HEARTBREAKER (3 page)

“What kind of smell was it?”

“Vinegar . . . and ammonia. The smell was so strong it made my eyes burn. I figured she was just a compulsive housecleaner . . . and then I followed her into the kitchen. It was clean as a whistle. Not a thing sitting on the counters, not a towel draped on the sink, nothing. She told me to have a seat while she fixed us a cup of coffee, and then I noticed the stuff she had on the table. There were salt and pepper shakers, but in between was a huge clear plastic container of pink antacid tablets, and next to it was a ketchup-size bottle of hot sauce. I thought that was damned peculiar . . . and then I saw the dog. The animal tipped the scales. It was a black cocker spaniel sitting in the corner by the back door. He never took his eyes off her. She put a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table and when she turned her back to get the coffee, I took one of the cookies and put it down by my side, to see if the dog would come and get it, but he never even looked at me. Hell, he was too afraid to blink, and he was watching her every move. If the sheriff had seen the dog with her, he would have known something was real wrong, but when he interviewed her, the cocker was outside in the pen.”

“He went inside her house and didn’t notice anything unusual.”

“I was lucky, and she was arrogant and reckless.”

“What made you go back inside after you left her house?”

“I was going to get some backup and wait and see where she went, but as soon as I got outside, I knew I had to go back in, and fast. I had this feeling she knew I was on to her. And I knew that the boy was somewhere in that house.”

“Your instincts couldn’t be better tuned,” Morganstern said. “That’s why I went after you, you know.”

“I know. The infamous football game.”

Morganstern smiled. “I just saw it again on CNN Sports a couple of weeks ago. They must run that clip at least twice a year.”

“I wish they’d give it a rest. It’s old news.”

The two men stood. Nick towered over his boss. Morganstern, in his tasseled black leather loafers, was five feet eight inches tall, and Nick was over six feet. His boss was slightly built, with thinning blond hair that was quickly going gray, and his thick bifocals were constantly slipping down the bridge of his narrow nose. He always wore a conservative black or navy suit with a long-sleeved, white, starched shirt and muted striped tie. To the casual observer, Morganstern looked like a nerdy university professor, but to the agents under his supervision, he was, in every respect, a giant of a man who handled the hellacious job and the horrific pressures with unruffled ease.

“I’ll see you in a month, Nick, but not a day before. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

His superior started out the door, then paused. “Are you still getting sick every time you get on a plane?”

“Is there anything you don’t know about me?”

“I don’t believe there is.”

“Yeah? When was the last time I got laid?”

Morganstern pretended to be shocked by the question. “It’s been a long while, Agent. Apparently you’re going through a dry spell.”

Nick laughed. “Is that right?”

“One of these days you’ll meet the right woman, heaven help her.”

“I’m not looking for the right woman.”

Morganstern smiled a fatherly smile. “And that, you see, is exactly when you’ll find her. You won’t be looking, and she’ll blindside you, just like my Katie blindsided me. I never had a chance, and I predict you won’t either. She’s out there somewhere, just waiting for you.”

“Then she’s going to have a hell of a long wait,” he replied. “In our line of work, marriage isn’t in the equation.”

“Katie and I have managed for over twenty years.”

“Katie’s a saint.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Nick. Do you?”

“Get sick every time I get on a plane? Hell, yes.”

Morganstern chuckled. “Good luck getting home then.”

“You know, Pete, most psychiatrists would try to get to the bottom of my phobia, but you get a kick out of it, don’t you?”

He laughed again. “See you in a month,” he repeated as he strolled out of the office.

Nick gathered up his files, made a couple of necessary calls to his Boston office and to Frank O’Leary at Quantico, and then hitched a ride to the airport with one of the local agents. Since there was no getting out of his forced vacation, he made some tentative plans. He really was going to try to kick back and relax, maybe go sailing with his oldest brother, Theo, if he could pry him away from his job for a couple of days, and then he was going to drive halfway across the country to Holy Oaks, Iowa, to see his best friend, Tommy, and get some serious fishing done. Morganstern hadn’t mentioned the promotion O’Leary had dropped on the table two weeks ago. While he was on vacation Nick planned to weigh the pros and cons of the new job. He was counting on Tommy for help with the decision. He was closer to him than he was to his own five brothers, and he trusted him implicitly. His friend would play his usual role of devil’s advocate, and hopefully by the time Nick returned to his job, he would know what he was going to do.

He knew Tommy was worried about him. He’d been nagging him by E-mail for the past six months to come and see him. Like Morganstern, Tommy understood the stresses and the nightmares of Nick’s work, and he also believed that Nick needed time away.

Tommy had his own battle to fight, and every three months when he checked into the Kansas Medical Center for tests, it was Nick who got the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that stayed there until Tommy E-mailed him with good news. So far, his friend had been lucky; the cancer had been contained. But it was always there, hovering, waiting to strike. Tommy had learned to deal with his illness. Nick hadn’t. If he could take the pain and suffering away from his friend, he would willingly give his right arm, but that wasn’t how it worked. As Tommy had said, this was a war he had to wage alone, and all Nick could do was be there for him when he needed him.

Nick was suddenly anxious to see his friend again. He might even be able to talk him into taking off his priest collar for one night and getting roaring drunk with him the way they used to when they roomed together at Penn State.

And he would finally get to meet Tommy’s only family, his baby sister, Laurant. She was eight years younger than her brother and had grown up with the nuns in a boarding school for wealthy young girls in the mountains near Geneva. Tommy had tried several times to bring her to America, but the conditions of the trust and the lawyers guarding the money convinced the judges to keep her sequestered until she was of age to make decisions for herself. Tommy had told Nick that it wasn’t as grim as it sounded and that by following the letter of the trust, the lawyers were, in fact, protecting the estate.

Laurant had been of age for some time now and had moved to Holy Oaks a year ago to be close to her brother. Nick had never met her, but he remembered the photos of her that Tommy had stuck up on the mirror. She’d looked like a street urchin, a scruffy-looking kid wearing a pleated black skirt and a uniform white blouse that was partially hanging out of her waistband. One of her knee-high socks had fallen down around her ankle. She had scabby knees and curly long brown hair that drooped down over one of her eyes. Both he and Tommy had laughed when they saw the photo. Laurant couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old when the picture was taken, but what stuck in Nick’s mind was the joy in her smile and the sparkle in her eyes, suggesting the nuns’ chronic complaints about her were true. She did look like she had a bit of the devil in her and a zest for life that was going to get her into sure trouble one day.

Yeah, a vacation was just what he needed, he decided. The key to all of his plans was getting back to his home base, Boston, and that meant he was going to have to get on the damned plane first. No one hated flying as much as Nick did. It scared the hell out of him, as a matter of fact. As soon as he entered the Cincinnati airport, he broke out in a cold sweat, and he knew his complexion was going to be green by the time he boarded the plane. The 777 was bound for London with a brief stop in Boston, where Nick would be getting off, thank God, and going home to his Beacon Hill town house. He’d purchased the building from his uncle three years ago, but he still hadn’t unpacked most of the cardboard boxes the movers had dropped into the center of his living room, or hooked up the high-tech audio system his youngest brother, Zachary, had insisted on picking out for him.

He could feel his stomach tightening as he headed for check-in. He knew the drill. He presented himself, his credentials, and his clearance to the security officer. The prissy, middle-aged man named Johnson nervously chewed on his pencil-thin upper lip until his computer gave him Nick’s name and code verification. He then escorted Nick around the metal detector the other passengers would have to pass through, handed him his boarding pass, and waved him down the ramp.

Captain James T. Sorensky was waiting for him in the galley. Nick had flown with the captain at least six times in the past three years and knew the man was an excellent pilot and meticulous in his job—Nick had run a background check on the captain just to make certain there wasn’t anything suspicious in his past to suggest the possibility of a nervous breakdown while he was flying. He even knew the kind of toothpaste the man preferred, but none of those facts made his nervousness subside. Sorensky had graduated from the Air Force Academy at the top of his class and had worked for Delta for eighteen years. His record was unblemished, but that didn’t matter either. Nick’s stomach was still doing somersaults. He hated everything about flying. It all boiled down to a question of trust, he knew, and even though Sorensky wasn’t a complete stranger—they were on a first-name basis these days—Nick still didn’t like being forced to trust him to keep almost 159 tons of steel in the air.

Sorensky could have been a model for an airline poster with his silver-tipped, immaculately trimmed hair, his perfectly pressed navy blue uniform with razor-edge creases in the trousers, and his tall, lean physique. Nick wasn’t overweight by any means, but he still felt like a bull moose next to him. The captain radiated confidence. He was also rigid about his own rules, which Nick appreciated. Though Nick had the government clearance and FAA approval to carry his loaded Sig Sauer on the plane, he knew it made Sorensky nervous—and that was the last thing Nick wanted or needed. In preparation, Nick had already unloaded his gun. As the captain greeted him, he dropped the gun’s magazine into his hand.

“Good to see you again, Nick.”

“How are you feeling today, Jim?”

Sorensky smiled. “Still worried I’ll have a heart attack while we’re in the air?”

Nick shrugged to cover his embarrassment. “The thought has crossed my mind,” he said. “It could happen.”

“Yes, it could, but I’m not the only man on board who can fly this plane.”

“I know.”

“But it doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?”

“No.”

“As much as you have to fly, you’d think you’d get used to it.”

“You’d think I would, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Does your boss know you get sick every time you get on a plane?”

“Sure he does,” Nick answered. “He’s sadistic.”

Sorensky laughed. “I’m going to give you a real smooth ride today,” he promised. “You aren’t going on with us to London, are you?”

“Fly over an ocean? That’s never going to happen.” The thought made his stomach lurch. “I’m going home.”

“Have you ever been to Europe?”

“No, not yet. When I can drive there, I’ll go.”

The captain glanced at the magazine he held in the palm of his hand. “Thanks for letting me hold on to this. I know I don’t have the legal right to ask you to give it up.”

“But it makes you nervous to have a loaded weapon on board, and I don’t want a nervous pilot flying this plane.”

Nick tried to get past Sorensky so he could get settled in his seat, but the captain was in the mood to chat.

“By the way, about a month ago I read a real nice article in the newspaper about you saving that poor boy’s life. It was interesting to read about your background and how you’re best friends with that priest . . . how the two of you ended up taking different paths. Now you wear a badge and he wears a cross. And saving that child . . . it made me proud to know you.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“The article also mentioned that unit you work with. What was it he called the twelve of you?” Before Nick could answer, the captain remembered. “Oh, yes, the Apostles.”

“I still haven’t figured out how he managed to get that information. I didn’t think anyone outside the department knew about the nickname.”

“Still, it’s fitting. You saved that little boy’s life.”

“We were lucky this time.”

“The reporter said you refused to be interviewed.”

“This isn’t a glory job, Jim. I did what I had to, that’s all.”

The agent’s humility impressed the captain. With a nod, he said, “You did a fine thing. That little boy’s back with his parents now, and that’s all that counts.”

“Like I said, we were lucky this time.”

Sorensky, sensing Nick’s unease with his compliments, quickly changed the subject. “There’s a U.S. Marshal Downing on board. He had to give me his weapon,” he added with a grin. “Do you happen to know him?”