Space in His Heart (32 page)

Jessica looked
from one to the other with her own unsteady smile. “He can do
it.”

She had to
believe it. She just had to.

* * *

Adrenaline still coursed through Jessica’s veins an hour
after
Endeavour
launched. After a short celebration with the Stockards,
Jessica decided to return to the Press Facility and continue the
revelry with her hard-working friends.

Along the
path that joined the two buildings, she stopped to peer at the
silhouette of Pad 39B outlined against the rising sun. Silent now,
and empty
, the pad was a
wildlife preserve tucked into the coast of Florida that for
one brief moment every few months was shattered and shaken apart by
the impact of technology. A smile tugged at her lips and Jessica
realized that the beauty around her had been there all along. It
just took a while to see it.

The last
few hours had overshadowed all of her fears about her future—or
lack of one—with Deke. Today was not the day to wallow in
self-pity. It was a day to thank God and the brilliant engineers of
NASA, including the late Skip Bowker, that
Endeavour
was safely in its orbit around the earth. Yes,
Deke had to get Micah and get home. But step one was
over.

She stared at
the sky, cornflower blue now and broken only by enormous powder
puffs of white clouds. Without knowing it, she moaned out loud, an
unstoppable response to the emotion that seized her heart. Never,
in all her years of striving toward goal after goal, had she felt
such a magnificent sense of accomplishment. It made her want to
dance to her office and throw her arms around all the people she
knew shared that sense of achievement.

Once in the
building, the joy faded at the sight of Bill Dugan sitting behind
her desk, on her phone, scowling. He hung up when she walked
in.

“What’s the
matter?” she asked.

He pushed the
chair away from the desk and blew out a dramatic breath. “What’s
not? I just got off the phone with Zimmerman.”

Anger
zipped through her. “What are you doing talking to
Newsweek
, Bill?
That’s my story.”

“Now don’t get
your panties in a bunch.” He smiled and leaned back in her chair.
“More influence on him can only help. Let’s get our launch report
out to the team.”

A slow, steady
throb in her temples replaced euphoria. Ignoring the discomfort,
she came around the desk and tapped him on the shoulder to get him
out of her chair. “I’ll email everyone. Let me sit down and get
online.”

“Not necessary.
I’ve already drafted something on your computer while you were
still over with the, uh, families. Let’s print it out and fax it to
Tony’s house. It’s Sunday morning. He won’t look at his email
today.”

She didn’t even
know Tony’s home fax number, but she didn’t feel like fighting him
now. “Sure. Go ahead and a print a hard copy.”

He looked at
the printer at the edge of her desk. “Got any R&C letterhead?
This’ll go to Price and I always like the client to see the agency
logo on everything. Makes us look like we’re all over the
account.”

“Jeez.” She
shook her head as she opened the supply cabinet. “I had no idea you
were such a political animal, Bill.”

“And I had no
idea you were so friendly with your client’s parents.”

The
unmistakable inference in his tone grabbed her.

“
They
live in New York,” she said calmly as she lifted a box of file
folders to get to the stationery. “I had the opportunity to meet
them when Deke did the
Today
s
how.”

“And by the
way, I don’t recall you asking to leave the media facility to go to
the Control Center for the launch.”

Her fingers
curled around a sheaf of R&C stationery that she’d brought back
from Boston. “I had no idea I needed a hall pass from you before I
left a facility.”

He looked up
sharply from the keyboard. “Easy, Jess. You’re on shaky
ground.”

She
grabbed the ream of stationery with every intention of slamming
fifty pages or so on the desk to accompany a defensive comeback.
But she froze i
nstead, r
iveted to what she saw underneath it.

With a little
gasp of horror, she dropped the whole stack of paper in her hand,
and sheets ruffled to the ground around her.

Stark blue
letters on a white background. The imprint of NASA. The old,
outdated, supposed-to-be-shredded letterhead that the anonymous
memos had been written on.

“Oh my God.
Look what’s in here.” She lifted a piece gingerly and turned to
Bill, nearly afraid to talk. “The old NASA stationery.”

He nearly
leaped around the desk and took it from her. Then his pale blue
eyes flashed in accusation. “Where did this come from?”

“I… I don’t
know.” She looked back in the closet at the box it had been in and
suddenly, she had the answer. The sickening, pathetic, ugly answer.
No one at NASA had sent those memos. “It came from the Boston
office of R&C.” She remembered her secretary preparing the box
for her, nervously mentioning that Carla Drake had instructed her
not to include any other client information. “Rita packed up
supplies for me when I was up at Christmas.”

“Jessica,” he
said quietly. “What have you done?”

“
What
have
I
done?” She
gaped at him. “You think I sent fake memos? Please. But it would
certainly help someone trying to get my job to make me look guilty.
Or just sabotage the whole NASA campaign and make me look
inept.”

“What are you
saying?”

“Carla Drake.
Evidently, she’s the most political of all of us. Only she didn’t
bother to check that the Boston supply of client stationery was out
of date.” Jessica shook her head and stared at the paper. “Is she
so hell-bent on ruining my career that she’d risk the account and
the agency’s reputation? It’s outrageous.”

Bill looked
hard at Jessica. “Unless you can prove she did something like that,
Jessica, I doubt anyone would believe you. The stationery’s in your
office.”

“She let the
cosmonaut story break without warning me,” Jessica insisted,
picking up the receiver of her phone. “She’s behind this somehow.
I’m going to call Tony.”

Bill’s hand
clamped on her wrist. “Don’t do that, Jess.”

“Why not?”
Jessica tried to yank her hand free.

“Because she’s
Tony’s golden goddess right now and you don’t stand a chance of
accusing her without proof. You’d look like a fool. And maybe a
guilty one.”

She would have
laughed in his face if his expression hadn’t been so sincere. “You
can’t be serious. I’m the one with the least to gain by this. I’ve
lost almost everything I’ve ever worked for over the last three
months.”

“If this gets
out, the agency will lose the account.”

She dropped the
phone in the cradle. “Is that what you’re worried about? This is a
felony, for God’s sake. Someone tampered with government property.
Someone could have cost Micah Petrenko his life if they’d scrubbed
a launch based on the content of those memos.”

He turned away
and picked up the jacket he’d thrown over her guest chair. “I’ve
got a meeting with Colonel Price. I’ll handle this, Jessica. You’ll
get nowhere accusing Carla Drake. You may end up in more hot water
than you’re already in.”

He left her
standing with the R&C stationery around her feet like a pile of
freshly fallen snow.

Chapter
Twenty-five

At seven
o’clock that evening, Jessica finally left Kennedy Space Center for
her home on Sea Park Road. Bill had never come back to her office
and she’d spent most of the day watching the shuttle feed in
Stuart’s office and marveling at the perfect docking with the space
station. Step two completed.
Was there nothing Deke Stockard couldn’t
do?

She
hadn’t called Tony, knowing Bill was right and she needed more
evidence.
Nor had she taken the issue to Colonel Price.
Instead, Jessica called Jo and
suggested an unorthodox plan. Jo, bless her adventurous soul,
agreed to it immediately.

After changing
into sweat pants and tee shirt, Jessica absently sliced a tomato
for a salad and imagined Jo and her husband, Bobby, going in for
their covert operation.

On the
TV, the local NASA channel that ran the shuttle feed played softly
in the background
:
the
shuttle camera only transmitted a frozen shot of
Earth
, presumably
from
a window of the orbiter. Stuart
had told her that image could stay on for hours until the crew
moved the camera. It seemed crazy, but as long as that camera was
running,
she knew
Deke
and the crew were alive. The link to him made her feel
better.

When her phone
rang, she dropped the knife and seized the kitchen extension.

“We’re in,” Jo
whispered before Jessica could say hello. “Thank God I married a
computer geek, huh?”

“Is anyone
around?” Jessica imagined the empty R&C offices on a Sunday
night.

“Believe it or
not, a few ambitious account executives who want to grow up and be
you. But I oh-so-coolly explained that my husband had a consulting
job to upgrade some computers. They bought it.”

“
Good
thinking. I’m just certain that hacking into Carla’s computer will
prove she sent the emails to
Newsweek
.”

“Don’t be so
sure.” Jo warned. “I already looked through the client letterhead.
The NASA stationery here is all the new logo.”

“Maybe she took
a stash and hid it in her office,” Jessica suggested. “She would
never risk asking Rita to get her NASA stationery.”

“Maybe. I’ll
look. Bobby hasn’t found anything yet. I’ll call you back.”

Jessica
hung up
and glanced at the TV, her heart jumping. The screen had
gone black. With a gasp, she grabbed the remote to turn up the
sound, but a pounding on her door stopped her.

Still holding
the remote, she peeked around the entryway wall and peered through
the glass panels. Bill Dugan offered an apologetic half-smile. She
had no idea he even knew where she lived.

“I’m sorry we
never got to finish our conversation,” he said as she opened the
door and he stepped in. “Can we talk now?”

“Not if you’re
going to keep defending Carla Drake and reproaching me,” she said
sharply. “I need help, not condemnation right now.”

With an easy
hand on her shoulder, he guided her back into the living room.
“You’re right. I was too harsh this morning. Anyway, I’ve had a
long talk with Price and I want to present an idea to you.”

He sat on the
sofa and Jessica looked at the TV screen. Still black. What was
going on up there? And why didn’t Jo call back?

“What is it?”
she asked, hoping her tone adequately conveyed her impatience.

“I want you to
hear me out. Before you say a word, just listen to me.”

She stole
another look at the darkened TV screen and stayed standing. “Okay.
Shoot.”

“Except for the
work you’ve been doing, Colonel Price is not thrilled with the
agency.”

His words
caught her attention and she ignored the NASA feed for the first
time in hours. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a lot
going on behind the scenes you don’t know about,” he said
vaguely.

She had no time
for games. “Be specific.”

“Well, they’re
happy with the Stockard campaign, but overall, R&C is expensive
and our results haven’t always been what they’re looking for.”

A tingle of
understanding started to spread as she let him continue.

“They’re
considering a new agency. I’ve proposed to Price that I open my own
shop. NASA would be my first account. At their current budget
level, it’s a healthy start. And you must have figured out by now
that they like your work, Jess.” He adjusted his glasses and looked
up at her. “Come and work for me. Pick your title. We could grow
the business together and you could continue to work on this
account and any others we get.”

She knew she
smelled treason. He hadn’t come down here because of rumors. He’d
finally figured out that Colonel Price valued her over him. And
that didn’t fit in with his plans.

“Did you tell
the Colonel about the stationery in my office?”

He shook his
head. “Not yet. But it ought to seal the deal for us. I think your
idea of pinning it on Carla is a good one.”

Jessica
reared back, surprised.
“My idea of pinning it on her? I want to find out
the truth.”

The phone rang
and she grabbed the cordless on the coffee table before he could
react.

“Carla’s
clean,” Jo whispered and Jessica’s heart dropped. “The emails
haven’t come from a server in Boston.”

“Oh.” She
couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice.

“But we might
have found the culprit.”

Jessica waited,
silently, staring at Bill.

“The server is
in Washington, D.C., Jess. The one that’s used by R&C
Washington.”

Jessica
swallowed hard, a slow, icy drip of realization sliding through her
veins.

Of course…
Bill.

She’d
been looking at the real political animal all along. It wasn’t
Carla Drake who wanted the agency to flounder. It was the man who
planned to steal the NASA account.
The man who knew enough
about the program to write an eloquent memo... maybe even fueled by
information he was getting from Skip Bowker. A man who certainly
knew how to seed a story with
Newsweek
... and was in her
office with enough time to plant some of the old stationery in her
cabinet, just in case someone from her company had to take the
blame.