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.So much for a casual fifteen over.He eased off the gas pedal and curbed to the side of the forest-lined road.The cruiser had his spotlight on now, despite the fact that the afternoon sun provided more than enough illumination.“Well,” Rafe said to himself, “at least now I’ll have a valid excuse for running late.”His valid excuse cost him $300, and he made a point of waving it out the window to Esme the moment he pulled into the parking lot of the federal building.She was sitting on the front steps, took one look at his speeding ticket, and shrugged apathetically.“I tried to get here as fast as I could,” Rafe told her.“The cop just wasn’t sympathetic.”She climbed into the passenger seat and fastened her safety belt.Her mascara had smeared a bit around her eyes.Had she been crying? The FBI had shot down her request and now she was crying? This had gone too far….“I was right,” she whispered.Her voice sounded miles away.“I was right and Tom was right and no one listened.”“What are you—”“He struck again.Galileo.He shot up a school in Santa Fe.A school.Children were there.What could I have done differently? There had to be something I could have done differently.I was right.”But she didn’t sound vindicated.She just sounded far, far away.Rafe drove back to Oyster Bay in silence.He obeyed the speed limit, and occasionally offered Esme a comforting glance.She didn’t notice.She just stared out the window at the foliage as it went on by.When they pulled into the driveway, Sophie raced out of the house to greet them.She must have been sitting by the window.“Did college get cancelled?” she asked her father.“I wish,” he replied, and scooped her up in his arms.Inside, Lester was watching a news report about the shootings, with one hand in a bag of mustard-flavored pretzels.“There she is,” he said between bites.“I thought maybe you forgot you had a house.”Esme glared at her father-in-law.“You left early.”“If you say so.”Rafe, sensing an argument brewing, leaned down to his daughter.“If you finish your homework in your bedroom, we can go out tonight to Burger King.”“Yay!” replied Sophie, and she galloped up the stairs.Lester clicked off the TV, popped one more pretzel in his mouth, and stood up.“Your wife was so busy gabbing with the feds,” he said to Rafe, “that she forgot we had to pick her daughter up from school.”“I was ‘gabbing with the feds’ to try and protect my daughter, you addle-minded son-of-a—”Lester returned the pretzels to the pantry.“It’s not the first time it’s happened.I held my tongue when she was stuck in the couch, but if she’s healthy enough to go running off to Melville, I don’t see why I have to keep picking up her slack when it comes to Sophie.”“Galileo’s killed more people! He’s going to come here!”“Ask her, Rafe.Ask her which she would choose.Ask her which is more important right now.Taking care of her girl or hunting down this Galileo character.Go ahead.”Rafe looked from his father to his wife.“That’s not even a fair choice,” she replied.“He’s killing dozens of people.He needs to be stopped.”“But where’s your duty? Is it there or is it here?”Esme opened her mouth to reply…but didn’t.Couldn’t.Lester wiped clean his hands.“I rest my case.” He sauntered toward the bathroom.Rafe and Esme were alone in the den.“I was right,” she whispered.“I can stop him.”Just as softly, her husband answered her: “You don’t belong in that world anymore.”They matched stares.The air became charged with memories, and longing.“They need my help….”“Sophie needs her mother.I need my wife.I miss her.”He took a step forward.“Come back to us,” he said.“Please.”Her cell phone rang.It was Tom Piper’s ringtone.Her cell phone rang again.Her cell phone rang again.She answered it: “Hi, Tom.”Rafe took a deep breath.“Yes, Tom, I saw.It’s horrible.”He noticed her hands were trembling.“No, I’m glad they’re reinstating the task force, Tom.They never should have mistrusted you.”He watched her listen to her mentor’s voice.He’d denied it, perhaps, but he’d known, deep down, that someday it would come to this.He chastised himself for thinking otherwise.How foolish he had been.“Yes, Tom.I know.And there’s another Kellerman fundraiser scheduled next month right here on Long Island.I’ve been trying to round up support, but…”His gaze drifted to the floor, and he sat down on the arm of the sofa.How could he hate her? Was it even really a choice? Galileo had murdered dozens of innocent people, and threatened the lives of countless more.They all had families too.How could he and Sophie ever counterbalance that? How could—“Tom, I need to stop you there.”Rafe looked back up at his wife.“No, Tom.I can’t go to Santa Fe.I’m sorry.”Can’t go to Santa Fe? Rafe’s fingers dug into a sofa cushion…“I have every confidence you’ll find him, but my place is here now, Tom.I quit, remember?” Esme smiled through tears at her husband.“I made my choice seven years ago.Keep us safe, Tom.Please.Goodbye, Tom.”Darcy Parr’s vacant position on the task force as forensics overseer fell to Daryl Hewes.On March 19, Daryl was installed in a small office in the Santa Fe crime lab.By March 20, he was reviewing documentation of hair samples, soil samples, blood spatter analyses, and ballistics analyses.His geek-mind was in a state of bliss, but his poet-heart wished Darcy was still here, beside him, so they could be sifting through the facts and graphs and charts together.Unlike his task force colleagues, Daryl had enjoyed his protective custody.He viewed it as a vacation, and used the time, isolated in a ramshackle walk-up somewhere in the state of Nevada, to disassemble his laptop.He had always wanted to disassemble his laptop, not so much to study its intricate circuitry but to see if he could reassemble it without the aid of a book.With only a spoon and his fingers as tools, the task took him two days, but he did it
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