Free Breaking Point by Dana Haynes

ninety minutes. He couldn’t stand for ninety minutes. He couldn’t lie down for ninety minutes without the help of codeine. He was in more or less constant pain.
    The trip had been Susan’s idea and she’d mapped it out with her usual methodical eye for detail. Train from Virginia to Miami, so Kirk could stand and sit at intervals. A cruise-line ship from Miami to Rome, where, blessedly, Kirk could walk. Walking didn’t hurt.
    They left the cruise ship in Lido di Ostia and took trains north and west to Milan. The next hop would be in a car. This part couldn’t be helped.
    â€œI’m good,” he said, popping a Vicodin with a slug of bottled water. Susan still looked worried.
    Kirk winced and lowered himself into the passenger seat of the SUV, glancing at the piles of luggage in the rear. A very, very small proportion of it was his. He said, “Get in, woman! And have my dinner on the table by six!”
    Susan laughed and tossed her leather Louis Vuitton satchel into the pile of bags. “Bite me, flyboy. Hour-fifteen, tops.”

10
    THE DAY
    Tommy Tomzak opened his cup and blew on the surface. As he did, a curved hank of black hair fell across his left eyebrow. Kiki Duvall brushed it back.
    â€œIt’s a Claremont VLE, twin turboprop.” Kiki checked her watch. It was a bit past 5:00 P.M. on Thursday. “Seats sixty-five with four crew. State-of-the-art avionics courtesy of Leveque Aéronautique, Limited, out of Quebec. Twin Bembenek engines. Came off the line fifteen months ago and is due for a checkup in five cycles.”
    They heard an appreciative, two-tone whistle from a man in the familiar brown-and-gold uniform of Polestar Airlines. “Even I didn’t know all that, and I’m the copilot. You an aircraft lover, ma’am?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œPilot’s flirting with you,” Tommy said for her ears only.
    â€œThat’s because I’m so hot.”
    ANNAPOLIS
    Renee Malatesta had every intention of going into the office that afternoon, after announcing via e-mail that she would be working from home in the morning. She did a half hour on the elliptical, showered, and had a banana and a yogurt. Her left knee—she’d twisted it badly playing tennis a year earlier—was acting up so she palmed three ibuprofen tablets. She eyed them for several moments, then cupped them back into the amber bottle. She dug under the bathroom sink and found the Vicodin she’d been given after the fall on the tennis court. She dry swallowed one, donned her Armani armor and low sling-backs.
    She had a five o’clock meeting with two of the company’s engineers.
    Renee sat in her Prius for twenty minutes, adjusting mirrors, fiddling with the satellite radio, checking and rechecking her wavy, neck-length hair. She tapped a strange little tattoo on the steering wheel with her fingernail. She checked e-mail on her iPhone.
    She climbed out of the car and paced in the living room. She went to the bathroom cabinet, found the vial of Prozac, which she used sparingly. She took two, drinking a full tumbler of water, refilling it and draining it again. She tried to pee.
    She shot an e-mail to two of the engineers, Antal Borsa and Terri Loew, to tell them she was caught up in a conference call and would have to reschedule their meeting.
    She poured a fingerful of fifteen-year-old El Dorado rum from Guyana and downed it in a gulp.
    VIRGINIA
    Barry Tichnor used a secure phone. “Any communication?”
    The surveillance unit parked a half block from the Malatesta home was using parabolic mics as well as the surveillance suite inside the house. “No, sir. She hasn’t called his number. And if she does, we’re preset to block the call.”
    REAGAN NATIONAL
    Andrew Malatesta couldn’t help but notice the tall, languid redhead with the freckles across her nose, curled up in one of the thermoformed chairs in the terminal.