THURSDAy, JUNE 19, 2003

“So there we are,” Sam said, “me and Nos, in Walt’s car, and we realize the only way we know how to get to the hospital is via the interstate. I’d done some unauthorized neighborhood driving before—when my father was out of town and while my mother was... sleeping—but I’d never gone onto the freeway. But I figure what the hell. There’s a first time for everything, right?”

He was touching Alyssa, sliding his hand from her shoulder down past the curve of her waist to her hip and back up again as she lay against him, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, their legs intertwined.

It felt impossibly good, and she tried not to worry about the future’s harsh reality—the forensics report that was probably going to tell them that Mary Lou and Haley were dead, the call she was going to have to make to her doctor about last night’s incredibly stupid broken condom. What was she going to do if she couldn’t get a prescription for a morning-after pill? And what was she going to do if it didn’t work?

That wasn’t even taking into consideration the other dangers of unprotected sex. If Mary Lou had been sleeping around on Sam, that put him at risk.

“We had boys like you in our school,” she told him now. “Wild boys who pushed the edge of every envelope they could find. I stayed far away from them.”

Sam laughed. “Yeah, most of the girls in my school stayed away from me, too. At least the ones I was interested in.”

Alyssa lifted her head. “Really?” She’d always pictured him with women falling all over him from about the time he’d turned twelve.

“Really.” He smiled at her. “Even back then I liked girls like you. Smart, bossy girls who knew better than to mess around with someone like me.”

“Someone like you—an arrogant, egotistical male chauvinist—or someone like you—a kid whose father kicked the hell out of him on a regular basis?”

Something shifted in his eyes. “That’s not what defines me anymore,” he said, all teasing gone.

“I know,” she said, serious, too. “But it’s still where you came from, Roger.” She used his real name on purpose, and he knew it. “You can’t really make it go away.”

He kissed her, and she closed her eyes and kissed him back, wishing that this night would never end, that they could simply stay here forever.

His hand wandered between her legs, and she shifted out of reach. “Hey. Aren’t you going to tell me the rest of this story?”

“We made it to the hospital without getting arrested, the end,” he said, pulling her back to him and kissing her again.

“The end.” She moved away from him and, holding his hands, kept him at arm’s length. “Except your aunt had had a stroke.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “That sucked. It was pretty massive. She never walked again, although not because she didn’t try. That was hard for her—hard for Walt, too.”

“And that was when they moved here to Sarasota?” she asked.

“Yeah. Walt heard about this doctor who was getting really good results with stroke patients. He sold the company—the airfield, the crop dusters, everything. He claimed he was retiring, although it wasn’t six months after he was down here that he opened a new flight school. He just couldn’t not do it, you know? Teach kids to fly. Although at that point, I think all of the proceeds from the school went toward scholarships for underprivileged students. Noah still struggles to keep the business afloat.” He laughed. “Or maybe I should say aloft.”

“But you didn’t go with them,” Alyssa said.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “They wanted me to. It was hard watching them leave, but...”

Alyssa looked into his eyes, knowing why he’d stayed in Fort Worth when the people he’d considered his true family had moved south. “Your mother,” she said.

“I don’t like it when you’re so far away from me,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “Believe me, I know all the tricks. This way you can’t avoid eye contact by kissing me.”

“That’s not why I want to kiss you.”

“Am I right?” Alyssa asked. “You stayed behind because you knew if you weren’t there, your father would start using your mother as his personal punching bag?”

Sam was actually embarrassed. “It wasn’t that big a deal. I knew Lainey would be home in the summer. She had a job teaching at a private school, and she needed someplace to live from June to the end of August. As long as one of us was there, Pop seemed to keep it under control, so...” He shrugged. “I came down here each summer.”

“And went back each fall.” Alyssa wanted to shake him. “You gave up a chance to live with people who loved you in order to take care of someone who’d never been able to protect or take care of you?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “She had a name—it was Mom.”

“Sam—”

“I’m a fucking hero.” He clearly didn’t believe that at all. “Come here and kiss me.”

Alyssa did.

And her phone finally rang.

Whitney read Amanda and Haley another chapter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland while Mary Lou got their breakfast.

It was bizarre. It was amazing. It was a miracle of sorts. Without Mrs. Downs and her father around to torment, Whitney was actually capable of being a helpful, contributing human being.

Mary Lou yawned as she added an extra scoop of grounds to the coffee. Lord, she hadn’t slept at all last night.

And she was suffering—badly—from light of day syndrome. By the time Whitney had gone to sleep after hanging out in Mary Lou’s living room all evening, watching Moulin Rouge nearly twice in a row—Ewan McGregor was a God, but come on—all of Mary Lou’s demons had returned. They’d whispered their urgent warnings in her ear and made her unwilling to return the arsenal of weapons she’d taken from King Frank’s office.

In fact, she’d locked her bedroom door and taken a closer look at one of the rifles, trying to get a sense of where she was supposed to put in the bullets.

She still wasn’t exactly sure.

This morning, with the dawn, her fears had subsided enough to make her feel foolish for not returning the guns to their proper locked place while she’d had the chance.

“What are your plans for today?” she asked Whitney.

“I thought I’d hang around here. What are you guys doing?”

“We’re cleaning out my refrigerator this morning,” Mary Lou said, even though that wasn’t the case.

The look on Whitney’s face was comical. “Oh.” And here came the excuses. Except, “Can I, um, help?” the girl asked.

Curiouser and curiouser.

“I was kidding,” Mary Lou said. “We’re just going to stay inside, because it’s so hot out.” And because she was spooked, even in the light of day, about being a potential sniper target. “Maybe do some puzzles, play some games. I think it’s Amanda’s choice this morning. You’re always welcome, of course, to join us.”

Whitney smiled, all sweetness and light. “Thank you. I will.”

Alyssa untangled herself from Sam and opened her phone. “It’s Jules,” she reported and hit Talk. “Any news?”

“Nothing from forensics yet,” Jules said.

“Nothing from forensics yet,” Alyssa repeated for Sam.

“Oh, my God,” Jules said. “He’s in your room at this hour of the morning?”

“Who is?” Alyssa closed her eyes, wincing. Shit. She definitely gave that one away. Sam rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

“Right,” Jules said. “Right. No one is in your room with you, and you are such a fool. But take heart—you’re not the only fool, sweetie. Apparently last night was International Fuck the Wrong Person Night—for everyone on earth but those of us too pathetic to leave the office before dawn.”

What was he talking about? “Jules, will you please translate that into something I can understand?”

“I’m calling to see if you’ve heard from Max in the past, oh, eight to twelve hours.”

And Alyssa understood. Holy God. “Max didn’t call in all night?”

“That might be exactly what I just said, girlfriend. He’s not in his room, and he’s not answering his cell.”

Alyssa couldn’t believe it. But then she could believe it.

“Peggy thinks he’s dead, and she wants to call the President and put out an alert,” Jules continued. “But she doesn’t know about—”

“Gina,” Alyssa said in unison with him. Oh, Max...

“What do I do?” Jules asked. “If Max hasn’t told Peggy or the rest of the team anything about this girl, I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to do it. And yet Peg’s genuinely worried.”

“Be vague,” Alyssa recommended. “Tell her you have reason to believe he’s fine, that he’s got a female friend here in town. No names, okay? Just tell her she needs to stand down, to give him a few more hours to extract himself from, uh... Wow. I never thought he’d actually—”

“Have you met her?” Jules asked.

“No.” Alyssa had been placed on the roof in a sniper position during the takedown of the hijacked plane where Gina had been held captive. As the SEALs stormed the plane, she and Chief Wayne Jefferson had used sniper rifles to take out the two terrorists in the cockpit. They’d fired through the aircraft’s windshield, putting bullets into the heads of the men who’d raped Gina and killed the airliner’s pilot.

But when Gina had asked to meet the team of SEALs and FBI agents who had saved her life, Alyssa had managed to be out of town.

It was just too hard. Alyssa had taken out a target, eliminated a terrorist. She knew that her target had lost the right to his identity and his life when he’d stepped onto that plane with his intention of killing everyone on board.

But meeting Gina, putting a face to her name, shaking her hand, looking into her eyes and letting her become a real, living person, meant that the hijackers who hurt her were real, too. And real people had mothers and families to mourn them. No, it was just too hard.

“Max never stood a chance.” Jules laughed. “Although it is possible he spent the night parked outside of her motel room, again, in his car.”

“Again?” she asked. Oh, Max...

“Jealous?” Jules said.

“Not even a little. Call the second you get that forensics report.”

“I will,” he promised. “Hey, you know those bikers who jumped Ihbraham Rahman in Coronado? In their initial report, they said that some guy told them to keep an eye on Rahman because he was supposedly acting suspiciously. This guy said he was going back to the gate to get help from the Secret Service, but they never saw him again. Their conversation went down well before the shooting started—which seems noteworthy, huh? Anyway, we sent someone over to talk to them again, to try to get a description of this mystery guy. And guess what?”

“Blond hair?”

“Give the woman a prize. Oh, wait, she already got hers last night—”

“No need to be a jerk, sweetie.”

“We showed our biker dudes that nifty little photo taken of our suspect with Mary Lou Starrett in the San Diego library parking lot, and we got ourselves another positive ID. It’s definitely our man. Dudes one through three have been moved into protective custody. Tell Sam—when you see him that is, cough, snort—that his theory about the gardener also being a target of the terrorists sure seems to be a good one. However, there’s still no sign of Rahman—either dead or alive.”

“Any word on Kelly Paoletti and Cosmo Richter?” Alyssa asked, as Sam came back out of the bathroom.

“Mrs. Paoletti’s still in ICU. Say a prayer when you get a minute. Richter got some broken bones, but he’s going to be fine,” Jules reported. “Whoops, Laronda’s waving at me. Peggy’s on the line two. I’ve got to go tell her—without really telling her—that Max isn’t dead, just really, really happy.”

An odd, persistent buzzing woke Gina from a sound sleep.

Her first thought, upon opening her eyes, was that she must still be sleeping. But then she knew she wasn’t, because she never in a million years would have even dreamed that Max would still be here this morning, boneless and unconscious in her bed.

The buzzing was Max’s cell phone, set on vibrate. It was actually rattling against whatever was in the pocket of his suit, on the floor where they’d thrown it last night.

Last night...

Max looked exhausted—she hoped whoever was calling had given up.

But it began rattling again, and his eyes opened and he looked directly at her.

“Someone wants you,” Gina told him as it kept on shaking.

He stared at her, and she watched last night play in super fast-forward in his eyes as he remembered where he was and what he was doing there.

“Do you want me to find your phone for you?” she asked.

He swallowed, lifting his head and wiping his mouth, grimacing as he realized he’d been so totally unconscious that he’d actually been drooling. “No. Thanks.” He flipped the pillow over as he cleared his throat. “What time is it?”

His phone stopped its dance.

“Nearly seven-thirty.”

Gina watched his eyes as he realized that he’d not only slept, but he’d slept for nearly seven hours.

“Hooray for sex,” she said.

“Yeah.” He met her gaze only very briefly again before rolling onto his back, his arm up over his eyes. It was remarkable how quickly his beard grew. She’d always thought he was just being meticulously anal retentive to shave every few hours throughout the day, but he really did get a total GQ look with very little effort.

“Christ, I have to go,” he said on an exhale, definitely not moving at all. “I should’ve been in the office an hour ago. Manny Conseco’s probably sitting behind my desk. Of course it was his desk up until a few days ago.”

Gina propped her head on her elbow. “I guess this means you don’t have time to take me to breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” he asked. “What’s that?”

Hey, a joke. That was a good sign.

She put her hand on his chest, but his phone started shaking again, so she didn’t really know which it was that made him push himself up so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

“God,” he said. “You know, this is why I don’t sleep—because once I start, I don’t ever want to stop.”

“If you do it every night, it makes it a little easier to wake up in the morning.”

“Oh, yeah,” Max said, rubbing his face. “That makes sense.”

He reached for the remote control on the bedside table and turned on the TV, flipping until he reached CNN. There was a news report about the increase in gun sales over the past year, and he put it on mute.

“It’s always good when I turn on the TV and nothing’s blowing up or on fire,” he told her.

Despite the fact that he didn’t seem to want her to touch him, this morning-after thing was going okay. They were talking, and it wasn’t too weird.

But his phone was still buzzing.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” she asked.

“No. It does that all the time.”

She sat up, and the covers slipped off of her, and Max turned away, fast.

Okay. Now the mood in the room was definitely weird.

“You know, you saw me naked last night,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, I’m very much aware of that.” He stood up and staggered toward the bathroom, keeping his back toward her, as if she wouldn’t notice that his body was far more awake than he was.

The phone was silent for only a few minutes. It started to buzz again after he flushed the toilet.

“God damn it,” he said, and came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist to dig through the pile of clothes they’d left on the floor. He opened his phone. “Bhagat. This better be good.”

Max listened for a moment, letting himself look at Gina before apparently remembering that he didn’t want to let himself look at her while she was naked, and turning away.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks. Oh, and Laronda? I’m going to need access to a computer and a printer today.” Another pause. “Because I need to write a letter.” Pause. “Yeah, I’ve kind of caught on to the concept of dictation after eighteen years. But this is one I have to do myself.” A sigh. “I don’t know. Thirty minutes?” He glanced at Gina again, turned his back on her again. “Give or take a few.”

He hung up his phone and picked up his wrinkled suit and sighed. “You think anyone will notice if I wear this into work again today?”

Gina laughed at the picture of Max going to work, looking like he’d slept in his clothes. “Only if you don’t shave.”

He laughed, too, letting himself look at her out of the corner of his eyes. “Yeah, I better call Laronda back. I need to stop at my hotel. Thirty minutes. What was I thinking?”

“Give or take a few,” Gina reminded him, hoping that glance meant he was going to climb back in bed with her and get into work really late.

“Did I tell you last night that I find you incredibly beautiful?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to remember, but the entire night’s a little sketchy. If I didn’t say it, I should have, because it’s... You are. Amazingly beautiful.”

“Yeah,” she said, somehow managing to talk around her heart, now permanently lodged in her throat. “Actually, you told me that right before you asked me to marry you.”

He froze. Oh, man, did he actually think...?

“Max, I’m kidding,” she said. “That was a joke.”

But congratulations, she’d managed to freak him out even more than he was already freaked out. And she’d completely blown any chance that she had of talking him back to bed. It was her fault completely for trying to be funny. Idiot. Idiot.

She half expected to need to do CPR on him.

But Max went into the bathroom and splashed water onto his face instead of clutching his chest and falling onto the rug.

“I’m going to shower back at my hotel,” he told her, coming back out and pulling on his clothes. He was trying to sound casual, but his voice was tight as he tossed his towel onto the back of the desk chair. “What time does your flight leave tonight?”

“Seven forty-five,” she told him, wishing she could go back in time and start this morning over. She should have grabbed him and kissed him before his eyes even opened. “I have to check out of here at noon.”

He didn’t look happy at that news as he sat down on the edge of the bed to put on his socks and shoes. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to take you to the airport.”

“That’s okay. I didn’t expect you to.” This was where she was absolutely not going to offer to stay a few extra days. If he asked, that was fine, but she had told him again and again that she only wanted one night. Now wasn’t the time to tell him she’d been lying.

“Call me,” he ordered her so fiercely that her heart lightened. “When you leave here. And let me know where you’re going. I want to know where you are today.”

Of course, maybe he didn’t want her to call so he could see her again. Maybe this was just more of that protective crap he was so good at.

“I’m just going to the beach for a couple of hours,” she told him. “And then I’m taking the bus to the airport.” Play it cool, play it cool. She watched as he stood up and slipped his arms into his jacket, stashed his tie in his pocket. “In case I don’t see you before I leave—thank you for everything.”

Max looked at her, but he kept his eyes above her neck. “You’ll see me.”

“That would be nice,” she said.

Come on, Max. How about a lunch date? Or they could meet in his hotel room for a different kind of midday refreshment.

But he headed for the door, already starting to dial his phone.

“But just in case I don’t see you,” she called, “I want you to know how much last night meant to me. I really do think you’re wonderful and—”

“Stop.” He turned back to her with a trace of that wildness—a trace of Mr. Hyde—in his eyes. After last night, he fascinated her more than ever. “Jesus Christ, I’m not wonderful. I’m not even close. I’m a total asshole.”

What? “No, you’re not.”

“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. “I am. Gina, look, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”

“All right.”

He returned his attention to his phone as he opened the door. “Alyssa, it’s Max,” she heard him say as he shut it behind him. “Call me, damn it. I need to talk to you now.”

Gina sank back into the bed, wishing she hadn’t heard that, wishing he’d bothered to take an extra five seconds to kiss her good-bye, wishing she’d understood why he’d run, practically screaming, for the door, just because she’d made a bad joke about getting married.

Towel around his waist, Sam went back to his own room to get his clothes.

Alyssa was on her cell phone, leaving a message for her doctor in an attempt to rectify last night’s condom horror show. It had seemed like a good time to give her some privacy.

Sam didn’t want to hear about it, didn’t want to think about it. There was no room in his head for what her taking that pill meant, both in the cosmic scheme of things and in regards to their budding relationship.

Obviously he had his work cut out for him if he was going to convince her to take a chance on him—on them.

He got dressed in the same suit he’d worn for the past few days. It was far longer than he’d ever worn a suit before, and he thought wistfully of his jeans and boots. Between clothes shopping and his haircut, he’d put them in a big box at a Mail Boxes Etc. in Gainesville and shipped them back to himself in San Diego.

It was one thing to ditch a sports jacket, but those jeans were broken in. And the boots... He’d once sent a pair of boots home from Pakistan. Took ’em four months to get to San Diego, because he’d sent them to a friend in Indonesia first. At the time, and in that part of Pakistan, it would have been bad for his health to ship a package directly to the United States.

He put on his tie, adjusting it in the mirror, and stared at himself. He hadn’t given it much thought when he’d bought the damn thing, but really, when was the last time he’d worn a civilian business suit?

Ever since high school, since joining the Navy, whenever he’d needed to look nice, he’d worn his dress uniform. But that wasn’t going to be an option anymore, thanks to Mary Lou. No, be a man about it, Starrett. It was thanks to his own carelessness.

Sam closed his eyes. He could give up his job, his career. He would even accept a dishonorable discharge without complaint. But please God, let Haley and Mary Lou be alive and safe.

His cell phone rang. Sam searched for it in his jacket pockets, first finding Alyssa’s side arm. Whoops. Forgot he had that. He opened his phone.

“If you hurt Alyssa again, I will make you sorry you were born.”

“Good morning, Jules,” Sam said.

“I am so, so serious, Starrett!”

“I hear you,” Sam said. “And I have no intention of—”

“That’s what you say now. And in four hours, we’ll find Mary Lou and she’ll tell you that she has a brain tumor so if you divorce her she won’t have the medical insurance necessary to pay for her lifesaving series of operations, which will take fifteen years—”

“Jules,” Sam said. “Breathe.”

Jules took a breath.

“The divorce papers are already signed,” Sam said. “It’s just a matter of the lawyers filing them. Nothing like that’s going to happen.”

“I know. And I hate you,” Jules said. “You’re going to take away the best partner I ever had, aren’t you?”

“Alyssa’s not leaving the Bureau.”

“That’s what you say now. But I know that you’re going to have to leave Team Sixteen, which, by the way, is a crying shame. But there are already rumblings on the Spec Op grapevine, speculating that if Tom Paoletti can prove his innocence—which isn’t going to be as easy as it sounds—he’s going to be forming some kind of civilian superhero team, and you, my handsome friend, are a shoo-in for some kind of executive officer position.”

“No shit?” Now there was a job he wouldn’t turn down.

“Of course, Alyssa’s admired Paoletti for years,” Jules told him. “That XO spot would probably be something she wouldn’t refuse if it was offered to her.”

Ah, Jules, Jules, Jules. The little gâteau de fruit hated the idea of losing Alyssa as his partner, and yet he’d told Sam exactly how to steal her away from the FBI. “If I were gay,” Sam started, “I’d—”

Jules cut him off. “Say no more. And these are just rumors, remember. But I do love you, too, angel cake.”

“I don’t think I’m quite at the point yet where I’m comfortable with you saying that to me.”

“Are you a happy, happy man this morning?” Jules asked. “Are you ready for me to make you even happier? Because gorgeous George just came over to my desk bringing tidings of great joy—at least from your perspective. The forensic report’s in. The bodies are those of a migrant worker and her daughter, gone missing in April.”

Sam’s knees stopped holding him up, and he sat down heavily on the bed. “Oh, thank God.”

Jules was saying something more, but Sam couldn’t hear it. It hadn’t been Haley, shot in the head and burned to a crisp. The rush of relief turned his muscles to rubber and his brain to oatmeal. It made it hard to breathe, made his vision swim, made his throat tight and his head light.

“Thank you,” Sam whispered. It was the best he could manage. “I have to... go now. Thank you. God.”

“Hey, are you okay?” Jules asked.

Sam closed his phone.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, waiting for the roaring in his ears to ease up, waiting for the light-headedness to go away. But he knew that he had to share this news with Alyssa. Somehow he stood up. He only had to make it as far as the door though, because when he opened it, Alyssa was already standing there.

She had tears on her face. “Jules just called me. You really freaked him out.” She reached up to touch his cheek, and he realized that he was crying, too. “Oh, Sam.”

He reached for her and she went into his arms, holding him as tightly as he held her.

“I was so sure,” she whispered. “I’m so glad I was wrong.”

He didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t crying. “Thank God,” she murmured, as he just hung on to her and wept.

“I was so scared,” he finally said.

He’d slept maybe a total of an hour last night, and it had been a fitful sleep, filled with ominous, threatening dreams. With the relief, there now came an incredible wave of fatigue.

Somehow Alyssa knew. “You want to take a nap or you want to get some coffee?”

“Coffee,” he said.

She laughed softly and kissed him, her eyes filled with tenderness. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

“Let’s find Haley today,” he said.

Alyssa kissed him again. “That would be nice.”

Tom Paoletti sat holding Kelly’s hand as she lay in the hospital bed, listening to the machine that monitored her heartbeat.

It was beeping steadily, solidly, reassuringly. There were voices in the hall, and he looked up. God damn. Admiral Tucker and the shore patrol had made the scene. He’d spent most of the night wondering when they were going to show up.

Out in the hall Jazz and Stan intercepted them, standing up and making a very large wall between this room and the admiral.

He could hear the senior chief. “I’m sorry, sir. Only immediate family are allowed inside the ICU.”

Nice try, Stan. Tom squeezed Kelly’s hand.

“I think I’m getting more out of my being here than you are,” he told her even though her eyes were closed. “So maybe it’s okay if I have to go. I love you so much, Kel. I need you to fight for me. Whether I’m here or not, I’m with you. Just listen to that monitor, okay? Because that’s my heart, too.” His voice broke. “Every beep, that’s me saying that I love you. God damn it, I don’t want to have to leave you, but Tucker’s here, and—”

Her fingers moved. Her fingers moved and her eyelids fluttered.

“Nurse!” Tom shouted. “I need a nurse in here!”

Jay Lopez, the hospital corpsman from Team Sixteen, was beside him in a flash. Where the hell had he come from? The ICU nurse, an African-American woman who was nearly as tall as Tom, was just a few steps behind.

“She’s waking up,” Lopez said. “Man, you scared me, sir. I thought I was going to have to use the defibrillator.”

Mother of God, nearly the entire team, and their wives and girlfriends, too, were out there. They were standing back to give the medical staff room to maneuver, but they were all there.

“She’s okay,” Lopez called to them.

“She certainly is.” The nurse pulled the curtain around Kelly’s bed, giving her some privacy. “Good morning, Mrs. Paoletti,” she said as she adjusted the oxygen tube that fed into Kelly’s nose, as she checked the IV. “We’re very glad to see you today.”

“Tom,” Kelly whispered. “Don’t leave.”

“I won’t,” he promised her. “I won’t.”

“No, he’s not going anywhere,” the nurse told her. “We’ve got an entire SEAL team guarding this door. And me, as well. I may not be a SEAL, but I am not afraid to call security to remove an admiral who has no business being here.” She glanced at Tom, then leaned closer to Kelly. “Oh, honey, don’t you love a man who’s not afraid to cry?”

By nine o’clock, Whitney was positively antsy. She made the two-year-olds seem staid as they sat at the table in the playroom and colored. She hopped up. She sat down. She sang bits and pieces of top forty songs. She talked nonstop about movies she’d seen, like some kind of mad version of Chris Farley on speed. “It was awesome...”

“Maybe you should call that friend of yours—Ashley—and the two of you can go for a swim,” Mary Lou finally suggested.

“No,” Whitney said. “I’m having fun with you guys. Besides, Ashley’s a bitch.”

The phone rang, and the girl rocketed out of her seat. “I’ll get it.” She picked it up. “Hello?” A pause, and then a shriek. “Finally! Yes, send him up. Definitely. Front door. Thank you, Jim, I looove you!” She hung up the phone.

“Was that Jim from the gate?” Mary Lou asked.

“Yes, it was.” Whitney danced toward the door. “I’ll be right back. There’s a... a package I’ve been expecting, and it’s finally here. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

She ran out of the room. A package.

They colored in silence for a while. In blessed, blessed silence. Even Amanda and Haley didn’t make any noise.

Please, dear Lord, don’t let Whitney’s package be firecrackers. Or a case of whiskey. Or a new powerboat. Or—

“What’s a bitch?” Amanda asked.

“That’s not a very nice word, honey,” Mary Lou told her as mildly as she could manage. She smiled at Haley, who was all eyes—and ears. “So we won’t use that one again, okay?”

“Mrs. Downs is a bitch,” Amanda said.

“No, she’s not,” Mary Lou said, even though she was thinking, Oh, yes, she is. “Mrs. Downs is just a little grumpy sometimes. If we smile at her, maybe she won’t be so grumpy.”

“And maybe the sky will fall.” Whitney was back. “Look who’s here, Mary Lou.”

What did Whitney just call her? Mary Lou looked up, and, dear Lord God in heaven, Ihbraham Rahman was standing just inside the playroom door.