Hardin continued: “The missus tells me you’re here on honeymoon. Bit different, that.”
Okay, Allie, Neal thought, if you want to play…
“Actually, I’m working on a book deal.”
“Honey, I thought you wanted to keep it a secret. Neal is very shy, Mr. Hardin… it’s his first big sale.”
Yeah, she wanted to play, all right.
“Lot of money in books, is there?” Hardin asked. He had a face like crinkly leather, etched by wind and sun. Gray eyes peeked shyly out from under heavy gray eyebrows, and his shy smile cracked the heavy bush of his gray beard. Long silver hairs flourished in his ears. He looked woolly, like an old ram.
“In this one, we’re hoping-may I warm that up for you?” Allie asked. She was having fun, and Neal had not seen her have much fun before.
“Perhaps your mister would like some,” Hardin said gently.
“I’m sorry, darling. I’ll be right back.”
Hardin stuck his hand out. “Just to make it proper, Ivor Hardin.”
“Neal Carey.”
“Ohh, your wife uses her maiden-”
“Yes, she does.” Whatever it is. “What’s the dog’s name?”
“Jim.”
“Good name.”
“Good dog.”
Allie returned with a mug of tea for Neal, then sat down. She had a couple of hundred questions for Hardin about being a shepherd, and he was totally charmed by the time he had taken three more cups of tea and five more oatmeal cookies. He lived alone, it turned out, and had for some years, and Jim was the only company he usually had. Mr. Keyes made it up only a few times a year anymore, so Hardin wasn’t used to seeing folks in the cottage. Not folks as pretty as the missus, meaning no offense.
“Life on the moor is lonely, to be sure,” he allowed, “but I wouldn’t live anywhere else and the dog is used to it. It’s as hard to find a good working dog these days as it is to find a good working man, and when Jim gives it up, I expect I will, too. Move to the village and become a nuisance to the widows.”
“I can’t imagine you as a nuisance,” Allie said, and Neal believed she meant it.
“Kind of you, missus, me already having eaten half your biscuits. Next time I come calling, I’ll shoot the rooks out of your garden to pay for my pudding.”
He pointed his beard at the shotgun and winked.
“We don’t have a garden,” Allie said.
“I know,” Hardin answered, springing his little joke. Everyone laughed except Jim, who’d probably heard it already.
Hardin finished off his tea, put an oatmeal cookie in his coat pocket-“For Jim”-and said his thank-yous and goodbyes. Allie told him to stop in anytime.
And he did, usually around teatime.
It was after one of Hardin’s visits, after an hour or so of playing house, that Allie lapsed into a sudden quiet. She fidgeted for about twenty minutes, then asked, “So when we get back to the States, and sell the book… split up the money… then what?”
He was ready with a clever response.
“What do you mean?”
“I go my way, you go yours?”
If I knew my way, Allie.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
She got up and went into the kitchen, and came back a minute later with a fresh cup of tea.
“I thought you kind of liked me,” she said, standing behind him.
“I do.”
“So why haven’t you done anything about it?”
Neal had never really known what the word nonplussed meant. Now he thought he knew.
“Jesus Christ, I kidnapped you! What more could I do?”
Neal got up and took a walk in the rain.
He was drenched when he came back, and just as confused as when he had left. She met him at the door with a towel and a blanket, then hurried into the kitchen, returning with a hot cup of tea.
“You’re crazy,” she said as she rubbed his head with the towel.
“I won’t argue with you.”
“Like they say in the movies,” she said in a mock scolding tone, “you’d better get out of those wet things before you catch your death of cold.”
Neal climbed the stairs, wondering just what the hell was going on with him. It had started out to be a pretty straightforward job and turned into something different. You’re adrift, he thought, and drifting further away. Cut off from Friends, playing house with a teenage girl. And the only crazy thing you haven’t done so far is go to bed with her. Did you just say “so far”? Jesus Christ. It was July 20, time was running out, and he didn’t know what to do or how to do it.
Supper that night was a simple repast of boiled potatoes and cold sliced ham, and was quieter than usual.
The creak of the bedroom door woke Neal.
Allie was standing there, clad in the plaid flannel shirt they’d found in one of the chests.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I need to talk to you.”
Why do the Chase women always need to talk to me in the middle of the night? Neal wondered.
Allie sat down on the edge of the bed, inspiring in Neal a simultaneous anxiety and a faith in genetics.
She started deliberately and slowly, as if she’d rehearsed and worried over each word. “There are things you need to know about me,”
That’s funny, Allie, there are things you need to not know about me.
“If we’re going to be partners,” she continued.
“Go ahead,” Neal said, feeling guilty. Allie, he thought, I already know.
“I… God, this is so hard… I didn’t just run away. I mean, for just no reason. Same thing for the drugs. I mean, I know I’m screwed up…” She stopped and hung her head, staring down at the rough fabric of the army blanket.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Neal said.
“We’re partners, anyway.”
“I want to. It’s been on my mind.”
Neal nodded.
“My father…”
I know, baby, I know.
Slow tears dropped on the blanket.
“He… he and I… no, he… used to…”
Neal forced himself to look at her, forced himself to lift her chin and look her in the eyes.
“I guess…” she said, “the word is incest”
He stroked her cheek. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
“The drugs helped me to forget… and the sex… I guess it helped me to get even. I don’t know.”
Neal felt her tears on his shoulder. You can take away her pain, he thought, not all of it, but a lot. If you had half her courage, you would tell her the truth. He’s not your father, Allie. You have to live with a lot, but you don’t have to live with that. He’s not your father.
But if I tell you now, I might blow it all, and I don’t have the guts to risk it. And I’m sorry.
So instead, he said, “It’s all right. It’s all right. It doesn’t make a difference. It’s behind you now. It’s behind you.”
“I’m never going back.”
“You don’t have to. You don’t have to,” he chanted softly until she fell asleep and he pulled her down beside him. “You don’t have to.”
Betrayal, he thought, is the only ending to any undercover.
31
“what do you think he’s up to?” Levine asked Graham. They were sweating out a hot afternoon in the New York office. “He hasn’t called in; he’s checked out of the hotel; if he’s at the safe house, he’s not answering. He’s disappeared. What’s he up to?”
Graham wished he knew. since the night of Neal’s phone call, he had worried his head off. He had kept a close eye on the British papers and had seen nothing about an assault, never mind a murder. And he had called Keyes’s apartment a hundred times if he’d called it once.
Neal had disappeared-gotten lost-just as he’d taught him. But why hadn’t he checked back in? Because he still thought that Ed was dirty, that there was a leak in the organization? Then why hadn’t he gotten in touch with his old Dad? Called him at McKeegan’s? Does he think I’m dirty now? That I’m in on it? No, Neal couldn’t think that.
A worse option came to mind. Maybe Neal hadn’t escaped the trap. Maybe he was a prisoner somewhere, or worse. Graham didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t believe it. Neal Carey was too good. He’d have gotten out and taken the client out with him. But where?