A choked sound from the bed interrupted him. He turned and saw that Jolie had risen to her knees. Her face had gone pale, and she was clutching the quilt with one hand. The other hand was extended to him in an unspoken plea.
He followed her gaze to the snapshot. She obviously wanted it, obviously didn't want him handling it. But why? It was just a picture of her and an old boyfriend. It wasn't as if he were going to get jealous of a relationship that had ended years before he'd even met her. He might envy the young man with the dark hair and dark eyes for being a part of her life at a time when he hadn't been, but…
Suddenly he became still, focusing on the boy. The young man with the dark hair and dark eyes … the familiar young man with the dark hair and piercing, intelligent, empty dark eyes. Only they weren't empty in the snapshot; there was emotion there—passion, happiness. Now they were empty. Now they were soulless.
The muscles in his jaw growing tight, he stared harder at the boy, willing the familiarity to fade and the features to shift and change into the face of a stranger. But the longer he looked, the harder he looked, the more offensively familiar the boy became.
The more distraught Jolie became.
The colder Smith became.
Forcing air into her constricted lungs, Jolie maneuvered free of the covers, slid to her feet and wrapped the quilt tightly around her. She took the few steps necessary to bring her close to Smith and took hold of the photograph. For a moment he tightened his own grip as he continued to stare, although now he couldn't see anything, because she had placed her fingers dead center over her and Nick's faces.
But he didn't need to see.
He had already recognized them.
He had already recognized Nick.
After a time, she pulled, and he let the slick paper slide from between his fingertips. She didn't look at it but simply opened the nightstand drawer, dropped it inside, then closed the drawer again.
A glance at Smith showed that he hadn't moved. He was standing utterly still, a stunned—and more than slightly repulsed—look on his face. Would he think less of her because of her poor taste in boyfriends twenty years ago? Under ordinary circumstances, she had no doubt that the answer would be no. He was too incredibly reasonable and logical for that.
But these weren't ordinary circumstances.
Nick wasn't merely a sorry excuse for a teenage boyfriend.
And Smith was probably feeling none too reasonable.
She traded the quilt for her robe, belted it tightly, then went to the window to gaze out. After more heavy silence than she could stand, he finally spoke. "You were in love with Nicholas Carlucci." His voice was strained from the effort he made to keep it level and flat, but accusation slipped in anyway.
"I was seventeen. I was a child."
"With Nicholas Carlucci." He shook his head in dismay. "For God's sake, Jolie, the man is scum."
"He was a boy who had the same dreams I had. He understood me better than anyone else ever had. He wanted what I wanted." She smiled faintly, remembering all the years she and Nick had been friends and the short time, less than three years, that they'd been more than friends. As a rule she preferred not to remember anything good from that time, but she did have some good memories. They'd just been forgotten under the weight of all the bad.
"He was the one who left you—the one who fell in love with someone else."
She nodded, watching her reflection shift and shimmer in the window glass.
"Is he the reason you swore off men? The reason you decided to devote your entire life to your career? The reason you decided you don't need a man in your life?"
"He's part of it. Not all, but part."
Behind her, Smith combed his fingers through his hair. "For God's sake, Jolie, you were a kid. Kids date, fall in love and break up all the time. It's a normal part of growing up. You don't let it affect your entire life. You don't let something a teenage punk did eighteen years ago determine how you live now."
"I said he was part of it," she repeated, turning to face him, wrapping the loose ends of her belt tightly around her fingers. "Just part."
He started to speak, then broke off. Coming to stand directly in front of her, only inches away, he forced out the question. "Do you still care for him?"
"I quit saying nightly prayers asking God to punish him about fifteen years ago." Then she blew her breath out in a heavy sigh. "For a long time I hated him as much as I had loved him. For the better part of the last eighteen years, I've despised him. He had such potential, such incredible promise for a kid who grew up the way he did. Just getting into college was such an accomplishment, and earning his law degree … and he threw it all away on Falcone. He sold out. He became exactly what he had been hoping to escape."
"Do you still care for him?" Smith repeated, the edges of his words a little sharper.
"I feel sorry for him." Though, heaven knows, Nick would hate that. He had endured years of pity and charity and had hated every moment of it. He'd had a wealth of pride but nothing else; having to accept all the things—food, clothing, a place to live—that others gave him had cost his pride deeply.
Smith came even closer, and his voice dropped to little more than a murmur. "Do you still care for him?"
She drew a deep breath. "In ways."
He withdrew fractionally. His eyes narrowed, and his mouth thinned.
"I don't love him. I never could. But he was too important a part of my life for me to feel nothing."
For a moment he stared at her, disappointment darkening his eyes. Then, abruptly, he turned away and began searching for his shirt. It had been kicked underneath the bed; one cuff stuck out, bright white against the multihued hooked rug there. "I have to tell Shawna," he remarked, sounding all business except for the tightness in his voice.
She couldn't control the dismay that colored her own voice. "That Nick Carlucci and I were teenage lovers?"
He shot her an annoyed look. "Come on, Jolie. Don't deny that he's the source you've been protecting all this time."
Surprised, she leaned back against the window jamb. Her source. She had forgotten about that. Somehow the conversation—for her, at least—had been totally personal. Business hadn't entered into it, hadn't crept even partway into her thoughts. She had forgotten about the articles, about Nick's role as her source, about her promise to protect his identity from the government.
But Smith hadn't forgotten.
How ironic. Here she was the one who was supposed to be so thoroughly professional, the one whose career was supposed to be the focus of her entire life, and yet, in the past few minutes, she hadn't given one thought to work. But Smith—you-can-have-it-all—career-marriage-children-Smith—had been dealing with the information on both a personal and professional level from the start. He had immediately understood the implications of her history with Nick.
She couldn't help wishing the situation was reversed—that she had shown a little more awareness professionally … and that Smith had shown a little more concern personally.
"You can't tell her, Smith."
He finished buttoning his shirt before looking at her. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
She had no reasons to offer, nothing rational, nothing reasonable. Nothing but the most personal reason of all. "Because I'm asking you not to."
For a moment, just a moment, he looked sad enough to break her heart. Then his gaze hardened, his jaw tightened, and his demeanor turned chilly. "I'm sorry, Jolie," he said stiffly. "But that's not good enough."
He turned away, making little noise as he left the room. Feeling more than a little sore inside, she went after him. "Smith, please… I gave Nick my word that I would protect his identity."
"But I didn't."
She stopped at the top of the stairs, gripping the banister tightly with both hands. "I'll deny it," she said, her voice steady in spite of the quaking inside. That brought him to a stop near the bottom of the stairs, made him slowly turn back to look up at her. "We
both will. We've been careful. We've covered our tracks. There's no way—" as long as the government didn't connect either of them to Jamey O'Shea "—to tie us together. You won't be able to prove anything."
"You had an affair. You were in love with him." His smile was icy. "I think that ties you together."
"An affair that ended eighteen years ago. Not even Shawna will be impressed by that. I'll swear that I haven't seen him or spoken to him since he dumped me."
His smile faded and was replaced by myriad emotions—regret, sorrow and, hurting most of all, disappointment. She had lived half her life with disappointment—her mother's, her father's, her own. It had helped shape her, had helped make her into the woman she was today. The woman who wasn't quite good enough. The one whose mistakes were infrequent but major. The one who couldn't help but let down the people she loved. The one who didn't quite deserve the people she loved.
Now one of those people was looking at her with such disappointment.
"You would lie to the FBI to protect Nick Carlucci." He spoke flatly, not needing an answer, but she offered one anyway.
"As easily as you would betray the trust he placed in me."
He stood there a moment longer, infinitely weary. Then he took the last few steps down, crossed to the desk in the corner and picked up the phone there. His gaze never wavering from her, he dialed Shawna Warren's number. In a few cold, clipped sentences, he gave her the information she'd spent the past couple of weeks trying so hard to find out.
Jolie sank down on the top step. Her decision all those years ago to deny herself personal relationships had been a good one, it seemed. For the first time since Nick, she had gotten involved with a man, and for the second time, including Nick, she had somehow screwed up. She had failed again … only this time the failure extended into business. She had violated her professional ethics by making it possible for Smith to learn the identity of her informant. She had broken her promise to Nick. She had betrayed his trust.
Downstairs in the center of the room, Smith was uncomfortably watching her. "They're going to bring him in tonight for questioning."
She didn't respond.
"I need to be there."
She still said nothing.
"I'm sorry, Jolie, but … you have your ethics, and I have mine. If I hid Carlucci's identity from the FBI, I'd lose my job. I'd be no better than he is."
She knew what he was saying was true. She understood. She didn't even blame him for what he had done.
She blamed herself.
"It's better this way, Jolie. We need him to testify against Falcone next week. Until then we can keep him safe. We can protect him from Falcone and from himself. And it gets you off the hook, too. If we have Carlucci, we won't have to subpoena you." He tried a smile, but it wouldn't form. "I won't have to ask the judge to lock you up."
She was ashamed to admit even to herself that she found some small measure of comfort in that. But she still said nothing.
"Jolie, please…"
"You'd better go." She spoke at last but refused to look at him. "You don't want to keep them waiting."
He stood still for a time, then finally turned toward the door. There he stopped and looked back at her. "I'm sorry, Jolie."
After the door closed with a click behind him, she sighed. It sounded lost and unsteady in the quiet house. Then, her shoulders rounded, her movements lethargic, she got to her feet and headed for the bedroom. She went to the phone on the night table, and as she dialed the number she'd memorized a few weeks ago, she voiced her own regretful apology.
"I'm sorry, too, Smith. I'm so damned sorry."
* * *
When Smith arrived at work Wednesday morning, he was summoned to a meeting in the conference room. Though it was still early, Alexander Marshall and the others—Shawna Warren and a number of other agents who were working with her on Jimmy Falcone and the many associated cases—all looked as if they'd been up and working for hours, which they probably had.
They hadn't picked up Nick Carlucci last night. When the agents assigned that task had arrived at his house, a small guest residence on the grounds of Falcone's estate, they had found him gone. They had waited the rest of the night—their replacements still had his place under surveillance—but he hadn't returned.
Smith hoped Carlucci's sudden disappearance was mere coincidence. He hoped the lawyer had spent the night with a woman or made a long-scheduled visit to family or had some other mundane, ordinary excuse for being gone last night of all nights.
He hoped Falcone hadn't figured out the identity of his betrayer and eliminated him.
He hoped Jolie hadn't been foolish enough to warn Carlucci of his impending incarceration.
Dear God, he hoped she wasn't involved.
Alexander greeted him with a weary nod and gestured for him to join them around the conference table. Acknowledgment from the others varied, ranging from uneasiness to outright hostility from Shawna. So much for his hopes, he thought, suspecting what she was about to say before she even opened her mouth, but still praying he was wrong.
He wasn't.
"We know why we missed Carlucci last night," she announced. "What time did you leave Wade's house last night?"
"Right after I called you."
"About 9:15?"
He shrugged. He hadn't looked at his watch, hadn't had any interest at all in keeping track of time last evening.
"I got off the phone at 9:10 exactly," she said. "I figure you took a few minutes to say good-night, then you were probably out the door by 9:15."
Smith shrugged again. "That sounds reasonable. Why?"
"You know we have a line ID on Carlucci's phone."
He nodded. They'd had it for months; he had been the one to go before the federal magistrate and ask for the warrant that allowed them to install it. It had come in handy in connecting Susannah Sinclair to Carlucci, and her cooperation, along with her brother's, had led to a string of indictments against Carlucci, his boss and a number of his partners in crime.
"He got a call last night at 9:17. It lasted three minutes and twenty-one seconds." Shawna paused to give import to her next words. Smith knew all too well what they would be. "The call came from Jolie Wade's house."
"She warned him, Smith," Alexander said quietly. "The minute you walked out the door, she was on the phone to him."
He couldn't say he was surprised. He could say he had used bad judgment in leaving her. There hadn't been any reason for him to leave right away. He had known it would take time for Shawna to contact the two agents she would send, had known it would take more time for them to drive to the compound where Falcone and Carlucci lived, get Carlucci and drive back downtown. At the very least, he had been looking at about an hour's wait—had everything gone according to plan.
But he hadn't wanted to wait out that hour at Jolie's. Not feeling the way he had felt. Not with her looking the way she had looked. He had needed to get away, to consider what he had learned, to put everything into perspective. He had needed to examine the state of their relationship and whether there was anything left to salvage.
He had wanted to be alone.
And that made it his fault, not Jolie's, that Carlucci wasn't in protective custody. His fault that they'd lost their best witness against Falcone.
"Didn't it occur to you that she might do just that?" Alexander asked.
Smith looked at him. "No, sir, it didn't." What had occurred to him after he had left was that he and Jolie might have made love for the last time. That this could be a test their relationship might not survive. That, in fact, their affair might have already ended, even though there was so much they hadn't done yet, so much he hadn't said yet.
Such as I love you.
He had never considered the possibility that while he was feeling miserable over her, she was warning her old friend. Her old boyfriend. Her old lover.
But he should have. It was so typical of her. Her behavior—to anyone thinking clearly—would have been predict
able.
"For all we know, Carlucci could be out of the country by now," Shawna said glumly. "Since we don't have him, I propose we make the best of what we do have—Jolie. We can make a number of charges against her. Then, maybe the next time something like this comes up, she and her fellow journalists will think twice before they interfere."
At the head of the table, Alexander stood up. "That will be all for now, Smith."
For a moment he ignored his dismissal. He had never been excluded from such a meeting before, not in all the years he had worked in this office. But it was his own fault. He had chosen to get involved with Jolie, even knowing that the job—his or hers—might come between them.
Now it had.
They were going to discuss the action they would take against Jolie—surveillance, investigation or outright arrest were a few of the options—and he was being excluded from the conversation. He wanted to stay, wanted to argue on her behalf, wanted to make them see things from her point of view, that she'd had an obligation to Carlucci.
But he could never make them fully understand her motivation, because he didn't fully understand it himself. Even knowing what had once been between her and Nick Carlucci, he still couldn't understand why she would put herself at risk to protect him.
He didn't understand at all how she could place her loyalty to Nick above her feelings for him.
Rising from the chair, he turned stiffly to Alexander. "I'm sorry. I should have expected…"
"You're a lawyer, not a cop. At least you got us a name. Now it's the FBI's responsibility to find him and bring him in."
His boss's words were intended to make him feel better.
They didn't.
He left the room—left them to plan their strategy against Jolie—and went to his own office, settling into his chair, turning as he so often did to gaze out at the city.
You're not too crazy about my job, he had acknowledged to Jolie last night. I'll turn in my resignation tomorrow. At the time, he had been teasing, and she had known it. He had never considered exactly how long he would stay with the U.S. Attorney's office … but he had never considered leaving it, either. He had never thought about what he would do when—or if—he left government service. He had a job he liked, a job that challenged him, one that he'd proven he excelled at. The salary was decent, the location perfect, the people he worked with likable. He was satisfied with everything about this job, so why waste time even thinking about looking for something new?
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