Troubleshooters - Into The Night Part 24

He'd reached for her then. Somehow he knew to say nothing, just to hold her and stroke her hair.

And when she was done crying, Charlotte lay there, on her bed, wrapped in the arms of a man that James wouldn't've given a second glance. An enlisted Marine, without a college education. A lobsterman from Cape Cod, with the kind of namea"DaCostaa"that wouldn't go far in the political arena to which James had always aspired.

Charlotte lay for hours in Vince's arms, staring out the window at the night, listening to him breathe.

Exhausted himself, he'd finally fallen asleep, and when he did, he pulled her closer to him. As much of a gentleman as he was in the daytime, in sleep his body betrayed him, reacting unmistakably to her nearness.

Dear Lord Almighty, give her strength. It was all she could do to keep herself from reaching for him, the way she'd reached for James when she'd awakened in the night to find him wanting her.

Although maybe she should just fall asleep, too, and let their two desperate bodies do their will, because, oh, James, forgive her, she wanted to lie with this man. If she hadn't before tonight, well, seeing him charge up those stairs to come to Sally's aid with such little regard for his own health and safety had clinched it.

Hearing Vince's words of warning, his quiet, almost matter-of-fact threat that revealed that the worst of his wounds from Tarawa were not wounds to the flesh but rather wounds to the soul, cemented her longing.

She wanted to share the same sweet intimacies with him that she'd shared with her husband. She wanted the laughter that came with it, and the hope and promise and the joy of giving and taking. The connection of hearts, the touching of souls.

She wanted something she couldn't have, because how, how, how could she ever laugh like that again while knowing that James was lying cold in his grave a half a world away?

Charlotte started to cry, deep welling sobs of a grief that she'd held in for much too long, and Vince woke up, holding her even closer, trying to comfort her. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Charlie, I'm so sorry."

"Help me," she sobbed. "Please..."

"I will," he said. "I want to. Just... tell me how. Tell me what to do. What can I get you? How can I help?"

But there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. "I don't want to live without him," she wept. "I'm so tired of living without him."

"Oh, Charlotte, don't say that." He tried to hold her more tightly, but she suddenly couldn't stand to feel his arms around her and she struggled to get away from him, pulling so hard that she tumbled off the bed and onto the floor. She hit with a jarring thud, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

"Charlotte." Vince followed her to the floor, but she swatted at his hands.

"Don't touch me! Just go away!"

He went, but the light went on in the hall, and he came back a few moments later with Edna Fletcher.

"Oh, dear. I knew sooner or later it would all have to come out. She was so stoic when we got the news." Her mother-in-law's hands were warm against her back. "Just cry, sweetie, just go ahead and cry," she crooned. "That's a good girl."

Somehow, sometime last night, Charlotte had made it back into the narrow little bed in the spare room. She woke up in the morning feeling horribly hung-over from her tears, but she forced herself to dress and go in to work. Her job for the senator was an important one.

But by lunchtime it was clear that she was doing no one any good, so she returned home, crawled into her bed, and slept deeply and dreamlessly.

Until a voice woke her. A female voice. Sally's, from upstairs.

"I also wanted to let you know that Morton's wallet was found," she was telling Vince. She was here with him. In his bedroom. Charlotte's bedroom. "That was his name. Lt. Morton Peterson from St. Louis, Missouri. The police called to tell me they found it outside of the Golden Goose bar. That's where we meta"he must've dropped it before we left. You can call the police, if you want, to verify that I didn'ta"

"I know you didn't steal anything," Vince interrupted. He sounded both so matter-of-fact and so quietly certain. Charlotte could picture his gentle, rea.s.suring smile. "I don't need to call anyone."

"Well," Sally said. She cleared her throat. "That's ... refres.h.i.+ng."

"You need to be more careful in choosing the company you keep," he said, again without a trace of judgment or disapproval in his voice, as if he harbored not even one negative thought about the woman. How did he do that?

Last night, even as Charlotte was helping Sally put ice on a very painful-looking and swollen eye, she had found herself thinking, You reap what you sow.

"I ... I know," Sally said now. "I will. I just ..." She laughed. Or maybe she was starting to cry. Charlotte couldn't quite tell. "And so I tell myself the very same thing every day. But then I get out of work, and the evening stretches out ahead of me, like the entire rest of my pathetic, lonely, miserable life and ..." She was definitely crying now. "I can't help it."

"Hey," Vince said. "Shhh. It's okay."

He was comforting Sally, no doubt holding her the way he'd held Charlotte just last night.

"I'm sorry," she said. Apparently it was the refrain of war widows all across the country.

"It's all right," Vince said. He should go into business, charge a fee for the comfort of his arms. "Where'd he die?" he asked her gently. "Your husband."

"He was in the Merchant Marine," Sally told him between snuffles. "His s.h.i.+p went down in the Atlantic, torpedoed by a U-boat." She made a sound that might've pa.s.sed for laughter if Charlotte didn't know just what she was feeling. "No one ever asks about him, you know. Sometimes it feels like I imagined him. Like he was never really real."

"What was his name?" Vince asked.

"Frankie," she told him. "Not Frank, Frankiea"isn't that a hoot? He had all these tattoosa"such a big, burly mana"and he insisted on being called Frankie because that's what his mother called him right up to the day she died. Oh, he loved his mother, my Frankie did."

"I'd bet a year's pay that he really loved you, too," Vince said.

She laughed. This tune it was definitely a laugh. "Sugar darling, you'd win that bet. He was the sweetest man." She was silent for a moment. "An awful lot like you, you knowa" although you are a young one, aren't you?"

"No one's young anymore," Vince said quietly.

"It's a crying shame. The only boys who stay young are the ones who come home in a box. And they never grow another day older, do they?" She was silent for a moment, then she laughed. It was forced, ringing with the same kind of false merriment Charlotte recognized from all those nights she'd entertained upstairs. "Well, there's a reason, if I ever heard one, to live for today. What do you think about that, sugar darling?"

Vince laughed, too. It wasn't forced, but it was definitely odd. Embarra.s.sed, maybe. "Well, Ia"

There was silence then. But not quite total silence.

Charlotte sat up in her bed. Was he ... ? Were they ... ? Dear G.o.d, was she going to have to sit here and listen to Sally and Vince... ?

But then Vince spoke. "Wait," he said breathlessly. "Whoa. Whoa. Hold on."

"Shhh," Sally said. "Just relax, hon. I'll make you feel good."

He laughed again. "You know, actually, I'm feeling just fine already today as it is, soa""

"Yeah, I can see how fine you're feeling, big boy. How long's it been since you... ?"

Vince laughed again, even more uncomfortably this time. "Look, Sally, I appreciate the thought, I really do, buta"

"Oh, my goodness gracious," she said. "You've never..." Her laughter was incredulous now. "You haven't, have you?"

"Well, no, not exactly, but that doesn't meana""

"Hush up, sugar, and let me thank you properly for what you did last night. It's about G.o.dd.a.m.n time someone taught you a thing or two."

After all those nights of intimate noises coming through the thin ceiling and walls, someonea"namely Sallya"already had taught him quite a bit.

Charlotte sat there, more upset than she had the right to be, telling herself that this wasn't jealousy she was feeling. She was upset merely because Vince had never been with a woman. He'd faced the horrors of war without having known how beautiful love could be.

And that wasn't fair. Nothing about this world, this war, was fair.

"Wait," he said now. "Stop. I'm serious, Sally. Stop."

"What are you so worried about?" she said. "You told me there's no one else home right now, that the old lady and the frigid nun are both off at work."

Nun? Sally thought of her as the frigid nun?

"Who's going to care if we make a little noise?" Sally persisted. "Who's even going to know?"

"I will," Vince said quietly. "I'll knowa"and I care. And you'll know. And you care, too. I know you do, as much as you pretend otherwise. And just so you know, Charlotte's not a frigid nun"

"Ahh," Sally said, drawing the word out. "I see. Charlotte, huh? She lets you call her by her first name? How daring of her."

"That's not funny," Vince said.

"Yes, it is." There was a pause. Charlotte could picture her gathering up her jacket and purse. "Well, I'll just let myself out. No point in staying where I'm not wanted."

It was a good idea, one of which Sister Charlotte definitely approved.

"Please don't be offended," Vince said. "It's not that I don't find you attractive. You're a very beautiful woman, a very generous womana"maybe a little too generous at times, buta""

"But you're saving yourself for Charlotte. Which is very sweet, but, honey pie, I feel obliged to tell you that last nighta"you know when she was sitting with me in the powder room?a"I'm sorry, but she made it very clear to me that there was nothinga"absolutely nothinga"going on between you and her."

"Her husband's name was James," Vince said. "He died at Pearl. She loved him very much."

There was silence for a moment. Real silence, and Charlotte used it to try to make sense of the conversation she'd just heard. Vince didn't want to be number four hundred thousand and three in a steady stream of soldiers and sailors who appreciated Sally's charms because of... Charlotte?

Then Sally said, "You think if you wait around long enough, she'll get over him." She laughed, but this time it was flat, totally devoid of humor. "Well, guess what, sugar darling? She won't. And that's going to make you the oldest virgin in the Marine Corps, because she's not the type to mess arounda"not without getting married first. Those knees are glued together, and they won't pop open until she says I do. Which'11 never happen, mark my word. You don't really think she'll marry you while in her heart she's still married to her James, do you?"

Vince was quiet. "I can hope, can't I?" he finally said.

"You can indeed," Sally agreed. "But, honey, if you change your mind before it's time for you to go back to the fighting and this time maybe get yourself killed, well, you know where to find me."

Charlotte heard the sound of Sally's heels as she clicked her way down the hall, down the stairs. The front door opened and closed; the screen door banged.

And then the house was silent. So silent she could hear the infernal ticking of that blasted clock of Edna's from down in the parlor.

From the other room, she heard Vince s.h.i.+fting in his bed. There was a thud, and Charlotte realized that he was coming down the hall, heading for the bathrooma"and to get there he'd have to walk right past her open door.

She didn't have time to lie down and pretend to be asleep. She didn't have time to do anything but sit there like an idiot and stare back at him as he caught sight of her and froze.

"Oh, Christ," he said, his voice cracking slightly with mortification. "I didn't know you were home."

"I am," she said inanely.

He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, he forced himself to look at her. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you didn't hear all of that... ?"

Charlotte shook her head, feeling her face heat with a blush. She couldn't hold his gaze.

"Yeah," Vince sighed, but then forced a smile. He was blus.h.i.+ng, too. "I didn't think so."

She made herself look back at him. "I can't marry you, Vincent."

"I know," he said. "I do know that. I just... Well ... A guy's allowed to dream, right? Excuse me," he added with a nod, and headed for the bathroom.

Mary Lou had been driving her husband's truck as she left the base, and, wary after she'd found his parcel in the trunk of her car that morning, Husaam Abdul-Fataah spent the afternoon ready to run.

But nothing happened.

He had people keeping their eye on both the Navy base and the San Diego FBI headquarters, and there was no indication whatsoever that they'd moved to a state of higher alert.

Mary Lou wasn't pulled in for questioninga"always a good sign that the authorities hadn't been tipped off to anything unusual.

It was possible that she'd thought the weapon belonged to her husband. It was possible she hadn't mentioned it to anyonea"or if she had, they hadn't listened.

He had a feeling Sam Starrett didn't spend much time listening to his wife.

As Husaam had followed her, she'd picked up her kid and gone directly home, bypa.s.sing her usual grocery store run. But that and the truck were the only signs that things weren't absolutely run-of-the-mill normal.

One of his pairs of eyes running free on the Navy base reported that the SEALs of Team Sixteen gathered in combat gear with their duffel bags packed. They boarded a transport plane, taking off for parts unknown.

Shortly after that two men arrived in a truck marked "Al's Body Shop," and one of them drove Mary Lou's rattletrap of a car out of the parking lot next to the Team Sixteen building.

He'd relaxed even more at that news.

Starrett was going to be out of town for a few days, so Mary Lou was using his truck while her car went in for repairs.

It was nothing to worry about.

In fact, aside from the obvious problems it caused, it was a good thinga"Starrett being out of town like that. He'd use the opportunity to get closer to Mary Lou. It was laughably perfect.

At one point, he'd been tempted to stay away from her completelya"especially after discovering the broken lock on the trunk of her car. It seemed a gift from heaven.

But he knew it wasn't. It was a fluke. And he'd gone ahead with his strategy to befriend the woman. Because, after all, it was Mary Lou who went into the base unquestioned several days a week. There was no guarantee she'd always be driving that same s.h.i.+tbox of a car.

And indeed, as he'd watched her driving her husband's truck, Husaam was very glad that he'd stuck to his first plan.

Now, later in the afternoon, after nap time was over, he watched as she loaded the kid back into the truck. He followed her into town, to the grocery store.

Unhampered by a small child, he made it inside before she did, grabbing one of the plastic baskets by the door and heading to the frozen-food section of the store. Nothing like a pathetic single man with microwave dinners in his future to evoke a little extra sympathy.

He grabbed four or five and was just about to round the cornera"Wow, what a coincidence, Mary Lou, running into you here!a"when he heard her say, "Hey, how're you doing?"

"Oh, hi, Mary Lou. I'm fine, thanks. Hi, Haley. Wow, she's gotten big."

It was Kelly Ashton, Tom Paoletti's not-quite-wife. A month or so back, when he'd thought she'd be his best candidate for this operation, he'd gotten to know her. And he still kept tabs on her.