Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [77]
“Honey’s honey.”
“No, it isn’t. True tupelo honey is the only honey that doesn’t crystallize. It’s produced from the tupelo gum tree that grows in the river swamps of northwest Florida.” He set down his fork. Half a crab cake would have to satisfy her. “Come on. Walk with me to the White House. Tell me what it was like when it was being built. You remember, right?”
“You’re a jerk, Grit.”
Moose materialized next to him and laughed. “Old Myrtle’s got your number.”
Grit ignored him and walked out into the late-autumn gloom of Washington. He wanted to take off his fake leg and climb into bed with a fifth of scotch, but Myrtle paid their tab and joined him.
“Let’s go,” she said without looking at him.
Moose blew out a breath. “She’s hurting in ways you don’t understand and don’t want to know.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Grit walked easily, his prosthetic giving him no trouble. Not that walking was the same as before that bad night in April. Not that anything was the same.
He stood with Myrtle at the tall, black-iron fence on Pennsylvania Avenue and looked out at the White House and its still lush green lawn. He thought about assassins and high-profile targets like Ambassador Alexander Bruni, and he remembered Elijah, covered in blood, those piercing blue eyes of his connecting with Grit’s just for an instant as he’d said, “If I don’t make it, tell Jo it wasn’t her fault.” He’d tied on his tourniquet. “Tell her I loved her.”
Jo Harper.
Definitely the girl who got away.
“The girl Cameron let get away,” Moose said.
“Yeah,” Grit said. “Well. Those things happen.”
Myrtle looked at him, the lashes of her lavender eyes glistening with tears, but she said nothing.
Twenty
Elijah climbed over an old stone wall that early farmers had built when they’d cleared the land to till, and thrashed through a thirty-yard strip of woods to the pond by the Whittaker guesthouse. No cars were parked in the small turnaround, but he’d driven past it and left his truck around a curve just down the road.
Best not to draw attention to his presence, given what he had in mind.
The mallards weren’t on the still, gray water. Elijah supposed they could have headed south.
He hadn’t been home for a full winter in Vermont in a lot of years. He used to dream about snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, working on his house, reading by the fire. Now that he was healed, he had options available to him, in and out of the military, that used his particular skills.
His family had ideas about what he should do. A.J. had invited him to work at the lodge. All four siblings were owners, but A.J. had always handled the day-to-day operations. Black Falls Lodge was his baby.
Rose wanted him to train a search dog.
Sean wanted him out in California—that was where the money was, he’d said.
None of his options would matter, Elijah thought, if he spent a chunk of the coming winter in jail awaiting trial for breaking and entering.
His cell phone vibrated. He checked the readout, and answered.
“Where are you?” Grit asked.
“Looking at ducks and avoiding arrest. You?”
“White House. I wasn’t invited in.”
“Just a matter of time.”
“Charlie has my phone number,” Grit said bluntly. “Jo’s boss is on high alert. Myrtle’s Russian lover had his toothpaste poisoned. And Jo saved Marissa Neal’s life two months ago. Hang on.”
Elijah gripped the phone, impatient.
Grit was back. “It occurred to me the Secret Service agents on the other side of the fence read my lips when I said M-a-r-i-” Grit started to spell out Marissa’s name.
Elijah cut him off. “If you get locked up, Grit, let’s see if we can share a jail cell. I’ll bring paper, and we can write a book on what not to do after you get chewed up in battle. How did Jo save Charlie’s big sister?”
“She and friends borrowed a cottage in the Shenandoah Mountains for a weekend getaway. Marissa is a history teacher at Charlie’s private school, by the way.”
“What happened at the cottage?” Elijah asked.