Current Affairs (Tiara Investigations Mysteries) by Lane Stone

returned it. With another light touch, he moved closer to the net. After my return I was at the net and in position to volley. We both knew this was a high-risk strategy in singles. I returned his volley, and he returned mine. I slid my hands around the grip for a backhand volley. Just then our eyes met. The ball hit the strings of my racket and startled me, and we laughed. Our friends appeared, and we played doubles, but it was too late to save either of us.
    Just like that, we fell in love. This was the man I had waited thirty-seven years to meet. A beautiful woman in her twenties is the object of competition, each man peeing higher on the tree than the last. By some miracle I had avoided marriage until my thirties. This gave me time to realize I had been the tree, all along. The testosterone-fueled egos that led these future leaders of corporate America to court me made them inferior partners, preening, boastful and selfish. I had chosen to be alone and different. But I knew him when I saw him.
    As luck would have it, I’m a peace activist married to a career soldier.  
    I’m here, Bellifortis . That’s my code name for him. It means he who is strong in war . In these instant message conversations we have, I can’t ask where he is or what he’s doing in case some unfriendlies are eavesdropping; and we don’t say we miss one another or want one another, because that just makes it worse.
    Good to reach you at home .
    Yes , I answered, not sure what that comment meant.
    How are you? Is everything okay ?
    Yes, especially now that I’ve heard from you.
    How is the weather there ? He didn’t mention Atlanta because he didn’t want to make it easy for a terrorist hacking the computer network to find out where I live. Since I hadn’t changed my name when I married, I felt anonymous and safe.   Except for seeing a client murdered and being shot at, except for those things, I felt completely safe.
    Beautiful fall day. Are you having breakfast now ?
    If you call it that. Not like your cook …
    And he was gone. Oh, well, an e-mail and an instant message in one day was pretty good. Until last year my husband led night raids ferreting out insurgents. Now he gamed the missions but did not lead them himself. This is partly because of his age and partly to multiply his expertise exponentially. He had led these raids as he rose in rank even though it wasn’t expected or commonly done. Of course, I slept better now. I just hate it when people take dangerous risks, don’t you?
    Several e-mail messages were jokes, one from a friend from my alma mater, the University of Georgia. What do you call the useless piece of skin on the end of a man's penis? His body.
  Why does it take 100,000,000 sperm to fertilize one egg? Because not one will stop and ask directions. What's the best way to kill a man? Put a naked woman and a six-pack in front of him. Then tell him to pick one. Why did the man cross the road? He heard the chicken was a slut.
    I would take these to read at our next stakeout, and while I waited for the printer to hand over my pages, I looked around at my life. My eyes fell on the American folk art I collected, almost all with practical uses: weathervanes, decoys, tables, and bowls. I had shopped at flea markets and antique shops on Sunday afternoons. This was just after the house was constructed, and I was building a home, but I had not erected one so much as I had gathered it around me. This had been important to do after I took a stand with my husband that I was not moving again. Surprisingly, he loved having a real house and found it a comfortable place to come home to. Now Tiara was my home as much as that five-thousand-square-foot structure.
    Next, I checked the Tiara Investigations e-mail account, and there was one message. Savannah Westmoreland wanted to hire us. Sure, there’s a Contact Us button on the website Victoria designed for us, but no one had ever used it. (And Mr. FBI, can I give a shout out to her