The leaves still clung to the trees outside her window and the morning garden was dappled with sunlight, all very pretty and peaceful, and for that reason the scene seemed more like a painting on a wall in hell than something real. She looked at her personal cell phone. This was the number Jim used. If he could call her, it would come in on this line. And how strange that was also, the flush of longing she had felt when she’d heard that careful voice, low and precise and so maddeningly arid, telling of this terrible event, and drawing her into his needs. Later, they would investigate that call. They’d want to know what he had been doing ordering the plane and why she had violated so many rules to help him. There were lying phone calls to explain, forged orders. She realized that she had not started loving Jim again. She had never stopped. Her heart was tortured with love for him and fear for him—above all, that. To bear her fear, she had suppressed her love.
