Betrayal

'Most of you died anyway. How about that?'

'Not my fault. The point is that if I fired too soon, and I'm not saying I did, it was on the side of caution.'

'Ron. You killed an entire innocent family! Doesn't that bother you at all?'

'It bothers me a lot, T. It makes me sick to think about it. But I can't say, given the circumstances, that I wouldn't do the same thing again. It was a split-second, life-or-death decision, and I decided I had to try to save my men.'

'That's not what Evan says, Ron. And he was there too.'

'I guess he doesn't mention the part about me pulling him out of the line of fire and getting him out of there alive.'

'So now you're the hero?'

'I'm not saying that. I'm saying Evan's memory maybe isn't the most reliable thing in the universe right now. I'm also saying that he's got a reason to make me look bad.'

'He didn't make you lie.'

'How many times do I have to apologize for that? However many it takes, I'll do it.'

'And what about the other lies?'

'What other lies? There were no other lies.'

'How about me ripping up that last letter that you delivered to me?'

'You didn't rip it up.'

'Right. But you told Evan I did.'

'No, I didn't. Did he tell you that?'

'Yes.'

'Then he's lying.'

'I don't believe that, Ron. And what about when you visited him at Walter Reed, when you told him I said he'd made his own bed and he could sleep in it?'

Nolan looked down and shook his head.

'What?' she asked him.

'That's not true, either, T. Why would I say that? I went to see him to see how he was doing, if he was going to be all right. That's all. He's the one who didn't want to hear anything about you.'

'That's not what he told me.'

'No, I guess not. And why, do you think, would that be?'

Through the crack in the opening, he saw her close her eyes, lean her head up against the wall next to the door. He was wearing her down, getting to her. 'Do you want to hear something else?' he asked. 'Something truly scary, especially if you think your friend Evan is so innocent and so nice. You want to hear what he left in my house after he broke into it last weekend?

After Tara watched Nolan finally drive away, she went into her living room, sat down, and put her feet up on the coffee table. Templing her fingers over her lips, she closed her eyes and tried to get herself to breathe deeply. A whirlwind of conflicting possibilities and emotions was literally causing her body to shake.

Ron Nolan had maintained a sustained falsehood, but did that mean that every word out of his mouth was a lie? She hadn't expected him to show up here, or to own up to the lies upon which he'd based their relationship. Perhaps the truth was that he loved her and had made a mistake. A terrible mistake, yes, and one he sincerely regretted.

Just like killing the Iraqi family.

What was the truth in that story? Had he been justified shooting when he did? And in fact, had he pulled Evan to safety and saved his life? They'd been outnumbered and surrounded. If there had been a bomb in the car, none of them would have survived. Might she have made the same decision to fire under the same circumstances?

It struck her forcefully that maybe it was she who was being unfair. Ron Nolan had always treated her well, better than well. He'd literally saved her life that time in San Francisco. And surely his appearance today to beg her forgiveness-even while admitting he'd done the unforgivable-spoke to a depth of character she'd never given him credit for.

People grew, people changed, people learned from their mistakes. And if what Ron had told her about Evan were true? He might himself be in danger.

No. She could not believe that. That was more of Ron's poison, trying to get inside her.

After seeing Evan in her classroom, and then the intimacy last night, she knew what she felt-not just the still-powerful physical bond, but a connection that went down to the bottom of her soul. It was irrational, chemical, fundamental, and she knew that she would never feel it with anyone else.

But now, according to Ron, Evan had lied to her too. A known liar accusing another of lying. It was like game theory, where 'A' always told the truth, and 'B' always lied, but you didn't know which was the truth-teller and which the liar. Who did you believe?

Could Evan have made up the story about Ron saying she'd ripped up his letter? Or the Walter Reed moment? Evan admitted that his memory had been faulty, especially early on. Could he have lied to her and not even known he was lying? Finally, could Evan have broken into Ron's house and tried to frame him for a murder? A murder that he himself had committed?

Tara could not believe any part of that. She knew who Evan was. Even after all this time and all of their problems, she knew his heart.

He was not a liar. He was not a murderer.

And this meant that Ron Nolan was lying to her again. And lying to the FBI. And possibly to the local police.

Liars deal in lies.

Suddenly she opened her eyes and sat up.

She needed to get to Evan. She needed to warn him.

17

Though it wasn't really a hangout for cops, the Old Town Traven wasn't far from the police station downtown, and it served a decent-tasting though nutritionally suspect happy-hour spread of chicken wings, peanuts in the shell, tiny meatballs in gravy, and popcorn. Even though happy hour had officially ended more than two hours before, there was still plenty of food available. The Traven didn't exactly pack 'em in, and now Evan, who'd changed out of his uniform at the station, and his bowling partner Stan Paganini, also in street clothes, held down one end of the bar all by themselves.

Between his low-watt nervousness over the envelope he'd mailed to the FBI and his need to keep himself occupied so that he wouldn't do something stupid and try to get in touch with Tara until she'd dumped Nolan, if she actually was going to dump him after all, Evan felt that a drink or ten wouldn't be amiss. Pass the difficult night in a haze and see what tomorrow brings.

Now it was half past nine and he and Paganini were on to the name of the place. Due either to the marginal intelligence of its owners, a drunken mistake, a simple typo, or all of the above, the neon sign above the door read 'Old Town Traven.' The place's business cards also had tavern spelled incorrectly, so Evan decided it was probably that the proprietors just weren't too bright and certainly had not been the San Mateo County Spelling Bee champions, as he had been when he'd been in eighth grade.

'No, you weren't.' Paganini stabbed the last meatball on his plate with a toothpick and washed it down with a good swig of his gin and tonic.

'Was too. I won on hygiene, which is almost unfair, it's such an easy word.'

'Wait! Don't tell me.' Paganini took in a little more of his drink. 'H, Y,' he began.

'Good so far.'