‘If I wait until the show is over, I pointed out to him, then I could leave without comment, not have to worry about a million-dollar lawsuit, collect his insurance money, shave my eyebrows, dye my hair black or whatever, join him in Argentina, and I’d even be $15,000 to the better.’
‘But, if you don’t intend to run away with Drew, what are you planning to do?’
Amy’s face clouded up. ‘I don’t know, Hannah. I’m just trying to buy a little time while I work it all out.’
‘I hate to sound like an old mother hen, but I’d give it some careful thought because it doesn’t sound like Drew is willing to leave without you.’
‘Oh, Hannah, I used to be so in love with that guy! But, now? I can’t go away with him, Hannah. Drew is not the same man I married. He’s changed. He’s hard, cynical. I don’t know whether it’s PTSD or what, but if I met him today, we’d never get past the first date.’
Drew had told me a little bit about the incident in Swosa, but I wanted to get details from Amy. ‘Did he ever fully explain to you why he’s on the run? I figure it has to be more than wanting the insurance money.’
‘If the Navy found out he was alive after all this time, he’d be subject to courts martial. In Swosa? Drew was the triggerman. The Swosians had closed-circuit TV in the bedroom at the palace, so they got it all on tape. If the Swosa loyalists knew Drew had escaped, they would be all over him, too. Alive, everyone would be out to get him. Dead.’ She shrugged. ‘Dead is better.’
‘There were tapes?’ Drew hadn’t mentioned that. Possibly he didn’t know.
‘You bet. When the Navy were shown the tapes, they were embarrassed, but at least they don’t have to parade Drew out before a congressional subcommittee to explain why he murdered a foreign national when he wasn’t authorized to do so. And the Swosians believe that the triggerman died with all the others when one of their brave boys shot down the helicopter after being fatally wounded himself. With Drew dead, no loose ends. On either side.’
‘As long as he stays dead.’ I set my empty broth cup back down on the tray.
‘Right.’ Amy took the tray from where it rested on my knees and set it on the floor outside the service entrance to my room. ‘Dex!’ she yelled down the service stairway. ‘Come fetch the tray!’
While she waited for Dex to appear, Amy said, ‘I don’t need the money, not desperately, but Drew does, and since he’s dead, he needs me to get it for him.’ She held the door open, occasionally checking for Dex over her shoulder. ‘He can move to Argentina as far as I’m concerned. Once the money comes to me, I’ll send it all to some bank account in Buenos Aires.’ She flashed a smile. ‘But don’t tell Drew that. He still thinks I’m coming with him.’
‘Amy, if the authorities find out you’ve done that, you could go to jail for fraud.’
‘Nobody will find Drew unless he wants them to. I’m convinced of that. Losing his parents at an early age made him tough.’
‘He’s AWOL, big time. Isn’t he worried that he’ll be caught?’
‘Not Drew. Remember that line in The Right Stuff where Dennis Quaid is driving a convertible and asks his wife who’s the best pilot she’s ever seen, and that she’s looking at him? Well, that’s Drew. He pumps up his abs and says, “I’m a U.S. Navy SEAL. I’m trained not to be caught.”’
‘I can believe that,’ I said. ‘He made it out of Swosa alive, and not many men would be able to accomplish that. Did he tell you the story? It’s been more than ten months. Why did it take him so long?’
‘Naturally, he had no money, no passport. He was on foot. It took him weeks to make his way out of Swosa and over the border into Tanzania. Eventually, he ended up in Dar es Salaam, where he hung out on the beach with all the other ex-pats until he hooked up with an American sailboat captain looking for crew. The guy was circumnavigating, and in no hurry, so Drew simply signed on. I gather the lack of a passport wasn’t a problem.’ She grinned. ‘Drew can be pretty convincing. When the boat finally made it to the U.S., Drew jumped ship and disappeared into a crowd of tourists in Charleston. That was a month ago. He’s been hiding out in that hotel by the airport ever since, keeping an eye on me, making plans.’
There’ll be a New York Times bestseller out of this, I thought, by Drew Cornell as told to whom? Tom Clancy? Or maybe it’d be the other way around: BY TOM CLANCY and drew cornell. A movie later, I’ll bet, produced by, directed by and starring Tom Cruise. An EA computer game. The possibilities were endless.
Watching Amy bustle about my bedroom, tending to my wrinkled gowns, straightening up, rather than being holed up in a hotel room with a sex-starved fugitive made me enormously happy. ‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ I said, as she helped me change into a clean, white shift that smelled like fresh soap and sunshine.
Since Amy had broken more clauses in her contract than a shady real-estate developer, I wondered why Jud Wilson had agreed to let her come back. Was Derek right? Was Amy too mediagenic a ‘product’ to let slip through their fingers?
‘What happened after you left Drew?’
‘He gave me some cash, put me in a cab, and the cab brought me here. I simply walked in through the kitchen door.’
‘Brazen hussy.’
‘Damn right! Karen gave me a big hug, but I must have set off an alarm somewhere because Jud Wilson appeared after about fifteen minutes and marched me into the conference room. You should see it, Hannah! Long walnut table, upholstered chairs. Very deluxe.’
‘I can imagine. So, what did you tell him?’
‘When he asked why I’d run away, I lied. Karen told me that Jack had once cornered her in the kitchen, so I said he’d made a pass at me, too. Said I freaked. I told Jud I didn’t think I could hack it, being recently widowed and all, so I took a few days off to think.’
I wasn’t exactly in love with Jack, but still, pinning a sexual harassment charge on the jerk seemed a little harsh. ‘Amy, you didn’t!’
Amy puffed air. ‘You know what Jud told me? They knew all about the incident between Jack and Karen, too. Seems Jack snuck down to the kitchen one night where Karen caught him red-handed eating a piece of pie with his fingers, right out of the pie plate. He was a little tipsy, and he backed Karen into the corner. Smeared cherry pie juice all over her breast before she clocked him with a rolling pin.’
I laughed out loud at the picture.
‘They caught it all on tape, Hannah. Jud said the viewers were going to love the way Karen told him off. If she’d been a real slave, he told me, she’d have been whipped after that. Probably ended up on the auction block, too.’
I cringed, thinking how glad I was to be living in the twenty-first century. ‘I can’t wait to see how the show comes out when it finally goes on the air.’
‘At least I won’t be watching it from Buenos Aires.’
‘Tell me something,’ I said later as Amy was brushing my hair. ‘You mentioned that Drew’s new name is Donald. What’s the name on your fake passport?’
‘Angela,’ she said. ‘Angela Clark. Do I look like an Angela to you?’
‘Probably to Drew you did.’
‘In his dreams.’
EIGHTEEN
‘I want some toothpaste! Can you hear me, Founding Father? A fringed stick dipped in lemon juice and salt is simply not going to cut it.’
Hannah Ives
Wednesday dawned sunny and unseasonably warm. For the first time in three days, I was able to get out of bed, get dressed – with Amy’s help, to my great relief – and join the family for breakfast.