This is my seventh NCIS Mystery, all following one progression. The list was becoming so extensive I moved it to my profile, along with synopses of stories.
The usual legal disclaimers apply.
Loving to experiment, I'm trying the addition of generally known or available music. 'Ruth' is composed by Alexander Courage and is available on the Star Trek Album Vol. 3. 'Rockin' Robin' is performed by Bobby Day; 'Tonight I Celebrate My Love For You' is performed by Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson, 'Lonely Man Theme' is from 'The Incredible Hulk' Television series and is found on many SciFi theme CDs.
All rights are reserved by the respective artists and copyright holders, but listening to this music could enhance your enjoyment of this story.
Rating: T or NCis-17. Death, Violence, Intrigue, Mystery, typical days for our agents.
Dark Night
By: JMK758
Prologue
Mary Joralemon sits at her workstation in the far right corner of the living room, checkbook beside her keyboard, comparing the stubs with the on-line bank records. It's her responsibility to balance the books, a duty assumed as her husband's absences became more numerous and extended.
She takes great pride and greater care that not a penny goes missing. It might seem odd to her friends to spend a Saturday night so, but she has always believed in fulfilling her responsibilities before she has her fun.
As she works she catches a movement to her right. The tall man, clad in a pair of blue boxers, approaches from the bedroom, his body doing things to her that would have made her blush months ago. He steps beside her and she tries her best to concentrate on finishing her work. There's still more than a dozen records to go before she can move on to Savings.
"Coming to bed?" he asks, bending low beside her, his breath hot against her ear. She feels the tingling all the way down to her toes.
"Soon. I want to finish this."
"You can finish after Mass tomorrow," he coaxes, voice heavy with promise.
Mary shakes her head. "You know I can't sleep until it's finished."
"Who said you were going to sleep?" His left hand slips around the back of her neck and down into the front of her pink negligee. She wiggles on the chair, not wanting to pull away but as his hand cups her, his thumb teases her nipple with light strokes. He's doing absolutely terrible things to her.
"I can't concentrate," she 'complains' with a smile.
"Good." His fingertips continue to stroke her nipple, making her gasp and wiggle in her seat. She feels it all the way down to her toes, tingling sensations she doesn't want to give in to - yet. "You're not wearing panties." His whisper is hot in her ear.
"I want to play too," she tells him. He reaches with his other hand but she presses her thighs together tightly. "Five minutes, Marc," she pleads as his fingertips continue stroking her hardened nub, "please."
"You can hold out five minutes?" he teases her with voice and fingers.
"Keep this up, it'll be ten!" She doesn't want it to be ten.
He withdraws and straightens up. "Okay."
She reaches back, palm up and her fingers slip into the opening of his boxers, cupping what she finds.
"Now who's distracting?"
"You're not distracted, you're desperate." She gives him a loving squeeze. "Four minutes, I promise."
"I'll hold you to that."
"You'll hold a lot more than that," she assures him, lets go and tries to return to her work. If she hurries, she can get through in the promised four minutes. He turns, leaves and she loses time because she can't tear her eyes off him. She's distracted from this promising vision when the phone beside her monitor rings. With a sigh she picks it up. If it's a telemarketer, she'll make quick work of him. "Hello?" Nothing. "Hello?"
Giving up, she hangs up the phone and returns her attention to the computer. She makes a series of on-line transactions, checks that everything is correct, signs off and shuts down the computer. It had taken more than the promised time, but she knows Marc will wait. For what she has for him, he'd wait an eternity.
xx
She steps silently into the bedroom on bare feet and finds her husband feigning sleep in the queen size bed to her right. His boxers are gone but she knows he's not asleep. His preparation is quite evident, doing a wonderful imitation of a flagpole. She smiles, knowing he'll be 'wide awake' very quickly.
Crossing the room, she goes to a dresser drawer, slides it out quietly and removes something from it. She approaches the bed to the right side near the sliding closet door, a three foot space she normally lays closest to, stands beside her 'sleeping' husband. "Marc?" she whispers his name enticingly.
"It's been nineteen minutes," he says, not turning to her nor opening his eyes. "I'm asleep."
"I've got something really special for you," she tells him, her voice dripping with honeyed promise, "something you're just not going to believe."
He smiles, turns his head on the pillow. "What?" he asks, opening his eyes. When he sees what's in her hands his eyes grow wide, his face reflecting his disbelief. The blast fills the room. A hole appears in the center of his forehead and the bloody back-spray covers Mary. His body gives one convulsive shake from the impact and then he's still.
The report was deafening, the next reverberates through the room as she pulls the trigger again. Another hole appears beside the first, a wash of blood from the back of his head increases the size of the puddle that covers the pillow. He doesn't move this time despite what the impact of the bullet does to his brain.
Mary hates the deafening noise, the explosions certain to disturb the neighbors, but she pulls the trigger a third time. The noise is so loud she can no longer hear anything as the top of Marc Joralemon's head bursts apart.
'At least', Mary thinks as she turns the gun around and inserts her thumbs together through the trigger guard, 'this one will be quieter, won't disturb anybody.' She's always a stickler for keeping the noise down, always trying to be a good neighbor.
Opening her mouth, she puts the hot barrel of the gun between her lips, cautious not to burn herself. Angling the gun upward, the burn of the metal no worse than she had known from her morning coffee, she pushes the trigger.
Mary can't say if the noise does disturb the neighbors. She never hears it.
Chapter One
Too Many Revelations
Timothy McGee sits in his car four blocks from St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church. At his friend's insistence he hasn't waited to pick her up at 'work' following his meeting her for the Mass. Instead he does so a half-hour later and a discreet distance away. Now he waits patiently, his thoughts broken at the sudden opening of the passenger door.
Siobhan O'Mallory gets into the car and the first thing Tim sees is a very generous expanse of bare tanned legs below short blue denim. He can't break his stare as she closes her door and draws her belt on.
"Do you prefer me in uniform?" she asks, her melodious Irish brogue as strong as he'd ever known, her smile carried in her tone.
He breaks away with a guilty start, realizing he'd missed several moments of silence. She's so immensely different than he'd seen her only half an hour ago that she's almost a different person. "No! No, I'm sor - that is I - I didn't mean - I wasn't stare–"
She laughs softly, tries to convey that she's not offended by his stare. Far from it. "Timmy, it's all right, I'm legal."
Her words only disconcert him more, something she'd been well aware would happen. Her 'uniform', which he is far more used to, is a summer variant skirt - very discreet - instead of black pants and a pale blue short sleeved blouse all under an inch and a quarter high stiff white collar. He'd just seen her in formal Liturgical vestments; now...
She removes her white sunhat, shakes her long, flame red hair free so it settles below her shoulders. "That's better," she sighs, hating the preparations she'd had to make before leaving the Church.
"I can never get over it," he marvels, still unable to tear his eyes off her.
"Over what?" Her tone hints that she knows, that she's drawing him out.
"I just saw you in full white, blue and gold vestments at Mass, then cassock and white collar at the 'coffee hour', and now–"
"I'm still the same woman, Timmy."
But it's the different aspects of the woman that lately - and frequently - give him pause. He's gotten used to her as a priest, so different from the person he'd dated so many years ago, her life now so different from the passion they'd known that he's uncomfortable with the reminder that she is the same woman. Ironically, he's more used to the woman priest, having tried his best to push back the memories of the loving, deeply passionate girl who'd– He tries to put those thoughts behind him in distraction.
"Reporters still dogging you?" he asks sympathetically, and can't make the segue seem natural. It's so artificial an evasion it almost hurts, but he prefers subjects with her that intrude less into feelings.
Gauntlets of reporters he's more used to, though for him it's more a matter of traversing the lines on the way to crime scenes, not being the subject of them. As it is, he'll say anything at all to keep from letting her think of how she'd caught him staring - and remembering.
x
"It started out okay," she admits, knowing he's closed off that area of himself - for now. "Being their fair-haired girl after Charlie Morley was captured gave me the chance to turn some attention to the Church, but they eventually left for greener fields. They wanted to know about the battle and the murders, I was telling them the good things Saint Mary's is doing and focusing on the lives of Tina and Chrissie, not on how they died.
"Now, since my apartment was blown up, they're back but the questions are a lot darker. That's why I wanted you to meet me here. If I came out in my 'uniform' I'd be besieged. As it was I had to leave through the parking lot, come around the other street... It's really becoming a pain dodging them, especially if I have to do it in disguise."
He looks her over, trying very hard not to stare and completely failing. "Quite a disguise," he grants. Her blue windbreaker is closed against the air conditioning. He can just see the bottoms of blue denim shorts - and they really are short - under the material, but nothing interferes with his view from the high - very high - ends of those pants to her white sneakers. She really does have very nice–
He rips the thought out of his head. An hour ago she had been wearing a white cinctured alb, white and blue stole and chasuble, the inner side lined in gold and the decorative orphreys extended as a deep blue up toward her shoulders. To call the difference in her disconcerting is an understatement, and he feels he could be quite justified in staring - if he hadn't been caught doing it!
Determinedly turning his attention to the street, he starts the car and pulls out into the Washington traffic. But he can't miss the knowing smile on her woman's lips. She'd known where his mind was just as easily as she'd known where his eyes had been.
x
What a way to begin a day off. He'd arranged a day free from the weekend 'rotation' of teams, hardly feeling any guilt due to the new, enhanced team now that Michelle Lee is a permanent member and the new (new) 'Probie'. He'd claimed a 'make-up' for Labor Day so he would have a Sunday afternoon with his old friend, not that he would ever let anyone know about that! Tony would turn this into a date and this is not a date. Going out with Zee is a date. This is a casual afternoon with an old and dear - with an old friend. But–
"How are you settling in?" he tries to find a way to begin a conversation - any conversation - anything to distract him from his sudden discomfort. In the past near two years he's grown used to thinking of her as a priest - but now she's a woman.
No, she's a priest, and an old friend, and what they used to be to each other, all those years ago - that's all those years ago.
x
"Just fine," she assures him, her annoyance at the reporters gone, washed away by the presence of her old friend even if she must deal with his lingering disconcertion. "The Rectory has plenty of space, it was actually built when two Priests worked the Parish, so for George it's like having a roommate he hardly has to see unless we're at 'work'."
Father George Donaldson, Rector of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, had lived in the building alone, that volume of space being no consideration at all against appearances. Some people still, after two years, can barely tolerate the concept of a Woman Priest - let alone one in 'their' parish. It might be more socially acceptable if she were married, but for her to share the Rectory with an equally unmarried Priest... well, in the eyes of some that was just going too far.
In consideration of appearances she had maintained an apartment several blocks away, until she had been the victim of what the Navy calls 'collateral damage'.
Several bombs had obliterated the top floor of her building, the resulting fire and water damage rendering the two apartments below hers still uninhabitable, all in a failed attempt to kill Abby Sciuto.
x
"And how does the Parish feel about your having to live in the Rectory now?"
She chuckles, though there's less humor than she could want, "Sympathy is still on my side, but the tongues started waggling quickly enough. It only took four days for the first stories to get back to the office."
"That was quick," he tries to conceal his annoyance. She's been through too much to have to endure wagging tongues.
"George handled it better than I would have. He organized the most vocal into a Search Committee to find me a new place to live, even while throwing enough into the mix to make things interesting."
"Yeah?"
"The new place can't be more than a quarter-mile from the Church, has to have at least five rooms, has to be within the Church's budget - since my contract still specifies the apartment comes as part of my stipend. And if it's more than four stories tall, it has to have an elevator..."
"Bet they loved that. You had a sixth floor walk-up," he reminds her.
"I know, but I'm getting old."
"HA! You're six weeks younger than I am." Through the corner of his eye he sees her smile momentarily falter, and while he hadn't thought her susceptible to that - she's not vain - he recognizes she's surely feeling very vulnerable. He realizes that maybe right now remembering her distant birthday isn't necessarily a good thing.
"It'll keep them busy while I find a real place; and if they do find one first, then all the better," she continues, this time her tone heavy on distraction. He senses she doesn't want him to see her momentary unhappiness, so he will not see it. "Remember, Timmy, God never allows us to have more challenges than we can handle with His help. He gives us just enough to remind us to call on Him for that help."
Tim thinks about that for a time, but as the silence extends: "Would you like some music?" he indicates the iPod plugged into the car's stereo speakers.
"Sure."
"What would you like?"
"Whatever." She's more interested in what he likes, the subject of music rarely comes up between them. In an attempt to draw him out, she says; "you know, I recall someone once saying that everyone has a theme of music. I think he was listening to an old Victrola in a cable rerun of a 60's television show, but that line has always stuck with me."
"You do," he answers absently, attention on the road before him. He only realizes his slip when he catches her look of interest.
"I do?"
"Uh, er, ah, I mean to me you do." Did he really say that out loud? Idiot! "I don't know - I, er, well, whenever I hear it I think of you." He knows he's trapped, no amount of evasion or obfuscation will save him from the consequences of this flub.
"What is it? 'Here come the Clowns'?" She tries to lighten his embarrassment, give him the chance to laugh off his slip, but it has the opposite effect. Without taking his eyes off the road he reaches over, selects the music by touch alone. He'd intended not to play it, but he will not have his feelings mocked.
She realizes that he was probably listening to it recently - perhaps while waiting for her? - and she wonders what piece characterizes her to him.
It is a soft, haunting melody, vaguely familiar, flutes and other woodwinds complimented by violins which carry the listener along. She sees on the screen the name 'Siobhan's Theme', but knows of no such work, certainly not one so familiar. "What is it?" she asks softly, not wanting to drown out a note of the music.
"I got it off a CD, it's from 'Star Trek', background music to a scene. They call it 'Ruth', one of Kirk's old loves. I renamed it."
She listens to the flute and strings for a time. "It's very romantic," she says softly, searching his face. He starts abruptly, perhaps realizing what his thoughtlessness has revealed, for he reaches for the iPod and switches it off.
"It's a memory - of an old time," he doesn't say it is a time that will never come again. He doesn't have to, his embarrassed tone speaks for a heart filled to bursting with reservations.
He'd decried the problem to her with his first words. 'I can never get over it.'
xxx
Lt. Jeffrey Carpenter, Metro Homicide, inspects the bedroom from the doorway, makes no attempt to enter the room before taking in the entire scene. He will leave that for the uniformed officers who had preceded him. For now he wants the impression of the whole. Plenty of time for details.
The man's nude body lies supine upon the double bed, the top of his head a shattered mess. The headboard, pillow and mattress are covered in dried blood. At least, he reflects, it's not worse for odor. The man had clearly prepared himself for sleep and more.
Near the lower left corner of the bed is a Smith & Wesson .22 caliber revolver - a potent weapon, especially at such short range.
Beside the bed on the right lies another body, wedged into the space between the bed and the wide sliding closet door. The woman has short blonde hair and is almost dressed in a sheer pink 'baby-doll' negligee sans panties. It's obvious she too is well readied for bed though not for sleep. All might probably have gone well too, except for the bloody hole which mars the back of her head.
Metro Homicide had gotten the call from the original unit which had responded to calls of what sounded like gunshots being fired, followed by silence. The fact that the calls had come in quite a number of hours after the incident, after considerable and extended 'silence', had not pleased anybody. By the time the initial investigation in the late morning had determined the need for a Homicide Detail, the scene was quite stale. It's past lunchtime, and Carpenter is sure he's not going to get any. This scene will take some time to investigate.
He does not get much time to do so before a uniformed officer calls his attention to a particularly nasty piece of evidence.
"You sure?" He feels foolish for having asked it. It is only a measure of his reluctance to give in that he even entertains the thought that the man might be wrong.
"Yes, sir." The black man has a wallet in his gloved hand. It came from beside keys and change left upon the night table on the left side of the bed. Photographed in situ, it had then been opened to allow the unpleasant discovery.
"All right," he tries to keep a growl from his voice as he pulls out his cell phone, "no one touches anything else. Gotta call it in."
At least now he'll get lunch.
xxx
Tim removes his blue windbreaker. The afternoon has grown too warm for the light material at the County Fair. A collection of tents, booths, rides and thousands upon thousands of people fill McMillan Park, an expanse bordered by Michigan Avenue, Bryant Street NW, 4th Street NW and encompassing McMillan Reservoir, whose cooling breezes face a losing battle against Indian Summer. Washington is presently enjoying (or tolerating, depending on whom one asks) a mid-September heat spell, excellent news for the organizers of this huge event though not for many others.
The red haired woman beside him removes her own light jacket in deference to the increasing warmth and Tim McGee forgets to breathe. He'd noticed when he'd picked her up the very short shorts, he could hardly have missed that when she had opened his car door and gotten in. But though he'd dwelled upon the generous view of her smooth legs he was unprepared for the full package.
She wears a red buttonless halter top knotted below her breasts, only the bowed straps behind interrupt the smoothness of her bare sides and back. That coupled with the very brief blue denim shorts over white sneakers mean he could suffocate before remembering to take a breath. There are two buttoned pockets on the scarlet halter, both empty, nothing marring the smoothness of the material.
He'd seen the same outfit almost a week ago in her former apartment when he had dropped Abby Sciuto off for Protection Detail and had not slept well that night. Now, seeing her grin as he sees her again in this inspiring attire, he knows that the first time had been intentional.
"You're determined to shock me, Shav," he tells her when he'd relieved his depleted lungs.
"Now Timmy," she chides, "would I do that?"
"Every day and twice on Saturdays."
"Then you're lucky today's Sunday," she assures him with a teasing grin.
Looking at the scarlet halter top showing only a discreet inch between her breasts but leaving her sides and back bare, and at her blue shorts, he decides she's challenged him enough, unbuttons and pulls off his shirt. He's left with a jade green tee shirt emblazoned with bold white 'MIT'. He regards her archly.
"You win," she grants, but then reconsiders, "this round."
x
But then reality, at least so far as he knows it, rears up and slaps him in the face. "Wait a minute," he tells her sharply, trying to get a handle on the universe, "wasn't this outfit blown up?"
As part of a dramatic weekend most members of NCIS would rather forget, several bombs had detonated in the woman's former apartment, destroying everything in a failed attempt to kill Abby Sciuto. Her murderer would've only considered Siobhan's death an added bonus.
"Incinerated is more like it. But I like this combination, so I replaced it when I went shopping for clothes with some of the money the Church advanced me against the insurance on my apartment. I like what it says."
She doesn't mention that, of the clothing she has, 80 percent is mismatched and ill-fitting, from storage intended for an upcoming 'Thrift Sale'. Of her Clerical clothing she has only the single short sleeved blouse and black skirt she'd been wearing that fateful morning. George Donaldson had offered some of his black shirts. She'd tried on one of the larger traditional blacks with the square white at the throat, looked at herself in the mirror and determined she'd use them sparingly indeed. She'd wear her blue for going out, the rest when she was not going to leave the Parish, and the 'hand-me-downs' the rest of the time while she counted the days until her order could be filled.
"What does it say?" Typically, influenced by his friend Abby, he looks for a hidden message, not the one before his eyes.
Despite her desire to speak to him seriously, Siobhan can't help but grin. Sometimes Timmy can be so literal, little different than she remembers him from years ago. "It says that, in addition to my public life, I am a vital and alive woman."
"That it does," he agrees, considering himself far wiser than to have hesitated, and very much appreciative of the message, "and an amazingly beautiful and sexy one."
He realizes, at the surprise and appreciation on her face, that he had carelessly spoken the thought aloud and is absolutely mortified. Maybe he isn't as wise as he'd thought and should have hesitated a while - and then kept his damn mouth shut. This definitely crosses his self-imposed line.
"Thank you, Timmy." It's almost like he used to talk, and she realizes that, with him, she'd missed it.
"Ab - ah - um - don't mention it." 'Please don't ever mention it!' he concludes silently. He cannot, however, let one unsettling thought go, latching onto anything he can that will distract her from that embarrassing gaff. "But what would your Congregation say if they could see you like this?"
She grins, recalling her point even against his flattering comment. "I'm incognito - they'll never recognize me."
It is her cosmic misfortune that at this moment two young women and one young man, none of whom she knows to be over nineteen, pass before them. One of the women greets her: "Hi, Mother O'Mallory."
"Nice threads," the other says appreciatively, this image being far different from the one she is used to.
"Hello Helen, Cathy," she greets them casually, "Tom."
Tom looks, does a double-take and then cannot drag his eyes off Siobhan until Helen, barely slowing down in passing, reaches back and grabs the front of his tee shirt. She yanks him after her hard enough to make him stumble.
Tim turns to Siobhan, victorious - and relieved. Maybe she has forgotten his slip. "I rest my case."
"One time. And I am not embarrassed, Timmy. We both have lives outside our work. And if anyone is uncomfortable with that I'll pray for them - while I'm enjoying my life."
"In that case," he says, knowing far better to criticize but offering his arm instead; "let's enjoy the day."
xxx
"Gear up, people," Gibbs orders as he pulls his desk drawer open, removes his shield and gun. At the same time he pushes a button on his phone, sends a signal downstairs. His team has weekend rotation and there seems to be no such thing as a quiet weekend. Around him Lee, DiNozzo and David make their rapid preparations.
Ducky and Jimmy, on duty dealing with an autopsy for Agent Joswig's team, are not going to be happy.
"What have we got, boss?" DiNozzo asks.
"Navy Captain and his wife, looks like a murder / suicide," he tells them, already on his way to the elevator. The case is already old. If NCIS had been notified in time, Martine Joswig's or Fred Higgin's people would already have the case. As it is now, it falls to Gibbs and his people. "Ring up McGee, have him meet us."
DiNozzo, heading for the elevator, pulls out his cell phone, knowing the man will not be happy. This is a planned day off which had already been approved some days ago, a 'make-up' for having worked Labor Day. McGee had thought to 'score' two days by getting off on a Sunday, where Tony had spent his own day off with Jeanne on Thursday following the stresses of the murderous stalker's hunt for Abby Sciuto. He hadn't even having tried for a weekend - but this is just the price of being a shortsighted Probie.
"Do it on the way, DiNozzo," Gibbs admonishes. He, Lee and David are already at the opening doors to the elevator.
"On your six, boss," he replies, trotting after them.
xx
Ducky and Jimmy are not happy. They'd finished the actual work of this morning's autopsy and were dressed to leave when the signal had come in. Diverted from an early day, they're in the sub-basement garage getting into the blue and white Medical Examiner truck when the elevator doors open again.
"You're not planning on leaving us in the dust this time, are you?" Ducky inquires, his tone clearly showing he knows better than to get his hopes up.
"Just keeping up your driving skills," he replies, looking pointedly to Palmer.
"I'm getting better," he insists.
"Yes, you are," Ducky commends from beside him. "It has been a long time now since we have gotten lost."
"Since I've started chasing Agent Gibbs, all I'm afraid of getting is arrested."
xxx
Timothy McGee feels he's very quietly losing what's left of his mind.
Ever since his reunion with his old classmate nearly two years ago, and his discovery of where life and fate had taken the wild and irrepressible girl, the uninhibited cheerleader he used to know, he had managed to draw a line in the sand between them.
Had she come back into his life in any other manner than she had, he would have been able to find some way of dealing with it. It would have made no difference in his relationship with Ziva - at least he thinks not though that's only about four months old - but the circumstances of his reunion with 'Shav' O'Mallory had definitely stamped the sign 'Untouchable' upon her.
Okay, he could deal with that. The past is the past, they've both moved on with their lives. She certainly has moved somewhere with hers, but while he could miss what they had, she is now 'Unapproachable'.
Almost every time he encounters her, she's in her uniform. It only reinforces that impression of untouchable upon him. Her 'uniform', at least the summer one, is a medium-long black skirt, light blue silk blouse that buttons up the back and that oh-so-distinctive inch and a quarter high stiff white collar.
To him that circle marks a boundary he must never cross, can never dare to allow himself to cross. On all but one occasion when he saw her otherwise she was working. She'd be in some variation of full Liturgical attire, which were an even greater help in enforcing that restriction 'Look but don't touch'.
In fact, 'Don't Even Look'!
x
Then came the day he'd dropped Abby off where she could be safe from a mad and murderous stalker and for the first time he saw Shav in other attire (a copy of this attire) and had seen her primarily - only - as a woman. He hadn't been entirely truthful when he'd told her he hadn't slept well that night. The truth is he had not slept at all!
Memory of wild years past had aided surprise in breaking down carefully built barriers, leaving his resolve to never think of her in terms other than the image she presented and the life she lived deeply fractured.
'Untouchable' and 'unnoticeable' had cracked under the strain of seeing her as the woman she really is, and he wasn't prepared for a reality that doesn't include reinforcements of limitations. He still hasn't recovered. He can't, even now, stop himself from looking at her, trying to see her when she doesn't notice.
And now, seeing her on what was supposed to be just a casual afternoon out with a friend, trying so hard to pretend that nothing at all has changed, unable to keep himself from taking notice of her, he damns himself for trying to get an occasional peek.
'Unapproachable' now cracks under that same strain and he feels infinitely worse - because he cannot rid himself of the suspicion that she knows!