Undetected (26 page)

“Before or after my heart tried to jump out of my chest? I understand now why people would consider it a thrill. I let
his sisters talk me into trying. Daniel tried to veto the idea. I should have listened to him, because I'll never do it again.”

Mark moved through the rest of the photos. He stopped on one, closed his eyes for a brief moment, then handed the phone back. She'd been sitting with Daniel on a porch swing, the photo probably snapped by one of his sisters. Daniel had a coiled strand of her hair around his finger, was looking at her, and it was a lover's look. “He's a good man,” Mark said, his voice sounding heavy in his own ears.

“Yes,” Gina replied softly.

“You could do worse. A lot worse.”

“I know.” She looked over at him.

He wanted to add that she
could do
better
, that she was looking at
better
, but he was no longer sure.

She pushed back her chair. “I'm leaving before I eat a third cupcake. Jeff said he could give us a lift to the airport.”

Mark rose to walk with her to the front door. “It's a plan.”

“Take care of yourself, Mark.”

“I will,” he promised. He watched her through the screen door as she walked to the car, where security was waiting, and turned away when she was gone. Whatever came, he was going to handle it with some grace. He owed them both that.

G
ina's home in Chicago was a large two-story with a long front porch, situated in an older suburb of Chicago. Mark liked it on sight. Built in the 1920s, the house was painted white with blue shutters, had colorful hanging baskets of flowers on the porch, and it all set a welcoming tone as they walked up the sidewalk. A line of tall evergreen shrubbery provided privacy on both sides.

“A neighbor has the touch with the flowers and takes care of the house when I'm away,” Gina said. “I can never get them to bloom as beautifully.”

She unlocked the door and they stepped inside to the fragrance of lemon oil, ginger, and sugar cookies. The mail that hadn't been forwarded was neatly stacked on a side table in the hall. She set her one travel bag by the staircase, having shipped the rest of her things to arrive in a few days.

The hardwood floors gleamed. The ceilings were tall, the walls mostly white, the area rugs a mix of bold Southern colors. She favored solid wide-plank furniture in a light oak, and wingback chairs. Mark could see three built-in bookcases just from where he stood in the entryway.

She had 8x10 photos of interesting phenomena on various walls, intermixed with photos of her brother and parents. The Earth from space, a photo of the deep ocean currents, plankton blooms in the ocean, a mega-pod of dolphins numbering in the thousands, and photos of the sun—spectacular coiling solar flares, full eclipses. “I like your home,” he decided.

She was standing where they had entered, letting him look around. She smiled at his remark. “Thanks. I've lived here since I was 14. My parents bought this place because it was near the university where I was going, but I would have chosen it for myself. Come on back to the kitchen. I don't know about you, but I'm parched. I was trying to avoid drinking much on the flight.”

He paused in the sunroom off the kitchen, touched a finger to Saturn and it moved away on its trajectory around the sun. The other planets moved with the breeze created by the door opening. A few random gray chunks slid on strings cutting across the planets' orbits. “Asteroids?”

“And some comets.” She pointed out the large oval loops that set their trajectories. “It helps me understand things if I can see them in motion.”

The model was old, handmade. “When did you create this?”

“I was 10, maybe? When we moved into this house, Jeff helped me hang it in here. It still looks nice on a sunny day.”

She pulled sodas out of the refrigerator. The counters were clear, the tables too. Either she was remarkably neat or she let a housekeeper put away any clutter.

“You let the house stand empty while you were in Boulder?” It didn't smell like a closed-up house.

She opened a cookie jar and found Oreos to go with the
sodas. “I've been back here for a few days most months. I've got a friend who rents half the double garage and keeps the yard mowed and snow shoveled for me, and another who lives in New York and will stay here in the guest suite rather than rent a hotel room when she's in Chicago. My neighbor was the housekeeper for us back when my mother and I first lived here, and she still comes over to give me a few hours during a month for things like dusting and the flowers. Security in the house is good. This is home base. Neither Jeff nor I want to sell it. I figure one small-scale work project in Chicago a year is enough to pay for the overhead of keeping this place, and it's worth that.”

“A good arrangement.” Mark glanced around. “Still, let me walk through the house, confirm everything is secure before I leave.”

“Sure. I'm going to go talk with Connolly about the security and hear what he wants to do now that we're here.”

Mark did the walk-through, checking window locks and exterior doors, scanning for water leaks or moisture problems, quickly realizing the house was much larger than it appeared from the curb. Four levels, if he counted the finished attic, along with an unfinished basement, two formal offices, three bedrooms upstairs, a master suite with a bath on the main level.

She had space here, room for ideas to flourish. He passed framed schematics of airplane designs and a framed periodic table, paused at a round table to pick up one of several model rockets on display. The anatomy models and a cutaway motorcycle engine she had once mentioned sat neatly on shelves in the attic next to an array of papier-mâché models on different subjects. Books were tucked everywhere and seemed to span
every subject, from practical ones on cooking to complex tomes on mathematics and biochemistry. Her collection of fiction swung toward sci-fi from the forties onward, and she favored fantasy in her movie collection. In a place of honor in the living room was a wall with submarine photos and her own submarine fleet on display.

Mark heard Gina rejoin him. “You're a collector.”

“Of a sort.”

“I saw a second electrical fuse box in the basement. Was that for the computer equipment? Your offices look configured for high-speed connections and graphics.”

“The majority of the house was rewired about eight years ago. I can't replicate an audio lab or the multiple display configurations likely at JPL, but I can do just about any modeling I want to from here. I turned a closet into a server rack, so I've got good data storage options. The bottleneck used to be the link between this house and the university, but that was upgraded back when I was doing the original cross-sonar work for the Navy. I could work strictly from here if necessary, but I find the walls closing in on me after a few weeks. So I prefer a university or research group, even if I'm working primarily on my own task.”

“JPL is lucky to have you next.”

“I'm looking forward to thinking about the sun for a few months.”

Security was with her at the house, so she'd be fine here. Mark noted the time and accepted reality. “It was a very early morning, and a long flight. I'll head out, Gina, let you get settled. I'll be in touch before my flight leaves tomorrow.”

“Please say hi to your brother for me.”

“I will.” She walked with him to the front door, but he
found he didn't want to say goodbye—it seemed too permanent a word. “I hope you find the next few weeks a restful break.”

She hugged him, surprising him. “Thanks for bringing me home,” she whispered.

He hugged her back. “Think of this as a vacation, but don't forget Bangor,” he replied softly.

She stepped back, offered a full smile. “Impossible. Enjoy a day seeing your family. I'm going to call Jeff, tell him I've arrived safely.”

The smile caught at his heart, and he gently ran a finger along the side of her face, seriously considering kissing her goodbye. Instead he forced himself to step out with a comfortable smile. “See you later, Gina.”

“You're a man with a lot on your mind.”

Mark accepted the glass of iced tea his brother held out to him. “Thinking about a woman.”

His brother smiled. “That would explain it,” Bryce said as he sat down in a deck chair with his own glass.

Mark considered his brother—it had been a while since they were last together, but they had picked up where they'd left off with ease. His brother looked a lot more relaxed than Mark remembered. “You and Charlotte make an interesting couple. She's an extraordinary sketch artist.”

“She is. You should see the art at the gallery. What's here at the house is just a hint of what she's created recently.”

Charlotte had left the brothers to talk for a while around the outdoor table and catch up. It had been a nice lunch, and she had left a good impression. “I like her,” Mark offered,
knowing the words were unnecessary but wanting to offer them anyway.

His brother had waited a long time to marry, and Charlotte was different from the person Mark had expected—not the social butterfly he thought his brother would attract, but a woman who was quiet, careful, a bit reserved. Her affection for his brother was obvious. They were newlyweds, and it was on display in the ways they would share a thought with a glance, a touch, a private smile. Their relationship had all the hallmarks of a good, solid marriage, and Mark was relieved to see it.

“I knew you'd like Charlotte,” Bryce replied easily. “What's her name, your lady?”

Mark smiled. “Gina Gray. Not my lady . . . yet. She's considerably younger than me. Eleven-plus years younger.”

“Didn't expect that from you,” Bryce said, interested.

“I didn't either. Jeff Gray, the commander of the
Seawolf
, has been a friend for years. Gina's his sister.” Mark flexed his left hand, the broken fingers and splint making his other knuckles ache. “How did you know Charlotte was the one?” he asked.

“We didn't have that moment. I married her first, fell in love with her second,” Bryce said. He waved the glass he held, dismissing the questions the remark created. “Circumstances made it necessary. Neither one of us regrets it.”

“Pregnant?” Mark asked. He knew there wasn't a child around, but miscarriages happen.

“Nothing like that. Her grandfather's will was . . . interesting. It's how I met her, helping her settle the estate. I asked her to marry me, she thought about it for several months, said yes.” Bryce leaned back in his chair, glanced with obvi
ous affection toward the studio, where Charlotte was visible through the glass as she straightened up items around her drafting board. “For more reasons than I'll be able to tell you, it was a good decision, Mark, the right one for both of us. I hate to think what life would have been like had we not made the commitment to each other that we did. I love her because she's Charlotte. Because she trusts me. Needs me. And loves me back.”

Mark felt his emotions settle at the brief facts and description of their relationship. Bryce was deeply in love with his wife, however they had gotten to this point. “I noticed the security around the place. It came with her?”

“Yes.”

“Gina's been designated a national security asset, and she's chafing at the security that comes with it.”

“You adapt because you have to. Are you going to be back in Chicago more often now?”

“Patrol is taking me to sea for 90 days. After that, it depends on what happens. She may be engaged before I get back. My fault. I let the door open, and he's a good guy. I put the woman in a bind. She doesn't want to choose between us, and I've complicated her decision about Daniel.”

“She knows your interest?”

“To some degree.”

“You'd better change that, Mark. Three months is long enough for the whole world to change.”

“I thought I might talk to Dad after dinner tonight, see what his advice might be.”

“You'll find it useful. I did.”

Mark tipped his head toward the house. The simple introductions today, the care being taken when Charlotte talked
about her life and family, the simple fact there hadn't been a wedding where brothers were invited to stand as best men, plus Bryce's comment that he had married before he fell in love—it all added up to a conclusion in Mark's mind, and a question. “When are you planning to tell me who she is?” he asked quietly. There obviously was history there with Charlotte, and the security that came along with her.

“I'm not,” Bryce replied. “But you'll make the connection one day. Dad knows, Mom. Or Charlotte might tell you.”

Mark nodded. “Gina comes with her own complicated history. She's smart, Bryce. Genius-level smart, with some sonar work that is causing both turmoil and joy throughout the submarine fleet. Nothing will ever be simple with her.”

Bryce smiled. “Face it, Mark, the Bishop brothers don't do easy. We never have.”

Mark leaned his head back against the chair, smiled. “Have to agree with you there. Have you heard from Jim lately?”

“No. He's at least on the ground somewhere, now that the space shuttles have flown their last missions.”

“His favorite toy got put into a box and taken away.”

Bryce chuckled. “He must feel like that at times. Though why he thought riding to work on a rocket built by the lowest bidder was a safe career move, I'll never understand.” The two men laughed together.

“We'll have to corner him at Mom's birthday party and see if we can talk some common sense into his future plans,” Bryce suggested, then looked over at Mark, considering. “You should invite Gina to the birthday party. Charlotte and I would enjoy meeting her. Our parents would too.”

“Maybe,” Mark said.

He was coming to the conclusion he needed to change
tactics with Gina. How he had handled the summer might have been the best—and, really, the only—avenue open to him, but it wasn't going to work for the situation now. The calendar was pushing him out to sea. And Daniel was waiting for Gina to give him the go-ahead to propose.

Mark needed a plan that fit the current circumstances. She wouldn't love him yet; she was barely beyond thinking of him as a date. Bryce's surprising admission, learning to love Charlotte after the wedding, was shifting his own thinking. Mark wondered what his father would say tonight. He needed the family's advice. His parents had always been there when he leaned on them for wisdom, for counsel, for the certainty he'd be loved even if he got life wrong. Family was where he was going to lean tonight, and hope to get this sorted out in his own mind.