I slid my computer to the side. “Really, Tessa. Are you doing all right?”
She shrugged again. “You know.” Another yawn. “I gotta get dressed.”
While she took a shower, I spent some time finishing the paperwork for Margaret and the forms for the hospital. Soon the water in the bathroom turned off, and I started paging through some of the primate research Tessa had printed out.
I’d gotten through two articles when my computer’s video chat program blinked on and told me that Lien-hua was online.
After a moment’s consideration, I typed in, “Good morning.”
Waited.
It wasn’t long.
“Turn on your camera,” she wrote. “So we can talk.”
I did.
Her face appeared, a vase of artfully arranged flowers beside her. So, she was in her kitchen. Her sable hair was still unkempt, but it didn’t quiet her beauty.
Lien-hua appraised me for a moment, then said, “I would ask about your arm, but you’re just going to tell me that it’s okay, so let’s just skip that part. How are you, Pat? Really?”
“It feels like a bullet went through my biceps and I only got a few hours of sleep.”
My comment brought a smile and a small nod. “Thank you. And they’re saying it’s going to be okay?”
“No rock climbing for a few days. Other than that, I should be fine.”
“Ooh… that’s going to be rough. Think you’ll make it?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll have to take up something less strenuous. Like kickboxing.”
“Whenever you want a lesson, just let me know.”
I felt the intimate attraction I’d had for her returning. Maybe it had never left. “Be careful, I might take you up on that.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
It wasn’t easy stifling my curiosity about what she and Cheyenne might have talked about last night when they had dinner together, but it wasn’t really my business and I refrained from asking about it. “How was the body farm yesterday?”
“Disturbing. That’s not really my thing.”
“I hear you.”
A pause. “Pat, I heard through the grapevine that Margaret put you on bed rest for the next couple days.”
“Just a nasty rumor.”
She nodded softly.
Silence took over the conversation, and I could sense the mood shifting, deepening. At last she said, “I have to tell you something.”
I waited.
She was slow in responding. “When I heard you were shot, I… Pat, everything between us, whatever it was that went wrong, when I found out you’d been hurt like that, it all seemed so minor. So inconsequential.” She pushed a rogue strand of hair from her eye. “I was so worried about you.”
Despite myself, I noticed thoughts of Cheyenne skirting around inside of me, vying for my attention. I pushed them aside. “I should have called you last night-”
Lien-hua swept her hand through the air, as if she were erasing any missteps from our past. “It’s all right. I ended up calling Ralph, he’d just arrived in Michigan. He told me you were going to survive, unless he kills you for whining.”
I wanted to tell her that he’d yanked an IV out of my arm and that hurts and there were a lot of needles and everything, but realized that didn’t sound very macho. “Well, that’s thoughtful of him.”
Another pause-and again it seemed to move the moment deeper, shrink the space between us. “I’d like to see you,” she said, “but I’ll be at the command post at police headquarters for most of the day. Will you be in the city at all?”
“Actually, Vanderveld’s covering my classes. I have a meeting with Rodale at noon. So, yeah. I’ll be in DC for that.”
“There’s a briefing scheduled for 2:00. If your meeting doesn’t go too long, would you like to grab lunch with me afterwards? I just need to be done by 1:30.”
“Lunch sounds good. I’ll give you a shout when I’m ready to leave HQ.”
“Okay.” She let her eyes smile at me and drew me inescapably into her world. “I’ll talk with you later.”
“Talk to you soon.”
As I tapped the keyboard to end the chat, I noticed Tessa with her eyebrow ring, fresh black fingernail polish, and wearing a neobeatnik skirt over black tights, watching me from the doorway.
Patrick was staring at her judgmentally.
“What?” she asked him.
“You’ve gotten into a bad habit of eavesdropping on my conversations.”
“Actually, I’ve always had it, you’re just now noticing.” She stepped into the room. “Girl problems, huh?”
“No.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She took a seat facing him. “So, you’re confused about the two of them? Which one to pursue?”
“I’m not having girl problems,” he grumbled. “I’m not confused. And who are you supposed to be? Dr. Phil?”
“Denial. Not a good sign.”
She waited him out and eventually, probably sensing that in the end evading her questions would be a losing battle, he let out a small sigh and admitted, “All right, maybe a little confused. Last month, Lien-hua breaks up with me, and now, well… I don’t know what to think.”
“Duh. Detective Warren is here.”
He looked at her blankly.
Okay, you have got to be kidding me.
“Relationships 101, Patrick: what makes a girl more interested in a guy than anything else?”
“I’m not sure. I-”
“Hello. Another girl interested in that guy.”
“Oh.”
“And the light goes on.”
“Gotcha.”
“So which one of them do you want to be with?”
He thought for a moment. “Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“Well, keep playing things like this, and you’ll end up without either one of ’em.”
Curiosity on his face. “What makes you say that?”
“No woman wants to be strung along while you play the field looking for someone better.”
“I’m not stringing anyone along.”
“You’re being flirty with ’em both.”
“No, I’m not.”
A pause. “If you say so.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
She shrugged. “Right. I get it.”
He folded his arms. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Agreeing with me.”
“You don’t want me to agree with you?”
“Every time you agree with me, I can tell, it’s just another way for you to unobtrusively disagree with me.”
“Am I supposed to agree with that? Or not?”
He opened his mouth as if he were going to reply, then closed it.
He glanced at the clock, obviously trying to find a way to escape the conversation. Then he stood, collected the primate notes, his phone, a clipboard, and his laptop, and stuffed them into his computer bag. “I need to get going, Tessa.”
“Where?”
“I have a meeting with FBI Director Rodale.”
She nodded toward the computer. “During your chat you said that you weren’t meeting him until noon. That’s like three hours away.”
“I’m hoping I’ll be able to get in a little sooner.”
“So you can have more time for lunch with Agent Jiang?”
He pulled out his car keys. “I’m leaving now.”
“What about me?”
“Well, I was thinking you could stay here.”
“By myself?”
He eyed her. “You’re a big girl.”
“Paul knows where we live, and he’s trying to find me, remember? To talk to me without you around? You sure you want to leave me here alone?”
Her words seemed to bring him pause.
“All right,” he said at last. “C’mon.”
She grabbed her purse. “I hope Agent Jiang doesn’t mind vegetarian.”
49
Astrid was nine when it happened.
Her mother had died in childbirth, and she’d been an only child.
There was no sister Annie, of course. She’d lied to Brad about that from the beginning… Her dad did not work on weekends… The goldfish had been Astrid’s pet, and it was a neighbor boy who’d put Goldie in the freezer, telling her later that it was all just a joke and not to make such a big deal out of it.
Astrid was the one, not the imaginary Annie, who’d cried for three days when Goldie was found dead.