Mrs. Martinelli lit up. “Really? Had you already asked her to marry you?”
He shook his head. “He kept encouraging me. I will always be grateful for his counsel.”
She looked so happy—such a striking difference from when he’d first visited her. “He didn’t give up on me. And, you see, he didn’t want you to give up, either. Would you tellme about her? I mean,” she added apologetically, “if that’s not impertinent. I suppose you must be getting very tired of these sorts of questions.”
It was, he realized, the first time since Martinelli’s death that he’d had a question about his relationship with Beatrix that wasn’t from a reporter or Miss Dane preparing him to talk to one. So he leaned both elbows on the table in Martinelli’s favorite part of the house and tried to explain to his best friend’s widow how indispensable Beatrix was to him. Skillful, clever, funny, compassionate, dogged Beatrix, who walked through the woods in her bare feet, fought crises tooth and nail, and could make his heart accelerate just by standing next to him. Even without the Vows, though naturally he didn’t add that detail.
“I’m so sorry,” he said after ten minutes of this. “I came here to see how you were doing and ended up talking about myself.”
Mae Martinelli shook her head. “No, this is good. It feels normal. I haven’t had enough of that lately.”
They talked for a few more minutes about nothing in particular, Peter feeling slightly more normal himself. Then, as she was walking him out, he noticed something on the hall mantelpiece that made him freeze mid-step: A photo of husband and wife in a stained-glass frame that used to sit on Martinelli’s desk at the New Mexico test site.
It hadn’t been blown up.
“You got that back,” he blurted out.
“I’m sorry?”
“The picture,” he said, gesturing, feeling he should let the matter drop but not able to do it.
“Oh! Yes.” She gazed at it. “They gave me a box of his things. Books, odds and ends. Like this.” She grasped a necklace that dipped under her shirt and pulled it out, the metal ornament on it swinging gently in her hand. “It’s a silly little thing, I know, but it—it makes me feel better to wear it.”
Martinelli’s four-leaf clover charm. He’d touched it for good luck before every weapons test.
The viewing room, where the charm had hung on a nail, was at the opposite end of the building from their office. That meant the complex most likely remained entirely intact.
“Do you happen to know … That is, I’ve been anxious about…” He steeled himself and pushed on. “Mrs. Martinelli, did the accident kill others as well?”
“I—” She paused, but not to compose herself. She was thinking. “No, I don’t believe so. They never told me it did, or said anything that suggested it to me, at least.”
He could see, then, what had almost certainly happened. Someone had to teleport outside to place the payload stone for detonation tests. After he’d left, that someone was Martinelli. His friend had gone out thirty miles into the desert wasteland to put the stone down for one explosion and, just by fatally bad timing, had been consumed by another.
It was a relief that dozens more people hadn’t perished. But the image of Martinelli teleporting unwillingly, stomachqueasy, and facing death utterly alone would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Thank you,” he said, the words barely above a whisper. “What can I do? Is there any assistance you need?”
She shook her head. Her lips trembled, then curved into a smile. “Just go and marry your Miss Harper. It makes me so happy to know that Tim had a hand in that.”
He nodded, because what else could he do. But as he reached the front door, she added, “I know I’mdefinitelybeing impertinent this time, but—well, I hope you do it soon. You love each other. Forget everything else. Don’t waste the time you have.”
He swallowed over a suddenly dry throat.
“You’re right.” He took her hand. “You’re absolutely right.”
CHAPTER 11
Beatrix, holed up in an unused meeting room, finished her tally of likely votes on Gray’s bill, based on how the senators were currently leaning. Twelve checks foryes, one formaybe, fifteenno’s and the rest—nineteen in all—unclear. It was going to be a hard road to get the twenty-four they needed.
She glanced at the clock, saw it was just past five, and sighed. She didn’t want to go home. But what else could she do?
She gathered her things, trying not to look at Peter’s ring on her finger, taunting her with the difference between its promise and the reality. Then she opened the door and stood stock still at the sight of him, hand raised, clearly just about to knock.
He peered at her. “Are you all right?”
As gratifying as it would be to let loose a bitter laugh, she nodded instead. Shewouldbe all right. She would. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing—nothing bad. I finally feel steady enough to drive a longer distance, so I thought I’d pick you up. The people in Gray’s office said I could find you here.”
