Chapter Sixteen
Habit had Henry jumping out of bed and pulling on his pants at the first knock that sounded on his door.
“What’s wrong?” Betty asked.
He flipped the suspenders over his shoulders. “Someone’s at the door.”
“Wait!” She scrambled out of bed. “Let me put on my dressing robe.”
The knock sounded again as she slipped her arms into the oversize blue robe and tied the belt tight around her narrow waist.
She nodded and he unlocked the door. Opened it.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” Nate said. “May I come in, or can you come out here?”
“He can come in,” Betty said, taking a seat in one of the chairs.
Henry waved a hand and held the door wide as Nate entered the room. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I know,” Nate said. “I apologize, but I just got a phone call. LeRoy Black’s been shot.”
An icy wave washed over Henry. “Is he—”
“He’s going to make it, from what I was told,” Nate said. “But Curtis Elkin escaped.”
“Damn it,” Henry hissed beneath his breath. “I told them to—” He let that go and asked, “Where?”
“Rockville. Last stop before they would have arrived in DC.”
In the recesses of his mind, Henry heard Elkin’s laugh, and how he’d said that he had backup. “It’s Burrows family and the Tribbianis from New Jersey. Bootleggers. But they’ve extended their operations west. Elkin had been slipping them information for years, and was prepared to take over the operations out here. It’s all in my report.”
Nate nodded. “The report was with LeRoy. No one else has read it.”
Henry rubbed his head. “How bad is LeRoy?”
“I don’t have those details.”
LeRoy had been his supervisor for years, and he thought of the last time he’d seen him, how LeRoy had to get home to his wife. Wife. Henry looked at Betty. He was no longer an agent. There was nothing he could do to help. Not the Bureau or LeRoy.
“I know you resigned, Henry,” Nate said. “I know it’s your honeymoon—”
“No,” Henry said. “I can’t.” He balled his hand into a fist, having never imagined he’d ever feel this torn in two again. He was married, to Betty, whom he loved more than the FBI. He did. He just hated not being able to help a man who had saved his life more than once. Nate knew that. Knew the trials and perils LeRoy and he had been through together. “Even if I could,” Henry said. “I would take days to get there. The trail will be cold by then.”
“I can have a plane in the air in half an hour,” Nate said. “Fly you straight to DC.”
It was tempting; he was the only one who knew about the Tribiannis’ connection to Elkin, but no, he couldn’t. He looked at Betty again, so his mind would understand all that he had, and all that he couldn’t give up. His heart knew it.
“I understand,” Nate said, slapping him on the back. “I’ll keep you posted.”
Henry opened the door and held it for Nate to exit. “Please do. Anything, everything you hear. Let me know.”
“I will.”
He closed the door and frowned at the sight of Betty putting clothes in a suitcase. “What are you doing?”
“Has anyone ever escaped while you were transporting them?”
“No.” His jaw locked tight. He’d instructed the agents transporting Elkin and Burrows to expect the unexpected. To be alert, ready, the entire trip. “Never.”
“This LeRoy man, the one who was shot, he’s a friend of yours?”
The air left his lungs like a punctured tire at the idea of LeRoy in the hospital. “He was my supervisor, and yes, a friend.”
“Then you need to help him.” She closed the suitcase. “You need to capture Elkin.” She turned, faced him. “Again.”
It was his suitcase she’d packed. Closed. “No. I resigned.”
“Because of me.” She walked closer, cupped his face. “Which was the very thing I didn’t want you to do. I said all those mean things about your job, because I was afraid to tell you the truth.”
“The truth?”
“I was so in love with you. So in love with you, and I knew you weren’t ready for that. You didn’t want anyone to worry about you. To be waiting for you to come home.” She closed her eyes and a smile formed. Opening her eyes, she rubbed his cheek. “But that is who I fell in love with. That Robin Hood. And that’s who I want to be married to.”
He grasped her waist. “I did say those things, before I realized how much I love you. I love you more than I love the FBI. More than I loved being an agent.”
She kissed him. “I know you do. But that doesn’t mean you don’t love the FBI. That you wouldn’t love being an agent. It just means you love me more.”
It was tempting, so tempting, to accept what she offered. To complete just one more assignment. Catch Elkin again, and this time, deliver him to DC himself, but he couldn’t. “I can’t go, Betty. I won’t go. You need me here.”
“I do, and I’ll need you tomorrow, and next week, and next year, and twenty, thirty, fifty years from now. And I’ll be here, me and the baby, and all the other babies that we have together, each and every time you return home from an assignment, because that’s when you’ll need me. You said we’d make this work, and we will.” She smiled and shook her head. “The longer we stand here talking about it, the colder Elkin’s trail is growing.”
“You don’t understand. There’s no way of knowing how long catching Elkin could take. How long I’d have to be gone.” He was getting too close to saying yes, and change the direction of his thoughts, to why he couldn’t go. “We don’t even have a house. You can’t stay here at the hotel the entire time.”
“Looking for a house will give me something to do while you’re gone, and I can live at my parents’ house. All
