Cold Ridge

That was when she'd started on antidepressants. Ma

She smiled ruefully to herself and folded up the newspaper. Well, that was her version of events, anyway.

Ma

Now the ass had retired and moved her to Washington, D.C., so he could play around with rich guys like Sterling Rancourt, and what did he get for his trouble? A dead guy at his feet, the police on his case.

Val groaned to herself, heading to the bedroom to get dressed. "No wonder Eric wanted to go to school in New Hampshire. Get away from his parents."

Ten minutes later, she was standing on the sidewalk in front of her building as Hank Callahan pulled up. She jumped into his pricey rented car and gri

"Senator-elect," he corrected. He was in a subdued gray suit with a pale blue tie, as handsome as ever. "Thanks for getting up early to join us. Antonia'll meet us at the restaurant."

"Are you sure you want to hire me, Major Callahan?"

He smiled. "Just Hank is fine, Val. When did you ever stand on ceremony?"

"Senators scare me even more than majors do. All that pomp and circumstance."

"You've never been intimidated by anyone or anything."

She tried to smile but couldn't. "I should have been an astronaut like my mother wanted." Both her parents had worked for NASA; they were retired now in Houston. "I got to pick what I wanted to be. I'm lucky that way. Hank-I don't know. I've worked in bookstores for the last ten years. For most of the past year, I've been a nutcase."

"I haven't changed my mind. Neither has Antonia. The job's still yours, if you want it."

Joining the staff of a United States senator-Val loved the idea, although maybe not as much as having her own bookstore. "I didn't vote for you. I'm not a Massachusetts resident. I didn't even know the Callahans were a hot-shit Massachusetts family until your wedding last month."

Hank pulled out onto the street, and two stoplights later, Val realized he wasn't going to mention Ma

He nodded but kept his gaze pi

Val winced. "I can imagine."

"Have you talked to Ma

"Are you kidding? I had to read about his goings-on in the morning paper. Do you know anything about this Louis Sanborn, the man who was killed?"

"Just what you know from the paper."

"I don't understand why the Rancourts hired Ma

"Gary Turner," Hank supplied.

"Right. So, what, are the Rancourts paranoid? Are they afraid of something? I don't get it. Why do they need Ma

Hank shrugged, no sign he was experiencing the same kind of apprehension she was. "I haven't heard of anything. I think they just like hanging around people who do this kind of work."

"Ma

"I know, Val. Ma

"He's demeaning himself, working for those phonies. He should be training new PJs," she said half under her breath, then sighed. "Just what Ma

"Val."

She glanced over at the pilot-turned-senator, the man whose skill and quick thinking as a Pave Hawk pilot had saved more than one life in his air force career. He said he wanted to work toward the common good as a senator. Hank Callahan had steel nerves and a kind heart, but right now, Val could sense his uneasiness. "What is it, Hank?"

"Ma

"Ma

Hank sighed. "Val, the police think he's their man. You need to prepare yourself if he's arrested."

She couldn't take in his words. "What?"

Hank said nothing.

She absorbed what he'd said, then made herself stop, breathe and think, not let her first physical reaction get out of control, suck her in to the point where she couldn't function. It was as if all her nerve endings had been rubbed raw by the months of stress over Eric, how close she'd come to losing her son-and now that he was okay, she could let her emotions run wild. She had to work to keep them in bounds.

There was no way Ma

It was that simple.

She glanced over at Hank. "Are you reading the tea leaves, or do you know?"

"I know."

He was a senator, and he was a Callahan. He knew everyone, had contacts everywhere. If he said he knew, he knew. "Carine Winter?"

"I

"Ma

"He has one."

Val sank back in her seat, her coffee crawling up her throat. Ma

That bastard.

She cleared her throat, summoning her last shreds of dignity. "Thank you for telling me."

"Val-"

"Ma

Five

Carine tried sleeping late, but that didn't work, and she finally got up and made herself a bowl of instant oatmeal that tasted more like instant slime. She downed a few spoonfuls, then drank a mug of heavily sugared tea while she pulled on her ru

She did a quarter mile of her one-and-a-half-mile route before she collapsed against a lamppost, kicking it with her heel in disgust. Aquartermile? Pathetic. She was determined to do one-and-a-half miles in under ten minutes and thirty seconds. It wasn't the distance that got to her- she could run ten miles-it was the time, the speed. But ru

Of course, she was a woman, and women didn't get to be pararescuemen. But she didn't want to be a PJ- she just wanted to pass the initial fitness test. It was the challenge that drove her. The test included the run, plus swimming twenty-five meters underwater on one breath-she'd damn near drowned the first time she tried that one. Then there was swimming one thousand meters in twenty-six minutes…doing eight chin-ups in a minute…fifty sit-ups in two minutes… fifty push-ups in two minutes…fifty flutter kicks in two minutes. Technically, she was supposed to do the exercises one after another, all within three hours, but she had to cut herself some slack. She was thirty-three, not twenty.