White Lies

  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

  Epilogue

  An Excerpt from Troublemaker

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  About the Author

  By Linda Howard

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  IN RANKING THE worst days of her life, this one probably wasn’t number one, but it was definitely in the top three.

  Jay Granger had held her temper all day, rigidly controlling herself until her head was throbbing and her stomach burning. Not even during the jolting ride in a succession of crowded buses had she allowed her control to crack. All day long she had forced herself to stay calm despite the pent-up frustration and rage that filled her, and now she felt as if she couldn’t relax her own mental restraints. She just wanted to be alone.

  So she silently endured having her toes stepped on, her ribs relocated by careless elbows, and her nostrils assailed by close-packed humanity. It began to rain just before she got off the last bus, a slow, cold rain that had chilled her to the bone by the time she walked the two blocks to her apartment building. Naturally she didn’t have an umbrella with her; it was supposed to have been a sunny day. The clouds hadn’t cleared all day long.

  But at last she reached her apartment, where she was safe from curious eyes, either sympathetic or jeering. She was alone, blessedly alone. A sigh of relief broke from her lips as she started to close the door; then her control cracked and she slammed the door with every ounce of strength in her arm. It crashed against the frame with a resounding thud, but the small act of violence didn’t release her tension. Trashing her entire office building might help, or choking Farrell Wordlaw, but both those actions were denied her.

  When she thought of the way she had worked for the past five years, the fourteen-and sixteen-hour days, the work she had brought home on the weekends, she wanted to scream. She wanted to throw something. Yes, she definitely wanted to choke Farrell Wordlaw. But that wasn’t appropriate behavior for a professional woman, a chic and sophisticated executive in a prestigious investment-banking firm. On the other hand, it was entirely appropriate for someone who had just joined the ranks of the unemployed.

  Damn them.

  For five years she had dedicated herself to her job, ruthlessly stifling those parts of her personality that didn’t fit the image. At first it had been mostly because she needed the job and the money, but Jay was too intense to do anything by half measures. Soon she had become caught up in the teeming rat race—the constant striving for success, for new triumphs, bigger and better deals—and that world had been her life for five years. Today she had been kicked out of it.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t been successful; she had. Maybe too successful. Some people hadn’t liked dealing with her because she was a woman. Realizing that, Jay had tried to be as straightforward and aggressive as any man, to reassure her clients that she would take care of them as well as a man could. To that end she had changed her habits of speech, her wardrobe, never let even a hint of a tear sparkle in her eyes, never giggled, and learned how to drink Scotch, though she had never learned to enjoy it. She had paid for such rigid control with headaches and a constant burning in her stomach, but nevertheless she had thrown herself into the role because, for all its stresses, she had enjoyed the challenge. It was an exciting job, with the lure of a fast trip up the corporate ladder, and for the time being, she had been willing to pay the price.

  Well, it was over, by decree of Farrell Wordlaw. He was very sorry, but her style just wasn’t “compatible” with the image Wordlaw, Wilson & Trusler wanted to project. He deeply appreciated her efforts, et cetera, et cetera, and would certainly give her a glowing reference, as well as two weeks’ notice to get her affairs in order. None of that changed the truth, and she knew it as well as he. She was being pushed out to make room for Duncan Wordlaw, Farrell’s son, who had joined the firm the year before and whose performance always ranked second, behind Jay’s. She was showing up the senior partner’s son, so she had to go. Instead of the promotion she’d been expecting, she’d been handed a pink slip.

  She was furious, with no way to express it. It would give her the greatest satisfaction to walk out now and leave Wordlaw scrambling to handle her pending work, but the cold, hard fact was that she needed her salary for those two weeks. If she didn’t find another well-paying job immediately, she would lose her apartment. She had lived within her means, but as her salary had gone up so had her standard of living, and she had very little in savings. She certainly hadn’t expected to lose her job because Duncan Wordlaw was an underachiever!

  Whenever Steve had lost a job, he’d just shrugged and laughed, telling her not to sweat it, he’d find another. And he always had, too. Jobs hadn’t been that important to Steve; neither had security. Jay gave a tight little laugh as she opened a bottle of antacid tablets and shook two of them into her hand. Steve! She hadn’t thought about him in years. One thing was certain, she would never be as uncaring about unemployment as he had been. She liked knowing where her next meal was coming from; Steve liked excitement. He’d needed the hot flow of adrenaline more than he’d needed her, and finally that had ended their marriage.

  But at least Steve would never be this strung out on nerves, she thought as she chewed the chalky tablets and waited for them to ease the burning in her stomach. Steve would have snapped his fingers at Farrell Word-law and told him what he could do with his two weeks’ notice, then walked out whistling. Maybe Steve’s attitude was irresponsible, but he would never let a mere job get the best of him.

  Well, that was Steve’s personality, not hers. He’d been fun, but in the end their differences had been greater than the attraction between them. They had parted on a friendly basis, though she’d been exasperated, as well. Steve would never grow up.

  Why was she thinking of him now? Was it because she associated unemployment with his name? She began to laugh, realizing she’d done exactly that. Still chuckling, she ran water into a glass and lifted it in a toast. “To the good times,” she said. They’d had a lot of good times, laughing and playing like the two healthy young animals they’d been, but it hadn’t lasted.

  Then she forgot about him as worry surged into her mind again. She had to find another job immediately, a well-paying job, but she didn’t trust Farrell to give her a glowing recommendation. He might praise her to the skies in writing, but then he would spread the word around the New York investment-banking community that she didn’t “fit in.” Maybe she should try something else. But her experience was in investment banking, and she didn’t have the financial reserves to train for another field.

  With a sudden feeling of panic, she realized that she was thirty years old and had no idea what she was going to do with her life. She didn’t want to spend the rest of it making deals while living on her nerves and an endless supply of antacid tablets, spending all her free time resting in an effort to build up her flagging energy. In reacting against Steve’s let-tomorrow-take-care-of-itself-while-I-have-fun-today philosophy, she had gone to the opposite extreme and cut fun out of her life.

  She had opened the refrigerator door and was looking at her supply of frozen microwave dinners with an expression of distaste when the doorman buzzed. Deciding to forget about dinner, something she’d done too often lately, she depressed the switch. “Yes, Dennis?”

  “Mr. Payne and Mr. McCoy are here to see you, Ms. Granger,” Dennis sa
id smoothly. “From the FBI.”

  “What?” Jay asked, startled, sure she’d misunderstood.

  Dennis repeated the message, but the words remained the same.

  She was totally dumbfounded. “Send them up,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to do. FBI? What on earth? Unless slamming your apartment door was somehow against federal law, the worst she could be accused of was tearing the tags off her mattress and pillows. Well, why not? This was a perfectly rotten end to a perfectly rotten day.

  The doorbell rang a moment later, and she hurried to open the door, her face still a picture of confusion. The rather nondescript, modestly suited men who stood there both presented badges and identification for her inspection.

  “I’m Frank Payne,” the older of the two men said. “This is Gilbert McCoy. We’d like to talk to you, if we may.”

  Jay gestured them into the apartment. “I’m at a total loss,” she confessed. “Please sit down. Would you like coffee?”

  A look of relief passed over Frank Payne’s pleasant face. “Please,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. “It’s been a long day.”

  Jay went into the kitchen and hurriedly put on a pot of coffee; then, to be on the safe side, she chewed two more antacid tablets. Finally she took a deep breath and walked out to where the two men were comfortably ensconced on her soft, chic, gray-blue sofa. “What have I done?” she asked, only half-joking.

  Both men smiled. “Nothing,” McCoy assured her, grinning. “We just want to talk to you about a former acquaintance.”

  She sank down in the matching gray-blue chair, sighing in relief. The burning in her stomach subsided a little. “Which former acquaintance?” Maybe they were after Farrell Wordlaw; maybe there was justice in the world, after all.

  Frank Payne took a small notebook out of his inner coat pocket and opened it, evidently consulting his notes. “Are you Janet Jean Granger, formerly married to Steve Crossfield?”

  “Yes.” So this had something to do with Steve. She should have known. Still, she was amazed, as if she’d somehow conjured up these two men just by thinking of Steve earlier, something she almost never did. He was so far removed from her life now that she couldn’t even form a clear picture in her mind of how he’d looked. But what had he gotten himself into, with his driving need for excitement?

  “Does your ex-husband have any relatives? Anyone who might be close to him?”

  Slowly Jay shook her head. “Steve is an orphan. He was raised in a series of foster homes, and as far as I know, he didn’t stay in touch with any of his foster parents. As for any close friends—” she shrugged “—I haven’t seen or heard from him since our divorce five years ago, so I don’t have any idea who his friends might be.”

  Payne frowned, rubbing the deep lines between his brows. “Would you remember the name of a dentist he used while you were married, or perhaps a doctor?”

  Jay shook her head, staring at him. “No. Steve was disgustingly healthy.”

  The two men looked at each other, frowning. McCoy said quietly, “Damn, this isn’t going to be easy. We’re running into one dead end after another.”

  Payne’s face was deeply lined with fatigue, and something else. He looked back at Jay, his eyes worried. “Do you think that coffee’s ready yet, Ms. Granger?”

  “It should be. I’ll be right back.” Without knowing why, Jay felt shaken as she went into the kitchen and began putting cups, cream and sugar on a tray. The coffee had finished brewing, and she transferred the pot to the tray, but then just stood there, staring down at the wafting steam. Steve had to be in serious trouble, really serious, and she regretted it even though there was nothing she could do. It had been inevitable, though. He’d always been chasing after adventure, and unfortunately adventure often went hand in hand with trouble. It had been only a matter of time before the odds caught up with him.

  She carried the tray into the living room and placed it on the low table in front of the sofa, her brow furrowed into a worried frown. “What has Steve done?”

  “Nothing illegal, that we know of,” Payne said hastily. “It’s just that he was involved in a…sensitive situation.”

  Steve hadn’t done anything illegal, but the FBI was investigating him? Jay’s frown deepened as she poured three cups of coffee. “What sort of sensitive situation?”

  Payne looked at her with a troubled expression, and suddenly she noticed that he had very nice eyes, clear and strangely sympathetic. Gentle eyes. Not at all the kind of eyes she would have expected an FBI agent to possess. He cleared his throat. “Very sensitive. We don’t even know why he was there. But we need, very badly, to find someone who can make a positive identification of him.”

  Jay went white, the ramifications of that quiet, sinister statement burning in her mind. Steve was dead. Even though the love she’d felt for him had long since faded away, she knew a piercing grief for what had been. He’d been so much fun, always laughing, his brown eyes lit with devilish merriment. It was as if part of her own childhood had died, to know that his laughter had been stilled. “He’s dead,” she said dully, staring at the cup in her hand as it began to shake, sloshing the coffee back and forth.

  Payne quickly reached out and took the cup from her, placing it on the tray. “We don’t know,” he said, his face even more troubled. “There was an explosion; one man survived. We think it’s Crossfield, but we aren’t certain, and it’s critical that we know. I can’t explain more than that.”

  It had been a long, terrible day, and it wasn’t getting any better. She put her shaking hands to her temples and pressed hard, trying to make sense of what he’d told her. “Wasn’t there any identification on him?”

  “No,” Payne said.

  “Then why do you think it’s Steve?”

  “We know he was there. Part of his driver’s license was found.”

  “Why can’t you just look at him and tell who he is?” she cried. “Why can’t you identify the others and find out who he is by process of elimination?”

  McCoy looked away. Payne’s gentle eyes darkened. “There wasn’t enough left to identify. Nothing.”

  She didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to know any of the details, though she could guess at the horrible carnage. She was suddenly cold, as if her blood had stopped pumping. “Steve?” she asked faintly.

  “The man who survived is in critical condition, but the doctors are what they call ‘cautiously optimistic.’ He has a chance. Two days ago, they were certain he wouldn’t last through the night.”

  “Why is it so important that you know right now who he is? If he lives, you can ask him. If he dies—” She halted abruptly. She couldn’t say the words, but she thought them. If he died, it wouldn’t matter. There would be no survivors, and they would close their files.

  “I can’t tell you anything except that we need to know who this man is. We need to know who died, so certain steps can be taken. Ms. Granger, I can tell you that my agency isn’t directly involved in the situation. We’re merely cooperating with others, because this concerns national security.”

  Suddenly Jay knew what they wanted from her. They would have been glad if she could have helped them locate any dental or medical records on Steve, but that wasn’t their prime objective. They wanted her to go with them, to personally identify the injured man as Steve.

  In a dull voice she asked, “Can’t they tell if this man matches the general description of any of their own people? Surely they have measurements, fingerprints, that sort of thing?”

  She was looking down, so she didn’t see the quick wariness in Payne’s eyes. He cleared his throat again. “Your husband—ex-husband—and our man are… were…the same general size. Fingerprints aren’t possible; his hands are burned. But you know more about him than anyone else we can find. There might be something about him that you recognize, some little birthmark or scar that you remember.”

  It still confused her; she couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t be able to reco
gnize their own man, unless he was so horribly mutilated… Shivering, she didn’t let herself complete the thought, didn’t let the picture form in her mind. What if it was Steve? She didn’t hate him, had never hated him. He was a rascal, but he’d never been cruel or meanhearted; even after she had stopped loving him, she had still been fond of him, in an exasperated way.

  “You want me to go with you,” she said, making it a statement instead of a question.

  “Please,” Payne replied quietly.

  She didn’t want to, but he had made it seem like her patriotic duty. “All right. I’ll get my coat. Where is he?”

  Payne cleared his throat again and Jay tensed. She’d already learned that he did that whenever he had to tell her something awkward or unpleasant. “He’s at Bethesda Naval Hospital in D.C. You’ll need to pack a small suitcase. We have a private jet waiting for us at Kennedy.”

  Things were moving too fast for her to understand; she felt as if all she could do was follow the path of least resistance. Too much had happened today. First she had been fired, a brutal blow in itself, and now this. The security she had worked so hard to attain for herself had vanished in a few short minutes in Farrell Wordlaw’s office, leaving her spinning helplessly, unable to get her feet back on the ground. Her life had been so quiet for the past five years; how could all this have happened so quickly?

  Numbly she packed two dresses that traveled well, then collected her cosmetics from the bathroom. As she shoved what she needed into a small zippered plastic bag, she was stunned by her own reflection in the mirror. She looked so white and strained, and thin. Unhealthily thin. Her eyes were hollow and her cheekbones too prominent, the result of working long hours and living on antacid tablets. As soon as she returned to the city she would have to begin looking for another job, as well as working out her notice, which would mean more skipped meals.

  Then she felt ashamed of herself. Why was she worrying about a job when Steve—or someone—was lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life? Steve had always told her that she worried too much about work, that she couldn’t enjoy today because she was always worried about tomorrow. Maybe he was right.