The Rapids. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ found a table in the shade at an uncrowded café near the market square. “Get two of whatever you’re ordering,” Maggie said. “I’m not picky. I don’t even know if I can eat.”

      Rob ordered two bowls of the soup of the day, which seemed to involve chicken, and coffee for himself, a Heineken for Maggie. He’d do the driving back to The Hague.

      Their waiter brought the drinks first. Maggie touched a finger to the foam of her beer. She’d had a miserable day, and she looked more shaken than she’d want to admit, worse now that she’d finished with the investigators and the questions—and now that whatever her mission at the cathedral had been was over.

      “The old guy looked like he planned to take you out with that walking stick,” Rob said.

      “For all I know, he thought it was tipped with ricin.”

      “Is that a joke?”

      She sighed. “An attempt at a joke.”

      Rob lifted his small coffee cup. “I’d say cheers, but it wouldn’t sound right today.”

      “I suppose not.” She picked up her beer, hesitating, as if pushing back an intrusive thought, before taking a sip. “It’s been a long week. Nothing about it’s been normal.”

      Including having him thrust upon her, Rob thought, drinking some of his coffee. It was very strong, but he figured a jolt of caffeine wouldn’t hurt. He was hot from chasing after Maggie, negotiating the narrow, unfamiliar city streets in the late August heat. “Your rendezvous with the old guy at St. John’s. That’s why we’re in Den Bosch today?”

      Maggie stared at the disappearing foam on her beer. “I shouldn’t drink—”

      “Go ahead. I’m sticking to coffee. I’ll drive.” He smiled, trying to take some of the edge off her mood and maybe his own. “It’s okay. I can handle a Mini.”

      She raised her eyes from her drink. “I know what it must have looked like back there. Just forget about it, okay?”

      “Not okay. The old guy’s an informant?”

      “A wanna-be, I think.”

      “Any relation to Kopac?”

      “I don’t know that much about him.”

      Rob sat back in his chair. “That’s an evasive answer.”

      “Maybe it’s a polite way to tell you—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. It’s been a lousy day for you, too.”

      But she obviously wanted to tell him what happened in St. John’s was none of his damned business. “Better to evade than to lie outright. Okay. I get that. You don’t know anything about me except that I’m a marshal, I was shot four months ago and my family knows the president.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

      “It’s not a question of trust.”

      Then what else was it? But he didn’t ask. “This guy’s contacted you before?”

      “First time.”

      “What’d he do, call, e-mail, send a carrier pigeon? Come on. Throw me a bone. Let me think you’re starting to trust me a little.”

      She didn’t smile. “He called.”

      “When?”

      “Yesterday.”

      “So, after I got here.”

      Their soup arrived in heavy bowls. Cream of chicken and fresh vegetables. It was steaming and substantial, which, despite the heat, Rob welcomed.

      Maggie shifted around in her chair. “I wouldn’t make too much of this. The timing’s bad, I know, but I’m not all that sure he’s playing with a full deck.” She picked up her beer with such force, some of it splashed out onto her hand. “It’s quiet, don’t you think? Especially for such a beautiful afternoon. People must be worried after this morning. I guess I don’t blame them.”

      “They’ll decide it’s an American thing and go on with their lives. In Central Park in the spring, people decided it was a marshals thing. It helped them get past the idea of a sniper on the loose. Someone wasn’t picking off people at random.”

      Maggie took a drink of her beer, then set down the glass and blew out a sigh. “Tom’s family must know by now what happened to him. It’s an awful experience to go through, having someone come to your house and tell you—well, you know what I mean.”

      “I called my sister from Central Park so she wouldn’t have to find out that way or, worse, see me on television.”

      “Did you know you were in bad shape?”

      “I don’t remember what I knew.”

      She looked away. “You didn’t need what happened today.”

      “Maggie, I didn’t come to the Netherlands to run away from anything. I can do my job.”

      “You’re not back on the street,” she said.

      “That’s not my decision to make. Look—”

      She faced him again, her creamy skin less pale. “You should be. You didn’t hesitate today. The shooter, Tom. You did fine.”

      He acknowledged her words with a nod. “I still want to know about this Scarlet Pimpernel character of yours.”

      This time, she smiled. “You marshals. Hound dogs on a scent.”

      Rob tried the soup, relished the normalcy of it. “Maybe I can help.”

      “That’s nice of you to offer, but there’s nothing for you to do.”

      Clever. It wasn’t as if he could order her to come clean. He could badger her for answers, but he’d already seen her help pull a dead man out of a river, deal with the Dutch police and a nervous embassy and chase a white-haired old man. She’d hold her own against anything he threw at her and tell him exactly what she wanted him to know and not one word more.

      This wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he’d told Mike Rivera he wanted to go to the Netherlands.

      “You saw the man with me at St. John’s. My wanna-be informant. Did he look mentally stable to you?”

      Rob shrugged. “Down on his luck, maybe. Lost his retirement, got a little daft. Could just be on a tight budget.”

      “I suppose.” She picked up her spoon, held it in midair and sighed. “I shouldn’t have wasted my time. I just ended up putting you on high alert, got you into tracking mode.”

      “Kopac’s murder did that.”

      Her eyes shone, but she covered her emotion by dipping her spoon into her soup.

      “This guy,” Rob said. “Does he have a name? Besides William the Conqueror.”

      “That СКАЧАТЬ