Amanda hadn't been sure what to expect from Darryl Prescott down at the EAO, but she hadn't trusted him from the very first minute and she certainly resented the way he'd treated her as clueless. He had called her down to a meeting at the EAO making it sound like it was a simple paperwork question he needed help with but she'd walked into that meeting on her guard, far more informed than he'd thought. She'd seen right away that he thought she was just a ditzy suburban ex-wife whom he could pump for information, and she'd let him keep thinking that because it suited her purposes. For heaven's sake, he'd been surprised that she even knew where Joe was posted, as if she wouldn't have stayed in contact with the father of her children. In actual fact, the first thing she'd done after Joe had hung up was flip on CNN to see if there was news from Estoccia on the air and had watched, appalled, as they'd reported on the Prime Minister's assassination. If Prescott hadn't been waiting, she would have gone straight to the Agency and pulled the daily briefing reports – Cathy was used to her coming down to review all the telexes out of that part of the world, and she'd been aware of the drought and political protests from the difficulties the country had been facing despite Prime Minister Ashad's best efforts. If nothing else, starting work at the Agency had made it a lot easier for her to keep tabs on the kind of work Joe was doing. He'd never been good at letting her know what he was working on, even when they'd been married, and because his letters home had been mostly directed to the boys, they'd been light on real information – unless you cared about giant lizards, of course.

Prescott seemed to assume she wouldn't even know about Ashad's death, talking to her in that condescending tone about an 'incident' in Estoccia as if it was a mishap at a garden party and not a cold-blooded killing. And acting as if he couldn't tell her anything even as he tried to pump her for information; it had made her blood boil so she'd done what Joe had asked and played dumb about knowing where he was. She didn't know what was going on yet, but she'd told the truth when she'd said to Prescott that this was all a bit confusing since Joe was just a lawyer. She hissed with annoyance at the memory as she guided the station wagon through traffic.

She hadn't even consciously headed for the Agency, she'd just known that whatever was going on, she needed to be near Lee. However it turned out that Joe was involved in this, she knew Lee would help her straighten it out.

But when she'd walked into the Georgetown lobby, a woman on a mission, she'd been stopped dead in her tracks by Mrs. Marston who hadn't even given her a chance to say a word before saying, "Mrs. King, Mr. Melrose wants to see you. He told me to tell you that you are to go straight to his office as soon as you arrived."

She stifled the groan of frustration and her eyes must have flicked up the stairs, because Mrs. Marston immediately added, "Mr. Stetson is out of the building." She knew she was probably blushing a bit at having her thoughts so easily read, but when she looked back at the receptionist, there was a sympathetic smile on her face, and she was holding out Amanda's badge without having asked for the password.

"Thank you, Mrs. Marston," she said, taking it with suddenly shaky hands, and heading for the closet elevator with only one last wistful glance at the stairs.

Billy had been kind, his sympathy to her showing even through his obvious determination to get to the bottom of the story. She'd had to pass Francine's desk to get to his office and obviously the Thanksgiving ceasefire from the previous week was over because the blonde hadn't been able to resist throwing out a quip about Amanda having her very own Richard Kimble in the family.

"Well, you know what, Francine? He turned out to have been innocent all along too," she'd shot back, releasing all her annoyance with Darryl Prescott loose on the unsuspecting blonde. "And I have no intention of having to tell my sons that their father is going to jail for something I know he didn't do! So if you can't be helpful right now, do me a favor and shut the hell up!"

Francine had actually looked a little shocked that Amanda had turned out to have claws, but right now she just couldn't deal with Francine's automatic reflex to make jokes as if there weren't real people involved, real people who didn't live their lives surrounded by international intrigue, real people - her children - who could be hurt by this. Francine's smirk had faltered and she stared wide-eyed, with no clever riposte when Amanda gave her one last glare and continued toward Billy's door.

For some reason, that was the moment it finally hit her how serious this was and she paused to work up her nerve to rap on the door. It should have been a relief that he greeted her so kindly, but instead his sympathy seemed to drain her of the invigorating head of steam she'd built up. When he'd begun to list all the security agencies that were involved, she'd had to lean on the window for support as it became clearer that whatever was going on was an international incident on a scale she could barely imagine. FBI, CIA, Security Task Force, the Agency – how was it possible that all those organizations were after her Joe? And then he'd added "We'll do everything we can to get to the truth" and at least some of the weight lifted with the relief of knowing that Billy at least was willing to remain impartial for now. So Billy was on her side even if Francine might not be but…

"Does Lee know?" she couldn't help asking, trying unsuccessfully to hide the catch in her voice. She knew he wasn't in the building – it was entirely possible that he wasn't even allowed near this because of his association with her. She fought to hide her rising panic at the idea that he might not be able to help her. She'd become adept at boxing with shadows in the last two years, but to do it without her best friend?

And then Billy had said, "I already have him on special assignment, very high level" with a knowing look and an encouraging smile, and she'd known he'd seen right through her. She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment with relief before thanking him and turning to bolt from the office.

"Amanda, why don't you wait for him upstairs in his office?" Billy had called her back before she could leave. "I can imagine it could get uncomfortable for you down here in the bullpen. People might say things they shouldn't." His eyes had traveled past her to rest on Francine who sat just beyond his door and the heads that were swiveling all over the bullpen to stare at Amanda. "And with you in such a tricky position on this one, being so personally involved, it would probably be best if you weren't in earshot of anyone discussing the case, except with Lee, of course. Having one of our own involved in this means we have to be extra squeaky clean, I'm afraid."

He'd sounded apologetic that he was having to tell her this, but he couldn't know what a balm to her heart it had been to hear him say 'one of our own'. She'd half-expected to get another remark from Francine as she went by, given that she'd had time to reload, so to speak, but to her surprise, Francine had simply waved her over and pointed to the phone.

"Lee's on his way back from the airport. He said to tell you he should be back in an hour, tops." Her cool tone had told Amanda that she was still feeling insulted by Amanda lashing out a few minutes before, or possibly ashamed and unwilling to admit it.

"Thank you, Francine," she'd replied with real gratitude, and had then had to bite back a laugh when the blonde had responded.

"Well, under the circumstances, I'm willing to let it slide this once, but don't think I'm going to start being a telephone service for you and Lee. I have better things to do with my time." Francine had huffed and turned back to her monitor, clearly putting an end to the conversation.

Amanda had headed out of the bullpen toward the elevator, ridiculously buoyed by Francine's snarkiness. After all, it couldn't be too bad if Francine was still being mean.

It was more than an hour before Lee showed up, though and by the time he got there she'd had time to go get copies of all the telexes out of Estoccia – thank goodness Cathy hadn't known yet that she probably shouldn't have them – and seen what they were up against. A cold-blooded killing, Joe's fingerprints on a gun at the scene, several eyewitnesses who placed him there and running away from the murder scene and worst of all, a United Nations ally, albeit a small one, baying for blood right up to the top levels of the U.S. government. It seemed overwhelming and to top it off, she had no idea who was going to walk in the door; would she get sympathetic Lee or the old curt what-have-you-done-this-time Lee? As the minutes ticked by, her nervousness had increased and she was so busying playing out all the worst-case scenario possibilities in her head that, in the end, she had missed even hearing the door open.

"Hi."

Her head had jerked up. "Hi." She stared at him, trying to decide what that look on his face meant.

"I called your house as soon as I heard. Your mother said you were on your way here. That was hours ago - I've been worried."

In that instant, that blinding instant of relief, that was when she'd known it was going to be alright. And then she'd given in to all the pent-up emotion and had begun to fall apart.


He'd known it the minute he walked into the Q Bureau with an armload of files and found her perched on the sofa, surrounded by scattered telexes. Saw it, knew it, and felt his heart break a little from the look on her face. He knew that look – he hadn't seen it in almost a year, had, in fact, spent most of the last few months trying to make sure that look was gone forever. It had taken him most of the past year to find out what it meant and he knew he'd barely begun to scratch the surface of making her feel safe enough that it wouldn't come back. But there it was – the unnatural paleness, marked with the ebb and flow of botchy flushes up and down her neck, the slight tremble, noticeable especially when she lifted her hand to chew wretchedly at her cuticles and worst of all, the shuttered expression that told him she was barely holding it together and that she really, really didn't want to talk to him about it. That she was going to fight talking to him about it. She was poised for flight; he was going to have to tread carefully to keep her from running.

But she's here, he told himself. There might be something going on that is frightening her to death, but she came here. She came to me. We can get through anything as long as she's still doing that.

"Hi." Jesus, Stetson, brilliant opening.

"Hi." She spoke so softly he could barely hear her. She was watching him warily, her arms curled around her chest as if she was preparing to deflect a body blow.

"I called your house as soon as I heard. Your mother said you were on your way here. That was hours ago - I've been worried."

"I couldn't tell her where I was going." Her voice cracked a little and she gripped her hands together. "As far as she knew it was just a meeting about paperwork. I couldn't tell her what had happened." Her voice started to rise. "Everything in my life these days is something I can't tell my mother!"

He dropped the file folders on the nearest chair and crossed the room in two long strides, crouching beside her and taking her hands between his. "Amanda? Amanda, it will be okay, I promise."

"Lee!" She couldn't hide the exasperation in her voice. "You can't promise me that! You can't promise me anything! I know Billy gave you this case, but you can't treat this case or me any differently than you do normally."

He knew he hadn't managed to mask his reaction to how accurately she'd summed it up when she stood abruptly and began pacing around the room. He straightened back up and watched her. Any other time he would have laughed at how much she looked like he must look at moments like these, but this situation was far too serious, and he could tell she knew it. He had to be completely honest with her if she was going to trust him.

"You're right," he sighed. "You can't be my partner on this, not when you're a source of information as well." He wished he hadn't said anything when he saw the stricken expression on her face, but as he watched, he could almost see the iron enter her soul. Her face hardened just a bit and she stopped pacing, glaring at him.

"You're right. I'm a source of information and here is the first thing you need to know." She was jabbing a finger in his direction now. "Whatever you think is going on is NOT going on. I know what that Mr. Prescott made it sound like, but there is no way it's true!"

"Amanda, you don't understand – there's fingerprints and witnesses and he ran. It couldn't look worse – you have to face facts."

"I don't care what it looks like – it's not true!" Amanda was almost sobbing with rage now. "Lee, I know it looks bad, but I know it's not true!" She had begun pacing again, trying to get her emotions under control, while he watched silently, wretched that he couldn't say anything to make her feel better.

She stopped, finally, in front of the window that looked out over the street in front of IFF, and he waited patiently while she calmed herself. This righteous rage was actually more in his wheelhouse than the silent panic she'd been in when he'd walked in. Anger was something he could work with – he just hoped he could keep it directed away from him.

"Do you remember Margaret Brock?" she asked suddenly, turning to look at him.

"Mitch Larner's secretary? Yeah, of course I do." Amanda said nothing, just stared at him, head on a tilt, eyebrow raised, obviously waiting.

His heart eased a bit – whatever she thought was going on, she still trusted him to do the right thing.

"Yeah, okay, it could be a set-up," he sighed heavily, capitulating readily. He picked up a pad of paper and a pen and held them out to her, gesturing toward the desk with his head. "I'll start going through everything in the files we have and you start writing down everything you can think of that will help us find your husband."

Her face had lit up even before he'd begun to speak, the second she'd seen that he was going to give in.

I really have to get better at not letting her see that.

"Ex-husband," she said almost automatically as she took the pen and paper. "So you'll help him?" she asked eagerly.

He held up a hand, and answered sternly, "I will assume innocent until proven guilty, Amanda, that is all. If everything keeps pointing the way it's going now, I won't have any choice but to hand him over to the Estoccian authorities. You know that, right?"

Her shoulders slumped slightly at his rebuke, but then she'd taken a deep breath and squared them again. "I know. But it's not going to come to that. He could never have assassinated anybody!"

"Well, first things first, let's start working on those lists. We know he's in the country, but for now he could be anywhere – once he got to New York, he vanished into thin air."

He had started to turn to pick up the files when he'd heard that telltale noise, that humming sound she made in the back of her throat when she was about to confess something. He closed his eyes and sighed before turning back toward her, groaning when he saw the expression on her face that told him he was right.

At least reading each other works both ways he though irreverently, but what he said out loud was, "Oh God, Amanda, please tell me he isn't hiding in your attic or something!"

"Oh no, Lee! I'd have told you that!" Her eyes had gone wide – he could tell that was the truth, but he knew she was going to drop the other shoe any second.

"But?"

"He's in D.C. – he called me at the house this morning." Once again, he must have been doing a very poor job of hiding his thoughts, because she rushed on immediately. "Now he didn't say where he was, he wouldn't tell me, he just said I shouldn't worry and that I'd be getting calls and I shouldn't believe them."

"Does he know about us? I mean, IFF? Does he know what you really do here? Is that why he called you?"

"Oh no! He has no idea! I haven't even seen him in almost three years, Lee! And even if I wanted to tell him, I couldn't do that that in a phone call or a letter, could I? 'Dear Joe, Just writing to tell you that Phillip got MVP, Jamie got an A on his science project and oh, by the way, I'm a spy now. Not that we use the word 'spy'." She mumbled those last few words, adding them almost as if she couldn't help herself. "He just called me to warn me, that's all and to tell me not to believe any of it. As if I would! Joe couldn't hurt a fly!"

"His fingerprints are on the gun, Amanda," he couldn't help saying.

"I know that!" He assumed Billy had told her that, but his reminder seemed to take the wind out of her sails for a moment before she rallied. "Well, I'm sure I don't know how that happened, but there will be an explanation."

He studied her for a moment, relieved that the fear she'd been showing when he came in was gone. Now she had an enemy to fight. And it isn't me. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, let's figure out what the explanation is then, okay Partner?" He gestured to the desk. "You get down everything you can think of, while I start with this stuff." He gathered up the file folders and walked into the vault to spread them out.

With a jerky nod, she moved to the desk and sat down, staring at the blank page for a moment. When she spoke again, it was so quietly he barely heard her. "Thank you, Lee."


"Amanda, I think there's a typo in this file. It says Joe was born in 1940."

Her shoulders drooped as she recognized the tone in his voice. It was starting – he was going to pry and ask all of the personal questions that she'd hoped to avoid. She put on her best bright voice and answered without looking up.

"Nope, that's right." One, two, three, four…

"Seriously?" Lee didn't look up from the file he was staring at, but she knew the gears were turning.

"Yes, seriously." She was tempted to leave it at the almost monosyllabic answer, but she knew she might as well bite the bullet and head him off now. Lee Stetson had many admirable qualities but a terrier-like ability to concentrate on the one thing you didn't want him to was one of them, and she could tell from his tone of voice that this was going to be one of those things.

"I thought you met when you were both at college?"

She sighed and gave up even pretending that she was concentrating on her own lists. "We did. He was in grad school and I was working on the school paper for credit in my journalism course. I interviewed him about a civil rights group he was working with. He was doing some legal work for them – research and stuff – and we just… hit it off."

"But ten years' age difference? I mean that's-"

"Almost eleven actually," she interrupted. "Look Lee, I'm sure it's all in his file. He graduated with a political science degree from Yale in 1963, and then he joined the army in 1965, because he wanted to do some good in the world and Vietnam was just heating up. The Berlin airdrop was still recent history and he was going to fight the good fight against the Commies, you know? " Lee was nodding along, still not looking at her – it was obviously all in the file in front of him but she plunged on. "But seeing the misery people were living in in Asia got him all fired up to want to do something about it, and then when Bobby Kennedy was killed, he left the army and enrolled in grad school in International Studies at UVA and then went on to study international law at Georgetown. I met him in 1969."

"And?"

"And… what? He was an amazing guy – smart, funny, he was going to save the world, – what wasn't to like? He had money and a fast car and my mother was thrilled I was going to marry a lawyer. And he was over 21, so he could buy the booze for the sorority parties." She left off the part where her mother hadn't realized until they'd met that Joe was as close to her age as he was to Amanda's. That had been an interesting dinner, but, needless to say, Joe had charmed her mother completely. Even her father had been won over despite himself.

"Yeah, well, 30 was definitely over 21." She looked up at the disapproving tone and couldn't help smiling a little. It never failed to amaze her that Lee seemed to forget that she'd had a life before they'd met, an actual life with boyfriends, a marriage, and children who had not just appeared under a cabbage leaf, no matter what he thought.

"Anyway, what does that have to do with trying to figure out where he is? Knowing his age isn't going to help us find him any faster," she said reprovingly.

"No, I suppose not," he'd agreed grumpily and gone back to reading his files.

That hadn't been the end of it, of course, because he was definitely still in terrier mode, and the next thing she knew, he'd been deep into their divorce statements and questioning why they'd divorced in the first place, a topic she'd never wanted to talk to him about in a million years and which certainly had nothing to do with finding Joe, no matter what he said. She could tell he was just snooping; it almost seemed like he was jealous, which was ridiculous, but it did appear that he'd only just figured out how little she'd ever told him about her life before that day in the train station.

But even for Lee, her divorce was off limits. Everyone had something in their life they were ashamed of and that failure was hers. She'd listened to too many other women complaining about their exes, denouncing them for infidelity or too little alimony or the custody arrangements and she'd vowed never to cast Joe in a bad light. She knew the other women thought she was stand-offish for never dishing the dirt on her ex the way they did so gleefully, but the one thing she owed Joe was loyalty and she simply wouldn't do it. It could have been done so easily, on the bad days when she needed encouragement, to fish for sympathy by acting the martyr, but she never had, not even to her mother – especially to her mother. Not just for the boys' sake, because inevitably, that would have gotten back to them, but also because she knew she had no one to blame but herself. She'd gone into marriage wilfully blind, ignoring every warning sign, and when it had ended, she'd been left with nothing but her boys, a broken heart and a bottomless well of self-doubt.

She couldn't share that with Lee. The one thing he had ever said he really admired about her was her ability to read people – how could she tell him her marriage had been doomed from the start because she had misread the one person in the world she should have known the best?

Thank goodness for Shamba arriving when he did. He was an odd duck, but at least he'd interrupted an uncomfortable conversation.


She'd been nervous but firm back in the Q Bureau, dodging his questions about her marriage. He had to admit, his feelings were a bit hurt that she wouldn't discuss it with him. She'd certainly done her best to pry into every aspect of his past in the past two years, he thought grumpily, it was unbelievable that when the tables were turned, she was clamming up like a pro. But boy, was she ever; he shows the slightest interest in her past and she's shaking it off and making it clear she had no intention of telling him anything, pretending to be sidetracked by Joe's ES12 and when that didn't work, just outright telling him to butt out.

Stubborn, he thought. Oh yeah, you're stubborn alright, Amanda King.

And what was that business with Mrs. MacDonald back at the boarding house when she'd practically jumped on the woman to keep her from saying anything about the old days?

"Why did you keep his last name?" he asked without thinking. They were walking from the boarding house to Dooley's and the question was out before he even knew he'd been thinking it.

"What?" she'd turned to him, startled.

"Why didn't you go back to West after the divorce? Why are you still Mrs. King?"

"Oh!" She thought about that for a minute – he got the impression that she was debating with herself if this was another move in his part to dig into her personal life. "Well, I'd been Amanda King for ten years at that point and it meant I still had the same last name as the boys. It was hard on Phillip when the divorce happened because he remembered Joe better, you know? And I think it would have upset him if I'd suddenly stopped being Amanda King because it would have seemed like I was rejecting part of him and Jamie. And it wasn't like I hated the name or anything – Joe and I are still friends so there wasn't any real reason to, I guess."

"What if you marry again? Will you change it then?"

Amanda gave a snort of laughter. "Marry again? Marry one of these vast hordes of guys lining up to marry the single mother-of-two who can't say what she really does for a living, you mean? I don't think that's going to a problem for me."

"Well, you never know," he answered lightly. "Duffy's had a crush on you for a while."

"Duffy's got a crush on my chocolate chip cookies," she reprimanded him. "The closest thing I've had to a date in months was Alan Chamberlain trying to have a fling with a Midwest dental hygienist."

"Our opera date was nice," he reminded her, trying not to feel hurt.

"Oh, of course it was," she said instantly, laying a hand on his arm soothingly. "I love our evenings out – I meant date-dates."

He bit back the retort he wanted to make, that he thought their evenings together were date-dates, but this was hardly the time or place – when she was obviously frazzled and inattentive and in the middle of hunting down her international fugitive of an ex-husband. Again, he found himself asking a question without thinking it through.

"Why did the landlady ask if you and Joe had ever gotten married? You said you got married the year before he started law school."

"Ah, well," said Amanda with a guilty expression. "She didn't know we were married – no one here did. It was kind of a secret."

"Kind of a secret? Didn't you have Phillip by then? That must have been kind of a hint to people, surely?"

"Well, our family and friends knew, obviously," she answered. She peeked sideways at him, as if trying to gauge his reaction. "But Georgetown gave preferential treatment to applicants who were single – they thought families would distract them from their studies – so he just didn't mention it on his application…"

"And no one ratted him out for having a wife and kid?" asked Lee incredulously.

"Like I said, no one at Georgetown knew for the first year," she answered. "Joe lived at the boarding house and Phillip and I lived in Richmond with Mother and Daddy and we got together when we could. After that first year, once he was established in the law program and they couldn't do anything about it, I moved up here and Joe found the apartment on 17th. It was a bit cramped, but at least we were together and then by the time Jamie came along, he was graduating and starting work at the EPA and well, you know the rest."

No, I don't – you won't tell me the rest, he thought resentfully. But now he really wanted to meet Joe King – what kind of man could have married Amanda and not have wanted to shout it from the rooftops?


Okay isn't good enough for you.

Right now though, he'd settle for simply knowing she was okay, but all he could hear were the gunshots and all his wondering about her past was gone as he tried to slow his racing heart and figure out where she was. Another shot rang out behind him and he turned, tearing open the back door of the library and pounding up the stairs. A hundred scenarios were racing through his head. What if Joe had killed her? Maybe he went off the deep end and killed the Prime Minister and now he'd lured Amanda out and…

He slid quietly into the library, gestured to the terrified woman on the floor to get out and began pacing into the room, hardly breathing as he tried to get a clear shot at the gunman, a man he could at least clearly see wasn't Joe King. But stopping to help the librarian cost him the element of surprise and whoever it had been was gone.

"Amanda?"

"Here!"

Oh thank God.


Harmless. God help him, that was the first thing he thought when there was finally a moment where they felt safe enough to size each other up. He'd seen the ID photo in the file, so he knew what Joe looked like, but the government-issued ID picture hadn't done justice to what a nice ordinary guy he seemed. Lee was used to most people being shorter than him, but for some reason, he'd thought Amanda's type was more quarterback and less debate team captain. More like me, said the annoying little voice in his head. There was something about this guy that bothered him though if he could just place it – a gnawing unfamiliar feeling in his gut that made him uncomfortable.

Despite that, his second thought was that Amanda was absolutely right: Joe King was innocent. Even if it hadn't been obvious that someone was trying to kill him, the guy just exuded the same kind of innate goodness that Amanda did. Lee revised his first impression slightly – Joe was no debate team nerd; now that it was calmer he could see the control Joe was flexing, and the sheer physicality of his presence. He was probably often underestimated, but Lee was pretty sure he wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a fight with him. He could tell Joe was sizing him up just as thoroughly and he didn't think it was coincidence that Joe had positioned himself between him and Amanda – it's exactly what he would have done. Joe might be innocent of the Prime Minister's murder, but he'd been living in dangerous places long enough that he didn't automatically trust someone, especially when that someone was armed and was part of a search team looking to arrest him. No, Joe's instincts were smart – and in any other circumstances, Lee would have liked him right away.

He squared his shoulders, put on his best agent mask and began to question him. He knew what his gut was telling him, but he also knew the powers that be would want evidence and a logical reason not to ship Joe back to Estoccia on the next military transport. It was safest if Joe didn't figure out the connection between him and Amanda so he continued to play it as if he wasn't completely convinced, glancing at Amanda apologetically and relieved that she seemed to read him instantly.

He started to walk away, unable to help glancing back, sorry that he had when Joe had turned to look at Amanda and taken her hand and smiled. That's when he saw it, the something that had been gnawing at him, and his heart broke a little for the second time that day.

A running man only runs two ways: away from something or toward something.

Oh crap. Joe King had run straight to Amanda. He was looking at her like he was a shipwrecked sailor and she was … safe harbor. His throat closed up and suddenly he couldn't get out of there fast enough.