champagne bottle. She poured each of them another glass.
'You've changed. You're a woman now, Lacey. You're no longer a silent kid. You still have a dozen locks on your door, but hey, this is D.C. I'd probably have a submachine gun sitting next to the front door. What does the FBI use?''
'A Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun. It's powerful and reliable.'
'I have trouble imagining you even near something like that, much less holding it and firing it. Ah, that sounded sexist, didn't it? You spoke of change. As for me, perhaps I haven't changed all that much on the outside, but well, life changes one, regardless, doesn't it?'
'Oh yes.' She was the perfect example of what life could do to a person.
'You're on the thin side. Did they work you that hard at the Academy?'
'Yes, but it was a classmate of mine-MacDougal-who worked me the hardest. He swore he'd put some muscle on my skinny little arms.'
'Let me see.'
He was squeezing her upper arm. 'Flex.'
She did.
'Not bad.'
'My boss works out. Don't picture him as a muscle-bound, no-neck bodybuilder. He's very strong and muscular, but he's also into karate, and he's very good. I was on the receiving end of his technique once at the Academy. Just the other day I saw him eyeing me. I don't think he liked what he saw. I'll bet he'll have me in the gym by next Tuesday.'
'Boss? You mean this Savich character?'
'I suppose we're all characters in our own way. Savich is a genius with computers. One of his programs helped nail Russell Bent. He's the chief of the unit I'm in now. I was very lucky that he asked for me. Otherwise I would have ended up in L.A. chasing bank robbers.'
'So may I take you out to lunch to celebrate your first case? How about we have lunch at one of the excellent restaurants you've got in this neighborhood?'
She nodded. 'How long will you be here, Douglas?'
'I'm not certain. Perhaps a week. Did you miss me, Lacey?'
'Yes. And I do miss Dad. How is his health?'
'You write him every week, and I know for a fact that he writes you back every week. He told me that you don't like the telephone. So he has to write letters. So you know he's just fine.'
Of course Douglas knew very well why she hated phones. That was how she'd been told about Belinda. 'Soon I'll probably be into e-mail full-time. My boss is really big on e-mail, and so is everyone else in the unit. It's weird, you don't hear all that many phones ringing.'
'I'll write my e-mail address down for you before I leave. Let's go eat, Lacey.'
'You look like a prince and I look like a peasant. Let me change. It'll take me just a minute. Oh yeah, everybody calls me Sherlock.'
'I don't like that, I never did. And everybody has to make a stupid remark when they meet you. It doesn't suit you. It's very masculine. Is that what the FBI is all about? Turning you into a man?'
'I hope not. If they did try, I'd flunk the muscle mass tests.'
Actually, she thought, as she changed into a dress in her bedroom, she liked being called Sherlock, just Sherlock. It just moved her one step further from the woman she had been seven years ago.
It was at lunch that he told her about this woman who claimed he'd gotten her pregnant.
8
SAVICH STOPPED BY HER DESK Monday morning and said, 'Ollie just told me that you still didn't have any stuff for your apartment. I thought you were going to take care of it this weekend. What happened?'
She looked over at Ollie Hamish and cocked her elbow at him, tapping it with her other hand. He waved back at her, shrugging.
Why should Savich care if she slept in a tent? 'A friend from California came into town. I didn't have a chance.'
'Okay, take off today and shop yourself to death.' Then he frowned. 'You don't know where to shop, do you? Listen, I'll call a friend of mine. She knows where to find anything you could possibly invent. Her name's Sally Quinlan.'
Lacey had heard all about James Quinlan, presumably this woman's husband. She'd heard about some of his cases, but none of the real details. Maybe when she met Sally Quinlan, she'd find out all the good stuff.
It turned out that Sally Quinlan wasn't free until the following Saturday. They made a date. Lacey spent the day learning about PAP, the Predictive Analogue Program, and all the procedures in the unit.
That Monday evening, Lacey found two lovely, but small, prints at Bentrells in Georgetown, which would probably look insignificant against that long expanse of white wall in her living room. She bought some clothes at another Georgetown boutique. When she got back to her apartment, there was Douglas waiting for her. He'd been busy Sunday, hadn't even had time to phone her. She said, 'I'm starving. Let's go eat.'
He nodded and took her to Antonio's, a northern Italian restaurant that wasn't trendy. Over a glass of wine and medallions of veal, he said, 'I guess you want to know about this woman, huh?'
'Yeah, you dropped that bomb and then took off.' She fingered a bread stick. 'If you don't want to tell me, Douglas, that's all right.'
'No, you should know. Her name is Candice Addams. She's about your age, so beautiful that men stop in midstride to stare at her, smarter than just about anyone I know.' He sighed and pushed away his plate. 'She claims I got her pregnant and I suppose that I could have, but I've always been so careful. Living in San Francisco, you're probably the most careful of any American.'
'Do you want to marry her?' Odd how it hurt to say the words, but they had to be said. Although she didn't know what she wanted from Douglas, she did realize that she valued him, that he attracted her, that he amused her, that he stood up for her, at least most of the time. And he'd been there for her through it all. She'd been closer to him during those awful months than to her father. Of course no one was really close to her mother. That was impossible.
'No, of course not. She's a local TV reporter. I can't imagine that she wants to have a baby now.'
She felt suddenly impatient with him. 'Haven't you spoken about all this with her? Does she want to have the baby? An abortion? Does she want to get married? What, Douglas?'
'Yeah, she says she wants to marry me.'
'You said she's smart and beautiful. You said you always wanted to have kids. So marry her.'
'Yeah, I guess maybe I'll have to. I wanted to tell you about it in person, Lacey. I don't want to marry her, I'm not lying about that. I'd hoped that someday you and I could, well, that would probably never have happened, would it?'
'I don't know,' she said finally, setting down her fork. The medallions of veal looked about as appetizing as buffalo chips. 'There's been so much, Douglas, too much. I'm very grateful to you, you know that. I wish I could say that I wanted to be with you-'
'Yeah, I know.'
'What will you do?'
'I'd turn her down flat if you'd have me, Lacey.'
She wondered in that moment just what he'd do if she said yes. She'd thought several times in the last few years that she was a habit to him, someone he was fond of, someone he would protect, but not as a woman, not as a wife. No, she was Belinda's little sister and she probably always would be in his mind. She dredged up a smile for him. 'I hope she hasn't given you an ultimatum.'
'Oh no, Candice is far too intelligent to do that. I'm hooked, but she isn't pulling at all on the line.'
It was his life. He had to forget and move on. It had been seven years. And as for her, well, she would move on as well, toward the goal she'd always had, toward the goal she would pursue until the monster was caught and dead, or she was.
She'd heard that Russell Bent had gotten himself a hotshot lawyer who was claiming police brutality and coercion. The press was speculating that the lawyer might get him off. She wouldn't let that happen to him. Never.
