Night's Landing Read online

  Praise for the novels of

  CARLA NEGGERS

  “No one does romantic suspense better!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich

  “Neggers’s brisk pacing and colorful characterizations sweep the reader toward a dramatic and ultimately satisfying denouement.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Cabin

  “These pages don’t just turn; they spin with the best of them.”

  —BookPage on The Waterfall

  “Neggers delivers a colorful, well-spun story that shines with sincere emotion.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Carriage House

  “Suspense, romance and the rocky Maine coast—what more can a reader ask for? The Harbor has it all. Carla Neggers writes a story so vivid you can smell the salt air and feel the mist on your skin.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

  “Tension-filled story line that grips the audience from start to finish.”

  —Midwest Book Review on The Waterfall

  “Carla Neggers is one of the most distinctive, talented writers of our genre.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

  Also by CARLA NEGGERS

  DARK SKY

  THE RAPIDS

  COLD RIDGE

  THE HARBOR

  STONEBROOK COTTAGE

  THE CABIN

  THE CARRIAGE HOUSE

  THE WATERFALL

  ON FIRE

  KISS THE MOON

  CLAIM THE CROWN

  Look for the latest novel from

  CARLA NEGGERS

  THE WIDOW

  CARLA NEGGERS

  Night’s Landing

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to Christine Wenger, Glen Stone, Paul Hudson and Dr. Carla Patton for answering all my questions and thinking up a few I didn’t 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! Although…no, 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, I’ve put away my hiking boots (I’m determined to hike all forty-eight peaks over 4,000 feet in the New Hampshire White Mountains) and I’m deep into my next book. To get in touch with me, visit my Web site, www.carlaneggers.com.

  Take care,

  To Lynn Katz…

  I love your photography and your sense of humor!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  One

  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 they’d just asked and politicians of saying what they’d 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 mayor’s 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 wasn’t 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 wasn’t visible, but Nate doubted they could pass for New York businessmen, either. “Air feels good to me.”

  “It would. I’ll bet the snow hasn’t melted where you come from.”

  Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains. Nate hadn’t been home since his sister Carine’s wedding in February. “My uncle tells me there’s still snow on the ridge. It’s 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. Let’s 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. “I’m 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 deputy’s 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. He’d done a year abroad. Paris. He’d 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 didn’t even notice the noise and grime anymore. He liked the city, but he didn’t delude himself. He wasn’t 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 they’d 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 elliptic
al-shaped pond. There was just enough of a drizzle to cause pinpricks across the pond’s gray water.

  “The tulips are something, aren’t they?” Rob walked up the gently curving path along the edge of the pond. “My sister says they’re done for in Tennessee.”

  “Rob, Christ. I’ve got work to do. I can’t be wasting time looking at flowers.”

  “What’s the matter? We hard-ass marshals can’t 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. I’ve appreciated the tulips.”

  “When do tulips bloom in New Hampshire? July?”

  “We’re 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 Valentine’s Day wedding in the middle of it. The second of Nate’s younger sisters, Carine, and her childhood friend, Tyler North, had finally married. They’d almost made it to the altar the previous Valentine’s 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, Nate’s 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. He’d been orphaned as a little boy. He liked not having anyone worrying about whether he’d come home that night. A wife, kids. A dog. He didn’t 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 he’d 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 don’t see so many dogwoods up here.”

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

  “Dogwoods are a flowering tree—”

  “I know. Give me a break.”

  “You should come to Nashville. My sister—” Rob flinched suddenly, his body jerking back and up, his knees stiffening as he grabbed his upper left abdomen and swore. “Fuck. Nate…shit…”

  Nate drew his Heckler & Koch, but told himself Rob could just be having a back spasm or a heart attack. The guy almost never swore. Something had to be wrong. Maybe a bee sting. Was he allergic?

  Rob staggered back a step, his suitcoat falling open.

  Blood.

  It seeped between his fingers and spread across his white shirt on his upper left side.

  A lot of blood.

  “I’ve been shot,” he said, sinking.

  Nate caught him around the middle with his left arm, still holding the HK in his right hand, and glanced around for cover, spotted a rock outcropping near the pond on the other side of the path.

  The shooter—where the hell was he?

  Rob tried to keep his feet moving, but Nate more or less dragged him toward the rocks, then realized he hadn’t heard any gunfire. Apparently no one else had, either. People were going about their business. Two elderly women with Bergdorf Goodman bags, a middle-aged man jogging on the path, a park worker inside a fenced area near the far edge of the tulips. They were all potential targets.

  “Get down!” Nate yelled. “Federal officers! Get down now!”

  The park worker dove for the ground without hesitation. The women and the jogger were confused at first, then did likewise, covering their heads with their hands and going still, not making a sound.

  The rocks seemed a million miles away. Nate had no idea where the shot had come from. Fifth Avenue? Central Park South? The undergrowth along the shore of the pond presented a number of places for a shooter to conceal himself.

  A trained sniper could be within hundreds of yards.

  A bullet tore into Nate’s upper left arm. He knew instantly what it was. He swore but didn’t let go of Rob, didn’t let go of his semiautomatic.

  Definitely no gunfire. Even with the street noise, he should have been able to hear a shot.

  The asshole was using a silencer.

  “Put pressure on your wound,” he told Rob. “Don’t let go. You hear me? I’ll get help.”

  But before Nate could get to his feet, a mounted NYPD police officer rode toward them. “What’s—”

  “Sniper,” Nate cut in. “Get off your horse before—”

  He didn’t need to finish. The NYPD cop saw Rob’s bloody front, saw his badge on his belt and dismounted, shouting into his radio for help. Officers down. Sniper at the pond in Central Park.

  Nate knew the cavalry would be there in seconds.

  The young NYPD cop stayed calm and crept toward the rocks. “You both hit?”

  Nate nodded. “We’re deputy marshals. The shooter’s using a silencer.”

  “All right. Stay cool.”

  Rob moaned, his arm falling away from his wound. Nate took over, applying pressure with his hand, as he’d learned in his first-aid training. He could feel his own pain now. His suit jacket was torn and bloody where the bullet had ripped through the fabric. What caliber? Where was the bastard who’d shot him?

  Who was next?

  The NYPD cop yelled instructions to bystanders.

  Sirens. Lots of sirens on the streets above them.

  Nate looked at the thousands of tulips brightening the dull landscape.

  What the hell had just happened?

  Two

  Sarah Dunnemore jammed a cinnamon stick among the ice cubes and the slice of orange in her tall glass of sweet tea punch and sat back in the old wicker rocker on the front porch of her family’s 1918 log house. The air was warm, no hint yet of the heat and humidity that would come with the middle Tennessee summer, and the sky was washed from yesterday’s rain. A gentle breeze floated up from the river and brought with it the faint scent of roses.

  Somewhere nearby, a mockingbird sang.

  Sarah had warned herself to be prepared for the worst when she came home. Leaks in the roof, unmowed grass, bats, mice, food rotting in the refrigerator—her parents had last been in Night’s Landing in early April, though they wouldn’t necessarily notice such things or have them tended to. But they’d hired a new “gardener,” as her mother called the property manager, and he seemed to be working out. He hadn’t disappeared yet, as so many of his predecessors had, and he was good at his job. The lawn was manicured, the flower and vegetable gardens were in top shape, and the house was in good repair on what was a perfect early May afternoon.

  The Dunnemores had arrived on the Cumberland River in the late eighteenth century and had been there ever since, sometimes eking out a living, sometimes managing quite nicely—always having adventures and too often dying young.

  After just one sip of her tea punch, Sarah resolved not to drink the entire pitcher by herself. It was even sweeter than she remembered. She’d come home last at Christmas, but tea punch was a summer treat. She’d only made it to Night’s Landing once the previous summer, a whirlwind visit that did not involve a leisurely afternoon on the porch.

  The porch was shaded by a massive oak that she and her brother, Rob, used to climb as children, but even the lowest branch was too high now. They’d sneak up there and spy on Granny Dunnemore and their father, arguing politics on the porch, or their mother as she snapped beans and hummed to herself, thinking she was alone.

  Sarah had ma
de the tea punch herself, dunking tea bags into Granny’s old sun-tea bottle and setting it out on the porch for an hour, then adding the litany of ingredients—frozen orange juice and lemon juice, mint extract, spices, sugar. She knew not to ponder them too much or she’d never drink the stuff. She never had an urge for sweet tea punch except when she was home in Tennessee.

  Her friends in Scotland had made faces when she’d described Granny’s recipe. “Do you waste proper tea on it?”

  Well, no. She didn’t. She used the cheapest tea bags she could find.

  She took her friends’ chiding in stride. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have oddities in their comfort cuisine.

  She’d spent two weeks in Scotland in the fall and then the past three months straight, working nonstop, completing—yes, that was the word, she told herself—the final project in a series of projects under one huge heading: the Poe House. How dry and ordinary it sounded. Yet it had consumed her since high school, before she even knew what historical archaeology was.

  The Poes had arrived on the Cumberland River not that long after the Dunnemores. Sarah knew their family history, the history of their post—Civil War house just downriver, of the land it was built on, better than she did her own. She’d written articles and papers, she’d done interviews and research; she’d organized archaeological digs on the site; she’d preserved documents and artifacts; she’d scrambled for grants; she’d helped create a private trust that worked with the state and federal government to preserve the Poe house as an historic site; and now she’d produced a documentary that took the family back to its roots in Scotland.