“Oh, Daddy, oh, Daddy, oh, Daddy...” Esmeralda cried.
“‘Oh, Daddy,’ my word,” Mayfield said. “It's like she was trying hard to sink you. Don't you have a daughter about her age?”
Eddie buried his face in one hand, shaking his head.
“Ever seen one this small?” Mayfield held up a narrow, palm-sized video camera. “My first telephone was bigger than that. I tell you, the things they make these days.”
Eddie sank in his chair. Esmeralda had disappeared several days ago, and now he understood why. She really had been too good to be true—she was a spy for Senator Mayfield, or his cronies.
“That's it for now, honey,” Mayfield said to the girl, and she left the room. “Now, Eddie. This is gonna get real ugly. The kids on my staff tell me it's no trouble to put a video like this all over the Internet. They say it would take about two minutes. Can you believe that? Two damn minutes, and you're dead in the water. What would your constituents think? Your backers? How about that wife of yours?”
Eddie didn't say anything.
“Now, again, I want this little investigation of yours sealed, shredded and forgotten. Is that clear?”
Eddie nodded.
“Say it,” Mayfield said.
“The investigation’s over. It never happened.”
“Good man,” Mayfield said. “That's it for today. If you do make it to Senate, you bear in mind I've got your balls in my back pocket. Don't you think about making any trouble for me and my friends. Now don't be a stranger, hear?”
“I won't,” Eddie managed to say. He stood up and made his way to the door.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Jenny stood in the crowded Cour Puget at the Louvre, a palatial gallery that felt like it was outdoors because of the glass ceiling soaring above her. She was fascinated by the huge bronze sculpture of Hercules, gripping a giant snake called Achelous by the throat. It reminded Jenny of the time when she was a toddler, and she'd almost been bitten by a rattlesnake, but the pox had killed it first. Her dad had freaked out.
“What do you think?” Seth asked, strolling up behind her.
“I think Hercules is going to win,” Jenny said.
“Man, don't they have a pretzel cart or something? I'm hungry.”
“We're in Paris, and the only food you want is a pretzel?”
“Or a hot dog.”
“I like this sculpture a lot,” Jenny said.
“Maybe you can make something like that one day.”
“Seth, I work in clay, not metal.”
“You can always branch out.” Seth put an arm around her waist and hugged her close. “I think it would be badass, watching you make stuff with a welding mask and blowtorch.”
“We'll see.” Jenny smiled and leaned her head against him.
They'd be in Paris a little more than a week. Seth had rented an apartment overlooking the Seine, since Jenny wanted to be near the arts scene on the Left Bank. Jenny had spent a few past lives in France, so she was already fluent in the language, something that would have been handy to remember in her high school French classes.
Their arrangements had been made with care. The names on their passports were fake, but the passports themselves were real, manufactured secretly by somebody at the State Department who apparently did things under the table for Hale. Seth and Jenny also had green cards that enabled them to work, though Seth had enough money in an account in Lichtenstein to live on for the rest of their lives, in case they were never able to go back home.
“I love Paris,” Seth said, and he kissed her. “And I love you, Jenny. More than anything.”
“I love you, too,” Jenny said, and she meant it.
She looked into his eyes. It was a long, endless road that stretched behind them, and ahead of them, too. Lifetime after lifetime. While others of their kind, the love-charmer and the dead-raiser, spent eternity in endless, hopeless struggles for power, Seth and Jenny had found their way to the very heart of what it was to be human. There was no reason to cling to what they might have been in the ancient past.
Love was all that mattered in the universe, Jenny understood now. Without it, existence was just a game of empty shells.
“We'd better get moving,” Seth said. “The museum closes in an hour, and we've barely seen any of it.”
“There's no hurry, Seth,” Jenny said. “We have forever.”
Jenny took his hand.
THE END