A Proposal for Christmas: State Secrets / The Five Days Of Christmas. Lindsay McKenna

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СКАЧАТЬ one in the morning on the East Coast and Walt’s voice was a groggy rumble. “Who the—”

      “Goddard,” David said crisply, grinning. “I said I’d report Monday. This is my report.”

      Zigman swore fiercely. “Goddard, did anybody ever tell you that you’re a son of a—”

      “I met her.”

      “Holly Llewellyn?” Walt’s interest was immediate. Clearly, he was now wide-awake. “How did you manage that so fast?”

      “Simple. I bought yesterday’s paper and read the food section. There was a write-up about her new class.”

      “Her new class in what?”

      David closed his eyes. There was no way out of this one. “Fruitcake,” he answered reluctantly.

      Zigman laughed. “Fitting,” came his rapid-fire reply, just as David had expected.

      “You’re getting corny in your old age, Walt.”

      “Did you find out anything?”

      David unzipped his jacket and flung it down on the couch. It covered the toys and the model airplane in its colorful box—he’d be up half the night assembling that sucker. “Sure,” he snapped. “She fed me grapes and poured out the whole sordid story of her life in the underworld.”

      “Don’t be a smart—”

      “I met her. That’s all. But I can tell you this much, Walt—she’s no traitor. I’m wasting my time here.”

      “You’re getting paid for it. Keep your eye on the ball, Goddard. When it’s time for you to come back to D.C. and follow the new first lady around, I’ll let you know.”

      This time it was David who swore. “Tell me, Walt,” he began dryly, “does she have a dog?”

      “Three of them,” said Walt with obnoxious satisfaction. “By the time the new first family takes up residence, you’ll be back on good old Pennsylvania Avenue, passing out poochie treats.”

      “You’re funny as hell, you know that? In fact, why don’t you take your goddamned job and—”

      “Goddard, Goddard,” Walt reprimanded in his favorite fatherly tone. “Calm down, I was just kidding you, that’s all. You’re a damned good agent.”

      Agent. If he hadn’t felt like screaming swearwords, David would have laughed. “I didn’t work my way through law school so that I could walk dogs, Walt.”

      “You really are unhappy, aren’t you?”

      “In a word, yes.”

      “We’ve been through this before.”

      “Yeah. Good night, Walt.”

      “Goddard!”

      David hung up.

      After a few minutes he hoisted himself up off the foldout couch, dug the stuffed animals out from under his coat and set them on the scarred counter that separated his living room–bedroom from the cubicle the landlady called a kitchen.

      Thinking of his nieces and how they were going to enjoy the Webkinz, he began to feel better.

      Presently, David took a TV dinner out of the tiny freezer above his refrigerator and shoved it into the doll-sized oven. While it was cooking, he stripped off his clothes, went into the bathroom and wedged himself into a shower designed for a midget. After drying off with one of the three scratchy towels the landlady had seen fit to lend him, he went back to the living room and dug his robe out of a suitcase. Someday, he promised himself, he was going to write a book about the glamorous life of a Secret Service agent.

      After consuming the TV dinner, he set about putting the model airplane together. It was after midnight when he finally gave up, washed the glue from his fingers, folded out the sofa bed and collapsed, falling into an instant sleep.

      3

      It was very bad luck that, after a quick visit to her bank that bleak Tuesday morning, Holly encountered David in the neighborhood branch of the post office. Or was it luck?

      Holly looked at the carefully wrapped parcel in his arms and decided he was only mailing the Webkinz he’d bought the night before to his nieces. No doubt he lived nearby and it made sense that he would be here.

      “Don’t you have classes today?” she asked as they waited in line, stiff pleasantries already exchanged.

      David smiled wanly. “One o’clock,” he answered. He hadn’t looked at the address on the envelope Holly carried, as far as she could tell, but she held it against her coat all the same.

      Soon enough, it was Holly’s turn at the window; she laid the envelope addressed to Craig’s go-between girlfriend on the counter and asked that it be registered. While she filled out the form and paid the small fee, David had ample opportunity to study the address, but there was no helping that. She couldn’t very well turn around and say, “Please don’t look at this envelope. I’m sending money to my brother, who is a fugitive, you see, and there is a chance that you might be a reporter or even an FBI agent.” So she said nothing.

      “See you tonight?” David asked in a deep quiet voice as she turned away from the window to leave.

      Holly hadn’t even thought about the classes; she’d been too intent on getting that cashier’s check sent off to Craig. “Tonight,” she confirmed, but her mind was on the letter she had just mailed. It would reach its destination, Los Angeles, within a day or so. Had she done the wrong thing by making it easier for Craig to keep on running? She knew she had.

      She would have left then, but David caught her arm in one hand and stayed her. “Are you all right?” he asked, ignoring the impatient post-office clerk, who was waiting to weigh and stamp the package he still held.

      Holly nodded quickly and then fled. In her car, she let her forehead rest against the steering wheel for a moment before starting the engine and driving away. As she pulled into a supermarket parking lot a few minutes later, she was still trembling. She loved Craig; he was her brother. But she almost wished the FBI would catch him. That way there wouldn’t be any more lying, any more hiding, any more guilt.

      She got out of the car, locking it behind her, and went into the supermarket. Think about the couscous you’ve got to test today, she told herself. Think about the spices you’ll need. Don’t think about Craig and especially don’t think about David Goddard. It was a coincidence that he was in the post office just when you were. It was a coincidence!

      That seemed unlikely, but by the time she had chosen a cart and gotten out her shopping list, Holly had convinced herself that she was being fanciful again. Paranoid, like Craig.

      * * *

      He was wearing a navy blue football jersey with white numbers, jeans and polished leather boots. Holly, exhausted from a day of making couscous over and over again, gave herself a mental shake. What did she care what David Goddard wore, for heaven’s sake?

      Her beautiful СКАЧАТЬ