Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Newburgh Heights, Virginia

It was too beautiful a day for a funeral.

Maggie sat out on her patio and watched Benjamin Platt in her backyard, throwing a Frisbee to Harvey. He had taken off his cap and dress blue uniform jacket and rolled up his white shirtsleeves. Still, he looked so official with spit-and-polish black shoes and his necktie still in place.

She slipped off her leather pumps and leaned back in the wicker chair, closing her eyes and wishing she could numb the emotions still churning inside her. The entire time she had watched the casket make its way from the church to the plot at Arlington she kept hearing a voice in the back of her head saying, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

When she opened her eyes again, Platt and Harvey were joining her. Platt dropped in the chair beside her and Harvey dropped on the floor at her feet.

“You okay?” he asked. “No more nosebleeds? Headaches?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s funny how stress works.”

“You’ve been through a lot. But your blood continues to test negative. And,” Platt said as he reached out to touch her cheek, lightly brushing a finger over the scar that had almost healed, “you’re a very lucky woman that that monkey wasn’t infected.”

She reached down to pet Harvey, pulling away from Platt’s touch when she really wanted to return his gesture. Too soon. What was wrong with her? Too soon could quickly become too late.

“Chicago’s Saint Francis is open again,” Platt told her. “This morning I talked to Dr. Claire Antonelli. She was Markus Schroder’s doctor. It’s amazing that she never contracted the virus.”

“But they ended up with three cases of Ebola.”

He nodded. “The chief of surgery who operated on Schroder. A hole in his glove. Two nurses who took care of Schroder. All of them are responding well to the vaccine. It could have been much worse. There could have been hundreds.”

She glanced at him and smiled.

“What?” he asked.

“So says the new commander of USAMRIID.”

“It’s not official.”

She didn’t push it. He had already told her he might not accept. He loved his work. And although he seemed pleased with Commander Janklow’s resignation, he had told her he had no desire to replace him.

“I’m a doctor and a soldier, not a politician.”

She certainly understood. She loved her work, too. Exposure to Ebola and being locked in a room with monkeys hadn’t changed her mind about being an FBI agent. Risk was part of the job. That’s what she’d tried to tell R. J. Tully. He had been at risk every second in that dark hallway. He had acted in self-defense and that’s what the review board would corroborate. Cases like this, personal cases, left scars. Unfortunately, Tully was learning that.

Risk was a part of the job, Maggie told herself and knew deep down that’s exactly what Cunningham would say. God, she couldn’t believe he was gone. And all because of one man’s petty revenge.

George Sloane had used all his experience and expertise to get back at three men he thought he had lost the love of his life to: R. J. Tully, Conrad Kovak and Victor Ragazzi. While he was at it, he’d take out the woman herself along with his sister, who twenty-five years ago had survived his first attempt to get rid of his entire family.

And because of what Sloane had learned in his profession—that the victim of a crime can often point a finger at who the killer is—he sometimes chose victims indirectly connected to his targets. All of his planning had left Mary Louise Kellerman without a mother and Rick Ragazzi and Patsy Kowak still fighting for their lives, their friends and families quarantined.

What a waste of brilliance George Sloane was.

“Do you have to get back to USAMRIID?” Maggie asked, not wanting to sound like it mattered, then thinking, why not let him know it mattered? She wanted him to stay. She enjoyed his company. Lately she looked forward to it, even catching herself putting aside things in her mind that she wanted to tell him, that she wanted to share.

“I think I put in enough hours recently to warrant taking a day off. What did you have in mind?”

“Are you as good at preparing dinner as you are with breakfast?”

“I think I can scrape up something.”

“How about a beer before you get to work?”

“Sounds good.”

Maggie left him with Harvey and padded barefoot back into the house. She had two Sam Adams bottlenecks grasped in one hand when the doorbell rang. She had invited Tully, Emma and Gwen to stop by so she didn’t even bother to check the peephole.

She pulled open the door to find a young man holding out a pizza box for her.

“Must be the house next door,” Maggie told him. “I didn’t order a pizza.”

He shifted the box and glanced at the name and address on the receipt that was taped to the top of the box.

“Maggie O’Dell?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

She stared at the box, suddenly suspicious of another food delivery until he added, “Italian sausage and Romano cheese? It’s already paid for, lady.”

He handed her the pizza and left.

Maggie closed the door. She held the box in one hand and stared at the receipt. Next to “ordered by” was N. Morrelli.

Italian sausage and Romano cheese. She smiled. Perhaps Nick Morrelli did know her. And he certainly didn’t give up easily.