The Seal of Solomon (Alfred Kropp #2)(36)

He took a deep breath and pressed his fingertips hard into the corners of his eyes.

“We lost forty-three of our helicopters and all but four of the insertion team.”

“Ashley?” I asked.

“Fortunately, she survived with only minor injuries.”

Hearing that made me feel better, but then worse for feeling better about her being alive when practically everybody else was dead.

“It’s my fault,” I said. “Once I got the ring from Mike I should have brought it to you. You would’ve known how to use it.”

“Yes,” he said. I didn’t know if the yes was to it being my fault the demons had the Seal or to him knowing how to use it. Maybe both.

“So I blew it—again. And now the demons are free with no way to control them.”

“No way that we can discern—yet. I have no doubt we shall find the way through our difficulties, Alfred.”

“How come?”

“Because, as I said a few moments ago, the alternative is despair.”

He excused himself after that, and I waited for my food. I was still waiting when Ashley stepped into the room. I sat up a little and ran a hand through my hair. I needed a haircut.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She was dressed in a pale pink cashmere sweater with a soft, high collar, jeans, and these pink suede boots with fuzzy fold-over tops. She looked like she was on her way to the ski lift.

“Well,” I said. “I guess we made it.”

She nodded. “I guess so.”

She avoided making eye contact with me. Maybe she didn’t want to look into the eyes that had looked into the eyes of a demon.

“Why are you out of uniform?” I asked.

“I’m leaving.”

“To hunt for Mike?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m leaving the Company. I’ve turned in my resignation, Alfred.”

“Really?” I was shocked. “Can you do that? Just quit like that?”

“There’s no rule against it. But it’s frowned upon.”

“How do they keep you spilling all their secrets?”

“They know where I live.”

“You’re kidding.”

“And where my family lives.”

“You’re giving me the creeps, Ashley. For months I’ve been trying to convince myself that OIPEP is one of the good guys, then you tell me something like this.”

She shrugged. Most people don’t look good when they shrug. Shrugging makes their necks disappear, and nobody looks good without a neck—look at pro football players. But Ashley looked terrific when she shrugged. The blond hair bounced, one side of her mouth turned down, and a cute little line developed between her eyebrows.

“Sometimes good people have to do bad things,” she said.

“But isn’t that how you separate bad people from good? Bad people do bad things, good people do good things?”

“It’s probably a little more complicated than that.”

“Most things are. I can’t figure out if I just want things to be more simple or things seem more simple to me because I am.”

“Because you’re what?”

“Simple.”

She smiled. “You’re anything but simple, Alfred.”

I took that as a compliment, which I’m more likely to do when talking to a pretty girl.

“Why did you quit?”

She looked away. I said, “You quit because of what happened out there with the demons.”

She didn’t give a direct answer. She said, “I just . . . Sometimes you . . . sometimes things happen and you realize you’ve got your priorities all screwed up. I haven’t seen my family in over two years, not since the Company recruited me out of college. I miss them. I miss my old life. I don’t know if I can just pick it up after . . . after all that’s happened, but I’m going to try. That’s what they demand from you, Alfred: your life. And I’m not sure I can give it to them.”

“The First Protocol,” I said. She gave me a funny look. “That’s the First Protocol, isn’t it? Pledging to sacrifice your life for the greater good or something like that?”

She nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

“Well, all I can say is I thought you did a great job out there, Ashley. Really. And, you know, I’m sorry about what happened under the tarp . . .”

“The tarp?”

“You know, grabbing you and everything.”

She smiled and I could see the bright pink tip of her tongue.

“I was glad you did.”

She said she hadn’t seen her family in two years and the Company had recruited her right out of college. That would make her about twenty-four or twenty-five. Ten years wouldn’t matter so much ten years from now, when she was thirty-five and I was twenty-five—those kinds of things happen all the time, especially among Hollywood couples, but right now it mattered a lot.

My timing always sucked. I wondered if I was attracted to her for the very reason that she was too old for me and that she was leaving.

“Anyway,” she said. “I wanted to see you before I left.”

“How come?”

“To see how you were. And to say good-bye.”