Fool Me Once

********

In the end, Michaels was found guilty on all counts. He broke down at the defense table and cried piteously. He was a broken man when the Bexar County sheriff's deputies took custody of him from the bailiffs and marched him off to the jail to await sentencing.

Carrie had been smart in her initial interview with investigators and absolutely denied knowing Michaels' login and password. Though Michaels' lawyer did everything she could to show Carrie actually did have both...several people at the bank were sure they'd seen her enter Michaels' information into the system on occasion...the attorney was never able to shake Carrie's denial. It probably saved Carrie from a charge of conspiracy in Michaels' fraudulent scheme.

Carrie's only real problem was that she got caught in a lie by one of the investigators interviewing her a month after the inquiry had begun. It had been a silly thing to do. Her lie was about a trivial matter and the charge about the false affidavit had been put on the list of other charges at the last moment just to be complete.

The jury was pretty sure Carrie had been in on the fraud but there just wasn't any evidence to show that Carrie even knew it was going on, though they tried hard to find some in the prosecution's case. The false statement was firmly established and they found her guilty on that one count. There was no deliberation on that charge beyond a call by the foreman for a vote on her guilt.

In the sentencing hearing for Michaels, the only mercy the jury offered was a recommendation to the judge that the sentences all run concurrently. The judge agreed and sentenced the man to twenty years with the location of his incarceration to be determined by the prison system. Carrie got one year.

As Michaels walked disconsolately from the defense table toward the side door leading to the holding cell, he came close enough to Ryan for easy conversation. At that moment, one of the bailiffs was preoccupied looking over his shoulder at one of the reporters who had thrust a microphone in his direction. The bailiff's steps slowed and he fell behind. For one short moment, Michaels had only one man escorting him and he was on the opposite side. Ryan leaned over the railing.

"That's what you get for fucking another man's wife," he said softly. Only the convicted felon heard.

Michaels took two more steps before the words penetrated. He stopped, making the chains on his feet jangle musically. Not believing what he'd heard, he turned around to stare at Ryan. His eyes widened and grew wild. Alarmed by the rattling chains, the bailiff lagging behind made a belated attempt to catch up. It was too late.

Michaels lunged at Ryan. Brought up short when the bailiff still with him yanked him back, Michaels began screaming imprecations no one could understand. He was dragging the much bigger bailiff across the hardwood floor.

It eventually took four officers to control him as he struggled to get to Ryan. He was still shrieking at the top of his lungs and fighting his restraints as they carried him out.

********

"Well, good afternoon, Special Agent Williams. What can I do for you today?"

Answering the knock on the outside door to the office, Ryan had been a little surprised to see the FBI agent, but not overwhelmingly so. His eyes flicked down the hallway in each direction to see if the agent was accompanied by his partner...or a whole crew of Federal agents. Other than the one agent, the hallway was empty.

"Come in, come in," Ryan urged. "You mind if I lock the door again?" It was well past normal business hours and Ryan had secured the door when his secretary left. He didn't like open doors when there was no one in the outer office. He had a problem with people coming up on him unawares.

"Not at all," Williams replied courteously. "Just wanted to clear up a couple of things, if that's all right with you?"

"Sure, whatcha got?" Ryan shot back briskly. "Want some coffee?" he added. The urn on the side table in the secretary's office was still half full.

The FBI agent hesitated. The first time he'd been here, he'd sampled some of the strong brew and it had nearly done him in. He decided to go for it. He was tough; he could handle it.

"Thank you...yes," Williams said. He took the heavy mug filled to the brim with the dark liquid and cradled it in his hands. It looked almost as strong as it had the first time he'd visited here. He tentatively took a sip. It was scalding hot. He tried another swallow.

"What I'm here for, Mr. Gilchrist, is a statement you made to Mr. Michaels. It's been relayed to us through his attorney."

"Oh?" Ryan answered. His brow furrowed in concentration and surprise, he waited for Williams to continue.

"Michaels says you told him at his trial that you wanted him to know you arranged for all of this to happen. He accuses you of having set him up by stealing his laptop and entering the wire transfers to offshore accounts."

Williams stopped and watched Ryan Gilchrist closely for his reaction. There was nothing for a moment. Not for the first time, Williams made a note Gilchrist would make a fine poker player.

Ryan let his eyebrows rise.

"That's it?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, that's the meat of the information," Williams answered. Ryan snorted derisively.

"Bull shit! First of all, I never spoke to him at his trial. I was never anywhere near the asshole. Now, at his sentencing hearing, I did remark, as he passed by, that...uh...what was it...something to the effect that 'this was what you get for fucking my wife' or something like that. That's all I said. He went ballistic right then and they carried him out and...that's the last time I saw him."

"I see. Would you care to explain that statement, Mr. Gilchrist?"

"Statement?" Ryan asked. "What I just said?" He let a confused expression settle over his features.

"No, that what...well, that the sentence was what he got for having sex with your wife."

"Well...I don't know what you want from me. I think what I said was pretty self-explanatory, Agent Williams. I'm not real happy with the jerk and I think the time he's going to spend in a Federal prison is absolutely fantastic. What goes around, comes around...isn't that what they say? Damn straight!

"I thought it was damned ironic he was getting twenty years for crimes he committed while he was having nooners and quickies with my wife and I told him so. Does that explain it any better?"

Ryan let his eyes flash a little with suppressed anger.

"I see," Williams said, shifting the coffee mug from his right to his left hand before taking a sip of the hot liquid. It was a delaying tactic, something to distract Ryan's attention for a moment and give the man time to cool down.

"So if Mr. Michaels alleges you had anything to do with appropriating his computer and actually committing the offenses he's being imprisoned for, you deny that?"

Ryan snorted again.

"Yuh think?" he said contemptuously. "You're darn right I deny it," he said formally.

Williams watched Ryan over the lip of his mug as he took a couple of swallows. Other than irritation, he saw nothing in Gilchrist's body language to indicate Gilchrist was lying.

He toyed for a moment with the idea of asking the man to come down for a polygraph examination. Then he discarded the suggestion. In his present mood, Gilchrist would refuse out of hand...and it wouldn't mean anything except he was pissed off.

"Okay!" Williams said abruptly. He stood up. "I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, Mr. Gilchrist. If we have anything else, we'll get in contact with you, okay?" He looked around for a place to leave the mug.

Ryan nodded, still visibly annoyed, but trying to suppress it. He took the mug from Williams' hand and put it on the credenza at the side of his desk.

"Oh!" he said. "I'm going to be taking a few weeks off and I won't be here in the office."

"Where will you be, Mr. Gilchrist?" Williams asked automatically.

Ryan's eyes narrowed.

"Why do you care, Special Agent Williams?" he asked aggressively, ready to explode again.

"I was told I should stay in town as long as there was an active investigation going on, but that was months ago. The trials are done, two people are going to prison, and it's all over, right? Are you investigating me, Agent Williams?"

"No, sir," Williams answered forthrightly. "I--"

"Are you telling me I need to stay where you can find me at a moment's notice?"

"No, sir," Williams replied. "There's no need for that. You're quite correct. There is no active investigation being conducted by the joint task force at this time. The Treasury and State Departments are still trying to find the funds down in the Caribbean banks, but they aren't having any luck...and that's all that's happening."

Ryan stared at the FBI agent for a long moment. He sucked in a long breath and held it. His jaw muscles clinched and then relaxed. He let out the air he'd been holding in.

"Okay...sorry. One reason that I'm taking some time off is that I'm losing my temper too often and for really trivial reasons when I look back on them. I really need to recharge the batteries...know what I mean? It's been a pretty rough year, everything considered. Uh...if I was out of line, I apologize, okay?"

"No, no...not at all," Williams hurried to reassure Ryan. "I understand completely." He did, he realized. The man had had to deal with a cheating wife, had been involved in a devastating exposé on that TV show, actually seeing video of his wife screwing that Michaels guy, the trials...yeah, Williams could see where he might be wound a little tight.

"Actually, you can always get hold of me," Ryan told the agent, unbending slightly. "I won't have my cell phone turned on all the time, but I'll check it regularly...you have the number, right? I don't know where I'll be...probably just driving up to my hunting cabin up by Marble Falls...but I may take off. Oh, heck, I don't know. I might even take a driving trip out to the Grand Canyon or something. I just want to get away, ya know?"

"I understand completely," Agent Williams said sympathetically.

After a couple more minutes of casual chat, Ryan let the FBI agent out and locked the door behind him.

********

It wasn't until Williams was fitting the key into the ignition that he became troubled.

"Shit!" he said vehemently.

He looked up the side of the building to the windows he knew opened into Gilchrist's office. Had Gilchrist just maneuvered him into revealing the status of the investigation into the lost funds? He couldn't decide, but Gilchrist had definitely gotten Williams to feel sorry for him and completely deflected Williams' inquiries into a safe zone. He started the engine. He shook his head, still looking up at the windows. Was Gilchrist that smart...that good at manipulating people?

A germ of doubt was planted in his mind. There was no basis for it beyond an unsupported...he admitted it...an unsupportable suspicion. The investigation was dead, but Special Agent Williams would play his hunch. He'd be looking for anything coming down the pike that didn't look right. He put the transmission in gear and drove out of the parking lot and into the late evening traffic.

********

Ryan leaned against the wall near the door for a long while after the FBI agent left. It took some time before his racing heart calmed enough for his pulse to quit pounding in his ears. He'd been concerned he might be giving something away to Williams so he'd let the anger swell up and take control. The anger had been real, but it had been at himself for being afraid, not the agent or the circumstances. It seemed to have worked.

After a while, he was composed enough to return to his desk and finish the last stack of papers he needed to sign. His secretary would be in tomorrow for half a day and was specifically expecting them to be finished. It was the last thing he was going to do before leaving for the few weeks he'd told the agent about.

In a way, he was glad the FBI agent had come by. It had given Ryan a glimpse into their operation and thinking. It was clear the agent hadn't had anything substantial to go on. If Williams had anything at all, he'd have brought the long awaited search warrant with him. He hadn't. That was a good sign. With all their resources, law enforcement hadn't been able to collect enough probable cause to get a judge to sign off on even a preliminary search.

In fact, the only search warrant ever served on him in all of this had been for his home and that had been expected. After all, that had been where the crimes had been committed. The house had been turned back to him months ago.

On top of that, Consuela hadn't been contacted by anyone connected with the investigation. There was no sign the authorities knew she existed. He thought they might be able to start relaxing a little more...not much...just a little. He looked forward to seeing Consuela and Belinda more often.

********

"Quiet honey," Consuela told her daughter. "Momma needs to talk to Ryan right now. Ryan will look at your drawing in just a minute."

Belinda wasn't happy with that. She wanted to show Ryan a picture she'd drawn of her mommy and Ryan. To her mind, it needed to be seen immediately. She flounced through the doorway into the kitchen. Climbing back up on her chair, she began embellishing the drawing by coloring in the clothing of the figures she'd drawn. In moments, she'd forgotten her mother had preempted the drawing's presentation.

"So...you don't think he had anything to go on?" Consuela asked Ryan.

"Nah...he wasn't even really fishing," Ryan answered. He was relaxed and unconcerned.

"If they thought they really had anything, they'd have come to the office with search warrants for my office, home, pickup truck, every jobsite I've got working, and probably the hunting lease up at Marble Falls too. He doesn't have a thing to go on and I don't see how he could ever show enough probable cause to get search warrants for any of those places.

"He even admitted the investigation is closed as far as San Antonio is concerned. There's still some work going on overseas, he said, but I gathered there wasn't a chance in hell it was going to go anywhere. All he really asked was what I'd meant by what I'd said to Michaels at the trial, I told him, and that was the end of it."

"Okay...that's good," Consuela whispered in a preoccupied tone. Then she brightened.

She'd grown wary over the last few months. More often than not, she regretted her initial enthusiasm to cut that cabron down to size. The plan had worked, but she'd still been worried most of the time there would be a preemptory knock on her door one day. Today, the possibility of that happening seemed very remote. She relaxed and tilted her face up for a kiss from her man.

********

"But, Mommy," Belinda pleaded with Consuela, "ever'body else's 'll be there."

The little girl, her fifth birthday was only two months ago, was almost in tears when Ryan walked in the kitchen door. It was his fifth day here. He'd given up even the pretense of staying at the hunting lease.

He'd been next door talking to the old woman who lived there. She used a walker almost constantly and had taken a break trying to get up the steps to her porch. She'd nearly fallen and Ryan had left Consuela's front door on the run to help the woman.

"Uh oh," he said, concerned at the obvious unhappiness in the room. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's her kindergarten class," Consuela said, giving him a troubled glance. "They're having a "dad and daughter" event tomorrow morning and she...well...you know. She doesn't understand..."

Ryan nodded. He did know.

Now he was as dejected as the other two. He knew Consuela had divorced Belinda's father more than four years ago...just after the toddler was born, in fact. She'd immediately moved back to her hometown with her baby. There were half a dozen attempts by the father to see the child early on, but there'd been no calls or letters...much less visits...in the past three and a half years.

Ryan looked away, pretending an interest in a dog barking outside. There was a thing he'd been planning to do. He took a breath, held it, and let it out slowly. There really was no point in prolonging it. Belinda was so unhappy. She was heartbroken. It was so unfair...so completely beyond her control. He hated that.

Deciding abruptly, he walked back out the kitchen door and around the house to the driveway. He opened the passenger door and retrieved a small box from under the front seat. He checked it to make sure the contents were okay before carrying the box back inside.

Consuela and Belinda met him at the back door, curious about his sudden departure. He hadn't said a word before walking out and it concerned both mother and daughter.

"What...?" Consuela started to ask. Ryan smiled enigmatically and took her hand to pull her gently into the living room. He sat on the couch and patted the sofa cushion beside him.

"Honey, what is it?" Consuela insisted, wondering what was on Ryan's mind. He didn't normally act so enigmatically.

Ryan cleared his throat. He wished he'd thought to grab a coke from the fridge or something. It was too late now.

"I uh...we...well, we've come a long way since that day when we met in the...at breakfast in the café," he stammered. "I haven't been real good about asking you what we should do next, or whether you wanted to do it. I mean...I never asked you how you felt about things much. We just seemed to slip from one thing to the next without a lot of discussion or anything. Uh...I think I made it pretty clear though...anytime you didn't want to start something new, you knew I wouldn't push you into it...right?"

"Ryan, I've never said you were "pushing" me into anything," Consuela told him. "You couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to do...I wouldn't let you," she assured him.

"Yeah...I know," Ryan said. "I've counted on that all along."

"But now," he shifted on the couch, moving to the edge of the cushion and facing the woman more directly. "Now, I have to ask you something because we both have to know where we stand before we do this...next thing." Reaching across her body, he captured her right hand and held it in his, then released it. He felt around on the couch behind him with his other hand.

Consuela's eyes searched his. She was a little impatient. Suddenly, her eyes widened. She yanked her hand from his and covered her suddenly quivering lips with both hands.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

"Consuela," Ryan said huskily, "I've found out...over the last few months...that I love you more than I know how to say. I want you to be...I...I mean...will? I wonder if you will be..."

"Yes," Consuela whispered softly.

Ryan stared at her blankly for a long moment. He'd nerved himself for a longer, far more coherent speech and maybe some coaxing too. He couldn't adjust all that quickly.

"You will? I mean..." he asked awkwardly, just to make sure he hadn't misunderstood. Consuela nodded, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

Ryan found the small box with his left hand and brought it around his body. He fumbled the box open and pulled out the diamond ring. It had looked good in the jewelry store, the stone was big enough, he thought...but suddenly he wasn't sure. Maybe he should have...

Screwing up his courage, he took Consuela's left hand in his and began to slip the ring on her ring finger. When it was settled into place, Consuela began sobbing.

Nonplussed, Ryan put his arms around her and patted her on the back. He didn't quite know what he'd done, but she wasn't rejecting his touch. That was probably a good thing, he thought. He wasn't sure.