Recollection Rick
Chapter 37
Mentally ordering her body to relax, Kate settles into Rick's willing arms. She was only an observer on the raid on Hamed's warehouse, but the quantity of PETN and bomb-making materials they found was enough to terrify her. Visions of falling towers still rip through her mind.
The thought of being home in the safety of her husband's embrace was almost irresistible, but she made sure of one thing before leaving Fallon to mop up. Husayn will be hers or rather the city of New York's, to stand trial for Myra Forshuck's murder. D.H.S. will do whatever it does with al-Ruqai and his terrorist nest. Kate's not sure she even wants to know what that will be. But her case is fully tied up.
The N.Y.P.D. will be paying her in comp time, and she will welcome the opportunity to recharge. Lily seems to have grown every time Kate sees her, even if it's only after the length of a long day. Rick mentioned that the baby's moved up another diaper size. Kate should be more than a milk machine. She's missing too much. She's even feeling good about taking the next few changing sessions – the next one, anyway. The detached sensation that precedes sleep is beginning to loosen the tension in her muscles. Her lids drift over her eyes.
Upstairs, Dana is sleeping anything but soundly. As physically removed from it as he is, the situation on the Hudson campus is unsettling. He knows his father understands more about it than he does and is equally aware that the P.I. will keep what he knows to himself. Having Alexis on the other side of a wall isn't the easiest thing in the world either. He virtually slaps himself whenever he thinks of taking advantage of the arrangement, but her scent pervades the loft, evoking subconscious responses over which he has no control. His fingers and toes are crossed that he'll snag the Lee award and be able to afford his own place.
As busy as Dana is with classes and his project, the time until the winner's announcement is dragging. This night is dragging. As a four-year-old, Dana had night terrors. They vanished as he got older, but he still rarely sleeps through until morning. His mind runs through the steps of the analyses he can start the next day. The familiar routine gradually lulls him into slumber.
"Except for Lily, alone at last!" Rick declares as the time on his watch clicks over to nine o'clock. "Mother never strolled in last night, but she's been cozying up to her new leading man. She says he's a major hit on her graydar. So unless we get an emergency call, I don't think there's anything to worry about. I hesitate to start another 'What do you want to do today?' conversation. "Lately, they haven't always worked out as well as we would have liked, although the veg day was pretty good."
"Yeah, it was," Kate recalls. "And right now, I wouldn't mind another one. I'm tired – and a little frustrated. My whole operation with Fallon has been classified, so the city will never know how close it came to disaster. I can't even tell you any more than I have."
"That sounds like something my father would say," Rick mutters. "And I'll bet that if he's the one who delivered your murderous package, he'll never take credit for it, or even mention it."
"He has my sympathy," Kate confides.
"I'm beginning to develop a little for him myself," Rick confesses. "But please, let's change the subject. If we have absolutely no plans, I want to try Chef Auchincloss's recipe for giant cookies."
Kate's eyebrows take an upward leap. "He didn't give that to you, did he?"
"Not exactly," Rick admits. "I watched him make them while Lily was napping in the crib we set up at Imagination Patch. I believe I committed his moves to memory."
"I guess we'll find out when you try to repeat them," Kate responds.
"Then you're OK with my plan?" Rick queries.
"As long as you don't call it a plan, fine."
Her lips pressed in a grim line; Professor Gilly studies a printout of the analysis of the sewage from the university. Bart Wygard's people posed as environmental monitors to pull samples. Checking the outflow is a much faster – and quieter – method of monitoring drug usage on campus than testing individual students. She had expected to see an uptick of opioid metabolites. There is one, but not as much as she expected. That's both good and bad news.
Most of the drugs the frat boys were dealing didn't end up on campus, but they managed to distribute them elsewhere. There are other peaks she finds worrisome, chemicals often listed merely as ingredients in fragrances. One, in particular, dibutyl phthalate, is especially disturbing. It's a known endocrine disruptor for wildlife and doesn't appear to be good for humans either. The levels of mercury in the sample are pushing safe limits as well.
Gilly suspects that what she sees are contaminants from toiletries of questionable origin. Many of the country's cheap imports arrive on shelves unanalyzed, with budget-conscious students acting as unwary test subjects. If the results she sees appear in the analyses from Dana and Alexis's project, their conclusions may impact more than forensics. And if she instructs them to widen their chemical testing range but doesn't tell them why, the project can serve as a blind control of sorts. After she examines their analyses, she can consider further steps.
"I don't know what happened," Rick laments, regarding a cookie that he had cut out as a sprightly elf, now looking like it seriously went off its diet.
Kate breaks off a piece and pops it in her mouth. "Tastes really good, kind of sweet and buttery." She grabs another sample and presses it between Rick's lips.
He closes his eyes as he dissects the flavors. "You're right. This is sweeter and richer than the ones Chef makes. His look perfect, but they don't taste as decadent. Maybe he threw in extra flour to make them hold their shape and I missed it. Mine wouldn't make a very tempting display at the register. But seeing as we're not selling them, who cares? What could be better than sweet buttery cookies?"
"Curling up with sweet buttery cookies, hot chocolate, and the episodes I missed of Temptation Lane," Kate suggests.
A plaintive demand pours from Lily. Rick checks his watch. "It's about that time, Mama. Hey, I can start the hot chocolate – from scratch – while you provide a paler, if uniquely Beckett, beverage for our daughter. I'll even cue up the DVR."
"It's a deal," Kate agrees.
While tuned to a local station, Rick prepares to zip through the mass of recorded commercials that precede Kate's favorite soap opera. He pauses for a news flash. "Sources report that Hamed al-Ruqai, believed to be a terrorist, committed suicide while in custody this morning. He apparently tore strips from the scrubs he was wearing and used them to strangle himself after being arrested during what the Department of Homeland Security describes as an unsuccessful operation. Mark Fallon, the D.H.S. liaison to the N.Y.P.D., was unavailable for comment. No details concerning al-Ruqai have been officially released."
Rick wanders into the little nursery he had constructed adjacent to the loft's master suite. He hunkers down in front of the rocking chair where Kate is nursing Lily. "The very bad man you just stopped from doing terrible things wouldn't be named al-Ruqai, would he?"
Kate's eyes widen. "Where did you hear that name? Never mind. You know I can't tell you. Why?"
"The answer involves details I don't want to discuss in front of Lily. But according to the news, he's gone, Kate. If he was your bad guy, there's now one less in the world."
"There will be another one," Kate asserts. "There always is."
Rick strokes Lily's dark tresses with the tip of one large finger. "But not today."
