Lisa Gardner: Say Goodbye

Lately, Kimberly had started to have nightmares, terribly vivid dreams where Mac was killed in an auto accident, or shot on the job, or mowed down on his way to the Chick-fil-A for sandwiches. The dreams always ended with her holding the phone, We’re terribly sorry to inform you of your husband’s death, while down the hall came the high-pitched wail of a newborn.

She’d wake up, drenched in sweat and shaking from terror. She, a woman who’d once stood in a hotel room with a killer’s gun pressed against her temple like a lover’s kiss.

She was strong, she was intelligent, she was tough. And she absolutely, positively knew she could not do this alone.

On those nights, she would turn away from her husband’s warm, solid form. She would curl in a ball, her hand cradling her belly. She would stare at the dusky wall across the room, and she would miss her mother.

Kimberly finished the catalogue, set down her water glass, ducked into the guest bath, where she quietly brushed her teeth. Her hair still smelled like jet fuel, her clothes and skin reeked of an oily barbecue. She tossed her clothes into the laundry room, then padded naked down the hall to the master bedroom.

Mac had left the bedside lamp on. Used to each other’s rhythms by now, he didn’t stir as she started the shower, then rummaged the drawers for her pajamas.

When she finally slid clean and fresh beneath the sheets, Mac rolled toward her, raising one arm in groggy welcome.

“Okay?” he whispered.

“Found Ronnie’s head.”

“Nice.”

She scooted into the warm spoon of his body, spreading his hand over her side, where the baby’s kicks now registered like the flutter of butterfly wings, filling up the well of her heart.

Voices were talking:

“Come on, Sal. Surely you can do better than that. It’s three in the morning, for God’s sake. Chances are the girl has never even met Kimberly. She just wants a get-out-of-jail-free card. You know how these things are.”

At the sound of her name, Kimberly pulled herself further from the dregs of sleep. She opened her eyes to discover Mac standing across the bedroom, talking on his cell phone. The second he noticed her eyes were open, he flushed guiltily.

Then, very pointedly, he turned around, giving her his back as he continued to argue: “What specific information has she given you to warrant an FBI agent’s personal visit? Sure. Yeah. That and a quarter will buy you a cup of coffee. ’Sides, that’d be our ball game, not the FBI’s.”

Now Kimberly was fully awake. And increasingly angry.

Mac was running his hand through his hair. “Mano a mano, do you think she’s for real or just some kid caught in a pinch? Well, I know that’s not your call to make. Do it anyway!”

But apparently, Sal wasn’t willing to play that game. Mac sighed. Mussed his hair again. Then reluctantly turned to face his wife, cell phone held against his shoulder, resigned expression on his face.

Before she could launch into her tirade, he went with a preemptive strike: “It’s GBI Special Agent Salvadore Martignetti. Couple of officers arrested a prostitute in Sandy Springs who claims she’s your informant. She doesn’t have your card or seem to know anything about you, but she’s sticking to her story. The officers serve with Sal on VICMO, so they contacted him and he gave me a buzz.”

VICMO stood for the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Program. Its goal was to bring together officers from all over the state in an attempt to identify larger patterns of crime. In reality, it was some bureaucrat’s attempt at getting the dozens upon dozens of law enforcement agencies to play nice together.

“Hey, if Sal has information for me, he should be dialing me direct. Isn’t that the point of all these cross-jurisdictional teams? We’re all one big happy family, loading each other’s numbers into our speed dials?”

Mac gave her a look. “Don’t start. The girl says her name is Delilah Rose. Mean anything?”

“Other than an obvious alias?”

“You don’t have to go. For Christ’s sake, you just got home three hours ago, and no doubt you’re back at the crash scene by six.”

“What’s she offering?”

“Won’t give ’em any details. Says it’s for your ears only.”

“But Sal has an opinion.”

Mac shrugged. “Sounds like she’s claiming to have information on another missing prostitute.”

Kimberly arched a brow. “And that would be GBI’s ball game, as you graciously put it?” she asked drily.

“Last time I read the statutes.”

“Not if the act involved crossing state lines.” Kimberly threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.

“Kimberly…”

“I’m gonna talk to a girl, Mac, not hoe the cotton fields. Trust me, even a pregnant woman can do this.”

After all these years, Mac knew when he’d lost the war. He returned to the cell phone. “Sal? You heard? Yeah, she’ll pay the girl a visit. Do me a favor? Make sure the station has plenty of bottled water.”

“Oh please,” Kimberly tossed over her shoulder, “why don’t you just ask him to stock pickles as well?”

Sal must have heard that, too. “No, no, no,” Mac was already correcting. “But if you want the inside skinny, she’ll do anything you want for vanilla pudding. I keep snack packs stashed in my car. It’s probably the only reason I’m still alive. Oh, and don’t forget plastic spoons, otherwise it gets ugly. Yeah, thanks, buddy. Bye.”

By the time Kimberly exited the bathroom, she’d splashed cold water on her face and was fully awake. Mac had returned to their queen-size bed, but was sitting up, watching her with dark eyes. She pulled a fresh pair of slacks from the closet. He still didn’t say a word.

The argument was already three months old, and not due to be resolved anytime soon. Kimberly pulled a tough caseload, even by FBI standards. In the post-9/11 world, the Criminal side of the house had been gutted to get National Security up and running. Atlanta’s Violent Crimes unit went from sixteen agents to only nine, with fifty-hour workweeks becoming seventy-hour marathons. Days routinely started at nine a.m. and went to all hours of the night.

If that wasn’t enough, Kimberly had joined the ERT as an “extracurricular,” providing another forty to fifty call outs a year, for such high-stress situations as plane crashes, bank robberies, hostage situations, kidnappings, and the occasional cult leader showdown. Agents received free training for their extracurriculars, but no extra income. Agents served because they were called to serve, the work its own reward.

Kimberly had been only four weeks pregnant when Mac started to question why she needed quite so much work to provide her with a sense of reward. Perhaps she could rejoin White Collar Crimes or, better yet, transfer to Health Care Fraud with Rachel Childs. Rachel worked only five cases a year. True, they were document-intensive cases, but they also had a longer lead time, opening up flexibility for, in Rachel’s case, managing the ERT, or in Kimberly’s case, having a baby.

Health Care Fraud was valuable work. Indeed, as Mac liked to say when he really got going, fraud was the heart and soul of the Bureau.

Kimberly suggested that she join Counterterrorism and spend six months working in Afghanistan. That shut him up for a day or two.

In the FBI, everything boiled down to “the needs of the Bureau.” Why weren’t new agents allowed to pick their first field office, and in fact, the new agent from Chicago was most likely to be sent to Arkansas, even though the Chicago office needed the most recruits? Because from the beginning, the powers that be wanted to make sure everyone understood one simple mandate: The needs of the Bureau came first. You were serving the U.S. government, protecting the American people, and that was given as much weight and gravitas in the FBI as in any branch of the armed forces.