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“I don’t know,” I said. “It was in the mail. Who do we know who would send a postcard from Hong Kong?”
Jack sighed and took the postcard and turned it over. It was blank except for six tally marks in the top left corner and our name and address in the center.
“Carver,” Jack said. “Carver got his wife and kids to Hong Kong.”
“Is that good?” I asked, confused. “How do you know?”
“The tally marks,” Jack said. “There are six of them. They’re all together. And yes, Hong Kong is good for a couple of reasons. The CIA has a large operation there. And they also don’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. It’s probably the safest place he and Michelle and the kids could be right now until they get the whole mess figured out.”
“Do you think they’ll figure it out?”
“I think it’s going to be very messy for some very important people,” Jack said. “I’ve known Carver a long time. I know him well enough to be sure that he’ll always do the right thing. And I know him well enough to guarantee that he doesn’t care about diplomacy. He’ll start leaking information so egregious that no one will be able to hide behind the normal political rhetoric. We just need to be ready with the popcorn.”
“I wish I knew what was going on,” I said. “He told me it all started with Floyd Parker.”
“Carver told you that?” Jack asked, arching a brow.
“Yeah, that day he was here. He said he discovered some things he wasn’t supposed to while he was digging into Floyd during the election.”
Jack shrugged. “Carver’s a big boy. He’ll get it all sorted out. And he’ll stay in touch one way or another so we know he’s okay. Besides, we’ve got our own lives to sort out.”
“I’m ready to have a baby,” I blurted out.
Jack looked like someone had punched him between the eyes. “Right now?”
“I mean I’m ready to start trying,” I said. “It’s time. If we keep waiting and working cases we’ll never have a family. What we do will never get easier, and the world is not going to slow down and get less crazy. But we can control the level of crazy we allow into our lives.”
“Okay,” Jack said, his gaze direct and serious.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Just okay?”
“I’ve always wanted children with you,” he said. “I was just waiting on you to realize you wanted children with me.”
“I never thought I’d be a good mom,” I said, shrugging. “I didn’t exactly have the best example. And I’ll probably screw up a lot. But I trust you, and I know you won’t let me screw it up too bad. This last case scared me. We both could have died. I keep wondering how much longer we’ll be able to cheat death.”
It wasn’t as easy to admit that as I thought it would be. “I’ve come close to death before, but at that point in my life I didn’t have quite so much to lose. We’ve got to be more careful. You’re the sheriff. You don’t have to be on every crime scene. That’s why you have detectives. And my job is to show up on the scene after the danger is gone. It’s been fun solving crimes together. But you’re getting burned out and I’m starting to wonder what our purpose is. Maybe it’s time to take a break and just do the jobs we’re supposed to do and come home at the end of the day.”
Jack leaned his arms on the bar and dropped his head. I didn’t like not seeing his face or his reaction to what I had said. It had probably felt like a bombshell had been dropped. Then he pushed up and grabbed my hand.
“Let’s make a deal,” Jack said. “We’ll start trying for a baby.” He winked at me and said, “I’ve got the next couple of hours free.”
“Romantic,” I said.
“You want romance or you want to make a baby?” he asked.
I laughed and shook my head, tucking my hair behind my ear. He could always make me laugh.
“I want both,” I said.
“Fortunately you’re married to a man who can do both.” He rubbed his thumb over the simple band on my finger and said, “Here’s the deal. When you get pregnant, you become just a coroner and funeral home director and I become just the sheriff, and we clock out at regular times and have all of our weekends free. We give this kid as normal of a life as possible, and try not to make her neurotic about stranger danger and social awareness.”
“Her?” I asked.
“I want a girl first,” he said.
“First?”
He just smiled.
