“Oh yeah. But Captain Slater, he was one of those—if he was heading to hell in a handbasket, most folks’d say, ‘How do I hop on?’ It was the desert, you know? We had people lining us up with a compass, standing out there in the sand, directing us with their arms. Little bit off course here, little bit off there, and then we got so far ahead of everyone.”
“Can I ask, did you know someone named Paul Conway?”
“The commo? Sure. He was a good troop.”
“Do you know what he might have been doing that night?”
“Conway? He was just trying to keep everything working. Sucked to be him that night.” He laughed. “But you should talk to him. He’s the one who’d know what messages managed to get in and out.”
45
Mr. Abbott had corroborated Mr. Ornofo.
The company had lost contact with everyone else.
Even so, that wasn’t a major crime or even a minor one. It was more than a little embarrassing, leading two hundred men out into the middle of the desert and not being in quite the right place, but it wasn’t court-martial terrible, not kill-to-keep-it-quiet terrible. The only thing it established was that my father wasn’t where he was supposed to be. That was the theme: no one was where they were supposed to be. I can see why Sean hadn’t known what to think. It seemed like it ought to mean something, but what? There had to be more to the story.
One of the tech gurus brought my phone back midmorning. She handed it to me. “You had some nasty stuff on there. Didn’t find any record of anything having been downloaded, though.”
“But you got it all off?”
“Yeah. ’Cause I’m kind of awesome that way.” She flashed me a smile as she left.
At least all my communications with Sean were through my new phone. But I deleted my personal email account from the mail program on my old phone just to be safe.
Who had planted the malware? The FBI? The Department of Defense?
“Georgie.”
“Huh!” I was startled out of my reverie by Ted.
“There’s a—” His words were drowned out by the sound of a vacuum cleaner down the hall. We worked so often with classified information that cleaning staff had to be escorted. It was easier to have them come during the workday and make everyone take escort responsibility for their own office.
“Sorry, Ted. What?”
He stepped inside my office. “There’s a problem with your contract.”
“The appropriations bill. I know.”
“Besides that. Someone’s challenged the award. They say you had inappropriate contact with the contract officer.”
What? “I didn’t talk to anyone in the government after the request for proposal came out. Not until after they published the award of the contract.”
“I know. Of course you didn’t. But you’re going to have to sort it out. Make some phone calls.” He dropped the folder on my desk. “Just answer the challenge, will you?”
“I resent having to charge billable hours to someone else’s unfounded accusations when—”
“Then you’re really going to resent having to get it done before noon tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
He didn’t answer. He was already out the door.
I made a few calls trying to determine who had challenged the award. I narrowed the possibilities down to two.
By that time it was noon. I dug into my purse for my sandwich. Looked at my phone. The old one. Then the new—
I’d missed a text from Sean. He’d sent it several hours before. It must have been during all the vacuuming. I hadn’t heard it buzz.
Meet me downstairs
I grabbed my purse and left my office at a run.
* * *
I was heading for the Starbucks, like before, when someone stepped out from a store right into me. His coffee spilled all over my sweater and down onto my purse.
He stepped back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
I glanced down at the stain. “It’s fine. It’s all right.” I looked at him. It was Sean. “Sorry I’m late. I didn’t see your—”
He grabbed my arm. “Let me wipe this up for you.” He pulled me over to a bench. Handed me a napkin. Then he took one himself and dabbed at my purse. “You need to tell me what happened with Sam.”
“There’s not much to tell. Two of those little hockey punks sandwiched him. He fell.”
“He’s okay?”
“He’s fine.” I used a napkin to squeeze the coffee out of my sweater. “It took a while to stop his nosebleed. That night I realized my phone was acting strange. It was spyware.”
“From the rink? How did they do it?”
“When I ran down to get Sam, I left everything upstairs. It couldn’t have been for more than ten minutes. Or maybe fifteen.”
His gaze had settled over my left shoulder as he’d listened to me speak. “So they knocked Sam down on purpose.”
“Georgie!” The call came from behind me.
I stiffened.
Beside me, Sean did too.
46
“Georgie, hey—” It was one of my coworkers. One who’d actually met Sean. We’d all gone to a baseball game together back in the day. “How’s that presentation for the conference coming? I was hoping we could talk about it this afternoon. I had some ideas.” His gaze settled on Sean.
Sean smiled. “Hey.”
I gestured to my sweater, trying to distract him. “I ran into him as I was heading for Starbucks. Wasn’t quite the way I’d imagined getting coffee, but—” I dabbed at it again with the napkin. “Anyway, yes. I’ll swing by your office later.”
“Great. Okay. Later.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away. “Do you think he recognized you?”
Sean shook his head. “People only see what they expect to.” His eyes scanned the crowd. “Flirt with me.” He turned the full force of his attention back to me and I remembered exactly what it had felt like when I’d first met him.
“What?”
“Flirt with me. We’ll draw less attention as we talk if it looks like there’s a reason we’re doing it.”
He didn’t know what he was asking. Even back when I was single and flirting, I wasn’t very good at it. And somehow, just then, I couldn’t quite catch my breath. He didn’t look like a panhandler anymore. He was wearing a tailored sports jacket, trim trousers, and an open-neck shirt. His hair was slicked back. Had he trimmed his beard? He looked European.
He put a hand on my arm. Looked down into my eyes. Then his gaze dropped to my lips. Went back to my eyes. “I like being with you.”
My cheeks bloomed. “Sean.”
“I do. It’s been way too long.” He flashed a smile again. “Did you learn anything from Abbott?”
He didn’t seem like Sean. He was so suave. It was as if he were playing a role. But he was so good at it. It was like he’d done it all before. A lot.
“Georgie?”
I blinked. “Yes. My father let the company get off course.”
“Right. I know.”
“Is that why they ran into the Iraqis?”
“Less frowning. More flirting.”
I smiled.
He smiled.
“Maybe the company was in the wrong place; maybe the Republican Guard was right where they were supposed to be.”
He winked. “I checked that out at the Pentagon. Neither group was supposed to be where they were.”
“They buried people alive, Sean. In the sand. Is that what this is about?”
“Everyone knows that. Nobody talks about it.”
For good reason.
He smiled once more and extended his hand.
As I put mine into it, I felt him press something into my palm.
He winked. “See you around maybe?”
“Yes. Sure. Yeah.”
He turned around, threw his empty coffee cup into a trash can, and walked away.
I plunged my hand into my purse, letting go of
whatever it was he’d given me. Then I brushed at the coffee stain one last time. It was useless. I tossed the napkin away and continued on to Starbucks. At least that would provide a reason for my trip.
If anyone was watching.
As I stood in line waiting to place my order, I fished Sean’s gift out of my purse. It was a hotel key enclosed in a cardboard pouch.
I’d never spent much time thinking about Sean’s past. Not as it related to his relationships with women. He’d seen so many terrible things. Done, perhaps, some terrible things. He’d been in a gang. And he was really good at flirting. Just how much experience with women did he have? Granted, he’d turned Jenn down, but how many others had thrown themselves at him?
If I could have beat myself over the head with something, I would have. I didn’t have time for that kind of nonsense. And I wasn’t fifteen years old. But after talking to Kelly, after hearing Jenn’s betrayal, after seeing Sean’s performance, I was starting to question what we’d had. How could I trust us again?
* * *
The hotel was connected to both the mall and the office complex. It was a fancy hotel, the kind we put our consultants in when they came to meet with us. I strode through the lobby as if I did it every day of my life. As if I belonged there.
I lectured myself as I rode the elevator up to Sean’s room. I told my stomach that it was not allowed to turn over. I told my knees that they were not allowed to melt. I practiced what I was going to say when I saw him because I needed to ask him about Jenn. I wanted to hear what he had to say. I used my key to unlock the door, pushed it open, and then all those good intentions fell right out of my head.
Sean was there.
And he wasn’t wearing his shirt anymore. Or his jacket. Or his shoes.
I held up a hand. “Don’t come any closer.”
He ignored me.
I pressed my back against the door and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t lose focus. I wanted to be able to say what I needed to. “There’s something I really need to talk to you about. I need to talk to you about Jenn.”
His hand cupped my elbow.
My eyes flew open.
His gaze held mine. “What about her?”
“Sean. Seriously. You know. January?”
He sighed. Ran his hand up the back of his head. “It was that Saturday when you were doing that Kids and Science day downtown. Jenn brought Preston over. She’d been flirty before, but I’d kind of written it off as her trying to get attention.”
“Jenn’s flirty with everyone.”
“I know the difference between fun flirty and sexy flirty. I’d been brushing her off. You know, deliberately misunderstanding the cues. But that day there wasn’t any way to misunderstand. So I told her I wasn’t available. End of story.”
“And you didn’t tell me, why?”
He took hold of my hand. “Because I figured I could handle Jenn, and whatever it was that you got out of your friendship with her was something you needed on some level. I just made sure I was never alone with her again.”
He was trying to meet my gaze, but I didn’t let him. I needed to sort it out on my own. Either I trusted him or I didn’t. But I wouldn’t be persuaded into it. “I just . . .” I put a hand to his chest.
He covered it with his own.
“I want to trust you, Sean.”
“You can trust me.”
“I’m not—” A sob was trying to work itself out and I didn’t want it to. I swallowed. “I’m not good at any of this.”
He let go of my hand and cupped my face. “Any of what?”
I closed my eyes. “I never even thought—it just always felt like—” My voice had gone ragged. “I wanted to be the one.”
His hand slid to my shoulder. “You are the one.”
“I just— I think I would have wanted to know.”
“Then I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” He scooped me up and carried me to the bed.
47
After, as I lay there next to him, I would have sworn I was floating if my head hadn’t been cradled in the crook of his elbow.
Sean pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I don’t want to leave.”
He pulled me closer. “I don’t want you to.”
I slid my arm across his chest. “Should I worry about how you paid for this? You did pay for this, right?”
“The important thing is that there’s no trail that will lead to me. Or you. Right now the only thing I want is for you and Sam to be safe.”
“I wish we could talk to Paul Conway. I think he’s the key; he knew everything. He’s the one who sent and received all the messages. I don’t think it’s an accident that he died.”
He entwined his fingers with mine. “I don’t think so either.”
I curled into his torso. “They don’t get to choose what happens to us.”
“I couldn’t save my parents, but I’m doing everything I can to save you.”
He was doing what he’d done when he saved Kelly. He was withdrawing in order to pull away the danger. I could feel it. “I want you back.”
“I need you to understand. I might not get to come back.” He said the words slowly. Distinctly.
The illusion of safety, of togetherness, vanished. I propped myself up on an elbow. “Why not?”
He glanced up at me and then rolled onto his side to face me. “How can I? I don’t even have an identity anymore.”
“We figure this out and we tell the truth.” I reached out and traced one of his eyebrows. “We tell the truth and it’s not worth it for them to try to kill you anymore.”
He rolled onto his back. “Sometimes I wish I’d just kept my mouth shut. Decided that it was just an oversight—that someone forgot to mark that Iraqi position. I could have convinced myself it didn’t matter the Iraqis weren’t supposed to be there.”
“Once we figure this out, maybe if we told someone else. Someone different. Someone not at the Pentagon or the FBI. Isn’t this the kind of story someone would publish?”
“Maybe. Probably.” He looked over at me. “Let’s say they did. It’d be a twenty-four-hour sensation. Then what would happen? I’d get arrested and prosecuted for leaking classified information.”
“They couldn’t—”
“The only one who’d know all those things, who could have pulled it all together from all the different sources—the message traffic, the people, the maps—is me. And how would I know them? Because I had access to classified materials. And worse, the other historians would be brought in to testify against me. There’s no way for me to publish my story without revealing classified information.”
“But wouldn’t it be a whistleblower suit? Intimidation by the government? Conspiracy?”
“Maybe. But what kind of money would I need to defend myself in a case like that? And how many years would it take? And even if I were exonerated, what kind of job could I hope to apply for? I’d never be eligible for a secret clearance again. No one in the federal government would want to touch me. Academia? I’d always be the crazy conspiracy guy. So why would I come back?”
“You have to.”
“Most people, had they put two and two together the way I did, would have looked at the other side of the equation. They would have realized it wasn’t worth it.”
“The truth is always worth it.”
“Is it? Always? Really?” He searched my eyes.
“It has to be. The confirmation hearing is less than two weeks away. We need to know what happened. There has to be a way.”
“All roads still lead to me. And classified information.”
“But what if they didn’t?”
He raised a brow. “How could they not?”
“What if they lead to me instead? That way you wouldn’t be implicated.”
“It won’t work.” Sean didn’t even pause for a moment to reflect before discarding my proposal. He threw back the sheets and got out of bed.
I followed him to the bathroom. “It will wo
rk.”
“It won’t. You’d have to have access to message traffic and the files and interviews in the archives.” He turned on the shower.
“Not necessarily. You could tell me.”
“But what I know is based on that information.”
“And all the research you’ve been doing in the past eight months.”
“You’d have to know what people to interview.”
“I do. I have the names in your book.”
“But you’d have to know what the orders for the day were—”
“I can get that information.”
“How?”
“It’s like a geometry proof. You got there one way. All I have to do is figure out an alternative method.”
“In academia we call that researching with a bias.”
“That’s quaint. In geometry it’s called proving a postulate.”
He closed his eyes and leaned back into the water.
I raised my voice so he could hear me. “Do you want to come back from the dead or not?”
He straightened, opened his eyes, and looked at me. “This isn’t safe.” His eyes softened. “If they’ll kill me for what I know, what do you think they’ll do to you? This isn’t academic, Georgie. This is good guys and bad guys.”
“And that’s absolutely what gives me hope.”
“Hope?”
“That’s right. Because you’re not dead yet, are you?”
“I might as well be.”
“You aren’t. And after I’m done, you’ll be even more alive.” I stepped into the shower with him, reached up, and took his face between my hands, treasuring the opportunity, knowing from experience that I might not ever be able to do it again. “I love you. And I want Sam to have his father back. That’s why I have to do this. Just trust me. Okay?”
Underneath the desolation in his eyes was something I hadn’t seen in them since he’d turned up alive: hope.
48
By the time I finished washing and drying my hair, Sean was gone. But that was okay. My body was still warm, my heart still singing from his having been there. I walked out of the hotel and back down to the mall. As long as I was passing by, I decided I might as well pick up Sam’s Christmas present.
State of Lies Page 17
