The third message was a computerized voice asking if she’d thought about vinyl siding for her house.

“Damn, glad I called to pick up the messages while I was gone. I probably would have spent an hour listening to people offer me mortgages and improvements for the house I don’t own.”

She uncorked the bottle and drained it in a few swallows. Appleby crawled up on her chest to swat at the cork, and Alex stroked his white and orange fur. “So, you just had to go and scare Aunt Maggie, huh? You know, she’s the one who gave you that catnip toy at Christmas, so you better be nice.” She felt around his neck, where a slight discoloration marked the location his collar normally sat. “How do you keep pulling that off? I know you don’t like the bell, but that’s the only way I have of warning people when you do your bookcase leap. So I’m just gonna keep putting it back on, until you stop this raining cats stuff, okay?” Appleby swatted the cork away from her hand, his tail twitching.

“Yeah, I’m glad we had this talk, too.”

Idly petting Appleby, Alex thought back to the time Sarah would be waiting for her to come home. The two had met at a neighborhood Fourth of July picnic in 1997, and had spent the rest of that summer exploring the area in and around Washington. Sarah had taken Alex to all the museums, and the historic landmarks, while Alex had taken Sarah to Baltimore for a White Sox — Orioles game. During a weeks vacation, they decided to save the money and spend the week visiting the National Archives together. Sarah had used the time to research her family history, reading through ship manifests and immigration lists. Alex, on the other hand, spent those several days reading through boxes of material on the Kennedy assassination. The two had laughed at themselves, realizing if they didn’t go there together, and leave together, they never would have crossed paths at the Archives.

Still, they had tried to ignore any romantic or sexual feelings between them, thinking themselves just good friends. It wasn’t until September that they actually declared themselves a couple, and by Thanksgiving they were living together. Sarah had even organized a party for Alex when she was made a Special Agent in the beginning of December.

Their’s had been a strange relationship, based more on comfort than need, and on friendship rather than passion. Alex had to admit that during those six months she had been grateful to have someone to go home to; as their first official assignment she and David had been given a serial killer case, and Alex had needed someone to listen to her rant to about the frustrations. Unfortunately, being Alex’s sounding board wasn’t what Sarah had needed, and after the killer had been caught, and Alex was sleeping through the night without nightmares, Sarah had told her that the relationship was over. While there had definitely been pain then, it didn’t take either woman long to see that the relationship really was a friendship, and just because they were no longer sleeping together, that didn’t mean they couldn’t see each other. Sarah had gone to Chicago with Alex when her father died and Alex had flown to Colorado with Sarah when her little brother was injured in a ski accident. Alex had been with Sarah the night she’d met Maggie, who was now Sarah’s partner. And Sarah and Maggie had taken it upon themselves, much like David and Miri, to find Alex someone to love. She appreciated the effort, knowing they had only good intentions, but some of the Thursday night dinners had become disasters, and for the last couple of months Alex had turned down their invitations to dinner. It sounded to her like Sarah had caught on to her ploy. It was no longer an invitation but a demand for her presence. With a sigh, Alex knew she’d probably show up. After all, she’d been missing Maggie’s cooking immensely.

She glanced over at the clock on her desk, then groaned when she saw it was after two. She had to be at work in six hours. She’d be lucky if she got a chance to eat that lasagna in the morning.

Alex pulled the wine cork away from Appleby’s claws, dropping it into the wastebasket. He immediately went to look for another plaything, and Alex gratefully slid under the covers. She turned off the light, and listened to Appleby’s soft footsteps till she fell asleep.

Chapter Four

The task force meeting was scheduled for ten o’clock Monday morning. Alex knew that she’d need plenty of caffeine to get her through the meeting, so she turned in her report to Cliff Jackson’s secretary, and headed out to find a large bottle of Coke. Instead, she ran into Cliff just outside the elevator.

“Alex, glad I caught you. Are you and David ready for the meeting?”

“As ready as we can be, sir. My report is on your desk; David’s finishing his.”

“Anything new?”

“A few things. You can read it in the report.”

“Don’t need to. You and David will present your story at the meeting.”

Alex stared at her boss, completely missing the elevator she’d been waiting for. “Excuse me?”

Cliff sighed. He’d known she wouldn’t like it. “Deputy Director Bishop will be there. He wants to hear verbal reports from all the teams directly involved with the homicides. Then he’ll make recommendations to the Director on whether to increase the size of the overall task force. I know you weren’t prepared for this, and believe me, neither were the other teams. I thought we’d do a brief on Dabir, then do a brainstorming session to map out any strategies. Instead, we have to do verbal reports cause this guy doesn’t have time to read.” He shook his head. “If I ever say I don’t have time to read reports, just shoot me, Alex, okay?”

“You’re on, Cliff.” Alex took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, it looks like I’m gonna have to skip the trip for caffeine. I better warn David, and then we’ll come up with something to present.”

“You worry about this presentation, Alex, I’ll have Jodi order a two-liter bottle of coke for you.”

“Bless you, Cliff.”

“I thought you were an atheist.”

“Actually, I’m more of a pagan. But for a two-liter bottle, I’ll be as Christian as you want.”

*******************************************************

Deputy Director Bishop, in his dark suit with a crisp white shirt, sat stone faced at the front of the room. He had insisted that the meeting be held in this theatre type auditorium, where the seats went from the floor level up. It reminded Alex of the huge lecture rooms she’d sat in at college.

Rather than going in chronological order, Bishop requested that the newer cases be presented first, so Alex and David had been the first to stand at the podium and face the crowd. Each of the agents had a copy of Alex’s report in front of them, and they nodded as the two agents went through the events from Philadelphia. They finished, and were about to start fielding questions, when the Deputy Director interrupted them.

“Thank you, Agent Reis, Agent Wu. I don’t have time to listen to questions. Let’s get the next team up here, shall we?”

David breathed a sigh of relief as he and Alex found two seats near the back of the room. “Damn, I’m glad that’s over,” he whispered to Alex. “At least he didn’t have a million questions for us. Maybe that means we did okay, huh?”

Alex shook her head, and opened her notepad. She tried to focus on the new speaker, but found her mind wandering. She knew that the reason Bishop hadn’t asked questions had nothing to do with whether or not they’d done okay. The man simply wasn’t interested. Several times she had glanced at him to find him staring into space, not even paying any attention. The only time he’d seemed to notice anything was when they’d told of the forged badges and the possibility of white supremacist involvement. At those times he seemed to grow slightly agitated, but gave no sign that he heard anything in the rest of their report. He hadn’t even bothered to open the front cover of the written copy she’d hurriedly made for him.