The Negotiator Page 25
“No, there isn’t.” Dave ran his hand through his hair. “I believe, and I still wrestle with the questions you ask. The bank holdup, it had the effect of pushing me closer to God. Is that a sufficient reason to explain why God allowed it to happen? Probably not. Is the fact we met that day a sufficient reason? If Henry Lott had not come into the bank, would he have committed suicide instead? We don’t know what God sees in a situation, why He allows something to happen. The bomb on the plane—only God can understand tragedies like that. You learn to trust Him, even when you don’t understand.”
“‘I don’t understand’ describes exactly where I am.”
“You ask good questions. It’s the place to begin.”
“You would like me to believe.”
He looked over at her, and his half smile was rueful. “More than you will ever know.”
“I can’t believe just because you want me to or Jennifer wants me to.”
“I know. Faith is the ultimate personal decision. No one else can make it for you. That is all the more reason to ask the questions.”
Kate leaned her head back. The night sky was spread out as a shimmering layer of stars. So much power, so far away. Was God near or far?
She was grateful Dave didn’t try to break the silence. The questions lingered, unsettled. From her perspective, belief looked like stepping off a cliff, and she didn’t want to get any closer to the edge.
Nineteen
Jennifer pulled out a kitchen chair, having finished a quick phone call, leaving a message with her fiancé Tom’s answering service so he would know she had arrived safely. “I like your friend Dave.”
Kate smiled back at her sister, pushing the glass of lemonade toward her. “So do I.”
There was an inevitability now about the case against Tony Jr., a matter of waiting for him to be found. Kate had spent today pacing, expecting at any time to hear her pager go off. Having Jennifer arrive late in the afternoon had been a relief, had changed the entire tone of the day for the better.
It wasn’t apparent when she looked at Jennifer that anything was wrong. Even the strain of the long trip back was not obvious. Stephen and Jack had brought her out to the estate, and the three of them had been laughing as they came in. Kate was sure neither of her brothers suspected anything. Jennifer had explained the trip as a consult on a case. She hadn’t mentioned the fact she was the patient.
“You didn’t mention he was British.”
“I thought you would enjoy that.”
“He reminds me of that singer I had a crush on when I was…sixteen?”
“About that.”
“I thought so. I still love the accent. So—” Jennifer twirled the glass; her eyes twinkled—“this is your childhood roommate talking. How serious is it between the two of you?”
Kate grinned. “Good friends, Jennifer. Just good friends.” If her life ever settled down again, she might get the perspective she needed to decide if it could ever be anything more. Dave didn’t fit the mold of any cop she had ever met. She was learning to her surprise that protection also felt a lot like care. She would be disappointed now if Dave didn’t care enough to know where she was and what she was doing. She found she kind of liked that attention.
“Given the fact I’ve heard rumors on the grapevine that Marcus approves, I thought it might be more serious.”
“Marcus is weighing in?” Kate was stunned. He did not normally weigh in on the family grapevine chatter.
“He decided to let Dave protect you. I guess he felt that deserved an explanation.”
“This place served as a safe house in the past; it’s simply a logical place to stay.”
Jennifer smiled. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
Kate rested her chin on her hand and looked at Jennifer. “Dave is good-looking.”
Jennifer grinned back. “He is that.”
They looked at each other with the history of two decades spent together and shared a laugh. “We always said we should get boyfriends at the same time,” Jennifer reminded her.
“I’m just glad we didn’t actually plan this. It was one thing when we were in high school, another when we are supposed to be adults.” Kate used her spoon to fish a lemon slice from her glass. “So tell me, how is Tom? Is he still planning to come up for the Fourth?”
“He’ll fly in Sunday night and stay through Wednesday. I’ve booked a couple of rooms downtown at the Hyatt since he’s not been to Chicago beyond the occasional convention. I thought I would show him the sights, take him to the Taste of Chicago.”
“How did you manage to get rooms at this time of year? They book six months in advance.”
Jennifer touched the locket she wore and smiled. “I prayed. And there were two cancellations.”
Kate saw the peace on Jennifer’s face and wished she understood it. “Tell me about how the tests went.”
“I know now why I like to be the doctor, not the patient. Blood work, CAT scans, a biopsy, more blood work, the tests were like a parade. Bottom line—I’m in great shape for someone who has cancer.”
“Do they have a plan to suggest?”
“An aggressive cocktail of chemotherapy and radiation. Surgery is a nonstarter.”
“When do you begin?”
“It depends if Tom wants to have a bride that has hair or not.”
“Jen—”
“That was a joke, Kate. Seriously, sometime in the next three weeks. The radiation comes first, and they may send me to Johns Hopkins for the first round to try to spot target the cancer around my spine.”
“Did they tell you what to expect as a prognosis?”
“Kate, it might buy me an additional year.”
“That’s all?”
“I pulled that guess out of them. They don’t like such numbers because they’re afraid patients will stop fighting.”
“They haven’t met an O’Malley.”
“Exactly. I’ll fight this cancer for every minute I can get. But I may scrap the idea of a wedding and suggest a nice elopement instead.”
“The family will understand that once you tell them.”
Jennifer drew a circle on the table with her glass. “I’m going to tell Marcus next.”
“He needs to know; I hate keeping the secret from him.”
“I’ll tell him after the Fourth, then let the two of you help me tell the others.”
“Okay.”
“Enough about my health. What’s happening regarding Tony Jr.?”
“There is an APB out on him. Officers are combing his friends and associates to find out who might have seen him. There is no indication he has left the area, but assuming he was well prepared and is traveling with cash, he’s probably far away; it could be some time before they locate him.”
“I’m sorry for what is happening.”
“It’s not the shock that I have a brother I never knew about; it’s not even the fact he apparently hates me having never met me; it’s the reality that he could have done something this horrific. I don’t know how to deal with it.” She sighed. “Jennifer, how do you deal with the fact Jesus said love your enemies?” She saw her sister’s surprise. “I read Luke.”
“I wasn’t going to ask because I knew how chaotic your time has been.” Jennifer studied her. “That is the one thing I thought might be the hardest problem for you in the book; for all the O’Malleys when it comes to that. How do you deal with God is loving when you consider the past horrors in each of our lives. I don’t know how you are supposed to love Tony Jr., how that applies to this situation.”
“I wanted to kill him when I first realized what the evidence showed.”
“So many innocent people are dead.”
“That, but also just the fact he was there, someone I could hate, with a name I hate, when my father has been dead so many years.”
“What do you think now that it’s been a couple days?”
“I just want him brought in to face the courts. I want that sense of di
stance that he is just another suspect in a case. But it’s personal, even though I’ve never met him, and I can’t figure out how to get that distance. I’m either angry or sad.” Kate studied the water beading on the outside of her glass. “Mainly angry.”
“I can understand that. I don’t know how the anger changes. I know Jesus has the ability to love the just and the unjust. I guess that is where the change of heart comes from. He does it for us.”
“Have you forgiven that drunk driver that killed your parents, Jennifer?”
“Yes. I’m still glad he is doing time, but the hate is gone.”
Kate nodded, glad in a way her sister had been able to leave that behind. “I can’t undo the fact this guy’s my brother, much as I would want to.”
Jennifer sighed. “Tony Jr. did a good job messing up your life.”
“That he did.”
“What else did you think about what you’ve read?”
“Do you find it easy to do what the Bible says?”
“Not easy, no. But possible. It’s different than reading a how-to book and struggling to figure out how. I’ve found Jesus is much more personal. That prayer makes those directions real for my situation. That tough one, love your enemies, comes with names, things I am supposed to do.”
“Give me an example.”
“Alisha Wilks.”
“You’re supposed to love the nurse working pediatrics who doesn’t like kids?”
Jennifer nodded. “Stop and chat for a few minutes when I make rounds. Smile pleasantly when she complains about their noisy play. I even got reminded to take her cookies on her birthday.”
Kate winced. “I bet she complained about the crumbs.”
“She did. She’s still a terror for the kids, but at least she’s a little nicer to mine.”
“Loving her means letting her stay in the wrong job?”
“Hardly. I’ve practically got ordered to stop complaining about it in my prayers and do something about it.”
“You’ve been trying for six months.”
“Well, now I’ve been trying harder. I’ve met with her supervisor, the head nurse, the chief of pediatrics, and the hospital administrator himself.”
“Going to the top?”
Jennifer nodded. “Rocking the boat. The other doctors are shaking their heads, hoping I succeed, but not going near it.”
“What happens now that you’re going to be off full-time practice for a while?”
“The partners are closing ranks to cover my patients, and Tom has a doctor friend out East who’s a great pediatrician. He’s agreed to come out for six months, get a feel for my patients, the practice.”
Kate knew that had to be killing Jennifer. She had always wanted one thing: to be a doctor practicing medicine.
Jennifer’s hand covered hers. “Don’t, Kate. I’m okay with it. I’ll still be able to do as much as I have energy for; there will just be someone there to help and do what I can’t.”
“Do you understand why God has not healed you?”
“Kate, it is a complete mystery to me—I don’t know. The Bible is clear and pretty blunt: God hears and answers prayer. I don’t understand why there has been no improvement. People at church give lots of confusing justifications for why I haven’t been healed, but frankly they sound like excuses.
“I do believe God heals people as a result of prayer. In the years I have been a doctor, I have seen a lot of kids get well when all my scientific knowledge said it couldn’t happen. I’m convinced now that I was seeing the power of prayer. Why He doesn’t act in my case is a mystery to me, only He knows.
“There has been some good come out of the cancer. I’m certainly going to better understand my patients—being a patient is the pits. And you have to admit, it’s changed my priorities in life.”
Kate grinned. “Married. It’s going to be great.”
“I can’t wait.”
“If you elope, none of us will get to be bridesmaids.”
“You do realize being a bridesmaid means wearing a dress.”
She winced at the thought. “Maybe you can half elope. Just show up at an O’Malley dinner with Tom and a minister and get married right then.”
Jennifer smiled. “I think Dave would prefer to see you in a dress at least once.”
“He would.” Kate turned to see Dave leaning against the doorjamb, smiling at her. “Does she even own anything but jeans?” he asked Jennifer.
Jennifer grinned back. “Not that you would know it.”
Kate scowled at them both. “I’m on call. I can’t afford to be caught wearing something I can’t live in for a while if I had to.”
Jennifer chuckled. “She’s good at excuses.”
“I bet she would look fabulous in blue.”
Jennifer quirked an eyebrow at him. “Want to help pick out bridesmaid dresses?”
Dave slowly grinned. “She’d have to model them?”
“Every one of them.”
“There would be worse ways to spend a few hours.”
Kate, thoroughly embarrassed, slipped from her chair to get out of the line of fire. Dave took two strides over and caught her hands. “We were just teasing.”
“Did I say anything?”
“Your face says it all. You look nice in jeans, especially that old pair with the heart patch on the back pocket.” He grinned. “They’ve shrunk just about perfectly. It’s just that you would look fabulous in a dress.”
She let a smile slip through. “I’ll have you know I look better than fabulous.”
“Then how about an expensive date somewhere so you can show me?”
“Wear that teal dress you got in Paris, Kate,” Jennifer suggested, smiling as she watched them.
“Paris?”
Kate smiled and nodded. Paris, Illinois, but he could live with the mistaken assumption. Rachel, Lisa, and Jennifer had ganged up on her to celebrate her last promotion and had convinced her to spend almost a month’s pay on one single dress. Kate glanced at Jennifer. “Do you think Marcus would approve?”
Jennifer winced. “Dave, how’s your health insurance?”
His gaze lazily appraised Kate; then he flashed Jennifer a wicked grin. “She looks that good in it?”
“Yes. Just tread lightly if Marcus sees you together. Protective big brother will have something to say.”
“When?”
Kate slipped her hands free of his, then grinned. “I’ll think about it.”
“Kate—”
“Jennifer and I are going to watch a movie tonight. Do you want to join us?”
“Is it going to be mushy?”
Kate looked at Jennifer. “We’ll compromise with a comedy. We girls get the couch, you get a chair.”
Dave waved them on. “Go pick it out; I’ll make the popcorn.”
Kate slouched on the couch to finish the popcorn in the bowl on her lap as the movie tape rewound. Jennifer had just gone up to bed. It was still early, and Kate was toying with the idea of raiding Dave’s collection for another movie. The first movie had been great. It had been good to sit with Jennifer, share laughter—be reminded that all the good times with her sister had not suddenly disappeared.
“What would you like to watch next?”
She tilted her head back to look at Dave. “You’re game for another?”
“Sure.” He opened the cabinet that held the movies.
She scanned his selections. “How about Apollo 13?”
“You like the classics.”
“Love them.”
Dave put in the tape. “Should I make more popcorn?”
She considered what she had left, then grinned. “This should get me to ‘Houston, we have a problem.’”
He chuckled as he took a seat on the floor, using the couch as a backrest. “Just let me know. I’ll pause the movie. Is that what you remember from your favorites, the dialogue?”
She nodded. “Occupational hazard. Voices are my thing. I can pretty much give you word for word my
favorite movies.”
“I remember the music.”
“Do you?”
“Magnificent Seven is the best.”
“The guys wanted to make that our theme song. We shot down the idea.”
“It would have been a great choice.”
“But it had one flaw: It only allowed for seven.”
“True.”
The opening movie credits began.
Kate glanced toward Dave a few times during the movie. He was absorbed in the story even though he must have seen it numerous times. She liked that about him; he focused on what he was doing. It was a long movie, and by mutual consent they paused it halfway through.
“This was a good choice.”
Kate trailed him into the kitchen with the popcorn bowls. “Very.”
“Join me for some coffee?”
“Sure.”
He set about fixing it. “Can I ask you a serious question?”
She tilted her head. “Sure.”
“Why don’t you date cops?”
“Wow, you don’t mind tossing a tough one.”
“It’s late. I’m curious.”
“Have a reason behind the question?” She laughed at his look.
“I’ll take the fifth for now.”
She nodded and decided he deserved a serious answer. “You haven’t been around for the 2 A.M. pages; watched me walk out of back-to-back crises; seen me focused on a case to the point I forget to eat. I don’t like to explain my actions, talk about me, plan for the future. All those things put together are tough on a relationship.” The deeper reason, concern that she would choose the wrong man and walk into a stress-filled marriage was private. She had seen Dave under the stress, and he handled it well.
“Was there someone?”
“A few years ago, a friend of Stephen’s. He’s in Atlanta now.”
“Were you close?”
She shrugged.
“I’m sorry.”
“So was I at the time.” She smiled. “It’s easier now simply not to date cops.”
He nodded, handed her a cup of coffee, and slid over the sugar. “Like kids?”
“Who doesn’t?” She heard the wistfulness behind the amusement in her own voice. He was broaching a subject pretty dear to her heart.
“Think you will like being a mom someday?”