T Wave (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

After dinner, Alton, Mallory, and Beverly returned to the family room.

Skipper, Beverly’s Maltese, sauntered into the room. Upon seeing Buster, he began to bark incessantly, while Buster merely waved his tail. Eventually, the barking proved to be too strenuous for the chubby Maltese, and he quieted. After exchanging the customary front-to-back sniffs, the dogs separated. Buster settled onto Alton’s feet, while Skipper jumped onto the love seat next to Beverly and rested his head on her leg. Before long, both dogs were gently snoring.

After enjoying the canines’ antics, the trio fell into conversation once again. Their talk naturally gravitated to military recollections, the common denominator of their lives. Beverly listened in somber silence as Alton described the fateful day on which the mobile communications van he had commanded in Afghanistan had been devastated by a terrorist bomb, an attack that had killed most of his men and left him with a permanent limp. Over the course of several more hours, they swapped Army stories—some comical, some serious, others tragic. In seemingly no time, midnight had come and gone, much as it had on many occasions back in Gandamak’s Lodge, the dingy Kabul bar in which Alton and Mallory had first grown to know each other.

Mallory rested her head on the arm of the couch and eventually nodded off.

Beverly smiled at her daughter. “I haven’t seen Mallory this happy since before her father died. She’s quite smitten with you.”

Alton looked upon the sleeping figure, then raised his gaze to Beverly. “I hope it’s obvious that the feeling is mutual. I feel privileged to be the person who has won the treasure of Mallory’s love. I’m still not quite sure how it happened, though. I don’t deserve her.”

“She thinks you do. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s enough to make me determined to make her happy.”

“And that’s why she loves you. You want what’s best for her, and you want to make her feel special and protected.”

Remembering the psychotic criminal who had recently made two attempts on his life, Alton laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know. She ended up protecting
me
not long ago. But yes, I’ve had her back on occasion, too. Not that she’s incapable of taking care of herself—far from it—but she has chosen rather dangerous occupations: the Army and the FBI.”

Beverly nodded. “It may not be obvious, Alton, but Mallory needs to feel protected—emotionally, I mean. She was so close to Ron, her dad. After he died, she was still a happy person generally, but she always seemed uncertain about men—whether they’d stick with her. Thank goodness Scott, her older brother, took her under his wing. That helped for a time, but eventually he moved away to Wisconsin to take a job. In a way, her relationship with Scott made things harder for her in the long run. Scott and Mallory had been close, and then he, like Ron, was out of her life—not permanently, of course, but in a way that inevitably diminished their contact. In quiet moments, I could see that Mallory still suffered from the loss of her father.

“For the first time since Ron’s death, though, I don’t see that sad part of her anymore. I don’t know if you realize the important place you’ve taken in her life.”

Alton pondered Beverly’s words. “I’m beginning to appreciate just how deeply she felt the loss of her father, and how that experience has shaped her feelings towards me.”

“It’s more than that, Alton,” said Beverly. “She really loves you, not just because of the assurance you give her but also because of who you are as a person.”

“I’ve wondered about that, to be honest. I’m not sure what she sees in me. It’s true that I would do anything to protect her, but what else? So far as looks go, I’m not exactly
GQ
material, especially with my injury,” he said, gazing at his damaged leg.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a fine-looking young man. I’m sure she’s happy with your appearance,” replied Beverly with the hint of a smile. “But more importantly, she sees the qualities that make you who you are: integrity, determination, loyalty…and love. She’s told me all about what she sees in you, believe me.”

Alton nodded yet remained silent, reluctant to interrupt the retired general.

“I don’t think I need to tell you this, but I’m going to anyway,” continued Beverly. “The joy Mallory feels being with you would make the pain of your leaving—if you were to leave—all the more difficult. Please take care with my baby. Her heart is more fragile than it looks.”

Alton didn’t need to imagine the devastation of lost love. He had experienced it personally. His mind flashed back to the hospital room in which Mallory had been recovering from wounds sustained during their first investigation together. Before learning of Scott’s sibling relationship to Mallory, Alton had figured Scott to be her boyfriend. He remembered the crushing black cloud of depression that had descended upon him when learning Mallory’s love was—so he believed—beyond his reach. The thought of causing such a bleak feeling in Mallory made him shudder.

“Beverly, I can’t tell you how highly I esteem your daughter. She is truly the best person I have ever met, and it will be my honor to fill her life with all the love and fidelity I can provide.”

“You know, Alton, from anyone else, that kind of statement would border on the preposterous,” replied Beverly. “With you, though, it rings of the plain truth. I believe you, and I’m a good judge of character.”

Later, as Alton retired for the night, he recalled Mallory’s words with sleepy pleasure. “You forgot to add watching over me. That’s part of your job description, too.”

SUNDAY, JULY 8

CHAPTER 3

The next morning, Alton rose early and powered up his laptop, recalling a conversation with Mallory from several months ago.

“I noticed you were looking up ‘romantic travel destinations’ on Pinterest,” he had said. “Did you find anything you liked?”

“Why?”

“Oh, no reason…”

In truth, he intended to plan a surprise vacation. He had hoped the conversation about the Pinterest website would spur Mallory to share her preferred destinations, but she hadn’t volunteered any more information.

At first, Alton had felt stymied but later began to consider alternative strategies for acquiring this intelligence. Mallory had left him no choice but to resort to subterfuge. Shortly after the Pinterest conversation, he had planted a Kruptos tracking program on Mallory’s computer to monitor her Pinterest activity, specifically to identify the vacation spots she viewed most frequently. He assuaged his vaguely guilty feelings regarding the minor invasion of privacy with the knowledge that his intentions were good. He felt confident he could surprise Mallory, but once he revealed the destination, he wanted assurance that the nature of her surprise would be delight rather than disappointment.

Alton typed in a password to open the tracking program. He selected the “transfer” button in the program’s dialog box, and Mallory’s internet activities from the last two months were downloaded, indexed, and tallied. He scanned the Pinterest results: Aruba, Hawaii, St. Thomas, Italy, Australia…

He studied Mallory’s activity in more detail and eventually decided on a destination for their vacation.

At lunch time, he wore as casual an expression as he could muster. “Say, Hon, would you be interested in going to the beach in a few months?”

Mallory looked pleased. “For work or for fun?”

“For fun. I thought maybe we could go to Myrtle Beach. Would you like that?”

“Sure. We used to go there all the time as a kid. I loved it. When did you want to go?”

“I was thinking in a couple of months—September, to be exact. It’ll be cooler and less crowded that time of year, and planning the trip in advance will give both of us a chance to lock down the vacation time with our bosses.”

“That sounds perfect,” said Mallory, beaming.

Alton concentrated on appearing nonchalant. “Do you think you’d be able to take off two or three weeks?”

“Yeah—that shouldn’t be a problem. I have vacation days I have to use by the end of the year anyway.” She approached Alton and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Two or three weeks together, just you and me…that sounds like heaven.”

As they ate lunch together a little later, Mallory described a case to which she had been assigned the previous Friday.

“Wiggins, my boss, assigned me to a drug investigation.”

Alton arched an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that be a case for the DEA or at least the FBI’s Controlled Substances group? How do you, a forensic accountant, end up getting assigned to a drug case?”

“Easy there, partner,” said Mallory. “It isn’t that kind of drug case. The administration at a hospice in the DC area suspects someone is stealing narcotics—the drugs they use to alleviate patients’ pain. In the hospice, these types of drugs are tracked via an automated dispensing system that produces documentation each time it disburses medicine. Since following paper trails is my cup of tea, Wiggins asked me to quietly review the hospice’s records and determine whether or not there’s a problem.”

“Why quietly?” asked Alton.

“The administrators aren’t positive there’s a problem. That’s not unusual, actually. In a lot of fraud cases, someone becomes suspicious but can’t prove that there’s a real issue. That’s where I come in. In this case, management doesn’t want to upset the hospice’s employees by making everyone feel under suspicion if it turns out no one is stealing drugs.”

“I see. If you confirm that there really is theft going on, then you hand it off to the DEA or local police to make the arrest?”

“Yes— or our Controlled Substances group.”

“Sounds fun. I’ll be interested to see how it turns out.”

Later that evening, Alton researched several travel options for the vacation destination he had chosen earlier in the day. He opted to withhold the destination from Mallory until only a few days ahead of time, figuring this would make the surprise even greater.
He finally picked the best itinerary and made the necessary reservations.
Now to wait…two months until heaven.

The remainder of Alton and Mallory’s weekend with Beverly Wilson flew by as if in a matter of minutes. In seemingly no time, they were saying their goodbyes on Sunday afternoon, Mallory to return to Washington and Alton to travel back to the tony north-Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta.

“I hope you can visit again soon,” Beverly told Alton. “It’s a shame you have to leave. I feel like I’m just now getting to know you.”

“I share your feelings, Beverly. I’ll try to visit again soon, but my weekends are pretty full these days,” he said, glancing at Mallory with a smile. “I look forward to seeing you as soon as I can.”

CHAPTER 4

In Washington, DC, “Scrubs” Abernathy heard a car pull into the driveway of his modest residence. His wife, a hospice nurse, entered through the garage door and wound her way to the den in which Scrubs reclined as he watched television.

“I’m home, Randy,” Jeanette called to her husband. Everyone but she called him “Scrubs” on account of the uniform he wore to his job as a hospital orderly.

“Hey, Babe,” he replied as a Camel dangled from his mouth. His unkempt hair and three-day beard matched the rough appearance of his ill-fitting uniform, a look he fancied made him appear a bit of a rebel. “Did you get any stuff today?”

“Yeah,” replied Jeanette. She removed a package from her neatly-pressed, white lab coat. “We had three patients go downhill, and all of them were on pain meds. I got OxyContin and Percocet.” She handed him several varieties of pills stored in separate, sealed plastic bags. She also held a small vial of clear fluid.

“What’s in the bottle?” asked Scrubs.

“Morphine. We only give point two five milliliters at work, so be careful with that stuff. It’ll rock your world.”

“So you shoot it up?”

“Naw—it’s oral. You just squirt it under your tongue,” she said as she lit up one of her Virginia Slims. “So, what’s the plan? Are you going to sell that stuff or use it?”

“We have plenty for ourselves. Let’s sell it. Maybe I’ll head down to Leroy’s later. He’s always looking for our type of product.”

“That would be good. We’re late on the gas bill.”

“Can you get more of this tomorrow? I’m sure Leroy’s gonna ask.”

She ran a frustrated hand through her carefully-arranged, auburn hair. “Randy, you know it depends on the patients. They need to be so zoned out that they don’t know whether or not they took their meds. That’s the only time I can swipe it without anyone finding out.”

“Okay, okay—I get it. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

CHAPTER 5

In the parking lot of Washington’s Serenity Hospice, a blonde thirty-something climbed into the driver’s seat of a Rav4 in the employee parking lot at the end of the workday. She wore a black skirt with a form-fitting red blouse and matching Sergio Rossi heels, all of which had the effect of showing her voluptuous figure to best advantage.

She dialed a number on her phone. “Can you talk?”

“Yep. What’s up?”

“I should be asking you that,” she said with a snicker. “Can we get together tonight?”

“I’ll have to move some things around, but I can make it work. Where shall we meet? The usual place?”

“Hmm…why don’t we change it up? If we go to the same location too often, the staff will start to recognize us. Let’s do the Red Roof Inn off of exit thirteen instead. How about eight o’clock?”

“Okay. That’ll work. Don’t keep me waiting,” he said with a smile in his voice.

After ending the call, the hospice worker sat motionless in her SUV. Images of the evening’s pending activities flashed through her mind, and her expression widened into a wicked grin.

“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “I won’t keep either one of us waiting.”