LITMIR.BIZ

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      A special thank-you to my Dutch cousins Henk and Christine Nouwen, Jan and Martha van de Leur, Amy Knechten, Sonja van den Akker and Bart, Leo, Marie Louise, Nanny and Rob Neggers for their warm welcome and many family stories on our visits to the Netherlands. Christine was my “Dutch pen pal” when I was growing up in small-town western Massachusetts and she was growing up in Eindhoven. Henk—who for some mysterious reason thinks the Neggers family is a bit argumentative!—went above and beyond the call of duty in answering my many questions for this book and even put me in touch with a Dutch police inspector, who was equally generous with his time and expertise. I’ve promised to keep working on my Dutch vocabulary…but I’ll never get those “g’s” down!

      I’m so glad we got to see my cousin Carla, for whom I’m named, before her recent death. I will always remember our lunch in her beautiful garden…she and her husband, Daan, had the most gorgeous roses….

      Many thanks to the deputy U.S. marshal who was so gracious and helpful in talking with me, and to my brother Mark and sister-in-law Kathy Neggers for showing me around the scenic and very special Hudson River Valley.

      As I write this, hiking season is about to get under way here in northern New England. I’m still determined to hike all forty-eight peaks over 4,000 feet in the White Mountains…but it’s going to take a while, because I really like walking on the beach, too! I’m also diving into my next book. If you’d like to get in touch with me, please visit my Web site, www.carlaneggers.com.

      Thank you, and take care!

      Carla Neggers

       P.O. Box 826 Quechee, VT 05059

      To Kate Jewell and Conor Hansen

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      One

      Maggie Spencer stood paralyzed in front of the glass case in a small Dutch bakery not far from her apartment. Decisions, decisions. She’d arrived at the American embassy in The Hague three weeks ago, her first foreign assignment as a diplomatic security officer and already had fallen in love with Dutch bread.

      “You’ll kill for a Krispy Kreme in another two months.”

      She laughed as Thomas Kopac, a midlevel diplomat at the embassy, joined her. “Be careful. I’m talking myself out of chocolate sprinkles.”

      “Ah. Hagelslag. It’s more like dessert than breakfast.”

      “So’s Krispy Kreme.” Maggie smiled at him. “You said that so well. Hagelslag. My Dutch vocabulary is improving, but pronunciation? Forget it. Nobody understands what I’m saying.”

      But she’d had chocolate sprinkles on buttered bread two mornings in a row and decided, instead, on a whole-grain roll with smoked gouda.

      Tom didn’t order anything. “I just saw you in the window and figured I’d make you homesick.”

      “Do I look like the doughnut-eating type?”

      “Uh-uh. I’m not going there.”

      They headed outside into the late August sun. A midnight rain had washed the humidity and pollution out of the air and perked up the summer roses and hydrangea blooming in dooryard gardens. The embassy was only a few blocks away. Maggie walked comfortably alongside Tom, a balding man in his mid-fifties who’d never married, a career foreign service officer who’d never rise to the top ranks of his profession. He was the sort who would wear the same suit for days on end. His job was his life. Maggie was trying to have more balance for herself, but it wasn’t easy. Still, she’d turned thirty in July and had already learned the hard way that life was too short.

      There was, mercifully, nothing romantic in Tom’s offer of friendship.

      “You can eat your broodje in front of me,” he said. “I would.”

      “Do I look hungry?”

      He smiled. “Starving.”

      “I’ll have to pound the pavement after work to burn off the extra calories.”

      Dutch breakfasts notwithstanding, she kept in shape. At five-five, she couldn’t count on her size to get her out of a jam. Fitness, training, experience and mental toughness were the trick.

      And luck.

      There was always the luck factor. But since luck wasn’t her long suit, she didn’t count on it, either.

      “Look there,” Tom said. “Your hair’s the same color as those roses.”

      She noticed the cluster of orange-red roses in a dooryard. “It’s not that red.”

      “Is the red hair from your mother or your father?”

      “Father.”

      He hesitated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

      “It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about him.” She smiled to prove she wasn’t just being nice. “My wanderlust is also a Spencer trait.”

      The day she’d arrived in The Hague was the eighteen-month anniversary of her father’s death. Philip Spencer, ordinary American businessman, had walked into the middle of a bank robbery in Prague.

      Talk about

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