Betrayal

'So that's not the first one?'

'It's like, the tenth.'

'And she hasn't written back? Not even once?'

'It was a pretty bad fight. We disagreed about the war.'

'People don't break up over that.'

'We did.' He looked across the table. 'But then sometimes I think maybe something's happened to her. I can't believe she won't write me back. Maybe she's not getting them. If she's read 'em, I know she'd…maybe she died, or something happened and she can't…'

'Can't what?'

'I don't know.'

Nolan spun his bottle slowly. 'Dude,' he said. 'No offense, but you're sounding a little pathetic. Here you are laying your life on the line every day. You got bigger fish to fry.'

'Yeah. I know.' He slugged down a mouthful. 'I know.'

'You want to just give it up.'

'If I heard from her, maybe it'd be easier.'

'You are hearing from her. Think about it.'

'Yeah, you're right. I know you're right.' He tipped up his bottle and drained it.

Nolan got up and went back into the kitchen, returned with another round, twisted off Evan's cap, and passed it across to him as he sat down. 'So where'd you go to school?'

' Santa Clara.'

'College boy, huh?' At Evan's shrug, Nolan went on. 'Hey, no crime in that. I went two years to Berkeley. Couldn't stand the place, though, so I went out and enlisted. Made the SEALs and life got good. You finish?'

'Yep.'

'What'd you do after?'

'Became a cop.'

Nolan cracked a grin and nodded. 'I had a feeling you were a cop.'

'Why's that?'

'You look like a cop.'

'I know a lot of cops who don't look like me.'

'You know what you're looking for, I bet they do.' Nolan drank, his grin in place. 'It's how you walk, how you carry yourself. You're a big guy. You keep yourself in good shape. I would have guessed a cop. Here's to good cops everywhere.'

Nolan straightened up, raised a flat palm, and Evan reached up and slapped it hard enough that the clap rang in the empty room. Back down on his seat, Nolan raised his bottle and the two men clinked them together and drank them down in one long gulp.

When Nolan got back with the next round and they'd clinked again, he pointed down at the letter, still on the table between them. 'You in touch with anybody else back home who can talk to her, find out what's happening?'

'Not really. This place isn't the best for communication, maybe you've noticed.'

'You got family?'

'Yeah, but…what am I supposed to do? Ask my brother or my mother to go see if Tara 's okay? That'd just be weird. She'd think I was stalking her or something.'

'Well.' Nolan tipped up his beer again. 'Here's the deal. I'm flying back to San Fran tomorrow. You give me that letter, I'll go put the damn thing right in her hand, ask her if she's read the other ones. Find out the story. Be back here in two weeks.'

'You're going home. What for?'

He waved away the question. 'Just some logistics stupidity for Jack. Office problems. Show a presence and make sure the staff is on board with the big picture. We get either one of these new contracts, we're going to need a new building back at home.' He shrugged. 'Business stuff. But the point is I'll have plenty of time to drive down to Redwood City. Suss out what's going on with your babe.'

'Ex-babe.'

'Whatever.' He reached out and turned the envelope around, looked down, and read, 'Tara Wheatley. Cute name anyway.'

'Cute girl,' Evan said.

'I believe you.'

'You really wouldn't mind going down and giving her the envelope?'

Nolan spread his hands expansively. 'Hey! Dude. Please. Forget about it. It's done.'

4

Ron Nolan sat on the top step of the shaded outdoor stairway that led to the second landing at the Edgewood Apartments in Redwood City, California. The shade came courtesy of a brace of giant magnolia trees that stood sentinel over the entrance to the apartment complex.

An hour ago, at about five o'clock, he'd climbed the steps and rung the doorbell at 2C, but no one had answered. He could have called first and made an appointment-Tara Wheatley was listed in the phone book-but he thought it would be better if he just showed up and delivered the letter in person. He didn't want to give her the option of saying she wouldn't see him, didn't care if she ever got another letter from Evan. That would have complicated the whole thing. It was better to simply show up and complete the mission.

He wasn't in any hurry. He'd give it an hour or two and if she didn't come home in that time, he'd come back either later tonight or tomorrow. Evan had told him that this time of the summer, she was probably spending most days in her classroom, preparing it for the start of the school year. Tara taught sixth grade at St. Charles, a Catholic school in the next town. Evan assumed that she wasn't dating anybody else, at least not yet, so he was reasonably sure she'd be around by dinnertime most nights, if everything was still okay with her-if she wasn't hurt or sick, or dead.

So Nolan waited, comfortable on the hard stone step. The weather was really ideal, an afternoon floral scent from the gardenia hedge overlying the auto exhaust from the busy street, the fresh-cut-grass smell from the lawn below him, a faint whiff of chlorine from the complex's pool, a corner of which was visible off to his left. If he closed his eyes, Nolan could almost fool himself that he was back for a moment in high school. People were laughing and splashing down at the pool, and the disembodied sounds combined with the softness of the air to lull him after a while, carrying him away from what had become his real world of dust and duty, danger and death.

Like the trained animal he was, he came back to immediate full consciousness as a new vibration from the steps registered with his psyche. He looked down and saw a woman in a simple two-piece blue bathing suit stopped now on the third step, turned away from him, exchanging some banter with other friends who'd obviously just left the pool too. From the shade of her wet hair, he imagined it would be blond when it dried. A thick fall of it hung down her back to a little below the halter strap. She'd hooked a finger through her beach towel and thrown it carelessly over one shoulder. Nolan's eyes swept over the length of her body and he saw nothing about it he didn't like. Her skin was the color of honey.

He shifted on his step to get a better look just as she turned and glanced up at him. Catching him in the act, she shot him a brief complicitous smile that was neither embarrassed nor inviting, then quickly went back to the good-bye to her friends. One of them left her with some parting remark that Nolan didn't quite hear, but her spike of carefree laughter carried up to him. He hadn't heard a sound like that in a while.

Then she was coming up the stairs toward him.

Nolan stood up. He was wearing black shoes, pressed khakis, and a tucked-in camo shirt. He was holding Evan's letter in his hand. Suddenly she stopped halfway up, all trace of humor suddenly washed from her face. As tears welled in her eyes, she brought her hand up to her mouth. 'Oh, my God,' she said. 'It's not Evan, is it? Tell me it's not Evan.'

Realizing what she must be thinking-that he was the Army's messenger sent to inform her of Evan's death in