Later that afternoon, my doctor came in and told me there was nothing wrong with my system that a good glass of wine or two wouldn’t cure.
“There are even some people here who want to take you home,” he said.
Outside my room, I saw Claire and Cindy peeking in.
They took me home about long enough to shower, change, and give Martha a long-overdue hug. Then I had to go down to the Hall. Everyone seemed to want a piece of me. I made a date to see the girls later at Susie’s. It was important that we get together now.
I did the news spots on the steps of the Hall. Tom Brokaw was patched through and interviewed me on a video link.
As I recounted the story of how we had found Danko and Hardaway, I felt a tremor snaking through me, distancing me even as I spoke. Jill was dead; Molinari was gone; I didn’t feel much like a hero. The phone was going to ring, some other homicide called in, and life would slam back the way it always did. But this time I knew nothing was ever going to be the same.
It was about four-thirty when the girls came to get me. I was doing reports. Although Jacobi and Cappy were bragging they had the best LT on the force, I’d actually felt depressed. Lonely and empty. Until the girls showed up, anyway.
“Hey,” Cindy said, twirling a little Mexican cocktail flag in my face, “margaritas await.”
They took me to Susie’s, the last place we had been with Jill. Actually, two years before, it was where we had welcomed her into our budding group. We took our places in our corner booth and ordered a round of margaritas. I ran them through the terrifying struggle at the Palace the night before, the president’s call, then today, Brokaw and the evening news.
It was sad, though, just the three of us. The conspicuous empty space next to Claire.
Our drinks came. “On the house, of course,” the waitress, Joanie, said.
We raised our glasses, each of us trying to smile, but fighting back tears. “Here’s to our girl,” Claire said. “Maybe now she can start to rest in peace.”
“She’ll never rest in peace,” Cindy said, laughing through tears. “Out of character.”
“I’m sure she’s up there now,” I said, “sizing up the pecking order, looking down at us. ‘Hey, guys, I got it all figured out.…’ ”
“Then she’s smiling,” Claire said.
“To Jill,” we all said. We clinked glasses. It was hard to think that this was the way it was going to be from now on. I missed her so much, and never more than that moment at our table, without her.
“So,” Claire said, clearing her throat, her gaze landing on me. “What happens now?”
“We’re gonna order some ribs,” I said, “and I’m gonna have another one of these. Maybe more than one.”
“I think she was actually saying, what’s with you and Deputy Dawg.” Cindy winked.
“He’s heading back to Washington,” I said. “Tonight.”
“For good?” Claire asked, surprised.
“That’s where the listening devices and sleek black helicopters are.” I stirred my drink. “Bell helicopter, I believe.”
“Oh.” Claire nodded. She glanced toward Cindy. “You like this guy, don’t you, Lindsay?”
“I like him,” I said. I flagged Joanie, ordered another round of drinks.
“I don’t mean like him, honey. I mean you really like him.”
“Whad’ya want me to do, Claire? Break out in a chorus of ‘Don’t he make my brown eyes blue’?”
“No,” Claire said, glancing at Cindy, then back to me, “what we want you to do, Lindsay, is put aside whatever it is that’s getting in the way of you doing the right thing for yourself, before you let that guy get on his plane.”
I arched my back against the booth. I swallowed uneasily. “It’s Jill.…”
“Jill?”
I took a breath, a sharp rush of tears biting at my eyes. “I wasn’t there for her, Claire. The night she threw Steve out.”
“What’re you talking about?” Claire said. “You were up in Portland.”
“I was with Molinari,” I said. “When I got back it was after one. Jill sounded mixed up. I said I’d come over, but I didn’t press it. You know why? Because I was all dreamy-eyed over Joe. She had just thrown Steve out.”
“She said she was okay,” Cindy said. “You told us.”
“And that was Jill, right? You ever heard her ask for help? Bottom line, I wasn’t there for her. And whether it’s right or wrong, I can’t look at Joe now without seeing her, hearing her needing me, thinking if I had, maybe she’d still be here.”
Neither of them said anything. Not a word. I sat there, my jaw tight, pressing back tears.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Claire said, her fingers creeping across the table and taking a hold of my hand. “I think you’re way too smart, honey, to really think that your enjoying yourself for once in your life made any difference in what happened to Jill. You know she’d be the first one who’d want you to be happy, too.”
“I know that, Claire.” I nodded. “I just can’t put it away…”
“Well, you better put it away,” Claire said, squeezing my hand, “’cause all it is, is you just trying to hurt yourself. Everyone’s entitled to be happy, Lindsay. Even you.”
I dabbed at a tear with the cocktail napkin. “I already heard that once today,” I said, and couldn’t hold back a smile.
“Yeah, well, here’s to Lindsay Boxer,” Claire announced, and raised her glass. “And here’s to hoping that for once in her life she hears it loud and clear.”
A shout interrupted us from the bar area. Everyone was pointing to the TV. Instead of some dumb ball game, there was my face on the screen. Tom Brokaw was asking me questions. Whistles and cheering broke out.
There I was on the evening news.
Chapter 110
Joe Molinari took a sip of the vodka the flight attendant had brought him, then eased back in his seat aboard the government jet. With any luck he’d sleep all the way to Washington. He hoped so. No, he’d sleep for sure, soundly. For the first time in days.
He’d be fresh to make a report in front of the director of homeland security in the morning. This one was put to bed, he could definitively say. Eldridge Neal would heal. There were reports to write. There might be a congressional subcommittee to go before. There was an anger out there they’d have to keep an eye on. This time the terror hadn’t come from abroad.
Molinari leaned back in the plush seat. The scope of the whole remarkable chain of events was becoming clear in his eyes. From the moment that Sunday he was informed of the bombing in San Francisco to taking out Danko as he wrestled with Lindsay Boxer at the G-8 reception last night. He knew what to write: the names and details, the sequence of events, the outcome. He knew how to explain everything, he thought. Except one thing.
Her. Molinari shut his eyes and felt incredibly melancholy.
How to explain the electricity shooting through him every time their arms brushed. Or the feeling he got when he looked into Lindsay’s deep green eyes. She was so hard and tough—and so gentle and vulnerable. A lot like him. And she was funny, too, when she wanted to be anyway, which was often.
He wished he could do the big romantic thing, like in the movies, whisk her on a plane and take her somewhere. Call in to the office: That subcommittee meeting will have to wait, sir. Molinari felt a smile creep over his face.
“Takeoff should be in about five, sir,” the flight attendant informed him.
“Thank you,” he said, nodding. Try to relax. Chill. Sleep. He willed himself, thought of home. He’d been
