The Cove

Sally just smiled at them all—all of them lifelong friends now—and walked back to James’s room.

He would live. As to all the rest of it, well, she just wasn’t going to think about it until she had to.

Life was all in your perspective, she’d decided during that helicopter ride to Portland, James white as death lying on that stretcher beside her, tubes sticking out of him. She was going to keep her perspective on James’s face. A nice face, a sexy face. She couldn’t wait for him to get well so they could go to the Bonhomie Club and he could play his saxophone.

* * *

The next morning, Quinlan opened the Oregonian that a nurse had brought him. The headline was:

AMORY ST. JOHN KILLED WHILE FLEEING FBI

Like he didn’t deserve it, he thought. “Yeah, poor bugger,” he said aloud, and read on. Evidently Amory St. John had tried to run, but he hadn’t made it. He’d left Amabel in a flash, jumped onto a baggage truck, knocked out the driver, and driven off, the FBI right behind him. He hadn’t gotten far. He’d even been stupid enough to fire on the agents, refusing orders to stop and throw down his weapon.

He was dead. The bastard was finally dead. Sally wouldn’t have to go through a trial. She wouldn’t ever have to face him again.

What about Amabel?

Apparently the Oregonian hadn’t known which headline to splash—The Cove murders or Amory St. John. Since The Cove had gotten the big print the day before, he supposed they decided it was Amory’s turn.

Amabel Perdy, he read, had pleaded innocent of all charges, both with regard to Amory St. John and with regard to The Cove, saying she had no idea what was going on in either case. She was an artist, she maintained. She helped sell the World’s Greatest Ice Cream. That was all she did.

Wait until the media found out about Thelma’s diary, he thought. That would nail her hide but good. All of the seniors’ hides. He was tired, his chest hurt real bad, and so he pumped a small dose of morphine into his arm.

Soon, he knew, he would be sleeping like a baby, his mind free of all this crap. He just wished he could see Sally before he went under again.

When she appeared at his bedside, smiling down at him, he knew he must be dreaming.

“You look like an angel.”

He heard a laugh and felt her mouth on his, all warm and soft.

“Nice,” he said. “More.”

“Go to sleep, buster,” she said. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Every morning?”

“Yes. Always.”

Epilogue

SALLY ST. JOHN Brainerd and James Railey Quinlan were married on the date Dillon Savich had set for them—October 14. Dillon Savich was Quinlan’s best man and Sally’s mother was her matron of honor. She attended her daughter’s wedding with Senator Matt Montgomery from Iowa, a widower who’d taken one look at Noelle and fallen hard. She had worn a two-piece bathing suit that summer.

There were 150 special agents from the FBI, including two special agents from the Portland field office, one of them the newly appointed SAC, or special agent in charge. Every Railey and Quinlan within striking distance arrived at the Elm Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Sally was simply enfolded into her new family.

Ms. Lilly, Marvin the Bouncer, and Fuzz the Bartender were in attendance, Ms. Lilly wearing white satin and Marvin announcing to everyone that the chicky looked gorgeous in her wedding dress. Fuzz brought a bottle of Chardonnay for a wedding present. It had a cork.

The media mobbed the wedding, which was expected since the trial of Dr. Beadermeyer—aka Norman Lipsy—had ended just the previous week and Sally had been one of the major prosecution witnesses. He’d been found guilty of conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, extortion, and income tax evasion, which, a TV news anchorwoman said, was the most serious of all the charges and would keep him in jail until the twenty-second century.

Scott Brainerd had plea-bargained to a charge of kidnapping and conspiracy, which the government finally agreed to, since the Feds could find no solid proof of his activity in arms dealing. He was sentenced to ten years in jail. But Sally knew, she told Quinlan, that Scott would have the best behavior in the entire prison system. She’d just bet the little worm would be out in three years, curse him. Quinlan rubbed his hands together and said he couldn’t wait.

In the previous June, Sally had become the senior aide to Senator Bob McCain. She had begun showing Quinlan a glitzy Washington, D.C., that was sleazy in a very different way from what he was used to. He said he wasn’t certain which Washington was more fascinating. Sally was running every day, usually with James, and in July she began to sing in the shower again.