I nodded gratefully.
Calahan ran a hand through his hair. “The DA wanted to throw the book at the Aristovs. But now the DA himself is under investigation by the Justice Department. As is everyone who Grushin gave a new organ to at all three clinics. It’s going to take months to shake out, and meanwhile, the case against the Aristovs is falling apart. Especially because Caroline has testified that it was Grushin who tried to assassinate you, and that she switched the bullets to try to implicate Gennadiy, and stole the coke they used to set you up.”
“Isshegoing to jail?” I asked.
“For a while,” said Calahan. “But she’s cooperating in the case against Grushin. If she gets a good lawyer…”
I made puppy-dog eyes at Gennadiy.
“The woman conspired to assassinate you,” he reminded me. “She set you up. Shestabbedyou!”
“And saved me,” I argued. “She did the right thing…eventually. And she has kids!”
Gennadiy cursed under his breath. “I’ll get Conrad to recommend someone good.”
“What about you and Carrie?” I asked Calahan.
Calahan shrugged. “Well, we broke a lot of rules…but Carrie managed to spin it that we were helping an agent in danger, whose own office had been compromised. The FBI is embarrassed enough that it’d rather the whole thing just went away. We’ll be okay.” He stood. “I’ll give you two some time alone. Try and rest, okay?” He walked over to Gennadiy, stopping when they were almost chest-to-chest. “And as for you…” His voice became like steel. “Treat her right. Or jail will be the least of your worries.”
Gennadiy gave him a solemn nod. When the door closed behind Calahan, he leaned over the bed and put his big, warm palm on my cheek. His thumb brushed my lower lip. “You scared me.” He smiled, but there was a tremor in his voice. “Maybe…try not to drown, or get shot at, or stabbed, just for a week or so?”
“I’ll consider it,” I muttered. And kissed him.
Four days later, Gennadiy was pushing me around the hospital gardens in a wheelchair. It was my first time outdoors since I was stabbed. September had brought an end to the thunderstorms, and the crisp, cool morning air felt amazing against my face. Then a familiar figure wandered towards us, and my heart forgot to beat for a second.This is it.
“Hey,” said Assistant Director Halifax. He nodded politely to Gennadiy. “Mr. Aristov. May I have a word with Alison?”
Gennadiy scowled at him. He’d make an exception for me, and maybe for Calahan and Carrie, but, to him, the FBI was still the FBI. “You want me to stay?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “No. Thank you.”
Gennadiy wheeled the wheelchair over to a bench so that Halifax could sit down. “I’ll be just over there,” he told me, nodding to a nearby tree. But he was glaring at Halifax when he said it, and I didn’t miss the threat in his voice.
Halifax sat down on the bench and passed me one of the two coffees he was carrying. “I’ve got news.”
“The charges, or my job?”
“Both. Which do you want first?”
My mouth was suddenly dry. Ever since I woke up, I’d been imagining this moment, playing out all the different ways it could go. I sipped my coffee. He’d remembered how I liked it. “The charges,” I said, my voice tight.
“All charges against you have been dropped.”
I took a breath. It felt like an iron band around my chest had just disappeared. I took a gulp of coffee to cover myself. “And my job?”
“Given the extenuating circumstances, Grushin’s arrest and all the arrests it’s led to, the Director feels it would be a mistake to lose such a good agent. There’ll be a reprimand in your record, and you’ll need to complete a probationary period, but…” He smiled. “You can come back, Alison.”
And that’s when I realized that, unconsciously, I’d been hoping I’d be fired. Because now I had to choose. Halifax’s eyes followed mine to Gennadiy.
“You don’t need me to tell you that there are rules,” he said gently.
I nodded silently. My eyes were going hot.
“You don’t need to decide now,” Halifax told me. “Think it over while you heal. Take a week.”
I tried to imagine life without the FBI. It felt like a crack was forming, starting on the surface and winding deeper and deeper, until it terminated right in my soul and a whole, cliff-sized wedge of me broke off and tumbled away into the ocean, leaving huge areas of me vulnerable and exposed. For my entire working life, I’d been catching bad guys and solving cases, going for beers with cops or FBI agents, and then falling asleep thinking about a case. I didn’t know how to do anything else. I didn’t have anything else.
Then I looked at Gennadiy. Somehow, I’d found the one person in the universe who was the same as me, who got me. Who knew what it was like to stay up until three in the morning because you had to solve this problem, who wouldn’t hate me for working flat-out. But who’d look after me, who’d drag me off to bed when I really wasoverdoing it. And who’d let me do the same for him. Who’d always protect me, no matter what. Who’d risk everything to save me.
