"Jesus Christ."

"When you interned in college, did you ever sleep with any of the guys at Ames?"

"One."

"Or two?"

"Maybe. Screw you, Rick. Quit playing with me. You know all this stuff."

"You guys hung out at the Tied House, drinking beer? Partying on the weekends, playing soccer, then partying some more? They knew all about that. They had you under a microscope. You were their dream girl. They knew way back that you were the perfect woman to go into the great beyond and give it up for science."

She took a deep breath. "How did you find all this out?"

I shrugged. "Damn it, Kit, I'm a reporter. Do you remember how many reporters were there for the press conference when they introduced you?"

"Seven."

"And I was one of them." I laughed. "Oh God, I fell in love with you that day. Just like everyone else. And all they wanted to do is get into your pants from the very first day."

The plane was lost somewhere north of Baghdad. Jack Bowen was an excellent pilot, but something had gone wrong. The Air Force compiled the data and said it could have been a surface-to-air missile, but the evidence was inconclusive.

The funeral was held at Arlington National Cemetery. Kit sat and cried with the family and listened as some general read the eulogy. She worried about what they would think if they knew that, on the night their son died, she was in bed — in his bed — with a man whose name she didn't know.