Secrets Read online

  “Why would she want to do that when you send such fascinating people to visit with her? There’s Clyde from Accounting. He comes—what is it?—three times a week? Hoskins from Internal Affairs. And my favorite: Mrs. Simpson from Foreign. What a jolly lot they are.”

  “And she has Goodwin to mow her grass. I hear he’s half in love with her. Maybe she’s the grandmother he never had.”

  “Speaking of which, I think you’d better get a real gardener in there to look after the place. It looks good now, but it won’t last. And my Dana knows good gardening.”

  Jeff gave Roger a hard look. “You can’t possibly be thinking of allowing Dana to visit her again.”

  Roger gave a laugh. “What am I supposed to do? Forbid my wife to visit a woman I’m not supposed to know? Besides, Althea must have asked them to keep their visit a secret because Dana hasn’t said a word to me about it. What about you? Did Cassie tell you she spent the morning having tea with the Great Lady?”

  “Not a word,” Jeff said, “but I’ll get it out of her.”

  “Spoken like an unmarried man.”

  “I was married,” Jeff spat out, “but you know how that ended.”

  “Yeah,” Roger said, his voice lowered. “Listen, I know you just want to protect the women, but I don’t know how to do it without telling them too much. I think we should let the three of them have their little secret. After all, what trouble could they get into? Althea is how old now?”

  “Not even the United States government is powerful enough to find out that information. The woman has four passports that we know of, and each one has a different birth date.”

  “Okay, but we agree that she’s an old woman, so how much bad can she do? Her days of sticking her nose into the governments of foreign countries are over. Besides, maybe meeting a great actress will cheer Dana up.”

  “Still down, is she?”

  Roger rolled his eyes. “Skylar is a real bitch to her. Sometimes I want to…”

  “Yeah, I know. Strangle her.”

  Roger laughed. “I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but I could see that. Is she really nasty to Cassie?”

  “Horrible.”

  “And Elsbeth?”

  Jeff smiled. “Except for one hilarious incident involving a jacket, when Skylar makes one of her remarks meant to draw blood, Cassie just lowers her head and takes it. She’s a pouter. She goes into her room and holds on to her wounds. But Elsbeth is like me.”

  “What does that mean? She’s devious, underhanded, and living more than one life?”

  “Exactly,” Jeff said, smiling. “When Skylar makes a remark that Elsbeth doesn’t like, my daughter gets her back. When we went on the trip to DC and had to go to the formal embassy party, Skylar was hysterical because her makeup bag was missing. It was night, we were late, and she didn’t have so much as a tube of mascara. When my daughter is around, Skylar refuses to take off her shoes because of all the things she’s found in them.”

  Roger laughed. “With your daughter’s ancestry, how can she be anything but devious? Tell me, have you ever seen Elsbeth do anything to Skylar’s possessions?”

  “Not one single thing,” Jeff said with pride. “Nor has Dad.”

  Roger gave a low whistle. “I am impressed. And here I thought she was an ordinary little girl.”

  “She is, and she’s mad about Cassie.”

  “Who isn’t? Last time I saw her at the pool in that red swimsuit, I—” He broke off at the look Jeff gave him. “Just kidding. I’m happy with my wife, even if she is the gloomiest person on the planet right now.”

  Jeff was frowning. He didn’t like the references to Cassie in a swimsuit. She was built like a real woman: big on top, big on the bottom, with a twenty-four-inch waist in the middle. More than once when he’d seen her and his daughter getting ready to go to the club pool he’d had to leave the room and get into a cold shower. “Okay, we’ll let the women have their little social mornings, but let’s keep an eye on them.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Roger said mockingly. He looked at his watch.

  “I have to go or Dana will think I’m having an affair.”

  “I think she already does. Cassie hinted that she thinks you’re doing something you shouldn’t on that boat.”

  “I am,” Roger said, grinning, then he lost his smile. “You don’t mean…not another woman? Dana couldn’t think I’m having—” He shook his head in disbelief. “Anyway, it’s a good thing that young Brent didn’t believe Althea’s story. He did just as you’ve taught him and checked it out before calling for backup. He showed me tapes from two cameras that clearly show that she fired the shots.”

  “Thank heaven for hidden cameras.”

  Roger chuckled. “Hidden? I hope you don’t mean you think they’re hidden from Althea. She turned to the one that’s embedded in the wrought-iron casing of a flowerpot and said, ‘I’m ready for my close-up now, Mr. Goodwin.’”

  “Why was I given the job of guarding her?” Jeff groaned, running his hand over his face. “I’d rather take on the Mafia.”

  “We know why you took it on,” Roger said quietly.

  Jeff looked away for a moment. At the time, he had a pregnant wife, and the agency had offered him a low mortgage on a great house in an outstanding community. The catch was that his new house would be next door to a mansion that would house a living treasure: Althea Fairmont. At the time, all he knew about her was that she’d made some great movies and she’d helped the United States in time of need. He’d felt guilty to be given such a cushy job.

  It was months before he found out the truth. An angry agent, embittered by his lack of promotion within the agency, had spent his last years writing a tell-all book. To Jeff’s mind the man was the lowest form of scum. He’d betrayed his oath of secrecy. When he died, his will instructed his children to send the book to a publisher. Some smart lawyer for the publishing house, concerned about lawsuits, had called the CIA and e-mailed the manuscript to them. Within three hours, all copies of the book had been destroyed.

  But even the government couldn’t keep all the information secret. The names of people who had secretly helped the United States government, spies, were leaked. The agency was able to keep the public from knowing, but the inner circle of the espionage world knew. A man who’d helped during World War II was found facedown in his swimming pool. Another man disappeared one night and was never seen again. After the second death, the president of the United States got involved.

  One of the names on the list was that of Althea Fairmont, the most beloved actress who had ever lived. There had been no sign of any attempts on her life, no threatening letters or phone calls, but the order came down from the highest offices that she was to be protected. If nothing else, the United States didn’t want to bear the humiliation of the public knowing that an actress had helped them in every major war since the 1920s.

  But how to protect her? They couldn’t put one of the most famous people in the world in witness protection. How could such a famous person be anonymous? In the end, they decided to put her in a gated community near the military bases and the CIA school.

  When she was told what needed to be done to protect her, Althea said she’d rather live in the Gulag than in suburbia.

  But her desire for life won out. A mansion was built at government expense, with the plan that, later, after Althea passed away, the house would be used for visiting dignitaries.

  Jefferson Ames and his well-trained, well-respected father were put in a house on one side of Althea’s, and the attorney who’d take over her financial and legal affairs on the other side. Althea’s house was liberally sprinkled with concealed buttons. If she pushed one of them, an alarm would go off in both Jeff’s and Roger’s houses, as well as in agency headquarters. But no alarm had ever sounded.

  When Althea was told that a third man had to live in her house with her, she’d protested so loudly that they’d let her choose the man herself. She went through a stack of photographs and