Breakwater

Her friend didn’t seem to hear her. “The osprey, the osprey. Quinn, the osprey.” Stabbing stiff fingers into her hair, Alicia gulped in three rapid breaths, fresh tears spilling down her raw cheeks. “The osprey will kill me.”

She stiffened her arms as if she was trying to keep herself from shattering into little pieces. Her movements were uncoordinated, jerky. In recent months she’d been openly restless, looking, she said, for more to life than her work, her next promotion, success—she just didn’t know what. Weekends on the bay were supposed to help her figure that out.

“Alicia, at least let me take you to your office. Someone there can help—”

“No!” She backed up a step, hitting Quinn’s table, startling herself. “I can’t—I can’t think.”

Alicia pushed at the air, as if she was trying to bat away something flying at her. Had the osprey preying on a duckling so traumatized her? Quinn reached for her briefcase, her cell phone zipped inside. If necessary, she’d call 911.

“No one knows I’m here, seeing you. I didn’t tell anyone.” Alicia lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from moving. “Not a soul.”

Quinn felt a surge of helplessness. “Alicia, what’s wrong. Just relax—”

“Don’t tell anyone about me.” Her eyes seemed to clear, and her entire body stiffened. She took in a sharp breath. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me.” But she didn’t wait for an answer, and whispered, “I’m not myself. I—I know I’m not.”

Ivan Andropov, the Russian immigrant who owned the café, came out onto the tiny patio in his white chef’s apron, holding up a cell phone in one hand. “What’s going on? I’m calling the police—”

Alicia gasped and bolted, knocking over a chair, pushing her way between two flowerpots.

Quinn waved a hand at Ivan as she climbed over the flowerpots, her three-inch high heels not as suited to mad dashes as Alicia’s sport sandals. “Don’t call the police, Ivan. She’s a friend.” She ran onto the sidewalk, but Alicia was already to the corner. “Alicia! Hold up. Nobody’s calling the police.”

She didn’t even glance back. At the intersection, a shiny black sedan pulled alongside her. It resembled half the cars in D.C.

The back door on the driver’s side opened.

Alicia jumped inside, and the door shut immediately, the window’s tinted glass hiding her from view as the car sped up the street.

Quinn kicked off her shoes and ran, but when she reached the corner, the car was out of sight. She hadn’t caught a single number of its license plate or so much as a glimpse of the driver.

Who had opened the back door?

If Alicia hadn’t told anyone she was here, how had the car managed to find her? Had she hired one for the day? But hiring a car seemed beyond her abilities. Physically, emotionally, she didn’t seem to be in a state to do much of anything on her own.

Quinn returned to the café, her iBook and briefcase on the table where she’d left them. She picked up the abandoned alphabet book and brought it over to Ivan, frowning at her in the coffee-shop doorway, his arms crossed tightly on his chest. He was in his early forties, round-faced and congenial, but he didn’t like scenes.

He took the alphabet book and grunted. “They’ll never be back.”

“Did you call the police?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like police. This friend…” Ivan seemed to exaggerate his Russian accent. “She’s crazy?”

“No. I know it looked that way just now, but no, she’s not crazy. We haven’t been that close lately—since I left Justice.”

His eyes widened. “She’s a lawyer?”

“Yes, but she hasn’t been in a courtroom since law school. I’m sure she didn’t go in to work today, not looking the way she did just now.” And acting, Quinn thought. “She’s been borrowing my cottage for weekends. She said she was a little burned out at work.”

“A little?”

“Maybe more than I realized.”

Quinn felt her hair coming out of its pins, but didn’t care. She had left behind the pressure-cooker atmosphere of working at Justice because she’d wanted more normalcy to her life. The flexibility of self-employment. A more gentle pace to her days, or at least a pace she could control herself instead of one foisted upon her.

While most of her friends had applauded her departure from DOJ, Alicia regarded it as a personal affront, a betrayal not only of friendship but of shared ambition, despite their different jobs and interests.

“I never imagined…” Quinn didn’t know what else to say. “I swear, Ivan, what happened just now isn’t like Alicia at all.”

“Drugs,” he pronounced, dropping his arms to his sides. “She’s on drugs.”

Quinn didn’t argue with him.

2

Wedged on the floor of the Lincoln Town Car’s back seat, Alicia Miller twitched and sobbed, no real words coming out, at least none that Steve Eisenhardt could distinguish. He was in back with her, trying not to show the Nazis up front how upset he was. He worked at the Justice Department with Alicia—he was her friend. If he’d had his way, he’d have been more than a friend. Lately, though, he hadn’t had his way about much of anything.

Yet even now, after he’d betrayed her to the goons up front, Steve found himself wanting to save her. He’d never felt so helpless. His shit parents, his yawner years at law school, his panic over passing the bar—nothing in his past came close to rivaling the mess he was in now.

He’d made his deal with the devil. Now the devil had come for his due.

Alicia kicked his shins in spasms she couldn’t seem to control. She’d worsened noticeably in the five minutes since she’d gotten in the car. She was more anxious, more incoherent. In her normal state of mind, she’d be horrified to see herself this way. She was a poised, cool beauty, a smart attorney, the adored daughter of Chicago doctors. He had never stood a chance with her. He’d come on board at DOJ two months ago, another ambitious lawyer with inherited money and political connections. Alicia would confide in him, advise him about toning down his “arrogance” and grace him with her friendship, but she would never consider him as a potential love interest. He wasn’t bad-looking—but not a stud, either. By Washington standards, he was pretty ordinary. Alicia Miller, however, wasn’t interested in ordinary.

And now her attitude had gotten her into serious trouble.

Steve leaned forward over the front seat. “If something happens to her and the cops check this car, you bastards better have the number of a good lawyer.” He thought he sounded relatively calm, although his voice was slightly more high-pitched than normal. “Her DNA’s all over the place back here.”

No answer from the two goons in front. He didn’t know who they worked for. He had ideas, but he didn’t want details. The driver looked like an SS guard. The other one was straight off a Hitler Youth poster—he couldn’t have been more than twenty. They both had buzz cuts, fullback shoulders, square jaws, lots of attitude and no sense of humor. None. Steve dealt with tension through humor. Not these bastards.

The SS guard pulled to the side of Pennsylvania Avenue and turned around to face Steve. He didn’t know the guy’s name. He didn’t want to know. The bastard’s yellow-looking eyes by themselves were enough to scare the hell out of the dead.

“Get out. Go back to your desk. You know nothing.”

“Damn right.”

Not even a glimmer of a smile. “We’ll be in touch.”

“I’ve done my part. You can’t keep—”

The Hitler Youth kid joined the driver in glaring into the back seat. “Out, now.”

Steve didn’t argue. He didn’t ask what would happen to Alicia. He’d received a call on his cell phone during lunch instructing him to be on Pennsylvania Avenue in ten minutes. The “or else” was implied. He hadn’t been threatened with maiming or death. Not yet. So far, the only threat was an end to his career, public humiliation, arrest and possible jail time.

The bastards had pictures of him and a prominent congressman’s fifteen-year-old daughter.

Complying with his instructions, Steve had raced to the appointed place, arriving in less than ten minutes. The Lincoln picked him up and whisked him off toward Dupont Circle. Alicia was wandering around D.C., and his job was to get her in the car. She trusted him. If she saw him, she’d cooperate.