Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

The second book in the U.S. Marshall series, 2004

Many thanks to Christine Wenger, Glen Stone, Paul Hudson and Dr. Carla Patton for answering all my questions and thinking up a few I didnt know to ask.

A special thank-you to my Southern in-laws, Jimmy and Estelle Jewell, whose Tennessee roots literally go back to Daniel Boone. Writing this book gave me the opportunity to get them to talk about the Cumberland River and some of the changes in it and middle Tennessee over the past century-I love to listen to their stories! Althoughno, I never do want to get eyeball-to-eyeball with a water moccasin.

Thanks also-always-to Meg Ruley and everyone at the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and to Amy Moore-Benson, Dianne Moggy, Donna Hayes, Katherine Orr, Tania Charzewski and everyone at MIRA Books.

As I write this, Ive put away my hiking boots (Im determined to hike all forty-eight peaks over 4,000 feet in the New Hampshire White Mountains) and Im deep into my next book. To get in touch with me, visit my Web site, www.carlaneggers.com.

Take care,

After ninety minutes, the press conference dribbled to a close. As far as Nate Winter was concerned, the whole thing could have been wrapped up in fifteen minutes, tops. Announce the results of the joint fugitive task force. Outline its future. Answer a few questions.

Done.

But reporters had an uncanny ability of coming up with another way of asking what theyd just asked and politicians of saying what theyd just said. And the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and New York Police Department brass wanted their fair share of credit. Deservedly so, maybe, but Nate just wanted to get back to work.

He cleared out of the airless meeting room on the ground floor of a fancy Central Park South hotel-the choice of the mayors office-and made his way out to the street, welcoming the blast of chilly New York air.

It was midday. Traffic was bad. Some of the pedestrians had unfurled their umbrellas, but it wasnt really raining. Just misting, not even drizzling. People were craving real spring air-it was the first week in May-but it felt like March again.

Rob Dunnemore, a fellow deputy U.S. marshal, stood next to Nate and hunched his shoulders against the cold. My southern blood is protesting.

Nate glanced at his younger colleague. They both had on their best dark suits, plus their nine-millimeter semiautomatics, their cuffs, their badges-the hardware wasnt visible, but Nate doubted they could pass for New York businessmen, either. Air feels good to me.

It would. Ill bet the snow hasnt melted where you come from.

Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains. Nate hadnt been home since his sister Carines wedding in February. My uncle tells me theres still snow on the ridge. Its melted in the valleys.

The frozen north. Rob gave an exaggerated shiver. He had the kind of blond good looks and southern charm tinged with danger that had an irresistible effect on the female support staff-and more than one female marshal. New York s plenty cold enough for me. Come on. I need a dose of springtime. Lets check out the tulips in Central Park.

Tulips? Dunnemore, what the hell are you talking about?

I saw about a million tulips when I was in Holland a couple weeks ago visiting my folks. He gave Nate an unabashed grin. Im kind of into them right now.

Before Nate could respond, Dunnemore seized on a break in traffic and jaywalked across Central Park South. Nate, who was taller and lankier, followed at a slower pace, still unaccustomed to his fellow deputys wide range of interests. He had no idea how or why Rob Dunnemore had ended up in the U.S. Marshals Service, never mind being assigned to its southern New York district. The Dunnemores were a prominent Tennessee family-Rob had been educated at private schools in Nashville and Washington, D.C., and graduated from Georgetown. Hed done a year abroad. Paris. Hed been everywhere and spoke six or seven languages, including Arabic and Farsi. Sooner or later, someone in Washington would reel him in and put him to work in intelligence.

After just four months in New York, Rob noticed everything. After five years, Nate didnt even notice the noise and grime anymore. He liked the city, but he didnt delude himself. He wasnt staying there. There was talk of sitting him at a desk at USMS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. It would be a major promotion after more than a dozen years in street law enforcement.

He and Rob walked down the steps at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street and entered the normally busy southeast corner of the park. But on such a miserable day, it was quiet, the noontime traffic above them almost distant, as if theyd entered an oasis in the middle of the tall buildings and millions of people. The grass was lush and green, the spring leaves thickening on the trees and brush on the steep bank along the Central Park South fence and the famous elliptical-shaped pond. There was just enough of a drizzle to cause pinpricks across the ponds gray water.

The tulips are something, arent they? Rob walked up the gently curving path along the edge of the pond. My sister says theyre done for in Tennessee.

Rob, Christ. Ive got work to do. I cant be wasting time looking at flowers.

Whats the matter? We hard-ass marshals cant appreciate tulips?

Nate made himself take in the thousands of tulips that blossomed in waves on the sloping lawn to the right of the path, opposite the pond. Dark pink, light pink, white-they added a cheerful touch of color against the gloom. All right. Ive appreciated the tulips.

When do tulips bloom in New Hampshire? July?

Were a couple weeks behind New York.

Probably more than a couple weeks this year, according to his uncle. Even for a tried-and-true northern New Englander like Gus Winter, it had been a long winter. More snow than normal, more days with temperatures that fell below zero-and a Valentines Day wedding in the middle of it. The second of Nates younger sisters, Carine, and her childhood friend, Tyler North, had finally married. Theyd almost made it to the altar the previous Valentines Day, but called the wedding off at the last moment. It had taken a murder in Boston and a dangerous showdown with a madman on infamous Cold Ridge in the White Mountains before they came to their senses and finally married.

The previous October, Nates other younger sister, Antonia, had married Hank Callahan, now the junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

No one had said, Two down, one to go, but Nate had heard the words in his mind. He had no intention of getting married while he was still working on the streets. Hed been orphaned as a little boy. He liked not having anyone worrying about whether hed come home that night. A wife, kids. A dog. He didnt even own a cat.

Gus, at least, left him alone. His uncle was in his fifties now and had never married. He was just twenty when hed ended up raising his nephew and two nieces after their parents died of exposure on the ridge that loomed over their small New Hampshire town of the same name.

Nate had left Cold Ridge at eighteen and never went back to live.

He never would.

I caught the dogwoods when I was home in April, Rob said in his amiable southern accent. You dont see so many dogwoods up here.

Dunnemore? Are you going to keep talking about goddamn flowers all afternoon?