An Affair of Deceit (6 page)

She continued searching through the pages of unrelated items for more tidbits about the apparently quick-footed James Riley. She found more archived track results, but nothing earth-shattering. Appending “State Department” to the search didn’t add anything fruitful.

But she didn’t think he worked for the State Department, anyway. Blank business cards and sloppy surveillance meant one thing to her:

The CIA.

Her heart pounded a bit more quickly as she typed “CIA Dr. James Riley” into the search engine. Amidst the listings for fictional characters in law-enforcement procedural novels, she found a link to a blog post by a woman named “christiegrrl25” titled “Ten Ways the CIA Ruined My Life.”

Fascinating.

Just as her finger clicked the mouse to open the page, her cell phone rang. She picked it up and glanced at the caller ID, but the number was unlisted. Curious, she decided to answer.

“Hello?”

“I’m really sorry to have to do this.”

She paused, thinking she knew that calm, clear voice from somewhere.

“Do what?” she asked sharply. “Who is this?”

“Dr. Riley. Or just Riley, if you prefer. It’s what everyone else calls me.”

Mildly alarmed by the fact that he called her while she was web-searching his name, she took her hand off the computer mouse like it might bite. “Dr. Riley, if you’d like to make an appointment, I’ll be happy to transfer you to my secretary.”

“Do you think we need to meet?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Neither do I. In fact, I’d rather leave you alone altogether, but I can only do that if you tell me the truth.”

“Cryptic threats do not inspire my curiosity.”

“No, but unanswered questions do. It must be killing you to not know why your father left you in Taiwan.”

Does he know the answer?
She bit back the question. “It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

“I don’t believe you. I think you hate leaving a puzzle unsolved, and his departure from your life is the biggest puzzle you’ve ever encountered.”

It was true, every word of it. She couldn’t deny the doctor’s expert insight, but neither would she admit how right he was.

“Abigail, I want to tell you everything I know about your father, but first I need a little cooperation. When was the last time you talked to him?”

“I have no wish to know anything more.”

“Then why did you call your mother this morning?”

He’s bluffing,
Abigail thought. There was no way he could know whom she’d called—or didn’t call. “Deflate your ego and return to reality. The CIA does not have the authority to monitor my calls.”

“Do they not?”

She could almost hear him smile. He was a difficult man to remain angry with.

“Of course I called my mother,” she conceded. “I had to warn her that she was about to be accosted by a government agent. Or should we just drop the anonymous ruse and agree that you’re with the CIA?”

“Some would say I’m against them.”

That wasn’t much of an answer. She remembered what little she’d uncovered about him. “It seems that you’re a tough man to catch, Dr. Riley.”

He laughed. “That’s the truth. You know, I used to run the 400-meter in—”

“45.54.”

He didn’t laugh then.

“It’s amazing what a simple web search can turn up,” she continued, delighted to have put a stopper in his endless good cheer. “It also appears that a woman named Christie references you in support of her claim that the CIA ruined her life.”

He cursed softly. “I’m on your side. You have to start trusting me.” Behind his voice, a police siren wailed.

“I can count on one hand the number of people in this world who have earned my trust.”

“I doubt they number even that high.”

“You flatter me. I would consider myself lucky to have kept my soul so guarded as to trust no one at all.”

He sighed, and in that quiet moment after his breath exhaled she realized that the police siren she’d heard through the phone was also detectable through her office window. She stood and walked to the large casement that overlooked the steps of the courthouse below.

Immediately she spotted Riley’s mussed-up hair and stark black suit. He sat on the stone courthouse steps with one arm draped loosely over a bent leg. People of all demographics trudged past him. He watched them all walk by, although none glanced at the smiling, unobtrusive man sitting at knee level.

“Miss Mason,” he said, running his fingers through his hair, “living without trusting a soul is not what I’d call a lucky life.”

She ignored his assessment of her philosophy. “This is hardly a good use of your time. Shouldn’t you be doing something other than watching the world go by?”

“I’m always watching the world go by, Abigail.”

“Watching isn’t the same as interacting, James,” she countered.

His head tilted back in a laugh. “I do plenty of interacting with the world. Like right now, I’m interacting with DC’s toughest attorney, and I just got her to call me by my first name. I’d call that a successful interaction, wouldn’t you?”

“Success is rarely measured in words.” Abigail cringed. She sounded like her mother. Frustrated, she wanted to end the conversation. “Do enjoy the rest of your day in Judiciary Square, and best of luck in finding Peter Mason.”

“Who needs luck with leads like you?”

She clicked her phone shut, wishing she’d been using a landline so she could have slammed the receiver down on the cradle. It would have been more satisfying.

Her blood raced, and honestly, she didn’t know why. Something about Riley agitated her. His comfortable charm and gentle wit brought out her combative nature, contradictory as that might seem. She just wasn’t used to dealing with people who weren’t itching for an argument.

She watched from above as he trotted down the white steps of the courthouse and down the street in the direction of the Metro station. She wondered where he was going next.

To see her mother?

Abigail pushed away from the window, trying to forget him. But she imagined him talking to her mother, wheedling the truth out of her with his perfectly calibrated charm, and she wondered if this might be her one chance to hear the things her mother refused to share.

She grabbed her bag and left, silently thanking Beth for keeping her questions to herself.

S
NEAKING ONTO HER
mother’s property wasn’t a problem. Fei Li’s 1950s Cape Cod Revival cottage in upscale suburban Alexandria, Virginia, was flanked by two large magnolias that provided perfect cover as Abigail crept to her mother’s open kitchen window.

The problem was that she felt like a criminal crouching in silence, shaded by the old tree, listening to her mother offer Riley a cup of green tea.

“That would be delicious, but please let me pour,” he responded.

“I am honored,” her mother said in her careful, slow way.

Abigail rolled her eyes. Pouring tea for one’s elders was Chinese tradition, and he probably knew it.

Then came the tinkling sound of liquid filling porcelain cups. Moments later, he said, “It’s better than I remember.”

“You have enjoyed green tea in the past?”

“Oh, all the time. I grew up in Asia.”

“That is a broad land, Dr. Riley. Have you spent any time in Taiwan?”

“Plenty.”

“Tsk-tsk. What would make your parents take their precious son to such a faraway place?”

“Work. They were in the Peace Corps.”

“So were you, then,” said her mother with a laugh.

“I guess I was. And I wouldn’t change a thing. Those were some of my happiest years.”

“Yes, they must have been. Otherwise you would not care for reminders of our culture, like green tea. You would shun anything to do with Asia if you did not care for your time there.”

“I don’t think I could ever hate it,” Riley said. “It wasn’t exactly an easy childhood, not compared to what it would have been like for me here. But I can’t complain. I’ve never been to a place as bound to its history as Asia is. It’s something special.”

“It is nothing like America,” her mother said. “You seem to have left your heart there.”

“My mother and I buried my dad there before we left. That probably counts.”

“Then our ancestors lie together, and you honor me again by sharing your loss. Thank you.”

Abigail knew her mother wouldn’t speak more of the death. It was her way to acknowledge pain and move on from it in the same breath.

“Please, let us go outside. The garden is Chinese style, and I think you may find it to your taste,” her mother said.

He
would
love it. Everyone did. Her mother’s rambling garden was legendary, though she did nothing to promote it or gather praise for it. Abigail had to admit that the garden was special. Her mother had spent thousands of hours digging and mounding the suburban soil until it resembled the classical gardens of her homeland. Although her mother had been born in Taiwan, her parents were ethnic Han Chinese who emigrated during the devastating Chinese Civil War. Her Mandarin accent had the unmistakable tones of Taiwan, but in many ways, she considered herself to be Chinese.

Abigail heard the scrapes of chair legs pushing against a wood floor and the thumps of footsteps heading to the back door.
She decided to stay put. In true Chinese style, the garden was completely walled, but a side gate near Abigail’s hiding spot had a round window through which she could, if she wished, catch sight of her mother and Riley.

Unable to resist, she poked her head up now to see his first reaction to the garden. Some people didn’t care about the quality of their surroundings, even when presented with something of extraordinary beauty. She wondered whether he would be so oblivious.

He stepped out of the house with a look of pure wonder on his tanned face. He was silent. Dumbstruck? The little worry line between his eyebrows relaxed, and his lopsided grin grew wide and symmetrical. His eyes didn’t scan the landscape, but rather seemed to soak it in, bit by bit, foot by foot.

So he was not the oblivious type.

There was much to see. Several arched stone bridges spanned a narrow, shallow stream that wound through the garden under lace-leaved maple trees and perfectly trained pines. The water emptied into a large, koi-filled pond that rested at the foot of a bright red pavilion. In the pavilion her mother had gathered a collection of authentic Chinese furnishings, some centuries old, and a small group of bonsai. The pavilion was her mother’s favorite spot for reading, meditating, and, of course, practicing tai chi.

Fei stood quietly next to Riley. With her hands clasped in front of her, a small smile brightened her mother’s face. She was proud but trying not to feel arrogant, Abigail thought. Her mother stole a glance at Riley, who was still absorbed by the garden. Her mother’s smile grew, and Abigail thought she saw her sigh.

Irritation welled in Abigail’s gut. What right had Fei to show her garden to a stranger who did not necessarily have her family’s best interests in mind? And what gave Riley the notion that he could just walk into a woman’s garden with hardly an introduction?

It was not what Abigail would have done had she been in her mother’s position, and she did not approve.

Riley said, “It’s China in Virginia. I had no idea it could be done. Did you have much help?”

Fei shook her head. “But it is not work. It is life, and it is my good fortune to live it.”

Together, they stepped onto the gray gravel pathway that wound snakelike through the garden. He wasn’t terribly knowledgeable about plants, for he asked Fei for identification of nearly everything he saw. Abigail’s lower back became sore as she watched the pair amble through the yard. She sat down with her back to the cool stone wall and listened. Riley and Fei’s footsteps crunched gravel at regular intervals that were broken by conversation about the natural habits of gardenias and ginkgoes. Finally, their shoes struck wood.

Abigail perked up. It sounded like Riley and her mother had reached the pavilion, the place where their talk would surely venture into the more interesting territory that Riley had come to broach. Abigail poked her head up just enough to catch sight of her prey. They had indeed entered the pavilion and were sitting side by side on a padded wooden bench that overlooked the pond.

“Mrs. Li, I get the sense that you were expecting my visit this morning,” said Riley.

Her mother nodded. “My daughter informed me that you might be along.”

Riley smiled and looked down at the pond, probably at the brightly colored carp that always gathered at the water’s edge when humans were nearby. “That’s good. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”

“I am rarely surprised, Dr. Riley. What would you like to know?”

“When was the last time you spoke with your husband?”

Husband?
That struck Abigail as an odd word choice. She couldn’t imagine her mother still viewed Peter Mason as her
husband, not after all these years, although she didn’t honestly know if they’d ever formally divorced.

“It has been some time since I last saw him.”

“Can you say more precisely when you last spoke directly with him?” Riley pressed, clearly realizing that Fei had not answered the question he had asked.