He thought for a moment. “The best treatment I could give her,” he said. “I’d make sure she knew how much I loved her. I’d make the most of whatever time we had together. And I’d get ready to grieve like hell.”
“YOU CAN’T JUST SIT AROUND AND WAIT FOR ME TO die,” Kathleen said finally. We were still sitting in the living room long after the call had ended. She had been looking out the window, into the fading light; I had been looking at her, watching as her features softened and grew less distinct in the gloom. “I need you not to hover,” she went on. “Hovering over me—tiptoeing around, watching me like a hawk for any little signs and symptoms? That would drive me crazy. It’d be the worst thing you could do for me.”
The comment stung, and I started to object, but Kathleen knew me too well—it would be my way to hover. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll try not to.”
“Thank you.”
“It won’t be easy for me, Kath.”
“It won’t be easy,” she agreed. “But it’ll be important.” After a moment, she added, “Don’t shut down after I’m gone. You’ll probably want to, but you can’t. Or shouldn’t, anyhow. And don’t pull away from Jeff and Jenny and the boys. You’ll need them.”
“I need you,” I told her. “You’re the one I need.”
“Well, we can’t help that,” she said. “You’ll need to keep busy, too.” I started to protest, but she held up a hand to keep me from interrupting. “Don’t get discouraged about these setbacks you’ve had lately. The politics. The grandstanding and game-playing. Stand up for yourself. Stand up for your work. Stand up for the Body Farm.”
“They can have the damn Body Farm if they want it, Kathleen.”
She shook her head. “You don’t mean that. You’d better not mean it. You’ve put too much into that place. And so have I.”
I didn’t quite follow that last bit. “I’m not . . . How do you mean?”
She turned, and even in the dim light, I could see the impatience in her eyes. “All those nights and weekends you spent working—at the Body Farm and in the morgue—instead of home with me? You think those didn’t cost me anything?” The words felt like a knife in my chest, but she waved her hand to shoo away my guilt. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, honey. I know I wasn’t always gracious and generous about it, but I tried, because I knew it mattered so much to you. It must’ve mattered to me, too, or I wouldn’t have put up with it. So don’t you dare give up on it. If you do, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you.”
She forced a smile, and I tried to laugh at the brave joke, but the laugh got tangled up somewhere between my heart and my throat.
“One more thing, while we’re on the subject,” she said. “I see how miserable this Richard Janus thing has made you. You’ve had this cringing, hangdog look ever since the FBI and Fox News made it sound like you’d screwed up. Get over it, Bill. That, or get back into it.”
“I can’t get back into it,” I said. “They’ve shut me out.” I held out my hands, palms up, and gave a shrug.
“See?” The sharpness of her tone startled me. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. What on earth has happened to your backbone?”
In spite of myself—in spite of wanting to be so kind and loving that I could somehow magically keep Kathleen alive and well—I felt a flash of anger. “Gee, I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I lost my backbone out there on that mountainside. Or maybe it’s tied to the whipping post.”
“Well, untie it, then,” she snapped. “Or go find it. Or grow another one, if you have to. ’Cause being without it sure doesn’t become you. I’m the one who’s dying, Bill. Quit acting like it’s you that’s nailed to the cross.” I drew back, stunned, but then she reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’ve always made me so proud, Bill. Don’t stop now. Don’t stop when I’m gone. That would just make it sadder, don’t you see?”
We sat a while longer; by now the room was growing dark around us, but something had shifted—eased, at least for a moment—and we sat in a sort of companionable isolation, each absorbed in our own thoughts and feelings.
When the streetlights outside came on, Kathleen leaned over to the end table between us, took a box of matches from the drawer, and lit the thick white candle—her wine-drinking candle, she sometimes called it. “One more thing,” she said. I braced myself for more scolding, but she smiled, her face glowing in the warm light of the flame. “I wouldn’t consider it hovering if you brought me a glass of wine.”
IT WASN’T EASY, TAKING MY MIND OFF KATHLEEN and refocusing it on my work. But she was right, and I owed it to her—and to my own sanity—to try.
I’d been taken off the Janus case by Prescott, cut off from everyone in the FBI’s San Diego field office. It was possible, though, that Mac McCready would still talk to me. I dialed his Quantico number, and he answered on the third ring. “McCready here.”