The Witness, Page 45

  door.

  Her face, those wide green eyes, stayed so sober, so serious, as she put the potatoes into a large bowl, poured the experimental mixture over them, reached for a wooden spoon.

  “Marry me, Abigail.”

  She dropped the spoon. Bert sauntered over to sniff at it politely.

  “Well, that just popped out,” he said, when she just stared at him.

  “You were joking.” She picked up the spoon, set it in the sink, lifted another from a pottery sleeve. “Because I’m cooking, and it’s a domestic area.”

  “I’m not joking. I’d figured to set the scene a lot better when I asked you. That moonlight you want, flowers, maybe some champagne. A picnic’s what I had in mind. A moonlight picnic up at the spot you like with the view of the hills. But I’m sitting here, looking at you, and it just popped out.”

  He came around the counter, took the spoon, set it aside so he could take both her hands. “So marry me, Abigail.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly. This isn’t something we can consider, much less discuss, particularly when my situation remains in flux.”

  “Things are always in flux. Not this,” he added. “I swear to you we’ll end this, we’ll fix this. But there’s always going to be something. And I think now’s the perfect time, before it’s ended, before it’s fixed, because we should be able to promise each other when things outside aren’t perfect.”

  “If it goes wrong—”

  “Then it goes wrong. We don’t.”

  “Marriage …” She drew her hands free, used them to stir the coating on the potatoes. “It’s a civil contract broken at least half the time with another document. People enter into it promising forever, when in reality—”

  “I’m promising you forever.”

  “You can’t know.”

  “I believe.”

  “You—you’ve just moved in. Just hung clothes in the closet.”

  “Noticed that, did you?”

  “Yes. We’ve known each other less than three months.” She got out a casserole—and busy, busy, busy—scooped and poured the coated potatoes into it. “We have a very difficult situation to address. If you feel strongly about the subject, and continue to feel strongly, I’d be willing to discuss our views on the matter at some more rational time.”

  “Delay is an excuse.”

  She slammed the casserole into the oven, whirled on him. “You think it’s clever to throw my own words back at me.”

  “I think it’s apt.”

  “And why do you make me lose my temper? I don’t like to lose my temper. Why don’t you lose yours?”

  “I don’t mind getting pissed.” He shrugged, picked up his lemonade again. “I’m not right at the moment. I’m more interested in the way you’re twisting yourself into knots because I love you and I want to marry you.”

  “I’m not twisting myself into knots. I’ve very clearly given you my opinion on marriage, and—”

  “No, you very clearly gave me your mother’s opinion.”

  Very carefully, she picked up a cloth towel, wiped her hands. “That was uncalled for.”

  “I don’t think so, and it wasn’t said to hurt you. You’re giving me cold logic and statistics. That’s your mother’s way.”

  “I’m a scientist.”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re also a giving, caring woman. One who wants moonlight and wildflowers. Tell me what that part of you wants, what that part of you feels, not what your mother pushed into your head as long as she could.”

  “How can this be so easy for you?”

  “Because you’re the one. Because I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. I want a lifetime with you, Abigail. I want a home with you, family with you. I want to make children with you, raise them with you. If you truly don’t want any of that with me, I’ll give you the best I’ve got, and hope you change your mind. I just need you to tell me you don’t want it.”

  “I do want it! But I …”

  “But?”

  “I don’t know! How can anyone think when they feel so much?”

  “You can. You’ve got that big brain to go along with that big heart. Marry me, Abigail.”

  He was right, of course. She could think. She could think of what her life had been like without him, and what it would be if she shoved those feelings down and relied only on the flat chill of logic.

  “I couldn’t put my real name on a marriage license.”

  He cocked his brows. “Well, in that case, forget it.”

  The laugh rushed out of her. “I don’t want to forget it. I want to say yes.”

  “So say yes.”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes, felt dizzy with delight. “Yes,” and threw her arms around him.

  “This is right,” he murmured, turned his lips to her damp cheek. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.” He drew her back to kiss her lips, her other cheek. “My mother says that women cry when they’re happy because they’re so filled with the feeling they want to let it out, share it. And teardrops spread that happiness.”

  “It feels true. I hope the potatoes turn out well.”

  On a laugh, he dropped his brow to hers. “You’re thinking about the potatoes? Now?”

  “Because you asked me to marry you when I was creating the recipe. If it comes out well, it’ll be a very special one. We’ll pass the story to our children.”

  “If they suck, we can still pass the story on.”

  “But we won’t enjoy the potatoes.”

  “Jesus, I really love you.” He squeezed her until she gasped.

  “I never believed I would have this, any of this, and now I have so much. We’re going to make a life together, and create a family. We’re mates.” She stepped back, gripped his hands. “And more. We’re going to merge our lives. It’s amazing that people do. They remain individuals, with their own makeup, and still they become and function as a single unit. Yours, mine, but also, and most powerfully, ours.”

  “It’s a good word, ‘ours.’ Let’s use it a lot.”

  “I should go out and pick our lettuce for our salad so we can have our dinner.”

  “We’s another good word. We’ll go out.”

  “I like that better.” She started to turn for the door, went still as her thoughts aligned. “Mated. Merged.”

  “If you want to mate and merge again, better turn down those potatoes.”

  “Not piggybacked, not layered or attached. Integrated. Merged. Separate makeups—individual codes—but merged into one entity.”

  “I don’t think you’re talking about us anymore.”

  “It’s the answer. A blended threat, yes, I’d tried that, but it has to be more—different than combining. It has to be mated. Why didn’t I think of it before? I can do this. I believe I can do this. I need to try something.”

  “Have at it. I can handle dinner. Except I don’t know when to take those potatoes out.”

  “Oh.” She looked at the clock, calculated. “Mix and turn them in another fifteen minutes. They should be done thirty minutes after that.”

  Within an hour she’d recalculated, rewritten codes, restructured the algorithm. She ran preliminary tests, noted the areas she’d need to adjust or enhance.

  When she pulled her mind out of the work, she had no idea where Brooks and Bert were, but saw Brooks had left the oven on warm.

  She found them both on the back porch, Brooks with a book, Bert with a rawhide.

  “I’ve made you wait for dinner.”

  “Just gotta throw the steaks on. How’d it go?”

  “It needs work, and it’s far from perfect. Even when I complete it, I’ll need to Romulanize it.”

  “Do what to it?”

  “Oh, it’s a term I use in my programming language. The Romulans are a fictional alien race. From Star Trek. I enjoy Star Trek.”

  “Every nerd does.”

  The way he used the word “nerd” struck like an endearment, and never failed to make her smile. “I
don’t know if that’s true, but I do. The Romulans had a cloaking device, one that made their starship invisible.”

  “So you need to make your virus thing invisible. Romulanize it.”

  “Yes. Disguising it as benign—like a Trojan horse, for instance—is an option, but cloaked is better. And it’s the right way. It’s going to work.”

  “Then we have a lot to celebrate.”

  They had sunset, and what Abigail thought of as their engagement dinner.

  At moonrise, the phone in Brooks’s pocket rang. “That’s the captain.”

  Abigail put her hands in her lap, linked her fingers, squeezed them. She made herself breathe slowly as she listened to Brooks’s end of the conversation and interpreted what Anson told him.

  “He made contact,” she said, when Brooks ended the call.

  “He did. She was skeptical, suspicious. I’d think less of her if she hadn’t been. She checked his credentials, asked a lot of questions. Grilled him, basically. She knows your case. I expect every agent and marshal in Chicago does. He can’t swear she believed he didn’t know where you are, but there’s not a lot she can do about that, as there’s no connection or communication between you.”

  “But they’ll need me to come in. They’ll want to interview me, interview Elizabeth Fitch, in person.”

  “You’re in control of that.” His eyes on hers, he laid a hand over her tensed ones. “You go when you’re ready. They talked over two hours, and agreed to meet tomorrow. We’ll know more then.”

  “She’s contacted her superior by now.”

  “Ten minutes after Anson left, she came out, got in her car. Again, he can’t swear she didn’t make the tail, but he followed her to the assistant director’s house. Anson called to let us know right after she went inside. He’s on the move. Didn’t figure it’d be smart to sit on the house.”

  “They know I’m still alive now. They know I’m tvoi drug.”

  “Both of those things are in your favor from their point of view.”

  “Logically.” She breathed deep. “There’s no turning back now.”

  “For either of us.”

  “I want to work, at least another hour or two.”

  “Okay, but don’t push it too hard. We’ve got a barbecue tomorrow.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “It’s easy, and it’s normal, and it’s a break I figure both of us can use. A couple hours away from all this.” He stroked a hand down her hair. “It’ll be fine, Abigail. Trust me. And we’ve got news. We’re engaged.”

  “Oh, God.”

  On a laugh, he gave a tug on the hair he’d just stroked. “My family’s going to do handsprings, I expect. I’ve got to take care of getting you a ring,” he added.

  “Shouldn’t you wait to tell them? If something goes wrong …”

  “We’re going to make sure nothing does.” He kissed her lightly. “Don’t work too late.”

  Work, she thought, when he left her alone. At least there she knew what she was doing, what she was up against. No turning back, she reminded herself, as she sat at her station. For either of them, from any of it.

  And still she felt more confident at the prospect of taking on the Russian Mafia than she did attending a backyard barbecue.

  27

  SHE JOLTED OUT OF THE DREAM AND INTO THE DARK.

  Not gunfire, she realized, but thunder. Not an explosion but bursts of lightning.

  Just a storm, she thought. Just wind and rain.

  “Bad dream?” Brooks murmured, and reached through the dark for her hand.

  “The storm woke me.” But she slid out of bed, restless with it, to walk to the window. Wanting the rush of cool air, she opened it wide, let the wind sweep over her skin, through her hair.

  “I did dream.” Through another sizzle of lightning, she watched the whip and sway of trees. “You asked before if I had nightmares or flashbacks. I didn’t really answer. I don’t often, as much as I did, and the dreams are more a replaying than a nightmare.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “I suppose it is, basically.”

  She stood where she was, the wind a gush of cool, the sky a black egg cracked by jagged snaps of lightning.

  He waited for her to tell him, she knew. He owned such patience, but unlike her mother’s, his offered kindness.

  “I’m in my bedroom at the safe house. It’s my birthday. I’m happy. I’ve just put on the earrings and the sweater John and Terry gave me as gifts. And in the dream I think, as I did then, how pretty they are. I think I’ll wear them, for the good, strong feelings they give me, when I testify. Then I hear the gunshots.”

  She left the window wide as she turned around to see him sitting up in bed, watching her.

  Kindness, she thought again. She hoped she never took his innate kindness for granted.

  “It happens very slowly in the dream, though it didn’t happen slowly. I remember everything, every detail, every sound, every movement. If I had the skill, I could draw it, scene by scene, and replay it like an animated film.”

  “It’s hard on you to remember that clearly.”

  “I …” She hadn’t thought of that. “I suppose it is. It was storming, like tonight. Thunder, lightning, wind, rain. The first shot startled me. Made my pulse skip, but I didn’t fully believe it was a gunshot. Then the others, and there could be no mistake. I’m very frightened, very unsure, but I rush out to find John. But in this dream tonight, it wasn’t John who pushed me back into the bedroom, who stumbled in behind me, already dying, blood running out of him, soaking the shirt I pressed to the wound. It wasn’t John. It was you.”

  “It’s not hard to figure out.” She could see him in a snap of lightning, too, his eyes clear and calm on hers. “Not hard to put in its place.”

  “No, it’s not. Stress, emotions, my going over and over all those events. What I felt for John and Terry, but particularly John, was a kind of love. I think, now that I understand such things better, I had a crush on him. Innocent, nonsexual, but powerful in its way. He swore to protect me, and I trusted him to do so. He had a badge, a weapon, a duty, as you do.”

  She walked toward the bed but didn’t sit. “People say, to someone they love: I’d die for you. They don’t expect to, of course, have no plans to. They may believe it, or mean it, or it may simply be an expression of devotion. But I know what it means now, I understand that impossible depth of emotion now. And I know you would die for me. You’d put my life before yours to protect me. And that terrifies me.”

  He took her hands in his, and his were as steady as his eyes. “He had no warning. He didn’t know the enemy. We do. We’re not walking into an ambush, Abigail. We’re setting one.”

  “Yes.” Enough, she told herself. Enough. “I want you to know, if you’re hurt during the ambush, I’ll be very disappointed.”

  She surprised a laugh out of him. “What if it’s just a flesh wound?” He caught her hand, tugged her down.

  “Very disappointed.” She turned to him, closed her eyes. “And I won’t be sympathetic.”

  “You’re a tough woman with hard lines. I guess I’ll have to avoid flesh wounds.”

  “That’s for the best.”

  She relaxed against him, listened to the storm blow its way west.

  IN THE MORNING, with the sky clear and blue, and the