Twenty

Elijah climbed over an old stone wall that early farmers had built when they’d cleared the land to till, and thrashed through a thirty-yard strip of woods to the pond by the Whittaker guesthouse. No cars were parked in the small turnaround, but he’d driven past it and left his truck around a curve just down the road.

Best not to draw attention to his presence, given what he had in mind.

The mallards weren’t on the still, gray water. Elijah supposed they could have headed south.

He hadn’t been home for a full winter in Vermont in a lot of years. He used to dream about snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, working on his house, reading by the fire. Now that he was healed, he had options available to him, in and out of the military, that used his particular skills.

His family had ideas about what he should do. A.J. had invited him to work at the lodge. All four siblings were owners, but A.J. had always handled the day-to-day operations. Black Falls Lodge was his baby.

Rose wanted him to train a search dog.

Sean wanted him out in California -that was where the money was, he’d said.

None of his options would matter, Elijah thought, if he spent a chunk of the coming winter in jail awaiting trial for breaking and entering.

His cell phone vibrated. He checked the readout, and answered.

“Where are you?” Grit asked.

“Looking at ducks and avoiding arrest. You?”

“White House. I wasn’t invited in.”

“Just a matter of time.”

“Charlie has my phone number,” Grit said bluntly. “Jo’s boss is on high alert. Myrtle’s Russian lover had his toothpaste poisoned. And Jo saved Marissa Neal’s life two months ago. Hang on.”

Elijah gripped the phone, impatient.

Grit was back. “It occurred to me the Secret Service agents on the other side of the fence read my lips when I said M-a-r-i-” Grit started to spell out Marissa’s name.

Elijah cut him off. “If you get locked up, Grit, let’s see if we can share a jail cell. I’ll bring paper, and we can write a book on what not to do after you get chewed up in battle. How did Jo save Charlie’s big sister?”

“She and friends borrowed a cottage in the Shenandoah Mountains for a weekend getaway. Marissa is a history teacher at Charlie’s private school, by the way.”

“What happened at the cottage?” Elijah asked.

“The gas stove blew up. Our Jo dived into the flames, basically, although she wasn’t burned, and saved Marissa from certain maiming or even death. Risked her life.”

“Was Charlie there?”

“No.”

“Is the incident under investigation?”

“You know, I’m brave, honorable and true, but I don’t walk up to Secret Service agents and ask them if an unreported fire I’m not supposed to know about that nearly killed the eldest daughter of the vice president is under investigation.”

“You SEALs are just so damn smart.”

“We’re missing something,” Grit said.

“Yes-”

Grit had already hung up.

Elijah tried the front door of the guesthouse and wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked. A small entry with a cold slate floor had a door to the left and a door to the right. He tried both. One was locked, one wasn’t. He’d bet real money that the teenager with the romantic view of Vermont had left her door unlocked and the humorless meat her father had hired to look for her had locked his.

An unlocked door wasn’t a defense against a charge of breaking and entering, but Elijah figured Nora would either never know or never press charges.

Either way, he went in.

The apartment was decorated with cottage-style furnishings in light green, brown, rust. He couldn’t remember if Vivian had said she’d done up the place, but since nothing looked cheap, either she had or Nora had received more financial help from her family than she’d let on. She’d added her own laptop, a flat-screen television and DVDs that included collections of Jane Austen PBS movies, Dr. Who, Steve McQueen and Humphrey Bogart. Elijah remembered Nora telling him that she wanted to major in film, but both parents were opposed, on the grounds that she’d only become another Hollywood failure.

“They said I’d just end up as a waitress who could name obscure facts about obscure movies,” she’d said with a little laugh that had struck Elijah as entirely fake.

He checked the laptop, but it was password protected. He’d only go so far in his search and decided to move on to the bedroom, its windows offering a view of the duck pond and the woods from which he’d just come. A well-worn stuffed penguin looked forlorn and downright lonely on the pillow of the made bed; it was a reminder of just how young Nora was. Emotionally if not legally, she was straddling childhood and adulthood. She had to negotiate her own expectations with those of her successful parents, navigate the dynamics of a complicated family.

Elijah figured his own father had simplified that age for him by kicking him out.

A couple of skirts and tops on hangers in the closet. Expensive-looking shoes. A dressy coat. He checked the dresser drawers-no hiking clothes left behind.

He returned to the living room and headed to the kitchen at the back of the apartment. He took a quick look around. Milk and eggs in the refrigerator. Dishes clean in the dishwasher. Nothing suggested Nora planned to be gone for more than a few days.

Nothing on Melanie Kendall, the fiancée.

He found a flower-covered notebook journal on the kitchen table. He debated, but he wasn’t ready to go so far as to intrude that deeply on Nora’s privacy. He’d check the date of the last entry and go from there. But he immediately saw that the journal contained graceful entries of poems and quotes she’d copied, all positive and uplifting. She’d apparently created her own book of inspiration for dark days.

Elijah shut the journal. He’d never been one for inspirational quotes. Reading that stuff made him focus on why he needed uplifting. Easier just to focus on what he needed to do.

He found Nora’s cell phone next to her toaster. She could have forgotten it, but he didn’t think so. There wasn’t much, if any, service in the backcountry, but there was some. He’d explained to his wilderness-skills class how a cell phone could sometimes help searchers find a lost hiker. Nora could have decided not to rely on anything but her own skills.

On the other hand, she could have wanted to make sure no one found her.

Or she could simply not want to talk to anyone.

Elijah checked the screen and saw she had a half-dozen voice messages.

He left the cell phone by the toaster. Whatever Nora’s reasoning, if she did get in trouble in the mountains, she’d have to find other ways to save herself. He thought back to what he’d told the class.

Not enough.

He took a key off a hook next to the refrigerator, walked back out to the entry and tried the door to the second apartment, where Rigby was staying. Sure enough, Nora’s key worked on that door, too. Elijah went into the combined living room and kitchen done in a style similar to Nora’s apartment.

Before he could get started, he heard a car outside and checked a side window. Rigby had pulled into the turnaround. Elijah watched him get out of his car and start up the stone path. Big guy. But Elijah wasn’t worried. He continued his check of the small apartment, but he found nothing of interest-no weapons, no notebook filled with detailed plans, not even a laptop.

He found a change of clothes, shaving gear, a pair of new wool socks.

In other words, zip.

He finished up and walked back outside, by which point Rigby was on the stone walk. “I locked the door on my way out,” Elijah said, trotting down the porch steps. “Locked Nora’s door, too. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you borrowed her copy of Pride and Prejudice.”

“You’re a piece of work, aren’t you? I’ve heard a lot about you Camerons.”