"Then go. And good luck."
"I don't like leaving, Kane ... not with all this going on."
"We'll be fine. I'll ring this place with security, so don't worry about us. We'll be safe and sound here. "
"Listen to Richardson. Don't make yourself a bigger target than you already have."
"Noted. Go pack, Noah."
It seemed for a moment that Bishop had more to say, but finally he shook his head and went to pack.
When they were alone once again, Faith took a long breath and said, "So he's not liable. I had wondered about that."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Sure you do. But if you have to have it spelled out — I mean that this time Bishop's famous bullshit detector failed him. Or does it work only when he touches somebody? Anyway, he believed you."
"And you don't."
"No. I don't. I think you have no intention of sitting here surrounded by security while other people look for answers. You intend to find out who killed Dinah, even if that means standing in the line of fire."
His voice remote, Kane said, "You'll be safe here, I promise you that. No more bombs. No more intruders. You can move your things into the spare bedroom, stay there until we get the other room repaired. No one will hurt you, Faith."
Too late.
But all she said was, "So you expect me to stay In a nice, safe cocoon while you go after them alone? That is not going to happen, Kane."
"No?"
"No."
He shook his head. "Don't try to fight me on this, Faith. I'll win."
She drew a breath. "My memory may be nothing but shadows, my legs may be shaky, and I may scare easily these days — but I have just as much right as you to go looking for the people who destroyed my life."
She rose to her feet, holding the blanket tightly around her, and added, "I'll get changed and see what can be salvaged in the bedroom."
She passed Bishop in the hall, and Kane heard her bid him a simple farewell. The agent came into the living room carrying his luggage.
"I always forget how quickly you pack," Kane commented.
"Years of experience. I've called a cab, so I should be on my way shortly. I'll check in with Richardson to keep abreast of the investigation. But if I am stuck at Quantico or elsewhere longer than I expect, I'll still fly down for the funeral or memorial service."
Kane didn't want to think about that. "I'll let you know. When it's set, I mean."
"Good." Betraying an unusual restiveness, Bishop said, "I wouldn't leave if it were anything else. You know that."
"I know that. You've been looking a long time, God knows. Maybe this time ..."
"Maybe. And maybe it'll be another dead end."
He let out a short laugh.
Conscious of all his own regrets, Kane said abruptly, "Don't give up. Don't stop looking, Noah."
"I'm the ruthless, cold-hearted bastard of a federal agent, remember? I'll use anything and anyone I have to in order to achieve my ends."
Kane was silent for a moment, then said, "That still rankles after all these years? From what you told me, she was so distraught she would have said anything then. You were the closest target, so you got the blame."
"I deserved the blame."
"You were doing your job."
"No." Bishop looked at him with a hard sheen in his eyes. "I went way beyond doing my job."
"You were trying to stop a killer."
"And instead, I allowed him to kill again."
"Allowed him? Noah..."
"Never mind. It's the past, dead and buried. I don't know why the hell I brought it up. Right now, I'm worried about the present."
Bishop hesitated, reluctant to interfere but unable not to. "You can say it's none of my business, but I would have to be blind and stupid not to notice how things are between you and Faith. And I'm neither."
"I don't know what you mean." Kane heard the echo of his earlier denial to Faith, and wondered if everything he felt was branded on his forehead like neon. "And you're right. It's none of your business."
Bishop was no more warned off than Faith had been. "She got under your skin — and you're angry at her for making you betray Dinah."
"You're full of shit."
Bishop smiled. "Am I? Maybe about some things, but not this. All I'm saying is that you can't beat up yourself or Faith because of what you feel, especially now. I can't believe Dinah would consider it a betrayal that the friend she tried so hard to help might find a place for herself in your life."
"There's no question of that."
"No?"
"No. I don't feel anything for her. Not anything like that. She's just ... a tool I can use to help me find out who killed Dinah. Nothing more."
Deliberately, Bishop said, "It's hell having a guilty conscience, isn't it?"
"You don't know what you're talking about, Noah."
"I'm sure you'd like to think so."
"Leave it alone, all right? Just leave it alone."
Kane didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to think about it. And most of all, he didn't want to have Noah's probing spider sense focused on him.
"I can't do that, Kane. It goes against the grain with me to walk away and let a friend tear himself to pieces just because he's human. And that's all it is I you know. You're human. Dinah's gone. She's been gone for weeks, and if you're honest with yourself you'll have to admit that deep down inside you knew she wasn't coming back."
"Just shut up, all right?"
"It's the truth and you know it. You gave up on Dinah, Kane, even though you kept going through the motions, kept telling yourself it wasn't true. But it is true. She's gone, and even while you were searching for her, another woman got under your skin."
Kane allowed some of the rage inside him to boll over. He was on his feet before he realized he had moved, hands clenched into fists, so desperate to strike out it was a sick pain in his gut.
"What the hell's wrong with you? Christ, Noah, Dinah's barely cold. She's lying on a slab in the morgue, hurt in so many god-awful ways I could hardly recognize her as the woman I loved. Her final days were spent in a hell of agony I can't even imagine, and when those bastards were finished with her they shut her away her worst nightmare, leaving her to die alone and terrified, to bleed to death or smother in the dark grave of that tiny room beneath the ground."
"We don't know for sure she died in that room. Maybe she never suffered that final terror," Bishop said quietly.
Kane barely heard him. His voice rose, anguished, as he asked the contemptuous questions that had been whispering in the back of his mind for days now.
"What kind of man do you think I am? Do you think it's so easy for me to forget her, to just push her aside because a fresh new piece walks in the door? Do you think any other woman could take Dinah's place? That I could ever feel for anyone else a tenth of what I felt for her?"
"Kane..."
"I loved her. Do you understand that? I loved her."
"I know."
"I wake up every god damned night aching inside because she's not here. Because she hasn't been here in so long. I hate myself because I gave up on her even before they found her body, even before I knew she was gone. I'm furious at her because she kept so much of herself out of my reach, furious at myself because I wasn't able to reach her. And now... now I'll never be able to. She's gone. She's gone."
"And Faith?"
"Faith?" A hard laugh escaped his lips. "I thought she was a connection to Dinah. That's all. For a while, I even thought — even believed — that some part of Dinah was alive in her, had rubbed off on her somehow. I'd see her find Dinah's nail polish without really looking for it, as if she knew just where Dinah kept it, see her eat the same things Dinah did in just the same way. I'd smell Dinah's perfume on her, hear her use the same phrases, the same tone of voice, turn her head the same way ... and I let myself believe Dinah wasn't really gone."