While Galileo Preys. Joshua Corin

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СКАЧАТЬ are you calling?” he asked calmly. The kitchen clock read 8:26 p.m. Not terribly late. Maybe she was calling Amy Lieb. After all, they both were in that silly book club and—

      “Tom,” she said. “It’s me.”

      That’s right. She hadn’t called him back yet. Rafe tried not to eavesdrop, but his better angels were asleep on the job. Make sure you let him down easy, babe. We don’t need to piss off the federal government.

      Esme was fiddling with her computer. “No, I just read the story. I was out with Rafe.”

      Rafe sipped his milk. Good girl. Name-drop the husband.

      Wait—just read what story?

      “I’m checking the flights now,” she said. “The earliest I can take is a 6:05 a.m. flight out of LaGuardia. I’ll have to change planes in Dallas, but I should get into Amarillo at 11:45 a.m.”

      Rafe placed the glass of milk in the sink. “Esme.”

      She didn’t look at her husband, but instead put up her hand to shush him. “No, Tom. I’ll pay for it. The Bureau can reimburse me.”

      “Esme.”

      Rafe marched into the living room.

      This time she looked at him.

      “Tom, I’m going to have to call you back. Okay. Talk to you soon.”

      She hung up.

      Rafe stared at her. Then:

      “Esme, what the hell was that?”

      “Rafe, listen, there’s been another shooting. At the hospital in Texas. The fire chief, the one who survived the thing at the aquarium—the sniper walked right into the hospital and shot him.”

      “So—”

      “He shot Tom, too.”

      Rafe could swear there were tears in her eyes. He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Tom has a very important and dangerous job. People in dangerous jobs get hurt. It happens.”

      “Don’t talk to me like I’m a—”

      “Then don’t act like one! Your going down there isn’t going to make him heal any faster, Esme.” He cocked his head, studied his wife for a moment. “But that’s not why you’re going down there, is it?”

      She stood up. “Listen…”

      “How long?”

      “What?”

      “How long do you plan on being away? A week? A month? Sometimes it takes the FBI years to catch these guys. Are you going to be gone a year, Esme? I need to know so when our daughter asks, I can tell her.”

      “That isn’t fair.” She balled her hands into fists. “I fly down there and—what? What do you expect is going to happen? I’m going to rejoin the fucking Bureau? I’ll be there as an extra pair of eyes. I’ll be there to put in my two cents—which shouldn’t take very long—and then I’ll be on the next plane back home. I promise.”

      “What about Sophie? Who’s going to pick her up after school?”

      “We can let Sophie stay after school with the Kleins or the McKinleys. It’s not a big deal. I’ll call Holly McKinley right now to make sure.”

      She started dialing.

      Rafe wanted to smack the phone out of her hand. A part of him even wanted to smack her—and that’s what gave him pause. He would not be the villain here. He was not the one who…

      But being stubborn would accomplish nothing. Correction: being stubborn would just carve out an abyss between them which would widen and deepen with time. Sophie would notice. Their neighbors would notice. He was a sociology professor. Inflexible societies eventually snapped like twigs. Was he so implacable? Was he willing to risk so much?

      “Three days.”

      She stopped dialing. Looked over at him. “What?”

      “You can have three days. Anything more than that and you’re not just putting in your two cents. Anything more than that and you’re on the task force. And then your responsibilities will be even more divided than they already are. You’re there three days and you’re a consultant. You’re there any longer and they’ll start counting on you. I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

      She shook her head. No, he wasn’t wrong.

      “But just so we’re clear,” she added, “you don’t get to ever—ever—give me an ultimatum like that. You don’t think I’m torn up over this? You made your point and you’re right. Three days it is. But that’s my choice.”

      7

       O n the evening of February 14, whilst young lovers kissed and old lovers spooned, Darcy Parr went looking for drugs. Claritin, Zyrtec—any antihistamine would do. Finding a drugstore still open in Amarillo after 10:00 p.m., however, was proving to be a chore, and so she ended trolling the luminescent tiles of Walmart.

      Also, it provided her with an excuse to leave the hotel. Not that she was getting stir-crazy. But Tom Piper was two rooms down, and his vicinity reminded her of this afternoon.

      She blamed herself.

      The hospital had been her responsibility. Her primary assignment had been to coordinate with the M.E.’s office, and the M.E.’s office was at Baptist St. Anthony’s. That the fire chief was also under her jurisdiction went without saying. No one else from the task force was stationed at the hospital. No one else was even close. The sniper infiltrated the place on her watch. Their witness died on her watch. His blood was on her hands.

      And face…and hair…

      No. She had gotten all of it off in the shower. Right? Yes.

      She found the nearest mirror—glued to an endcap for sunglasses—and double-checked. Yes. No more blood. Pores clean. Blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like a coed in a sorority, not someone who’d just…

      Shake it off, Darcy. Get your allergy medicine. Maybe send an e-mail to Pastor Joe when you return to the hotel. He never slept, and he always knew exactly what to say. Pastor Joe ran her parish church back in Virginia. Much of the congregation consisted of spooks, spies and Bureau instructors. It had been Darcy’s home church growing up. These were the people she knew. A career in the FBI had pretty much been predestined. It was these connections which enabled her to join Tom Piper’s esteemed task force.

      She found the pharmacy aisles near the racks of get-well cards. How appropriate. It didn’t take her long to stock her basket with antihistamines. She even tossed a box of Sudafed in there, just in case.

      It’s not that Amarillo contained an unusually high pollen count or that February was a particularly bad month for allergens. That’s why she hadn’t brought any medication with her on the trip from Virginia. But her symptoms, as she well knew, had nothing to do with the environment. They СКАЧАТЬ