3. Hades
4. Ali
5. Rockworth and Williams-Ellis St. John, H. R. Harmon, Lincoln Berdon
8. Abby
There was nothing more he could realistically get done tonight except perhaps for some more reading, so he began to think about dinner. He had nothing in his fridge or freezer-and the lack of anything even remotely domestic in his house made him think about the differences in the life he led from the one led by his parents. Right about now Louise would be setting a delicious meal and an excellent wine on the table before Jonathan and Lizbeth. No one was going to serve Justin the bottle of Pete's Wicked Ale and the shitty Chinese food he was about to go out and get and eat straight out of the cardboard carton.
Choices, he thought. Everything was about choices.
He'd made his. Maybe he should have made some different ones along the way.
Maybe it wasn't too late to make different choices for the future.
Then again, maybe it wasn't about choices. Maybe it was about fate. Or randomness. Maybe it was just about doing the best you could to control the uncontrollable.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his front door. Three knocks. Two were rather soft and tentative. The last one was harder, more forceful, as if whoever it was wasn't really sure about wanting to come in, then gathered up some courage and decided it was okay after all. Justin didn't know who could be showing up unexpectedly. He was not exactly Mr. Sociable. He supposed there were several people who wouldn't mind talking to him at the moment. Larry Silverbush. Leona Krill. Maybe even Bruno. So he rose from his chair-not without some effort; another reminder that he'd better get to the gym sooner rather than later-and went to open the door.
If there was one person he was not expecting to see-now or ever again-it was the woman standing in his doorway.
"Are you going to invite me in?" the woman said.
Justin didn't answer. He just stared. At first it was a stare of surprise. But the longer it went on the harder his eyes turned.
"You're going to have to let me in sooner or later," she said. "After all, we're partners."
Justin's first words to her in over a year were: "What the hell are you talking about?"
"They didn't tell you?"
And from the look on his face, the stunned silence, she saw that he hadn't been told, that they'd left all this up to her, so she met his hard stare with a softer one of her own and broke the news to him herself.
"The FBI," Reggie Bokkenheuser said. "I'm the agent assigned to work with you."
Her hair was blonder now; it had been darker when he'd seen her last. It was more natural this way; seemed to fit her better. She'd let it grow some; it had gotten a little wilder looking. And she'd lost some weight; she looked stronger than she used to look, leaner and more muscular. Her blue eyes were the same, though-clear and lovely, if a bit sad, and her skin was smooth and tan, her neck short and not thin but somehow elegant. Her mouth had the same touch of sadness that her eyes had, but it also had the faint trace of a protective smirk. Her mouth and that smirk gave away the fact that she had a sense of humor. But they also kept the world at a distance. Yes, it was definitely the same woman who'd been planted on Justin in the East End Harbor police department a little over a year ago and whom he'd taken into his confidence and to whom he'd made love and who'd led him into a trap that saw him wind up in Guantanamo's prison. The same woman who'd shot and killed Ray Lockhardt, the manager of the local airport, under orders from her superior at the FBI. The same woman he'd arrested for that murder.
And the same woman he realized-looking at her standing on his doorstep, her lips parted slightly, her thin smile hopeful and nervous and, as always, lopsided-could still make his stomach flutter and make his knees buckle ever so slightly.
Damn her.
Damn them.
Damn, damn, damn them all.
He didn't let her in. At least not immediately. Justin went into town to get Chinese food and insisted she come with him. He didn't say it, but he didn't want Regina Bokkenheuser to stay alone in his house. Even for the twenty minutes it took him to get some fried rice and sesame chicken and cold noodles with sesame sauce. Even if it had taken one minute. He didn't know what she would do. What she might look for, what she might plant.
They didn't say one word while they were in the car or while they waited in the small take-out place for the food to be prepared. He wasn't ready to speak yet, and she followed his lead. His silence was fueled by anger. Hers was more placid-it was just a reaction to his, and it annoyed him even more that she knew him well enough to wait for his mood to change rather than challenge it.
When they returned to his house he set the food-dropping it, still in the brown paper bag-on the small dining table that sat in his living room. He went into the kitchen and when he returned with two bottles of beer she had already removed the food cartons from the bag and placed them on the table. He put one beer on the table in front of her.
"Thanks for remembering," she said.
"Fuck you," Justin said.
"Well," Reggie said, "at least we're talking."
He turned and went back into the kitchen, emerging moments later with silverware and two plates. He put the plates on the table and served himself some food. He made no effort to serve Reggie, just pushed the white cartons closer to her.
They ate slowly and silently. She was halfway through the food on her plate when she looked up and said, "Are you ready yet?"
"For what?"
"For a conversation."
"No," he said. Then, putting his fork down, he said, "I thought you were in prison."
She shook her head. "No."
"How is that possible?"
"I told you, Jay, or I tried to tell you, you just wanted to see me in jail so bad you wouldn't listen to me."
"You belonged in jail."
"I was doing my job."
"Nice job. Killing an innocent man."
She winced. "Yes. Something I'll have to live with the rest of my life. And it won't be easy. But I thought I was doing it for national security reasons. I thought the orders were coming all the way from the White House. I was lied to, and I have to stay awake at night knowing I believed the lies. I was manipulated, and maybe I was stupid, but I did what I was trained to do and what I hope I could do again if I had to for the right reasons."
Justin didn't say anything, even when Reggie said, "You've killed people before. People who didn't deserve to die." And when he looked up sharply, ready to respond in anger, she said, "You think we don't know what happened to Lieutenant Colonel Warren Grimble, military intelligence?"
Justin went silent for a moment. Grimble had been the man in charge of his interrogation at Gitmo. Justin had managed to learn his identity. And then he'd done more than that. He was too weak to act himself, so he hired Bruno to do the job. Lieutenant Warren Grimble had disappeared. Justin knew that the disappearance was permanent. Bruno was good at his job.
"He was not what I'd call an innocent man," he said.
"Maybe. But what he did to you, he was doing because he thought it was the right thing to do, because he was under orders to do it."
"No," Justin said quietly. "There are no orders that would cover what he did to me."
"Jay," Reggie said, just as quietly and just as urgently, "after you arrested me, the FBI got me released from custody almost immediately. It wasn't even a question. The slate was wiped clean. The fact is, they examined what happened as thoroughly as it was possible to examine a case. I don't have to tell you what the ramifications were after everything that occurred. They thought I did a good enough job that not only was I exonerated, they assigned me to New York. That's where I've been the last year."