“You really think so?” He came closer, a hand outstretched. “You think London would have changed anything?”
“Maybe, but then we'll never know, since you chose to ignore me there.”
“Ignore you. I can just see me in a hotel room waiting for you to finish another of your endless autopsies, and you making eyes at this Scotland Yard guy the whole time.”
“So, you've learned about Richard, have you?”
“There're no secrets in the FBI community. We leave that for the CIA, remember?”
“After our last conversation, you relinquished all right to any say-so in my life on any subject, Chief. I owe you my best as a member of the profiling and forensic investigation team on a case we happen to be working together today. But I'll thank you to keep your opinions on my private life to yourself for the duration of this case, unless you see fit to relieve me.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I didn't say that.”
“Imagine the repercussions of that one.” He paced now, staring at the ceiling, waving an arm and shaking his head. “Imagine it. I replace the famous Dr. Jessica Coran on the case, headline news from here to China.”
She raised her shoulders. “What repercussions? I wouldn't make a single wave over it.”
He laughed derisively, and when he spoke, his tone was angry. “And with whom do I replace you, Jessica? I didn't ask for you on this case, you know. I don't know whose bright idea it was, but it wasn't mine. I thought you came as a… a package deal with the psychic.”
She rose to her feet and came around the desk, fists balled, jaw set. “Where did you hear that nonsense?”
“It appeared to be the case. At any rate, you tell me, with whom do I replace the most famous forensic investigator the FBI's ever known, and-”
“John Thorpe,” she interjected.
“-and the media and the people of Philly will have my ass by morning.”
“You're making far too much of it, Jim.”
“Making too much of your reputation? Me? Oh, yeah, sure… What can the Bureau do to me that they haven't already done?”
“I'm sorry about your losing your post in Hawaii, Jim,” she said. “But I've got to know, did it have anything to do with the Lopaka Kowona case? Our final report on the way he died?”
He brushed this off with a wave of his hand and an unconvincing shake of the head. “No, not so's anyone would notice. Fact is, people have long forgotten what I did for the islands back then. If you recall, dear, you garnered all the accolades for putting an end to the Trade Winds Killer. No, our little secret on exactly how Kowona died is intact.”
“We were both there when the cameras rolled, Jim.”
“Yeah, but you won in the end, and I'm here now in Philly, put in my place due to some nasty bit of political palua so convoluted I didn't see it before I was blindsided and pushed out. Nothing to do with our mutual friend Kowona or anything we might want to keep buried. Trust me.”
She breathed deeply at this. “That much is… is good.”
He advanced on her, and now they stood staring into each other's eyes, a pencil's width apart, each smelling the other's tension. His cologne reminded her of their parting in Rome a year ago, a parting she had not known would be their last, a parting that ended their four-year-long love affair. It had been the longest relationship with a man she'd ever had-or ever managed, as her shrink would likely put it.
He reached out and pulled her to him, roughly kissing her, his tongue searching her mouth with a fire she had not felt since their last time together.
She allowed the kiss to last a moment too long, but then pushed him away, hard, and nearly shouting, “Damn you, Jim! Damn you, get away from me. Get out. This isn't happening.”
“Sweetheart, Jess-”
“No, no! I'm not your anything, Jim!” She pulled from his grasp again. “I said get out!”
“We could have what we both wanted before; we could have it now, Jess. Now that I'm in Philadelphia… we're close enough now so that we can try for a real relationship.”
“There's no we any longer. I put you out of my head, out of my heart. I love Richard now.”
He stepped back, his face going hard and cold, as if her words had frozen him. Looking crushed, he fell into a leather chair, his head in his hands. “I've tried fighting it, Jess; didn't want to grovel at your feet, anything like what just happened. Kept away for that reason. Same time, I've… I gave it a lot of thought.”
“Please, James.”
“How we both wanted the same things, a family someday, a stable life, and how neither of us could give the other anything resembling stability, and now-”
“It's over, James, truly over now.”
“-that I'm looking at making my home so close to Quantico, and you're so near now, that… well…”
Ironies all around, she thought but did not say. She returned to stand behind the desk. Safe distance, safe barrier, yet long ago, when he walked out on her long-distance fashion, she had built up in her mind an impenetrable barrier against James Kenneth Parry. She had had enough therapy to know herself, to acknowledge that she didn't “do” forgiveness, not well and not genuinely.
“Forgive me for saying so, Jim, but you were the one who ended our relationship. You had your chance, but now it's over. Long over. I'm in love with Richard Sharpe.”
“Sure… sure. Lot easier to love a guy who's an ocean away. You found that out with me, and now with him. Makes sense for a woman like you, Jessica.”
She glowered at him. “An ocean away and content that way, James Parry. Now, I told you before, and I'll tell you again, get out!”
“You can't say there's nothing left between us, Jess. I won't accept that.”
She gnashed her teeth, unable to respond to this, and repeated, “Nothing. Nothing whatever. I'm finally free of you altogether, James. I guess your coming here tonight made me realize that; for that favor, I thank you.”
He continued as if not hearing her. “Now that I'm here, now that we finally have a real chance to commit, you have another man in your life. Timing is impeccable. A little too impec-”
“Please, Jim, just go… please.” He pushed himself up from the chair as if his body fought to hold him back. Standing now, looking beaten, he made his way to the door. “Think maybe it was a mistake to attempt to work this case together, but now we're in it, we've got to make the best of it, Jess. Think we can do it?”
“I can if you can, Jim, but no more talk of us.”
“That can be arranged, I'm sure.”
“Jim, there is no us in that sense any longer. I've grieved a long time for what we had, and that grief and despair gave way to a new hope, one that doesn't include you.”
His lip quivering, he nodded. “So much has happened since we first met. Hard to let go of it all, Jess, especially now, after seeing you again.”
She said no more, allowing him a silent, dignified exit.
When Jessica heard the elevator door mechanically open and close, she began to sob. She cried for her pain, and she felt it was a good cry, the cry of someone who has finally let go of the past.
After ten minutes alone, she heard footsteps coming down the darkened corridor, and she feared that Parry had returned, or that it was Dr. Shockley, Dr. DeAngelos, or possibly Heyward. At any rate, she didn't want any of them to know she was sitting here in the dark crying. She wiped at her tears, and hearing someone just outside the open door, she looked up to find Kim Desinor poking her head around the jamb.
“Kim, it's you.” Jessica sniffled and tried to hold back tears. If she could cry over this ending with anyone, it would be Kim.
'Told you you had to face him, get it out. You've gotta be feeling better.” Kim leaned into the door jamb at the exact spot where James Parry had stood.
How did she know about Jim's visit? Jessica wondered, suspecting her tears had given her away. Had Parry lingered in the building? Had Kim run into him on his way out? But Jessica simply responded, “Like a goddamn Ford truck's been lifted off my back, yeah. Maybe now I can focus on the case.”