Full Disclosure

by Dee Henderson

  “Not a hardship on my part. Sam and Rita have the case covered, and I had a desire to see you.”

  She half smiled. “Can’t figure why, when you see me so often already.”

  “Can’t do this over a link,” he said as he slid his hand behind her neck and drew her toward him. He kissed her and caught the taste of pizza and peppermint. He lingered with the kiss, feeling her smile and sharing it. When he eased back he ran his thumb across her bottom lip. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

  “Thought you had. Shared the sentiment,” she murmured. Her hands resting against his chest flexed in the fabric of his shirt, and she leaned forward to kiss him back. “It’s a very nice way to return home.”

  They took a walk together the next afternoon, enjoying the sunny day, following Black. Paul glanced down when Ann slid her hand into his, smiled. He interlaced their fingers. He’d been trying not to crowd her today, to give her space, and he liked the fact she’d made the decision to close it.

  “Lovely is a very private name for God,” she said quietly, breaking the companionable silence. “But had we lived a lifetime together, I would never have mentioned that name to you. It bothers me that I did.”

  He stopped walking, understanding instantly the significance of what she had said, and the trust she was giving him. He thought about it and then smiled as he started walking again. “What a perfect name for God.”

  “Names are important to me. I spend weeks with a new story searching to find the right names for characters, to hear their voice, to find who they are. There’s a point in writing a story where I finally have the right name, and the book in my mind begins to sound different. It sounds richer. It begins to read in the voice of the character, and it sounds alive.

  “I was a child when I met God. God the Father was an easy concept for me to grasp, and Jesus the Son, being God who died to save my life, I often thought of as the wonderful older brother I wanted to have. When I got to God, the Holy Spirit, and realized the Bible said He lived with me, I instinctively thought of Him as being a best friend.

  “I wanted to get to know Him, and the only way I knew to do so was to have a conversation with Him. It was hard to say ‘Holy Spirit’ and not feel like it was a formal conversation. So sometimes I’d call Him Ancient, Wise, Wonderful, Eternal. I was trying to get to know Him by reminding myself who He was.

  “I’d say, ‘You’re showing off tonight,’ when the sunset and clouds were an incredible display of color, or I’d say, ‘It’s hot, I miss the breeze you sent yesterday,’ or I’d tell Him about my day and what I was working on. I was just talking, trying to get to know this person I was living with. And like a book, the name was right, but it wasn’t a conversational name. Jesus had names like Alpha, Omega, Good Shepherd. So I asked the Holy Spirit if He had another name I could use. He said, ‘Call me Lovely.’

  “I thought it was kind of a girl’s name and corny and stupid of me to have asked. But I think He knew. In a week or so, He couldn’t shut me up. I had a name for the person I was sharing my life with. ‘Lovely, you painted a great sunset.’ ‘Lovely, Black just went chasing a rabbit.’ ‘Lovely, I’ve lost my keys.’ It was still the same simple comments, but they suddenly turned into God and I having a conversation. And in a few more weeks, it was ‘Lovely, I’m lost on how to help in this situation,’ and ‘Lovely, why did I say that?’ I started to trust Him with the emotions behind my actions. And now it’s ‘Lovely, where should this story go next?’ And ‘Lovely, what am I going to do about this guy that just showed up in my life?’” She smiled.

  “He listens to all that stuff. He smiles at me a lot. God said call me Lovely, and I fell more in love with Him that day. I had this huge open hole inside that so desperately wanted love, and God filled it up with himself. His name was reminding me He loved me. Every conversation just adds another certainty to that.

  “Lovely is His character. And Lovely is His company. And Lovely is how He treats me. Lovely is God.”

  Paul understood in a way he didn’t know how to put into words. “I often call Him Dad—when God and I are talking together. That’s how I think of Him and it’s a natural title to offer Him.”

  He tightened his hand on hers. “Did you think I wouldn’t understand why you have a private name for God? Tell you God is there with you, God is in you, living with your spirit, and He wants a relationship with you—Ann, you would rush toward that relationship with everything in you. You would throw your arms around God and say welcome, do everything possible to make Him comfortable as an honored guest.

  “And since for you a name, the flow of words—the sound of a conversation, the tempo and the pace of it—matters, you looked for the right name. Just like you give your characters in the books a shortened special nickname between those in love, you did the same for Him. You gave God a special name. You went from formal with God to intimate with God. You call Him Lovely. I bet God’s heart goes absolutely soft with pleasure when you call Him that. God wants to be loved, and with you God got what He most desires.”

  “I hope so.” She stopped walking. “Sometimes when I’m flying, Lovely will give me a nudge to notice something or to hear something and He’ll make it safer flying. Or I’ll be on the job, and Lovely will point out something in the room to notice that will help me understand the person I’m talking with. Or Lovely will whisper ‘Turn around,’ and I’ll see someone I need to help. Or Lovely will prompt me to go to bed early, and I’ll get some sleep before I get called out at four a.m. He doesn’t live life for me. He lives life with me.” Black nudged her for attention, and Ann tossed another stick for him.

  “God will let me put to Him what I’m feeling and thinking and doing, and He’ll take the burden of it and the complications of it, and He’ll hand me back something that I can do okay at. He’ll sort out the knots. Sometimes He sends someone to help me. Sometimes He helps with the sequence of what to do when. Sometimes with the wisdom to figure out what’s important and the courage to drop the rest. Lovely spends His life with me. And I am learning to spend mine with Him. I trust Him. And we’re becoming pretty good friends. An eternity is a long time to live with someone, and it matters to me that I get this relationship right.”

  Paul knew the kind of hug that was God loving him. His friendship with God was good and solid and the most important priority in his life. And he realized Ann knew God better than he had ever envisioned was possible. “I’m glad you have that intimate relationship.”

  He wanted to laugh as he grasped what he was feeling. “I’m jealous of God, in a way. I’d like that for myself, Ann. That inner Ann that loves so completely and trusts so absolutely. No wonder you hesitate to share your life with someone else. You would be taking what you are giving to God and sharing it with God and someone else. You want to give it all to God.”

  “It’s not that exactly, Paul. I don’t know how to love God well and love a guy well and do both at the same time. One gets the leftovers. That’s probably the main reason why I’m still single. I haven’t figured out how to do it. It’s not that I don’t want to get married. What is easy for other people to do seems very difficult for me. I’m too introverted and inside my head. Lovely rather gets me by default, because I’m never particularly quiet with Him. I’m sure there are times He would like me to be quiet for a while. He hears about everything.”

  “I think you don’t realize how much what you have with Lovely flows out to everyone around you,” Paul replied. “That’s why you are such a good friend. That’s why people trust you like they do. Part of what you are giving back to them is God loving them through you. Everyone around you would lose out if you didn’t have such a strong relationship with God.”

  “I’m still bothered at the fact I told you Lovely’s name. Of everything I have that is private, that was the jewel at the center.”

  He rested his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “I know more about you because of that mistake than everything else you’ve told me comb
ined. I can’t be sorry it happened. But I do understand just how intimate and private that name is between you and God.”

  Paul drove back to Chicago in a thoughtful mood.

  She had trusted him with Lovely. She was taking big risks with him. She was trying to see if this could work. And he knew she wasn’t yet anywhere near the same place he was.

  He still faced the very possible risk that she would decide she simply didn’t want to get married. He wanted them both to end up at the right decision, and he was worried he’d be at a yes, and she’d come to no. She deserved to be treasured. That was the one thought that came to mind and felt right to him. Treasured, loved.

  This relationship was beginning to matter more than any cost he might have to pay to see where it could go. He was falling in love with her. And he thought he had found his future wife, if she would have him.

  Ann hugged the bed pillow with one arm, but she didn’t try to close her eyes and find sleep. Her emotions and her heart were too full. Paul had kissed her goodbye before he left for Chicago. The memory still lingered like a soft touch against her heart.

  He is falling in love with me. She had thought when he first told her that, sitting at Vicky’s kitchen table, that the words had come in part out of a very emotional conversation. She had returned home, and Paul had given her back the calm of what they had before, the conversations, the casual friendship, the reasons to smile. He’d given her space so she could settle and rest. It had been good to get back out on MHI calls, to have her work.

  And then he had come to meet her flight, sat with her on her back porch, and he’d kissed her for the first time. She had enjoyed kissing him back. He’d kissed her four times over the course of this weekend, each one bright in her memory, and while it had been a light touch on his part, there had been nothing casual about the change in their relationship. Her heart was so full of emotions. Paul was falling in love with her. When he crossed that line to I love you, he would want much more than a friendship.

  He was going to ask her what she wanted. And she didn’t know how to answer that question. She was overwhelmed with the emotions of it. For the first time in years she wanted to pull the covers up over her head and hide. Her joy was welling up alongside pure fear. He had her emotions so tangled that if she let her feelings decide tonight, she would either run toward him or run away, and she couldn’t guess which it would be.

  She was single, content being single. She’d come into the year with no inkling she might be asked to consider a change. She admired good marriages. She’d just never let herself dream about one happening for her. She had risked with Paul, every step along the way, sharing secrets, giving him the most precious private facts she had. She’d found him a man she could trust at every level. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known this day was a possibility; she just hadn’t expected for it to be here this weekend. She wanted a slow shift from where she was comfortable to where Paul was taking them. This wasn’t going to move slowly anymore. Paul was doing the shifting now, to something a lot more solid, permanent, than a friendship.

  Could she be a good wife? For the first time in years she asked herself the question knowing it was more than speculation, and one she might have to answer soon.

  The physical intimacy would be new ground for her. She still blushed at the thought of what it would be like. The idea of being with Paul every night for the rest of her life was an intoxicating thought. She’d enjoy being his wife and love the intimacy of being with him.

  She’d like his family, like having relatives again. The conversations, the inside family jokes, the holiday gatherings—she’d be absorbed into his large family and have a place again.

  Paul wouldn’t have a casual marriage. It would be a lifetime, an everything decision on his part. She wanted that kind of connection to someone who knew her secrets and loved her.

  She just didn’t want to fail.

  She owed it to him to say no rather than let him walk into a marriage that would fail. She was the weak link when it came to a marriage. Paul would be a good husband, comfortable in the role. He’d step into it with the same assured confidence with which he would one day step into the role of being head of the Falcon family.

  But she was deeply uncomfortable at the idea of being a wife. Even the mere thought exhausted her. She could ruin her life and his by assuming she could do this, be a wife, only to find out she couldn’t handle it. It would mean a new place, new people, new expectations, the transition of her job, her writing—all of her life would be different. Change drained her. Time would help, but it would be a constant struggle to adapt to the role. He didn’t realize what it would take for her to say yes.

  Did she want to say yes? None of her doubts were about Paul. All of them were about her. She didn’t want to find out two months into the marriage that they were both disappointed. She had to live in reality, not in wishful thinking. She couldn’t afford a marriage which failed.

  What did she need so she wouldn’t fail? How did she say yes and not fail? She pondered those questions as sleep eluded her.

  She needed Paul to give her more time. She needed to be able to dial back the pace at which this was moving. She felt like she was being pulled forward into a decision before she was ready to make one. He’d want to hear “I love you,” and she couldn’t even identify her emotions right now. Paul had her twisted into knots with wonder, and deeply afraid at the same time. She smiled, then groaned in the darkness. That wasn’t what he had intended when he came for the weekend. There were no easy choices in front of her.

  25

  Paul walked into the war room Monday morning, opened his briefcase, and retrieved the long list he had written the night before. “Where are we at, Sam?”

  The man nodded toward the board. “Rita has names identified for the recent twelve tapes. That makes twenty-two out of the thirty murders solved. It sure feels good, looking at those cases and knowing the truth of what happened.”

  Paul handed over the pad of paper. “Look over that list and give me your impressions. I’ve been sketching out how we best make these arrests.”

  Sam settled back in his chair and began to read. “I can tell you I’m looking forward to it, boss.”

  “So am I. Any questions from our guys?”

  “They’re curious about what has us occupied in the war room, and they’ve guessed there is a lead on the lady shooter case, but I don’t think anyone’s picked up the rumor we’ve got all the cases potentially solved. No one has whispered ‘audiotapes.’ The guys will be eager to help once it’s time to fill them in on the developments.” Sam read the list. “You want our guys to do the interviews.”

  “Yes. We’re going to get one opportunity to use those tapes to our advantage, and that moment is the interview when we present the deal we’re prepared to offer in return for a guilty plea. We divide the thirty cases, two or three murder suspects per team, and let our guys use their knowledge of this case to their advantage.”

  “Do we play the tapes, as brief as they are?”

  “I think we have to. That tape is the risk to them. They either believe we can turn that audio into a guilty murder conviction, or they don’t. I think more than a few will be caught off guard by the fact we have it on tape, and they will take the deal rather than run the risk of a trial.”

  Paul pulled over the files Sam had been building for the twenty-two listed names. He settled in to catch up on the reading.

  Paul’s phone rang just after lunch. He pulled it out of his pocket, nodded at Sam, and answered, putting the phone on speaker so Sam could listen in. “Hello, sir.”

  “Her letter arrived in today’s mail. Should I open it?”

  “Yes, sir.” They heard some paper rustling.

  “She is offering eight tapes—all high-profile names—to get medium security in the state of Wisconsin,” the VP said. “This is the last of the thirty tapes. You knew there was going to be a difficult-to-swallow offer, and she just made it. She wants to do her tim
e at a medium-security federal prison in Wisconsin. The question is, how valuable are eight tapes with high-profile names?”

  “The last four were worth it.”

  “Medium security for thirty murders—it’s asking for a lot. Let me know if Arthur wants me there when this offer is discussed, or if you want to bring me the decision on what to reply.”

  “I will, sir. If I don’t have an opportunity later to say it, thanks for the help you’ve provided. I am eight tapes away from having thirty murders solved. That wouldn’t have happened as smoothly without your help as her lawyer, sir.”

  “I’ve wanted this case solved ever since it first came to my attention when I was the director, so I echo your sentiments. It’s good to have the truth known.”

  Paul went to update Arthur with the news. When he returned to the war room an hour later, Sam was pulling cable for an additional monitor. “What do you have, Sam?”

  “This final answer goes to a post-office box. I’ve got a tap into the security cameras at that post-office branch.” Sam finished securing the cable and then spoke into the phone he held. “Wave, Tim.” The man on the video feed waved. “The back of a postbox is just an open slot where they can put the mail. You open the box on the lobby side with a key and get your mail.” Sam switched to the phone. “Put the package in her slot, Tim.” The man on the video ran his fingers along a line of numbers, stopped, and put a blue-and-white mailer into a slot. “Thanks.”

  Sam stuck a Post-it note to the monitor. “We can hand-deliver our reply to the post office and put it in the box ourselves, and you can tell it’s there. That size and shape and blue and white stands out. Since the cameras are stationary, we mark on the monitor which box is hers. We can see the package sitting there.