MIDNIGHT
Arthur Potter was alone.
He looked at his hands and saw they were quivering. Until the incident with Tremain they'd been rock solid. He took an imaginary Valium but it had no effect. He realized after a moment that his unease wasn't so much the aftermath of the showdown after all as an overwhelming sense of disappointment. He'd wanted to talk to Handy. Find out more about him, what made him tick.
Why had he really killed Susan? What had he been thinking? What had happened in that room, the killing room?
And what does he think about me?
It was like watching the troopers escort a part of himself away. He gazed at the back of Handy's head, his shaggy hair. The man looked sideways, a hyena grin on his face. Potter caught a glimpse of an acute angle of jawbone.
Be forewarned.
He remembered his pistol. Unchambered the round and replaced it in the clip then bolstered the gun. When he looked up again, the two squad cars bearing Wilcox and Handy were gone. At the moment it seemed like the perverse camaraderie between negotiator and taker would never fade. Part of him was heartsick to see the man go.
Potter considered the work left to be done. There'd be an IR-1002 to write up. There'd be a debriefing tonight via phone with the operations director in the District and a live debriefing with the Admiral himself after the man had read the incident report. Potter ought to start preparing the presentation now. The Director liked his briefings to be as short as news bites, and real-life incidents rarely had the courtesy to line up so willingly. Potter had stopped into Peter Henderson's press conference but answered only a few questions before heading out the door, leaving the SAC to take as much credit and apportion as much blame as he wished; Potter didn't care.
He'd also have to figure out how to deal with the aborted assault by the state HRU. Potter knew that Tremain never would have tried what he did without sanction from above – possibly even the governor's. But if that were the case, the chief executive of the state would already have distanced himself from the commander. He might even be planning a subtle offensive maneuver of his own – like the public crucifixion of one Arthur Potter. The agent would have to prepare a defense for that.
And the other question – should he stay here for a few days? Return to Chicago? Return to the District?
He stood not far from the scorched van, abandoned by the crowds of departing officers, waiting to see Melanie. He gazed at the slaughterhouse, wondering what he would say to her. He saw Officer Frances Whiting leaning against her car, looking as exhausted as he felt. He approached her.
"Have time to give me a lesson?" he asked.
"You bet."
Ten minutes later they walked together to the hospital tent.
Inside, Melanie Charrol sat on a low examining table. A medic had bandaged her neck and shoulders. Perhaps to help him she'd twisted her hair into a sloppy French braid.
Potter stepped toward her and – as he'd told himself, had ordered himself, not to do – he spoke straight to the medic applying some Betadine to her leg, rather than to Melanie herself. "Is she all right?"
Melanie nodded. She stared at him with an intense smile. The only time her eyes flicked away from his was when he spoke and she glanced at his lips.
"It's not her blood," the medic said.
"It's Bear's?" Potter asked.
Melanie was laughing as she nodded. The smile remained on her face but he noticed that her eyes were hollow. The medic gave her a pill, which she took, then she drank down two glasses of water. The young man said, "I'll leave you alone for a few minutes."
As he left, Frances stepped inside. The two women exchanged fast, abrupt signs. Frances said, "She's asking about the other girls. I'm giving her a rundown."
Melanie turned back to Potter and was staring at him. He met her gaze. The young woman was still unnerved but – despite the bandages and blood – as beautiful as he'd expected. Incredible blue-gray eyes.
He lifted his hands to sign to her what Frances had just taught him and his usually prodigious memory failed him completely. He shook his head at his lapse. Melanie cocked her head.
Potter held up a finger. Wait. He lifted his hands again and froze once more. Then Frances gestured and he remembered. "I'm Arthur Potter," he signed. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"No, you are Charles Michel de l'Epée," Frances translated Melanie's signing.
"I'm not that old." He was speaking now, smiling. "Officer Whiting here said he was born in the eighteenth century. How are you feeling?"
She understood without a translation. Melanie waved at her clothes and gave a mock frown then signed. Frances translated, "My skirt and blouse have had it. Couldn't you have gotten us out just a little earlier?"
"The movie-of-the-week people expect cliffhanger endings."
And as with Handy he felt overwhelmed; there were a thousand things to ask her. None of which found their way from his mind to his voicebox.
He stepped even closer to her. Neither moved for a moment.
Potter thought of another sentence in ASL – words that Frances had taught him earlier in the evening. "You're very brave," he signed.
Melanie looked pleased at this. Frances watched her sign but then the officer frowned and shook her head. Melanie repeated her words. To Potter, Frances said, "I don't understand what she means. What she said was, 'If you hadn't been with me I couldn't have done it.'
But he understood.
He heard a chug of engine and turned to see a harvester. As he watched the ungainly vehicle he believed for a moment it was driving hordes of insects before it. Then he realized he was watching husks and dust thrown skyward by the thresher blades.
"They'll do that all night," Frances translated.
Potter looked at Melanie.
She continued, "Moisture's critical. When conditions're right they run like nobody's business. They have to."
"How do you know that?"
"She says she's a farm girl."
She looked straight into his eyes. He tried to believe that Marian had gazed at him thus so he could root this sensation in sentiment or nostalgia and have done with it. But he couldn't. The look, like the feeling it engendered, like this young woman herself, was an original.
Potter recalled the final phrase that Frances had taught him. He hesitated then impulsively signed the words. As he did it seemed to him that he felt the hand shapes with absolute clarity, as if only his hands could express what he wanted to say.
"I want to see you again," Potter signed. "Maybe tomorrow?"
She paused for an endless moment then nodded yes, smiled.
She reached out suddenly toward him and closed her hands on his arm. He pressed a bandaged hand against her shoulder. They stood in this ambiguous embrace for a moment then he lifted his fingers to her hair and touched the back of her head. She lowered her head and he his lips, nearly touching them to the thick blond plait. But suddenly he smelled the musky scent of her scalp, her sweat, latent perfume, blood. The smells of lovers coupling. And he could not kiss her.
How young she is! And as he thought that, in one instant, his desire to embrace her vanished and his old man's fantasy – never articulated, hardly formed – blew away like the chaff shot from the thresher he'd been staring at.
He knew he had to leave.
Knew he'd never see her again.
He stepped back suddenly and she looked at him, momentarily perplexed.
"I have to go talk to the U.S. attorney," he said abruptly.
Melanie nodded and offered her hand. He mistook it for a signing gesture. He stared down, waiting. Then she extended it further and took his fingers warmly. They both laughed at the misunderstanding. Suddenly she pulled him forward, kissed his cheek.
He walked to the door, stopped, turned. " 'Be forewarned.' That's what you said to me, isn't it?"
Melanie nodded, her eyes hollow once again. Hollow and forlorn. Frances translated her response: "I wanted you to know how dangerous he was. I wanted you to be careful."