come by the restaurant sometime.'
'I will,' I said. And then, in case she hadn't heard me, 'I will.'
I jogged home in a daze. At the side gate, I slipped off my shoes. Moving stealthily alongside the house, I checked my watch-2:18. My breath caught when I turned the corner.
The back door was open.
A rustling issued from inside. I was running, full of dread. I stumbled over the step but kept my feet and saw a dark form in the middle of the living room. I hit the light switch, and there Frank was, at the end of a short, bloody trail he'd scraped along the floorboards, propped against his armchair. Both hands pressed to the dark, glittering hole in his gut. He was trying to talk, but there was blood at his mouth and his features were jerking around and I could see steam rising from between his fingers. The Glock was a few feet to his right, an ejected casing beside it.
The kitchen door leading to the garage was open, fresh air sucking through the rectangle of darkness past my face and out the open door at my back. Fear sent me into a scramble for the gun before I remembered I'd never shot before. I was crying and pleading and apologizing, trying to place the gun in Frank's hand so he could protect us, but he could no longer grip. Then I heard the garage's side door bang open, clapping against the outside wall I'd crept along moments before.
Frank raised his hand, pointing limply to the circular key I'd left protruding from the alarm pad in the kitchen, and his lips wavered some more, and he choked out the word. 'W…? W-why?'
His other hand went loose over the wound, and the blood streamed out, dark, so dark. The next thing I knew, I was cradling him, my hands over the entry wound. I was sobbing so hard that his face was a smear, but I could see he was looking up at me with shock and bewilderment, and one of his feet was ticking back and forth, and then he wasn't looking at anything anymore.
Chapter 6
My head swam with nightmare images dredged from a thick slumber. I grasped for my timeworn mantra: You 're not seventeen anymore. You 're safe now.
My memory clicked, and my eyes flew open.
The nurse's face resolved from the bleached white of the room. Blond, pinched waist, clipboard-the whole nine. I was naked, it seemed, under a papery hospital gown.
'The agents told me what you did,' the nurse said, 'and I just want to thank you.'
I squinted into the sudden bright. 'How did I get…?'
'Do you know your name?'
'Nick Horrigan.'
'What month is it?'
'September.'
'Who's the president of the United States?'
'Andrew Bilton.' Unfortunately.
'Do you remember what happened to you?'
A rush of images. The bullet-riddled Jeep. The aqua glow of the pool. The bundles of spent-fuel rods under the glassy surface.
'Guy named Charlie. There was an explosion.'
'You sustained no serious injuries, except some bruising and the small wound in your right cheek. Don't be surprised if you have some tenderness for a few days, maybe a whiplash that rears its head in a week or two.'
The digital clock said 9:18 A.M. My brain was still playing catch-up, but I had a vague recollection of an interview I was supposed to be at in twelve minutes. I had graver concerns now. My fingers rose to my cheek, found a bandage and some tape.
She said, 'I wouldn't take that-'
But I'd already peeled it back. I sat up, my stomach muscles burning. The skin on my face and chest felt raw, as if sunburned. The floor was cool beneath my bare feet.
The nurse said, 'I think you should take your time getting-'
I trudged across the room to the mirror, my ass hanging out the hospital gown's gap, and looked at my face. A hole in my cheek, the size of a pea, with surprisingly little blood. The skin dimpled in around it. 'Shrapnel?'
'You could call it that,' the nurse said. 'It's actually a bone fragment.'
My eyes ticked right, picking up her reflection in the mirror. 'Not mine?'
'No.'
I swallowed hard.
'It's embedded in your cheekbone and it won't do any damage, so rather than have you undergo an invasive procedure, the doctor figured she'd let it be.'
A little piece of Charlie Terrorist permanently lodged in my skull. My head throbbed a few times, hangover style, and I shuffled back and slid into bed. I took a few deep breaths. 'Where's my stuff?'
'You mean your clothes?' The nurse pulled a plastic tub from under the bed and set it beside me on the sheets. My Pac-Man shirt had been sliced off my body by the paramedics. It was torn beyond that, too, the ripped fringes charred from the explosion. The heap of pajama pants was in similar condition. The Pumas sat neatly under the rags.
'The doctor'11 be in soon on rounds to take a look at you and probably discharge you.' She offered her hand, which I shook. 'A pleasure meeting you, Nick.'
She left me alone in the private room. I was high up, maybe the fifth floor, my window overlooking Beverly Boulevard. Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Circling the room, I tried to slow my panicked thoughts.
I picked up the nightstand phone and called my place to see if anyone had left a message. After two rings someone picked up.
'Hello?' I said.
Silence. Not even breathing, but I could hear enough background noise coming over the line to know that it wasn't just a dropped call.
'Who is this?' I asked.
The connection went dead. I called back, got my voice-mail recording, and punched in my code. No messages. Had I misdialed the first time?
Your life is now on the line.
I shook off a shiver. Everyone lives with a shadow, whether it's a lump under the skin or an abusive ex- husband or an addiction that comes knocking when it's hungry. For seventeen years I'd done everything to forget what was hanging over my head. I'd tried my best to rebuild my life. Bad weekend volleyball at Santa Monica Beach. Happy hour at El Torito with 'the gang' from work. The occasional date. It had been quiet for so long that I told myself I might be out of the woods. The past few years, I'd even relaxed into believing, Yes, I can have this. But no matter how hard I pretended, deep down I knew that it couldn't be true. And now, finally, the spooks had come out of their holes.
I grabbed my left sneaker from the tub and shook it-the rattle was still there. Charlie's key. I pinched my eyes, rubbing hard. Kanji script appeared in the darkness behind my lids- Charlie's TRUST NO ONE tattoo. Okinawa. War buddies. I recalled his rasping words: I trusted Frank. I trusted him with my life.
I found a remote on the nightstand, clicked on the overhead TV. The morning news showed helicopter clips of the car chase down the 405, but only stock footage of San Onofre; the airspace over the nuclear power plant must've been cleared last night. Standing on the Culver City street where the shoot-out had taken place, the reporter didn't mention my name or Charlie's, merely claiming that a high-speed pursuit had ended in a standoff at San Onofre and that the terrorist had been killed. A whirl through other channels revealed similar footage and vagueness.
MSNBC, however, was running highlights from the presidential debate. Not surprisingly, they were largely of Senator Caruthers. Caruthers had made changes since the days Frank helped protect him. The move to Capitol Hill was the most obvious, but there were subtle refinements, too. He wore his razor-sharp suit more casually, the soft
