The four walls were concrete block, and the only furniture was a board chained to the wall. He closed his eyes as fear engulfed him. Then came the closing of the door and the clanging of the lock.
He couldn’t breathe. It took all his effort to will his lungs to function.
Perspiration rolled down his face, but he’d survived this before. Prison was nothing new to him. When he was in Cuba, he had biblical passages engraved on his soul. He stumbled toward the cot and sat, bowing his head in prayer. He knew all the passages of comfort, and he said them over and over.
It wasn’t working. Wasn’t God supposed to answer?
But there was no answer. Only taunting laughter echoing down the hallways, the smell, and the suffocating sense of doom.
Gray arrived two hours later. The warden wasn’t taking any chances with Luke, and he was clamped into leg-irons and handcuffs before being led to a small meeting room. It had a wooden table, two chairs, and painted concrete block walls.
Gray was pacing in the confined space when the warden led Luke into the room. At least the guard had fastened his handcuffs in the front so he could offer Gray one of his hands to shake.
Gray squeezed his hand but maintained a grim silence until the warden left the room and closed the door. Luke flinched at the sound of the lock clicking into place.
“Spying on Congress?” Gray asked, his voice dripping with angry disbelief.
Luke lowered himself into a chair. “I didn’t do it. I’m completely innocent.”
“Then what convinced a judge to sign a warrant for your arrest?”
“I’m mostly innocent,” Luke amended.
Gray’s face turned to stone as he took the seat on the opposite side of the table. “Explain yourself.”
“I can’t provide any more details than that.”
Gray stood and kicked his chair, sending it skittering across the room and banging into a wall. “Don’t pull that with me,” he demanded. “How did this happen?”
In the past two hours, Luke had plenty of time to piece it together. Marianne had taken photographs of studies paid for by the Committee on Manufactures. That was almost a month ago. Marianne knew he intended to pass them along to Dr. Wiley, but Luke also pounced on the chance to write an anonymous article about them for Modern Century. Clyde knew Luke wrote for Modern Century and assumed he had stolen the documents. Anyone would.
Luke hadn’t spied on Congress. It was Marianne who ferreted out the studies and turned them over. Luke was merely the journalist who sounded the alarm, but he couldn’t clear himself without condemning Marianne, and that would never happen. He didn’t think Clyde would expose Marianne to the justice system, but Clyde might not have a choice. Now that the police and a judge were involved, if the finger of blame pointed at someone else, Clyde might have lost his ability to walk it back.
Even if Clyde could spare Marianne, he would never forgive his daughter for playing a role in this. She would be cut out of the family just like poor, doomed Aunt Stella. That meant there was a limit on how much Luke could disclose.
He focused on the peeling paint in the corner of the room while figuring out how to parse his words. “I think it has something to do with an article I wrote for Modern Century,” he admitted. “Clyde serves on a congressional committee that ordered five studies on chemical additives. They released two that show the chemicals in a good light and buried the others. The article I wrote appeared last week.”
“How did you get your hands on the studies?” Gray demanded.
“I can’t tell you.” He turned in his chair so he didn’t have to see the anger in Gray’s face.
“I’ll hire a lawyer for you tomorrow, but he won’t be any help unless you tell us what’s going on. How did you get those buried studies?”
“Gray, please stop asking.” Acid churned in Luke’s stomach at the thought of being confined here overnight. Maybe even longer. He’d naively hoped Gray might show up with a bag of money to post bail and get him out of here.
“You owe me,” Gray said, his voice cutting. “You put us all through the wringer last year, and I have no desire to repeat the process.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Then tell me who gave you the information. That’s your best chance for getting out of here.”
This room was too small for yelling. It made the walls feel like they were closing in, and it started getting hot. Luke dropped his head into his hands, unable to meet Gray’s eyes and unable to expose Marianne. It would ruin her. Even if she could endure the fear and humiliation of being locked up, she would lose her family. The Magruders were not a forgiving lot.
“I can’t tell you who gave me the studies, but Clyde knows I work for Modern Century. He knows the studies found their way to me, even though the article was anonymous. I think he is to blame for this.”
“Then he’ll be made to answer for it,” Gray said in a quietly lethal voice.
Twenty-Four
The dining room in the Washington town house was small, but Marianne managed to fit place settings for seven adults around the dining table that featured their best china, an assortment of goblets for each person, and a trio of silver candelabras, all for Sunday night’s dinner with Colonel Phelps. Marianne never had much interest in entertaining, but her mother and sister-in-law vied for dominance as they planned the five-course meal. Delia showed off her calligraphy skills by penning lovely place cards, while Vera perfected the floral arrangements.
“The evening will start with the lobster bisque,” Delia said. “After that will come a nice baked brie pastry. Marianne, do you know if Colonel Phelps likes brie?”
“I have no idea,” she said while setting a butter knife alongside each bread plate.
“You need to learn the colonel’s preferences,” Delia said. “The key to a man’s heart is in fulfilling his culinary desires.”
The only man’s heart Marianne was interested in was Luke Delacroix’s, and since he’d spent the last five months eating controlled meals with the Poison Squad, he wasn’t too fussy. Everything about tonight’s meal seemed a little too elegant for her taste, and she envied Sam, who would be eating in the kitchen because tonight’s affair was for grown-ups only. These days, Sam preferred the company of the servants anyway. He was still cowed and sullen around Andrew because of what happened to Bandit, and Marianne suspected the damage from that spiteful act would haunt the boy for years.
The table was starting to look overstuffed with three glasses at each place, along with three different forks, two types of knives, and a bread plate. Then Delia stepped forward to add more, and Vera nearly exploded.
“Delia, I’ve already told you there is no room on the table for the individual saltcellars.”
Delia paid no mind as she set another tiny bowl beside a place setting. “But they’re so precious!” she defended. “All the best families use saltcellars instead of a shared saltshaker.”
Delia had brought the saltcellars all the way from Baltimore specifically for this dinner. Each miniature bowl was made of amethyst crystal cut to look like a thistle, and had a tiny silver spoon with a matching amethyst at the finial. Marianne couldn’t decide if they were charming or tacky.