No matter which way she looked at it—upside down, inside out—Caroline couldn’t figure out how Jack could know that the dining room had been painted yellow six years ago.
As if it were the first trickle from a cracked dam, now she felt the cold floodwaters of doubt rise in her mind, sickening her. Besides the color of the dining room, she now realized with hindsight that he seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of Greenbriars. That first night, he hadn’t even wanted to be accompanied up to his room. He seemed to know where the tools were kept, where the wine cellar was, even—that first night—where her bedroom was. He’d said he recognized it by her smell, but it didn’t ring true.
He’d known.
How had he known?
And, most horrible of all, how could he at times look faintly familiar to her?
She hadn’t slept all night, had simply stared at the ceiling, mind whirling restlessly and uselessly, until the black outside her window had slowly turned steely gray.
Jack realized that something was wrong. There was no way she could hide her upset from those perceptive dark eyes, and she’d had to pretend the onset of flu to distract him. And then she’d had to stop him from bundling her back into bed with hot tea and seven hundred blankets.
They’d fought about her coming in to work, but she’d been adamant, threatening to drive herself in if he wouldn’t. That had shut him up, and he’d driven her in, tight-lipped and silent.
Fine. Let him be angry. His anger allowed her space and time. She needed to know who he really was. Tonight. They had to talk tonight.
Maybe he’d been too good to be true. Maybe, in her loneliness and grief, she’d conjured the perfect lover out of thin air. Simply invented him.
The bell rang over the door. Another customer. She should be happy, but right now all she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts. Still, customers meant money, so she pasted a smile on her face and walked toward the door.
“Oh.” Caroline stopped when she saw Sanders. He was with another man, who was standing slightly behind him. “Sanders,” she said coolly. What did he want? To apologize? Today was not a good day for him to show up. “I don’t think this is a good idea. I think perhaps you’d better leave.”
“Now, Caroline, don’t be like that. You haven’t heard what I have to say.”
Something had happened to him. The crushed, beaten Sanders had disappeared, and he was back to his old assured self—elegant and in control. He even had that slight smile that looked like a smirk. It did not endear him to her.
“I’m sorry, Sanders, I’m very busy. Maybe some other time.”
He held his expensive gloves in one hand and looked slowly around the bookshop. The very empty bookshop. He took his time and finally brought his gaze around to her.
“I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. Or rather, what this gentleman has to say.” He stepped to the side, and Caroline saw the other man clearly now.
He was of medium height, with short sandy hair, big oversized, unfashionable glasses. Whippy rather than thin. Shiny, black, ill-fitting polyester suit, white shirt, shiny black tie. Completely nondescript, except for his eyes. They were light blue, flat, cold.
“Ma’am,” he said, and flipped a leather holder open to reveal a brass badge. “Special Agent Darrell Butler. FBI. New York Field Office.”
FBI?
Was this Sanders’s idea of a joke? Or had he actually called in the FBI because Jack had thrown him out of the shop yesterday? That was going way too far, even for Sanders.
And shame on the FBI for even giving Sanders the time of day. Didn’t they have anything better to do? Crazed terrorists were plotting day and night to blow people and buildings up, and what do they do? Fly across the country because Sanders had had his hair mussed and his feelings hurt.
Caroline rounded on Sanders. “Listen, I know you said you’d sue, but calling in the FBI is just insane. You should know better than that. It’s a totally overblown reaction to what happened yesterday. This is—”
“Ma’am,” the FBI Agent—Special Agent—interrupted. “I think you need to sit down. This isn’t about Mr. McCullin.” He shot Sanders a hostile glance. “Actually, Mr. McCullin shouldn’t even be here. But never mind. We need to talk somewhere, Ms. Lake.”
He wants to talk to me? Bewildered, Caroline led the Special Agent to her desk at the back of the room, separated from the rest of the bookshop by a counter stacked with books. Caroline sat behind the desk, and the Special Agent sat across from her. There were only two chairs in her office, but Sanders went and dragged another chair from out front.
The FBI agent ignored him totally. He placed his briefcase on his knees and took out a folder. He didn’t open it, just set it on his lap and placed his hand over it, as if protecting it.
“Ms. Lake. I understand you know someone who calls himself Jack Prescott. How long have you known him?”
“Why, I just met—” She stopped suddenly, frowning. “What do you mean—calls himself Jack Prescott? Isn’t that his name?”
Butler opened his briefcase and slid a photograph over her desktop, facing her. It was an enlarged snapshot of Jack in uniform, full face, the kind used as military ID. He looked younger, with a buzz cut and some kind of beret.
“Is that the man you know as Jack Prescott, ma’am?” He thumped the photograph with a rough forefinger.
Caroline swallowed and looked up into cold pale blue eyes. “I have no reason to think that he is anyone else. What is this about? How can this possibly be your business?”
“Just answer the question,” he snapped. “Is that the man you know as Jack Prescott or is he not?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you meet him?”
He’d left his badge open, and the brass reflected the ceiling light. It sat there with the weight of the U.S. government behind it, the shiniest thing in the room. Caroline watched it, as if it could yield up answers.
“Ms. Lake.” He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to.
Her throat felt tight. “I met Jack—Mr. Prescott last Friday. He’d just got into town and needed a place to stay. I take in boarders.”
“If he just got into town, how did he know that you have rooms to let?”
“The cab driver told him, on the way in from the airport.”
“What time did he arrive in your shop?”
“Around four, I think. I was thinking of closing up early because the weather was so bad. Nobody had come in all afternoon. He was actually the only person who came into the shop that afternoon.”
“What did he have with him?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What did he have? What was he carrying?”
“Oh. Well, he had a duffel bag and a suitcase.”
“Were they heavy?”
“I have no idea. He carried them in and carried them out.”
“Was he armed?”
Caroline’s mouth closed with a snap. Yes, he’d been armed, though at the time, she hadn’t known it. She would never have taken an armed man into her home. The silence stretched out.
“Ms. Lake. Answer the question.”
“Is Jack being accused of something?”
“Just answer the question. You can do it here, or in Seattle. Your choice.”
It felt like a betrayal—of a man she wasn’t sure she trusted anymore. Still, Caroline found it hard to tell the truth. “Yes,” she said finally. “He was armed. I didn’t know that at the time.”
“What kind of weapon was he carrying?”
She stared at him. “Are you joking?”
He stared back, gaze flat, utterly impersonal. No, he wasn’t joking.
“Mr. — Special Agent Butler, I know absolutely nothing about guns. It was big and black, that’s all I can say.”
“How do you know he was armed?”
“Someone broke into my house yesterday.” Or rather, Jack told her someone had broken into her house. Caroline hated this, hated second-guessing herself, second-guessing and doubting him. Hated the feeling that she’d been making love—and falling in love—with a fraud. “I found out then that he was—was carrying a weapon. Until then, I had no idea.”