Vendetta

“If you need anything, Gary can see to it.” David started to leave, then hesitated.

Winter arched her brows at him.

“If there’s anything I can help with,” David said, “just let me know.”

It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ask for your help. But she said, “Sure.”

He left. Was he making a feeble attempt to play host or marking territory?

“Is he always so cheerful?” Winter placed her computer bag on the large desk and opened it.

Gary paused for a moment before speaking. “It isn’t you, Ms. Archer. I think that everything going on has just brought Senator Gracelyn’s absence more sharply into focus for everyone. We still miss her very much.”

Keen observation there, Winter chided herself. You should have seen from the way Christine reacted how hard this was going to be on everyone.

“Duly noted,” Winter responded. “Sometimes I think I take people’s reactions too personally.” In truth, that rarely happened. There was just something about David Gracelyn that set her off.

“That’s all right, Ms. Archer. As I understand it, you’ve a most arduous task ahead of you.”

Winter gazed around at the file boxes against the wall. According to Christine, David would provide Winter with all of Marion Gracelyn’s journals, notes, press clippings, and whatever other records she’d kept.

“I’ve been instructed to help you,” Gary went on.

As she surveyed the boxes, Winter felt that old familiar tingle of excitement thrill through her. She loved what she did. Absolutely freaking loved it. There was nothing like trolling through someone’s life, secrets and accomplishments.

There always seemed to be two people involved: the person that everyone saw, and the person that person could be when no one was around. Expectations—whether from self or from others—shaped so many people. Some rose to meet them in glorious ways. Others shattered or crumbled in failure. Most usually survived in the gulf or narrow crack that existed between the two.

So who was Marion Gracelyn really?

“Ms. Archer,” Gary prompted.

She looked back at the man and tried to regain control over her distraction. “Yes?”

“Would you like anything? Or for me to help?” Gary asked.

“Do you have Diet Coke?”

Gary looked surprised. It was understandable. It was only a little after eight o’clock. Most people probably drank coffee.

“I never acquired the coffee habit,” Winter admitted, “but I’m still a caffeine junkie.” She and Christine had stayed up into the small hours of the night talking. The early morning hadn’t come easily.

“Of course. I’ll see to it immediately.” Gary excused himself and vanished.

Winter sat in the chair behind the desk and started rifling through the boxes. The first thing she needed to do was familiarize herself with everything and get it organized in her mind.

Three days later, still working in the borrowed office and aware that David Gracelyn and Christine Evans were getting a little impatient despite their best efforts, Winter was starting to think that she was on a snipe hunt. Marion Gracelyn had angered a lot of politicians over the years, and one of them had finally killed her in a fit of pique. He’d been the only real enemy Winter had turned up.

Her inability to find anything was wearing at her confidence. Maybe she wasn’t the person for the job. Maybe David Gracelyn didn’t have anything to worry about.

Then the word Murder on a news clipping caught Winter’s eye. She reached down into the box where a notebook had fallen open to reveal a news story.

The notebook wasn’t actually one of Marion’s. It belonged to Adam Gracelyn, her husband. Some of his things had evidently gotten mixed up with his wife’s over the years.

Winter placed the notebook on the desk and leafed through the pages till she came to the news story she’d spotted. It was dated Thursday, May 16, 1968. The headline screamed:

Vietnam War Hero Found Murdered

Early this morning Thomas Jefferson Marker, a decorated ex-Army colonel in the Vietnam War, was shot to death by an unidentified woman in the Kellogg Motel near Laveen.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office responded to calls reporting gunfire at the motel but officers arrived too late to save Marker’s life. Deputies took the unidentified young woman into custody at the scene.

Many people across the United States know of Colonel Marker’s heroic efforts in Vietnam to bring back American soldiers held in prisoner-of-war camps.

“He was a great man,” Beverly Sorensen, a Cincinnati mother, said when interviewed this morning. “He brought our son home to us when we thought he was lost to us forever. He brought a lot of sons and daddies home from that awful place.”

In their war on crime, the district attorney’s office had their newest recruit, Miss Marion Hart, in the field last night. Ms. Hart, a life-long resident of Phoenix, arrived shortly after the murder.

“We’re working leads now,” Ms. Hart said at the scene. “The district attorney’s office will get to the bottom of it.”

A picture accompanied the story. It showed Marion Hart standing in front of a low-rent motel. Behind her, two men rolled a sheet-covered body out on a gurney. Deputy sheriffs holding shotguns flanked her.

According to Winter’s timeline, Marion had been twenty-eight years old. She hadn’t yet married Adam Gracelyn. But the two had known each other. According to the news story, Adam Gracelyn had become the woman’s defense attorney.

That must have been some meeting.

Intrigued, Winter kept reading.

Chapter 3

Outside Laveen, Arizona

Thursday, May 16, 1968

The Past

The ringing blasted Marion Hart into wakefulness. She groaned and rolled over in bed, then reached for the phone on the nightstand. As she pulled the receiver to her ear, her brain kicked to life.

The soft green glow of the uranium-tipped hands of the alarm clock showed the time was 3:41 a.m.

She’d gotten two hours of sleep. She sat up with her back against the headboard and said, “Marion Hart.”

“Marion, did I wake you?”

She recognized District Attorney Geoffrey Turnbull’s gravelly voice immediately. Adrenaline thudded through her body. During the seven weeks she’d been with the district attorney’s office, Turnbull had never called her in the middle of the night.

They’d attended one of the mayor’s political campaign functions earlier. No, she told herself. That was yesterday.

But God help her, that didn’t feel like yesterday. It felt like minutes ago.