Deadly Grace

“No, but I was hoping to catch her in. It’s important.”

Deeply pink lips twisted in a grimace of regret. “You should’ve called ahead. Could’ve saved yourself the trip. She’s not in.”

“Will she be back later?”

“Unh-unh, not today, not tomorrow, either, I don’t think. I was told she’s out probably till the end of the week.”

“Out where? I happen to know she’s not at home.”

“Are you a friend of hers?”

“No, this is official business. Is there someone who can tell me where I can find her?”

“I’m not really sure?” the woman replied, her voice rising uncertainly, as if posing unhelpful responses as questions might make them less irritating. “I’m just a temp? The girl who usually works here was in a car accident a couple of days ago and I was just called in to take her place while she’s laid up.”

“So, who would know?”

“Maybe you should talk to Mr. Twomey.”

“And he would be who?”

“The boss here,” she suggested, cocking her thumb at a set of double doors behind her. A brass plate at the side of the door noted the room number and the occupant: Haddon Twomey, Chief Curator. “Can you hang on a sec and I’ll see if he’s free?” When Cruz nodded, she rose, then seemed to have second thoughts. “Can I tell him who you are?”

“Special Agent Cruz with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Whoa, FBI? Okay then, let me go ask.”

She disappeared into the corner office. As murmuring voices sounded from behind the door, Cruz looked around the reception area. It was a study in beige, furnished entirely in plastic and steel. The tan walls were covered in brightly colored posters left over from the Bicentennial celebration. A half-dozen buff-colored, steel-framed chairs lined the walls, and back issues of the Smithsonian Magazine were splayed across beige plastic cubes that passed for tables. There were three other doors around the reception area besides the one he’d come in, all made of the same dark wood as the curator’s, although these others were single rather than double openings. None had name plates. Maybe one of these was Jillian Meade’s office.

Cruz heard the soft click of a door latch and turned as the receptionist came back and nodded, holding the door open for him. “You can go in now,” she said, pressing herself against the door as he passed, then closing it behind her.

The office in which he found himself was markedly more luxurious than the utilitarian reception area. A massive desk the size of a dinghy took up nearly half the room, angled catty-corner against fully loaded bookshelves that covered two of the room’s four walls. The desk, made of dark wood, was intricately carved with pillars and scrolls, and it looked very old—and, Cruz thought, very expensive. Several brightly colored area rugs covered the same nondescript carpet as in the reception area. The rugs, Cruz was reasonably certain, were genuine Navajo, and old ones, too. As for the rest of the pieces in the room, he suspected were rare antiques, as well.

Opposite the desk were two floor-to-ceiling windows set into the building’s northeast corner, one on either side of the supporting corner block. Heavy silk panels in a rich shade of gold framed the windows, while the glass was covered with sheer gauzy material that did little to cut down the amount of light from the clear January day streaming in.

“Good afternoon…Agent Cruz, I believe?” The carefully modulated voice came from a silhouette that stood in front of the windows, back-lit so that Cruz found it impossible to tell whether the man was facing him or not.

“Yes, sir.” Crossing the room, Cruz angled his approach so that he put the windows to one side, affording a better view of the other man. His eyes adjusted to the change in the light, and Twomey’s features began to emerge from shadow.

He was tall, thin and patrician-looking, slightly stooped at the shoulder. Somewhere in his fifties, Cruz estimated by the mix of gray and white in his hair, which swept straight back off Twomey’s high brow, waving slightly over his collar. His blue pin-striped shirt was open-necked under a crested navy blazer that seemed faintly nautical, although it probably reflected his status as an alumnus of some Ivy League school. Was this the older man the building super had said sometimes called on Jillian Meade? Cruz wondered. The man’s eyebrows were tufted, his eyes half-lidded, as if he were bored or weary or both. His nose was long and prominent, with deep crevices running from either nostril to the edges of his plummy, turned-down lips, giving him the appearance of being permanently offended by the whiff of something malodorous in the air. Just the sight of him made every working class hackle on Cruz’s neck stand up in protest.

“So, you’re a junior G-man, are you?” Twomey asked, his hand dangling in Cruz’s general direction.

Cruz shook it and found the skin icy to the touch and uncommonly smooth for a man. Like picking up a carp.

“We’ve had occasion to seek your people’s assistance in the past,” Twomey said. “An irreplaceable silver tea service manufactured by Paul Revere himself went missing from one of our exhibits some time back. The FBI said they had a lead to a New Orleans-based antique dealer of rather shady reputation. They suspected he’d secreted it out of the country, hidden in plain view in a shipment of English silver that an equally dubious but very wealthy client living in Barbados had bought at an auction around the same time. There’d been an export permit issued, but I suppose most government bureaucrats wouldn’t know plate from pewter, much less Paul Revere, would they?”

Cruz opted not to speculate about which ignorant bureaucrats he was referring to. And while they were on the subject, wasn’t Twomey on the government payroll, too? “Did you ever get it back?”

“No. Your people still haven’t come through for us.”

Cruz had the feeling he was supposed to feel guilty, but he was damned if he was going to apologize for not showing up with Twomey’s missing teapot.

“I’m trying to get in touch with Miss Meade,” he said.

“Yes, so the girl said. Jillian is one of my curatorial associates, but she’s not in today. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Can you tell me where I might find her?”

“She’s out of town.”

“A business trip?”

“No, personal. What’s this about?”

Cruz gave him the same stock answer he’d given the caretaker—the same answer he gave anyone with no need to know and without the sense to realize they had no need to know. “It’s a routine matter. When do you expect her back at work?”

“I’m not sure. Friday, maybe? Monday, at the latest, she said.”

“Where did she go?”

“To Minnesota to see her mother. I had the impression there was a problem at home, although Jillian didn’t come right out and say, and I certainly wasn’t about to pry.”

“What kind of problem?”

Twomey moved to the desk and perched on the edge of it. “As I say, I didn’t press her on it. I do know that her mother had a cancer scare last year, so perhaps there was a recurrence.”

“Where in Minnesota, do you know?”

“A small town called Havenwood. It’s about a hundred miles from Minneapolis, I think Jillian said. She grew up there.”

“She wasn’t born there,” Cruz noted.

Twomey arched a brow, and the disapproving lines around his mouth deepened. “No, she wasn’t, as a matter of fact. Been doing your homework, I see. She was born in France. Her mother was an English war bride, her father an American pilot with the OSS—the Office of Strategic Services. That’s—”

“The forerunner of the CIA, yes, I know,” Cruz said. He might not know plate from pewter but he wasn’t a total idiot. “So the family came back to the States after the war?”

“Jillian and her mother did. Her father was killed in action over there. His parents invited Mrs. Meade to bring the baby—Jillian, that is—and come live with them. That’s how she ended up out there, although Jillian left after high school. Attended Georgetown University, and then she came to work here.”

“What does she do here? You said she’s a curatorial associate. What does that mean, exactly?”

Twomey shrugged. “She puts together exhibits for our permanent and roving collections. Researches background materials, writes pamphlets and monographs. We have several different departments here, a couple of dozen researchers, but Jillian is really quite the best of the lot. Her specialty is the military and social history of World War II. She’s been working on an oral history for the past four or five years, collecting interviews with people who were involved in various anti-Nazi operations in the European theater. It’s fascinating work, you know. That generation isn’t going to be around forever, and she’s doing invaluable work, collecting their reminiscences. I’ve been encouraging her to develop it into a book or a doctoral thesis.”

“She’s been looking at operations in the European theater?” Cruz said, his interest piqued now.

“Yes. It started with recently declassified OSS files here in Washington that I’d arranged for her to have access to. Jillian began sifting through them and then got permission to follow up with some of the retired operatives. She’s amassed quite an amount of interesting material. As I say, I think she has the makings of a book. Jillian’s published several monographs and co-authored a couple of exhibit-related books under the auspices of our presses here, but I think this is going to be her breakout work.”

“You seem very impressed with her.”

“Absolutely. In the field of history, Agent Cruz, there are good researchers, good interviewers and good writers. Rarely, though, do you find all three in one person. Jillian is that rare exception. Unfortunately, unlike others of far lesser talent, she doesn’t seem to realize her own gifts. I must confess, I despair sometimes of her reaching her full potential. It’s a question of self-confidence, isn’t it? But I’m trying to encourage her in any way I can.”

“So, you’re sort of Henry Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle?”

Twomey arched his brow slightly. “If I can mentor someone with Miss Meade’s talents, Agent Cruz, then I am happy to do that.”

Right, Cruz thought. The guy’s in love with her. If she attracted a prig like this Twomey, he could just imagine the kind of dry, repressed, severe old maid this Jillian Meade was going to turn out to be. But that said, she hardly sounded like someone who’d be out creating mayhem and leaving dead bodies in her wake. “Had she been to Europe lately?”

“Yes. She was over in London and Paris last month. She’s working on a new exhibit we’re pulling together here on American covert support to the French Resistance. We’d been offered access to some materials at the Imperial War Museum in London and the Quai d’Orsay. I sent Jillian over to take a look. She was obviously the best person for the job, but I was encouraging her while she was there to follow up on her own research, as well.”

“What did she tell you about her trip? Anything unusual happen while she was over there?”

“Like what?”

Like, two people were murdered and she was among the last people to see them alive, Cruz was tempted to say. But he was there to get information, not offer it. “Anything unusual,” he repeated, shrugging. “Anyone she met, or anything she might have seen that was out of the ordinary.”

“I haven’t really gotten the full rundown yet on how she made out over there. She just got back a few days before Christmas, and then she was leaving to spend the holidays with her mother. I was off with friends and then attending a symposium at Harvard last week. I’d no sooner gotten back into town than Jillian told me she had to go out to Minnesota and look in on her mother. Ships passing in the night, you see.”

“The girl outside said she was due back Friday?”

“Or Monday,” Twomey replied, nodding.

“Do you happen to have a number for her mother in Minnesota?” Cruz asked. Whatever else was going on, it was stretching credulity to think this Meade woman was going to be a murder suspect. Maybe this was one of those cases he could dispatch with a quick telephone interview, then move on to other, more pressing cases.

Twomey moved behind his desk, rummaging around in loose papers. “Yes, she did leave a number. She’d sent some new brochures off to the printer, and I wanted to be able to get in touch with her if there was any problem with them. Look, what is this about? Why is the FBI, for heaven sake, taking an interest in Jillian Meade?”

Cruz shrugged. “Just a routine inquiry, as I said.”

“Aha, there it is!” Twomey spotted a scrap of paper taped to the corner of his telephone. Withdrawing a fountain pen from a burled walnut holder on his desk, he copied a number on a piece of paper and handed it to Cruz.

“Appreciate the information, Mr. Twomey.”

“It’s Dr. Twomey, actually.”

“Right,” Cruz said. He was already at the door with a hand on the knob, but he paused to examine a row of framed photographs and certificates he hadn’t noticed on the back wall. Most seemed to feature Twomey himself, alone or in a group, standing at lecterns, or shaking hands with assorted dignitaries. “Is Jillian Meade in any of these?”

“I’m not sure. Let’s see…” Twomey moved beside him to scan the collection. “No…no…yes, there she is. This was taken during the Bicentennial two years ago. There was a Smithsonian ball on the Fourth of July, and we all ended up on the roof watching the fireworks. That’s Jillian right there, in the red dress.”

Cruz leaned in to peer at the group Twomey indicated. He was a little surprised to find Jillian Meade not quite as homely as he’d been picturing her. She was one of a dozen men and women of various ages, the men in black tie, the women in gowns, caught by someone’s camera as the fireworks exploded in the air behind them. She appeared to be slim and fairly tall, with long, dark hair tucked behind her ears and a soft fringe of bangs. She wore a simple red dress that rose high on her neck but was sliced away at the shoulders, halter-style. Like several others in the picture, she was holding up a glass of wine in an apparent toast to the nation’s two hundredth birthday. But where other faces were laughing or animated, her expression was relatively sober as she stared, clear-eyed, at the camera, only a hint of a smile—superior? sardonic?—at the edge of her lips. Twomey was in the group, too, Cruz noted, holding his glass up distractedly to the camera, his gaze focused…where?

On Jillian Meade.

CHAPTER 3

Montrose, Minnesota

Wednesday, January 10, 1979

Something clattered, faintly melodic, like wooden wind chimes or a handful of pencils dropped on a floor. The sound pulled her out of the drifting, soundless, seamless place in which she’d been floating. Jillian lay still, her senses on alert, afraid to open her eyes. She wanted to go back to that quiet place, but it was like trying to hold smoke in your hand. It slipped away on a wisp of air.

Whatever sound had awoken her was gone, too, before she could identify it. She heard only a low murmuring, like voices whispering from the bottom of a well, subdued and just beyond the range of the audible. She let the hum carry her along, until at last she felt herself floating again, drifting, back into the comfort of the white void. Stay here, the murmuring voices seemed to say. Stay here with us where it’s safe.

Fine with her. There was nothing for her outside that formless place. She was content to drift there forever, a shade without substance. Anything else was too hard.

“Jillian?”

She felt a hand at her shoulder, and a jolt of adrenaline shot through her, as if she’d been touched by a cattle prod. Her body contorted, folding in on itself. The hand closed over her shoulder, a squeeze of reassurance, and then a light shake.

“It’s time to wake up. Open your eyes now.”

She was terrified, but she had no will of her own. The dead are like that, aren’t they? Jillian thought.

She opened her eyes on horizontal bands of silver. She was supposed to be dead, but those looked like guardrails made of brushed steel, just inches from her face. They seemed very real. So did the wall beyond, solid-looking, a flat, dull green not found in nature. Her fingers slid tentatively across a field of bleached cotton to test the rails. Sure enough, they were hard and cold to the touch.

“How are you feeling, Jillian?” The voice came from behind her, a woman’s voice, vaguely familiar and yet not. “I’m Dr. Kandinsky. I’ve been in to see you before. Do you remember?”

A doctor? And so…guardrails…a hospital bed. She was in a hospital bed. Was she sick? Or had she been in an accident? A car accident? When? How long had she been here? Obviously long enough, Jillian realized, for this doctor to have been to see her more than once. She stared at the wall, terrified to move. Terrified to breathe. If she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, she wouldn’t feel pain.

But she was breathing and every inhalation hurt. She took a quick survey of the rest of her body. She could see, she could hear. She could smell—antiseptic, a plastic smell, and… smoke? She could feel air blowing gently into her nostrils. Could feel the soft mattress under the right side of her face, and a tiny, line-like hump along her cheekbone. A hose. She was hooked up to a thin plastic hose pumping air…no, oxygen, probably, into rasping lungs that hurt with every breath.

All right, she calculated, she was lying on her right side in a hospital bed looking through guardrails at a green wall, breathing air that hurt. What was wrong with her? She didn’t feel particularly sick or feverish, though she was very groggy. Carefully, she flexed her muscles, group by group, without moving her limbs, an isometric test of a body that hadn’t even seemed corporeal until just moments ago. All she wanted was to go back to that soft, quiet, safe place, but the voice wouldn’t let her.

“Jillian? Come on now, it’s time to wake up,” it said again, kindly but firmly.

Arms, hands, legs, feet, neck, spine. Everything there, everything working. No pain, except for a dull headache and, when she inhaled, the sensation that her lungs were full of sand. She also had a sick, terrified feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was very, very wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be there. If she could only go back to the quiet place.

Leave me alone!

“Jillian, how about if you roll over and sit up? Can you do that?”

The pressure increased on her shoulder, trying to force her onto her back, pulling her toward the voice.

No!

Jillian’s left hand shot out, and she gripped the steel rail tightly, fighting to slow the spinning of her body and her mind. She felt a stinging pain in her left arm. She looked at it and froze. There was a bandage just inside the elbow, a thick white square of gauze anchored in place with adhesive tape that pulled at her skin. A small, red stain showed in the center of the gauze where blood had seeped through.

I thought I dreamt it….

Was it possible it had really happened? She’d had a dream about sirens and an ambulance, about being in an emergency room under blinding lights with people hovering and holding her down while she cried and tried to get away from them. She’d fought them, hard, until someone had stuck something into her right arm. She’d cried out—or maybe she only thought she had, because then everything had faded and she’d fallen into the quiet place.

Later, she dreamed she’d awakened and found herself lying on a gurney, only now there was no one around and the lights were dimmed. In the dream, she pulled herself groggily up to a sitting position, confused and frightened, because she knew there was somewhere else she needed to be. They’d taken her clothes, but she climbed off the gurney, anyway, naked except for the sheet she held around her, and started looking for something to put on so she could leave. That was when she found a drawer with paper-wrapped packages labeled Syringe. And suddenly, somehow, she’d known there was a faster way to get to where she needed to be.

She’d ripped open one of the packages and withdrawn a syringe, pulled back the plunger and slipped the plastic cap off the needle. The tip was in her arm and her thumb was on the plunger when the room had erupted in shouting and blinding light. Someone had knocked her to the ground and ripped the needle out of her arm. She’d cried out in pain, her blood streaming onto the floor as she fought them again, until finally, they’d stuck yet another needle into her and she’d tumbled into the quiet place once more.

She’d thought it was a dream, but that blood-stained bandage on her arm was only too real, and so she knew it was true. She had failed.

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