Sudden Insight. Rebecca York

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СКАЧАТЬ further,” she said reassuringly. Unless, of course, this woman wanted to tell her about a crime.

      Ms. Morgan leaned forward and looked toward the door between the reading room and the shop.

      “But anyone could wander in off the street and overhear us. Please make an exception for me tomorrow night.” She paused, apparently considering her next words carefully. “It could be significant for you.”

      “A business contact?”

      “I’m not going to talk about it here. Just give me the benefit of the doubt.”

      Rachel nodded. This woman obviously had something important to say. She didn’t want to say it in public, but she was holding her breath, waiting for Rachel’s answer.

      “All right,” she agreed, wondering what she was getting into. Because she had the sudden conviction that Ms. Morgan was telling the truth about the information being important to Rachel. Or at least that was part of the truth. The rest of it she was struggling to keep to herself.

      They made an appointment for eight at the Bourbon Street Arms.

      Ms. Morgan stood and took a few steps, and Rachel noticed what she’d seen when the woman had first entered—that she walked with a slight limp.

      A sudden image flashed into Rachel’s mind of a much younger Evelyn Morgan leaping off a bridge just before it exploded. And shattering her leg as she landed.

      DRESSED IN A BLACK POLO shirt and faded jeans, Jake Harper was sipping a mug of strong, chicory-laced New Orleans coffee as he looked over the receipts from Le Beau, a restaurant he owned in the French Quarter. It wasn’t his biggest business interest in the city, not by a long shot, but he liked working in the office at the back of the restaurant because the chef served him his favorites, like crawfish étouffée and oysters bienville for lunch.

      Acquired tastes for a kid who’d run away from a dysfunctional foster home at the age of fifteen. In the seventeen years since, he’d carved out a niche for himself in the city’s business community. Starting at the bottom, scrounging junk from back alleys and selling it to antique shops and dealers with tables outside the French Market. With his initial earnings, he’d graduated to garage-sale purchases and then estate sales. He’d bought his first antique/junk shop five years later—the same year he’d gotten his GED.

      He might lead a comfortable life now, but the early experiences on the streets had made him tough and cautious. And always prepared for violence. In his experience, a situation could spin out of control with very little provocation.

      He looked up as Salvio, the headwaiter, knocked on the door.

      “Yes?”

      “A lady wants to speak to you.”

      “About what?”

      “Says it’s personal.”

      “Young or old?”

      The guy grinned. “Past her prime but keeping up appearances.”

      Well, it probably wasn’t some chick trying to claim he was the father of her child. Not that he was ever careless about sex. He knew it could get someone into trouble faster than anything else.

      Jake leaned back in his seat, wondering what the woman wanted. Maybe a donation for one of the charities he gave to on a regular basis? He’d slept in some of the city’s shelters after he’d left his foster family, and he knew what it was like to live from hand to mouth, which was why he regularly gave back to the community.

      The woman who walked in had a slight limp. She appeared to be in her mid- to late-sixties with dyed brown hair and a fully made-up face. She was nicely dressed in a summer-weight black suit and low heels.

      She gave him a long look, as though she had been studying him and was interested to find out what he was like in person.

      “Thank you for seeing me. I’m Evelyn Morgan.” Her accent told him she was from somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region. Obviously not from a local charity, unless she’d just moved to the city and thrown herself into community activities.

      He stood and shook hands. “What can I do for you?”

      She half turned and glanced over her shoulder. “I’d rather not talk about it here.”

      “Uh-huh.” He waited for more information.

      “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

      “Who?”

      “It has to do with your … past, but I don’t want to say any more.”

      He tipped his head to the side, studying her. “That sounds mysterious.”

      “I don’t mean to be. Could you come to my hotel room tomorrow night at eight?”

      He might have declined, but something about the way she lowered her voice made him hesitate. That and the sense of urgency she gave off. He was good at picking up vibrations from people—favorable and unfavorable. That was one of the reasons he’d been so good at climbing the success ladder. He usually knew when to trust someone and when to run as fast as he could in the other direction.

      This time, he wasn’t quite sure.

      “You’re not going to give me a clue?” he asked, calling on the charm that was part of his persona. When in doubt, sweeten them up with a little honey.

      “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it here. But it’s something you’ll want to know.” She said the last part with conviction, then gave him the name of her hotel and her room number, before exiting as quickly as she had come, making him wonder what was really going on.

      He waited a beat, then walked through the restaurant to the front door, staying in the shadows under the wrought-iron balcony above. She was about ten yards away, walking at a leisurely pace, stopping to look in the window of an art gallery. She turned her head one way and then the other, as though she was examining the paintings in the window, but he had the feeling she was really looking in the window’s reflection, making sure she wasn’t being followed.

      He wasn’t certain how he surmised that, but he was pretty sure it was true.

      What was she up to? Some kind of scam? After watching her continue down the street and turn the corner, he went back to his office and sat down at the computer. When he put in the name Evelyn Morgan, there were several hits, but none of them seemed to match up with the woman who had come to him with her mysterious request.

      Probably she’d taken the name recently.

      He paused, wondering why he’d come to that conclusion on very little evidence. But he thought it was true.

      He could skip the meeting, but the whole situation intrigued him, and somehow he knew he was going to keep the appointment.

      IN PORTLAND, OREGON, a tall, white-haired man who now called himself Bill Wellington clicked on an email that had just arrived in his in-box.

      Once, his office had been within sight of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. He’d headed up a clandestine agency called the Howell Institute that had taken on some interesting СКАЧАТЬ