Chapter 24: Coda

She stood in the lobby with Garcia at eleven, wearing her nice new dress, about to go in to an early lunch. Hotel management, very properly, was keeping the reporters at bay. This was Beverly Hills, after all. The hotel had practiced maintaining its guests’ privacy with dozens of celebrities much more sought after than she.

Nonetheless, she had on her dark glasses. No doubt someone would think her husband had punched her and she was hiding a blackened eye socket. The eye, if it had been bruised, would only match the bruises on her face, which she had tried to cover over with some liquid beige base. The makeup didn’t do the trick at all—made her look worse, she thought. Hell, she would need a couple of weeks for the finger marks and scrapes to go away.

Involuntarily, she glanced toward the hotel entrance, fearful of being spotted and swamped by the media hordes. Sell her story to Fox? She didn’t think so. She was beginning to forget everything that had transpired anyway—the sequence of events, their duration. She had been so strung out on adrenaline and subsequently so exhausted that the last few days were a blur to her now. She only hoped she’d be able to put the story together by the time she had to testify in court.

Then, momentarily, she thought she had lost her mind entirely, because she saw two people who couldn’t possibly be here in Los Angeles. Certainly not. But entering the hotel, very solidly in the flesh, were Dennis Malloy and Helen’s own true love, Eric Ryder. She couldn’t believe it! She grabbed Garcia’s arm to draw his attention to the new arrivals.

Eric saw her at almost the same instant she had seen him. At first, a look of relief and pleasure appeared on his face, but this was followed by a glance at her companion, and at her hand on Garcia’s arm. Eric’s expression went hooded. He thought that something was going on between her and Garcia, she realized immediately. Certainly not!

Eric reached her in three steps and touched her elbow briefly but didn’t move to embrace her. Helen became flustered in the extreme, like a teenager facing a boy she liked and hoped would ask her on a date, although she doubted that he would. Eric’s fingers played across her face gently and he stood there gazing at her.

She broke her own focus on him. “And Dennis, too,” she heard herself babble. She glanced at Dennis. “How was your flight?”

“I’m starting in psychotherapy,” Dennis replied. “In the meantime, I’m on anti-anxiety medication. Eric and I talked on the phone every day and he flew down to Washington to fly out here with me.” He gave her a dark look. “But in essence, the flight was horrific. I’m taking a bus back.”

“The flight was fine,” Eric rebutted. He stroked Helen’s arm, her waist, as if his hands had a life of their own, as if he wanted to take her to himself completely but was trying to refrain.

“We were about to go in to lunch,” Helen informed the newcomers in a nervously social tone.

“Let’s all do that in about an hour,” Eric decided. “You and I need to talk a while. You guys go wait for us in the bar and we’ll come down and meet you.”

“I’m starving,” Helen protested weakly, a little embarrassed by his pulling her away from the group. Eric reached into the side pocket of his overnight case and took out a resealed bag of roasted almonds. He handed them to her and rushed her over to the elevator bank without a backward glance at their companions. She turned and waved a little in her friends’ direction, as she was hustled off.

The elevator was empty when they stepped in, and she pushed her floor button. Now that they were alone together, she felt considerably calmer, starting to remember who her fiancé was. His physical presence was reassuring to her. “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” she quipped.

He almost smiled. “That must be my Smith and Wesson.”

“I’d better frisk you.” She put her hand on the object in question and they leaned against the back wall of the elevator. He stared into her eyes, and she caressed his face with her other hand.

The door opened and he pulled away from her, alert to whomever might be getting in. He was always on duty, even in his personal life. Nothing was going to get by him. His attitude was a sickness of sorts, although it worked for him. Eternal vigilance, but a price was paid. He never had the sense that everything was simply normal, secure, okay. She guessed she had the same hyper-alertness that he had, too, but not to the extreme that he had it.

An older couple entered the elevator and smiled at them. Helen opened the foil on the almonds and took out a few to munch on. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten a meal.

Eric followed her off at her floor. In the room, she switched on the light and locked the door behind them. Her bed was still a mess, telling her the maid hadn’t been in yet.

Instead of reaching out and holding her, as she expected, Eric stood in front of the chest of drawers, looking in the mirror at himself, at her, and at the disarray of the room. She poured some water to rinse the almonds out of her mouth, all the while watching him watching her. Then she came behind him and put her arms around his waist, hugging him to her. He felt good, solid, comfortable, familiar, safe, “You’re mad because I was gone for a few days,” she decided.

His hands went on top of hers, his touch shooting clear through her. “Did you sleep with Garcia?” he asked, finally. She couldn’t tell if he was so furious that he’d required him an age-and-a-half to spit it out, or if he hoped the question was too stupid to even put forth.

“No,” she answered, but she said it in a way that acknowledged the thought might have occurred to her. He turned and looked at Helen, then touched her face again. “I’d like to kill the guy who hit you,” he told her.

“You’re too late for that.”

“You killed him yourself,” he guessed.

She hugged him close. “Me? I didn’t kill anyone.” She thought about it. Peno. “Only one,” she amended. She thought about the shooting in the hanger and the boy whose leg had been crushed. “For certain,” she added.

He stroked her body through her dress. “I wish you hadn’t done all this. I wish you hadn’t been involved in the investigation. I wish you hadn’t flown to Mexico. You’re much too precious to risk.” He pulled back from her and began unbuttoning the front of her garment. Her knees felt weak.

“You do stuff like this all the time,” she protested. “You take risks constantly.”

“I’m a guy. We’re not worth much.” His eyes shined into hers. “You’re too valuable, too perfect to take any chances with your life.”

“No, no,” she cried out. “You want me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”

“You can wear shoes,” he murmured, lightly kissing the bruises on her face. She pulled away just a little. He had to clear his throat to speak again. “That isn’t true. I want you to be whatever it is you are. Don’t be afraid of me. I don’t want to cage you up. I couldn’t do anything that would hurt you.” He brought her toward him and backed around toward the bed. “You didn’t sleep with Garcia, did you? Tell me again.”

He fell onto the mattress, carrying her with him. His mouth found hers and she didn’t answer, but only reached to undo his belt buckle.

It was nearer twelve-thirty than twelve when they walked into the bar where Dennis and Garcia were having a drink. Helen and Eric settled at their table. This time, she saw in Garcia’s eyes that he was hurt and jealous, although she knew that he knew he had no “right” to be. Eric saw it too, she could tell, and his eyes didn’t meet Garcia’s, although his hand remained on Helen’s leg—more a protective, loving gesture than a possessive one, she felt.

“Tell me what happened,” Eric said to Helen and Garcia, to the three of them. “I should have been there.”

“What were you up to?” Garcia asked.

“Kind of a lot of stuff, but my gig didn’t make all the papers and the lead story on the network news the way your thing did.” He smiled. “But what happened with the skyjacker?”

“Which skyjacker?” asked Helen. “One’s dead, and one’s cracked up in a hospital in Guatemala because he didn’t like the way I was piloting the helicopter.”

“That’s the one who was stealing atomic secrets,” added Garcia. “And we have a team pouring over his home and office records to figure out who was helping him at Hanford, Oak Ridge, Fernald, and Rocky Flats—if we can. Apparently, he had connections at all those places. Not to mention the connections he and his nephew had at any number of airports where they paid off security.”

“Son,” corrected Helen. “Peno was Avilla’s son.”

Dennis went goggle-eyed at that one. “I’d like to know how Avilla covered his activities up so well. How could someone be a successful businessman on the one hand and a lunatic killer, traitor, kidnapper, skyjacker, on the other?”

“Are you kidding?” Eric responded, leaning back. “I guess you’ve never worked the corporate side of things.”

“How about lunch?” Helen reminded them. “I need a couple of days of fueling up. Then I fly an executive jet back to La Guardia for Cessna on a delivery. You’re all welcome to fly along.” She smiled.

“Right,” agreed Dennis. “You got the CitationJet back.”

“Oh that, yeah, but this is a job. Cessna called me. They want me to do some flying for them. This time I deliver a luxury Citation X. Flies Mach .90—almost six hundred miles an hour. Gets thirty-three hundred nautical miles without refueling and carries a load of over sixteen thousand pounds. Nice toy, don’t you think? But I need a co-pilot. Now, Dennis, I’m thinking of teaching you how to fly. That’s going to be the cure for you. And, in fact, the start of a whole new career.” She stood in order to hurry them along into the restaurant. The three men followed her lead.

“No,” disagreed Dennis as they headed for the door. “I’ve gotten a promotion at work and I’m going to be a section administrator.”

“Great.” She grabbed and hugged him. “But you still have to come flying with me. You have to promise.”

She caught a glimpse of Eric and Garcia looking at one another with their eyebrows raised. “How are you doing, John?” she heard Eric ask his friend. “She hasn’t been running you too ragged, I hope.”