The Innocents Club. Taylor Smith

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      Chapter Five

      Mariah had her hotel-room key card in one hand and the other on the door handle, ready to leave. She was wearing her serviceable, goes-anywhere-but-a-gala-opening black Donna Karan suit. Her plan was to run over to the Arlen Hunter Museum, get the lay of the land and meet with the rest of the security contingent for the Romanov opening, chase back, change into the Chinese-mandarin silk number, then return in time for the 6:00 p.m. ribbon-cutting and reception.

      But she hesitated at the door, her conversation with Chap Korman spinning through her mind. The bizarre allegation that her father had been murdered was patent, provable nonsense. But what about the claim that the manuscript she’d found had been stolen?

      From whom? And why would Ben steal someone else’s work? Writer’s block? Not likely. In the nine short years before his death at the age of twenty-eight, her father had produced five novels, dozens of short stories and countless poems, not to mention several volumes of personal journals. You couldn’t have shut the man up if you’d tried.

      So why was this Professor Urquhart claiming the manuscript she’d found in the storage locker, the one Ben had titled Man in the Middle, was stolen? And, more to the point, Mariah thought, why did she know that it couldn’t be?

      Something niggled at the back of her brain, telling her the manuscript had to be Ben’s work. She just couldn’t think what it was. The harder she tried to zero in on it, the more elusive it became, like trying to pick up mercury.

      This was ridiculous. She had no time for this nonsense. God knew she had more pressing problems to think about. A teenage daughter on the verge of rebellion. This awkward role she’d been cast in, playing temptress to lure a possible double agent. The prospect of meeting her father’s former lover.

      Just the same, Urquhart’s claims would drive her crazy until she knew the basis for them.

      She did a quick mental calculation, cutting her afternoon turnaround times even tighter. Spinning on her heel, she rushed back into the room, tossed her purse and key card on the bed, then rummaged in drawers and closets until she found a Los Angeles telephone book. After a quick call to Courier Express, she pulled out her personal address book, picked up the phone and dialed out again.

      It took three tries before she located someone at Langley who could tell her where Frank Tucker was hanging his hat these days. Every time she looked, he seemed to have retreated farther and farther away from the mainstream of agency operations. She was relieved to finally hear his gruff voice pick up.

      “Tucker.”

      “Frank! You’re there! I thought I was going to have to send out a search party.”

      “Mariah? Where are you? Lindsay said you’d gone to L.A.”

      “I did. I am—there, I mean. That’s where I am. In Los Angeles.” She paused to quell the fluster that had suddenly turned her into a stammering fool, then started again. “You’ve been talking to Lindsay?”

      “A little while ago. I called to let Carol know I was back.”

      “Back from where?”

      “I was away for a couple of days.”

      A non-answer if ever she’d heard one. It was like pulling teeth, talking to him sometimes. “You’ve changed offices again. What’s going on?”

      “They needed my cubbyhole upstairs for some summer intern, so they gave me a broom closet down in the basement.”

      “The basement? Good Lord! Why do you let them do that to you? With your service—”

      “I’ve got no complaints. Suits me fine.”

      Mariah slumped down onto a chair and leaned forward, elbow on the round glass table next to the bed, forehead in the palm of her hand. “Frank,” she said wearily, “it’s time.”

      “Time for what?”

      “To come out from that rock you’ve been hiding under.”

      He said nothing for a moment, and she sensed she’d crossed an invisible line. She had known this man for eighteen years, ever since he’d first recruited her. There was no question they were bound to one another by something beyond mentoring, beyond professionalism, beyond friendship. They’d been through good times together, and sad. She’d known his wife; he’d known her husband. Once, she might have been able to talk to Frank about anything. Now, there was that invisible line.

      Beyond this point there be dragons.

      When he finally did respond, it was only to change the subject. “What’s this about you covering the Zakharov visit? How did you get dragged into that?”

      “Oh, no you don’t,” she said. Why should he always get to define the placement of the line? “You first. This trip of yours—where did you go?”

      “That’s a long story.”

      “I see. Holding out on me? You didn’t happen to go to Florida by any chance, did you?” she asked playfully, trying to draw him out of the tight, defensive corner in which he seemed to live full-time these days.

      “No,” he said curtly.

      Oops. She’d hit a nerve. Not surprising. Patty Bonelli had been at his side a long time, after all, and without her now, he seemed totally adrift, his last tether cut. It wasn’t right or fair. He was solid, hardworking, capable. A good man, who looked as though he could carry the weight of the world on those broad shoulders of his—and had, professionally and personally, for years and without complaint. She was one of the few who knew the full price Frank had paid for that blind, stoic fidelity. Now he seemed to have closed himself off completely, to her, and maybe to everyone else, too.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

      The line fell silent, but when Frank spoke again, she was relieved to hear a little of her old friend in his voice. “It’s okay. The trip was business. That other, with Patty—it’s just not happening, that’s all.”

      “Have you spoken to her lately?”

      “A couple of weeks ago. She called to say hi.”

      “How’s she doing?”

      “Seems happy enough down there. Got a cocker spaniel, apparently.”

      Poor Frank, Mariah thought. Replaced by a dog.

      “Now tell me,” he said, “what are you doing out there? I thought you and Lindsay were supposed to be on vacation.”

      “Day after tomorrow.”

      “Uh-huh. And explain to me why you, of all people, got dragged into covering the Zakharov visit?”