Whistleblower

woman, but an amalgam of makeup, hairspray and fake eyelashes.'

'Oh, I know that. That's my job, turning actors into some moviegoer's fantasy. Or nightmare, as the case may be.' She reached into the jar and fished out the last pickle. 'No, I really meant underneath it all. Deep inside, I feel ordinary.'

'I think you're quite extraordinary. And after last night, I should know.'

She gazed down, at the limp carrot stretched out like a little corpse across the paper plate. 'There was a time—I suppose there's always that time, for everyone, when we're still young, when we feel special. When we feel the world's meant just for us. The last time I felt that way was when I married Jack.' She sighed. 'It didn't last long.'

'Why did you marry him?'

'I don't know. Dazzle? I was only twenty-three, a mere apprentice on the set. He was the director.' She paused. 'He was God.'

'He impressed you, did he?'

'Jack can be very impressive. He can turn on the power, the charisma, and just overwhelm a gal. Then there was the champagne, the suppers, the flowers. I think what attracted him to me was that I didn't immediately fall for him. That I wasn't swooning at his every look. He thought of me as a challenge, the one he finally conquered.' She gave him a rueful look. 'That accomplished, he moved onto bigger and better things. That's when I realized that I wasn't particularly special. That I'm really just a perfectly ordinary woman. It's not a bad feeling. It's not as if I go through life longing to be someone different, someone special.'

'Then who do you consider special?'

'Well, my grandmother. But she's dead.'

'Venerable grandmothers always make the list.'

'Okay, then. Mother Teresa.'

'She's on everyone's list.'

'Kate Hepburn. Gloria Steinem. My friend Sarah...' Her voice faded. Looking down, she added softly: 'But she's dead, too.'

Gently he took her hand. With a strange sense of wonder she watched his long fingers close over hers and thought about how the strength she felt in that grasp reflected the strength of the man himself. Jack, for all his dazzle and polish, had never inspired a fraction of the confidence she now felt in Victor. No man ever had.

He was watching her with quiet sympathy. 'Tell me about Sarah,' he said.

Cathy swallowed, trying to stem the tears. 'She was absolutely lovely. I don't mean in that way.' She nodded at the photo of Hickey's picture-perfect model. 'I mean, in an inner sort of way. It was this look in her eyes. A perfect calmness. As though she'd found exactly what she wanted while all the rest of us were still grubbing around for lost treasure. I don't think she was born like that. She came to it, all by herself. In college, we were both pretty unsure of ourselves. Marriage certainly didn't help either of us. My divorce—it was nothing short of devastating. But Sarah's divorce only seemed to make her stronger. Better able to take care of herself. When she finally got pregnant, it was exactly as she planned it. There wasn't a father, you see, just a test tube. An anonymous donor. Sarah used to say that the primeval family unit wasn't man, woman and child. It was just woman and child. I thought she was brave, to take that step. She was a lot braver than I could ever be....' She cleared her throat. 'Anyway, Sarah was special. Some people simply are.'

'Yes,' he said. 'Some people are.'

She looked up at him. He was staring off at the far wall, his gaze infinitely sad. What had etched those lines of pain in his face? She wondered if lines so deep could ever be erased. There were some losses one never got over, never accepted.

Softly she asked, 'What was your wife like?'

He didn't answer at first. She thought: Why did I ask that? Why did I have to bring up such terrible memories?

He said, 'She was a kind woman. That's what I'll always remember about her. Her kindness.' He looked at Cathy and she sensed it wasn't sadness she saw in those eyes, but acceptance.

'What was her name?'

'Lily. Lillian Dorinda Cassidy. A mouthful for such a tiny woman.' He smiled. 'She was about five foot one, maybe ninety pounds sopping wet. It used to scare me, how small she always seemed. Almost breakable. Especially toward the end, when she'd lost all that weight. It seemed as if she'd shrunk down to nothing but a pair of big brown eyes.'

'She must have been young when she died.'

'Only thirty-eight. It seemed so unfair. All her life, she'd done everything right. Never smoked, hardly ever touched a glass of wine. She even refused to eat meat. After she was diagnosed, we kept trying to figure out how it could've happened. Then it occurred to us what might have caused it. She grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. Directly downwind from a nuclear power plant.'

'You think that was it?'

'One can never be sure. But we asked around. And we learned that, just in her neighborhood, at least twenty families had someone with leukemia. It took four years and a class-action suit to force an investigation. What they found was a history of safety violations going back all the way to the plant's opening.'

Cathy shook her head in disbelief. 'And all those years they allowed it to operate?'

'No one knew about it. The violations were hushed up so well even the federal regulators were kept in the dark.'

'They shut it down, didn't they?'

He nodded. 'I can't say I got much satisfaction, seeing the plant finally close. By that time Lily was gone. And all the families, well, we were exhausted by the fight. Even though it sometimes felt as though we were banging our heads against a wall, we knew it was something we had to do. Somebody had to do it, for all the Lilys of the world.' He looked up, at the spotlights shining above. 'And here I am again, still banging my head against walls. Only this time, it feels like the Great Wall of China. And the lives at stake are yours and mine.'

Their gazes met. She sat absolutely still as he lightly stroked down the curve of her cheek. She took his hand, pressed it to her lips. His fingers closed over hers, refusing to release her hand. Gently he tugged her close. Their lips met, a tentative kiss that left her longing for more.

'I'm sorry you were pulled into this,' he murmured. 'You and Sarah and those other Cathy Weavers. None of you asked to be part of it. And somehow I've managed to hurt you all.'

'Not you, Victor. You're not the one to blame. It's this windmill you're tilting at. This giant, dangerous windmill. Anyone else would have dropped his lance and fled. You're still going at it.'

'I didn't have much of a choice.'

'But you did. You could have walked away from your friend's death. Turned a blind eye to whatever's going on at Viratek. That's what Jack would have done.'

'But I'm not Jack. There are things I can't walk away from. I'd always be thinking of the Lilys. All the thousands of people who might get hurt.'

At the mention once again of his dead wife, Cathy felt some unbreachable barrier form between them—the shadow of Lily, the wife she'd never met. Cathy drew back, at once aching from the loss of his touch.

'You think that many people could die?' she asked.

'Jerry must have thought so. There's no way to predict the outcome. The world's never seen the effects of all-out biological warfare. I like to think it's because we're too smart to play with our own self-destruction. Then I think of all the crazy things people have done over the years and it scares me....'

'Are viral weapons that dangerous?'

'If you alter a few genes, make it just a little more contagious, raise the kill ratio, you'd end up with a devastating strain. The research alone is hazardous. A single slip-up in lab security and you could have millions of people accidentally infected. And no means of treatment. It's the kind of worldwide disaster a scientist doesn't want to think about.'

'Armageddon.'

He nodded, his gaze frighteningly sane. 'If you believe in such a thing. That's exactly what it'd be.'