Games of State - Tom Clancy [76]
Hood didn't really want to talk about himself. But he hoped that by doing so he could loosen Hausen's tongue a little. Give and take, take and give. It was a waltz familiar to anyone who had lived and worked in Washington. This just happened to be a little more personal and important than most of those other dances.
Hood said, "While Matt, Bob, and I were waiting for you in the hotel lobby, I thought I saw-- no, I could have sworn I saw a woman I once knew. I ran after her like I was possessed."
"And was it she?" Hausen asked.
"I don't know," Hood said. Just thinking about what had happened made him exasperated all over again. Exasperated that he'd never know if it were Nancy, and exasperated because that woman still had a hold on him. "She got into a cab before I could reach her. But the way she held her head, the way her hair looked and moved-- if it wasn't Nancy, it was her daughter."
"Has she one?"
Hood shrugged but said nothing. Whenever he thought about Nancy Jo, he was upset by the thought that she could very well have a child or a husband, could actually have a life away from him.
So why the hell are you dwelling on it again? he asked himself. Because, he thought, you want to get Hausen to talk.
Hood took a healthy breath and blew it out. His hands were deep in his pockets. His eyes were on the grass. Reluctantly, his mind went back to Los Angeles, nearly twenty years ago.
"I was in love with this girl. Her name was Nancy Jo Bosworth. We'd met in a computer class at USC in our last year of graduate school. She was this delicate and vivacious angel, with hair that was like layers of golden wings." He grinned, flushed. "It's corny, I know, but I don't know how else to describe it. Her hair was soft and full and ethereal and her eyes were life itself. I called her my little golden lady and she called me her big silver knight. Man, was I smitten."
"Obviously," Hausen said
The German smiled for the first time. Hood was glad he was getting through; this was killing him.
"We got engaged after we got out of school," Hood continued. "I gave her an emerald ring that we picked out together. I landed a position as an assistant to the Mayor of Los Angeles and Nancy went to work for a video game company designing software. She actually flew north, to Sunnyvale, twice a week just so we wouldn't have to be away from each other. And then one night, in April of 1979-- April 21st, to be exact, a date which I tore out of my datebooks for the next few years-- I was waiting for her outside a movie theater and she failed to show. I called her apartment, no one was there, so I rushed over. I drove like a crazy person, in fact. Then I used my key, went in, and found a note."
Hood's pace slowed. He could still smell the apartment. He could still feel the tears and the thickness that filled his throat. He remembered the song that was playing in the apartment next door, "The Worst That Could Happen" by the Brooklyn Bridge.
"The note was handwritten, quickly. Not Nancy's usual careful penmanship. It said that she had to go away, she wouldn't be coming back, and I shouldn't look for her. She took some clothes, but everything else was still there: her records, her books, her plants, her photo albums, her diploma. Everything. Oh, and she took the engagement ring I gave her. Either that or she threw it away."
"No one else had any idea where she was?" Hausen asked, surprised.
"No one. Not even the FBI, which came and asked me about her the next morning without telling me what she had done. I couldn't tell them much, but I hoped they would find her. Whatever she had done, I wanted to help. I spent the next few days and nights looking for her. I visited professors we'd had, friends, talked to her coworkers, who were all very concerned. I called her father. They weren't close; and I wasn't surprised that he hadn't heard from her. I finally decided that I must have done something wrong. Either that, or I figured she'd been seeing someone else and eloped."
"Gott," Hausen said. "And you never heard from