He casually glanced around, the way savvy agents learn to do, saw no one even remotely interested in them, and said, “This is on the quiet. The director is organizing a national task force on hate groups and I’ve been invited to sort of try out for the team. I have not said yes or no, and if I said yes there’s no guarantee that I would be chosen. But it’s a prestigious group of elite agents.”
“Okay. Where would you be assigned?”
“Either Kansas City or Portland. But it’s all preliminary.”
“Are you tired of Florida?”
“No. I’m tired of lost weekends chasing cartels. I’m tired of living in a cheap apartment and not being sure about the future.”
“I can’t handle a long-distance romance, Allie. I prefer to have you close by.”
“Well, as of now, I have no plans to leave. It’s just a possibility. Can we talk about you?”
“I’m an open book.”
“Anything but. The same question: Where will you be one year from now?”
She drank some wine. The waiter brushed by, stopped long enough to top off both glasses, and disappeared. She shook her head and said, “I really don’t know. I doubt I’ll be at BJC, but I’ve been telling myself that for several years now. I’m not sure I have the guts to quit and leave the job security.”
“You have a law degree.”
“Yes, but I’m almost forty and I have no speciality, something that law firms prefer. If I hung out my shingle and started drafting wills I’d starve to death. I’ve never written one. My only option is to do what most government lawyers do and scramble up the food chain for a bigger salary. I’m thinking of something different, Allie. Maybe a midlife crisis at the age of forty. Any interest?”
“A joint crisis?”
“Sort of. More like a partnership. Look, both of us have doubts about our futures. We’re forty years old, give or take, still single, no kids, and we can afford to take a chance, do something stupid, fall flat and pick ourselves up.”
There it was. Finally on the table. She took a deep breath, couldn’t believe she had gone so far, and watched his eyes carefully. They were curious and surprised. He said, “There were a couple of important words in there. The first I heard was ‘afford.’ I’m in no position to stop working at my age and launch myself into a crisis.”
“What was the second word?”
“？‘Stupid.’？”
“Just a figure of speech. As a general rule, neither of us do stupid things.”
The waiter appeared with a tray and began clearing the table. When he grabbed the empty wine bottle he asked, “Another?” Both shook their heads.
They charged the lunch to their room, which was $200 a night, off-season, and when they checked out on Sunday they would split the bill. They tried to split everything. Both earned around $70,000 a year. Hardly retirement money, but then no one had mentioned retirement.
They left the pool and walked to the edge of the ocean where they realized the water was too cold even for a quick plunge. Arm in arm, they strolled along the beach, drifting aimlessly like the waves.
“I have a confession,” he said.
“You never confess.”
“Okay, try me. For about a year I’ve been saving money to buy you a ring.”
She stopped cold as they disentangled and looked at each other.
“And? What happened to it?”
“I haven’t bought one because I’m not sure you’ll take it.”
“Are you sure you want to offer it?”
He hesitated, for too long, and finally said, “That’s what we have to decide, right, Lacy? Where are we going?”
She crossed her arms and tapped her lips with an index finger. “You want to take a break, Allie?”
“A break?”
“Yes, some time off. From me.”
“Not really. Do you?”
“No. I kinda like having you around.”
They smiled, then hugged, then continued along the beach. With nothing resolved.
11
The email arrived at 9:40 on Sunday night, when Jeri was alone, as always in her townhouse preparing her week’s lectures and debating whether to watch a television show. The address was one of several permanent ones she maintained, heavily encrypted and seldom used. Only four people had access to it, and no one could follow it. The man on the other end was someone she had never met, would indeed never have reason to, and she did not know his real name. When she paid him, always in cash, she sent the money inside a thin paperback in a little package through the mail to a post office box in Camden, Maine, to a vague outfit called KL Data.