T Wave (21 page)

“But the research—”

“Is over,” interjected Alton, “unless another scientist picks it up.”

“That doesn’t seem too likely, does it?” asked Mallory. “I think this line of research, like Doctor Powell himself, has run its course.”

The meeting adjourned. As the participants began filing out, Alton turned to Mallory. “I have to get back to my Kruptos work. Do you want to grab a quick bite to eat first?”

“Sure,” she replied.

As they walked down the hall from the conference room, Mallory spoke up. “Back in the debriefing, you never said anything about Nancy Goins’ affair.”

“You’re right,” admitted Alton. “I didn’t. Not that I condone having an affair, but I just thought…what’s the point? Pearl told me Ken used to mistreat her—at least verbally. Perhaps that’s why she had the affair in the first place.

“Nancy’s boss was in the room with us, so if I had said anything about the affair, that kind of news could have crippled her career, perhaps even gotten her fired. I figured…maybe now she can get on with her life. What’s the good of sending it crashing it down around her shoulders?” He paused to reflect upon his actions. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

Mallory considered for a moment. “Given the circumstances, yes.” They passed through the building’s exit, and she slipped her hand into his. “You’re a good man, you know that?”

Alton smiled at her, his heart quietly overflowing. At that moment, he wouldn’t have agreed to have Mallory taken from his side for anything life could give him.

CHAPTER 54

That evening, David and Fahima came to Mallory’s apartment for a prearranged dinner.

“So how is your investigation into the patient murders coming along?” asked David.

Alton looked up in surprise. While he had planned to share the details of the case over dinner, the only information he had previously shared with his friend had been intentionally vague. But, of course, David was a Secret Service agent, a man trained to draw conclusions from disparate pieces of information. “We just wrapped it up this morning, as a matter of fact.”

“Really? What happened?”

“We discovered Andrew Powell, a research scientist, was killing the members of a competitor’s research group.”

“That’s horrible,” said Fahima. “Why?”

“He was trying to keep his own research afloat. I know it sounds crazy, but that was his rationale.”

“How did you track him down?” asked Fahima.

“The murdered patients transitioned from stable vital signs to dead in the space of minutes. Even for a hospital or hospice, the deaths were too unusual. An administrator noticed the pattern, and we tracked the murders back to the scientist.”

“Did Powell have anything to do with Dad’s death?” asked David.

“No,” said Alton. “He definitely wasn’t involved.”

“I guess that makes sense. If he had something to do with it, Dad would have died all of a sudden.”

“Exactly. And that wasn’t the case.”

“That’s good to know, I guess,” said David. “He passed the way he was supposed to. Dealing with the funeral was hard enough, but if I had to deal with Dad being murdered on top of that…”

Alton could only imagine the tumult of thoughts that must be passing through his friend’s mind. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. As good as could be expected, I guess.”

As he and Fahima left at the end of the evening, David turned back to Alton. “Call me before you leave town. Let’s get together one more time.”

“You bet.”

David slid his arm around Fahima’s shoulders. She reciprocated by passing her arm around his waist, and the couple walked into the night air.

SUNDAY, JULY 29

CHAPTER 55

Scrubs wiped his brow as he lowered the metal door of the U-Haul van. He had managed to fill the trailer almost to capacity: beds and appliances and clothes and, yes, there’s the shovel from the garage. Before climbing into the truck’s cab, he took one last look at the house and still-unpruned trees. He had wasted no time packing. Mindful of the previous week’s eviction notice, Scrubs had completed the work in forty-eight hours.

On the night of her arrest, Jeanette had called him from the detention center, sobbing.

“Randy, you gotta come bail me out of jail!” she had wailed. “The FBI busted me with the stuff.”

“Damn—really?” Scrubs had exclaimed. An unpleasant montage of financial and criminal repercussions had played through his mind. “Did they catch you at work, then?”

“Uh…no. At a friend’s house.”

Ah-hah! So she was still seeing that jerkoff co-worker. “Okay. Where are you?”

“I’m at the…let me see…Arlington County Detention Facility.”

“I’ll be leaving soon.”

After the conversation with Jeanette, Scrubs had contacted the FBI to discover the specific charges against his wife. It had taken several phone calls before some lady agent told him—off the record—the details of Jeanette and Max’s arrests, including the two suspects’ lack of attire.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” he had told Jeanette.
Damn right—leaving your life.
The plea bargain had been worth it. Given her cheating ways, Jeanette would surely have cut a deal for herself if offered the same opportunity. She had already demonstrated where her loyalties lay: in bed with her boyfriend. The plea bargain had given Scrubs the chance to avoid jail time, not only for hiding narcotics in his yard but also for posting the note on the agent’s car, a fact to which he had readily confessed.

Scrubs had to admit, the whole situation had nearly unfolded quite differently. Before Jeanette’s arrest, he had wondered why hospital management had made such a fuss over the cops’ re-opening of the dead guy’s room back on Five South. The over-the-top attention had made him uneasy, and he had shied away. Besides, he had already hit up that room the day the patient had died, so how much more opportunity to score would there be? It had turned out to be a wise decision. He had heard later that the meds in that room were bugged or tracked somehow.

Scrubs had lost his job, of course. The misdemeanor to which he agreed to plea had allowed him to avoid prison time but had nonetheless constituted an admission of drug theft on the job. It would make the acquisition of an orderly job in another hospital difficult if not impossible. Maybe he could find a nursing home that didn’t feel the need to impose a second round of punishment on top of that which had been administered by the courts.

Scrubs pulled his gaze away from the dwelling he had shared with Jeanette over the past four years. He was going to lose the house, too, but it sure beat losing his freedom.

CHAPTER 56

Three days had elapsed since the arrest of Andrew Powell. With the successful conclusion of the case, Alton had spent most of his waking hours since then in Mallory’s apartment, catching up on his Kruptos projects.

As the third day drew to a close, Mallory’s cheerful form passed through the door of her apartment.

“I was just getting ready to walk Buster,” said Alton. “Want to come with me?”

“Sure.”

As the two humans set a leisurely pace, the Labrador described a zigzag pattern in front of them, all the while keeping his nose trained to the ground.

“I feel bad I haven’t seen you much the last few days,” said Mallory.

“Likewise,” said Alton. “Our respective cases put us both behind in our other work. Are you feeling a little more caught up now?”

“Just about. I might need another day or two to feel back to normal—whatever that is,” she said, laughing. “Working for the FBI is never strictly a nine-to-five job anytime. So, how was your day? Are things getting better, workload-wise?”

“Yeah, it’s still a little crazy but improving,” replied Alton. He stopped walking and looked Mallory in the face with an unwavering gaze. “Speaking of my job, I received some rather important news today.”

“What’s that?” asked Mallory, also halting.

“I found out I’m going to be moving for work.”

Mallory’s eyes widened in alarm. Was she remembering the last time he had “moved for work,” departing from Kabul on a flight taking him halfway around the world from her, seemingly out of her life forever?

“I thought Kruptos only had the one office in Alpharetta,” she said, her voice wavering. “How can they move you?”

“We’re opening a second office.”

“Alton…Sweetie, do you
have
to move?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Where are they sending you?” asked Mallory, her eyes beginning to glisten.

Observing her mounting concern, Alton could in good conscience keep his secret no longer. He took his beloved in his arms. “Right here—to Washington.”

“What! How? Kruptos is building a new office
here
?”

“That’s right. Mr. Hines wants to open a satellite office along the Beltway to focus on selling to the federal government, and he wants me to head it up.”

Mallory threw her arms around Alton’s neck and squeezed him with all her might. “Are you serious? You
are
serious, right?”

Alton nodded and laughed. “As serious as I’ve ever been.”

“I’m…speechless. That’s so awesome! I can’t wait to tell Mom. Does your family know?”

“No, you’re the first person I’ve told.” He laid a hand aside her face, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “And now when I tell you I love you, it won’t be over the phone five nights a week. I’ll be right here with you, every day, to tell you in person.”

After embracing him, Mallory squeezed Alton’s right forearm in delight, much as she had long ago in Kabul, at a time when neither had understood the true feelings of the other. While the action back then had inspired in Alton only a hopeless longing for a love he considered unobtainable, it now inspired the promise of a better, brighter future with the ethereal beauty at his side.

Sensing their excitement, Buster barked and raised his front paws onto the couple, wagging his tail furiously. To Alton, it seemed the perfect conclusion to the happy news.

After returning to the apartment, Mallory headed back to her bedroom, turning her head over her shoulder to announce, “I’m gonna call my mom.” The squeals of excitement emanating from the bedroom minutes later couldn’t help but put a smile on Alton’s face.

In fact, the pleasure with which Mallory greeted the news encouraged in Alton a more profound contemplation of his future. With this rise in his fortunes—a better location, and a better job to boot—he decided the time was right to make another, more important improvement in his life. That is, if Mallory agreed.

CHAPTER 57

Nancy Goins swept through the imposing double doors of Ana Maria’s. Her all-black ensemble—dress, shoes, stockings, complemented by white pearls—produced a striking effect, judging from the series of masculine stares she caught from the corner of her eye.

But what about Dennis? When he had invited her to the Italian restaurant for dinner, his voice had seemed…different, somehow—more somber. They had spoken little since the day of her journey to the FBI building, mutually deciding to let the dust settle. Remarkably, the truth of her relationship with Dennis hadn’t come out during the FBI gathering. She didn’t know how she had escaped that disaster and wasn’t about to press her luck by inquiring further.

Nancy approached the hostess desk. Here she was…back where her personal journey with Dennis had begun. Would this be where it ended?

She saw Dennis seated on one of the stools at the bar. Catching her eye, he rose and approached. Khaki slacks, a tasteful navy dress shirt, a casual sweep of the hair…he looked perfect. The strange tone she had earlier noted in his voice, however, seemed to be matched by the distracted look in his eyes. He smiled, but there was an unnatural strain in his countenance. He embraced Nancy with one arm and kissed her on the forehead, again exhibiting minor and probably unconscious deviations from his normal routine.

The hostess led Nancy and Dennis to an elegant table for two. The high-backed chairs and flicker of candlelight produced a calming effect that was strangely at odds with Dennis’s worrisome behavior.

After ordering their drinks, Dennis asked, “So, how have you been?”

“Okay, I guess.”

Dennis waited in silence for her to continue.

“It’s been so weird being in the house by myself. I know Ken being gone…it’s what we wanted, but of all the ways I thought you and I might be together, this wasn’t on my list. Even though Ken was a jerk, I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him out of my life.”

“I did wonder how you’ve been processing Ken’s passing. You’ve seemed kind of in shock the past few days.”

“I have been. I know you must think I’m crazy for being sad about his death.”

“No, I don’t think you’re crazy. It just means you have a heart. You can feel sorry for someone, even a person who’s been cruel to you.”

Nancy smiled and looked at the tabletop. Of course Dennis would understand.

Dennis exhaled a deep breath. “Nancy, I was going to wait until the end of the meal to talk to you about this, but I…I don’t think I can wait.” He looked her in the face.

Within the duration of his sentence, Nancy’s heart rate had doubled. The course of her future happiness—or lack thereof—rested with his next words.

“Maybe the path that led us to this point in our lives isn’t what we imagined it would be,” he said, “but now that we
are
here, it’d be a shame to let the opportunity pass us by, right?

“I don’t know if the tragedy of Ken’s death has changed how you feel about…us, but my feelings haven’t changed. If anything, they’ve grown stronger as I’ve had to sit in the shadows watching you suffer through Ken’s passing and then several rounds of police questioning. I don’t want you to have to struggle on your own anymore.

“Marry me.”

Nancy’s pulse accelerated again. She took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to calm the emotions that threatened to send her mind reeling. She felt far too thunderstruck to reply.

Lacking a response, Dennis pressed ahead. “I know as far as the rest of the world is concerned, we have to wait. It would look too strange for us to start dating, let alone get married, just yet. But between the two of us, I don’t need to wait anymore. As long as you promise me your heart, I’ll wait as long as you want before we tie the knot.”

Nancy’s breathing accelerated to a pretty fair imitation of the patients she had observed during her rotation into the hospital’s labor and delivery unit. Finally, she blurted out, “Dennis…yes, of course. I thought…I mean, I didn’t know you felt…” She took another deep breath.

Dennis’s tentative grin widened into an irrepressible smile. “I heard a ‘yes’ in there somewhere. That’s enough for me.”

He removed a small, velvet box from the interior pocket of his jacket. “This was my mom’s. Whenever we’re ready to tell the rest of the world what you and I already know, it’s waiting for you.” He passed her the jewel, a brilliant solitaire. Leaning towards one another, they embraced. Dennis used both arms this time.

After separating, Nancy addressed her new fiancée. “Dennis Trimble, you had me so worried! You were so serious, I thought…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“Thought what?”

“It doesn’t matter. I now know everything I need to know. You love me, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with the man I love more than anyone in this world.”

At that moment, a waiter arrived, and Dennis ordered champagne. The waiter returned with a bottle and poured two flutes, prompting the couple to toast their happy, future lives together.

“I wish there were some way I could take my emotions right now—which are about to split me open, by the way—and turn them into words that could even come close to conveying the strength of my feelings for you,” said Dennis. “I can’t do it. You’ll just have to take my word that I’m the happiest man alive.”

And I’m the happiest woman.
After years of enduring a barren marriage and months of hiding a forbidden desire, the life that awaited Nancy—one of pure, fervent love, out of the shadows and on display for the world to see and envy—seemed almost too good to be true.