“Nowhere,” said Andie. “You and I went there together, my friend.”
My head rolled back. “Lilly,” I said. “I don’t even know where to begin with her.”
“She’ll be okay,” said Andie. “We’ve been talking.”
I was aware of that. Lilly’s call from Connie’s bathroom had prompted Andie to contact me-which had sparked the formulation of Andie’s plan, the deathbed confession that had netted Mongoose and Barber.
“The question is whether Lilly will ever talk to me,” I said.
The door to my father’s room opened. Connie stepped out. Tears were in her eyes. My heart raced, as if knowing that it was about to be broken.
“What?” I asked.
She came to me, sat in the chair beside me, and took my hand. The expression on her face said it all, but she said it anyway.
“It’s time to say good-bye,” she said softly, pausing before she said my name, “Peter.”
Epilogue
The wedding was outdoors on a beautiful afternoon in April. At the Central Park Zoo.
Connie was a radiant bride dressed in an official scout leader uniform-dark blue skirt hemmed below the knee, yellow shirt with epaulets, and a Tiger Cub den leader neckerchief. Tom, undeniably her soul mate, wore khaki pants, a safari hat, and a Hawaiian shirt that was hard to look at without sunglasses. The snow monkeys watched from their rocky perch, their dark eyes seemingly filled with a mixture of confusion and amusement as the preacher pronounced them husband and wife, looked at Connie, and said, “You may kiss the groom.”
And, boy, did she.
For me, it was the first day since Dad’s funeral that thoughts of him hadn’t triggered pain or sadness. I felt as though he was watching, peering down at us from somewhere beyond one of the fluffy white clouds in the bright blue sky, happy for a daughter who deserved happiness.
Operation Bankrupt al-Qaeda had dominated the news for weeks. After Mongoose’s death, there was no one to activate his computer’s “safety valve,” and the internal Treasury memorandum on Operation BAQ had gone viral over the Internet. The federal multicount indictment in Washington, D.C., against former deputy secretary of the treasury Joe Barber and National Security Advisor Brett Woods had laid out the damning charges: within days of Cushman’s suicide, the national security advisor himself had made it clear that no one could ever find out that both Treasury and the White House had known about Cushman’s fraud and let it happen, and no one could ever know about the biggest blunder in the country’s financial war on terrorism. A congressional investigation was under way to determine how high knowledge and culpability ran in the White House, but the drumbeat was growing louder. Even those who weren’t talking about impeachment were quietly conceding that they were defending a “one-term president.” Barber’s trouble reached beyond Washington. The Manhattan district attorney was planning a murder-for-hire prosecution in connection with the execution-style shooting of Evan Hunt, though it seemed doubtful that the world would ever know the identity of the actual triggerman.
Still, the public debate had developed an intriguing vibe. No one had seemed too upset when “the body of suspected terrorist financer Manu Robledo” was found in Paraguay, though there were plenty of sensational (albeit accurate) reports that the killer had used a commando wire saw, that Robledo’s mutilated hands and feet were evidence of torture, and that his severed head had yet to be located. On a policy level, many in Washington decried Operation BAQ while, behind the scenes, breathing a sigh of relief that the $2 billion that might otherwise have funded terrorist operations was now… where?
Nobody seemed to know. Pundits speculated that it was buried deep in the hawala remittance systems run by Islamic extremists. Or in the vault of a “neutral” Swiss bank that had offices in Singapore.
“Very cool wedding,” I said.
Connie hugged me. “Come on. It’s time to throw the bouquet to my snow monkeys.”
Honestly, it was the ugliest bouquet I’d ever seen, but I suddenly understood why: it was made of edible blossoms suitable for monkey tummies. Not that there was any danger of those monkeys ever going hungry. Although Dad never knew that the quarter million dollars in his account had come from Treasury to keep him quiet about Evan Hunt’s report-not, as Scully had led him and Agent Henning to believe, from the CIA for a false confession-the fact remained that a nice chunk of money had passed through Dad’s estate to Connie and me. We’d donated most of it to the zoo. The rest went to Evan’s family.
I followed Connie along the stone walkway, but we were only halfway to her chosen spot for the bouquet toss when we stopped in our tracks.
“What’s wrong?” asked Tom.
Connie and I were facing in the direction of the red panda exhibit, our gaze fixed on the woman who was standing in the shade of a Japanese fern tree.
I hadn’t asked Connie if she was going to invite Lilly. This was her wedding, and I didn’t want to use her special day as a vehicle to reconnect. Lilly and I hadn’t parted on bitter terms, but we’d reached a mutual agreement that time apart was best. Last I’d heard she’d left banking. I wasn’t even sure if she planned to stay in New York. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I planned to stay.
“I invited her,” said Connie, “but I didn’t think she’d come.”
“She looks amazing.”
“Ya think ?” said Tom.
Connie slugged him in the arm, then nudged me along. “Go say hello, dope.”
I took a half step, and though Lilly was at least hundred feet away, our eyes met. I detected a smile. Didn’t really see it. I just felt it.
“Okay,” I said, “here goes nothing.”
Oh, baby, I need your cow.
Acknowledgments
I didn’t think I would ever get to say this again, but I want to thank my editor, Carolyn Marino. Carolyn and I did fifteen novels together, the last of which was Born to Run in 2009. After a couple of novels without her, I’m thrilled to have her back, along with her assistant, Wendy Lee. I also want to thank my agent and friend, Richard Pine at Inkwell Management; Sally Kim for early edits on Need You Now ; and two of the best proofreaders I’ve ever known, Janis Koch (aka Conan the Grammarian) and Gloria Villa. I can assure you that any mistakes in this novel are due to late changes I made after Janis and Gloria had already read the galleys.
Connie Ryan gets a big thank-you for lending her name and her love of scouting to the other Connie Ryan, who is a fictional character in Need You Now . She now joins her husband, Tom Bales, in the literary halls of immortality (Tom lent his name to a character in Intent to Kill ). Their generosity at a character auction will benefit the children of St. Thomas Episcopal Parish School.
Finally, to my wife, Tiffany. Thank you. I love you. I need you… always.
JMG
May 14, 2011
About the Author
JAMES GRIPPANDO is the New York Times bestselling author of nineteen previous novels, including Afraid of the Dark , Money to Burn , Intent to Kill , Born to Run , Last Call , Lying with Strangers , When Darkness Falls , and Got the Look . He lives in Florida, where he was a trial lawyer.