“It's very good,” he told her after he had read it through a second time.
“That an honest assessment?” she asked suspiciously.
“Yes, it is. I'd like to read more. I really would. You have a gift.”
She smiled. “Maybe I can print them out for you when I get to a printer.”
“Maybe you can publish under your new name,” he said.
She looked at him quizzically. “You mean under a pseudonym?”
“You'll get new identities after Dylan testifies and has served whatever time he ends up getting.”
She turned off the computer and closed the top with a snap. “That may be what they told you, but it isn't like that. Why would we need new names?”
It was his turn to be confused. “He wouldn't live long using Devlin.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked angrily.
He had never before seen her eyes filled with fire, and he had no idea why she was getting so upset with him for stating the obvious.
“A standard requirement in witness security dictates that you can't have any contact with anyone you knew before you joined the program. You'll get new identities and move to a new place to start over. That's just how it works,” he told her.
She smiled as though Winter was some poor, addled idiot who had just declared that candy bars had souls.
“You're quite mistaken, we'll be perfectly fine after he testifies.”
“Mrs. Devlin, when a man commits twelve murders for profit and testifies against the man who hired him to do them, a name change and a rural Argentine address wouldn't hurt. The world is getting to be a smaller place every day.”
“Murder? You said twelve murders?” Her hands trembled as she moved the cat to the floor gently, then picked up her laptop. She walked inside, letting the screen door slam behind her.
Winter followed as she strode into the dining room and pulled the door shut behind her. Was it possible that Sean imagined that her husband could testify against Sam Manelli and then go back to their previous lives as though nothing had happened? He took a seat in the living room and picked up a golf magazine.
Voices filtered through the closed dining room door-rising and falling-building in intensity. Winter couldn't make out what they were saying.
No more than a minute from the time she went in, Sean stormed out and strode down the hall to her bedroom. Thirty seconds later, Dylan followed her, shooting Winter a nasty look.
Winter stood. He could see Whitehead and his assistant in the dining room with their heads close together, talking in low tones, like conspirators. He could hear the Devlins' angry voices coming from their bedroom.
Greg hurried into the dining room. When he came back out, he said to Winter, “Tell the pilot to start his engine. They're done.”
Five minutes later, the helicopter rose and disappeared over the trees, taking Whitehead and his assistant with it.
Winter walked back into the house. Dylan was now yelling at Sean, and she was giving it right back to him. Greg stood listening in the hallway, hands on his hips.
“What started it?” Winter asked him.
“Whitehead told me you did,” Greg answered.
“I made a comment to her about their getting new names after the trial, and I think it was the first Mrs. Devlin had heard of it. It was like she didn't know why they're here. That's not possible, is it? Think maybe she thought this was summer camp for psychopathic husbands?”
Greg shook his head. “The prosecutor is not pleased that she's upset. If she's upset, Dylan's upset, and he wants Devlin as calm as possible. Whitehead said that I obviously didn't make it clear enough to the team that there were to be no conversations about the behavior that put Devlin here.”
“I didn't with him. You didn't say not to discuss that with his wife. You don't mean to tell me that nobody told her what he did?”
“Maybe we should start thinking about that security business real soon. Whitehead strongly hinted that he might mention his displeasure with both of us to the A.G.”
The cat broke from the kitchen and made a run for the front of the house, territory Jet had banished him from entering.
The animal sat beside Winter, stared down the hall, and seemed to be listening to the Devlins' argument.
“Just be glad you're a cat,” Winter said, wishing he hadn't spoken to Sean Devlin at all.
19
In the late afternoon, Winter took a longer than normal run, showered, and then napped until dinner. Beck, Martinez, Forsythe, Dixon, and Greg were gathered around the kitchen table. Martinez frowned at Winter when he joined them.
“Thanks a lot,” she said sourly.
“You're welcome,” Winter replied. “What was it I did for you?”
“While you slept,” Greg said, “the safe-house politic changed dramatically, as did the living arrangements.”
“I lost my bed,” Martinez said sullenly.
“You can share mine,” Beck offered.
“Screw you, Beck,” she snapped. “And I don't mean that in a good way.”
“Mr. D. failed in an all-out attempt to bring his rebellious wife back under his control using his extensive persuasive powers. Mrs. D. packed up and moved into the suite with Martinez, taking the bedroom,” Greg told Winter.
“Exactly,” Martinez said. “And that bed was heavenly.”
“Into every cow pasture some rain must fall,” Winter mused.
“Does anyone aside from Mr. D. give a damn if Mrs. D. moved out? I think it shows that there is hope for her yet,” Dixon said.
“Bear, nobody has any desire to see Sean reunited with her creepy racist bastard husband,” Martinez said. Jet entered from the dining room carrying a tray of food. “She's not hungry,” the cook informed the deputies. “She's mad as hell. I don't know what all that man said to her, but it must have been a lulu.”
Winter's shift had him walking the house's perimeter. He stood and watched Sean Devlin's figure as she moved back and forth behind the panes of her window. He thought about the poem she had shared with him and felt sorry that he had stirred up so much trouble-that he was responsible for bringing more unhappiness to this woman who seemed so refined and gentle for a psychopath's wife.
She didn't seem like just another criminal's wife who had made her bed for a large fee.
If she didn't want to stay with Devlin, that was good. The Devlins wouldn't be the first couple split by the reality of WITSEC. A lot of witnesses' wives, accustomed to living the high life, failed to see the allure of working in small-town Arizona, forever cut off from friends and family. Life in a trailer, driving a rusted-out station wagon, could put a real damper on marital bliss. In this case, he didn't think a loss of status was what troubled Sean Devlin.
Winter believed that the marshals service had owed Sean the real story before they deposited her on the island to pacify Dylan. Winter didn't give a tap-dancing damn who was pissed off because she had learned the truth.
The only problem was the potential negative impact on Greg's WITSEC career, maybe a black mark in Winter's file. It wasn't like he cared if he ever joined another WITSEC detail. He wanted nothing more than to go back home to his family and his nice, comfortable USMS satellite office.
