would kill him. He had murdered six children and she knew that prisoners hated child abusers and child killers. She shrugged. 'I was just along for the ride, Douglas. It was my boss, Dillon Savich, who had already figured out who the guy was even before we went. It was amazing the way Savich handled everything-all low-key, not really saying anything to anybody. He wanted the local cops to buy in to everything he'd done, then give them the credit. He says it's the best P.R. for the unit. Actually, I'm surprised my name was even mentioned.'
She smiled, remembering that the very next day Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland came around to congratulate everyone. It had been quite a party. 'Savich told me that I had arrived just in time for the victory dance. Everyone else had done all the hard work. His main person on the case was with his wife in the hospital, having a baby, the wife, that is. And so I went in his place. Savich was right. I didn't do a thing, just watched, listened. I've never seen so many happy people.'
'It was a Captain Brady of the Chicago police who thanked the FBI on TV, for all their valuable assistance. He mentioned both your names.'
'Oh dear, I bet Savich wasn't very happy about that. I had the impression that he'd asked Captain Brady not to say anything. Oh well, it's still very good press for the FBI. Now everyone knows about his unit.'
'Why the hell shouldn't the two of you get the credit? He caught a serial killer, for God's sake.'
'You don't understand. The FBI is a group, not an individual. Loyalty is to the Bureau, not any single person.'
'You're already brainwashed. Well, here's to you, Lacey. I hope this works out the way you want it to.'
Douglas raised his glass and lightly clicked it against hers. She merely nodded, then took a sip. It was delicious. 'Thank you for bringing the champagne.'
'You're welcome.'
'His wife had the baby at about midnight.'
'Whose wife? Oh, the agent who'd done all the work.'
'Yeah, I thought he'd cry that he'd missed it, but he was a good sport about it. Why are you here, Douglas? I only called my father yesterday with my new address.'
He poured himself some more champagne, sipped it, then said with a shrug and a smile, 'It was good timing. I had to come to Washington to see a client and decided to put you up front on my itinerary.' He moved into the living room. 'I like your living room. It'll have lots of afternoon sunlight. It's good sized. Why don't you have any furniture?'
'It wasn't worth it to have all my old stuff trucked across the country. I'll get some new stuff.'
They were standing facing each other in the empty living room. Douglas Madigan downed the rest of his champagne and set his empty glass on the oak floor. He straightened, took her glass, and set it next to his. 'Lacey,' he said, taking her upper arms in his hands, 'I've missed you. I wish you had come home for a visit, but you didn't. You didn't write me or call. You left a hole in my life. You're beautiful, you know that? I'll bet all the guys are always telling you that, or just staring at you, even with your hair all frizzy around your face, even with those baggy jeans you're wearing and that ridiculous sweatshirt. What does it say across the back? Dizzy Dan's Pizza? What the hell is that all about?'
'Nothing, Douglas, just a local place. And no one seems to have noticed my soul-crushing beauty at all. But you're kind to say so.' Actually, she'd gone out of her way at the Academy and now at Headquarters to dress very conservatively, even severely. As for her hair, she'd always worn it pulled back and clipped at the base of her neck. But this was Saturday. She was in jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair loose around her face. Since it wasn't raining and there was next to no humidity, Douglas obviously didn't know what frizzy was.
'You're looking good, Douglas. But you never change. Maybe you just get better.' It was true. He was six feet tall, had a lean runner's body and a thin face with soulful brown eyes. Women loved him, always had. Even her mother had never said a word against Douglas. He charmed easily. He dominated just as easily.
'Thank you.' He touched her hair, then sifted it through his fingers. 'Beautiful. It's auburn, but not really. Perhaps more Titian, but there's some blond in there too and some brown. Ah, you know I didn't want you doing this silly FBI thing. Why? Why did you leave me and do this?'
Leave him? She said in her low, calm voice, the one she'd practiced and practiced at the Academy when she took courses in interviewing, 'I always wanted to be in law enforcement, you know that. The FBI is the best, the very best. It's the heart of the whole system.'
'The heart? I doubt it. As to your always wanting to be in law enforcement, I don't remember that. You started out as a music major. You play the piano beautifully. You were playing Beethoven sonatas since you were eleven years old. You wanted to go to Julliard. I remember you dropped out of the Fletcher competition. I always believed you weren't quite of this world. You seemed to live for your music. Of course we all changed after Belinda. It's been a very long time now. Seven long years. Your father didn't appreciate your talent, didn't understand it since he didn't have any at all, but everyone else did. Everyone was worried about you when you sold your Steinway years ago, when you stopped even playing at parties. Hell, you even stopped going to parties.'
'That was a long time ago, Douglas. Dad isn't particularly disappointed in me now. He hoped I'd finally do something worthwhile. He hoped this was my first step to growing up. He only acted cold to me because I hadn't asked him to help me get in. He was dying to use his pull, and I didn't let him.' Actually, she had blackmailed him. When the FBI agents interviewed him after she'd applied, he'd not said much of anything about Belinda or how Lacey had changed. She'd told him straight out that she'd never speak to him again if he did. He'd evidently glossed over everything, and very smoothly. She'd gotten into the FBI, after all.
She still missed her piano, but that missing was buried deep down, so deep she scarcely ever thought of it now. 'Yes, I did sell it. It just didn't seem important anymore.' A piano was nothing compared to what Belinda had lost. Still, though, she would still find herself playing a song on the arm of a chair, playing along with the music in a movie or on the car radio. She could remember when she was nineteen playing on the arm of a young man she was dating.
Douglas said, 'I don't remember much from that time, to tell you the truth. It's blurred now, distant, and I'm grateful for it.'
'Yes,' she said. But she remembered; she had lived it and held it deep and raw inside her since that awful night. He moved closer to her and she knew he would kiss her. She wasn't sure she wanted him to. Douglas had always fascinated her. Seven years. A long time. But still it didn't seem quite right.
He did kiss her, just a light kiss, a touch of his mouth to hers, a brief remembrance, a coming back. His mouth was firm and dry. The kiss was so brief, she didn't get the taste of him, just a whisper of the tart champagne. He immediately dropped his hands and stepped back.
'I've missed you. I had to listen to your father yell and curse that you'd lost it and gone off the deep end when you told him you were changing your major to Forensic Science. 'Fingerprinting, for God's sake,' he told me. 'She'll be wasting herself lifting some goon's damned fingerprints from a dead body!' '
'You know there's lots more to it than that. There are a good dozen specialties in forensics.'
'Yes, I know. He wanted you to go to law school, of course. He still thought there was hope after you finished your Master's degree in criminal psychology. He said it would be helpful in nailing scum. Your dad, the judge, is always forgetting that I'm a defense attorney.'
'I just changed my mind, that's all.'
'That's what I told the FBI guy who came doing a background check on you. I figured if you wanted to go into the FBI, then I wasn't going to stand in your way.'
What did Douglas mean by that? That he could have told the FBI that she was unstable, that she'd gone around the bend seven years ago? Yes, he could have said that. She wondered if anyone had told the FBI that? No, if they had, then she wouldn't have been accepted, would she?
'I know my father was positive when the agents came to interview him.'
'Yes, he told me you'd given him no choice. I said good for you, it was your life and he should keep his mouth shut if he ever wanted to see you again. He was pissed at me for a good month.'
'Thank you for standing up for me, Douglas.' She had assumed at the time that the people doing the check on her background just hadn't considered it all that important. But they had, evidently, and they'd asked questions. 'I had no idea, but I am grateful. No one dredged up anything about that time. Do you know that you haven't changed? You really are looking good.' He was thirty-eight now. There were just a few white strands woven into his black hair. He was very probably more handsome now than he had been seven years ago. She remembered that Belinda had loved him more than anything. Anything. Lacey felt the familiar hollowing pain and quickly picked up the
