Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

He felt her tense up.

Pulling back, he followed her stare over his shoulder. Leah stood in the doorway. With a sleeve-covered hand, she brushed her shaggy hair out of her eyes. "Sorry. I know you said to wait, but the dark and the quiet…I guess I'm not used to being alone."

Seeing Leah in this context, Tim was struck by how gaunt she was. She pulled off her sweater, her undershirt's V neck dipping to reveal the rash on her chest and the overpronounced strokes of her clavicles. The artificial light lent her arms' bruises and the smudges beneath her eyes a sea-weedy tint.

Leah extended a gangly arm. "Hi. I'm Leah."

Taking her hand, Dray looked at Tim, and Tim tilted his chin in a faint nod.

"Andrea Altman," she said.

"I need to…uh, call the ranch and leave a voice mail. Every three hours."

Tim had been given the same phone number; if he needed to speak with TD, he was to call and leave a voice mail requesting a phone appointment. He'd receive a return call within three hours from one of the Pros, giving him the time at which he should call back.

Tim drew his cell phone from his pocket. "Use this. Don't place any landline calls from here, okay?"

"Okay." She started to dial, but her legs gave out.

Tim caught her, and Dray pulled over a chair. Leah bent her head into her hands. "Sorry. I'm sorry." She took a few deep breaths.

Dray filled a pot with water and put it on the stove. "Let's get some food into you."

"I don't want to be any more trouble."

Dray flashed her patented no-nonsense stare – eyebrows up, forehead wrinkled. "I wasn't asking."

When the shower ran in the little bathroom across the hall from Ginny's room, the pipes in the adjacent master wall hummed. Sitting on the bed, giving Dray the CliffsNotes rundown of the retreat, Tim realized that those pipes had been silent for the last year.

After waiting until Leah disposed of a full plate of pasta and two chicken-patty sandwiches, Dray had dragged the air mattress from the garage rafters and inflated it in Ginny's room. Unlike most tough women, she had patience for fragility, though now that she wasn't in Leah's pitiable presence, her magnanimity was wearing thin.

"I need your help," Tim said.

"We're not running an orphanage here."

"She got sucked into something over her head. She just needs a little space to -"

"She made those choices. She did. Like kids choose to shoot up or knock off 7-Elevens. We don't provide turndown service for them." Her sigh puffed up her bangs. "And now she knows where we live. And she's planning to return to the enemy camp."

"I'm hoping we can talk her out of it."

"That's another thing. After you risked your life, she's down here to…what? Test the waters?"

"We'll do the intervention first thing tomorrow morning. Let's hope she goes home with her parents from there."

"And if she doesn't, then you escort her back to the ranch? That's crazy-making."

"It's how the law works. We can't just hold her against her will – you're the one who was so adamant about that earlier. Why do you have a problem with her now?"

"She did try to fuck you."

"She was under the impression that I was single."

"Oh," Dray said. "Well, then."

The pipes ceased their murmuring, and Dray left to make up the bed.

Tim called Bear and debriefed him quickly so he could start in on the Dead Link leads. Then he removed his badge and. 357 from the gun safe. He clipped the holster at his right hip, then sat on the bed, holding the five-point star in his lap, running his thumb across the silver-plated brass. TD's words worked on him still, even through the second skin of his assumed identity. Tim had been arrogant. He had assumed power that should not have been his. He had killed the wrong people, not those responsible for his daughter's murder.

Though it was barely after ten, Leah fell out in minutes, snuggled blissfully beneath an abundance of winter blankets in Ginny's otherwise bare room. Zipping up his jacket, Tim paused in the doorway, peering in. A chocolate bar lay half eaten on the floor within arm's reach of the pillow. To ward off loneliness, Leah had asked for a radio; from Tim's paint-splattered boom box, James Taylor wearily bemoaned flying machines in pieces on the ground.

In Tim's boxers and a stretched T-shirt, Dray padded up the hall from the kitchen, turning off the lights along the way. The shushing of her footsteps ceased.

Breathing quietly side by side in the darkness, they watched Leah's sleeping form.

Not at your house. It's important we meet on neutral ground." The finality in Tim's voice elicited a glance from Bear in the driver's seat.

The Dodge wasn't the most soundproof of vehicles; Tim had to stick a finger in his ear so he could hear Emma's faint response on the cell phone. "How about at my brother Michael's, then? He lives in Westwood."

"She's allergic to cats," Tim said.

"So?"

"Uncle Mike has cats."

If the bemused noise escaping Bear's throat was any indication, Emma's silence connoted shock. "I suppose he does," she finally managed.

A rustle as the phone was handed off, then Will's gruff voice cut in. "What's this? Where are we meeting?"

"I'm working on that. Keep your schedule clear in the morning."

Tim heard Emma murmuring in the background, then Will said, "Not too early. We want to be our best for this. The baby's given us quite a week."

"Leah's had quite a week, too." Tim snapped his phone shut.

The Dodge rocked as they pulled into the motel parking lot, the vacancy sign crackling like a bug zapper overhead. Bear angled into a space. "You want me to wait here, right?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry." Tim got out and headed for the brightly lit front office.

Reggie's head snapped up at the chiming bells. "Oh, c'mon, what now?"

"I got her out. But only for two days."

"Man, you are incorrigible."

"I took your advice. I'm leaving it up to her whether she wants to go back."

"Good for you. Thanks for dropping by."

"I need somewhere to hold an intervention in the morning."

It took a moment for realization to dawn, and then Reggie leaned back. "No way. I want no part of this. I've done what I can for you."

"You're not doing this for me," Tim said. "I've got a girl contemplating leaving The Program, leaving TD." Reggie shriveled at the names. "Well, here's your chance."

"My chance?"

"To stand up. To help someone else walk out. You said you're stuck because you never got to choose. Well, now you get to choose."

Reggie coughed out something unintelligible. "Good manipulation. You learned well from TD." He returned Tim's stare. "There are hundreds of seedy motels around here. Pick one of them."

"I don't want one of them."

"What if they find out I helped?"

"They think you're still in the bin up in SB. If they even knew you were here, you wouldn't be here. As you said, you're the sole survivor. They won't get it wrong forever. We have to crack The Program open. I need your help to do it. This is the first step."

Reggie bit his bottom lip so it bunched out as if he were dipping tobacco. He bobbed his head, mulling it over. "So you want a room."

"And I'd like you to be there. To help talk to her."

Reggie laughed sharply. "Yeah, right. Like her parents will let me anywhere near her."

"Her parents aren't running this. The girl needs you."

Hopefulness brightened Reggie's face, then vanished, replaced by his accustomed affect, that of someone treading water with sapping strength. His forehead knitted. "I don't have…I don't have anything to offer."

"You're gonna use that for the rest of your life?"

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then back again. "Sorry." He shook his head. "I've faced my demons already."