Part 2 (2/2)
I crossed my heart with a finger. ”Hope to die.”
He took a deep breath. ”If I'm right, I found something of historical importance that n.o.body seems to have realized is out there, even though it's probably been hiding in plain sight. Like I said, it could be worth a lot of money to the right people. I want to be the person who makes that discovery, solves the puzzle. And be the first to write about it.”
At least now I understood the thinking behind his idea for my garden book, since it mirrored his own project: photograph the city's jilted beauties, gardens that were overlooked and ignored. In other words, hiding in plain sight.
”So the reason for all the secrecy is that you don't want someone stealing your story?”
He nodded. ”I don't own the information I uncovered. It's in the public domain, and anyone who figured out what I was doing could obtain the same doc.u.ments. So far no one else has. Right now, it's my treasure hunt.”
”Was that why you were arguing with Edward Jaine?”
He gave me a severe look. ”In a word; no. That was about something else.”
”What did you retrieve from the catacombs?”
He made a zipping motion across his lips.
”Kevin, someone knows something or he wouldn't be following you.”
”I know. That's what's bothering me. I don't know who it could be.”
”What are you going to do?”
He shrugged, but he still looked worried. ”What can I do? Keep searching and watch my back.”
”You'd better be careful.”
”Whatever happens is in G.o.d's hands.” He glanced at his watch. ”Sorry, Soph, but I ought to go. I promised Thea I'd stop by the library and take a look at those books she was telling me about last night.” He grimaced. ”Then I'm meeting someone for coffee.”
”You don't look too happy about it.”
”I have to say something I wish I didn't have to say.”
”Then why are you doing it?”
”If I don't, more people are going to get hurt later. And I'll know I could have done something to prevent it. It's better to get this over with.” He sighed and pulled his car keys out of a pocket inside his robe. ”Are you leaving now, too?”
”I think I'll stick around and take some more pictures. I have a meeting at the Smithsonian, but it's not for an hour.”
”Another job?”
I nodded. ”An editor from Museum Press hired me to take the photographs for a history book on the National Mall. So I'll see her, and then at the end of the day I'm meeting Ursula and Yasmin at the monastery. She wants to walk through the church and the garden. Again.”
”I remember.” He made a face. ”The kids from Brookland Elementary are coming over at two to clean up the beds in their vegetable garden. We'll be long gone when you do your walk-through with Ursula.”
”That school garden is such a great community project.”
”Especially when they get to eat what they've grown and realize food doesn't only come from a can or a package.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. ”If you ever want to take photographs, you're welcome to come by. We could put them on the garden website, get some publicity. You know we're always looking for donations.”
”I'd be happy to, but you'd need written permission from every parent,” I said. ”A friend who works for the Post accidentally took a picture for a school story without knowing one of the kids was in the witness protection program. It was a mess.”
His eyes widened. ”I'll keep that in mind.”
”I can take garden pictures without the kids,” I said. ”You can put those on your website. I'll come by early and check it out.”
”That would be great, though there's not much to check out right now. Too early in the season.” He gave me a swift hug and left, robes flying as he strode down the promenade. As he disappeared up the steps by the FDR Memorial, my foot kicked something on the ground. A key.
The head was dark gray molded plastic, the same color as the lantern. I picked it up. On one side, the number 58 was etched into the plastic. It was too small and oddly sized to be a house key or a key to a room at the monastery; it looked more like it belonged to a storage locker or a trunk.
Kevin must have dropped it when he pulled out his car keys, or maybe when he pa.s.sed me the envelope, unless one of the two women who'd just been here had lost it. I shoved it in my jeans pocket. When I went over to the monastery later today, I'd ask him if it was his.
I took pictures for another half hour and thought about my conversation with Kevin. Had he moved whatever he'd hidden in the catacombs to a new, safe place? I hit the Unlock b.u.t.ton for my car door and wondered what the little gray key might open.
More than that, I wondered what object could be so precious to a Franciscan friar that he went to such lengths to keep it hidden, especially when he lived in a house whose only other residents were religious men of G.o.d.
3.
A parking s.p.a.ce opened up across the street from the old-fas.h.i.+oned carousel on the Mall as I drove up. In two weeks, the flowering cherries, dogwoods, magnolias, and redbud would begin to bloom, and Was.h.i.+ngton would be at its loveliest, bringing tens of thousands of tourists in buses and cars that choked the Mall and overran the monuments and museums. But today the city still belonged to the locals. I liked it without the crowds, days when you could get a parking place practically in front of the Smithsonian Castle, and the museums and art galleries were so empty you might have an entire room filled with centuries of culture or the world's greatest paintings practically to yourself.
Nearly eight months ago, my husband and I moved here after living in London for twelve years. Nick's career as a covert operative with the CIA had ended after a nerve-racking, harrowing time when he had been on the run for three months and I had returned to Was.h.i.+ngton to be near family and friends. It hadn't been an easy decision to leave a city we both loved, but we knew if we stayed in England any longer, we'd be expats forever and maybe strangers to each other because we were together so seldom.
Living with a spy is not easy. I had never been able to tell anyone this, not even my family, who had known Nick only as a geophysicist working for a British oil and gas exploration company that had been drilling for oil in Russia. I knew what Nick really did before the wedding, and I liked to think I wasn't nave about what his clandestine life would mean for us. I'd grown up around Was.h.i.+ngton where everyone knew more spooks than they realized. What I didn't understand was how hard it would be to live with someone you could never truly know, who erected impenetrable walls and spun webs of fict.i.tious truths without batting an eye, who could compartmentalize his life with what seemed like ruthless efficiency.
Then Nick's cover was blown and he was PNG'd-declared persona non grata-by the Russian government. But after being in the field for so long, he didn't want to return to a desk job in Langley. Three and a half months ago, after a couple of bottles of champagne on New Year's Eve and a discussion that lasted until dawn, Nick handed in his resignation to the CIA and I left the small photography studio where I'd worked for the past six months. I picked up freelance a.s.signments right away-almost more work than I could handle-but it wasn't so easy for Nick, who got in touch with friends and started calling in favors for job leads at meetings or lunches or over drinks.
Anyone who has been recruited as an informant by a foreign country's intelligence agency can bend over and kiss his a.s.s goodbye if he's ever outed, because professionally no one will trust you again. You're a snitch and you can be bought. It's different if you were hired by the CIA, as Nick was, and had gone through Agency training, because intelligence gathering is your job. You have a regular paycheck, a pension, health insurance, and an annual vacation, and you have sworn an oath of loyalty to your country. But it's still a complicated and fickle world when you leave the life to start over again on the outside. Whatever Nick did next would have to be something unusual, almost certainly not advertised on any website or with a written, well-defined job description.
In the beginning of February, he came home one day and told me Quillen Russell was forming a consulting firm and had asked Nick if he wanted the position as his energy expert. Was.h.i.+ngton needs more consulting firms like the beach needs more sand, but Quill had been secretary of state in a previous administration and he was G.o.dfather to the oldest daughter of the current president. I doubted they would be advertising for clients, and the new office was going to be within walking distance of the White House.
”What will you do?” I asked Nick.
He gave me a dangerous half smile and said, ”Whatever they ask me to do.”
”It'll be like the Agency again, won't it?”
”Not really. Quill sees it more as being fixers or facilitators for problems or situations that are . . . unconventional.”
”Your fee won't be a line item in someone's budget?”
He laughed and pulled me into his arms. ”Do you mind if I go away for a while?”
”Yes, I do,” I said as he kissed my hair. ”I was just getting used to having you home after all the time you spent in Russia.”
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