Call After Midnight (2 page)

It wasn't Geoffrey. Sudden alarm shot through her like a jolt of electricity. Something was terribly wrong. She sat up at once, fully awake. “Yes. Speaking,” she said.

“Mrs. Fontaine, this is Nicholas O'Hara, U.S. State Department. I'm sorry to call you at this hour, but…” He paused. It was the silence that terrified her most, for it was too deliberate, too practiced, a strategically placed buffer to ready her for a blow. “I'm afraid I have some bad news,” he finished.

Her throat tightened. She felt like shouting,
Just tell me! Tell me what's happened!
But all she could manage was a whisper. “Yes. I'm listening.”

“It's about your husband, Geoffrey,” he said. “There's been an accident.”

This isn't real,
she thought, closing her eyes.
If Geoffrey were hurt, I would have felt it. Somehow I would have known....

“It happened about six hours ago,” he continued. “There was a fire in your husband's hotel.” Another pause. Then, with concern in his voice, he asked, “Mrs. Fontaine? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Please go on.”

The man cleared his throat. “I'm sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Fontaine. Your husband…he didn't make it.”

He allowed her a moment of silence, a moment in which she struggled to contain her grief. It was a stupid, irrational act of pride that made her press her hand over her
mouth to stifle the sob. This pain was too private to share with any stranger.

“Mrs. Fontaine?” he asked gently. “Are you all right?”

At last she managed to take a shaky breath. “Yes,” she whispered.

“You don't have to worry about the…arrangements. I'll coordinate all the details with our consulate in Berlin. There'll be a delay, of course, but once the German authorities clear the body's release, there should be no—”

“Berlin?” she broke in.

“It's in their jurisdiction, you see. There'll be a full report as soon as the Berlin police—”

“But this isn't possible!”

Nicholas O'Hara was struggling to be patient. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Fontaine. His identity's been confirmed. Really, there's no question about—”

“Geoffrey was in
London
,” she cried.

A long silence followed. “Mrs. Fontaine,” he said at last in an irritatingly calm voice, “the accident occurred in Berlin.”

“Then they've made a mistake. Geoffrey was in London. He couldn't have been in Germany!”

Again there was a pause, longer this time. Now she could tell he was puzzled. The receiver was pressed so tightly to her ear that all she heard for a few seconds was the pounding of her heart. There had to be a mistake. Some crazy, stupid misunderstanding. Geoffrey had to be alive. She pictured him, laughing at the absurd reports of his own death. Yes, they would laugh about it together when he came home. If he came home.

“Mrs. Fontaine,” the man said at last, “which hotel was he staying at in London?”

“The—the Savoy. I have the phone number somewhere here—I have to look it up—”

“That's all right, I'll find it. Let me do some calling around. Perhaps I should see you in the morning.” His words were measured and cautious, spoken in the unemotional monotone of a bureaucrat who'd learned how to reveal nothing. “Can you come by my office?”

“How—how do I find it?”

“You'll be driving?”

“No. I don't have a car.”

“I'll have one sent by.”

“It's a mistake, isn't it? I mean…you do make mistakes, don't you?” A bit of hope, that was all she was asking him for. Some small thread to cling to. At least he could have given her that much. He could have shown her a little kindness.

But all he said was “I'll see you in the morning, Mrs. Fontaine. Around eleven.”

“Wait, please! I'm sorry, I can't even think. Your name—what was it again?”

“Nicholas O'Hara.”

“Where was your office?”

“Don't worry about it,” he said. “The driver will see you get here. Good night.”

“Mr. O'Hara?”

Sarah heard the dial tone and knew that he had already hung up. She immediately dialed the number of the Savoy Hotel in London. One phone call, and the matter would be settled.
Please,
she prayed as the phone connection went through,
let me hear your voice....

“Savoy Hotel,” answered a woman from halfway around the world.

Sarah's hand was shaking so hard she could barely hold the receiver. “Hello. Mr. Geoffrey Fontaine's room, please,” she blurted out.

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” the voice said. “Mr. Fontaine checked out two days ago.”

“Checked
out
?” she cried. “But where did he go?”

“He gave us no destination. However, if you wish to send a message, we'd be happy to forward it to his permanent address….”

She never remembered saying goodbye. She found herself staring down at the telephone as if it were something alien, something she'd never seen before. Slowly her gaze wandered to Geoffrey's pillow. The king-sized bed seemed to stretch forever. Sarah had always curled herself into one small part of it. Even when Geoffrey was away from home and she had the bed to herself, she still never moved from her spot.

Now Geoffrey might never come home.

Sarah was left alone in a bed that was too large, in an apartment that was too quiet. She shuddered as a silent wave of pain rose and caught in her throat. She wanted desperately to cry, but the tears refused to fall.

She collapsed onto the bed with her face against the pillows. They smelled of Geoffrey. They smelled of his skin and his hair and his laughter. She clutched one of the pillows in her arms and curled up in the very center of the bed, in the spot where Geoffrey always lay. The sheets were ice-cold.

Geoffrey might never come home. They had been married only two months.

* * *

N
ICK
O'H
ARA DRAINED
his third cup of coffee and jerked his tie loose. After a two-week vacation wearing nothing but bathing trunks, his tie felt like a hangman's noose. He'd been back in Washington only three days, and already he was edgy. Vacations were supposed to recharge the old batteries. That's why he'd gone to the Bahamas.
He'd spent two glorious weeks doing absolutely nothing except lie around half-naked in the sun. He'd needed the time to be alone, to ask himself some hard questions and come to some conclusions.

But the only conclusion he'd reached was that he was unhappy.

After eight years with the State Department, Nick O'Hara was fed up with his job. He was headed in circles, a ship without a rudder. His career was at a standstill, but the fault was not entirely his. Bit by bit he'd lost his patience for political games of state—he wasn't in the mood to play. He'd hung in there, though, because he'd believed in his job, in its intrinsic worth. From peace marches in his youth to peace tables in his prime.

But ideals, he had discovered, got people nowhere. Hell, diplomacy didn't run on ideals. It ran, like everything else, on protocol and party-line politics. While he'd perfected his protocol, he hadn't gotten the politics quite right. It wasn't that he couldn't. He wouldn't.

In that regard Nick knew he was a lousy diplomat. Unfortunately those in authority apparently agreed with him. So he had been banished to this bottom-of-the-barrel consular post in D.C., calling bad news to new widows. It was a not-so-subtle slap in the face. Sure, he could have refused the assignment. He could've gone back to teaching, to his comfortable old niche at American University. He had needed to think about it. Yes, he'd needed those two weeks alone in the Bahamas.

What he didn't need was to come home to this.

With a sigh, he flipped open the file labeled Fontaine, Geoffrey H. One small item had bothered him all morning. Since 1:00 a.m. he'd been staring at a computer terminal, digging out everything he could get from the vast government files. He'd also spent half an hour on the phone with
his buddy Wes Corrigan in the Berlin consulate. In frustration he'd finally turned to a few unusual sources. What had started off as a routine call to the widow to give her his regrets was turning into something a bit more complicated, a puzzle for which Nick didn't have all the pieces.

In fact, except for the well-established details of Geoffrey Fontaine's death, there were hardly any pieces at all to play with. Nick didn't like incomplete puzzles. They drove him crazy. When it came to poking around for more information, more facts, he could be insatiable. But now, as he lifted the thin Fontaine file, he felt as if he were holding a bagful of air: nothing of substance but a name.

And a death.

Nick's eyes were burning; he leaned back in his chair and yawned. When he was twenty and in college, staying up half the night used to give him a high. Now that he was thirty-eight, it only made him crotchety. And hungry. At 6:00 a.m. he'd wolfed down three doughnuts. The surge of sugar into his system, plus the coffee, had been enough to keep him going. And now he was too curious to stop. Puzzles always did that to him. He wasn't sure he liked it.

He looked up as the door opened. His pal Tim Greenstein strode in.

“Bingo! I found it!” said Tim. He dropped a file on the desk and gave Nick one of those big, dumb grins he was so famous for. Most of the time, that grin was directed at a computer screen. Tim was a troubleshooter, the man everyone called when the data weren't where they should be. Heavy glasses distorted his eyes, the consequence of infantile cataracts. A bushy black beard obscured much of the rest of his face, except for a pale forehead and nose.

“Told you I'd get it,” said Tim, plopping into the leather chair across from Nick. “I had my buddy at the FBI do a little fishing. He came up with zilch, so I did a little poking
around on my own. Not easy, I'll tell ya, getting this out of classified. They've got some new idiot up there who insists on doing his job.”

Nick frowned. “You had to get this through security?”

“Yep. There's more, but I couldn't access it. Found out central intelligence has a file on your man.”

Nick flipped the folder open and stared in amazement. What he saw raised more questions than ever, questions for which there seemed to be no answers. “What the hell does this mean?” he muttered.

“That's why you couldn't find anything about Geoffrey H. Fontaine,” said Tim. “Until a year ago, the guy didn't exist.”

Nick's jaw snapped up. “Can you get me more?”

“Hey, Nick, I think we're trespassing on someone else's turf. Those Company boys might get hot under the collar.”

“So let 'em sue me.” Nick wasn't in the least intimidated by the CIA. Not after all the incompetent Company men he'd met. “Anyway,” he said with a shrug, “I'm just doing my job. I've got a grieving widow, remember?”

“But this Fontaine stuff goes pretty deep.”

“So do you, Tim.”

Tim grinned. “What is it, Nick? Turning detective?”

“No. Just curious.” He scowled at the day's pile of work on his desk. It was all bureaucratic crap—the bane of his existence—but it had to be done. This Fontaine case was distracting him. He should just give the grieving widow a pat on the shoulder, murmur a kind word and send her out the door. Then he should forget the whole thing. Geoffrey Fontaine, whatever his real name, was dead.

But Tim had set Nick's curiosity on fire. He glanced at his friend. “Say, how about hunting up a few things about the guy's wife? Sarah Fontaine. That might get us somewhere.”

“Why don't you get it yourself?”

“You're the one with all that hot computer access.”

“Yeah, but you've got the woman herself.” Tim nodded toward the door. “I heard the secretary take down her name. Sarah Fontaine's sitting in your waiting room right now.”

* * *

T
HE SECRETARY WAS
a graying, middle-aged woman with china-blue eyes and a mouth that seemed permanently etched in two straight lines. She glanced up from her typewriter just long enough to take Sarah's name and direct her toward a nearby couch.

Stacked neatly on a coffee table by the couch were the usual waiting room magazines, as well as a few issues of
Foreign Affairs
and
World Press Review
, to which the address labels were still attached: Dr. Nicholas O'Hara.

As the secretary turned back to her typewriter, Sarah sank into the cushions of the couch and stared dully at her hands, which were now folded in her lap. She hadn't yet shaken the flu, and she was still cold and miserable. But in the past ten hours, a layer of numbness had built up around her, a protective shell that made sights and sounds seem distant. Even physical pain bore a strange dullness. When she'd stubbed her toe in the shower this morning, she'd felt the throb, but somehow she hadn't cared.

Last night, after the phone call, the pain had overwhelmed her. Now she was only numb. Gazing down, she saw for the first time what a mess she'd made of getting dressed. None of her clothes quite matched. Yet on a subconscious level, she'd chosen to wear things that gave her solace: a favorite gray wool skirt, an old pullover, brown walking shoes. Life had suddenly turned frightening for Sarah; she needed to be comforted by the familiar.

The secretary's intercom buzzed, and a voice said, “Angie? Can you send Mrs. Fontaine in?”

“Yes, Mr. O'Hara.” Angie nodded at Sarah. “You can go in now,” she said.

Sarah slipped on her glasses, rose to her feet and entered the office marked N. O'Hara. Just inside the door, she paused on the thick carpet and looked calmly at the man on the other side of the desk.

He stood before the window. The sun shone in through pencil-sketch trees, blinding her. At first she saw only the man's silhouette. He was tall and slender, and his shoulders slouched a little—he looked tired. Moving from the window, he came around the desk to meet her. His blue shirt was wrinkled; a nondescript tie hung loosely around his neck, as if he'd been tugging at it.