Rocky And The Senator's Daughter. Dixie Browning

she skimmed articles about people she didn’t know, who didn’t know her. There wasn’t a speck of world news, rarely even a political commentary. She liked it that way. She read the obituaries of people she’d never heard of, wedding announcements for young hopefuls who had no idea of the pitfalls ahead. She read notices of fiftieth wedding anniversaries, wondering if the couples knew how fortunate they were, and tried not to feel sorry for herself. Given a choice, she knew she would never go back to her old life.

      She read about club meetings and historical reenactments and the progress being made on the town’s museum. She read about an art show and a moth-boat regatta and considered attending. Mingling with real people again.

      One of these days she was going to have to return to the real world and find work. Find some way to make her liberal arts degree support her, because Kitty’s needs would continue to grow—clothes and schools and health insurance. Her trust fund wouldn’t last much longer at the rate she was depleting it, but she refused to accept a penny from her father. Not that he’d offered. Where J. Abernathy Jones was concerned, every penny came with strings attached.

      One string, she suspected, led to Clive Meadows. She’d known Clive for years. It was his beach house they always used. She had met only one of his three wives and been shocked that the girl was so young.

      Not surprisingly, she rarely liked her father’s friends. Clive was no better, no worse than most. Once, before she’d married Stan, when Clive was between wives, he had asked her out to dinner. She had declined. A few nights later he’d invited her to a concert. She had thanked him and pleaded another engagement.

      Her father had been in Scotland when Stan had been killed in a one-man accident that had been deemed a suicide. Clive had been there to offer comfort and professional advice, to steer her through the formalities. At the time she had gratefully accepted his help.

      But as for anything more, Sarah, at age thirty-seven, was far too old for a man of his tastes—his wives had been barely out of their teens. Of course, she might have imagined his interest. Distraught, she could easily have read too much into a few innocent shoulder pats, a few avuncular hugs and the offer, after Stan’s private memorial service, of a quiet month at his beach house at Duck.

      At any rate, she was safe now, and as long as she could continue paying for Kitty’s needs and stretch what was left to cover the necessities—food, books, utilities and property taxes—she intended to stay put. Loneliness was a small price to pay for peace of mind.

      Rocky rounded a sharp curve on the narrow highway, humming along with something or other by Sibelius. Years out of practice, he hit only about every fifth note correctly, but then, that was between him and the composer, and the old guy wasn’t complaining.

      He felt good about what he was doing. Righteous, in fact, which was a big improvement over feeling nothing. Thank God something had come along to drag him out of his lair.

      It had already occurred to him that someone else might have already warned her. But in case they hadn’t, she needed to know what was about to hit the fan. It probably wouldn’t amount to much more than a few jokes on Leno and Letterman, a few sound bytes and film clips—maybe a rehash in the tabloids. After a week at most, the whole thing would die a natural death, but meanwhile, a heads-up might be appreciated.

      Besides which, he’d needed a mission. Lately he’d been aware of a growing sense of restlessness. The trouble with being a retired journalist was that the brain refused to retire.

      Okay, so he would warn the widow and while he was in the area he might look around for something to quicken his interest. Frontline reporting from the agricultural scene? He could do an investigative piece on the pork industry, maybe hang it on the hook of environmental pollution versus genetic engineering. Would reshuffling a few pig genes render hog lagoons obsolete?

      He whistled along with the familiar theme of “Finlandia” and wondered how long it had been since he’d whistled. Or hummed anything. Once an enthusiastic sing-alonger, it had been years since he’d been enthusiastic about anything.

      When his watch beeped at noon, he switched off the CD and turned on the news.

      “—at Camp David. The meeting is scheduled to cover—” He changed stations and caught the tail end of a report on the latest airline disaster, waited through a string of commercials and heard the farm report. Nothing about the Cudahy book. Maybe he’d overestimated the threat. It might not show up at all in this particular market. Even so, it was about time for the publisher to start chumming the waters if they hoped to see people lined up outside the bookstores, money in hand, on laydown day.

      Meanwhile, he’d do well to work on his tactics. “Mrs. Sullivan, I’m an independent journalist, and I’ve come to warn you about—”

      Yeah, right. Considering what she’d been put through these past few years, that might not be the best approach. Direct was his favored method, but direct in this case would probably get him kicked out on his keester. The lady had no reason to welcome the press.

      Of course, it wasn’t too late to call it off. He could go back to Chevy Chase, refreshed from spending a day in the country, and either watch a few more ball games or start on his version of the Great American novel. The story of how one cynical journalist, semi-retired, discovered a way to put an end to all turf wars, ethnic vendettas and ideological battles.

      But as long as he was in the neighborhood, he might as well pay his respects to Mrs. Sullivan. Maybe she’d offer him a cup of tea.

      Or a cream cheese sandwich.

      Finding her had been easy enough. He was not, after all, without investigative skills. According to the ex-senator’s yard man, she had not been to the Wye River place in nearly a year. None of her former friends had offered a clue—of course, they might have been in protective mode. Taking the next logical step, he had checked out public records. Wills, taxes, tax maps.

      Bingo. If he could do it, it was a sure bet he wouldn’t be the only one. Sleazy exposés were a dime a dozen. They seldom changed the course of history, but they could generate a few column inches in the tabloids and make life miserable for the victims before they were bumped off the lists by the next contender.

      Discounting their one brief encounter, Rocky really didn’t know Sarah Mariah Jones Sullivan at all. By now she might even welcome the attention. But if she was anywhere as vulnerable as she’d looked during the hearings—as she’d struck him that day over twenty years ago when she’d watched her father use her and discard her as casually as he would a soiled tissue—then maybe she could use a friend.

      And if he happened to have guessed wrong about which way she’d jumped—if she was kicking up her heels in some fancy resort instead of hibernating in corn country—no problem. He’d needed an excuse to get out. Needed to start getting involved again.

      Slowing down, he took the Snowden turnoff, rounded a blind curve on a narrow blacktop, crossed over a railroad track and began looking for a dirt road that led off to the right. The only sign of life was a big buck deer and a flock of gulls following a tractor, reminding him that they were only a mile or so from Currituck Sound.

      He spotted the dirt road and turned off, driving slowly. Tax maps didn’t reveal a whole lot of detail, but there was supposed to be another road of some sort.

      And there it was. Two leaning posts, one supporting a newspaper box, the other a mailbox. The name on the mailbox said Gilbert, which, if memory served, was the name of the relative whose house Sarah had inherited. Rocky pulled off the road and parked behind a dusty red compact. After a moment’s hesitation he set the brake, locked his eight-year-old SUV and set out on foot down the winding, rutted lane. He’d gone barely a dozen yards when he spotted a guy armed with a videocam jogging toward the house.

      Evidently his suspicions had been justified. The lady was about to find herself in the crosshairs again. “Yo! You with the camera!”

      The guy glanced over his shoulder, but instead of stopping, he picked up speed. It occurred to Rocky that he could be an innocent nature photographer—maybe a stringer for some hunting-fishing