There was silence and then a quavering voice said, "I'm sorry, Tante. I promise not to sleep in your bed anymore, only please, please, don't shoot me!"

And after the fatigue fog had been dealt with.

They were sitting on the couch with the curtains drawn aside, watching childrenswarm the play structure on the other side of the courtyard. Their shrieks and shouts carried dimly through the glass.

"Try it again," Thomas said.

Patricia put her arms on his chest and said, "Thomas, I love you."

He sat bolt upright and looked wildly around.

She slugged him on the arm. "Very funny. Ho, ho, ho. It is to laugh."

He kissed her. "Face it, an alarmingly high percentage of the times you've told me that you love me, it's meant, 'Look out, we're about to die.' "

"We've given that up, though," she said.

He shook her slightly. "We never took it up in the first place. We think it's much better to find a path through life where people don't try to kill you. It was all those other crazy people who took it up."

She leaned against him. "And they're all behind bars."

"Most of them. We'll have to see who else is named."

He closed his eyes and breathed in, his nostrils against her hair. This was more like it. They'd slept. They'd eaten. They'd made love. And, just when he'd been about to go to work, he'd been called by Admiral Rylant and informed that the FBI was taking over the investigation, to eliminate any perception of conflicts of interest arising from an INS unit prosecuting INS personnel.

They still needed him, but as a witness, not as an investigator. He'd immediately put in his leave request.

"We could pick up Terminal Lorraine from BBINS for a honeymoon trip," he suggested to Patricia.

"They'll release it?"

He grinned darkly. "They'd better. Haven't you been watching the news?"

She blushed. "The public will forget soon enough. I hope to God."

The official press release went out from INS Washington. Thankfully, they'd realized a cover-up was impossible. Credit for stopping the destruction of the Abattoir had been given equally to Patricia Beenan, daughter of the eminent congresswoman, and Commander Thomas Becket of the INS.

There was movement in Congress to vote on Bill 853 even before the new members were sworn in and thanks to the Sycorax incident, it looked like it would pass.

Meanwhile, a police guard kept the press out of Patricia's hex, and the phone calls were being filtered by Toni."One more time," he said.

"Thomas, I love you."

He shook his head and sighed.

"What?"

"Just a tiny adrenaline rush. Really, it's nothing. I can take it. I'm tough."

She bit him.

"Ow!"

"You certainly are. I think it's your bachelor genes kicking in. You're trying to get out of marrying me."

He shook his head, crossed his heart with his right index finger, then pulled his thumb across his throat.

She laughed. "Cross you heart and hope to die? I do love you."

He slowly looked around, rising up slightly. "Okay. That wasn't bad at all. No torpedoes, no bombs, no guns, no knives, no little girls in the bed. Just don't stop saying it and perhaps, eventually, I'll get used to it. Okay?"

"Okay." She pulled the book onto her lap and indicated the place with her finger.

"Plight me the full assurance of your faith; that my most jealous and too doubtful soul may live at peace."

And he skipped the part about following the priest, going straight to, "-and go with you and, having sworn truth, ever... will... be... true."

Acknowledgments.

There are large amounts of Shakespeare sprinkled through the text, including quotes from The Tempest, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Life of King Henry the Fifth, and Romeo & Juliet, but mostly it's Twelfth Night. William Ernest Henley's "Invictus" has a brief appearance as does Lord Byron's "Sardanapalus." Certain minor events in the text were lifted from Dorothy L. Sayers's Busman's Honeymoon. Her fans will recognize them. More generally, the wonderful relationship between Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey was in my mind as I created Patricia Beenan and Thomas Becket.

If you're going to steal, steal from the best.I'm indebted to Rodolfo Gonzalez, jazz flautist, who helped me with the espanol in the text. Melinda Snodgrass, Sage Walker, Pati Nagle, and Sally Gwylan read the book in draft and had many helpful-"Women do not act like this, Steve!"-suggestions.

And I couldn't have written this without my constant reader, Laura J. Mixon.

Copyright 2000 by Steven Gould ISBN: 0-812-57109-6.