Abandon - Carla Neggers [78]
Rook found his nephew out on the bent and rusted swing set in the backyard, another area that needed work. Shrubs his grandparents had planted when they’d moved into the house were in need of serious pruning or outright replacement, and, stuck in a tangle of weeds and ground cover in the far corner of the yard, was a faded, chubby gnome that just had to go.
So did the swing set. “I need to take this thing to the dump,” Rook said. “Your great-grandmother got it when you were on the way. She was so excited to have a baby around again. Knew you’d be a boy.”
Brian hooked his elbows on the chains of the swing, barely fitting onto the seat. “Her sons and grandsons all turned out great.” He squinted up at his uncle. “I guess odds were there’d be a screwup in the next generation, huh?”
“That kind of negative talk doesn’t help, but I understand it.” Rook ran a palm up the dented metal support. It’d been an old set when his grandmother had taken it off the hands of a friend whose grandchildren had outgrown it. Just a teenager himself, Rook had helped his father, a retired Secret Service agent, set it up. “I lost an informant today. A man I should have protected. I didn’t know he was in danger.”
“That sucks. What happened to him?”
“He was stabbed to death.”
“Ouch.” Brian grimaced. “I don’t like real violence.”
“Me, either.”
“But you’re an FBI agent.”
“I didn’t go into law enforcement because I like violence, Brian. I went in because it interested me and I thought I could do some good.”
“And because all Rooks are cops.”
He shrugged. “Maybe so, but at the time I thought that was more of a negative than a positive. When I started out in college, I didn’t have a clue what I’d be doing in six months, never mind ten years.”
“You didn’t know you’d go into law enforcement?”
“It was an option, but there were a lot of options.”
Brian shifted, the old swing set creaking under his weight. “I don’t even know what you majored in.”
“Political science.” Rook smiled. “Don’t tell Mackenzie. She’s a dissertation short of a Ph.D. in political science.”
His nephew grinned. “Imagine if you’d been her student.”
Probably not a good idea, Rook thought.
Brian pushed back in the swing, straightening his legs as his dark eyes focused on the wet grass. “Do you feel like a screwup because of what happened to your informant?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? I still have a job to do.”
“A job you’re good at.” Brian swung forward, the swing set sagging dangerously. “I’m good at video games.”
“When your father was nineteen, he was good at anything having to do with a motorcycle.”
“He never flunked out of college.” Brian pried himself out of the swing. “I’ll help you get rid of this when you’re ready. I’m heading home. You don’t need to worry about me, Uncle Andrew. My mom and dad don’t, either. I’ll figure things out.”
“Fair enough.”
“Hey, I got a job today—washing dishes at a restaurant near the International Spy Museum.” He grinned suddenly. “Maybe that’s what I’ll be.”
Rook raised an eyebrow. “A dishwasher?”
“Uh-uh. A spy.”
Plans afoot, Brian trotted off across the yard. Knowing his nephew, Rook wouldn’t be surprised if he did end up as a spy. The kid would be all right. His battles with his parents were normal fare. He’d never had to find his father bloodied by a malfunctioning table saw, out in the middle of nowhere.
As he headed into the house, two cars pulled into the driveway. They belonged to his brother Jim, a Secret Service agent like their father, and his brother Steven, an Arlington detective. Behind them came his brother Scott, Brian’s father and a prosecutor.
“Has something happened?” Rook asked when they got out of their cars en masse.
“Yeah,” Steven, the youngest, said. “To you.”
“I’m not bleeding.”
Finally, their father pulled in behind Scott’s car, and as he got out, Rook realized that Sean Rook was the spitting image of his eldest grandson, Brian, in another fifty years.
Scott clapped his younger brother on the shoulder. “You might not be bleeding,