The Program

Chapter twenty-six

When Tim entered the house from the garage, smoke was seeping from the oven. Grabbing a pot holder from atop an empty Tombstone Pizza box, he yanked the charred Frisbee from the rack, doused it with the sink sprayer, and dumped it in the trash. He opened the window over the sink and waved the smoke away from the oblivious alarm. Then he slid open the glass doors in the living room to get a cross breeze.

Wiping his eyes, he returned to the kitchen. Black tendrils wisped up from the trash bin, so he poured in a few mugfuls of water until the sizzling stopped. A curled fax lay on the table beside a fan of junk mail – Dray's bloodwork from her visit to the clinic.

Smudges dappled the paper where she'd gripped it with hands moist from the freezer-burned pizza box.

Monospot: Neg

Hepatitis A Antibody: Neg sshCG – Serum Pregnancy: Pos

His hand swiped for the chair back, finally found it. He leaned heavily and stared at the fax, his breath hot in his still-raw throat. When he finally looked up, the haze had cleared from the kitchen.

He walked over to the tiny desk near the door to the garage and rested a hand on the fax machine. Still warm.

He headed through the empty living room, down the empty hall.

Dray stood in the center of Ginny's old room, back to the door. The glow of the setting sun shone through the open blinds, silhouetting her stark form crisply – the bulge of the Beretta in her hip holster, the starched lines of her uniform, the laces of her boots.

Four walls, a rectangle of carpet marred only by the uniform stripes of the vacuum.

He tapped the open door with his knuckles, and she turned, looking at him over a shoulder. Her face was sheet white.

He moved to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. They both gazed out at the quiet street. The inextinguishable scent of Play-Doh materialized from the carpet like a ghost. One of the Hartleys' brood of grandchildren was trying with little success to get a Chinese kite airborne. Their cheeks brushing, they watched the colorful nylon dragon tumble across the neighboring lawn.

They dozed in a tangle of limbs and sheets, using sweaty proximity to fend off the pall of uncertainty that seemed to hover about the house. They didn't talk much, both sifting their individual thoughts first, as they'd learned to when stakes were high and vulnerabilities bared. Around three, knowing the morning promised him a reentry into sleep deprivation, Tim willed himself to unconsciousness, a capability he'd cultivated as a soldier.

The alarm pulled him from a placid sea of ink.

Lenient mattress, silky sheets, the morning smell of Dray's hair. He opened his eyes.

Legs tucked beneath her, Dray leaned forward on the points of her elbows. One hand propped up her chin, the other she held flat-palmed before his mouth. Her face was inches from his; he could sense the warmth coming off it.

A seam of light evading the curtain fell in a band across her cheeks, turning her eyes jade and translucent. Her mouth shifted, pulling slightly to one side.

"Be careful," she said.