The Betrayed

Detective Lee Van Camp, a lean man with a thin face and a haggard appearance, stepped over to them, interrupting whatever the lieutenant was about to say. Mo knew he’d be lead man on the case. He worked with Jimmy Voorhaven, a younger detective, and they were probably the two best men in the county. Purbeck was a good commander and usually directed his detectives from his office. Purbeck was here himself because Richard Highsmith’s disappearance—and now confirmed murder—was about as high-profile as it got.

He would remain involved. The media had already gone crazy but news people were being kept at a distance.

She’d worked with Detective Van Camp before. In fact, of all the local cops, she’d worked with him the most. They’d met when she was just a teenager. She hadn’t had Rollo then; she’d had his mom, Heidi. Working with the wolfhounds had been a godsend for her. When she was in her teens, her parents had discovered how effective she and Heidi were at search and rescue, and she remembered hearing them argue about whether they should allow her to continue. They’d decided that yes, if she could help, they were morally bound to let her do so.

She’d never really known what Van Camp thought about her and her almost foolproof ability to find the missing. He simply watched her with his dark, unblinking eyes. And he was always courteous.

“Well?” Purbeck asked softly.

“Political execution taken to a dramatic extreme?” Van Camp asked Purbeck. “Or mental case?” He turned to Mo. “What do you think?”

Maureen wasn’t taken aback by the question. And it wasn’t because she and Van Camp knew each other or that they’d worked together before. He’d told her once that he just listened and tested everything he heard; he listened to everyone, taking in what worked for him and ignoring what didn’t. But he didn’t brush off anyone or discount any opinion. Mo liked him a lot. He was an exceptional detective for that very reason.

She took a deep breath. “It’s certainly dramatic. But in the legend, the headless horseman is looking for heads. He takes the heads and leaves the bodies behind.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Van Camp said.

Purbeck narrowed his eyes. “People say there are really no new stories, just new ways to tell them. The headless horseman was an old legend in the area—Washington Irving just wrote it up with literary talent. Whoever this is, they’re putting a new twist on it.”

“If you go by the legend, the horseman is searching for a head,” Van Camp continued. “And he killed old Ichabod Crane with a pumpkin head he’d been carting around. But if you read between the lines, either Bram Bones did in his rival or Ichabod went off to live happily ever after somewhere else. But if you think this is a political assassination, the drama’s an attempt to throw off suspicion. Hard to be sure at this point.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll know more, I’m sure, after autopsy. I mean— Well, we’ll need to know how the head was removed from the body.”

“Whatever the answer may be, I really don’t think we’re looking for a long-dead Hessian soldier still fighting the Revolution!” Purbeck said.

“No, but these days, politics can be close to war,” Van Camp said with distaste. “Poor guy. He sure as hell didn’t deserve anything like this. I hope, I really hope that—” He paused again. “I hope it was quick.”

“I want to send Mo and Rollo home. No reason they have to watch all this,” Purbeck said.

Van Camp shook his head. “Mo can’t go yet. We still need her and Rollo.”

“Oh?” Purbeck asked.

“Boss man, hey,” Van Camp said. “We’ve got...part of Mr. Highsmith. We need to find the rest of him.”

“Yeah, but I was hoping to give Mo a break. She and Rollo have already found Richard— Well, his head. I thought we’d search for the rest of the remains ourselves....but, Mo, it probably does make more sense if you and Rollo do your thing, get a head start.” He winced. “Sorry. You okay with doing that?”

“Of course,” Mo said, crouching down by Rollo. “Good job, my friend. But we need more. Are you ready?”

The question was just as much for her. She studied the site. Van Camp had left them. He was speaking with Voorhaven, requesting help to get up on a makeshift hoist for a better look at the head in situ. Gina Mason was beside him, accepting a camera from one of her assistants.

“Mo?” Purbeck asked. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

She nodded, closing her eyes. She envisioned the man in the picture she’d been given hours before.

When she opened her eyes, she looked across the road to the cemetery.

Most people thought the old burying grounds were part of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which included hills and covered a lot of space. The Old Winchester Burying Grounds was actually a separate entity. At one time, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church had stood somewhere in the center, although it had burned down during the Revolution. So, officially, this had been a burying ground rather than a cemetery. Traditionally, unlike a cemetery, a burying ground was attached to a church, although over the years the terms had become interchangeable.

Now—be it cemetery or burying ground—the place beckoned to her.

“Rollo,” she said to the dog. “We’re on.”

* * *

Aidan knew this area very well.

Nestled in the Hudson Valley, surrounded by mountains and bordered by the Hudson River, Sleepy Hollow was simply charming. Carved out of Tarrytown and once known geographically and locally by the unimaginative name of North Tarrytown, the village had become Sleepy Hollow in 1996 in honor of its most famous resident, Washington Irving. The entire area was ripe with Revolutionary history, along with tales of the Old Dutch community and legends from the Native Americans who’d once called it home.

The Woman in White appeared now and then, and Major Andre’s ghost was said to roam the area. The dashing gentleman had been hanged as a spy by the patriots. Of course, he was a spy, but he’d been handsome and charismatic, and many had lamented his death.

The woods were dense. Creeks and streams danced over rocks and down slopes. At night, when fog wandered in these woods, it was easy to imagine how frightening it might be to roam what would’ve been an eerie landscape in the dark, with only the light of the moon filtering through the trees.

The Old Dutch Burying Grounds by the Old Dutch Church were filled with worn old stones and vaults that had been dug into the cliffs, and it was spooky by moonlight.

Of course, there was also much that was warm and welcoming in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.

There were hotels and motels, bed-and-breakfasts and inns, as well as shops that offered the usual T-shirts, souvenirs, handmade arts and crafts, and one-of-a-kind clothing.

And there were headless horsemen.

There were headless horsemen everywhere.

They were on signs that advertised stores and restaurants.

They were on village welcome posts along the roadside—some made of wrought iron and some of wood etchings, and others were done using a variety of other artistic media and techniques.

As a child, Aidan had scrambled up and down the hills and leaped over the many lilting brooks and streams. He and his friends had created their own stories about the patriots and redcoats and traitors, the Indians who had once claimed the land and, needless to say, Irving’s headless horseman.

It had been a great place to grow up. The entire Hudson Valley was, in his opinion, one of the most beautiful places on earth. And, for a boy, it had been filled with adventure. Hiking, fishing, boating, walking with his friends...learning their world and its history.

Richard Highsmith had been one of those friends.

Aidan hadn’t gone to the local station yet. Neither had he headed over to the center where Richard would be speaking. Jackson Crow had called Aidan with specifics about the last time Richard had been seen. In fact, Highsmith’s assistant, Taylor Branch, had feared that he’d just walked out—that he’d suddenly had an epiphany regarding politics and its negative, nasty side. Branch was sure that Richard would realize he was a different kind of politician, one who could bring about change, and that he’d come back. So he’d waited, entertaining the crowd with musicians hired for the event.

Richard had been missing for three hours before Branch had called the police. Then there’d been confusion. Next the place had been shut down and those who’d come to see him speak had been held and questioned, but finally they’d all been allowed to leave.

A search had actually begun last night around midnight. From Jackson Crow’s last call, Aidan knew that more people had been called out at the crack of dawn.

The police had searched through the night. Many of the tourist attractions in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow—like Washington Irving’s Sunnyside and the old Philips Manor—had acres of farmland, surrounded by forest.

The police had called in all kinds of assistance. Officers from the county and state. Bloodhounds and other canine search-and-rescue units, including an Irish wolfhound and his keeper who seemed to have an extraordinary rate of success. Anything and everyone was out there—and now the information had hit the airwaves.

Aidan had decided to go on instinct. On the voices he heard in his head. He hated when that happened, loathed it. But the voices still came now and then. And today...

He’d heard Richard. Heard him when it was too late.

They got me, my old friend. They got me.

He wished he’d heard something different. Like, I’m in danger, old friend.

Cursing, he began to walk. First he climbed uphill, by the Old Dutch Church. But somehow he knew that was wrong, so he changed course, got back in his car and drove beside the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Finally, he reached the end and parked again.

It was fall; mid-October had just arrived. The day had been beautiful when he’d started driving and even when he’d first parked. The leaves were turning, offering brilliant touches of color here and there. The temperature was cool but not cold.

Suddenly a chilly breeze was whipping around him, and when he looked up he saw that the sky was gray and ominous.

A brook trickled between the boundaries of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Saint Andrew’s burying ground. He hopped over the brook, studying the expanse of trees that flourished everywhere—the plan when the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was designed had been to make it a serene and beautiful place, a place where families might come to picnic and find peace while they honored their lost loved ones. And it was beautiful here. The dead rested between the graceful trees and gurgling water. Nature at its best.

The one land of the dead blended into the next. There hadn’t been a burial at the old grounds for a century while Sleepy Hollow Cemetery still accepted new denizens. But the old burying ground was just as beautiful, though not actually planned that way. Nature, on her own, had stepped in. The grounds were somewhat overgrown, yet that made them more forlorn and more poignant. Crosses rose in high grass; cherubs appeared by tombstones.

Angels wept.

There were vaults dug into the hill where the church had once stood, surrounded by trees and bushes. Tombs had been built above the ground, and these old mausoleums endured within a fairy-tale land where the dead rested and the living might contemplate the beauty of life—and the inevitability of death.

He passed one of the old vaults and crawled high atop it to survey the area. A stone angel knelt in prayer to his left, an obelisk rose to his right. He hurried by them and clambered down an overgrown path to the rise of a second hill. For a moment, he paused. He could hear the tinkle of water and saw where a tree had broken several stones.

The day was darkening; it was going to rain.

The breeze quickened and Aidan felt an urge to hurry. He walked across the hill, looking around. So many graves. So many years of men living in this region—and dying here.

He noticed that a new flag marked the grave of a Revolutionary soldier. He passed a general on horseback—a tribute to the men of the valley who had fought in the Civil War.

He walked over graves and by monuments, past mausoleums and vaults, and then he peered into the distance.

And saw a man. Or the shape of a man. The area suddenly seemed very dark, even though it was almost seven-thirty and the sun had surely risen. The breeze was now a wind; the sky roiled.

“Hey!” he called. There was no answer.

Was he imagining the man? The figure leaned against a free-standing vault with great pillars before it.

The wind seemed to be against him as he hurried over. He was fighting to get there.

The man didn’t disappear.

As he struggled forward, he paused at the sound of a dog barking. He turned.

A massive animal was racing toward the other figure, straining at his leash, which was held by a young woman in a black trench coat. He had the rather irrelevant thought that she resembled Cousin Itt from The Addams Family, since the wind had covered her face with her long brown hair. She and the dog—the wolfhound, obviously—were threading their way through crooked tombstones and monuments listing at different angles.

He heard voices. The dog and the woman were being followed.

He ran forward, too. The dog was in a rush—not after him, but intent on something else. Or someone else.

The figure leaning by the vault. The young woman tripped on a broken headstone but found her footing.

He continued forward himself, realizing that dog and woman were headed for the man—and at the rate the dog was going, they might well knock him over.

“Rollo! Slow down!” the young woman commanded.

Rollo passed Aidan and skidded to a halt within ten feet of the figure.

Running, Aidan barely managed to stop himself from toppling over onto the woman.

Then she came to a standstill so quickly that she lost her balance and fell back.

Into Aidan’s arms.

She gasped and he righted her.

She turned to apologize, pulling strands of hair away from her eyes. They were like crystals, gray-green and shimmering with flecks of both colors.

She didn’t speak but her beautiful eyes widened, as if wondering what she’d seen just before she’d fallen backward—into his arms.

Their eyes met briefly in that confusion.

Rollo, the giant wolfhound, kept barking.

And as they both turned to look at the man—the figure by the tomb—a horde of people came panting up behind them.

They were mostly men in uniform.

Aidan ignored them. So did the young woman and the dog.

They were still staring at the man who’d been propped against the vault. He wore a long billowing coat and black boots, and might have been casually waiting there.

He just didn’t have a head.

But something else about the scene didn’t seem right.

“Oh, my God!” someone shrieked behind him.

Aidan noticed that the headless man stood as if he were about to enter the vault—or perhaps ask someone to join him.

It was staged. It was staged to be horrific.

One of the newcomers stopped about three feet from the young woman.

“Well, I believe you’ve found the rest of Mr. Highsmith, Mo.” He stopped speaking. Perhaps, under the circumstances, all their minds were working a little slowly. The man frowned, then gave Aidan a thorough look and said, “This is a crime scene, sir.” He paused, his expression grim. “But...”

Aidan was in a suit and trench coat, certainly not clothing worn by any of the others here. He guessed—hoped—that he wore it with a certain authority.

“You’re with the federal government?”

Aidan nodded and presented his credentials. The older man studied him again. “Took them long enough to get you here,” he said. “I called last night.”

“Sir, I got the word about an hour and a half ago,” Aidan said.

The older man didn’t offer his hand; he seemed to be an old-time lawman. “Lieutenant Robert Purbeck, Agent Mahoney,” he said. “Glad you made it. Things like this don’t happen in Tarrytown. Except in stories, of course.”

Someone next to him was on a radio, telling someone else to get the M.E. and crime scene techs up the hill.

The wolfhound barked.

“Shh, Rollo,” the young woman said.

“Agent Mahoney, meet my lead men on the case—Detectives Lee Van Camp and Jimmy Voorhaven. And—” he gestured to the young woman and the dog “—Maureen Deauville. Mo...we have a Fed here. Agent Mahoney of the FBI. Oh, and that’s our wonder dog, Rollo.”

Aidan nodded in acknowledgment. The other cops, a weary-looking lean guy and his younger partner, watched him curiously as they shook hands but they didn’t appear to resent his presence.

“God help me,” Purbeck muttered. “I hope that’s the rest of Richard Highsmith. If not...”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

But Aidan knew what he meant.

They’d found Richard’s head.

And if this wasn’t the body that went with the head...

Well, there might be headless bodies and bodiless heads all over the Hudson Valley.

But, as he stood there, staring at the form, Aidan saw that the loose coat had fluttered open—and he understood what was wrong with the scene.

And he knew their worst fears were realized.

“I’m sorry to say this,” Aidan announced, “but that’s not Richard Highsmith.”

“What?” Purbeck demanded. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Take a closer look,” Aidan said. “That’s not a man’s body. It’s a woman’s.”

“What?” Purbeck demanded again. “Rollo found a body, a woman’s body? But...he was on Richard Highsmith’s scent!”

“He sure as hell found something,” Aidan said.

The young woman, Maureen Deauville, spoke quietly then.

“Rollo is— Well, he’s really a sight hound, but—” She paused, glancing around. “He’s never wrong. Richard Highsmith is nearby,” she said. “The, um, rest of him.”

Aidan looked at her, then at the headless body by the tomb. Ms. Deauville seemed very certain. In a second, he’d pulled on a pair of neoprene gloves.

Then he stepped forward.

There was an iron gate that guarded the tomb. Beyond that was some kind of heavy metal door.

Aidan pulled at the gate; it creaked, but gave.

He pushed at the iron door. It groaned on its hinges but opened.

Taking a penlight from his pocket, he flashed it over the inside of the vault. He saw a stone sarcophagus or tomb in the center.

And on the stone tomb, a body. In a suit.

“This, I think,” Aidan said, rigidly controlling the emotion that ripped through him, “is Richard Highsmith.”

2

Purbeck looked in and sighed. “Back out, everyone but Mahoney, Van Camp and Voorhaven. I don’t want evidence compromised. Get the M.E. and the crime scene people here,” he ordered.

Aidan followed him, then carefully stepped through.

He threw the beam of his flashlight over the stone floor. No hope of prints, since the stone was bare of dust. He walked carefully toward the body, touching nothing, keeping his light trained on the corpse.

Aidan wasn’t an M.E., but it seemed to him that the head had been cleanly severed with great strength and probably a single blow. Highsmith hadn’t been killed in the tomb; there wasn’t much blood. And, of course, Aidan couldn’t know if he’d been killed and then decapitated—or killed by decapitation. He found himself reminded of a history lesson: Queen Anne Boleyn asking Henry VIII for a headsman from France so her execution would be swift and clean.

Purbeck had come in behind him. He, too, touched nothing and studied the body.

As the two detectives—Van Camp and Voorhaven—also walked into the tomb, Aidan put down his flashlight and checked for Highsmith’s wallet with gloved hands. He found it in his pocket, just as he’d expected to.

“Anything in there?” Van Camp asked him.

“Wallet, keys...”

Carefully, Aidan checked Highsmith’s other pocket. Lint—and a matchbook. He held it up to Voorhaven’s flashlight glare.

“From some place called Mystic Magic,” he said.

“Whoa,” Van Camp muttered.

“It’s a new strip club down close to Irving,” Voorhaven explained.

“Doesn’t sound like Richard Highsmith,” Purbeck said.

Voorhaven produced an evidence bag, but Aidan briefly held on to the matchbook, flipping it open. He wasn’t surprised to see that Highsmith had scribbled something in it. “‘Lizzie grave,’” he read aloud.

“Odd name for a stripper,” Van Camp commented.

“I doubt it’s a stripper’s name,” Aidan told the others.

“Then what?” Van Camp asked.

“Maybe it has to do with a dead woman named Lizzie. Lizzie’s grave,” Aidan said impatiently, dropping the matchbook in the evidence bag.

Voorhaven snorted. “Ah, hell! Do you know how many Lizzies have died and been buried here over the last several hundred years?”

Purbeck shook his head. “Let the M.E. and the crime scene techs in now,” he said, turning to leave the vault. He paused at the door. “We have another victim out there—and another head to find.”

Aidan stayed behind for a minute, his gloved hand resting lightly on Richard’s arm. Rigor had come and gone; he’d been dead awhile. He’d probably been killed soon after he disappeared.

“Old friend,” he murmured. “I’ll get whoever did this to you.”

The young woman, Maureen—or Mo— Deauville, had not come in. She stood with her dog just outside the gates and Aidan felt her eyes on him, even though he was darkness and shadow.

He exited the tomb and approached Maureen just as Purbeck came up beside her. The place was now crawling with people. Voorhaven and Van Camp were by the corpse that had been so strategically arranged to look like a host—welcoming them, inviting them to enter the tomb. They had to discover the identity of this woman. Her death was as great a crime, as great a tragedy, as Highsmith’s.

“I know Van Camp already mentioned this, but are we sure it’s not a name? Lizzie Grave?” Purbeck asked Aidan. “Not necessarily a stripper’s name. Maybe someone he met?”

Aidan shook his head. “I’m almost certain it’s not,” he said. “I think he grabbed that matchbook wherever he was—could’ve been anywhere—and jotted down a note. I agree with you that it’s highly unlikely he was ever in that strip club—not when he was here on an important speaking engagement. I think he just saw the matchbook somewhere. In a dressing room or at a lunch counter, maybe. Or someone gave it to him. And I think Lizzie grave means...Lizzie’s grave. But the first thing we need to do is discover the identity of our other victim.”

“God help us,” Purbeck said. “We started out looking for a body. Now...now, we’ve got to find another head.” He turned to Mo Deauville. “You and Rollo ready?”

Aidan believed she was fighting her own mental battle, but she nodded. “Yes, of course,” she said. She brought the wolfhound to where the headless corpse leaned. The cops made way for her. The dog stood at a distance, but lifted his nose high—almost as if he were weighing the merits of a perfume.

Mo Deauville commanded the dog to sit, then approached the corpse and rested her hand gently on the woman’s shoulder.

As if she could...somehow feel something. A communication—from the corpse!

She lowered her head, then looked at Purbeck.

“We’re ready,” she said.

She touched the dog’s head. Aidan couldn’t be sure, but he thought she was giving Rollo some kind of signal.

Well, of course she was. She was asking him to find...the rest of the woman.

No, it seemed to be more than that.

But she quickly set off, tightly clutching the dog’s leash.

With the exception of the crime scene personnel and a few cops left standing guard, everyone trailed after her. They went up and down hills as they walked through one cemetery to get to the other, and eventually wound up on the street again.

“Oh, no. Oh, God, no,” Purbeck said.

Yes.

Across the street, at yet another headless horseman effigy, this one in front of a dry cleaning business, a crowd was gathering.

People weren’t alarmed; they seemed to be in awe.

There were pictures being taken.

The crowd wasn’t even being particularly ghoulish. The horseman stood in the midst of a Halloween display of pumpkins, bats, black cats and flying witches.

“Get the people away,” Purbeck said quietly.

Rollo woofed.

Voorhaven and Van Camp went running across the street, along with half-a-dozen men in uniform.

Aidan glanced at Mo. She stood there, holding Rollo’s leash. She didn’t turn away, although he could tell she wasn’t going any closer. There was a stoic expression on her face, but sadness in her eyes.

“Thank you,” Aidan murmured to her. He crossed the street and hurried over to the display. The area was now being cleared of people.

He knew the crowd hadn’t understood that the horseman with its witch’s head wasn’t part of this gruesome display. The head...was real.

Purbeck followed him. As Aidan stepped up onto a bale of hay beside a wire-and-plastic assembly, he heard the lieutenant mutter.

“God, I pray this means both our bodies are complete!”

Aidan thought they were. It was difficult to be sure, but he had to believe this was what they were looking for. The “witch’s” wealth of long dark hair had been adorned with a black pointed hat. Van Camp stood on a second bale near him, silently inspecting the scene. He motioned to one of the photographers to capture the image from a number of different angles. When the photographer finished the initial shots, Aidan turned to Van Camp, who nodded. He removed the hat and passed it down to Jimmy Voorhaven. Jimmy bagged it, then he carefully brushed aside the tangle of dark hair.

“Mid-thirties?” Van Camp murmured. “Attractive, good bone structure. It doesn’t appear that any of the bones in the face were broken or disturbed.”

“No bruises or contusions. Naturally, the skin is somewhat...”

“Yeah,” Van Camp said.

“You recognize her, by any chance?” Aidan asked him.

Van Camp shook his head. “No. And I guess we can’t be a hundred percent sure if this head goes with the body by the vault until...until the M.E. puts her together.”

The two men scrambled down; the police photographer got into position to take more pictures. Members of the crime scene unit assembled to search for trace evidence.

Aidan rejoined Purbeck. The man just stared at the display. He shook his head. “You know what our murder rate is around here? Practically zero.”

“Doesn’t help that we’re close to Halloween,” Voorhaven said.

That was probably true. There were few places in the country to rival the Sleepy Hollow area for Halloween. It came complete with the rolling hills, brooks, fog and spooky woods that first gave rise to legends and then to the stories written by the first American recognized as a great writer by the European community. So there were a zillion “haunted” venues: haunted houses, haunted hayrides, haunted happenings. Usually, it was an entertaining and commercially successful time—and the merchants were in a frenzy of happiness.

And the headless horseman reigned supreme.

“Whoever did this has to be stopped. Fast,” Van Camp said.

“Van Camp, I need you and Voorhaven to go to the station with Special Agent Mahoney. Get him up to speed on everything. Mahoney, you’re alone on this?” Purbeck asked him, apparently puzzled.

Aidan hesitated. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be a team player; he usually enjoyed working with others. True, he wasn’t completely familiar or completely comfortable with his new team yet. But he trusted that would happen in time.

Everyone wanted a trusted coworker at his back.

Still, he was well aware that he didn’t work like most agents. Sometimes his methods of investigation were...different.

Just as he’d heard that the agents in the Krewe had what might be considered different methods of investigation.

His methods worked—and that was why, he assumed, his superiors had decided to make use of him in a way that brought about results.

“We’ll bring in more people, I’m sure,” Aidan said. “When necessary.”

“Nice. Seems they give the locals some respect,” Voorhaven muttered sarcastically.

Aidan looked squarely at the man. “Detective, I’m here because Lieutenant Purbeck called my office. Because, thank God, there aren’t many murders in this area. I was sent because I grew up here. More than that, I grew up here with friends—one of whom was Richard Highsmith. I know how the man thought. I know his habits, his virtues and his weaknesses. I’m not here to step on toes. But I’m going to get whoever murdered my friend.” He realized that, without really thinking about it, he’d made the decision to disclose his relationship with Richard to these policemen, even though he hadn’t yet told Jackson Crow.

Voorhaven stared at him awkwardly. “I, uh, I’m sorry. By all accounts, Highsmith was a really good man.”

Aidan nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at the headless horseman effigy—with its head. “And now we have a Jane Doe and she might have been a good person, too, and if not...well, she’s still entitled to the very best law enforcement can give her. So, I’m willing to do anything it takes to get to the bottom of this.”

“Of course,” Voorhaven said.

“The kid just got his shield a year ago,” Van Camp told Aidan. “He’ll learn. When you’ve been around long enough and you see something like this, you’re happy to accept whatever assistance you can get.”

Aidan nodded.

“So, now we’ve kissed and made up,” Purbeck said. “Good. You two, give the nice Fed anything he needs or wants, okay?”

“You got it, yeah, sure, of course,” Voorhaven said.

Aidan looked across the street.

Mo Deauville was still there, Rollo at her side. She was watching them.