Germ

"I went across the street and up the block, in case they trace the calling card. No answer. She might be sleeping. I asked a home health agency to check in on her. I got their answering service. I left the pay phone number and waited, but I didn't want to stand around too long. Maybe the wrong people would show up."

"I'm sure she's fine."

"I don't like to leave her for long." She laughed humorlessly. "Picked up my messages. Nothing from Mom or the health agency, but a bunch of calls from my boss. I forgot I was supposed to meet him this morning. I lost all track of time. Not that I'd have gone in, but I can't believe it's been two days."

"Allen called me to get him about this time last night." He shook his head. "All that's happened."

The waitress appeared at the table. Talking to the pad and pencil in her hands, she said, "Ready?"

Julia sniffed, squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and smiled.

Stephen realized she had put her mother worries in a box. Allen had always been good at that, compartmentalizing. Stephen, on the other hand, tended to trip over every little concern until he addressed it.

Julia said, "Short stack, one egg over easy, two strips of bacon, coffee."

Stephen ordered just coffee, thanks, and relinquished the menus.

"You should eat," she said. "Soldiers are taught, 'Eat when you can, sleep when you can. You never know when you'll get the chance again.'"

"You were in the military?" He couldn't quite see her with a helmet on her head, blasting an Ml6 at a beat-up car that had run a roadblock.

"Goody was. He used to regale me with words of wisdom from his time in the Marines. 'A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow.' 'Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.'"

"He meant a lot to you."

"The world."

"I'm sorry." It was his turn to squeeze her arm.

She smiled away a frown, shook her head, said, "So eat."

"I'll grab something later. If my stomach settles."

The waitress returned with a carafe of coffee. She filled two cups and sauntered to a table with four men chatting half a room away. They were dressed in dirty coveralls, and two of them still wore the orange vests of the city's road-work crew. Only irregular snatches of conversation drifted to Stephen's ears, but Julia acted as though she could hear every word—and it fascinated her.

"Julia?" he whispered, leaning toward her. "What are you—?"

She held up her hand: Hold on. Concentration furled her brow, her lips moved in silent conversation.

"I know what Allen said in the hangar," she said. "I know what he wants us to do."

sixty-nine

Lying on his stomach, his face submerged in a down pillow, Kendrick Reynolds once again could not sleep. Every time the stage of his mind grew dim, a memory would dance on and the lights would come up. He raised his head, turned it the other direction, and plopped it down, letting the pillow slowly engulf it. His hand snaked out to the other side of the bed—years after her passing, the instinct to touch his wife was still strong. He rubbed his palm on the smooth bottom sheet where she should have been. It felt cold.

Nine years. She was nine years gone. It seemed only days ago she was chiding him for being gruff with the staff the defense department provided. She had always brought them fresh-baked cookies and lemonade: quaint and cliched and absolutely adorable. The staff had been more relaxed when she was there; as efficient, but not as tense. That defined him as well. Since her passing, he'd felt an ache right at the center of his torso, as if he were late for an appointment, but he didn't know where he was supposed to go.

As a young man, new to the state department and just starting to make real money, he'd purchased an MG TC roadster. He'd driven to Norfolk, taking the winding roads fast and hard. Several times he felt the rear end wanting to slide out from under him, inching toward an embankment; more than once he edged around a vehicle, barely missing a swerving, horn-blaring car coming the other direction. Afterward, alone with a bottle in his father's vacation chalet, his hands shook, his heart raced. He had the sense that Death's fingers had brushed his neck and he'd slipped away, and he was waiting for the Reaper's knock at the door. He felt like that all the time now. He suspected that Death had returned for him nine years ago, had reached and grabbed Elizabeth in error.

She had been a wonderful woman, tolerant of his many faults, his arrogance, his absences, his betrayals.

He missed her terribly.

Not for the first time, he wondered how his grief, his yearning to have her back, differed from Karl's feelings for his lost family. He was certain there was a difference, given how the two men reacted to their loss. Kendrick grieved quietly and moved on. Karl had— The only way Kendrick could describe it was that Karl had gone mad. And maybe Kendrick would have, too, under the circumstances.