Inside Out

112

After dinner, while Sean showered in her bathroom, Winter lay in bed, unable to stop thinking about Greg. It was over, but even so, something was gnawing at him. If not Greg, who could have planted the GPS? How could he be so wrong about a man he was so close to? He had to figure out an alternative, or admit to himself the unthinkable.

When Sean returned to his bedroom wearing a robe, she didn't knock; which seemed perfectly natural to Winter. Her hair was still wet, brushed back. She closed the door, pulled the drapes, and came to his bed without saying a word. As Winter watched, she dropped the robe to the floor and stood beside the bed, naked. He didn't think the angry bruise on her shoulder, a gift from the ten-gauge goose gun's recoil, detracted from her perfection in the least. She came to him and their first kiss went on and on and swept Winter away. That kiss made everything they had been through seem like some vague memory. After making love, they lay together, side by side for long minutes, caressing each other, kissing.

“Winter, what are you thinking about?” she asked.

“You.”

“Besides me,” she laughed.

“The thing I still don't understand,” Winter said, “is how that GPS device got into your computer.”

“I don't know.”

“Try to remember. When was the laptop out of your sight?”

“Well,” she said, thinking as she rubbed his stomach, “Dylan gave it to me a few days before I went to Argentina as a first anniversary gift. It was pretty much always with me in South America. The marshals in New York turned it on to check it out after we were in the first safe house. Greg brought it and my suitcases to me after he searched everything. Greg took it back to Dylan so he could type me a nasty message.”

“I read it.”

“From there, I had it with me until Hank took it.”

Winter's dream, where Greg turned into Fletcher Reed, suddenly played in his mind. A change from one into the other. Why? Metamorphosis is a change of identity.

“Sean,” he said, leaning up on an elbow. “Can you look in my bag and see if the material Reed sent me is in there?”

She went to the dresser, opened the bag, and brought Winter the envelope. Winter emptied it and flipped rapidly through the pages, finally stopping on one and pushing the others away.

“What is it?” Sean asked.

He took two of the sheets and used them to cover the lower faces of one of the young soldiers Reed had identified as a cutout possibility. He stared at the young soldier with the American flag in the background. He was eighteen, ears sticking straight out from the shaved scalp, the features soft. Suddenly, he knew what the dream he'd had about Greg meant-what his subconscious was trying to tell him. Everything made sense.

“What is it?” Sean asked again.

“Nothing.” Winter stacked the sheets and fed them back into the envelope, dropping it onto the floor beside the bed.

“You sure? It didn't seem like nothing.”

“Just a thought I had that didn't pan out.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It doesn't matter. Everything's fine. The criminals are all dead and everybody is satisfied.” Winter looked into Sean's eyes and smiled reassuringly. “Only one thing to do now,” he said, pulling her to him for a long kiss.

“Aren't you afraid you'll injure that hip?”

“No pain, no gain.”

Winter hated to lie to Sean, but telling her what he knew would serve no purpose. If he was right, he would tell her later, when all of this was far behind them.