and his DS escort left the police station, their clothes finally dry, every question asked of them answered. Maggie pushed ahead on the narrow, sunny street. “I need to walk,” she said.
Rob didn’t object. It was a hot, still afternoon. The city seemed quiet, almost as if it were mourning the violence that had taken place there a few hours ago.
An exhaustive search hadn’t produced a single lead on Thomas Kopac’s killer so far.
No one saw anything. No one heard anything.
Except for Maggie Spencer.
Rob said nothing as he walked alongside her. She seemed preoccupied. Not, he thought, that she was an easy woman to read.
Various Dutch and American authorities had swarmed the Den Bosch police station, including the FBI and Regional Security Officer George Bremmerton, Maggie’s immediate boss. All of them grilled both her and Rob about what they’d seen that morning, what Maggie had talked about with Kopac in recent days, why he’d shown up at Rob’s hotel last night.
Although she knew Tom Kopac well enough to consider him her first real friend since she’d arrived in the country, Maggie had been straightforward and professional with her answers. She’d also had her own questions, namely, if there was anything about Tom Kopac that she hadn’t been told.
Rob had that same question himself.
Den Bosch police were trying to locate people who’d been in the vicinity of the boat tour that morning, interviewing the café’s wait staff and manager—anyone who might have seen the American who’d turned up in the Binnendieze. Maggie’s sighting of Kopac and the subsequent commotion along the river pinpointed the approximate time he’d been killed.
Apparently someone had walked up to him, shot him and disappeared.
Not an easy feat to pull off.
The brutal, calculated murder of an American diplomat had taken Dutch and U.S. authorities by complete surprise. They had Nick Janssen in custody. The killing was supposed to stop.
“Another American in trouble on Dutch soil,” Maggie said as she and Rob walked across the street to Den Bosch’s market square, crowded with booths and shoppers. She was obviously spent, taken aback by Kopac’s death, the loss of a friend. “The second American murdered in less than a year.”
“Nick Janssen ordered Charlene Brooker’s murder,” Rob said unnecessarily.
“No one had a clue that she was on to him. He was still a fairly low-priority tax evader then.”
“Has there been any sign of Ethan Brooker since Janssen’s arrest?” Rob asked.
After his wife’s death, Ethan, an army Special Forces officer, had made finding her killer his personal mission. It’d taken him to Tennessee, where he’d posed as the Dunnemores’ property manager. After helping Sarah Dunnemore, Nate Winter and Juliet Longstreet stop their Central Park shooter—a loose cannon with a crazy scheme of his own—Brooker had simply disappeared.
When things exploded in Night’s Landing, Rob was still recovering from his gunshot wound in his New York hospital.
“It’s not as if Brooker’s kept the embassy informed of his whereabouts,” Maggie said.
“Could he have given you the tip on where to find Janssen?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. But nothing suggests he’s anything but one of the good guys—he couldn’t have killed Tom.” Her voice cracked, and she turned away, fixed her gaze on a nearby food booth. “Damn.”
“Are you going to be all right?” Rob asked.
She nodded. “I’d like to offer up a prayer.”
A prayer? “Okay.”
She lifted her chin, squinting against the late afternoon sun. “It’ll only take twenty minutes or so. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not.”
She smiled faintly. “You can try the fresh herring. It’s a Dutch favorite.”
“It’s raw.”
“Yes, but it’s good. You salt it, then more or less drop it down your throat as if you were a seal. I like it. The tradition is to chase it with a shot of genever. Dutch gin.”
“I’ll take the gin without the herring.”
Her turquoise eyes went distant again. “Twenty minutes.”
Rob nodded. “I’ll be here.”
He saw her relief, as if she’d expected she’d have to fight him for a few minutes on her own. She started through the square, the strong afternoon sun lightening her deep red hair.
Normally he was good at reading people, a combination of training, experience and instinct. But Maggie wasn’t easy to read.
Still, as he winced at the lineup of raw herring on ice, all his alarm bells were going off.
Special Agent Spencer had something up her sleeve.
“Prayer, my ass,” he said under his breath, deciding he’d try raw herring another day.
Six
St. John’s Cathedral was cool and dark, a sharp contrast to the afternoon heat and sunlight on the streets outside. Its massive interior seemed quiet for a summer Saturday. Maggie suspected word of the brutal murder of an American had prompted at least some tourists to change their plans.
Tom…I’m so sorry.
Why didn’t you answer me when I called you?
She wanted to believe he hadn’t heard her, but, as she’d told the Dutch and American investigators, she didn’t know for sure one way or the other.
She tried not to think of his easy manner, his smile. With physical effort, she pushed back the personal regrets—the grief—she had for the death of a new friend and focused on the job she had to do.
Could Tom have been the caller who wanted to meet with her? Had he disguised his voice and played on her father’s death to lure her to Den Bosch?
Why?
But that made no sense.
She hadn’t mentioned the call to anyone. It was a long shot that the lead was legitimate, and there was no reason to believe it had anything to do with Tom’s death. The Dutch police would probably be irritated with her for withholding any information, but Maggie had no evidence it had been anything but a crank call.
She hadn’t told her boss or the FBI about the strange call, either, or, certainly, Rob Dunnemore.
If it’d been Tom, there’d be no meeting.
If it was a nut, either there’d be no meeting or he’d show up and she’d find out that he was crazy soon enough.
If
