“Yemm.”
“This is McGarvey, how’s everything look?”
“It’s been quiet until you showed up, sir.”
“You have me spotted?”
“When you came in. I recognized the car and scoped you with the low light.”
“When’s your relief due?”
“Another six hours,” Yemm said. “You thinking about coming over, or are you going to stay there all night?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Don’t mean to get nosy, sir, but Mrs. McGarvey probably could use some company. She seemed pretty strung out to me.”
“Thanks,” McGarvey said. He broke the connection and phoned Kathleen’s number. She answered on the second ring. She sounded brittle.
“Hello, who is it?”
“It’s me.”
“Are you at the hospital?”
“I just came from there. Elizabeth is sleeping. How about you, Kathleen, how are you doing?”
“I’ve been better,” she said. “Are you at home, Kirk?”
“No. I’m across the street in the club parking lot.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Care for a nightcap?”
“I’ll be right over.” McGarvey drove across the street and parked beside Yemm’s gray government issue van.
The Security Service agent rolled down his window. He was drinking a cup of coffee. “Good evening, sir,” he said. The passenger seat was filled with electronic equipment including a computer monitor and keyboard.
“Are you monitoring her phone lines?”
Yemm nodded. “Yours has been the first since we got back here. We’ve got bugs on the doors and windows and inside too, in case someone tries to get in from the back.”
“Good,” McGarvey said. “Shut down the inside bugs for now, would you?”
“Sure thing,” Yemm said. He brought up a screen and typed in a few commands. “It’s done, sir.” He looked up. “I heard you were taking over the DDO. Congratulations.”
“Not much of a secret,” McGarvey said wryly.
“Not in this town.”
Kathleen, dressed in a terry cloth robe, her hair wrapped in a towel, opened the door for him as he crossed the veranda. She’d been crying, her eyes were red and puffy, a slight flush on her cheeks.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed once for the hour as she let him inside and closed and locked the door. For a long moment or two they stood very close, looking into each other’s eyes. She was strung out, but she seemed a little relieved now that he was here.
She handed him her wineglass. “There’s an open bottle in the refrigerator. Why don’t you pour me some and get yourself a drink and come upstairs. I have to finish my hair.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
She chuckled. “I’m sure I want a glass of wine.” She went up the stairs leaving him standing alone in the empty hall.
He listened to the sounds of the house for a few seconds, then went into the kitchen where he poured her wine. He fixed himself a brandy at the sideboard in the living room and then went upstairs where the door to the master bedroom suite was ajar.
The bathroom door was open too. Kathleen was drying her hair at the vanity when McGarvey set the drinks on the table in front of the settee in the sitting room. The rooms, like Kathleen, were perfectly done, feminine without being overly frilly, with expensive furnishings, thick carpeting and several pieces of very good art on the walls.
“You may smoke if you want,” she called from the bathroom. “There’s an ashtray on my nightstand.”
McGarvey went into the bedroom to get the ashtray. The big bed was turned down, the lights low, soft music playing from the stereo. There was a package of Kool lights and a gold lighter on the nightstand, two half-smoked butts in the ashtray. He brought them into the sitting room.
“When did you start smoking, Katy?”
“Kathleen,” she automatically corrected. But then she grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, old habits, I guess.”
“Me too,” McGarvey said.
“I started smoking this summer,” she said, brushing her hair. “Didn’t seem much reason not too, even though it’s another stupid habit. Probably kill me sooner or later.” She laughed without humor.
“Maybe we should both quit.”
“Sounds good to me.” She finished in the bathroom, shut off the light, came into the sitting room and sat down on the edge of the couch. She pulled her robe primly over her knees.
McGarvey handed her the glass of wine.
“Light me a cigarette, please.”
He did it, and she smoked without inhaling, holding the cigarette like a movie starlet. She looked as if she were on the verge of falling apart, breaking into a million pieces, holding on with everything in her power and trying to hide the effort.
“Elizabeth will be getting out of the hospital in a couple of days. I’m going to put her up at a safe house. I’d like you to go with her.”
“For how long?” Kathleen asked reasonably.
“Until we find out who tried to kill me and who is threatening you. Will you do it?”
“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” she asked. “Are you taking over the DO?”
“Yes.”
“Good. At least you’ll be around more than before. That’ll make our daughter happy.”
McGarvey had to look away for a moment, unable just then to face his ex-wife. “She won’t quit.”
“I didn’t think she would,” Kathleen said. “Please look at me when you’re speaking.”
He turned back to her. “She’ll be recuperating for a while, and afterward I’ll make sure her training is delayed.”
“That won’t last forever.”
“If need be, I’ll quit and take her out with me.”
Kathleen’s left eyebrow rose. “You’d do that for her?”
“If it comes to it. I don’t want her to get hurt.”
Kathleen studied him, as if she were trying to gauge his true meaning and figure out what to say next. “Is that why you were sending Ms. Belleau back to Paris, because you thought something was about to happen?”
“She wanted to marry me.”
“Why not, Kirk? Elizabeth said she was a lovely woman, intelligent, warm, a spy like you.”
“I’m not ready to be someone else’s husband.”
Kathleen was taken aback, and her hand shook as she put down her wine and stubbed out her cigarette. Her moods were mercurial, and she seemed angry now. “The trouble with you is that you never understood women. You’re coming close with your daughter. But she’s a special case because she’ll accept you on any terms. With her you don’t have to make any compromises. That’s not the case for the rest of us.”
“I know.”
“You know,” she said harshly. “After all this time, with your daughter lying in a hospital bed, all you can say is that you finally know?”
McGarvey put his drink down, a great weariness coming over him. “I don’t know what else to say, Katy.”
She got up and went into the bedroom where she stood staring at the bed, her back to him. He went to her.
“It was never supposed to be like this,” he said. He took her into his arms, her back still turned to him, and she laid her head back on his shoulder.
“Like what?” she asked. “With a grown daughter who idolizes you and an ex-wife who is still in love with you?” She turned in his arms, and raised her face to his to be kissed.
Her body seemed frail, and he could feel that she was shivering. For a long time she clung to him as if she were never going to let go, but then she stepped back, her face even more flushed than before.
“Can you stay tonight?”
“If it’s what you want, Kathleen.”