“I just changed my mind, that’s all.”
“That’s what I told the FBI guy who came doing a background check on you. I figured if you wanted to go into the FBI, then I wasn’t going to stand in your way.”
What did Douglas mean by that? That he could have told the FBI that she was unstable, that she’d gone around the bend seven years ago? Yes, he could have said that. She wondered if anyone had told the FBI that? No, if they had, then she wouldn’t have been accepted, would she?
“I know my father was positive when the agents came to interview him.”
“Yes, he told me you’d given him no choice. I said good for you, it was your life and he should keep his mouth shut if he ever wanted to see you again. He was pissed at me for a good month.”
“Thank you for standing up for me, Douglas.” She had assumed at the time that the people doing the check on her background just hadn’t considered it all that important. But they had, evidently, and they’d asked questions. “I had no idea, but I am grateful. No one dredged up anything about that time. Do you know that you haven’t changed? You really are looking good.” He was thirty-eight now. There were just a few white strands woven into his black hair. He was very probably more handsome now than he had been seven years ago. She remembered that Belinda had loved him more than anything. Anything. Lacey felt the familiar hollowing pain and quickly picked up the champagne bottle. She poured each of them another glass.
“You’ve changed. You’re a woman now, Lacey. You’re no longer a silent kid. You still have a dozen locks on your door, but hey, this is D.C. I’d probably have a submachine gun sitting next to the front door. What does the FBI use?”
“A Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun. It’s powerful and reliable.”
“I have trouble imagining you even near something like that, much less holding it and firing it. Ah, that sounded sexist, didn’t it? You spoke of change. As for me, perhaps I haven’t changed all that much on the outside, but well, life changes one, regardless, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes.” She was the perfect example of what life could do to a person.
“You’re on the thin side. Did they work you that hard at the Academy?”
“Yes, but it was a classmate of mine—MacDougal—who worked me the hardest. He swore he’d put some muscle on my skinny little arms.”
“Let me see.”
He was squeezing her upper arm. “Flex.”
She did.
“Not bad.”
“My boss works out. Don’t picture him as a muscle-bound, no-neck bodybuilder. He’s very strong and muscular, but he’s also into karate, and he’s very good. I was on the receiving end of his technique once at the Academy. Just the other day I saw him eyeing me. I don’t think he liked what he saw. I’ll bet he’ll have me in the gym by next Tuesday.”
“Boss? You mean this Savich character?”
“I suppose we’re all characters in our own way. Savich is a genius with computers. One of his programs helped nail Russell Bent. He’s the chief of the unit I’m in now. I was very lucky that he asked for me. Otherwise I would have ended up in L.A. chasing bank robbers.”
“So may I take you out to lunch to celebrate your first case? How about we have lunch at one of the excellent restaurants you’ve got in this neighborhood?”
She nodded. “How long will you be here, Douglas?”
“I’m not certain. Perhaps a week. Did you miss me, Lacey?”
“Yes. And I do miss Dad. How is his health?”
“You write him every week, and I know for a fact that he writes you back every week. He told me that you don’t like the telephone. So he has to write letters. So you know he’s just fine.”
Of course Douglas knew very well why she hated phones. That was how she’d been told about Belinda. “Soon I’ll probably be into e-mail full-time. My boss is really big on e-mail, and so is everyone else in the unit. It’s weird, you don’t hear all that many phones ringing.”
“I’ll write my e-mail address down for you before I leave. Let’s go eat, Lacey.”
“You look like a prince and I look like a peasant. Let me change. It’ll take me just a minute. Oh yeah, everybody calls me Sherlock.”
“I don’t like that, I never did. And everybody has to make a stupid remark when they meet you. It doesn’t suit you. It’s very masculine. Is that what the FBI is all about? Turning you into a man?”
“I hope not. If they did try, I’d flunk the muscle mass tests.”
Actually, she thought, as she changed into a dress in her bedroom, she liked being called Sherlock, just Sherlock. It just moved her one step further from the woman she had been seven years ago.