John Gilstrap - Threat warning

But this was Gail’s treat to him, and he took his role as sous-chef seriously. He even hand-shredded the salad and hand-opened the bottle of Italian dressing. He also lit candles and dimmed the lights in the dining room where they gathered at one end of the table, close enough that their knees touched. Cocktails finished, he opened a favorite Lodali Barbera D’Alba.

Jonathan and Gail’s relationship was a complicated one. That’s what happens when your first encounter includes a gunfight. She worked for him now as one of his best investigators. Once a member of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, she could thread a needle at fifty yards with just about any firearm, and if she was afraid of anything, he hadn’t yet seen her confronted by it. That was the good part.

Unfortunately, her law degree had somehow melded the Constitution to her DNA, reducing her color spectrum for right and wrong to only black and white: either something was legal or it wasn’t. By contrast, Jonathan’s color palette for justice was kaleidoscopic. If the ends were justified, the means for achieving them were limited only to the breadth of his imagination and the laws of physics of chemistry. It never occurred to him to question whether a strategy for rescuing a good guy from a batch of bad guys might violate a law or two.

It was a rift that occasionally grew to a chasm.

To give their relationship a chance to flourish, they’d banned work discussions during their off-hours together, adding strategy and tactics to religion and politics on the list of topics that were forbidden in polite company. It made sense in theory, but in practice, their brokered peace occasionally left them with long moments of silence. Tonight was an example.

“So, how terrible was it?” Gail finally asked. “On the bridge, I mean.”

Jonathan arched his eyebrows. “I was too caught up in the moment to notice details. A lot of shots fired, a lot of people killed.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”

The gin was just beginning to find his bloodstream. He felt a little flushed as he tasted the wine. “I kept my head down,” he said. “The shooter’s the one who should be counting her blessings. She owes that fed a thank-you card.”

“As you owe Wolverine,” Gail said. “In fact, you owe her a mention in your will.”

Jonathan chuckled. The director of the FBI-Wolverine to Jonathan, thanks to some work he’d done for a Bureau a number of years ago-had covered his tracks on more than a few occasions. “I’m doing better than that,” he said. “I’m buying her breakfast tomorrow.”

Gail took a sip of her wine. “This is good. Are you going to tell her everything?”

“Lodali’s a small vineyard in Tuscany. Everything they touch is great.” Saying the words inspired him to take another taste. “I don’t see a reason to hold back. There’s nothing covert about my presence.”

“In a perfect world, it would be nice not to have your name tied to a terrorist attack.”

Jonathan recoiled. “Is that nervousness I hear?”

“Of course it is. You tried to kill somebody who’d killed Lord knows how many people. I don’t think Fisherman’s Cove needs terrorists flooding in to settle the score.”

He dismissed the point with a wave-not because it wasn’t valid, but because there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Wolverine’s always been able to keep me out of the news. No reason to think she’s lost her touch.”

They fell quiet again.

“You know what sort of baffles me about this evening?” Jonathan said to break the silence. “During the time that I was in custody, no one ever once asked me what I had seen out there on the bridge. They were so intent on me being the shooter that it apparently never occurred to them that I might have important details.”

“Do you?” Gail asked.

“Probably not. But you’d think they would have asked.”

“Would you have answered?”

Jonathan started to answer, then laughed. “Probably not. I was kinda pissed.” Another silence as they finished their pasta.

As he refilled the wineglasses, he looked around. “Where’s JoeDog?” Normally, the energetic black lab was making her presence well known at this point in a meal.

“I saw her heading off to Kramer’s earlier in the day,” Gail said. “Must be his turn.”

Officially, JoeDog was a stray. She’d appeared at Jonathan’s door a few years ago, and while he was her nominal master, she wandered the town on her own, blessed with special dispensation from the leash laws. When she tired of the lazy life of the firehouse, she wandered to the police chief’s house-Doug Kramer’s house-to mooch off him for a while.

“You know what that means, don’t you?” Jonathan said, rising from his chair and holding out his hand for Gail to join him.

She stood and waited to be enlightened.

Jonathan pulled her close and laced his fingers at the small of her back. “It means that we have the bed all to ourselves tonight.”

This year’s school bus driver, Mrs. Pantone, was an absolutist when it came to pickup times. Either you were at the corner at 7:21, or you weren’t. If she didn’t see you, she didn’t even slow down. Once, Aafia had been within twenty yards, running for all she was worth, when the old biddy just sped off without her. Her parents didn’t want to believe that such outrageous things could happen in middle school, but it was the truth.

But not today.

Today, Aafia missed the bus because she’d been lazy. She’d been up way too late studying for her science test, and that-let’s be honest-was because she’d spent way too much time chatting with her friends online. But given the news of the day, what choice did she have? Merilee Berdan had actually kissed Steve Bayne. On the lips! Sharee Northrup had seen it happen in the hallway between fourth and fifth period. They even did tongues!

So now Maddy Carter was like all pissy because she really likes Steve and now is telling everybody that Merilee is just a slut. Merilee found out about that, and, well, it was hard to break away to study for the science test.

Aafia grabbed a Pop-Tart out of the cupboard next to the fridge as she hurried to the kitchen door, beyond which her way-pissed dad was waiting with the engine already running. It was going to be a long ride to school, filled with lectures of how achievement in school is the only route to achievement in life. She’d hear all about how much her parents had suffered to carve a life for their family here in America, and how her sloth was an insult to Allah himself. Blah, blah, blah.

Merilee and Steve had kissed!

Aafia grabbed her coat but didn’t take the time to put it on as she rushed out to the carport and slammed the kitchen door behind her. She didn’t mean to slam it, but now her mom was going to be pissed that she had, and that was another special moment to look forward to on the far side of the day.

Was it possible that middle school in Pakistan was that different from middle school in America? Or were her parents just too old to remember what was important when they were kids?

As she’d expected, the atmosphere inside the minivan was even colder than the Michigan winter as she dumped her stuff on the floor of the front passenger seat and climbed in. She had barely pulled her door closed before they were backing down the driveway.

“I’m sorry, Father,” she said in Urdu, hoping to strum a nostalgic string in him.

“English, Aafia,” he snapped. “You are an American. Please do not mock me.”

So much for nostalgia. In English: “I’m not mocking, Father. I was just… I don’t know.” Like so many others in their town, her father had lost his job at the auto factory almost two years ago, and hadn’t been able to get even an interview since. He had long been self-conscious of his accent, but in recent weeks, he’d come to believe that his accent and his dark features were roadblocks to his career. In Pakistan, he had been a supervisory engineer for the automobile company, and in the late 1990s had accepted a transfer here to Michigan to head up an even larger department. That was before Aafia or her brother had even been born.