was a busy man-as busy in his own way as Alex. But Thomas knew better than to compare himself to Alex, a lesson learned twenty years ago when he and his ambitious, overachieving friend were law students at Yale-long before Alex had taken up with his best friend’s wife.
In spite of that blinding act of betrayal, Thomas couldn’t hate Alex, and there was no gain to such negativity and strong emotion, anyway. Alexander Bruni was a respected diplomat on everyone in Washington ’s short list of “good people to know.”
And if his longtime friend had any fresh insights into what to do about Nora and her behavior, Thomas was willing to listen. He was convinced the combination of the early northern New England winter and limited funds would nip her sense of romance and adventure about life in Vermont in the bud. Alex and her mother had decided to help Nora out with cash and a car, a source of friction, but Thomas doubted it was what had prompted Alex to arrange this meeting. At least Carolyn, an expert on emerging markets, was in Hong Kong at a conference and wouldn’t be there.