Michael Prescott: Mortal Faults

“No, we’re connected. We’re like two paired electrons that continue to influence each other over vast distances.”

Tess was losing the thread of the discussion, not an uncommon occurrence when speaking with Abby. “What are you talking about?”

“Quantum entanglement. Or loyalty. Take your pick.”

“It’s not an issue of loyalty.”

“Sure it is. Didn’t you ever read about Androcles and the lion? Androcles took a thorn out of the lion’s paw. Years later he was thrown to the lions in the Colosseum. And one of those lions was the very same one he’d helped. And the lion didn’t care, and ate Androcles anyway.”

“That isn’t how the story goes.”

“I saw the director’s cut. Point is, that mangy lion showed no loyalty. Do you want to be a mangy lion, Tess?”

Tess had forgotten how truly irritating Abby could be. “You’re not going to manipulate me into getting involved in another one of your cases.”

“No involvement. You’re in Denver, I’m in L.A. How can there be involvement?”

“Well, you didn’t call just to chat.”

“I need only one tiny favor.”

“I can’t do favors for you.”

“Tess, I pulled a thorn out of your paw. That has to count for something. Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I just need to know if a given individual is enrolled in the witness protection program.”

“The U.S. Marshals run that program, not the FBI.”

“Yeah, like you don’t have access to their databases?”

She did, of course, and Abby, of course, knew it. “I’m not going to help you,” Tess said. Somehow the living room of her apartment, which had always seemed big enough until now, was suddenly too small, the walls closing in like the jaws of the trap.

“It’s not a big deal, Tess. Just a little tidbit of info that no one will ever miss.”

She felt her resolve failing. “I can’t do it,” she said again.

“You can if you believe you can. Some Zen wisdom there. How about it, Grasshopper?”

Tess lowered her head. The phone was hot in her hand, or maybe it was her hand that was hot. She knew she should refuse. Should end the call. But Abby was right. There was a debt, and a connection.

“If I try,” she heard herself say tonelessly, “will you promise to leave me alone after this?”

“Sure. Until the next time I need a favor.”

“Abby…”

“You know, for a lion who got relief from a painful foot injury, you sure are grouchy.”

“That’s what happens when people call me at midnight.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Uh, no. Just… reading.”

“Reading in bed?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

Tess blinked. “I didn’t say-”

“You didn’t have to. I actually heard your face go red with a demure Catholic-schoolgirl blush. So is it serious? You two going steady?”

“I… it’s somebody I… never mind.”

“You’re not giving me the good dish, Tess. Is he married?”

“Of course not.”

“Just asking. Younger than you?”

Tess had to smile. “Are you saying I’m old?”

“Not at all. I’m only wondering if you’re robbing the cradle. You know, women reach their sexual peek at forty. Men, at eighteen. Something to think about.”

“I’m not forty.”

“The question is, is he eighteen?”

Despite herself, Tess had to laugh. “No, he’s not. But he is a couple of years younger than I am.”

“Good in the sack?”

“Come on, you don’t expect me to answer that.”

“There’s that blush again.”

The ridiculous thing was, Tess really was blushing. She could feel the warmth in her face. “I just can’t talk about it now,” she said.

“Sex between consenting adults is nothing to be embarrassed about, no matter what those prickly old nuns taught you. I mean-he is an adult, isn’t he? Of legal age?”

“He’s thirty-six. How did we get on this subject, anyway?”

“You know how it is with me. One thing leads to another. There doesn’t have to be any logical progression. It’s more like stream of consciousness.”

“Like swimming upstream, I’d say.”

“Hey, you made a funny. Good for you. This guy is loosening you up, Special Agent. Taking some of the starch out of your undies.”

Tess sighed. She honestly did not know whether or not she liked Abby. She was quite sure she disapproved of her, but as for liking her

… that was another question.

“What is it you want from me?” she asked, resigned now.

“Got a pencil?”

“Hold on.” Tess found a pad and pen, and turned on a lamp. “Go.”

Abby gave the name, address, Social Security number, and other particulars of a woman whose personal history extended only eight years into the past.

“Got it,” Tess said when she finished scribbling. She still felt a little stupid for getting talked into this. “I assume I can reach you at the number you’re calling from.”

“It’s my cell. Handcuffed to my wrist at all times. And, Tess-”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“Wasn’t gonna. I was just going to say I need the info ASAP.”

“I’ll do my best. There are no guarantees.”

“Never are, in our line of work.”

“You and I are not in the same line of work,” Tess said, but Abby had already hung up.

Tess refolded the phone and went into the bathroom. In the glow of a nightlight she ran some water from the tap and splashed her face. Her headache was stronger than before. Funny how even a brief dialogue with Abby was enough to start her head throbbing.

She looked at herself in the mirror. The face that gazed back was framed in a shoulder-length fall of strawberry blond hair, brushed daily to smooth out its natural curls. She came from Highlands stock; her ancestors had roamed the steep hillsides, braving the winter winds, dancing reels around bonfires, surviving poverty and famine and war. She sometimes wondered if she’d stayed this long in Denver because something about chill winds and mountain slopes spoke to her ancestral instincts.

Her forebears had been hard, tough people, and she thought there was a certain toughness in her, as well-a quality not immediately apparent in her smooth skin and quiet voice, but noticeable, perhaps, in the set of her mouth and the gray depths of her eyes. Few FBI agents ever drew their weapon in the field, and fewer still ever fired it, but in her fourteen-year career she had killed three men, each of whom had been doing his best to kill her. She’d had to be tough to survive those battles, and to survive the death of the one man-sorry, Josh-the one man she’d ever really loved. If there was such a thing as a soul mate, Paul Voorhees had been hers, and he still was, even if six years had gone by since a serial killer named Mobius had murdered him in a Denver suburb and left the body for her to find.

Mobius had been after her, not Paul. Sometimes she almost wished she had been home that night instead of him.

She sighed. Morbid thought. She was having a lot of those lately. Did Abby really have to ask her age? Two weeks ago she’d turned thirty-nine, and lately she was feeling every one of those years. Faint creases had appeared at the corners of her eyes, and she had to work harder to keep extra weight from collecting on her hips. She didn’t like it. Though still young by any reasonable standard, she was feeling old.

But at least she had Josh. He’d been good for her, even if they had to skulk around, dining in out-of-the-way restaurants and feigning disinterested professionalism on the job. And if women really did reach their sexual peak at forty, then she still had something to look forward to.

The thought made her smile, and the smile, she noticed, deepened those wrinkles near her eyes.