8:30 a.m. Eppley Airport

Grace Wenninghoff hugged the leather portfolio to her chest as she watched her husband and four-year-old daughter say their goodbyes. It was a little like watching an Abbott and Costello routine. Vince was on one knee, still slouching in an attempt to be eye level with his daughter, completely oblivious to the extra creases he was adding to his expensive trousers.

"I'll see you in ten days," he told Emily.

"Not if I see you first," she quipped back, trying to contain the smile but bursting into a giggle even before his eyebrow rose and his hands went to his waist in his pretend look of surprise.

They did this routine before every trip, which was becoming more frequent in the last year, and yet both played their parts with genuine pleasure and surprise. Sometimes Grace wished she was part of their fun and games until she remembered that this exchange wasn't exactly motivated by fun. Instead it was the product of sadness and perhaps a bit of fear.

Vince rose to his feet, stretching his six-foot frame with a slight touch to his lower back, a subtle gesture no one but a nagging wife might notice.

"You remembered your Advil gelcaps?" she asked when he came over for his goodbye kiss, which she planted on his cheek despite his disgruntled look.

"That's your idea of a send-off?" He was joking again or trying to, looking to Emily for his audience and rolling his eyes to get her giggling again.

"It's an eleven-hour flight," she said without a smile, refusing to be pulled into the duo's game of pretend, or what Grandma Wenny might call "denial."

But before Grace could remind him that she was the keeper of logic in this family, that she was the grown-up, he surprised her by pulling her in for a hug, crushing the leather portfolio between them. In her ear he whispered, "You sure you're okay?"

And then she realized it was all still part of the charade, his constant attempt to protect Emily, who Vince either didn't realize or truly didn't want to see had become a precocious, tough tomboy. In fact, Grace wouldn't mind planting a little fear in Emily if it kept her from catching backyard snakes and crickets and dumping them into her kiddie pool to see if they could swim. Sometimes Grace wondered who her husband was really protecting from the cold, hard facts that came with growing up, his daughter or himself.

"I'm fine." She pulled away to meet his eyes so he could see that she meant it. "What's a few boxes? I'll have them unpacked and the house looking like home before you get back."

"That's not what I meant." He frowned at her, his brown eyes no longer playful but clouded with concern.

"What? I'm not allowed to joke? Okay, so it might take longer than ten days to get unpacked."

But, of course, she knew he wasn't talking about the mess of their new home, a huge old Victorian, all the packed boxes still stacked and left exactly where the movers had set them over two weeks ago. No, Vince didn't mean that mess. She knew what mess he meant. He meant Jared Barnett. She had made the mistake of telling him about seeing the bastard at the coffee shop and in the courtroom. Luckily she left out the dry cleaner's. He worried too much, always concerned that some criminal she had sent to prison would someday come back for revenge. Unfortunately, an occasional threat came with the job, an occupational hazard. Most of the time they were empty threats.

"I just don't want you constantly watching for the man in every shadow," Vince said then held out his hand to Emily, closing the subject of serious adult talk. It didn't matter. Grace knew that as soon as she and Emily got into the car Emily would be grilling her.

And, unlike her husband, Grace tried not to lie to then-daughter. But she was also guilty of protecting her. She hoped Emily never had to be faced with the realities of her job as a deputy prosecutor. Now that Emily was in preschool the girl's questions became more difficult. Last week she wanted to know why Grace's last name was different than hers and Daddy's. Grace couldn't remember exactly what she told her, but it certainly had not been the truth. How could she tell her four-year-old that the reason she used her own name was that, if any bad people who Mommy pissed off came looking to hurt her, they wouldn't find Emily and her father?

"Don't worry," Grace said, squeezing her husband's hand. "I'll be okay. I always am, right?"

He smiled down at her, apparently satisfied and unaware that her mind had already become preoccupied as she scanned the airport terminal, looking through groups of people coming and going. Making sure that Jared Barnett was nowhere in sight.