Chapter 20

            "She was a Chinese assassin from Hong Kong," Victor tossed his empty beer bottle into the garbage can and dropping the lid back down upon it. "Began as a prostitute and moved up when one of her customers got a little rough and she killed him. She was part of a string of girls belonging to a fairly powerful Hong Kong crime lord who went by the same alias. The big man saw potential in her, and covered up the murder. Then he sent her to school. He had her trained in guns, martial arts, poison …explosives --whatever he could think of."

            "A regular black widow," Sturgis observed.

            Galindez nodded. "Something like that. When the British turned Hong Kong back over to the Chinese in '99, the whole place went up for grabs. The real Black Dragon was ruined financially and killed in the turf wars that broke out between the crime lords on the island and the ones on the main land who were looking to expand their territory. The woman was smart, and she got out without being noticed. Apparently took a little slice of her employer's pie when she went. –Along with his name. No outside of Hong Kong had really seen the Black Dragon, but they had heard of him and she capitalized on the reputation. She moved to Bangkok, picked up a job here and there, started a little smuggling ring and began branching out. Her mother had been Korean and she had an eye for opportunity and a few good contacts, so she took up blockade running, smuggling refugees and goods back and forth across the border. Plus she still had some of her contacts in China, so she didn't have much trouble getting in and out of North Korea."

            "Why do you think she did it?" Sturgis asked.

            Galindez shrugged. "For the money, probably. She was on everybody's payroll. Ours, the North Koreans, even the ANSP." He smiled at Turner's blank look. "The Agency on National Security Planning --South Korean intelligence," he clarified.

            "Oh," Sturgis said.

            "After the British left Hong Kong, she was pretty bitter with the Communists. She was perfectly willing to sell the North Koreans arms and supplies, but she only sold her information to the South Koreans."

            Galindez tilted his head thoughtfully. "Webb never could prove it, but he's always suspected she was working for the South Koreans on that one. He figured that when she was approached by Rabb, she took wind of it to the South Koreans and they had her pursue it. Granted, they were our allies, but they aren't always long on trust and they were worried about how much of a threat a captured American intelligence agent could cause. Clay always believed they paid her to pull the trigger." He smiled grimly. "I guess they didn't want us talking out of school."

            "That would make sense," Turner admitted. However, he was privately thinking that it might not be the only explanation.

He couldn't help but think of the missing money. As the executor of Harm's will, it had fallen to him to settle the estate. It was a job that had been made more difficult than usual when it came to balancing out the bank accounts. The day after the date that had been officially recorded by the navy as Harm's death, a sum of nearly twenty-five thousand dollars had been drawn out of one of Harm's savings accounts in Honolulu and transferred to a bank in Bangkok. He had tried to track the money, thinking that perhaps one of Harm's bank cards had been stolen and was being used illicitly. However, the money had already been transferred from Bangkok to Hong Kong and from there it had disappeared. It occurred to him now that there was another party other than the South Koreans who might have hired the woman. Perhaps in the end, Harm had worried that he'd asked too much of his friends.

            A heavy thud echoed on the access door of the garage, causing both men to start.

            "Hey, you guys still down here?" Bud's voice was slightly muffled and a little curious. "Bobbie says the food's getting cold, and they want to leave for the cemetery soon."

            The door handle rotated slightly, then stopped and Sturgis breathed a sigh of relief for remembering to throw the lock.

            "Guys?" Bud called again.

            Sturgis traded a quick look with Galindez and glanced at Webb's car. It was still hardly presentable. "Uh…yeah, hang on just a second."

            Motioning furiously, he yanked the dust cover from the Corvette and tossed and end to Victor, who helped him carry it across the garage and drape it across Webb's car, effectively shielding it from view. Hitting the lights, he darkened the stall in which the Mercedes was parked and flipped another switch, illuminating the bay in which the classic, cherry red 1966 Corvette Stingray sat. Only then did he reach over and open the door to admit Bud.

            "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "Victor and I got talking cars and lost track of time."

            Bud's eye was immediately drawn to the gleaming red muscle car. "Wow," he said softly. "Captain Rabb's Corvette..." he approached it slowly, shaking his head as his eye traveled over the sleek, slightly curved lines. "I'd forgotten you had it."

            Victor seemed to pale a bit at the mention of Rabb's name, but Bud didn't notice. His eyes were only for the car and he drew a little closer to peer into the gleaming black leather interior. "This car was his baby. He hardly ever drove it to work unless the weather was good. He mostly drove it on Saturdays, remember Gunny?"

            Galindez shook his head. "Actually, no." Galindez murmured. "I knew he had one, but I never saw it. He must not have finished restoring it until after I left JAG."

            Bud frowned as he considered this. "Yeah," he said at last. "I guess you're right." He looked to Sturgis. "You drive it much?"

            "Every now and then," Sturgis admitted.

            Actually, he hardly ever drove it, aside from the occasional tour around the block to keep the engine tuned. The fact of the matter was that driving it sometimes made him just a touch uncomfortable, as if the car still somehow belonged to Harm. Though he was loathe admitting it to anyone else, there were times when he slid behind the wheel that he felt Rabb's presence so strongly, he was afraid to look into the seat beside him for fear of what or who he might see. For a moment, standing there beside Galindez, he could almost picture Harm standing there beside it, leaning against the gleaming fender and fixing them with that same old cocky grin.

            Come on, Rabb would say, 'Let's take her for a spin. You know you want to.'

            And suddenly, he did want to. He shot a look at Galindez, and a slow smile spread across his mouth. "Actually," he said softly. "I was thinking of taking her out to the cemetery today. You want to go with?"

            Galindez hesitated.

            "I'll let you drive," Sturgis offered.

            Bud, who had turned to make his way out the door and back to the food had to pause at that. "Oh man, Gunny. You'd better take him up on that one. That's an offer nobody can refuse."

            Galindez stared at the car so intently that for a moment, Sturgis wondered if he couldn't see Rabb, too. "Yeah," Victor said at last. "Yeah, I'd really like that."

            Sturgis smiled gently. "I think maybe Harm would like it too."

***

            "I'm glad," Mac said at last, drawing nearer and stopping beside him. "I'm glad that you didn't do it, but…" she gestured to the grave. "It still doesn't explain all of this."

            She did not look at him, but kept her eyes firmly on the headstone as she spoke. "Bud spoke to the Navy coroner who processed the body when it came to Pearl. I know there's a body in this grave, Clay," she said quietly.  "And I also know that it isn't Harm." She drew a deep breath. "Who is it? Who did you bury here?"

            There was a long moment of silence as Clay seemed to struggle with the question. Then, with a tired sigh, he finally surrendered the last of the truth.

            "His name was Kim Hong-jin."

 ***

Ten Years earlier…

Somewhere over the South China Sea

            Incredibly, the chopper had managed to hold together to the rendezvous point, another scruffy looking warehouse in a dingy little industrial settlement that hovered somewhere between a town and a city. There, among stacks of crates and the smell of rotting fish and grain they were quickly transferred to a second helicopter, while the wounded Chinese bird was draped in camouflage and rolled into the warehouse. Twenty minutes out of the town, the boy finally came around. Galindez had done the best he could with the army field kit from the Chinese chopper, applying liberal dressings to the wound and feeding the kid some morphine but they both knew it wasn't enough. By the time they left the peninsula behind them and struck out across the open water towards the weighting freighter, the boy was coughing blood.

            "How bad is it?" Webb asked quietly.

            "Bad," Galindez replied. "He needs a hospital."

            "There is a doctor on the ship," the woman put in quietly. It was the first she had spoken since they had escaped from the prison camp, though she had handed them another bag filled with medical supplies when they had boarded the second chopper.

            "It won't be enough." Victor said. "The bullet tore him up pretty bad inside. He needs surgery, and he needs it now." He glanced at Webb. "Maybe we should have them take him back and drop him off someplace. We can leave some money to pay for it. His chances might be better."

            "No." Webb and the woman spoke, both in unison.

            "They'll be looking everywhere for us." Webb said. "We leave him somewhere and they'll be sure to get their hands on him, and anyone who tries to get him help. It's too dangerous."

            The woman nodded her agreement. "His chances will be better in Seoul. Even better if you can get him to an American doctor." Her face shifted slightly. "Medicine is different here in Asia. It is as much mystery as science. Even if you did get him to one of their hospitals, he would likely not survive."

            They had tried to make him as comfortable as they could and stretched him out across the deck of the chopper. Victor knelt beside him, adding dressings and maintaining pressure upon them, but it was of little use, the blood still seeped through. Webb had finally slid to the deck beside him and lifted the boy's head to rest against his knee, reaching down every now and then to check for pulse and heart rate. Not that it really did much good, but it was something to do, and it kept the image of Rabb from looping constantly through his head.

            The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom and the woman informed them that they were fifteen minutes from the freighter when the boy started coughing again. The blood was coming faster now, bright red arterial blood, and as Webb clutched tightly at the boy's shoulder's stabilizing his airway, he caught Victor's eye and saw the tiny shake of his head. It was too much. The tight rein he had been keeping upon his emotions finally snapped and he shook his head angrily.

            "No, damn it!" He grated, placing his hands tightly on either side of the boy's face and forced the frightened brown eyes to meet his. "Don't you quit on us now, kid. You've made this far, you can make it the rest of the way. Stay with us! You hear me?"

            The boy spat out another mouthful of blood and smiled weakly. "It all right," he rasped his voice so thin as to barely be heard above the muted thump of the rotor blades. "I know …Joe dead. …Can't keep promise." The boy struggled for a wheezing breath. "And I …don't want…to go back…"

            Clay frowned in confusion at the kid's words. "What's he talking about?"

            Victor smiled faintly. "It was the deal he made with Rabb. He told Rabb he'd set us up with the Dragon, but Rabb would have to do something big for him in return. He wanted Rabb to get him out of Korea and take him back to the States with him."

            Clay suddenly remembered what Rabb had said about the boy and looked back down into the kid's eyes, willing him to hang on. "He told me," Clay said firmly, "he told me about his promise to you and he asked me to keep it for him." He paused. "And I told him I would."

            The boy shook his head weakly. "No," he said faintly. "…He say it would be hard. ..He say he would have to fight. …And now he's dead." The boy smiled weakly. "I never go to America now."

            Webb glared back at him. "Are you kidding me? You saved my life, kid. You tried to help us save Rabb's. You're hero. There's no way they're going to turn away a hero. You're going to America Kim, and you're going to get a hero's welcome."

            The boy's face seemed to brighten a bit and a spark of hope seemed to ignite in his eyes. "Really?" he gasped. "I go to America?"

            "Yeah," Webb whispered, fighting to keep his voice steady. He could already see the light fading from the boy's eyes.

            "I get a hero's welcome?"

            Galindez reached for the kid's hand, giving it a hard squeeze. "With all the trimmings," he said firmly, though his eyes belied the confidence in his voice.

            The boy looked back to Webb. "Promise?" He asked faintly.

            Clayton Webb was a man who, as a rule, did not make promises. Sooner or later, he always feared he might have to break them. This time however, he was willing to make an exception.

            "Yeah kid," he said roughly, dimly aware of trembling in his voice and the painful knot in his throat. "I promise."

            The boy gazed at him steadily then, his mouth pulling back in a wide toothy smile.

            "You got a deal, Joe." He said.

            And then he was gone.

***

            "So you got him to America after all," Sarah said looking past her husband to Harm –no—Kim's grave.

            Clay nodded. "It was what the kid wanted." He shrugged. "It was what Rabb wanted. – It just wasn't quite the way either of them intended."

            He allowed a small twisted smile to quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Under the circumstances, I figured Harm wouldn't mind –and it had the added advantage of getting the Navy off our backs."

            "And me."

            He sighed. "I knew what it would do to you –and Sergei. The not knowing would have eaten you up inside. I thought that if there was a body to bury, a place for you to grieve, it might help."

            He paused, his eyes pleading with her to understand. "I just wanted to give you some closure."

            "I would have preferred the truth."

            "I was afraid of the truth," he admitted softly, and she knew he wasn't just talking about Korea anymore.

            She forced herself to meet his gaze, and saw something she had only ever seen in him once before, years ago, in a seedy little hotel in Ciudad del Este. It was uncertainty, mingled with a healthy dose of heartache. God, how long had they been doing this to each other? And why had she never noticed it until now? One way or the other, it had to stop.

            She allowed her eyes to flit to the grave and then back to his face. In that fraction of a heartbeat, his expression had hardened to stony resignation, like a condemned man awaiting his sentence. But she wasn't ready to pass judgment just yet. There was one more thing she needed to know.

            "What Penny said –about me wishing it had been you who died instead of Harm—you really believe that, don't you?" she whispered.

            He said nothing, merely dropped his head and closed his eyes, and from somewhere deep inside she felt the small, clean snap of her heart as it broke. –Whether for him or for herself, she wasn't sure.

            "How long, Clay?" she asked quietly. She was fighting hard now to control the tremor in her voice. "How long have you felt this way?"

            He laughed. It was a harsh rusty sound, like an old nail being pulled from a weathered board. "How long have we known each other, Sarah?"

            He drew a heavy breath and raked a hand through his hair, looking more lost and defeated than she had ever seen him.

            "I always knew I'd never be your first choice. Hell, if Rabb hadn't been such a commitment phobic idiot, we both know I'd never have stood a chance."

            She nodded slowly, accepting the truth of his words. "I loved him," she said simply. She refused to apologize for that.

            "You never stopped." There was more than a hint of accusation in his tone. He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. "Don't get me wrong, I knew what I was getting into. I wasn't so naïve as to think that that kind of feeling --the connection the two of you had-- could ever really go away. I guess I'm just grateful for what we did have."

            "Did?" she echoed softly.

            He smiled painfully. "Let's not kid ourselves, Sarah. I've always known this would change things between us. There's no sense in pretending that we can go back to the way things were before. Things are different now."

             She bit her lip. He was right about that. In truth, things had been different between them for some time. The only difference now was that she finally knew why. She honestly didn't know what hurt more: the fact that he had deceived her, or the knowledge that through all these years and all they'd been through together, he'd never really been certain of her love for him. She didn't even know who she was angrier at: him, for hiding these feelings from her for all these years, or herself for allowing him to believe such a thing.

One thing was certain: she couldn't deny her own guilt in this situation. God, even Penny had seen it. They were right. She had never really let Harm go. She had sacrificed the living on the altar of the dead.

But he had never really understood what lay between her and Harm. –The hell he didn't, she told herself viciously. The trouble was he understood it too well --maybe even better than she did herself. Why else would he allow her to come back here year after year and play the grieving widow to another man's memory? She wondered if the flowers he took to Singer weren't his own form of private retribution. If they were, she couldn't blame him. –And if they weren't… well, she was in no position to blame him for that, either.

"So where does this leave us?"
            His eyes were unreadable. "You tell me."

"You're right about this changing things between us," she said at last. She shook her head, her voice lowering to a whisper. "My God, --I've been such a fool. All these years…"

"Sarah—

She raised her hands, cutting him off. "No, Clay." She said firmly.  "No more. No more apologies and excuses.  It's too late for that."

She laughed tremulously. "You want to hear something truly ironic? I dreamed about Harm the other night –the night you had your heart attack. I dreamed that he asked me why I chose you instead of him. I told him it was because he could never let go, because he never really trusted me."

She was blinking furiously against the tears now, and through the misty sheen she could see that he had gone very still. She raised her hand to dash them away and saw the painful expression frozen upon his face. Good. She didn't want to be the only one dying here.

"Do you know why I married you, Clay? It was because I thought that you trusted me. I thought that you believed in me."

"I did," he said desperately. "I still do."

She shook her head, feeling the hot streaks of the tears as they dripped freely down her cheeks. "Then why couldn't you believe in my love?"

His shoulders slumped. He didn't have an answer for her. She had known that he wouldn't, but that didn't make it any less painful. Her knees suddenly felt like jelly, and she sank down to the immaculately manicured turf. She stared dully at the white marble headstone that bore Harmon Rabb's name. –Over the grave that held the body of a Korean boy named Kim. She had been such a fool. They both deserved better.

"I don't know if I can forgive you for this, Clay." She said quietly.

"I know."

A long silence followed before he finally worked up the courage to speak again. "Do you want me to leave?" He hesitated, and she really didn't register what he meant until he continued. "I will …if that's what you want. I can get a room at the Willard for tonight and come back for a few things tomorrow. I can stay at the farm until…."

"No." The word surprised even her. She could barely stand to look at him right now, and she kept her eyes glued to the gravestone before her as she spoke. "I'm mad as hell at you right now, but running away from this won't solve anything. It won't change the fact that we've hurt each other terribly. ---And it won't change the fact that even though you've been an ass, I still love you."

The breath he had been holding left his lungs in an audible whoosh and he dropped to his knees beside her. His eyes locked desperately with hers, seeking proof of her words. Even now, he still doubted.

"I love you, Clay." She repeated softly. "I always did. Why can't you believe that?"

He put a hand to her cheek and wiped at the thin trail of tears. He stared at her for a long moment, and she saw the tears shimmering in his own eyes. "I'm trying, sweetheart," he whispered. "Believe me, I'm trying."

He cupped her face between his hands and pressed his forehead into hers as he drew a long, shaky breath. "Do you think," he said at last, his voice tentative, "if I apologize and grovel and spend the rest of my life making it up to you… Do you think we might be able to work our way past this?"

She sniffed and shook her head, rocking it gently against his. "I don't know," she said honestly. "Ten years, Clay. That's more than half of our marriage…. It's no small thing."

He closed his eyes and nodded his understanding. The tears were running freely down his own cheeks now. He pulled his hands away from her face and dropped them down upon his knees, clenching them into fists.

"I won't blame you," he choked out, "—If you decide… if we can't make it work.  Just …just tell me what you want and whatever it is, I'll do it." He paused, and drew a raspy breath, summoning every ounce of his courage as he leveled his gaze upon hers. "I know I don't deserve your forgiveness," he said hoarsely, "and I've no right to ask… but it won't stop me from hoping."

This time, it was she who braced his cheeks between her palms, stroking away the tears. "I just don't know, Clay," she said softly. "I don't know if I can, but I know I have to try. This isn't just about you and me anymore. There's Penny to think of, too."

He rocked slowly forward, like a tall tree falling and dropped his head to her shoulder, burying his face against her neck. She felt the tremor that shook his shoulders, and ran a cautious hand through his hair, stroking along the back of his neck and soothing him …soothing herself.

"Forgive me, Sarah. Please." His voice was muffled against the hollow of her throat.

She closed her eyes and pressed her head more tightly to his, seeking comfort in the fierce contact. "I'll try, Clay" she whispered. "I'll try."

***

They walked slowly, side by side through the long, endless rows of white marble. They did not touch or speak. The wound between them was still too fresh and painful for that. By a mutual, unspoken agreement, they had not yet returned to the party. Neither was prepared to face the probing questions or curious glances of their friends. Neither one knew what on earth they were going to say to their daughter when they did go back. And though they both craved the solitude and this time to collect themselves, neither one of them wanted to be alone.

Clay had allowed Sarah to set the pace and direction, immersing himself in his own thoughts as she struck out from Harm's grave and headed into the older parts of the cemetery. They walked slowly along the shady, paved roads, cutting along the back of Arlington House, past the old Amphitheater and winding along towards the new one. He noted the landmarks absently as they passed them: the Main Mast, The Challenger Memorial…the Columbia… and then slowly made their way back to the newer sections. Still, the realization didn't really sink in until she suddenly stopped among an innocuous crop of uniform white stones and he looked down to see the bundle of flowers at his feet.

Yellow roses and Forget Me Nots.

He stood there, dumbfounded for a moment, staring down at the flowers. Belatedly, he became aware that Sarah had backed away, giving him some space, and he slowly knelt and fingered the small bouquet.

I told you I would come. He thought the words defiantly to the grave stone, and once again remembered her words so ironically spoken from the depths of his dream.

You are a man of your word.

After a moment, he rose to his feet, his eyes still fixed upon the flowers.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "—for setting the flowers out. I know she wasn't your favorite person."

She smiled faintly, but her brown eyes were guarded. "I'd like to think that I'm big enough not to hold grudges against the dead." She shrugged. "Besides, I knew it was important to you. The lady at the flower shop said you'd been ordering these for quite a while."

"Eighteen years," he said softly, remembering that first time he'd walked into Violette's flower shop, a little drunk, a lot dazed, and still wondering just what in the hell he was doing there.

He saw the impact of his words as they tightened across her face. Another secret kept from her. —Another type of betrayal. This time, she couldn't quite manage to keep her face impassive.

"Did you love her?"

It wasn't the first time she'd asked him that, but it was the first time he sensed her doubt. He hated the fact that he'd so shaken her faith in him that she was compelled to ask it again.

"No," he said heavily, staring down at the roses. "But it might have been easier if I had. I would have noticed when she disappeared. I wouldn't have felt so guilty about it."

He looked up into her eyes. "You haven't asked me why."

She shook her head. "I wasn't sure I had the right. You've let me take flowers to—

She broke off abruptly. Harm's grave wasn't really Harm's grave. She tightened her jaw and plunged on. "You let me bring flowers here all these years, and you never said a word."

He scowled at her. "He was my friend too, Sarah."

And you let him die for you.

The words hung unspoken between them, and he felt his stomach clench. God, he couldn't believe she was still standing here. Maybe she really did love him after all. But it couldn't last, he told himself. She was just in shock. Sooner or later, she would come to her senses …and then she would leave. It was going to kill him to let her go.

"So why did you?" Her voice surprised him from his reverie, and he glanced up at her in confusion.

"What?"

She scowled at him impatiently. "If you didn't love her, why did you bring her flowers all these years? Was it because of the baby?"

He stared at her blankly for a moment. "Yes," he said at last, "…and no…"

He let his gaze fall back to the grave stone and slowly sweep along down the long endless line of pristine white stones that covered the sweeping hillsides and sheltered beneath the ancient trees for as far as the eye could see. When he finally spoke, it was with that particular lilt that told her he was quoting from some arcane passage that had drifted up from his nearly perfect memory.

"To ignore a cemetery is to ignore a truth about life: At the end, we leave, hoping to be remembered."

She moved to his side and looked down at the gravestone. "You wanted her to be remembered," she said softly.

He nodded. "It bothered me," he confessed. "She wasn't the easiest person to like, but I didn't like to think of her lying here forgotten. I knew that if I didn't remember her, no one else would." He paused. "I always felt that I owed her at least that much."

She thought of Harm, lying half a world away in some unmarked grave, and of the boy, resting just over the hillside beneath a name that was not his own. They deserved to be remembered too. For all the deceit that Clay had perpetrated in this act, she could not deny that there was a sort of justice to it.

Without the boy's body to bury in his place, Harm would have had no monument to mark his passing. They didn't build memorials for men who died in clandestine wars, and if they did, they put them where the world would never see them.

By the same token, it was likely that the boy would not have had a grave at all. She knew that without Clay's insistence, the CIA would have been all too tempted to easily rid themselves of the burden with a simple burial at sea, rather than going to the trouble of explaining to the Republic of South Korea exactly why they were returning the dead body of one of its juvenile citizens. And even if they had returned him to South Korea, it would have been to a pauper's grave, if the government had decided a homeless street boy even merited a grave at all. At least here, Clay had seen that the boy had been consigned by a hero's burial to a hero's grave. She could not fault him entirely for that, for there was no doubt in her mind that Kim Hong-jin had been a hero. He had risked his life to follow Harm to the end. And –like Harm—he had met that end saving Clay's life.

The realization muted her anger somewhat, but it didn't resolve the problems that lay between her and Clay. The damage that had been done had little to do with Harm's death and the secrets surrounding it. It had a great deal to do with the trust that she had thought to be the bedrock of their relationship. He hadn't had faith in her love for him. He hadn't trusted her to forgive him. –And now, she wasn't sure that she could.

But that would have to keep for another day. She didn't have the strength to tackle it now. Besides, they still had the party to face …and Penny.

"You're right," she said finally. "You do owe it to her." She looked out over the cemetery at the thousands upon thousands of little white stones. "We owe it to all of them."

She thought of Harm and the boy, Singer and the child, of the Admiral…and Tim Fawkes …and the vast thousands of American dead that lay beneath them in this sacred ground. Looping her arm through his, she gently turned him back towards the parking lot.

In the distance, she saw the brilliant red '66 Corvette as it turned into the visitor parking and slowed to cruise the lot in search of a place to park. Her throat constricted as she recognized the car, closely followed by Bud and Harriet's mini-van. The top was down on the 'Vette, and though she half-expected to see a handsome, grinning Navy Commander behind the wheel, she recognized the familiar figures of Sturgis and Victor.

"Looks like the gang's all here," Clay muttered.

"Yeah," she said softly and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "Let's go meet them."

Walking slowly, arm in arm, they picked their way around the graves. As they turned and made their way up the hillside after the small party that was starting to head for A.J. Chegwidden's grave, a bit of an old bible passage drifted through her mind. It was something about a time for every season. There had been a time for love, and a time for hate, a time for loss and time for tears. After all these years, the time for truth had finally come …and gone… and she imagined that somewhere down the road, there would be a time for forgiveness as well. But now was not that time.

Now was the time to remember.