The Patrick Bowers Files - 05 - The Queen (64 page)

Lien-hua and I took a few steps. I watched the snow swirl around us, thought of how I was going to do this. She said, “What do you think ever happened with Chekov?”

“Well, he was going to kill his wife's murderer. I can't help but wonder if he might've just gone ahead and kept his word.”

I thought of Tessa's probing question at the hospital last week:
“Apart from forgiveness, can you think of any way of dealing with your wrongs that doesn't involve some form of denial or negotiation?”

The question had been on my mind a lot over the last few days as we wrapped up these cases, as I considered all the crimes that Terry, Cassandra, Jake, and Alexei had committed. And in the background, always in the background, casting a long, thin shadow across the last fourteen years of my life, Richard Devin Basque and the women he'd killed.

Can you think of a way . . . ?

And I still had to answer Tessa's question “no.”

If you don't find forgiveness, you'll never end up with peace, just get lost in a maze of comforting excuses.

A maze I decided I was not going to enter.

I felt Lien-hua reposition her hand in mine, grasp my fingers more tightly. “So have you decided?” she asked. “About teaching at the Academy again?”

“I'm going to take the job.”

“So you'll be moving to DC?”

“Yup.”

“Well, then, we'll be neighbors.”

“I hope not.”

“What?”

We stopped walking and stood on the edge of the night, snow falling lightly around us. “Lien-hua, do you remember how, in that ELF tunnel, I told you there was something I wanted to ask you?”

“Yes.”

“And you made me wait until all that was over?”

“Yes.”

“And then, when I was about to climb up that shaft, I sort of said I was going to marry you, and that's why I wasn't about to fall—because I'd miss out on that?”

“I think I recall something along those lines.”

I took out the ring box.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, Pat,” she said, drawing a mitten-covered hand to her mouth.

“Lien-hua . . .” I brushed a snow-dabbed strand of hair from the side of her face. “Since the first time I met you I've been under your spell. You're beautiful in all the ways that matter most, and the more I get to know you the deeper I fall in love with you. I'd do anything for you and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side. Lien-hua, would you marry me? Would you be my bride? My queen?”

She said nothing at first but then threw her arms around me, leaned up on her toes, drew herself close, pressed her lips against mine.

And said yes.

There is a fate worse than death.

The discovery that you're the one who killed the person you love the most. How do you deal with that kind of knowledge? That deep a sin?

Alexei raised the Rossi, placed the end of the barrel against his temple, and, in his mother tongue, Russian, counted down the last five seconds of his life.

Pyat' . . .

He would finally be reunited with Tatiana again.

Chetyre . . .

Justice meted out against her murderer.

Tri . . .

The pain of loss fading into night.

Dva . . .

Alexei closed his eyes.

Odin—

Valkyrie opened his eyes.

Lowered the gun.

Then breathed in deeply, savoring the moment, the feeling of air filling his lungs, the thumping beat of his heart in his chest, proving, proving, proving that he was alive. Yes, alive.

And finally, alone.

There was only one mind, one psyche, now.

Only one.

Valkyrie—the dark angel who decides who will live and who will die on the battlefield of life.

He went to the dresser, ripped open the envelopes, slid out the money, and destroyed the handwritten notes to the women.

Then Valkyrie began to pack his things.

After finding a doctor to treat his shoulder, he had some unfinished business to attend to in Pakistan concerning a certain Abdul Razzaq Muhammad, a man who had failed to transfer $100,000,000 to the offshore account Terry Manoji had opened, the one Valkyrie had obtained the password to and had planned all along to siphon the funds from.

Yes, a trip to Pakistan, and then . . .

Who knows?

The future would be wide open and bold with possibilities.