Chapter 19

"Am I allowed to ask how long Phillip's brother has been a federal agent, or is that classified?" Abby asked.

"Call him James, or Jim. In the family he's Jamie, but I wouldn't try that just yet."

"I'll be happy to call him by his first name if he'll just stop calling me "Miss Kozal". This isn't Jane Austen's England, and he's not Mr. Darcy, although he and Darcy have a great deal in common."

"You mean the lack of charm? From what Phillip tells me, that's just Jamie being Jamie. He's very focused on his job and sometimes the charm gets left out."

"You said you were all from Arlington, but it sounds like you don't know James very well. Didn't you go to high school together?"

"No, we were in different schools. I just met Phillip about a week and a half ago outside the Agency headquarters building in Georgetown, and I only met Jamie a week ago. He came down from New York for a training camp the Agency puts on for new recruits that I had to complete as part of the application process."

"He lives in New York?"

"Yes. Up there, he works as a professional photographer under the name of James Bishop. He has a degree in fine arts with a major in photography from Pratt, one of the big art schools up there."

"A photographer? You mean, like a cover story?"

"Yes."

"Wow. How old is Phillip?"

"Twenty-four."

"So James is twenty-six, twenty-seven?"

"Twenty-two."

"Really? He's younger? But he seems so….mature."

"According to his mother, whom you will meet very shortly and who is director of new agent recruitment at the Agency, Jamie has always had an old head on his young shoulders. He took dual credit courses in high school and graduated with his diploma and two years of college credits, and then he finished his degree at Pratt in just over a year. As soon as he turned twenty-one, he signed on with the Agency."

"Wow. That's awfully young to be a federal agent, isn't it?"

"Yes, but from what I understand he made up his mind when he was about fourteen and started training. Living in the same house with the Agency's senior field agent helped, of course, but Lee didn't pull any strings to get him the job, and Jamie knew better than to ask for special consideration."

"I understand. Is their father in the picture at all?"

"He and his second wife, Carrie, work overseas for an aid organization, Economic Aid International. They run the operation in Estoccia, in East Africa. Joe King worked there for several years in the '80's and helped blow the whistle on some dirty dealings in what was called the Economic Aid Organization, EAO, back then. The suits in D.C. tried to get him framed for murdering the prime minister, but Lee and Amanda cleared his name and exposed the real culprits. Along the way, Joe became good friends with the prime minister, and after he and Carrie were married the following year, they were invited to move to Estoccia and live there more or less permanently. They come back to the States about once a year."

"Then Lee Stetson was the one who stood in for Mr. King when the boys were in high school?"

"Yes. As Phillip explained it, they love their dad, they admire what he's doing, but Lee was the one who listened to them when the girl they wanted to take to prom went with someone else. It took them awhile to warm up to him, especially Jamie, but he's their father in every way that's important."

"That is so neat."

Kendra pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex and found a spot near the entrance to Abby's building; Jamie pulled in and parked beside her, and almost as soon as he parked the BMW, Lee arrived in the Tahoe.

"Looks like Jamie called for backup while we were driving," Kendra said. "You're about to meet Lee Stetson."

She'd barely had time to say those words before Jamie was at the passenger door of the truck, which Abby had very sensibly locked. She unlocked the door and he opened it.

"Lee's here, Miss Kozal; he's brought some moving boxes that we can use to pack up your things."

"Can we drop the formality, please? My friends call me Abby."

"This bunch calls me Jamie. Feel free to use it," he said, surprising both Kendra and Abby. He offered a hand to help her out of the truck and she took it, surprised at the courteous gesture. Once she was on the ground, though, he dropped her hand, which she found oddly disappointing considering she didn't really like him very much. She followed him over to the Tahoe, where Phillip was helping Lee unload a stack of moving boxes.

"Abigail Kozal, this is my stepfather, Lee Stetson," Jamie said.

"Abby, I'm sorry you've had such a distressing evening – a distressing two weeks, in fact," Lee said as they shook hands.

"It's all right, Mr. Stetson; Phillip, Kendra and Jamie have been wonderful, and I really appreciate the invitation to get out of that apartment."

"Yes, well, you can stay the rest of the summer if you like, as long as you don't mind my very active children. We have two empty bedrooms upstairs, or will have once Jamie goes back to New York tomorrow morning, and a fully furnished basement downstairs. Kendra's grandparents were staying with us for the last couple of days, but they've moved back over to the Davis house while Kendra's parents are on their second honeymoon. I suggest you take the basement."

"The whole thing? Mr. Stetson, I don't need that much space, and isn't that where your children play?"

"Not in the summer, and it's Lee, and my wife is Amanda. She suggested it, in fact; it will give you more privacy. There's even a back door that leads into the back yard so you don't have to come through the main house if you don't want to."

"Oh, my. Mr. Stetson – Lee – that sounds wonderful, but I don't have much money, so I can't pay much for rent."

"You don't have to, and you're welcome to eat your meals with us, if you don't mind being pestered by the kids."

"Oh, I love kids!"

"You may change your mind after spending the next couple of months with my livewires, but I appreciate the sentiment. Let's go get your room packed up."

The apartment was a mess. "I'm sorry, I try to keep it straight, but there's only so much I can do," Abby said, as she led the way to the smallest of the three bedrooms. There was room, just barely, for a twin bed with storage drawers underneath the mattress, a desk, a bookshelf, and a small closet.

"My dorm room at UNL is actually larger, "she said. "I didn't bring much, which is good, since there's no place to put it. The other two just leave their stuff out in the living room, but I don't want to do that."

"Is anything in the kitchen yours?"

"A carton of milk and some fruit, but I don't care about that. Mostly I eat in my car or out in the park; the kitchen is, well, you saw it."

"Mold everywhere?" Lee said. "I used to be that kind of a slob; my wife asked me once, long before she was my wife, if the moldy cheese in my fridge was my attempt to grow penicillin at home."

"They mostly bring in takeout food or cook things in the microwave, but they don't do dishes until they run out of clean ones. Now that's odd- there's half a pan of brownies on the counter, and they never cook."

Lee was already on the phone, while Jamie found a new, clear plastic bag and, using a kitchen towel to handle the disposable aluminum brownie pan, slid the pan inside it.

"What's going on?" Abby asked.

"If your roommates never cook, there's a good chance these are not ordinary brownies," Jamie said.

"You mean like…. Oh, my gosh!"

Lee ended the cellular call and said, "APD is on the way; this is their jurisdiction, not ours, but I offered the Agency lab to do the analysis if they're backed up. Abby, the sooner we get you out of here, the better."

"Yes, sir."