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As he explained this he tried in every way he could not to make her feel guilty. It was to no avail. She felt terrible that she might have put the case at risk. “I’m so stupid.” She declared, “I got so mad at you for not trusting me, and you were right.”

“No I wasn’t.” he lied diplomatically, “I handled that all wrong.” She felt terrible, and he felt terrible for making her feel that way. Lovelle always hated when he made a woman feel bad. But, this time felt different. He was really heartsick. And when he realized that, he felt better. Not because he was any less concerned for her, but because his deep concern for her indicated to him that he was actually going to be able to move on. That he could get over Katie. And not necessarily at some unknown point in the future, but possibly right then.

They cooled their heels for a few weeks and then the settlement offer came. It was no great bonanza, but it was fair. Her father displayed some good judgment and some empathy for his daughter and for the deputy that he knew was giving up his career for the case. He took the settlement and thanked Lovelle for stepping up to the plate for him.

Her father never said how he felt when he learned about the relationship. Lovelle never asked the man, but, he always wondered. As a couple, Lisa and Lovelle were very proactive in explaining the circumstances of their meeting. But Lovelle couldn’t help imagining that, at least for a time, her father questioned his motives. Lovelle certainly would have. But then, he was not exactly the trusting sort.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lisa and Lovelle became an official couple just in time for Trina’s wedding. Trina was ecstatic when he told her that he had a girlfriend.

“I thought you were going to miss our wedding.”

“Trina, I would never have done that to you. I would have hired an escort if I had to.” he kidded.

“You probably would have, you goof. Leave it to a cop to bring a prostitute to a reception.”

“I never said the word prostitute. Besides, I turned in my badge two days ago. I’m just your average unemployed citizen now.”

“Oh… yeah,” she said sympathetically, “I’m sorry. That’s gotta suck.”

“Don’t worry about it, I hated the job anyhow.”

“So who’s the girl?” she jumped topics happily “Where did you meet?”

“Her name’s Lisa. Her father was the one suing the department.” he answered.

She looked at him for a moment as if waiting for him to tell her that he was joking, and then realized he was serious. “Okay, that’s a little weird.”

“Believe me, for me this is not so weird.”

“This is the woman you rescued from her car?”

“I didn’t rescue anybody. If I had ever rescued anybody I might have wanted to keep the job. The only thing in real danger was her Grand Am.” He paused, but Trina just stared at him. Her eyes widened and she tilted her head as if to say
I’m waiting
.

“We just hit it off,” he replied to her gesture. “No ulterior motives. No damsel in distress falls for her knight in shining armor. It was a strange way to meet, but that’s all it was, the way we met.”

“So you’ve had a girlfriend all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, yeah. Everybody is so nice when they think you’re heart broken.” he teased. She gave him her cute angry look. “We didn’t go out until the case was settled.” he confessed. He filled her in on all the details, and when he was done she shrugged her shoulders, let out a heavy sigh, then said incredulously.

“And the whole time this was going on you didn’t bother to tell me anything about it? You always say I’m your best friend, but I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Of course you’re my best friend. There’s not exactly any competition for the job.” he joked.

“Gee thanks.” She quipped, “That’s real flattering.”

“Well, I’m not sure what it says about you. But it sure as hell isn’t very flattering for me.” He stopped to gather his thoughts, “Look, if the department’s lawyers had any inkling that there was something between us they would have started digging around for proof. Even though I know you would never have said a word, I wasn’t about to put you in a position of lying for me if someone else tipped them off.”

After that exchange they switched to more normal topics. She asked him the usual questions about Lisa. How old she was. Did he have a picture of her. What she did for work. Then she asked when she was going to get to meet her. “In a couple of weeks.” he answered.

“My wedding is in a couple of weeks.” She reminded him.

“Yeah, I know. That’s what I meant.”

“Oh no!” She shook her head, “I’m not gonna have time to get to know her at my reception. And I’m not waiting a month till I get back from my honeymoon. You're gonna have to do better than that mister.” She stomped her foot down for emphasis.

Trina was still as cute as a button, and in that moment Lovelle felt a pang of regret that he had let her get away. Then he was mad at himself for feeling it. He had been so concerned with getting over Katie he had just assumed that he would have no problem with Trina. But here he was with this really great girl in his life. She was someone who he was ready to give his heart to, without reservation, for the first time since he had re-entered this life, and he was still yearning for Trina. It wasn’t supposed to work out that way. When Katie had come along, he had never worried about Trina again. But, in that time around, Trina was in California when Katie entered his life. This time Trina was the principle figure in his life. Not only that, this time she had once made herself available to him.

Of course, this really wasn’t a serious conflict in his life. Even if he had wanted to go down that path, Trina had shut the door on that possibility long ago, and had never signaled any possibility of changing her mind. So this was just a little bit of remorse. It was mostly a matter of him being angry with himself for not being as committed and focused on Lisa as he wanted to be.

*****

Lovelle made the arrangements for dinner with Trina and Paul the weekend before the wedding. When he told Lisa she was a bit surprised at the timing. “Do you realize how busy she must be right now? Couldn’t you have done this after the wedding?”

“Not really. She sort of insisted.” Lovelle explained, not sure how exactly to characterize his relationship with Trina.

“Really? Is this some sort of inspection I have to pass?” Lisa wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. She was simultaneously a little irritated and a little concerned.

“Hardly.” Lovelle chuckled, “She just can’t wait to see what kind of saint would put up with me.”

The dinner went extremely well, sort of: Lisa and Trina got along great. There was an instant click. They weren’t even finished with the first dinner and a second was already planned for the week after the honeymoon. Lovelle wasn’t sure how he felt about this immediate closeness. Just as he had pulled back from his relationship with Trina out of respect for Paul, he now wanted that bit of distance for Lisa’s sake. But, he didn’t think he could express that to her. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to explain his feelings for Trina, so he would have to go along for the ride.

The second dinner went exceedingly well also. It led to a bunch of evenings together. The foursome were together more weekends than not. They had dinners, went out to clubs, and spent long evenings playing cards and games. They really enjoyed spending time together.

It was great for the girls. It seemed as if they were just meant to be friends. And Lovelle was quite sure that Paul was delighted to see him finally spending time with a woman other than his wife. And it should have been great for Lovelle as well. Lisa was having a good time, and he was falling for her more and more. His best friend was happy, and he was spending more time with her than ever too. They all got along great, and he was having fun whenever they were together. He even liked Paul. But he still just couldn’t be satisfied with the situation. He was jealous. And surprisingly, not of Paul. He was jealous of Lisa.

When they were all together the ladies would huddle and gossip, leaving him to talk sports or cars or something with Paul. And as nice as Paul was, he was not his friend. Lovelle longed to be the one having the private little side conversation with Trina.

And when they weren’t out together the ladies would call each other all the time. Suddenly Lovelle was getting updates on Trina’s life from Lisa. After so many years of having his own direct connection, it was a difficult transition.

This was completely natural for Trina. She was always a very social person. She never had a shortage of friends. And although she was clearly Lovelle’s best friend, there was never any pretense that he was hers. True, they had an unusual bond for two people of the opposite sex who were not a couple. But, they did not spend the kind of time together that she spent with her female friends. He always knew that she wasn’t as close to him as he was to her. There was no real interdependence. He leaned on her, not vice versa. But, never before had one of those other friends come between them. He had never had to watch one of those friends spend time with Trina in lieu of him. And he certainly never had to worry about one of them telling him all the things that he expected to hear from Trina herself.

More importantly, when Lovelle wanted to talk to Trina about his personal life, he no longer could. It now seemed as though she was more Lisa’s friend than his own, and she couldn’t be the confidant of both of them when it came to the intimate details of his relationship.

*****

Regardless of any complications, Lovelle felt good that he was finally moving on with life. He was no longer going to pine for Katie or Trina. However, putting aside his past personal life did not change the fact that Lovelle still knew some very important things about the future. In fact, with his personal life finally settled, he started to think a whole lot more about how he might go about stopping 9/11. After joining the Sheriff’s department he had done little more than just sit and hope that the answer would come to him. But it wasn’t coming to him, and he knew that he was simply being lazy in hoping that it would.

It certainly wasn’t going to be simple. If he had ever had any hope of obtaining a position of authority or influence regarding matters of homeland security, he had almost certainly erased that hope with his untimely exit from law enforcement. And working in sales was no way to crawl back into that sphere of influence. He would need to find some other method for dealing with the threat.

One notion he considered was to phone in his own bomb threat. His idea was that maybe something as simple as a bomb threat on the relevant airports at the right time might forestall the whole event. He really felt that there was merit in the idea. Even though there were certainly a few logistical complications, it was a realistic option. More realistic than thinking he would somehow personally be able to run interference on a bunch of terrorists whose names he couldn’t remember.

So he started considering his obstacles. The first concern was his inability to remember exactly what airports each of the flights originated out of. He was pretty certain that one or two flew out of Newark and another from Boston. Possibly another from New York, but whether that would be Kennedy or La Guardia, he hadn’t a clue. He thought, however, with his memories of other info such as airlines involved, flight numbers, and destinations, he could piece that puzzle together. Years earlier he had started logging anything he could remember. He had a computer disk where he could keep track of the things he remembered and the things he found out as time went on.

Another concern was how to give the threat credibility. He wasn’t sure if a bomb threat would automatically lead to the grounding of flights. He figured that the authorities must have some set of criteria used to assess the seriousness of a threat. It didn’t seem reasonable that any random person could shut down an airport with a couple of quarters and a pay phone. Plus, he wouldn’t be trying to shut one airport, but rather three simultaneously. There seemed little likelihood that there wouldn’t be some sort of coordinated response. The question was, would that help or hurt his cause. He couldn't be sure if that sort of coordination would lead to a greater emphasis on security, or be seen as evidence of the spurious nature of the threats.

Maybe the biggest concern was how he could be sure that he wouldn’t simply be postponing the hijackings. As long as the terrorists could keep their cool during the bomb scares, what would stop them from simply rescheduling? Sure, they might react rashly to all of the security activity and reveal themselves, but, that wasn’t something Lovelle wanted to count on. Possibly more likely, they might get spooked by the “coincidence” of the bomb scare timings and locations. Believing their plot to have been uncovered, they might drop their plans altogether. Again, this was not something to be counted upon.

One further concern was the public reaction. Without some impetus to change its policies, America would remain vulnerable, and the masterminds behind the plot would only need to find a new set of stooges to carry it, or another plan, out.

Thinking about how to address this last concern, it seemed to Lovelle that the only way to guarantee that federal regulators and the public would experience a heightened awareness of the danger would be to have one of the hijackings succeed. But he didn’t think that he could willfully do that. And even if he was prepared to make that choice as a lesser of two evils, how would he make it happen? While he had some idea of the airports where the flights emanated, he had no idea which flight came from where. And even if he knew how to allow one particular plane to fly, which one would he choose.

At first glance the choice might seem obvious. The flight which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania had so many fewer casualties than all the others. But again, even if he could bring himself to choose to sacrifice the brave souls on that one plane for the greater good, there was little reason to expect their outcome to remain unchanged once he had tampered with the chain of events. The heroes on that flight did what they did precisely because their loved ones told them about the towers and the likely outcome if they did nothing. They had not acted in a vacuum. Assuming that Lovelle was able to foil those other hijackings, the men and women on the Pennsylvania flight would likely sit idly awaiting their fate as hijack victims always had. Speculation had been that this flight’s target was the capital. A successful hit on the seat of Congress might actually be more of a problem than any other of the strikes. Who could predict what the backlash of such an attack might be.

With all of these concerns and caveats, Lovelle decided that this would be his option of last resort. If he could find no other way to intervene, then he would make the difficult choices and implement this plan.

Then the first attack on the World Trade Center occurred that February. He watched on the news as they hauled injured people out of the building after a car bomb exploded in the underground garage. He sat in front of the TV, vividly remembering the September 11 attack which was yet to come. Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered individuals plunging to their death to avoid the fire on that horrid morning.