'I'm letting you out of the Slammer.'
She closed her eyes, leaned against the glass, hoped this wasn't just another episode in her cruel dream.
'Understand there are conditions,' he said, his voice gentle in her ear.
She opened her eyes but stayed against the glass. It felt as if she was leaning into him, so close despite the thick wall of glass.
'We'll still have to vaccinate you every day,' he continued.'The first sign, even the smallest symptom, and I'll want you back in here. And you'll need to be careful. No swapping body fluids…' He paused, and when she looked up at him he was smiling. 'Not even a kiss.'
'You're really cramping my style.'
'I figured as much.'
'Why?' she asked. 'Why now?'
'Because it's been over forty-eight hours.Your blood is showing no signs of the virus.You haven't had any symptoms.' Then he hesitated as if he was still deciding whether to share more. He stood closer to the glass. 'And because I think you'll be safer away from here.'
CHAPTER
64
Tully found Emma watching TV and eating leftover pizza on the sofa.
He opened his mouth to ask but she beat him to it. 'On the counter. Only one slice of supreme left but there's pepperoni.'
His daughter knew him too well. He grabbed a paper plate, filled it, sprinkled it down with hot peppers and plopped down beside her.
'It's awfully late, sweet pea.'
'No school tomorrow. Fall break.'
'Right. I forgot.'
'What about you? Were you with Gwen?'
'No, at work.' He had spent the entire evening at Quantico, searching databases and looking for some connection to Cunningham and this killer. 'What are we watching?'
'Nothing. Just filling dead air.'
They sat, quietly watching for a few minutes.
'I guess she's pretty okay,' Emma said.
Tully thought she was referring to the actress on the TV show.
'She dresses a lot classier than Mom.'
He was exhausted. It took him a minute to realize the 'she' was Gwen.
'Sometimes I think Mom still wants to be twentysomething instead of fortysomething.'
'I'm glad you think Gwen's pretty okay,' he said.
'You and Mom were together a long time, weren't you?'
More questions. Maybe the wedding had brought it on. Didn't all kids have a fantasy that their divorced parents would someday reunite?
'We dated for quite a while before we got married.' He didn't add that he didn't want to marry Caroline until he was certain she wanted him, not either of his buddies. He didn't like remembering that emotional battle. Sometimes the pawn. Sometimes the knight. Caroline had that effect on men. That ability to make them feel special one minute, worthless the next, and the whole time still competing for her attention.
'Long-distance, right?' Emma continued, bringing Tully back. 'You were training at Quantico and she was in Chicago studying art?'
'Right.'
'How did you guys end up in Cleveland?'
'I grew up in Cleveland.You know that. Can I have a swallow of your Diet Coke?'
She handed it to him without a single eye-roll or a heavy sigh. Instead, her mind seemed focused on one subject.
'Where does Indiana come in?'
'Indiana?'
'Yeah. Didn't they call you Indy when you went through training?'
Another reminder he didn't like. Even after all these years.
'No, Indy was one of my roommates at Quantico. Actually, he was dating your mother first. That's how I met her.'
She looked confused. 'But what was your nickname?' Before he could respond, she answered her own question. 'Oh, wait.You were J.B. Reggie was J.B. Jelly beans.'
Tully winced. 'I hated the name Reggie. Being called J.B. actually gave me the idea to just use my real initials.'
'Your real initials?'
'Reginald James.'
'That's not so bad,' she said then went quiet.
When he looked over, her face was crinkled in thought and she had her thumbnail inserted between her teeth. The biting and gnawing had stopped years ago but sometimes she still put it in her teeth out of nervous habit.
'Your mom told you about Indy?' Tully asked.
She shook her head.
'I found some letters she had stashed in that old desk down in the spare bedroom. I thought they were letters from you to Mom.'
'I can't believe she kept them after all this time.' But in a way he wasn't surprised. A few years ago Tully would have been hurt to learn Caroline had kept Indy's letters. Now it didn't sting, just a tug, nothing more.
'I'm sorry, Dad.' Emma sounded a bit shaken—not as if she was worried she'd be in trouble, so much as she couldn't believe she had made such a mistake. 'I really did think they were from you.'
'It's okay, sweet pea. Those letters were from a long time ago.'
'Actually not that long ago.'
'Excuse me?'
'Well, most of the letters are from 1982, but then there're three others. The most recent one was from July.'
'This year?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'Congratulating her on getting married, again. But he didn't sound like he meant it.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Because he says something like,‘Congratulations for choosing the wrong man, again.' That's kinda rude.' She rolled her eyes. 'I should have known you'd never say anything like that.'
CHAPTER
65
She should have prepared herself.
'He's getting a treatment,' Platt told her as he led her through the cinder-block hallways.
Maggie had dressed back in her street clothes. It was amazing how something that simple could feel so good. She had to leave behind the purple-flowered jacket. It had been confiscated early on because of Mary Louise's vomit. A splatter on her sleeve. The one thing that separated Maggie's fate from Cunningham's.
Funny how life was, Maggie thought. As an FBI agent she had come face-to-face with killers, been sliced on, shot at and left for dead in a freezer. But she never would have guessed that life or death could depend on her proximity to a little girl's vomit.
'How is Mary Louise?' she asked Platt as they continued through the maze of hallways. She didn't expect any
