The 9th Judgment

“Thanks. That would be great.”

Richie was digging through the CDs and I was pulling the ham out of the oven when the phones rang, each of them, one in all four rooms ringing together.

“Are you getting the phone?” Claire asked me.

“Phones are no friends of mine.”

“Could be Jacobi.”

“He’d call me on my cell.”

My mobile rang from my handbag. I reached in and looked at the caller ID. I didn’t recognize the number. Maybe, I thought, it was coming from Jacobi’s mystery date’s phone.

“Warren, are you lost?”

“Sergeant Boxer?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“This is Commander John Jordan. I’m afraid there’s been an incident. I wanted to reach you before you heard it on the news.”

My mind skittered like a needle across an old-fashioned vinyl record. This couldn’t be about that hostage crisis in Washington. Joe couldn’t have gotten there-not yet. His plane had just lifted off. I looked at the television set through the wall opening to the living room.

Talking heads had replaced the football game, and I read the breaking-news banner: CHARTER JET DOWNED IN CALIFORNIA.

Chopper footage came on, showing a green valley blemished by airplane wreckage and a blooming column of black smoke.

The commander was speaking to me, but I didn’t really hear his words. I already got it. Joe’s plane had gone down. They didn’t know what had happened, why it had blown up or simply crashed.

The lights faded to black, and I went down.

Chapter 116

I SWAM UP out of the darkness, hearing Claire talking to Cindy, feeling something cold on my forehead, Martha’s paws on my chest. My eyelids flew open. I was looking up at the ceiling of my bedroom.

Where was Joe?

Claire said, “I’m here, baby. We’re all here.”

“Joe? Is Joe…?” I wailed. “Oh no. Oh God no.”

Claire looked at me helplessly, tears rolling down her face. Cindy grabbed my hand and Yuki cried, paced, and cried some more.

I was overwhelmed with a horrible emptiness, a pain so deep, so shocking, I wanted to die. I rolled onto my side so I couldn’t see anyone and covered my head with a pillow. Sobs poured out of me.

“I’m right here, sugar,” Claire said.

“Tell everyone to go home. Please,” I said.

She didn’t answer me. The door closed, and I took Joe’s pillow in my arms and rocked myself into a sleep that was more falling down a bottomless hole than floating in a dream.

I woke up not knowing why I was drowning in dread.

“What time is it?” I asked into the pillow.

“It’s almost five,” Claire said.

“In the afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve only been out for an hour?”

“I’m going to get you something to put you out,” she said. “I called in a prescription.”

I pulled the blanket over my head.

I came up from the deep again, this time into a roar of voices, cheers-What the hell? Was I still dreaming? The bedroom door opened, and lights blazed. Joe was standing over me.

I screamed his name.

Was it really him? Was it? Or had I gone insane?

Joe opened his arms, and I threw myself against him, feeling the wool of his jacket scrape my cheek, hearing his voice saying my name.

I pulled away and looked again to be sure, and now the room was filling with my friends, standing-room only.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, sweetheart. I’m here.”

I was crying again, and I was asking Joe to tell me what had happened.

“I was at the airport,” Joe said. “Ours-SFO-when I got a call from my contacts in Washington saying that the passengers on that plane had overpowered Waleed. It was all over. I could go back home.

“I was arranging a car. I didn’t know about that jet going down, Lindsay, until my driver turned on the radio and told me the news.”

I was helped out of the bedroom and brought to the table. Joe sat beside me. The food was rubbery and cold, and it was the best damned meal I’d eaten in my life-in my whole entire life.

Wine was poured. Toasts were made. I looked around the table, and it finally sank in-Jacobi wasn’t there.

“Rich, did you hear from Jacobi?”

“He hasn’t called,” Rich said.

We raised a glass to Jacobi’s new girlfriend. We ate Joe’s apple cobbler with gusto and, by the way, the 49ers won. I was weak from emotion and didn’t even try to stop people from clearing the table.

By eight o’clock, I was in bed for the night with my arms wrapped around Joe.

Chapter 117

THE TELEPHONE RANG several times that night and the next morning, too. I told Joe that if he picked up a phone, he was a dead man, and then I pulled out the cord to the landline, put both our cell phones in the wall safe, and changed the combination.

Joe and I took Martha for a run, and when we got back, Joe made ham-and-cheese omelets with leftovers. It was after noon, so we opened the wine Miles had brought, Joe sipping, looking at the bottle, and saying, “Wow.”

We had bought, but never had had the time to watch, the complete season-one set of Lost, so we pulled up armchairs to the TV and went through six episodes, broke for pizza and beer, and watched the news. We learned that the downed plane hadn’t been sabotaged. The cause was pilot error, terrible enough because four people had died but a relief in that it hadn’t been a failed attempt on Joe’s life.

We soaked up another five hours of Lost, and I suppose some would say it was a waste of a day, but Joe, beer, and fantasy TV, in that order, were what I needed. I fell asleep in Joe’s arms watching a recording of Bill Maher on the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I turned off the television and shook Joe awake.

“Huh?”