The more conversations Paul had with her, the more intriguing she became. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. Content for the most part just to be. Maybe that was the core of it. She wasn’t out wanting more than life was already giving her.
He considered finishing the ball game, then shut off the television. He’d call it a night. He found, not for the first time, that he was more relaxed after being in her company than anything else he did.
Two days later, Paul shifted in his office chair, reading through emails, sending replies, and trying to pretend impatience wasn’t crawling up his spine. His phone rang, he saw the caller ID, and grabbed for it. “Yes, Zane.”
“Four tapes marked High Profile have arrived by courier, along with a signed copy of the agreement.”
“We mail it, it never arrives, and yet she has it. You’ve got to admire her arrangements.”
“I’ve already talked to Rita. I’ll have them in her hands within the hour.”
“Thanks, Zane.”
Paul entered Suite 906 shortly after six o’clock the next morning. For the first time in his memory he had arrived before Margaret. He passed her desk and walked back to his boss’s office. “Good morning, Arthur.”
“Morning, Paul. Grab some coffee. I’ll get the director on a conference call, even if I have to bump him off another one.”
“Appreciate it, sir.” He poured himself a mug of coffee and took a seat across from Arthur’s desk. Paul had brought no notes, for he wasn’t going to forget the information Rita had given him. He needed the coffee since he’d been at the office until two a.m.
“Hello, Paul.” The director’s voice came clearly through the speakerphone.
“Director.” A year ago, Paul would have felt at least the edge of nerves at being on a conference call with the FBI’s director, but time had changed matters. He was relaxed and tired enough he was fighting to keep from yawning.
“I understand four tapes have arrived. She said they were high profile. Was she stretching that or are they as advertised?”
Paul gave a slight smile, appreciating both the question and the answer he had. “Rita’s good at her job. She had them matched in less than a day. One is a former governor, another a mob boss, and two are high-ranking officials in the State Department.”
Arthur stopped what he was about to say to look over.
“The mob boss is Daylor Globe,” Paul added.
“The two at State?” the director asked.
“William Fisher and Jack Chase.”
“I’ve met Fisher and heard of Chase. Those names alone would draw a press firestorm. She has—what, twenty tapes left?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Makes you wonder what else she has. Thanks for the update.”
“We’ll be in touch, Director.” Arthur ended the call. “Daylor Globe. He’s been so careful I thought I’d never see that name on an arrest warrant. When this began, I had hopes the tapes would be worth something to us, but I never imaged this. It’s going to be more than nice making these arrests.”
“Very. If she’s got tapes like this, we want them all.”
“Do whatever you have to, Paul, to clamp down on security for this case. We can’t afford word leaking out that the lady shooter has been in touch or that these tapes exist.”
“I’ve been thinking on it, Arthur. It was a month between the tapes and this last letter. If she stays with that pattern, this could take six months to a year before the thirty tapes are in our hands, before we can turn the corner to ramp up personnel and go make arrests. Security for that length of time is going to be a problem.
“No one involved is the type to say a careless word out of place, but the pattern of people coming and going is a concern. Sam, Rita, and I are spending time in the secure war room; the director and Tori Scott have been in town. You can put together something is happening by watching the people involved.
“I’m going to work on some way to divert attention from what’s going on. Vacation time thrown in the mix, a different case that we focus on, or something that involves the three of us that can serve as a cover. I need a way to push the tapes into the background if someone is curious about what we’re doing.”
“Agreed,” Arthur said. “Your primary task is to work the letters and tapes when they arrive, and create a smoke screen for the rest of the time. Success is getting to the day of arrests without news of this case getting out. You’ll figure it out. Let me know what I can do to help.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Paul was glad Ann was back home from Nevada. He enjoyed his evenings a lot more when she was part of them. She was now stretched out on her couch with a pad of paper, working longhand on a story. His relationship with her was unlike any he’d ever imagined. Her stillness was immense. And he found himself a bit jealous of an unknown cop in Nevada who had once dated her. He found that fact a bit disconcerting. Both the fact and his attitude.
Ann glanced up from her pad of paper. She smiled. “What? You’ve got that look that says I’m a puzzle to you again.”
“You are, but I like figuring out puzzles. I’m just thinking.”
“About?”
“You’re quiet, Ann. The more time I spend with you, the more I realize that.”
“I thought that was pretty obvious.”
“I’m curious. Are you as quiet inside your mind too? When you’re with friends you trust, do you have a lot you want to say? Or is your mind as still and quiet as you often are?”
“What a wonderful question.” She tilted her head, sat up, and set aside the pad of paper. “I’m pretty quiet. Even when I’m not tired, the real me is pretty quiet inside. With people I’m not shy, not timid, but I am quiet. I listen. I hear what’s being said. If it’s someone I trust, I’ll return confidences in kind. When someone risks with me, I’ll risk back. But I rarely initiate, even when it’s comfortable, safe surroundings and a group of friends. In tennis terms, I prefer to return rather than serve.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t like being in the spotlight, even when it’s with friends. I am most comfortable one-on-one, when the topics are going where someone else wants to direct them.”
She hesitated. “No, let me modify that. I am comfortable talking with God. I initiate conversations with Him all the time, on easy topics, hard topics, what’s going on, and with the emotions I want to express in full color. If you really want to know, the Ann inside speaks freely and often only to God.”
“You’re safe with God.”
“I am. So that’s where I thrive. It’s not that I hide with my friends. There are very few subjects, if any, I haven’t shared with at least one friend. I trust friends with my secrets. I talk about what matters to me all the time. But there are large chunks of who I am, of what I think about and talk about, that reside only between myself and God. I don’t think that will ever change.”
“How have you learned to trust God like that, Ann?”
She shrugged. “I’m God’s daughter. He’s possessive of me. I like that fact, that certainty, that God chose me and considers me His. So I give God me. When I have something to say, when I want to talk, He’s listening. When I need a friend, He’s there. When I need something, God’s got it covered. God and I are good together. We’ve got a relationship.”
“Would you ever let someone else know you like that? Well, at least in the neighborhood of like that?”
“I don’t know. I can show you glimpses of who I am, the inside Ann, but it’s not an easy request. Lovely knows me.”
“Lovely?”
Paul saw her visibly wince. She got quiet and busy, standing up and picking up her bowl and drinking glass. She looked shaken.
“Ann?”
She shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen.
Lovely knows me.
Who was Lovely? What had just happened?
He heard a phone ring. She came back in the room, on the phone. “It’s Kate,” she told him. “I�
��m going to be a few minutes.” She muted the conference call audio.
He watched her as the phone call with Kate went on and turned long. He hesitated, then picked up the phone himself. He called Vicky.
“Can I ask you a question about Ann, an important question, but one that might feel like you’re crossing a line?”
“Try me.”
“Has she ever mentioned Lovely to you? It’s a person’s name.”
“Last name, first name?”
“She just said Lovely.”
“I’m sorry, no. What’s going on, Paul?”
“She said something I don’t think she meant to say, and I just landed down one of those deep tunnels Dave mentioned. I’ll figure it out. Thanks for taking the question, Vicky.”
“Wish I could have been more helpful.”
Paul hung up the phone and watched Ann, her attention still focused on Kate’s call. He’d never seen that set of expressions on her face before, an almost raw grief.
He picked up the phone again and called Dave. “Is something serious going on? I’m watching Ann and Kate have a very long and very serious conversation.”
“An old case Kate and Ann worked together has resurfaced. Two murdered kids. The dad just got a new trial. The surviving sibling just hung herself with a suicide note saying they were going to let the monster out, and she didn’t want to be around when it happened.”
Paul closed his eyes. “I appreciate the info, Dave.”
Ann’s call with Kate lasted almost an hour. He saw her open the lockbox and withdraw her service weapon. She added a jacket over her shirt and then pushed a pad of paper in her back pocket. She turned the audio back on. “Sorry, Paul. I need to call it a night. I’m going for a long walk with Black.” Her voice was clear, her face shadowed by grief.
“Dave told me. I’m sorry, Ann.”
“It happens, way more often than I’d like, I’m afraid. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
Paul called Ann as soon as he was home. She answered the video with an absent-sounding, “Hold on, still typing.” She hit keys to save her work and looked his way. She smiled. “Hi.”
“Have you had dinner yet?”
“A late lunch. I got some writing done and hadn’t paused to think food.”
“Go find something and I’ll do the same. We’ll share dinner together.”
“Sure.”
He returned in just under thirty minutes and set a plate of spaghetti and meatballs on the desk, along with a side plate of toasted French bread. She was reading over what she had written that afternoon.
“What did you find?”
She tipped her bowl. “A carryout from Neva’s. She saved me some of her chili-mac casserole.”
“Looks good. Before I forget—I met my mother for lunch. She mentioned I should say hi. She remembers you from Boone and Vicky’s wedding. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t meet you that day.”
“I was only able to put in a brief appearance. Vicky needed me to handle something for her that came up at the last minute.”
“What are the odds you’ll ever tell me what that was?”
“Some secrets are best left unsaid. I was glad to do it. I’m not much for wedding receptions anyway. I love the cake and punch, but then I like to say my congratulations and call it a day.”
“I’ll bet you look good in your finery.”
“The next wedding in your family, you can tell me what you think.”
He finished his spaghetti and picked up one of the last pieces of bread. “Who’s Lovely?”
She froze on him.
“I know it was a slip of the tongue, Ann. You never intended to say it. But it was an incredibly important-to-you remark. ‘Lovely knows me.’ Who’s Lovely?”
She shook her head and took her bowl and disappeared into her kitchen. When she came back, she settled in one of the wingback chairs with a pudding cup. He knew she wanted him to change the subject, but if he stepped back from this he was likely to never get an answer. “Trust me, Ann.”
She shook her head.
“Someone from the secret side of your life?”
She leaned her head back against the chair and studied him through eyes calm and serious and a bit sad. “Are we going to be allowed to keep secrets? If this relationship goes somewhere permanent? Security-clearance secrets aside, as they have their own lines, will there be secrets or are you expecting there to be none?”
It was such a difficult answer to put into words. He wanted to give her room, needed to give her room, and yet he also knew there was something profound he had to convey. “Secrets tend to be the things that have hurt us the most, the events that have changed us the most. Will you wonder for the rest of your life, if he knew this about me, he wouldn’t love me anymore? I would rather know everything important about my wife before I’m married so that when I say ‘I do,’ she knows there’s no secret that could change how much I love her. I want to be able to give that certainty to a marriage.” He watched her for a moment, trying to read her reaction.
“You need to be able to trust me, Ann. I’m not saying trust me now, tonight—not until you’re comfortable with what you know about me, who I am, and decide you can trust me. But when you reach that point, I wish you’d see those secrets as something you could share with me. I wish you could trust me enough there didn’t need to be secrets. I won’t hurt you. I promise you, I won’t hurt you.”
“Would you want to know the secrets if they would rip apart and end the relationship?”
“Could they?”
“Yes.”
“Have you shared them before, and that’s what happened?”
“Would you want to know?”
What an awful choice she gave him. “Yes, I would want to know. You assume the truth would end the relationship. I would assume they would make the relationship stronger, to have the truth shared and known.”
She thought about what he had said and finally nodded. “We’ve got a friendship, Paul, a good one, but not one that is ready for what you are asking. And I don’t know if I agree with you. Sometimes the past should stay the past for everyone’s sake.”
“You’ve got some big secrets.” Her smile was so sad it made him wonder what crossed her mind, but she didn’t answer. “Okay. Do you want to watch a movie tonight? We could find something on television to watch together.”
“We could do that.”
“You choose while I take these dishes back to the kitchen and find myself some dessert. That pudding looks good.”
“Tapioca.”
“Yeah? I haven’t had that in ages.”
“I’d share if I could.”
“One day we’ll be in the same place, and I’ll remind you what you offered.” He came back with a bowl of ice cream. She had chosen an action movie. They put it on pause partway through so they could both make popcorn. Paul watched the movie, and he watched Ann, wondering what she was hiding that scared her so bad she couldn’t imagine sharing the secret with him.
Ann had trouble sleeping. It was rare to be awake for more than a few minutes after she wrapped her arm around a pillow and closed her eyes. She knew the reason. Paul. More and more, her quiet time alone at night was filled with thoughts of him.
She had fully expected to enjoy time in his company, for she liked cops, liked the practical personalities that tended to gravitate to the job. He was a comfortable man to be with. She had wanted the friendship, and Paul had granted her that, and more. He’d pulled her into his life like no other guy ever had. She liked him. She trusted him. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to trust him with her secrets. Or could.
They were reaching the point every relationship did after a few months, where the reality began to settle in for what this would become over time. A good friendship, or would it find the strength to become something more? She didn’t know what she wanted.
She had ducked this question in the past, and time after time said no when
the path had turned this direction. She had dated nice guys, but only with Reece had she considered the next question, and even with him the right answer had been no. She was comfortable being single, content. She hadn’t expected to have this choice before her this year.
If she didn’t trust Paul with her secrets, their relationship would stay a friendship. She knew that. Paul wouldn’t push. But life inevitably would. She’d have to make the decision.
“What am I going to do, Lovely?” she whispered.
She wanted, needed, more time. She didn’t know what the right decision would be. She didn’t want to get hurt, and she didn’t want to hurt Paul.
Maybe she wouldn’t need to make the decision. There were two of them in this relationship. He might decide first to leave it a friendship, and then she wouldn’t have to make the decision. He was a careful man. He had asked questions of her friends before initially coming to see her. He had been asking her questions, thinking about her to understand her, in a way no other guy had. His questions would inevitably get closer to the subjects that were heart matters. He was a family man, and eventually would ask her about children, would want to understand her dreams for the future. She would trust him enough to give him full answers. She could do that for him. She could give him complete answers to his questions, let him make his decision with all the information she could give him.
She enjoyed—appreciated—their friendship. She didn’t want to lose it. Maybe he would decide that he wanted to leave this a friendship. That would be okay with her. She’d have him in her life rather than have to say goodbye. The road to something more than a friendship was a road she’d never traveled, and she worried about it ending badly if they went further.
She folded the pillow over again and wrapped her arm around it. She would sleep easier once she knew where this was going. But her heart was telling her this time was different. Sleep was coming later at night as thoughts of him lingered. Paul was more important than any other guy had been in years. Maybe ever.
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