Page 79 of Nash Falls

“Go to your room.”

“I’m not a child. You can’t make me.”

“Then I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.”

Maggie stepped closer to her mother and drew in a fuller breath. “You might want to grab a shower first. To get the men’s cologne off. And the sweat.”

“Watch your mouth!” She pointed a finger at her daughter. “And if you’re even thinking of mentioning this… thisnonsenseto your father, well, you better think again.”

“What happened to you?” said Maggie, now looking like she might cry. “Don’t you love Dad anymore?”

“Of course I love him!” exclaimed a now-stricken Judith.

“Then what is all this about?”

“This is all a product of your overactive imagination,” her mother barked. “And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

Maggie shouted, “He loves you. He dotes on you. He gives you everything you want and you dothisto him! You don’t fucking deserve him!”

Judith slapped her daughter so hard on the cheek that it hurt her hand.

Maggie’s eyes filled with tears and she gasped, holding her injured face where the skin was already reddening.

“I… I,” said Judith, wavering. “Mag—”

She staggered off to her room, leaving Maggie staring after her.

A minute later Maggie heard the shower come on in her parents’bathroom. She hurried back to her bedroom, slipped under the covers, pulled them over her head, and began to weep and shake.

In the shower a naked Judith slumped to the floor and let the water run over her. And she, too, started to cry.

I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m so sorry… Walter. So…

She turned to the side and threw up. Then Judith lay on the shower floor, her body curled tightly into a ball as she moaned and shook while the hot water streamed over her.

CHAPTER

39

THE NEXT MORNING WHEN HEarrived back in town Nash went straight from the airport to the office. He had phoned home and spoken to his wife, who sounded like she was coming down with a cold. When he asked about Maggie, Judith said that she was in her room working away, probably on the new proposal.

“I love you,” Judith had said before clicking off.

Nash sat at his desk working on his day job. He had given the FBI a great deal of information, and he had decided to let them toil away on it before he started sifting for more incriminating material. He also knew that he would soon have to sit down and have a talk with his family about what he was engaged in. But then the warnings the FBI had given him aboutindiscretionsleading to the deaths of Cho, Singer, and possibly Lombard came back to him.

He closed his eyes and thought about what his father would do. He suddenly wished he could pick up the phone and ask for advice from the former soldier.

But maybe I can do the next best thing.

He took the card from his pocket and made the call.

“Walter?” said Shock. “You all right?”

“I’m calling in the request my dad made to you to help me if I needed it. See, I’m in a bit of a mess and I need your advice. And it’s better to do it in person. And maybe not in town, if you can manage it.”

To his credit Shock asked no questions, but simply gave Nash precise instructions on where to meet him in two hours.

Nash left his office and took an Uber to the train station. Therehe hopped on a commuter rail to the next town over. From there he took not the first or second available taxi, but the third.