“Well, next best thing then,” he said. He motioned to Raphael for two more.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” I said, partly to myself. “When you’re in love. There?
?s no guarantee.”
“Truth,” Sampson said. “If you’d told me I’d have a kid, ever, I would have laughed. Now here I am with a three-month-old. It’s crazy. And at the same time, it could all change again, just like that.” He snapped his fingers hard, the sound popping in my ears. Sampson has the biggest hands of anyone I know. I’m six-three, not exactly chiseled, but not too shabby, and he makes me look slight.
“Billie and I are good together, no question about it,” he went on, rambling but making sense in his way. “That doesn’t mean it can’t all go crazy someday. For all I know, ten years from now, she’ll be throwing my clothes out on the lawn. You never know. Nah—my girl wouldn’t do that to me. Not my Billie,” Sampson said, and we both laughed.
We sat and drank in silence for a few minutes. Even without conversation, the mood darkened.
“When are you going to see Little Alex again?” he asked, his voice softer. “Ali. I like that.”
“Next week, John. I’ll be out in Seattle. We’ve got to finalize the visitation agreement.”
I hated that word. Visitation. That’s what I had with my own son? Every time I talked about it out loud, I wanted to punch something. A lamp, a window, glass.
“How the hell am I going to do this?” I asked Sampson. “Seriously. How can I face Christine—face Alex—and act like everything’s okay? Every time I see him now, my heart’s going to be aching. Even if I can pull it off and seem okay, that’s no way to be with your kids.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Sampson said insistently. “Alex, no way you’re going to raise messed-up kids. Besides, look at us. You feel like you turned out okay? You feel like I turned out okay?”
I smiled at him. “You got a better example to use?”
Sampson ignored the joke. “You and I didn’t exactly have every advantage, and we’re just fine. Last I checked, you don’t shoot up, you don’t disappear, and you don’t lay a finger on your kids. I dealt with all that, and I ended up the second-finest cop on the D.C. force.” He stopped and smacked his head. “Oh, wait. You’re a lame-ass federal desk-humper now. I guess that makes me D.C.’s finest.”
Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by how much I missed Little Alex, but also by John’s friendship. “Thanks for being here,” I said.
He put an arm around my shoulders and jostled me hard. “Where else am I gonna be?”
Chapter 42
I WOKE UP SUDDENLY to a slightly bemused flight attendant staring down at me. I remembered that it was the next morning and I was on a United jet back to L.A. Her curious expression indicated she had just asked a question.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“Could you please put up your tray table? Put your seat forward. We’ll be landing in Los Angeles in just a few minutes.”
Before I had drifted off, I’d been thinking about James Truscott and how he’d suddenly appeared in my life. Coincidence? I tended not to believe in it. So I’d called a researcher and friend at Quantico, and asked her to get me some more information on Truscott. Monnie Donnelley had promised that soon I’d know more about Truscott than even I wanted to know.
I gathered up my papers. It wasn’t a good idea to leave them out like that, and not like me; it was also unlike me to sleep on flights. Everything was a little upside down these days. Just a little, right?
My Mary Smith file had grown considerably thicker in just a few days. The recent false alarm was a conundrum. I wasn’t even sure that Mary Smith was behind that one.
Looking at the murder reports, I had a picture of someone who was growing more confident in her work, and definitely more aggressive. She was moving in on her targets—literally. The first site, the Patrice Bennett murder, was a public space. The next time was outside of Antonia Schifman’s home. Now, all indications were that Mary Smith had spent part of the night inside Marti Lowenstein-Bell’s house before eventually killing her in the pool.
Anyway, here I was back in L.A. again, getting off a plane, renting a car—even though I probably could have asked Agent Page to pick me up.
Looks-wise, the L.A. Bureau field office put D.C. headquarters to shame. Instead of the claustrophobic maze I was used to back East, this was nine stories of open floor plan, polished glass, and lots of natural light. From the cubicle they had assigned me on the fifteenth floor, I had a great view of the Getty Museum and beyond. At most field offices, I’d be lucky to get a chair and a desk.
Agent Page started hovering about ten minutes after I got there. I knew that Page was a sharp enough guy, very ambitious, and with some seasoning, he was going to make a good agent. But I just didn’t need somebody looking over my shoulder right now. It was bad enough to have Director Burns on me, not to mention the writer, James Truscott. My Boswell, right? Or was he something else?
Page asked if there was anything at all that I needed. I held up my file.
“This thing is at least twenty-four-hours cold. I want to know everything Detective Galletta has over at LAPD. I want to know more than Galletta has. Do you think you could—”
“On it,” he said, and was gone.
It wasn’t a bogus assignment I’d given him, though. I really did need to get current, and if that meant Page would be out of my hair for a while, all the better.