Page 80 of Code 6

“Your wife came to see me,” said Sandra. “She was jealous of me.”

“No kidding. She made that nine-one-one revenge call just to spite me.”

“This was a different kind of jealousy. It had nothing to do with what she thought had happened between us. She was jealous because she’d had a front-row seat for all I’d gone through with you, your company, the FBI, the Justice Department. And now prison. It boggled her mind that I never cracked. I was so strong, and she felt so weak.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her never to compare your inside to someone else’s outside.”

The words hung in the air between them. It was one of the reasons he’d found it so easy to talk to Sandra. She was more than just a good listener. She’d helped him simplify things, without all the psychobabble. It reminded him of the way things had once been with Elizabeth.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” he said. “How did you know what was in the note?”

“Detective Anderson from Fairfax Police visited me.”

The answer didn’t surprise him. “When?”

“More than a month ago. He wanted to know if you were abusive to Elizabeth and if that was why she killed herself.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth. I said he couldn’t be farther off track with that theory. Then he told me about the note and asked me what I thought it meant.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Far less than I could have,” she said.

“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”

She sat forward and leaned into the table, looking him straight in the eye. “I knew immediately it wasnota suicide note.”

The room suddenly felt ten degrees colder. “You ‘knew’ because you’re a psychiatrist, or—”

“Iknew.”

He studied her expression, staring right back at her. “Are you messing with me?”

“Not in the least.”

“You need to give me more.”

“Why should I?” she asked, her tone turning sarcastic. “Because I owe you so much for the way you courageously rallied to my defense?”

“There was nothing I could say in your defense. You used my credentials to access classified areas of the Buck campus. The FBI all but caught you walking out the door with top-secret code.”

“It’s like I toldyourdaughter: I did it formydaughter.”

“I’d love for you to tell me exactly what ‘it’ is?”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Why not?”

“If I told you, it would take all the urgency out of bringing Patrick Battle home, safe and sound.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, now that your wife is dead, Patrick is the only person other than me who can tell you what‘it’is.”

---