coming up quite a bit, but he’d been unavailable for comment. That’s the way he would like it to stay, but the chief ordered all of them down to a press conference that would be held the next morning, no exceptions.
The two C.I.R.T. guys were out of surgery and remained in serious condition. Riley went back down to the hospital, and word was the doctors were optimistic they would make it. Damn Helen Anderson. She was getting hers on the news now, and she likely would be doing some time. Turns out she’d been dating Lindsay and feeding him information. She thought Lindsay would help her get to the Senate.
Mac flipped to the cable news networks. They were covering the story as well. PTA was a nationally known company, and Senator Johnson was a national figure. Those issues were being covered, debated and bloviated about on all the talk shows. Lyman Hisle had called Sally to thank her for the heads up. He was able to get with the board and Minnesota’s congressional delegation. PTA would take a hit, but the politicos thought they would be able to limit the damage and save most of the government contracts. There was nothing faulty about PTA’s products, just some of its leadership.
Mac had heard enough about the day and flipped over to Minnesota Sports Channel. The Wild were on, a good diversion.
He thought about his dad and wondered what he would have thought of the day’s events. Somehow, Mac knew the old man would be proud.
Sally finally came in, having changed into black cotton sweat pants and one of Mac’s Golden Gopher sweatshirts. She leaned in and kissed him lightly. Then carefully she sat to his right side so he could put his arm around her. She carefully cuddled up against his chest. They watched the game in silence.
“Sorry about our vacation,” Mac finally said, trying to lighten the mood a little. It didn’t work.
“I’m just glad you’re okay. I heard all that gunfire and…” her voice trailed off.
“It was pretty crazy.”
They sat for another few minutes, just watching the game.
“Were you scared?” she asked.
“At the time it was all happening, no. It happened so fast, the shots, the chase, everything. I wasn’t thinking. I was just reacting. I don’t think I was really scared until it was all over, when I realized what I’d just gone through. Then it hit me.”
“I was in the chief’s office, and there were radio reports that you were chasing Alt, and he was shooting at everyone. Then when you went into the parking ramp and were out of sight for so long, nobody knew where you were but people could hear all this gunfire. It must have been ten minutes before someone got on the radio and said you were wounded but that you were okay. I was just so scared.”
“Is it going to scare you away from me?”
She sat up and looked him in the eye. “No. But you have to know that if we’re going to be together, I will worry about you. I’ll tell you that I worry about you. You’ll have to understand that I’ll feel that, every time you walk out the door, it might be the last time I see you. You’ll have to understand that that is what I’ll have to live with. So, there’s one thing you’ll have to get used to.”
“What’s that?”
“That every time you walk out the door now, I’m going to tell you that I love you.”
Mac smiled. “I can live with that.”
