by Jan Coffey
“Depends on where we’re going from here,” he asked, his gaze moving down the front of her sweater.
Amber told herself she didn’t care if he was nineteen. “How does my hotel sound?”
“Fine with me.”
She tried to pay for their breakfast, but he wouldn’t listen to her and paid instead.
At the door he paused, pulling his baseball hat on. “So, are the fellows going to pick us up here?”
“No. I told them we’d be fine. We’re practically across the street from the hotel.”
“Let’s take a cab.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She slipped her arm into his. “Come on. We can walk.”
“No, I’m dog-tired, lass.”
His reluctance made her more determined. They stepped out on the street.
“And I don’t care what you said about not wanting to do any sightseeing,” she told him. “You and I are going to fit in a couple of places tomorrow…at least the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum. It’s awesome.”
The cars were crawling down the street. She didn’t wait for the intersection and tugged on his hand, crossing.
“So am I the only one staying at this hotel?” he asked.
“No, we both are. I moved here last night.”
“You don’t have your own place?” he asked.
“I moved back into my father’s house about a year ago.”
“And he doesn’t want you bring your lads home?” he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his body. Their steps matched in stride.
“That’s not it,” she said. She wasn’t ready to tell him more. But she didn’t think he really cared anyway. He was totally preoccupied with looking at the buildings on the street.
“Who knows that you are staying here?”
“You mean at the hotel?”
He nodded.
“Nobody.” She shrugged. “It’s not like I check into places under a false name. I’m not some celebrity. No one cares where I go.”
“Shouldn’t those agents be here now, watching you?” he asked, looking around him.
“They’re sort of escorting me around as a favor to my father. He’s a major candidate, but I’m not really on their list of people needing protection. So they listen to me when I tell them to give me space,” she admitted.
“That does not seem right to me, lass. Someone could swipe you, then, right off the street.”
“You are the nervous kind. I don’t think Washington is anywhere near as dangerous as Belfast.”
She motioned to the hotel entrance a hundred feet ahead of them. There was a news van parked in front of it. As they approached, she saw a person with a mike and another holding a camera jump out of the van and rush toward them.
“What the hell?” Mick said, tugging his hat down on his face and shoving her behind him.
“Ms. Hersey…Amber. Do you have anything to say about the report on your father?”
“What report?” she said, stepping up to the reporter.
She didn’t know how it happened or why. But the next thing she felt was Mick’s hand shoving her to the ground. She landed on the sidewalk with Mick’s body following with a loud thud.
The breath was knocked out of her. Mick was lying diagonally on top of her, his head pressed against her throat. Reporters were swarming around above them, and then there was shouting and complete chaos.
Amber couldn’t figure out what was wrong, why he pushed her down, why he wasn’t moving. Then she felt the warm wetness seeping onto her throat.
CHAPTER 69
Alanna could tell he was becoming increasingly upset.
“I think I should leave.”
“No, don’t,” he said, sitting back straight in the chair. “We need to discuss some kind of arrangement. I owe you a great deal.”
She knew what he was talking about. Her deal with him had been Ray’s return to her life. But that had all been a lie. Alanna realized that this week had helped readjust her life. She didn’t resent him at all for what had happened. She was grateful. She was a smarter person for it. She recognized what was wrong before and what she had to change in the future.
“I don’t want anything,” she told him.
“But there has to be something. Perhaps some financial compensation for your time. A consultation fee,” he suggested.
She shook her head. “I have all I need.”
He seemed unsettled about her decision. She realized he was a man who didn’t like owing anyone anything. And here, he felt indebted to her.
Another breaking news story flashed across the screen. A street scene. People were shouting. A frantic reporter was saying something into the microphone. He reached immediately for the remote and turned up the volume.
“…police are everywhere. The sniper had to fire the shot from the top of one of the buildings…”
“No. Please, don’t be…” Alanna heard him whisper.
“Our camera crew captured this footage minutes ago. They were standing a foot away from the victim in front of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Georgetown.”
Alanna stared at the television screen in disbelief. A young, good looking man wearing a Washington Nationals baseball hat stepped in front of the camera.
A reporter shoved a microphone past him to someone who was standing behind. “Amber…Ms. Hersey. Do you have anything to say about the report on your father?”
“What report?” A beautiful young woman appeared beside him.
And then everything went crazy. She was down. The young man was down on top of her. Everyone ducked, including the cameraman, who was obviously on the ground as well. The camera panned around. People were taking shelter against a news van. There was screaming. Sirens. Two men who looked like plainclothes policemen were running toward them. The camera swept around, stopping at the two people on the ground. There was blood on the sidewalk.
Steven jumped to his feet in panic. He moved to the front of the television. “No! Who’s hurt? Tell me…tell me it’s not her.”
“The initial reports are that Amber Hersey, the daughter of Senator Paul Hersey, who has been in the news this morning, was unhurt in the incident. I repeat, the daughter of Senator Hersey was unhurt after an attack on a Washington street. The condition of her companion is unknown at this time.”
Alanna looked up at Galvin. There were tears on his face.
“Did you plan this, too,” she asked.
He turned up the volume and said nothing.
Alanna stared at him for a moment and then left the room. At the reception area in the main building, she stopped and asked one of the people working in the office to make flight arrangements for her for tonight.
She was ready to go home.
BOOK 3
There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: The readiness is all…
—Hamlet
CHAPTER 70
Belfast, Ireland
Hundreds of people were expected to attend the funeral service at Saint Brigid’s church this morning. Monsignor Cluny had called the house last night. He was worried that, with the large number of mourners, there might not be enough room inside the church for everyone.
Kelly was left to do everything by herself. She first had to make the call to the funeral parlor. She had to pick a casket, arrange for Mick’s body to be sent back to Belfast from America, plan the wake, order flowers, buy food for the get-together at the house later.
Finn hadn’t said a word since he came back. Even though she couldn’t count on him putting himself back together, she wasn’t about to speak at the funeral service about Mick. That, she couldn’t do.
He didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t ask. She knew there had been a mix up, some serious problem, as all kinds of people had been trying to get hold of her husband the morning that everything had happened. His mobile had been off. There’d been no way to rea
ch him.
When he arrived back home, he’d spent hours locked up in his office. He came out for meals, but said nothing. He didn’t go out.
Finn might be retired now, but Kelly didn’t know if her husband would ever recover from this tragedy.
The twins ran into the kitchen screaming something. Kelly envied their innocence. They knew Mick was gone, but they didn’t understand that it was forever. She supposed, come Easter, all the questions of where he was would start up again. And they’d repeat everything again at Christmas.
Kelly poured Finn a cup of coffee. He’d not even gone to the wake. Kelly had to face everyone herself. There was no option this morning, though, and she’d told him so. He was leaving the house and coming to the funeral. He was going to mourn his brother’s son like the man he was.
“Someone is at the curb, Mum,” Liam said, tugging on her hand.
No one was supposed to come to the house. She left the cup on the counter and peered out the window down their driveway. A car had pulled up in front, on the street. A woman was getting out of the car.
“Who’s that?” she found herself asking.
“She’s pretty,” Liam said to his brother. “Maybe you can marry her.”
The next second the two boys were rolling on the floor in a fight.
“Conor! Liam!” she shouted, trying to pull the two apart. Their shirts were pressed. Their ties straight. She’d have to dress them up all over again if they continued with this. She yelled up the stairs. “Finn, I need you down here.” The sound of the doorbell was more effective than a bucket of ice water. The two let go of each other and ran for the door. They didn’t wait for Kelly to catch up to them, and opened the front door.
By the time Kelly arrived in the front hall, she found her husband had reached the bottom of the stairs. She was relieved to see him wearing his black suit. They both looked at the open door and the woman who was standing on their doorstep.
“Hello. You don’t know me…but I’m Amber Hersey,” she said, her voice breaking up. She had an American accent. “I…Mick was with me…when he was…I thought I would come here to the funeral…but I thought I should see you…and say how sorry I am about what happened. I want to tell you…for as short a time as we knew each other how much he meant to me. I—”
The tears cut short her words. Kelly looked at Finn. He walked toward her.
“I know about you, Miss Hersey,” he told her. “You meant a great deal to him.”
He opened his arms, and Amber moved in against him, her sobs muffled against his suit.
Kelly stepped behind her and closed the front door. Perhaps there was a chance, she thought. Maybe they would all recover from this, yet.
CHAPTER 71
Eugene, Oregon
Seven Months later
Harsha enjoyed the lectures the best.
One hundred to two hundred students, sitting in a huge hall, listening to the drone of some professor talking about Economics, or History, or Psychology. It was deadly, and the baby was sure to be sound asleep in no time. There were times when Jay wished he could grab a pillow and curl up in the baby carrier next to his son. But he wasn’t cutting any corners. He refused to break any rules.
The abrupt sound of students closing books and notebooks and banging to their feet at the end of the class always woke up the eight-month-old. He didn’t cry, though. He never cried.
“I hope you took lots of notes in this class,” Jay told him. “It’s your turn to write the paper.”
Harsha gave him a wide grin, showing his two bottom teeth as he kicked his chubby legs.
“That’s my boy.”
Padma was waiting right outside the conference hall. She took the carrier from him.
“What’s next?” he asked.
“Done with my lab. I’m heading home,” she told Jay, kissing him quickly. “See you for dinner?”
“You can count on it,” Jay said, looking after his wife and son.
They lived about ten minutes away. The restored two-bedroom, hundred-year-old house with the large yard in the quiet neighborhood had been an incredible find. Especially when, with the help of Steven Galvin, they’d been able to pay cash for the property and buy it outright.
As a result both of them had decided to go back to school. Padma was taking two courses this semester, one in chemistry and one in accounting. She was officially applying to engineering school mid-year. Jay was very proud of her.
The University of Oregon didn’t charge any extra tuition for bringing Harsha with them to the halls, so they saved plenty of money not paying babysitters. School was going well. Jay was taking two courses as well, both in the humanities. He was trying to get them out of the way.
His job was going even better.
He liked the people he worked with. There were fourteen of them that worked in his office. Everyone operated pretty independently. A quirky bunch. Each of them had a unique story. They were kind of a tech support group for the rest of the company. Jay had been told there would be some traveling involved. But so far he hadn’t had to do any, and that was good. He set his own hours, and he was pretty much his own boss.
The best news of all, Padma was on speaking terms with her parents again. In fact, they were coming to stay with them for Thanksgiving and to see their grandson for the first time.
And Jay wasn’t nervous at all. Life was good.
CHAPTER 72
San Francisco, California
Seven months had passed since Leah’s kidney transplant and there’d been no complications. All the test results were still normal. Her body had accepted the new organ as if it belonged there. She was even being weaned off the anti-rejection medications.
David was too cautious to think their troubles were over. At the same time, he knew they needed to go on with their lives.
Steven Galvin’s wealth was managed by his foundations, and it ran extremely well on its own. David thought the people at the foundation had been extremely generous to him during all the months he’d stayed with his daughter in Germany. There’d been some consulting jobs he could work on long distance for them, but that was the extent of it. They’d kept him on salary, and the benefits had been fully paid. David owed a serious debt of gratitude to Steven Galvin and the arrangements he’d made.
With Leah leaving the hospital, there were a number of openings in Galvin’s organization that David could choose from. They were scattered all over the world. The one he’d decided on happened to be in San Francisco.
Leah and David needed a change, new surroundings, a fresh start. Leah had been out of school for months and had been working with tutors to keep up with other kids her age. Now, she was well enough to actually go to school, sit in classes, play sports. She could finally live like other healthy nine-year-olds.
They were arriving on the West Coast two weeks before Christmas, but the time of the move wasn’t much of a concern to David. Leah was a pro at making friends whenever and wherever she was. And she’d been a great sport about the decisions that David had made for both of them.
“So what is this surprise?” she asked him for the hundredth time in six hours. Their flight from New York had one stop in Phoenix. David realized five minutes after takeoff that he should have stayed quiet about his surprise until they’d arrived at their destination.
They were standing in San Francisco Airport with the others who’d come off their plane and were waiting, as they were, for their luggage.
“A surprise isn’t a surprise if you know what it is,” he told her, just as he had the other hundred times. “Wait and see.”
“This isn’t fair, Daddy,” she complained. “It’s like handing me a box at Thanksgiving and saying, ‘Here’s your Christmas present, but you can’t open it until Christmas day.’”
He pulled a midsized suitcase off the conveyer belt. He put it in front of her. “All your Christmas presents are in this bag…but you can’t open them for two weeks.”
She stared down in disbelief
at the bag. “You’ve gotten so mean.”
He laughed and pulled two more suitcases off the belt. The rest of their things would be brought in by movers, hopefully by the end of the week. David was anxious to have everything settled so that he could have a happy and normal Christmas for his daughter.
She held on with both hands to the alleged bag with gifts. “I’m pulling this one. You can handle the other two.”
His initial reaction was to stop her from lifting anything or pulling things. It was so hard to let go and believe she was fine, even though her doctors had given her permission to do all of those things.
Resigned, he nodded. The two of them started for the door.
“So this place we’re moving into…you said it has a pool?”
“Yes.” After years of not being allowed to go swimming, pools were her biggest fascination.
They stepped out onto the sidewalk. Taxis and various vans and buses were lined up at the doors.
“This way, miss,” he told her.
Leah looked around her as she followed. “Do you know if there are any kids living around us?”
“I assume there are. I really don’t know,” he told her.
“How far away is my school from where we’ll be living?” she asked.
“Maybe a ten-minute drive.”
“Do I take a bus to school?” she wanted to know.
“I think so,” he answered.
“Sweet.”
“We’ll find out all the details when we go check it out tomorrow.”
They stopped at a crosswalk.
“Actually,” she said. “This is pretty scary, moving into a new city. Not knowing anyone. Not having any idea—”
“Think of the positives,” a woman said beside her. “Now you’ll have someone to play chess with.”
Leah turned to the person who’d spoken the words, the bag of gifts forgotten. She wrapped her arms around Alanna’s neck.
“I was hoping that we’d see you…that we’d be near you. Daddy wouldn’t tell me, though.” She looked over her shoulder at David. “Is Alanna my surprise?”