Jenny was scrubbing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees when the doorbell rang. She’d cleaned her house from top to bottom in the last two weeks, trying to keep from going insane with worry about Kathryn. She’d tried everything to locate her, even threatening brass with writing to the president, if she had to. It was a matter of safety and national security, she was told. To hell with that. She just wanted to be with Kathryn, to see her with her own eyes and know that she was all right. Even Smitty, with all his contacts, had come up against a brick wall in his search, and she knew if he couldn’t find her, no one could. When she asked, “Now what?,” he simply said, “We wait.”
So, she waited, but she couldn’t get the horrific images and sounds out of her head. She couldn’t sleep or eat. She went through her days on automatic, doing what she had to do before coming home to a dreadfully empty home, where every excruciating minute reminded her of what had happened and the pain and suffering Kathryn was going through.
Jenny called the number they gave her three times a day, every day, begging to speak to Kathryn, but each time, she was refused, with the person on the line claiming the nature of Kathryn’s injuries had rendered her unable to speak for the time being.
“Then just let me hear her breathe,” she pleaded, desperate for any contact. “Or at least let her listen to me. I need to speak to her. Please!”
Her pleading fell on sympathetic but deaf ears. She had received a letter after the first week. It was supposedly from Kathryn, but it was not in her hand, and Jenny couldn’t help but doubt its provenance. The letter claimed she was all right, but they wanted to keep her for tests and observation to be sure. She claimed she couldn’t see well yet, so she had a nurse write the note for her. She asked her to please not worry and said she missed her like crazy, and she signed it K, which seemed like Kathryn, but without actually seeing her handwriting, Jenny was wary. She had seen enough of the spy world to doubt everything and anything unless she had concrete proof, and concrete proof would be nothing less than Kathryn safely in her arms again.
Her incessant calling paid off in the middle of the second week, when she actually got to speak to Kathryn on the phone. She sounded terrible, her voice barely audible and painfully raw, but she assured her she was doing well and should be fine soon. She had no idea where she was or when she would be coming home, but the thought of it, and thoughts of her, kept her going. Their call was cut short when Kathryn suffered an awful coughing fit, and the nurse took over the phone, complaining she shouldn’t be talking at all.
Kathryn managed to wrangle the phone back long enough to say she missed her and loved her and would call her back soon. It was some measure of relief to finally speak to her, but she needed to see her, to have her home, to take care of her until she was completely well.
Jenny let the doorbell go. Whoever it was could come back another time. She was filthy from cleaning, had suds up to her elbows, and was in no mood for some Joe selling vacuum cleaners.
The bell tolled on until Jenny finally threw down the scrub brush and struggled to her feet.
“For crying out loud,” she complained, as she slogged down the hall, drying her hands on a kitchen towel. She yanked open the door.
“This better be—” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh my God.”
“Not quite,” Kathryn whispered, as she removed her dark sunglasses. “Sorry, I don’t have my key.”
Jenny fell into her open arms and held on for dear life.
“Kat. Oh my God. Oh my God,” she kept repeating as she rocked her back and forth.
She abruptly let up and held her at arm’s length. “Am I hurting you?”
Kathryn smiled. “Best thing I’ve felt in weeks.”
Once inside, Kathryn put her glasses on the console table in the foyer and slowly took off her light jacket and hung it on the hall tree. Jenny watched her carefully. She looked tired but, otherwise, seemed all right, except for her strained voice. Her skin looked normal again, albeit slightly darker from the burns, she imagined, but she saw no signs of blistering or scarring. Outward appearances aside, Jenny couldn’t hide her concern for what was going on inside after such a traumatic experience. She knew she was a mess. She couldn’t imagine what Kathryn had gone through emotionally.
Kathryn put her arms around her again and whispered, “I’m fine.”
As they stood in the hallway, Kathryn found her embrace becoming tighter and tighter. Jenny became the only thing in her world she could believe in. She tried to hold herself together, but anger at what had happened to her, fear, and the relief of finally being home, all washed over her at once, and suddenly, Jenny was the only thing holding her up. Her strength drained, and her brave front evaporating with it, she broke down and sobbed.
Jenny held her tight. “Oh, baby, I know. Let it go. I’m here. Let it go.”
She did let it go. They both did. There would be time enough to sort out the bigger picture, but for the moment, they had each other.
Their tears washed away the horrors of the past two weeks, and they would sleep the night fitfully, but thankfully, in each other’s arms, gathering strength for whatever was to come.
Jenny let the drawn curtain in the living room fall back into place. “Smitty’s here.”
“I’ll get the door,” Kathryn whispered, as she got up from the couch. She had spoken to Smitty on the phone, but Jenny hadn’t left her side since she’d gotten home the previous afternoon, and she desperately needed some private words with him.
She opened the door and found him with his hat in one hand, a beautiful spray of red tulips in the other, and the widest smile she’d ever seen.
He kissed her cheek and embraced her gently, holding the flowers to the side. “It’s so good to see you, honey. I looked everywhere for you.”
“I need to talk to you,” she whispered in his ear.
He backed off, a little surprised at the urgency.
She flicked her eyes in Jenny’s direction, indicating it was business related, and he nodded.
Jenny approached from the living room and took the flowers. “Oh, how pretty.”
Kathryn caught a whiff of the bouquet and nearly retched.
Smitty took her arm. “What’s wrong?”
“The flowers—”
“Shit.” Jenny took them away immediately.
“What?” Smitty asked.
Jenny was already halfway down the hall with them when she called out, “Lewisite smells like flowers.”
He turned to Kathryn. “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t know. We’ll throw them out.”
“No, they’re beautiful, just—” She swallowed her nausea and stepped outside for some fresh air.
“You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded and shielded her sensitive eyes against the bright afternoon sun.
“Say, you’re a wreck,” Smitty joked.
“You have no idea.”
Before they could talk, Jenny stuck her head out the door. “Everything okay?”
Kathryn nodded, and they all moved into the darkened living room, where Jenny played the perfect hostess.
“Can I get you something? Water? Tea?”
Kathryn saw an opportunity. “I’d like some tea, honey. Thanks.”
“You got it.”
As soon as Jenny was out of earshot, Kathryn turned to Smitty.
“Bouchaule is back,” she whispered. “He took my blood while I was in that facility.”
“What?”
She’d been in isolation for a week when she was awakened from sleep by someone taking blood, which wasn’t unusual. She rarely got more than a half hour’s rest at any given time, due to all the poking and prodding of the medical staff, but this person lingered long after the vial was filled. She opened her eyes, which was an exercise in futility since her vision was still blurred, but she smelled a familiar cologne, and on the off chance, uttered Bouchaule’s name. The man didn’t move for a second, but then he gently placed his hand on her wrist, just above the burns on her exposed hands, before disappearing. He did not visit again.
“It was him.” She paused and winced at her sore, dry throat before pressing on. “I know it.”
Smitty put a sympathetic hand on her arm as they sat down on the couch. “He was one of the doctors there?”
“No. The usual attendant came in after, right on schedule.”
“Have you told brass?”
“No. I haven’t told anyone.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“I want to know what he wants, and then I want to know what he knows.”
“You should tell brass, Kat.”
“You don’t understand, Smitty. They did this to me.”
He was stunned for a beat. “What are you saying?”
“To lure Bouchaule back here.”
“That’s screwy. You could have died. A man did die. They wouldn’t do that.”
“Holmes would. He was desperate for Bouchaule to return. Now he has.”
Smitty sat up straight, his anger growing at the possibility of such a despicable scheme. “If that’s true, I’ll kill that son of a bitch.”
They both clammed up about it when they heard Jenny coming down the hall with the tray of tea.
They carried on, making small talk, until Smitty made his excuses and got up to leave.
Jenny volunteered to walk him out.
When Jenny got to the door, she stepped outside with Smitty and closed the door behind her.
“Smitty, does she seem all right to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“She seems … I don’t know … distant.”
“Well, she’s been through a lot, and she really shouldn’t be talking much, so maybe that’s it.”
Jenny nodded, but there was more, and Smitty needed to know it.
“I think this is all my fault.”
“How so?”
“Remember when you asked me how I knew so much about Lewisite?”
He nodded.
“It was in my father’s papers. The classified reports I saw. I looked it up after that.”
Smitty looked around like someone might be watching. “Jenny, I don’t think you should be—”
“Fuck them, Smitty,” she said under her breath. “They did this to her to see if I would do anything to save her.”
He eyed her warily. “Who did what?”
She hadn’t worked that out yet.
“Forrester’s remaining associates? German subversives? I don’t know, but that was my father’s virus she was exposed to. I know it. It’s all too much of a coincidence.”
“Your father’s virus?”
“It was in the reports. They’re trying to use it as a weapon. The Lewisite is used to prime the lungs. The virus acts much faster on the damaged tissue, and the patient drowns in their own blood, while their immune system tears the lungs apart, trying to destroy the virus.”
She watched Smitty seethe as he pictured a sinister plot with Kathryn the expendable pawn. When his thought process got to the who and the why, anger turned to confusion.
“But … she was exposed.”
“She couldn’t have been, or she would have died like that soldier who was with her. There’s no cure, Smitty.”
“Have you spoken to Kat about this?”
“No. I wanted to speak to you first. I don’t want to upset her. Better she thinks it was an accident.”
“Yeah,” he drew out, as he put his hand on her shoulder. “I think that’s the right thing to do. Listen, I’ll sniff around and see what I can see. You just take care of her, will ya?”
Jenny nodded and gave him a hug before going back inside.
Smitty turned around with his hand on the back of his neck, overwhelmed by the treacherous machinations beyond his control. He put on his hat as he descended the steps, unsure of where to turn for answers.
Colonel Holmes rolled down his car window as the bespectacled doctor’s assistant walked past his headlights and came to his side.
“Here’s your report, sir.” He handed over a manila folder through the open window.
“I’m a busy man, Saunders. What does it say?”
“It’s not there.”
“But she was exposed.”
“Yes, sir, she started to react, but then just … stopped.”
“Then the serum worked on her.”
“No, sir. The reaction stopped before she was given the serum.”
“And what did Ryan do?”
“Nothing.”
“Did she know what was happening?”
“Oh, yes sir. She knew all about the Lewisite, and I’m sure she put two and two together about the virus.”
“And she did nothing?”
“Nothing. It wouldn’t have mattered. The crisis was over by the time she arrived.”
Holmes glared at the man.
“She wasn’t home. There was nothing I could do.”
“That was careless planning.”
“I tell you, it wouldn’t have mattered, sir. Ryan didn’t do anything to save her, and the woman shed that virus like a dead skin cell.”
“Just like Daniel Ryan.”
“Yes.”
“Her blood?”
“Useless, like his.”
Holmes faced forward and stared into the blackness of the empty field.
“Thank you, Saunders.”
The assistant nodded and walked to his car.
Holmes put the folder on the seat beside him and pulled a gun from his glove box. He stuck his head out the window.
“I say, Saunders—”
The man turned. “Sir?”
“How are your wife and children?”
“Alive and well, and I intend them to stay that way.”
Holmes smiled. “We understand each other.”
“Perfectly.”