3rd Degree

“For good?” Claire asked, surprised.

“That’s where the listening devices and sleek black helicopters are.” I stirred my drink. “Bell helicopter, I believe.”

“Oh.” Claire nodded. She glanced toward Cindy. “You like this guy, don’t you, Lindsay?”

“I like him,” I said. I flagged Joanie, ordered another round of drinks.

“I don’t mean like him, honey. I mean you really like him.”

“Whad’ya want me to do, Claire? Break out in a chorus of ‘Don’t he make my brown eyes blue’?”

“No,” Claire said, glancing at Cindy, then back to me, “what we want you to do, Lindsay, is put aside whatever it is that’s getting in the way of you doing the right thing for yourself, before you let that guy get on his plane.”

I arched my back against the booth. I swallowed uneasily. “It’s Jill.…”

“Jill?”

I took a breath, a sharp rush of tears biting at my eyes. “I wasn’t there for her, Claire. The night she threw Steve out.”

“What’re you talking about?” Claire said. “You were up in Portland.”

“I was with Molinari,” I said. “When I got back it was after one. Jill sounded mixed up. I said I’d come over, but I didn’t press it. You know why? Because I was all dreamy-eyed over Joe. She had just thrown Steve out.”

“She said she was okay,” Cindy said. “You told us.”

“And that was Jill, right? You ever heard her ask for help? Bottom line, I wasn’t there for her. And whether it’s right or wrong, I can’t look at Joe now without seeing her, hearing her needing me, thinking if I had, maybe she’d still be here.”

Neither of them said anything. Not a word. I sat there, my jaw tight, pressing back tears.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Claire said, her fingers creeping across the table and taking a hold of my hand. “I think you’re way too smart, honey, to really think that your enjoying yourself for once in your life made any difference in what happened to Jill. You know she’d be the first one who’d want you to be happy, too.”

“I know that, Claire.” I nodded. “I just can’t put it away…”

“Well, you better put it away,” Claire said, squeezing my hand, “’cause all it is, is you just trying to hurt yourself. Everyone’s entitled to be happy, Lindsay. Even you.”

I dabbed at a tear with the cocktail napkin. “I already heard that once today,” I said, and couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Yeah, well, here’s to Lindsay Boxer,” Claire a

A shout interrupted us from the bar area. Everyone was pointing to the TV. Instead of some dumb ball game, there was my face on the screen. Tom Brokaw was asking me questions. Whistles and cheering broke out.

There I was on the evening news.

Chapter 110

Joe Molinari took a sip of the vodka the flight attendant had brought him, then eased back in his seat aboard the government jet. With any luck he’d sleep all the way to Washington. He hoped so. No, he’d sleep for sure, soundly. For the first time in days.

He’d be fresh to make a report in front of the director of homeland security in the morning. This one was put to bed, he could definitively say. Eldridge Neal would heal. There were reports to write. There might be a congressional subcommittee to go before. There was an anger out there they’d have to keep an eye on. This time the terror hadn’t come from abroad.

Molinari leaned back in the plush seat. The scope of the whole remarkable chain of events was becoming clear in his eyes. From the moment that Sunday he was informed of the bombing in San Francisco to taking out Danko as he wrestled with Lindsay Boxer at the G-8 reception last night. He knew what to write: the names and details, the sequence of events, the outcome. He knew how to explain everything, he thought. Except one thing.

Her. Molinari shut his eyes and felt incredibly melancholy.

How to explain the electricity shooting through him every time their arms brushed. Or the feeling he got when he looked into Lindsay’s deep green eyes. She was so hard and tough—and so gentle and vulnerable. A lot like him. And she was fu

He wished he could do the big romantic thing, like in the movies, whisk her on a plane and take her somewhere. Call in to the office: That subcommittee meeting will have to wait, sir. Molinari felt a smile creep over his face.

“Takeoff should be in about five, sir,” the flight attendant informed him.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding. Try to relax. Chill. Sleep. He willed himself, thought of home. He’d been living out of a suitcase for two weeks now. It may not be how he wanted this to end, but it would be good to be home. He closed his eyes once more.

“Sir,” the attendant called again. A uniformed airport policeman had boarded the plane. He was escorted back to him.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the policeman said. “Something urgent has come up. I was told to hold the plane at the gate and accompany you back inside. The police gave me this number for you to call.”

A stab of worry jolted Molinari. What the hell could have happened now? He took the piece of paper and grabbed his briefcase and phone. He punched in the number, told the pilot to wait, and followed the security man off the plane. He put the phone to his ear.

Chapter 111

My phone started to ring just as Molinari appeared near the gate. I stood there and watched him. Seeing me, the phone to my ear, he began to understand. A smile came over his face, a big smile.

I’d never been so nervous in my life. Then we just stood there, maybe fifteen feet apart. He’d stopped walking.

“I’m the emergency,” I said into the phone. “I need your help.”

At first Molinari smiled, then he caught himself, with that stern deputy director sort of look. “You’re lucky. I’m an emergency kind of guy.”

“I have no life,” I said. “I have this very nice dog. And my friends. And this job. And I’m good at it. But I have no life.”

“And what is it you want?” Molinari said, stepping closer.

His eyes were twinkling and forgiving. They reflected some kind of joy—cutting through the case, and the continent that divided us—the same thing that was in my

heart.

“You,” I said. “I want you. And the jet.”

He laughed, and then he stood right in front of me.

“No”—I shook my head—“I just want you. I couldn’t let you get on that plane without telling you that. This bicoastal thing, we can try to make it work if you like. You say you’re out here every once in a while for conferences and the occasional national crisis.… Me, I get back there now and then. I got an invitation to stay at the White House recently. You’ve been to the White House, Joe. We can —”

“Sshhh.” He put a finger to my lips. Then he bent and kissed me right there in the skyway. I was so caught up in trying to be open for once, I swallowed my own words. My spine went rigid, and God, it felt so natural, so right for him to be holding me. I wrapped my fingers around his arms, holding on as tightly as I could.

When we let go, Molinari curled a grin at me. “So, you got an invitation to the White House, huh? I always wondered what it’d be like to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

“Keep dreaming.” I laughed into those blue eyes of his. Then I locked my arm around his and led him back toward the terminal. “Now your desk at the Capitol, Mr. Deputy Director. That sounds a bit more interesting…”