The Rapids. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ as an unlikely place for the leader of an international criminal network to turn up. It’s possible he—”

      She stopped. Who was that? A man in front of a café just down the street…balding, rumpled.

      Tom Kopac?

      Rob was instantly alert. “What is it?”

      “I think I recognize someone. Hold on.”

      Maggie started toward the café, but Tom had disappeared. She pushed past the outdoor tables, where a few tourists were enjoying coffee, and checked inside, her eyes quickly adjusting after being in the bright sun.

      Nothing.

      Had she mistaken someone else for Tom?

      No. She was positive it’d been him.

      He must have continued past the café or cut down another street.

      She headed back outside and scanned the scene.

      Rob stood behind her. “What’s going on?”

      “A colleague at the embassy is here. Maybe he’s like us, just checking out where Janssen was picked up.”

      “Did he work the case?”

      She shook her head. “No. But he’s a good guy. A friend.”

      “What’s his name?”

      “Kopac. Tom Kopac. He works in economic relations.”

      Rob frowned at her. “He came by my hotel last night.”

      “Tom did? Why?”

      “Checking me out. Are you two—”

      “No.”

      She thought she detected a flicker of amusement at her forceful answer. “You DS agents are the expert drivers. Could he have followed us out here?”

      “It’s not like I’m on a secret mission or driving around the secretary of state. I wasn’t paying that close attention, but I doubt—” She realized she sounded very serious and deliberately lightened up. “I’m sure he didn’t follow us.”

      “Did he see you just now?”

      “You mean, was he running away from me? I don’t know.”

      At the same time, they noticed a change in the crowd at the entrance to the boat tour. A sudden tension, gasps.

      Screams.

      Maggie and Rob charged back down the street, heading for a half-dozen people who were standing at the open fence, pointing into the water. A woman was screaming.

      “Een man…”

      A man.

      Maggie picked out another word. Gevallen… Fallen. Fell.

      “A man’s fallen into the river,” Rob said tightly.

      There were more screams, excited words in Dutch that all ran together to Maggie’s untrained ear.

      Rob obviously spoke enough languages that he was able to make out the basics. “They think he’s dead.”

      “Not Tom—”

      She didn’t know why she said his name.

      When they got to the fence and looked down at the river, they could see the body of a man floating facedown in the shallow water, drifting downstream.

      The balding head, the stocky build, the rumpled clothes.

      “Hell,” Rob breathed. “It’s him. Kopac.”

      Maggie turned away and took in a breath, pushing back a rush of emotion, then forced herself to look again at Tom’s body.

      Blood.

      His head…

      The images she was seeing came together, registered. He’d been shot at the base of his neck, the bullet going upward into his brain.

      Tom. My God.

      There was almost no hope he was alive.

      Rob pounded down the stairs to the waterway, and Maggie jumped after him, a man yelling to them in Dutch. From the tone of his voice, she knew he was worried about them.

      She understood his fear. “A shooter. Rob, if there’s a shooter—”

      But another look at Tom confirmed, at least in Maggie’s mind, it hadn’t been a sniper attack. There was no one hiding on a rooftop—or in the bushes, as the gunman who’d shot Rob had done in Central Park four months ago.

      From what she could see, Tom had been shot up close and personal. She felt a sense of revulsion, anger and grief, even as she forced herself to pull back from her emotions and focus on the problem at hand.

      Rob pushed out to the edge of the dock. “Someone will have called the police by now.”

      As he spoke, Maggie heard sirens. Neither she nor Rob had authority as law enforcement officers in the Netherlands. Given the circumstances, they weren’t even armed.

      But they had to make sure there was nothing they could do for Tom.

      Rob knelt down and grabbed Tom’s arm. His body was snagged on a support post, and Maggie helped, taking hold of Tom’s belt. His skin was warm, water pouring off his clothes as they managed to get him up onto the platform.

      He was dead. He’d probably died instantly.

      “I just saw him,” Maggie said. “It wasn’t, what, even five minutes ago? The killer can’t have gotten far. Someone must have seen something, someone—”

      Rob glanced up at the frightened and horrified people along the fence. “At least we know one of us didn’t kill him.”

      Maggie nodded. At least they knew that much, if not a damn thing else. Like why Tom was here. If he’d spotted her, heard her. If he’d taken off because he didn’t want to talk to her.

      If he’d known his killer.

      And if his killer had anything to do with the American fugitive who’d been picked up in Den Bosch two days ago.

      “Come on,” Rob said. “The Den Bosch police are going to want to talk to us.”

      A dead American in their small city?

      The local police most certainly would want to talk to the two U.S. federal agents who’d pulled him out of the river.

      “He was the kind of guy who got homesick for Krispy Kreme doughnuts,” Maggie said, realizing her front was soaked with river water.

      “A nice guy,” Rob said.

      “A СКАЧАТЬ