pours out of her nose and throat. From deep within comes the death rattle, followed by a gentle sigh, as her soul, free at last, escapes its tortured confines....
Smith shivered and looked around quickly. He didn't realize that he had stopped walking. The rain continued to drum on the umbrella, but it seemed to fall in slow motion. He thought he could hear every drop as it spattered off the nylon.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there, like an abandoned, forgotten statue, or what finally made him take a step. He didn't know how he came to be on the path that led to her grave or how he found himself standing in front of it.
SOPHIA RUSSELL
NOW IN THE SHELTER OF THE LORD
Smith leaned forward and ran his fingertips across the smooth top of the pink-and-white granite headstone.
"I should have come more often, I know," he whispered. "But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I thought that if I came here, I would have to admit that I've lost you forever. I couldn't do that... until now.
" 'The Hades Project.' That's what they called it, Sophia, the terror that took you away from me. You never saw the faces of the men who were involved; God spared you that. But I want you to know that they have paid for their crimes.
"I had my taste of revenge, my darling, and I believed that it would bring me peace. But it did not. For months I have been asking myself how I might earn that serenity; in the end, the answer was always the same."
From his jacket pocket, Smith took out a small jeweler's box. Opening the lid, he stared at a six-carat, marquis-cut diamond in a platinum setting that he had picked out at Van Cleef & Arpel in London. It was the wedding ring he had intended to slip on the finger of the woman who would have become his wife.
Smith crouched and pushed the ring into the soft earth at the base of the headstone.
"I love you, Sophia. I will always love you. Your heart is still the light of my life. But it is time for me to move on. I don't know where I'll go or how I'll get there. But I must go."
Smith brought his fingertips to his lips, then touched the cold stone.
"May God bless you and look after you always."
He picked up the umbrella and took a step back, staring at the headstone as though imprinting its image in his mind for all time. Then he heard the soft footfall behind him and turned around fast.
The woman holding the black umbrella was in her mid-thirties, tall, with brilliant red hair pulled back in a ponytail. A spray of freckles dotted her nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes, green like reef waters, widened when she saw Smith.
"Jon? Jon Smith?"
"Megan...?"
Megan Olson walked up quickly, took Smith's arm and squeezed it.
"Is it really you? My God, it's been..."
"A long time."
Megan looked past him at Sophia's grave. "I'm so sorry, Jon. I didn't know that anyone would be here. I didn't mean to intrude."
"It's all right. I did what I came to do."
"I guess we're both here for the same reason," she said softly.
She drew him under the shelter of a massive oak and looked at him keenly. The lines and creases on his face were deeper than she remembered, and there was a host of new ones. She could only imagine the kind of year Jon Smith had endured.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Jon," she said. "I wish I could have told you that sooner." She hesitated. "I wish I had been here when you needed someone."
"I tried calling but you were away," he replied. "The job..."
Megan nodded ruefully. "I was away," she said vaguely.
Sophia Russell and Megan Olson had both grown up in Santa Barbara, had gone to school there, then on to UCLA. After college, their paths had diverged. Sophia had gone to complete her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology and had joined USAMRIID. After receiving her master's in biochemistry, Megan had accepted a position at the National Institutes of Health. But after only a three-year tenure she had switched to the medical research division of the World Health Organization. Sophia had received postcards from all over the world and had pasted them in a scrapbook as a way to keep track of her globe-trotting friend. Now, without warning, Megan was back.
"NASA," Megan said, answering Smith's unspoken question. "I got tired