“Hey, where are you? I’m right here.”
The Governor snapped from his daydream to the hand waving in front of his face. He grabbed the hand and held it gently in his, stroking it with his thumb. “I’m sorry, babe.” He smiled. “There’s no excuse. How could I be thinking about something else with a beautiful woman sitting across from me?” He looked at Sandy Hoffman, his gaze moving from the designer sunglasses covering her eyes, down a long, tan arm, to the hand with the manicured nails, held in his hand.
“I don’t know, but you were a long way from here. What were you thinking about?”
“It’s nothing. Just the morning. But that’s taken care of and behind me now.” The Governor reached out to hold her other hand, his fingers playing with the silver ring on her finger. “I’m all yours now. Please forgive me.” He looked at her eyes, hiding behind the dark sunglasses and smiled. “What were you saying?”
She waited for a bus to rumble by. They sat on the sidewalk outside of the New French Bakery on busy Lyndale Avenue. “I was saying all sorts of things.” She pulled her hands back from his grasp and crossed her arms. “I was saying it was hot. I was saying that after lunch I’d like to go for a drive out to Lake Minnetonka and take your boat out, maybe go for a swim. I was saying last night was great.”
“OK, now I’m listening. Go on.” The Governor took another drink of his iced coffee and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
Sandy leaned forward to meet him and quietly said, “I was going to ask why you killed her.”
The Governor looked over her shoulder and then glanced over his own. Then he put a finger to her lips to keep her from saying anything else. “We’ll talk about that later when we’re alone. What else do you want to talk about?”
She grabbed her iced tea and settled back into her chair. “I thought we could go away for a weekend. Relax. Spend some time alone. Talk.”
“That sounds great. I’d love to spend an uninterrupted weekend with you. Have any ideas?”
Sandy crossed her legs, one bronze leg swinging as she talked. “I was thinking the North Shore, north of Duluth. A resort on the lake. Some hiking, walks along the shore, camp fires at night.”
The Governor nodded, his eyes hiding behind his sunglasses. “I’d like to hike the falls down to the lake. See the lighthouse.”
“That would be fun,” Sandy said. Another bus went by and she continued. “There are some great antique shops up there too…”
His thoughts started to drift with her words. He couldn’t shake the vision of the kid floating away towards the chute. The nagging feeling he had that the kid had survived the fall. He went feet first. Could he have survived a fall? From what Dave had told him about the Chute, he wouldn’t survive the fall, would he?
The muffled words of his beautiful companion continued. “I had a visitor today.” She paused. “Special Agent Fruen stopped by to see me.”
“What?” The vision of the kid floating away popped.
“Have you been listening?”
“We were talking about the North Shore and then you said something about Agent Fruen?”
“Special Agent Fruen stopped by as I was leaving my apartment to meet you for lunch. Can you believe they wear those ties and suits all of the time? In this weather?”
“What did he want?” She had his full attention now.
“Just some follow-up questions about what happened at the bank.”
The Governor stood up. “Come on, let’s take that drive out to Lake Minnetonka and you can tell me all about it. We’ll take the boat out for a spin and jump in the lake to cool down.”