The 9th Judgment (Women's Murder Club 9)

I pulled the blanket over my head.

I came up from the deep again, this time into a roar of voices, cheers—What the hell? Was I still dreaming? The bedroom door opened, and lights blazed. Joe was standing over me.

I screamed his name.

Was it really him? Was it? Or had I gone insane?

Joe opened his arms, and I threw myself against him, feeling the wool of his jacket scrape my cheek, hearing his voice saying my name.

I pulled away and looked again to be sure, and now the room was filling with my friends, standing-room only.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, sweetheart. I’m here.”

I was crying again, and I was asking Joe to tell me what had happened.

“I was at the airport,” Joe said. “Ours—SFO—when I got a call from my contacts in Washington saying that the passengers on that plane had overpowered Waleed. It was all over. I could go back home.

“I was arranging a car. I didn’t know about that jet going down, Lindsay, until my driver turned on the radio and told me the news.”

I was helped out of the bedroom and brought to the table. Joe sat beside me. The food was rubbery and cold, and it was the best damned meal I’d eaten in my life—in my whole entire life.

Wine was poured. Toasts were made. I looked around the table, and it finally sank in—Jacobi wasn’t there.

“Rich, did you hear from Jacobi?”

“He hasn’t called,” Rich said.

We raised a glass to Jacobi’s new girlfriend. We ate Joe’s apple cobbler with gusto and, by the way, the 49ers won. I was weak from emotion and didn’t even try to stop people from clearing the table.

By eight o’clock, I was in bed for the night with my arms wrapped around Joe.

Chapter 117

THE TELEPHONE RANG several times that night and the next morning, too. I told Joe that if he picked up a phone, he was a dead man, and then I pulled out the cord to the landline, put both our cell phones in the wall safe, and changed the combination.

Joe and I took Martha for a run, and when we got back, Joe made ham-and-cheese omelets with leftovers. It was after noon, so we opened the wine Miles had brought, Joe sipping, looking at the bottle, and saying, “Wow.”

We had bought, but never had had the time to watch, the complete season-one set of Lost, so we pulled up armchairs to the TV and went through six episodes, broke for pizza and beer, and watched the news. We learned that the downed plane hadn’t been sabotaged. The cause was pilot error, terrible enough because four people had died but a relief in that it hadn’t been a failed attempt on Joe’s life.

We soaked up another five hours of Lost, and I suppose some would say it was a waste of a day, but Joe, beer, and fantasy TV, in that order, were what I needed. I fell asleep in Joe’s arms watching a recording of Bill Maher on the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I turned off the television and shook Joe awake.

“Huh?”

“I love you,” I said.

“Of course you do. I love you, too. I wish there was a better, more expressive way to say it. Too bad you can’t slip into my skin and feel how much I love you.”

I laughed.

Boy, did it feel good to laugh.

“I believe you, sweetheart,” I said.

When I woke up again, it was morning. I took Martha for a walk, and when we returned, I watched Joe sleep as I dressed. I plugged the phones back into their sockets and slugged down a glass of orange juice.

I strapped on my gun, opened the safe in the closet, and took out our cell phones. I put Joe’s on the night table and gave him a kiss.

He opened his blue eyes.