The Lost Order (Cotton Malone 12)

“At home.

“Stay there. I’m coming.”

* * *

She wheeled up to the picket fence and braked to a stop. Lea bounded off the front porch and ran her way. She hopped out of the vehicle and saw the anxiety on the young woman’s face.

“Tell me what happened.”

Two men with guns had appeared. There was some heated talk, then Morse went along without resistance. Cassiopeia assumed the old man had done that to protect Lea.

“They also wanted the Witch’s Stone.”

“They took it?”

Lea nodded.

Apparently, Proctor was tying up loose ends. And he definitely had more help around.

“I heard where they were going,” she said. “Grandpa asked them why they were taking him back to the mine.”

Smart move on Morse’s part sending that message.

“You stay here,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m going with you.”

The look of determination on Lea’s face was hard to ignore and, besides, she needed some help with directions back to the site.

“Okay,” she said.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Cotton stood beside Stephanie’s hospital bed. He’d left the American history museum and decided to stop by here on his way to where Frank Breckinridge lived. Rick Stamm had provided him with a car and told him that the retired curator was pushing eighty and lived alone, so he decided his visit could wait another hour. It was Stephanie’s condition that concerned him.

She lay motionless amid tubes, dripping bags, and bandages, arms at her sides. They’d been through so much together, good and bad. He owed her more than he could ever repay. He’d been a JAG lawyer, headed for a mundane legal career, all at the insistence of others, men who’d known his dead father and thought that flying fighter jets was not his best career move. He’d really loved flying. Nothing better. But back then he’d carried a blind worship of his missing father that included listening to those other men, and doing what they thought best. Then everything changed the day he met Stephanie Nelle. And he found out what those friends of his father really had in mind. He became a Magellan Billet agent, permanently assigned to the Justice Department. He never lost his rank of lieutenant commander and kept his commission until the day he quit both the Billet and the navy and moved to Denmark.

Now he was a bookseller.

Sort of.

What would his father think?

He could only hope he’d be proud.

The door to the hospital room opened and Danny Daniels entered. Cotton hadn’t seen him since Inauguration Day, when he, Cassiopeia, Daniels, and Stephanie left the White House for the last time. The former president was dressed in a suit and tie, looking every bit presidential.

“How is she?” Daniels asked.

“The nurse told me there’s been no change. She’s still in a coma.”

“Any leads on who shot her?”

“I just had him in my sights, but he got away.”

Daniels faced him. “Talk to me. Tell me everything.”

He told Daniels about the Smithsonian, the Knights of the Golden Circle, what happened in Arkansas, and what had occurred over the past few hours.

“This started thanks to one of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board members. A woman named Diane Sherwood. The widow of Senator Sherwood,” Cotton said. “He was a Smithsonian regent, which makes this real touchy over there. I assume you knew Senator Sherwood?”

“He was a close friend. And by the way, you’re looking at the newest junior senator from Tennessee. I was sworn in a little while ago to serve out Alex’s term.”

He was impressed. “I can only imagine how you pulled that off. And why do I get the feeling that’s connected to what’s happening here?”

“Because it is. You and I seem to be in the same mess.”

And he listened as Daniels explained what he’d witnessed over the past twenty-four hours, ending with, “Alex’s girlfriend told me that the guy who went into his apartment and took the journal was middle-aged, white, with a port wine stain on the back of his neck.”

“The same guy who killed Martin Thomas and probably shot Stephanie.”

“Who had a key to the apartment, which means Diane gave it to him. That ties her to the murder of that librarian and probably the attempt on Stephanie. I’d say you need to rattle her cage real good.”

“The chancellor specifically told me not to do that.”

He explained the chief justice’s angle.

“Warren Weston is a friggin’ blowhard,” Daniels said. “He should have retired a long time ago, but he stayed on the Supreme Court just so I couldn’t appoint his successor. We sent feelers his way several times that it might be time for him to leave, but he sent ’em right back with a polite go-to-hell.”

“He’s all over this. Personally overseeing things. He also deliberately involved me, then Stephanie.”

They moved away from the bed, as if she could be listening.

Which they could only hope.

Daniels ran his fingers through his thick mane of silvery hair. “Weston could be right, though. If you spook ’em by going to Diane, they’ll just go to ground. Better to let ’em keep runnin’, thinking they’re in the clear. But what the Speaker of the House is working on—that needs some brakes on it right now. He’s a few steps ahead of me, and I need to catch up.”

He now understood more about the temporary appointment. “Being a senator opens a lot of doors, doesn’t it?”

“Damn right. But we’re coming into this game late. I hope to God not too late. I knew Diane’s father once worked at the Smithsonian. I just never knew about his fascination with the Golden Circle. I don’t know anything about her brother, but I’m about to find out. I have to confess, the Knights of the Golden Circle are pretty unknown to me. My granddaddy told me about ’em once. They were big in Tennessee. There was even a castle in Blount County, back at the end of the 19th century. But beyond that I don’t know beans about ’em.”

“I suggest you get familiar, since they’re front and center here.”

“Is a cross within a circle important to them?”

He nodded. “It was one of their symbols.”

And Daniels told him about a necklace that Alex Sherwood’s mistress had given him. “Diane told me she had it made. One for her, another for Alex.”

“That woman is in this up to her eyeballs.”

Daniels nodded. “That she is. And that same symbol was etched on the front of her brother’s notebook. That’s not a coincidence.”

No. It wasn’t.

They both stared over at Stephanie, who continued to breathe with help from a ventilator.

“She’s important to you, isn’t she?” he asked Daniels.

“I love her. And she loves me.”

“You sound almost relieved to say that.”

“I am. About time, too. She can’t die on me now.”

Daniels walked back to the bed and took Stephanie’s hand into his own. Cotton realized that this man would never do that with just anyone in the room, and he appreciated the confidence the former president was showing in him. He also saw the eyes. Wet with anxiety.

And maybe a little fear.

He was scared himself.

“One thing, Cotton,” Daniels said, his gaze still on Stephanie. “When you find the guy with the port wine stain, I want in on taking him down.”

“You mean you want to kill him.”

“If the opportunity presents itself.”

“You do know that would be the last thing Stephanie would want you to do.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“Weston thinks this other man, Frank Breckinridge, might be able to fill in some gaps.”