Steven James - The Bishop

Nice.

Very nice.

Tessa checked the email again.

Nothing.

She read on, but ten minutes later, distracted by her thoughts, she laid the book on the couch and tried the TV. American Idol reruns.

Karaoke on steroids…

That would be a no.

Click.

Some kind of Western. Click.

A Seinfeld rerun, commercials, commercials, one of the Star Wars movies. More commercials. She was about to turn off the stupid thing when she came to a cable news story with footage of a zoo or something in DC where a congressman’s daughter had apparently been attacked.

She paused.

The reporter, a perfectly sculpted woman with perfectly styled hair speaking in a perfectly cultivated voice, was explaining that the congressman couldn’t be reached for comment. “But we have confirmed that this is a joint investigation and that the FBI is already working closely with local law enforcement. Bob-”

The FBI, huh?

“Thank you, Chelsea.” The camera cut back to the news anchor. Then he started interviewing the network’s “expert crime analyst” who apparently didn’t have any additional information but wasn’t about to let that stop him from giving detailed interpretation of the unconfirmed facts concerning the case.

Guesswork about conjecture based on hearsay.

Cable news today.

On the news loop captured “only moments ago” running behind Anchorman Bob’s left shoulder, Tessa noticed a man in the background walking toward a car. He was wearing an FBI jacket and might have been just another anonymous agent, but she recognized the way he carried himself. And she knew the car.

Patrick.

Okay.

That’s informative.

She waited for more details from the anchorman, but the same footage kept replaying, and Bob kept restating the same information with slightly different wording each time, including a teaser before each commercial break to make it seem like there was breaking news about the case.

Finally, when he invited people to email him their opinions about whether or not this was an act of domestic terrorism, promising to read the messages on the air as they came in, she couldn’t deal with it anymore. Actual news reporting had died a swift and certain death in the age of instant messaging and 140-character attention spans.

She clicked off the TV.

Checked her email.

Nothing.

After grabbing a bag of tortilla chips from the kitchen, she flopped onto the couch again and thought back through the night.

Detective Warren had dropped her off at the house just a few minutes after 8:00, the storm churning around them.

They’d talked about surface stuff on the way: what Tessa was hoping to do during the summer (check out the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, maybe the NSA museum, the Spy Museum, things like that), and if she had a boyfriend (nada), and if she was thinking about college yet (yeah, maybe Brown or USC; maybe Duke), what she wanted to study (that’s easy-double major in English and Deep Ecology).

When they arrived at the house, Detective Warren had offered to stay with her, but Tessa told her not to worry about it. “I’ll be fine. Seriously. But thanks for the ride.”

“All right. Lock the doors.” And even though she was nowhere near old enough to be Tessa’s mother, she sounded parental.

“I will.”

“Good night.”

Tessa hesitated before climbing out of the car. “You’re not just here to take a bunch of classes, are you?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I know how you feel about Patrick. I could tell. In Denver.”

A long pause. “Good men are hard to find.” At this point, the detective sounded more like a sister than a parent. Guy talk between two girls.

“So you came here to win him back?”

“I never had him, Tessa.”

“What about your ex-husband? Aren’t you two-”

“Tessa.”

She waited, expecting to hear that it wasn’t any of her business, but Detective Warren went a different direction. “We’re getting along again-and that’s a good thing. But we’ll never be close like we were. That’s over.”

It was hard to know how to respond.

Actually, Tessa respected her for her frankness and for pursuing what really mattered to her, and from everything she’d seen, Cheyenne and Patrick really would make a good couple. “He likes you too,” she said at last, though she wasn’t sure she should have. “Patrick does.”

Detective Warren was quiet. “I should probably go. Good night, Tessa.”

“G’night.”

“And lock those doors, okay?”

“Right.”

Then Tessa hurried through the rain, using her body to protect the mail she’d grabbed at the end of the driveway on the way to the house.

Then inside.

Door closed.

Locked.

Ever since being attacked and nearly killed by a serial killer whom Patrick had been tracking last October, she’d learned to be extra cautious. She checked the back door, confirmed that it was locked.

Okay.

Good to go.

But now, three hours later, Patrick still wasn’t home.

She knew that he hadn’t gotten over Lien-hua yet, but if things weren’t going to work out there, she felt like he should totally hook up with Detective Warren.

However, it was obvious he liked them both, and honestly, so did she. It would have been a lot simpler if one of the women had been a real loser, but Detective Warren, the forthright cowgirl, and Agent Jiang, the introspective beauty, were both pretty amazing women.

Tessa checked her laptop once more, and this time she saw the email icon flashing.

With a small shiver of the guilt that comes from going behind someone’s back, she tapped the space bar. Tessa, Hey! You’re not going to believe this. I’m in DC! Only for the next couple days-a friend of mine has a few sculptures that are showing at the Hirshhorn Museum. I have the middle of the day tomorrow free and I’d love to see you. I could meet at 10:30 or so. I’m thinking by the Capitol, maybe? I know a few people and I think I can get you a tour of the House gallery. Let me know. Love, Paul

Oh.

Unbelievable.

Not good.

Not good at all.

She reread the letter.

Tomorrow!

Why didn’t he tell you about this sooner? Why would he A pair of headlights turned from the road and began meandering down the long, winding driveway to the house.

Oh, man.

Patrick.

Tessa couldn’t think of any way of telling him what was going on-no, no, no, not right now. He’d been suspicious of Paul from the start, and if he found out she’d been emailing Paul like this behind his back, he’d be furious.

Besides, even if he would give her permission to meet with Paul, there was no way he’d be happy about it.

No way in the world.

Enough with the emails. There’s stuff you need to talk to Paul about. Go see him, get your answers, then sort everything out with Patrick tomorrow night.

She typed in her reply to Paul.

The garage door opened.

Patrick was home.

I heard Tessa rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchen. “That you?” I called.

“How could the answer to that question possibly be no?”

I paused.

Good point.

She appeared, crossed the room, and plopped onto the couch.

“Did you have a good night?” I asked.

She shrugged. “You? Was it bad? At the primate place?”

I let my eyes ask her how she knew where I’d been, and she flipped her thumb toward the television. “I saw you on TV.”

“Perfect.”

“It’s all over the news.”

I sighed. “Yeah, well, the media is going to have a field day with this one.”

She’d piled the mail on the coffee table beside her laptop, and I picked up the stack and started shuffling through it as we spoke: the latest issues of Sports Illustrated and Soldier of Fortune, both addressed to Freeman Runnels, the man who was letting us stay in his home for the summer… “Did you thank Detective Warren for the ride?”