Free While Galileo Preys by Joshua Corin

Sophie would notice. Their neighbors would notice. He was a sociology professor. Inflexible societies eventually snapped like twigs. Was he so implacable? Was he willing to risk so much?
    “Three days.”
    She stopped dialing. Looked over at him. “What?”
    “You can have three days. Anything more than that and you’re not just putting in your two cents. Anything more than that and you’re on the task force. And then your responsibilities will be even more divided than they already are. You’re there three days and you’re a consultant. You’re there any longer and they’ll start counting on you. I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
    She shook her head. No, he wasn’t wrong.
    “But just so we’re clear,” she added, “you don’t get to ever—ever—give me an ultimatum like that. You don’t think I’m torn up over this? You made your point and you’re right. Three days it is. But that’s my choice.”

7
    O n the evening of February 14, whilst young lovers kissed and old lovers spooned, Darcy Parr went looking for drugs. Claritin, Zyrtec—any antihistamine would do. Finding a drugstore still open in Amarillo after 10:00 p.m., however, was proving to be a chore, and so she ended trolling the luminescent tiles of Walmart.
    Also, it provided her with an excuse to leave the hotel. Not that she was getting stir-crazy. But Tom Piper was two rooms down, and his vicinity reminded her of this afternoon.
    She blamed herself.
    The hospital had been her responsibility. Her primary assignment had been to coordinate with the M.E.’s office, and the M.E.’s office was at Baptist St. Anthony’s. That the fire chief was also under her jurisdiction went without saying. No one else from the task force was stationed at the hospital. No one else was even close. The sniper infiltrated the place on her watch. Their witness died on her watch. His blood was on her hands.
    And face…and hair…
    No. She had gotten all of it off in the shower. Right? Yes.
    She found the nearest mirror—glued to an endcap for sunglasses—and double-checked. Yes. No more blood. Pores clean. Blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like a coed in a sorority, not someone who’d just…
    Shake it off, Darcy. Get your allergy medicine. Maybe send an e-mail to Pastor Joe when you return to the hotel. He never slept, and he always knew exactly what to say. Pastor Joe ran her parish church back in Virginia. Much of the congregation consisted of spooks, spies and Bureau instructors. It had been Darcy’s home church growing up. These were the people she knew. A career in the FBI had pretty much been predestined. It was these connections which enabled her to join Tom Piper’s esteemed task force.
    She found the pharmacy aisles near the racks of get-well cards. How appropriate. It didn’t take her long to stock her basket with antihistamines. She even tossed a box of Sudafed in there, just in case.
    It’s not that Amarillo contained an unusually high pollen count or that February was a particularly bad month for allergens. That’s why she hadn’t brought any medication with her on the trip from Virginia. But her symptoms, as she well knew, had nothing to do with the environment. They were induced by stress, and she’d suffered their effects since early childhood. Nobody said being an overachiever was easy.
    And then there was the matter of Esme Stuart.
    Darcy pressed down on her swollen sinuses, sniffled and coughed. Esme Stuart had left the Bureau long before Darcy Parr left the Academy, but her legend resounded up and down every wall at Quantico. She had been Tom Piper’s prodigy, and now she was coming back. It’s not that Darcy was jealous. It was silly to be jealous of someone so far out of your league. But Darcy was the newest member of the task force, the youngest, the greenest, and if Esme Stuart were to come back for good, if her return proved permanent…well, it didn’t take a Vegas bookie to foretell whose place on the team was