The Rapids

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“I want to do my damn job.”

Rivera’s eyes flashed. “Yeah, well, you’re going to need to lie low for a couple of days until the dust settles on this Janssen arrest.”

“I’ve been laying low since May.”

“You’ve been recovering from a goddamn bullet wound that nearly killed you—”

“It didn’t kill me.” Rob kept his voice calm. “I’m fit for duty. I don’t want anyone coddling me.”

“Who the hell’s coddling you? You don’t want to move too fast, get in over your head—”

“What, with a computer?”

“With another asshole with a gun.”

Rob didn’t respond. He hadn’t had a chance in May. He’d dragged Nate down to Central Park to see the tulips—they’d never live that one down—and gotten shot. No warning, no way to fight back. They’d walked into the park and come out on stretchers.

Rivera sat forward, his chair squeaking loudly. “Why do you look so thin?” he asked, making it sound like an accusation.

“I’m back into my triathlon training. I can pass any test you want to throw at me—”

“Yeah, okay. Don’t drop and do push-ups here in my office. You nailed your fitness for duty assessment. I know that. It’s your head I worry about.”

“I’ve done everything I’ve been asked to do, all the desensitizing and reprogramming or whatever it’s called. Time for you all to stop walking on eggshells around me.”

Rivera grunted. “Today isn’t a good day to tell me you’re just a regular deputy trying to do his job.”

His chair squeaked again when he leaned back, bugging the hell out of Rob. Not a good sign, probably, that a noisy chair irritated him. “I want to get out of here, at least for a few days. Let the dust settle.”

“Will you go down to Tennessee?”

“The Hague.”

Rivera stood and turned to his grime-encrusted window. “Christ, Dunnemore. You don’t make my life easy, do you?”

Rob smiled. “Not my job, Chief. Less chance of anyone getting misquoted or harassed if I’m out of the country.”

“So go to Ireland.”

“Nick Janssen’s not in custody in Ireland. The DS agent who got tipped off about where to find him isn’t in Ireland.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Still in his plastic chair, Rob shrugged. “Sure, why not? I can check with our people in the Netherlands, see where things stand now that the Dutch have Janssen. A Dutch judge is considering our request to interview him. We don’t want anything slipping through the cracks.”

Rivera shifted from the window and held up a hand. “I get your point. What says a Dunnemore showing up in Holland won’t fire up reporters there?”

“Nothing. Janssen’s arrest is a public reminder of my family’s connections to President Poe. There’s not much I can do about that. But the media will be looking for me in New York, not The Hague.”

“You want to do this thing?”

“I can be on a flight out of Kennedy tonight.”

“Listen, Rob, if this is personal—”

“Of course it’s personal.” Rob stood, feeling the August heat even in the air-conditioned room. “Janssen put out word that he’d pay for a presidential pardon. He tried to get under my mother’s skin. Ultimately, he’s the one responsible for everything that happened in May—”

“It was a bad time.”

“Then there’s Charlene Brooker. The Dutch are charging Janssen with ordering her murder in Amsterdam last year. We’re all still scrambling to unravel his network.”

“None of that is why you’re going to Holland.”

Rob shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“You want to know who gave that DS agent the tip.”

“Don’t you?”

Rivera pulled out his chair and plopped down with a loud, obnoxious groan of metal. “Hell.” He looked up at Rob. “Bring me back some Dutch gin.”

“Mike—”

“Just a little bottle. I don’t drink as much as I used to.”

Rob knew he’d won. There was nothing to do now except figure out which flight to take, dig out his passport and pack.

Four

Maggie stared at her boss in disbelief. “Why me?”

George Bremmerton regarded her with a reasonable measure of sympathy from the other side of her desk, but she knew he wasn’t about to change his mind. “Because he requested you.”

“Why would Rob Dunnemore request me?”

“Because you made the Janssen arrest happen.”

“I got an e-mail tip and made a phone call. That was the extent of it.” She sat back in her chair. “I can’t get out of this?”

“Not unless you find a way to get run over by a bus.”

“Great,” Maggie said without enthusiasm. “You know Dunnemore’s a rich frat-boy type playing marshal until he decides to start living off his trust fund, don’t you?”

Bremmerton almost smiled. He was in his late forties and one of the most respected regional security officers ever, a very serious-minded man who was nonetheless getting a kick out of her predicament. “I met his parents last winter. They’re not rich.”