Flashpoint (An FBI Thriller #27)

Chapter Seventeen

Rome said without pause, “Yeah, that might be right, Gates. I did hear there was dried slime on the key.”

An agent grinned at Rome on his way out. “Right. Slime. Thanks for the entertainment.”

“Not really. I was working on the murder of three retired physicians in Tennessee. But you are my work now. Sherlock thinks you need a break from all the questions, all the accumulated stress, so I’m going to show you my favorite place in Washington.”

“But where’s the monument?”

“What?”

“He was on Churchill’s staff during World War II, even traveled with him. He didn’t see any fighting, though he’d been trained at Sandhurst—that’s the royal military academy and officer training center. They assigned him to the War Office in London because of his talents, and that’s where Churchill spotted him.”

“He wasn’t picked because he was an aristocrat, like Churchill, an earl of the realm?”

“He stayed on with Churchill until he married my grandmother Mary Anne in the late fifties. He was forty-one and Grandmother was twenty-eight. He died too soon, of a heart attack when he was only seventy-seven. I was seven. She died the next year, of a broken heart, my parents believe. When I was a child, many times at dinner, my parents would raise a toast to Grandfather and Grandmother. I remember Grandfather carrying me around on his back down to our lake to swim and fish. I missed him. I still miss him.” She raised her chin and said in her coldest voice, “That’s when my father inherited the title and became the tenth Earl of Camden. And yes, it was because he was born to it. He didn’t have to earn it.”

“Speaking of your parents, do they know what’s happened to you and where you are?”

Rome was frowning at her. “Do your parents know about Samir Basara?”

Elizabeth’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Of course, everyone did, it was common knowledge. My friends thought I was very cool. The two of us were very popular in my circle. As for my father, he was appalled. He tried to talk me out of seeing him, said it was making him a laughingstock, and, to be honest, I was secretly pleased to hear it. You see, I was angry at him for hurting my mother with his string of affairs. It was my way of striking back.”

“Your mother knew about your dad’s mistresses?”

As Rome started toward Georgetown, he asked her, “Do you drink coffee?”

“Of course.”

“You’re in for a treat. Savich makes the best coffee on the planet.”