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Chapter Three

“What do you say, sweet pea?”

Katie gazed back at Lacey, her gray eyes bright with curiosity, as if she was trying to make sense of the question.

Lacey ruffled the baby’s blond curls and laughed self-consciously. “It’s okay, sweetie. If Aunt Lacey doesn’t know whether she’s done the right thing, she doesn’t expect you to know.”

“Wacey,” Katie said solemnly.

Lacey picked her up and gave her a hug. Apparently not in the mood for a snuggle, Katie wriggled in her grasp, and Lacey set her down on the floor again with a sigh. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better about her mothering skills, Katie.”

Katie flashed a lopsided grin and toddled off to the window, where she’d left her favorite stuffed cat sitting on the windowsill.

Lacey looked around the small front parlor, feeling entirely overwhelmed. When she’d decided to move herself and Katie out here to Nowheresville, Virginia, she hadn’t realized just how little of the farmhouse had been renovated. Half the sprawling old Folk Victorian house was still trapped in limbo, somewhere between demolition and reconstruction, and she had no idea how or when she’d be able to finish the work.

The contractor she’d hired to assess the status of the renovation had assured her that the foundation had been made sound, the roof was new and there were no safety hazards to worry about, although there had been some question about the safety of an underground tunnel the contractor had discovered in the basement, which was the only remaining part of the antebellum home that had burned to the ground a few years before the farmhouse had been built on its foundation.

But most of the upstairs rooms had yet to be repaired and painted. There was a whole bathroom in the master suite that had been completely gutted. And the sprawling kitchen at the back of the house was only halfway finished, though most of the remaining work was cosmetic rather than functional.

Poor Jim Mercer didn’t have any idea what kind of mess he was about to walk into.

Her cell phone rang, a jarring note in the bucolic peace of the isolated farm. She checked the display and grimaced when she saw the name. “Hi, Royce.”

“I heard you’re hiring a nanny.”

“Where’d you hear that?” she asked, wondering which employee of Elite Employment Agency had let that information slip to the wrong person.

“Oh, around. You know.”

Maybe it had been Jim Mercer himself who’d spilled the news. Maybe he’d decided to do a little background checking on her, as well. She couldn’t really blame him if he had, she realized. He had a right to know just what sort of mess he was walking into if he took the job. “You called to find out whether or not I’m hiring a nanny?”

“No,” Royce said in a tone of long-suffering forbearance. “I called to find out whether your decision to hire a nanny meant you were coming back to work.”

“Not yet. You said I could take a few months. Have you changed your mind?”

“If I said I had, would you come back to work?”

“No,” she answered flatly. “I need this time off, Royce. If you can’t give it to me, I’ll turn in my notice. Then when I’m ready to return to work, I’ll give one of the other networks a call.”

“No,” Royce said quickly. “I said you could have the sabbatical. I’m not going to renege.”

“I really do appreciate your understanding.”

“I hear the cops still don’t know who set the bomb or why. Do you think it had something to do with that piece you were doing on al Adar?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Not long before the car bomb that had killed Marianne and Toby, Lacey had spent several months in Kaziristan, a Central Asian republic fighting for its very existence. A terrorist group known as al Adar had risen from the ashes earlier in the year, after several years of near dormancy, taking advantage of an economic downturn in the nascent democracy to stir up trouble and violence. Her exposé on the troubling rise of the terrorist group had just been nominated for a Murrow Award for investigative reporting.

But al Adar hadn’t yet made a name for themselves outside of Kaziristan. They hadn’t really started exporting terrorism on a regular basis, despite a few aborted attempts a few years back.

Or had they?

“I want to hire security for you and your niece.”

“Royce, we’ve talked about this. If I make a big deal out of what happened, the press will do the same. They’ll start publicizing where I am now, something that only a few people know about at the moment. Since I’d like to keep it that way, no—I’m not going to hire a bunch of bodyguards that’ll start tongues wagging all over the East Coast.”

“You’re a target, Lacey.”

“I’ve taken a sabbatical. I’m not reporting on al Adar or anyone else. Maybe that’ll be enough to appease whoever it was who came after me.” She wasn’t sure she believed it, but the last thing she wanted right now was to live under the watchful eyes of a bunch of muscle-bound security contractors who’d try to watch her every move and keep her from doing what needed to be done.

Regardless of who had set the bomb under her car, she was the one who felt responsible for her sister’s death.

She had to be the one who figured out who hated her enough to kill her. And stop him before he could take another shot at killing her.

“Do you really think it’ll be enough to appease someone who wants you dead?” Royce asked.

“I don’t know. But it’s better than living in a cage until the cops finally figure out who set the bomb.”

Royce was silent for a long moment before he spoke in a hushed tone. “Tell me you’re not thinking about tracking down this killer yourself.”

She didn’t respond.

“Damn it, Lacey. You’re a reporter. You’re not a cop.”

“I tracked down the head of al Adar when the US government thought the man was dead.”

“Different situation. You weren’t his target, for one thing.”

There was a knock on the front door. “I have to go, Royce. I’ll call you later.”

She hung up the phone and walked to the front door, sneaking a peek through the security lens. Jim Mercer stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a brown leather bomber jacket, his hair ruffled by the cold wind moaning in the eaves outside.

She unlocked the door and opened it. “You’re early.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not. I just mean, you’re not late.” She forced a smile, acutely aware that the past two weeks had done a number on her social skills. “Come in. I’ll show you your room and you can get settled before I have to leave.” She closed the door behind him, careful to lock the dead bolt.

He stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. “This place is great. How old is it?”

“I think it was built in the eighteen nineties. Something like that. It was updated in the sixties or seventies, I think, but Marianne and Toby were planning to renovate the place with its history in mind. You know, try to match the styles of the Folk Victorian era even while they updated the plumbing and electrical.” She led him into the large family room. “They did take down a couple of walls to make this place more open concept, but the hardwood floors are all original, and so are the window trim and the crown molding.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

Katie turned at the sound of his voice, staring at him with a look of sheer delight. “Hey!”

Jim grinned back at her. “Hey there, Katiebug!”

She ran toward him, her chubby legs churning, and tugged on his jeans until he put down his duffel bag and picked her up. She patted his cheeks and again said, “Hey.”

“She’s usually so shy,” Lacey murmured, not sure her niece’s crush on her new nanny was such a good idea. What if Jim didn’t work out? What if another person disappeared from Katie’s life?

But what could she do? She needed help with her niece, someone to take care of the little girl while she continued her investigation into her sister’s death. Better that it be someone Katie liked than someone she didn’t, right?

Jim tucked Katie into the crook of one arm and picked up the duffel bag with the other. “Kids like me,” he said with a shrug, nodding for her to continue the tour of the house.

She took him through the kitchen to the narrow hallway that led to the first-floor master bedroom. She had been staying there because it was close to the nursery, although for the past two weeks, Katie had been sleeping in the bed with Lacey.

She thought it might be better for her to move to one of the other bedrooms downstairs and let Jim have the bedroom suite. Katie could move to the nursery next door, and he’d still be close enough to go to her in the night.

“This is your room,” she told him as she opened the door and led him inside.

He looked around the large room, his brow furrowed. “This is a nice room.”

“It’s technically the master suite, but it’s next door to the nursery, so...”

He nodded, understanding. “You’ll be upstairs?”

“No, the upstairs hasn’t really been renovated yet. There are a couple of other bedrooms on the first floor. I’ll take one of those.”

“Of course. Whatever you want to do.” He turned to look at her. “How are you doing? After the ambush, I mean.”

“I’m fine,” she said with a firmness she didn’t quite feel. Despite her determination to show no fear, the most recent attack had rattled her nerves almost as much as the car bombing had, despite the fact that neither she nor Katie had been hurt. Maybe because it had come out of the blue, in a place she hadn’t expected to face danger. She had almost convinced herself that the bombing had been a onetime act of violent rage. A venting of hate and anger, perhaps, emptying a twisted soul of the unspeakable darkness inside him.

Much easier to deal with the idea of a psychotic outburst than to contemplate the idea that someone had deliberately set out to kill her in cold blood, driven not by emotion but rational if diabolical intent.

Jim set the duffel bag on the floor by the bed, bouncing Katie lightly in the crook of his arm. “I’ll unpack after you get back home,” he said, turning to look at Lacey. “Any idea how long you’ll be out? So I know whether to start calling around to find you if you don’t show up on time.”

She couldn’t decide if she found his words irritating or endearing. As she’d told Royce Myerson, she didn’t want a bodyguard. She didn’t want her movements tracked or to be trapped inside this farmhouse, afraid to stick her head out the door for fear of having it lopped off.

At the same time, she couldn’t deny a sense of relief that she now had someone around who cared whether or not she came back home safely. Someone to call in the cavalry if things somehow went wrong.

“I should be home by eleven at the latest.”

“If Katie and I need you, we can reach you by phone?”

“If it’s an emergency.”

“Listen, I know you’re not looking for a bodyguard, and I don’t imagine you care to tell a virtual stranger where you’re going and who you’re seeing, so I’m not going to ask you to tell me that.” Katie had started wriggling in his arms, so Jim set her on the floor, not missing a beat. “But could you leave that information somewhere here in the house so that I can find it if you don’t get back on time and I can’t reach you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You mean so the cops will have somewhere to start looking when you call it in?”

His brow furrowed. “Well, I hadn’t planned to put it quite that bluntly.”

She smiled. “It’s a smart idea. I’ll leave the address where I’ll be on the message board in the kitchen. Will that work?”

“That works.” He returned her smile, and she felt an unexpected twisting sensation in the center of her chest. Damn, he was awfully cute when he smiled. She didn’t need to start thinking about him as a tall, attractive man instead of her niece’s nanny. Definitely needed to nip that in the bud.

“There are some jars of peas and carrots in the cabinet,” she told him, leading him back to the kitchen. “And some creamed chicken in the fridge. She likes her food lukewarm. Not hot, not cold.”

And she liked to throw her food around and make a mess, which Jim would find out soon enough.

“She’s still eating food from jars?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Marianne used to cook, and I think Katie was eating some regular table food, but I’m not quite that domestic,” she admitted, guilt tugging at her chest. “I guess I’m going to have to buy a cookbook or something.”

“I can cook,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t expect you to be a housekeeper and chef, as well as a nanny.”

“I like to cook. I like to eat. You’ll be buying the groceries, so it’s not like you’ll be taking advantage.” He crouched as Katie toddled up to him, smiling at the little girl. “We’ll see if we can find the fixings to make a chicken potpie tonight. How does that sound, Katiebug?”

“Pie,” she said in a tone of approval.

Damn it, Lacey thought. Great body, adorable dimples—and he cooked?

Even Mary Poppins couldn’t touch that.

“Should I save you a plate? Or will you be eating out?”

“I was planning on grabbing something while I was out, but you’re making this potpie sound tempting.”

He slanted a smiling look at her. “Don’t get too excited. We’re talking about canned vegetables and crumbled-cracker topping here.”

She really needed to get out of here before he tempted her to change her plans and stay. “Save me a plate. If I don’t eat it tonight, I’ll eat it tomorrow.”

She grabbed her purse from one of the hooks in the small mudroom off the kitchen. “Don’t start calling the police and hospitals until after ten,” she said, keeping her tone light, even though she knew her safety wasn’t really a laughing matter.

But she couldn’t afford to live in fear. She had to find a killer before he struck again. She had to do it for Marianne and Toby. For her orphaned niece.

For herself.

Outside, night had fallen completely, and the first grains of sleet peppered her windshield as she started Marianne’s Chevrolet Impala. With Katie still small enough to fit easily into a car seat buckled to the sedan’s backseat, Marianne and Toby hadn’t yet seen the need to upgrade to an SUV or minivan. But it wouldn’t be long before Lacey would have to start thinking about getting a more family friendly vehicle.

Stopping at the end of the long driveway, Lacey rubbed her temples, where the first signs of a headache were beginning to throb. How was she supposed to be Katie’s mother? Katie had had a good mother. A great mother. A mother Lacey didn’t have a hope of emulating. Marianne had been a natural. Chock-full of maternal instincts and glowing with the joy of motherhood.

And now she was gone, and all Katie had left were memories that would fade with time and an aunt who had no idea how to be a mother.

“Stop,” she said aloud, gripping the steering wheel tightly in her clenched fists. “You’ll learn what you need to know. You’ll do your best.”

And you’ll start with finding the son of a bitch who killed Marianne and Toby.

A call had come early that morning from Ken Calvert, a source in the State Department, an analyst in the department’s South and Central Asia division. She’d dealt with Calvert several times following up on the stateside elements of her investigative report on the rejuvenation of al Adar. Calvert claimed to have new information about a possible domestic al Adar connection, but he didn’t feel comfortable telling her about it over the phone. He wanted to meet her at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at seven.

Maybe she was crazy to go out there alone. But she needed to know if it was possible that al Adar had put out a hit on her here in the United States. At least the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a public place. It might not draw hordes of tourists on a snowy night in January, but Lacey had never been to the sleek reflective memorial wall when there weren’t plenty of visitors around. She should be safe enough.

She went east on River Road, heading for the highway that would take her into the capital. It was an hour’s drive from Cherry Grove to DC. She hoped Ken Calvert really had come across something useful for her. She didn’t look forward to driving home in the snow.

For the first third of the drive, traffic was moderate and, at times, light. But the closer she got to DC, the heavier it got. Headlights gleamed in her rearview mirror like long strands of Christmas lights stretching out along the highway behind her.

Any one of those vehicles could be carrying the man who had attacked her in Frederick, she thought. Or whoever had set the bomb in her car.

The thought that she might be sharing the road with a killer made her stomach tighten. She forced herself to take deep breaths past the sudden constriction in her chest.

Stay focused, she told herself. Keep your eyes on the goal.

It was a relief when she reached the outskirts of Dulles, Virginia, and the relentless darkness of the highway gave way to well-lit civilization. The endless stream of lights behind her became vehicles she could recognize—eighteen-wheeler trucks, expensive sports cars, sturdy SUVs and the occasional pickup truck.

Including a familiar-looking blue pickup just a few cars behind her.

Her heart skipping a beat, she checked her rearview mirror again to be certain.

It was the same truck she’d seen following her on the highway into Frederick yesterday.

She didn’t like using her cell phone when she was driving. But she found herself reaching for the phone anyway. She shoved it into the dashboard holder and pulled up the farmhouse number on her contacts list. The phone rang twice before Jim Mercer answered, his deep voice instantly reassuring. “Hello?”

“Jim, it’s Lacey Miles.” She glanced at her mirror and saw the blue pickup keeping pace with her, staying a couple of vehicles back. Swallowing her fear, she forced the words past her lips. “I think I’m being followed.”