“At this point, does it really matter?”
“I’m sorry.” She swiped at a tear with the bottom of her sleeve. “For all of it. I’m so tired.” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them I read weariness in their depths. “I’m in this as much as you are. As much as your father and mine. If this blows up, then I’m in prison, federal prison, for life. If they don’t execute me first. And . . . Preston?” She swallowed a sob. “I’d lose everything.”
She was asking the wrong person for sympathy. “You’ve got to do something. You have to. Don’t tell me you won’t.”
“But my father—”
“Your father is one person in a democracy of millions. Are you really telling me you’re going to protect him at the expense of everyone else? That you’re going to put one person above the principles we all say we subscribe to? How can you put his needs and his rights above all the rest of ours? That’s not what we do here.”
“But your father’s in the same position. Don’t you want to protect him?”
“This is what makes us different: I think the rules apply to everyone.”
“But he didn’t mean—”
“This is kindergarten stuff. It doesn’t matter what he meant. What matters is what he did.”
“I used to believe that too, then I got stuck trying to make him look like what he was supposed to be. I told myself it was okay because he’s making a difference. He has real influence and—”
“He’s been compromised by the Russian government!”
She shook her head. “There’s no way for me to get out of this now.” She grabbed my arm. “Give it to someone else. Do whatever you need to. Just please, do me a favor. Don’t link it to Rydel. Or me.”
I shoved the papers into my purse. Then I pushed my chair away from the table and stood to leave.
64
She stood too.
I was beyond caring what Jenn did, but as I rounded the table and started down the sidewalk, she followed me. A jogger was coming up behind us; I picked up my pace, heading for a wider spot in the walkway so I could let him go around.
Jenn called to me, “Just— Wait up!”
As I turned back, she paused and pulled out a chair from an empty table, indicating I should sit. “Please. Let’s not leave it this way.”
The man coming up behind us veered out toward the curb and began to jog around me.
I took a step toward Jenn to give him more space.
Instead of passing, he pivoted toward us, pushing me away from the table with one arm.
I stumbled and fell.
With his other hand he drew a gun from his hoodie pocket. It had a silencer attached and—
Jenn’s eyes widened.
Out in the intersection, a car honked.
I was scrambling to my feet.
Jenn stretched her arm out toward the man. “Hey—” But her protest was stilled, her confusion calmed by a small, bright-red star that bloomed between her eyes.
My strength left my legs and they folded, leaving me stranded on the pavement.
As Jenn slumped forward, the man caught her by the arms and shifted her weight. He pushed her backward, propping her up in the chair.
My heart had stopped when I saw his gun, but it slammed back into motion. “What are— You can’t just—”
A sweep of headlights illuminated the scene. It glinted off the star-shaped spot on Jenn’s forehead and animated the reflective stripes on her running shoes.
He turned to me and for one long moment looked me straight in the eyes before slowly pulling his hood up over his head and jogging on.
Jenn just sat there, eyes wide open as a thin trail of blood snaked down her nose, onto her cheek.
The people sitting over by the front door kept talking. Cars passed. Out in the parking lot, a door slammed.
I pushed to my feet. My mouth kept opening and closing, but it couldn’t seem to collect any air. Then my last ounce of breath came out in a keening cry and I doubled over as if I’d been hit in the gut.
Someone grabbed my arm. “You okay?”
Turning my head, I saw Chris standing there, hunched beside me.
I didn’t know how to answer.
He braced an arm around my back and pulled me straight.
I tried to recoil, but I couldn’t.
“Walk!” The word was a command.
Cars passed, headlights sweeping through the asymmetrical intersection and glancing off the aluminum sides of the Silver Diner. Up ahead to the left O’Sullivan’s, an Irish tavern, glowed in the night.
I shook my head. “I can’t—I can’t—”
Chris’s arm came around my shoulder like a vise. He leaned down to talk in my ear. “Just walk!”
“I can’t—I can’t just leave her there.”
Clamping me against his side, he lifted me and strode forward, past the coffee shop, toward the darkness of the parking lot where the glare of headlights didn’t reach. The tips of my toes dragged along the ground. “You don’t want to be there when they find her.”
“They?” I wriggled out of his grasp. “What about you?” I beat at him with my fists.
He dodged my blows. “I didn’t do anything.”
Tears coursed down my face as I continued yelling. “You’ve been watching me for months now! You’ve been here the whole time! Why did you let them kill her?”
Catching my wrists, he spun, turning me toward him. Then held me to his side. “Hey! Calm down.” He spoke the words into my ear.
I bucked, trying to break his hold. “You’re the FBI. You’re supposed to get the bad guys.”
“I’m trying. That was my fault. I should have identified him as a threat.”
I slumped to the ground.
He let me. Then, glancing down at me, he reached inside his coat and pulled out a gun.
I shut my eyes and curled up into a ball, bringing my knees up to my chest.
After a long moment, he hooked his hand around my elbow. “Get up. We’re okay. It wasn’t them. I think they’re gone.”
65
As he walked me to my car, he kept his hand hidden away inside his jacket. I panicked for a moment when I didn’t see my car. Then I realized I’d driven June’s to the coffee shop. Chris took the fob from my hand, beeped the car open, and shoved me in. Then he jogged around and got into the seat next to mine. “Talk.”
I had to be very careful in choosing my words. “I found out my husband was one of your assets.”
He said nothing.
What more could I say? I couldn’t tell him that Sean hadn’t died. He might suspect, but did he know for certain? And I couldn’t let him know what I knew about my father. I had to tell someone, but I still wasn’t sure if the FBI and the DoD were part of the problem. It hadn’t been the Russians who’d taken Sean’s files or gotten him reassigned. “He was killed in a hit-and-run accident.”
“Yes?”
“It just seems suspicious.”
“By which you mean a deep-state conspiracy?”
I shrugged.
“We’re not—” He paused. Took a deep breath. “The FBI does not assassinate US citizens. We might jail them, but we don’t murder them. Why on—” Another deep breath. “Let’s live in reality for just a minute. I’d like to help you, Georgie. I think your life may be in danger.” He gave me a long look. “But I need you to trust me.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m being honest with you.”
No, he wasn’t. There was no Keith. I suspected there had never been a Kristy either. “It’s difficult for me to trust people.”
“I understand. But you seem to have the black widow’s touch. You talk to people; they die. What I need you to do is start asking yourself why. If it’s not me—and believe me, it’s not us—then who is it? Seems like you’re the only one with answers right now.” He got out of the car and left me to drive home alone.
* * *
I had to pull over at the first intersection, so
I could throw up.
And again at Glebe.
Jenn was dead. We’d been friends since high school. Granted, she hadn’t turned out to be as good a friend as I had thought, but no one deserved to be murdered. And what about Preston? What was going to happen to her son?
What about my son? I tried not to let myself think about Sam. I was doing my best to keep him safe.
My eyes darted, scanning the street behind me, as I tried to determine if anyone was following me.
Should I return to Jim and June’s? I didn’t want to take danger back with me.
Should I try to hide? Try to lose them?
From Glebe, I turned onto Wilson Boulevard. As I approached the coffee shop again, ambulances were coming down the road in the opposite direction, lights flashing. Once they passed, I turned, repeating the loop.
By my next pass, police cars had joined the ambulances.
The Russians were after Sean. But they hadn’t been the ones who cost him his job. Someone in the DoD had helped my father do that. With Sean’s help, the FBI had been trying to identify him. Or her.
But what about Jenn? Who would kill her? The Russians? But why? Her death had to mean something. It had to fit with the other pieces of my puzzle.
Sean had wanted to investigate what he’d found out; Jenn had wanted to keep what she’d known silent. She’d been doing exactly what the Russians wanted. So why had she ended up dead?
Something else didn’t fit: I’d seen the man who killed her. He knew I’d seen him. He let me see him and still, I was alive. Our house had blown up and still, I was alive. That was twice I should have died but didn’t.
Why?
If the intruder in my house had been intent on killing Sam and me, he would have blown up the house when he was certain we were in it. But I’d been thinking about that. Alice had been at the vet’s that afternoon and the car had been in the shop. Sam and I were in the basement. It probably seemed as if we weren’t home.
The only logical conclusion was that they hadn’t been trying to kill us.
Sean was right. They were trying to send him a message.
That made sense; that served a purpose.
But I kept circling back to Jenn. How would killing her serve a similar purpose?
If killing her was supposed to send a message to someone, who would it be?
I was missing a piece of the puzzle. Sean and Jenn had to fit, but they didn’t.
It was like the gap between quantum physics and general relativity. The first described the smallest particles in the universe while the second explained its vastness. The problem was, neither could describe the other. When you tried to join them together, the theories fell apart. We all kept hoping that someone, somewhere could figure out a way to bridge the two and reconcile both branches of physics. There had to be a solution. We just didn’t know yet what it was.
The Russians were after Sean; the Russians killed Jenn.
There had to be a connection. I just had to find it.
I texted Sean at the next red light.
Jenn killed
Have new info
Everything worse than thought
When I was sure no one was following me, I made my way back to Jim and June’s.
* * *
In the netherworld between wakefulness and sleep that night, I had a profoundly clarifying thought. I might not have understood the reason for Jenn’s death, but one thing I did know. The gunman had let me see his face because, for some reason that was not yet clear to me, it didn’t matter that I saw him.
Because I saw him, I could identify him.
I’d gotten what I’d been wanting. I had a face. I knew who to watch for. The contours of his features were seared into my memory. I could easily help a police artist draw a sketch that would help determine his identity.
If he could be caught and questioned, he could be the proof that the stories I’d collected about my father, the reports of his treachery, were true. In fact, that killer was the only real proof we had. And yet that hadn’t mattered. For some reason they didn’t think leaving me alive posed any risk. If I could figure out why, then I could make sense of Jenn’s murder. Until then I had to do my best to keep Sam and me safe.
66
I drove Sam to school the next morning instead of walking. Things were getting too dangerous. As I drove, I tried to prepare him for what he might hear at school.
“Preston might not be in class for a while. In fact, he may be switching schools.” Jenn’s ex lived in the north part of the county in a neighborhood with a different elementary school.
“Will he be at the concert tonight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“His . . . um . . . Miss Jenn died last night.” I shot him a glance through the rearview mirror.
He was chewing on the string of his hoodie. “Like Daddy?”
“Right. Like Daddy.”
“Did she get hit?”
“She did. Not by a car, though.”
“By a ball?”
A ball? “No.” Well, kind of. A small metal one.
“Because that’s why we can’t throw balls in PE. We might hit someone.”
“She did get hit by something, sweetie.” I realized my hands were gripping the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. I flexed them, trying not to remember the way that bullet hole had bloomed on her forehead.
“Is she going into the hole?”
“She’s going into the ground. She’s going to be buried. And Preston is going to be really sad.”
“Yeah.” He went back to chewing on the string.
We pulled into the school parking lot and I drove all the way down to the end to find a spot.
I got out. Did a check of the area immediately around us. No one on the playground. No one suspicious in any of the vehicles immediately surrounding ours. The apartments that abutted the school property? It was hard to tell. There were too many windows. As I helped Sam out of the car, I shielded him with my body.
He grabbed my hand as we walked down the sidewalk. “Maybe Preston could borrow Alice for a while.”
“Alice? Why?”
“She doesn’t mind when you cry. And when you lie down next to her, she gives you a hug.”
* * *
The last time I’d been in the classroom was for Bring a Parent to School Day. Back then the featured motifs had been apples and pencils and rulers. Now it was pumpkins and scarecrows and ghosts.
Bring a Parent to School Day!
I tugged Sam back as he went to put his things in his cubby. “Hey, do you remember Bring a Parent to School Day?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember whose dad spoke after me? The one who brought you guys the comics and bookmarks?”
“Yeah.”
“Whose dad was it?”
“Emma’s dad.”
“Is Emma here yet?”
He glanced around. “No. Yes!” He pointed to the door. “There she is.”
There were several mothers walking into the classroom with their daughters at that point. I had Sam go over with me to make sure I talked to the right mother.
I introduced myself. “Are you coming to the concert tonight? I was wondering if I could meet up with your husband to discuss an article for his paper. I think I have a story he’d like.”
We arranged to meet later that evening.
I kissed Sam on the cheek as I left. Told myself that he was probably safer inside the school than he was with me.
Sam whispered in my ear as I hugged him good-bye. “Grandpa and Grandma are coming!”
“Where? To what?”
“The concert.”
“Tonight?”
He nodded.
“What?!” They couldn’t come to the concert. Not when I was planning to pass information on my father to a journalist! “Why? How do they know about the concert?”
“I called them.”
“How?”
“Gr
andma gave me their phone number. I know it by heart!” He proceeded to recite it.
“You called them? By yourself?”
He nodded. “Miss June helped me. They want to hear me sing.”
I doubted it. No one in their right mind wanted to sit in a school gym for two hours and listen to a bunch of kids sing. “That’s super nice of them.”
On the way back up the hill, Sean texted me.
I’m thinking of getting back in touch with old friends
I took it to mean he wanted to go to the FBI. But I hadn’t worked everything out yet. I texted back.
What if they aren’t very friendly?
Not a good idea
I called my mother as soon as I got back to June and Jim’s. “You guys don’t have to come tonight. It was nice of you to offer, but—”
“We can’t wait!”
“Really, Mom, that would definitely be above and beyond.” And I didn’t want my father anywhere near my son.
“Sam wants us to. I wouldn’t dream of disappointing him.”
“But what about the hearing? I’m sure Dad has a million things to—”
“You know your father. Everything that had to be done already is. So we’ll be there tonight with bells on. We’ll pick you up.”
“How about we just meet you there?”
67
We ate dinner with June and Jim. After that, we met my parents at the school. We dropped Sam off with his teacher and then I led them to the gym where chairs had been set up in front of the stage. It smelled like fresh paint and basketballs. Footsteps squeaked as parents walked across the wood floors. Conversations echoed off the concrete walls and high ceilings.
I settled them in chairs as close to the front as I could find. Then I excused myself and went in search of Emma’s mom. I found her sitting on one of the aisles toward the middle, holding a tablet up in the direction of the stage. She smiled as she saw me. Nodded at the tablet. “Just getting it ready to record.”
The man I recognized as the journalist from Bring a Parent to School Day was sitting next to her, holding a bouquet of flowers.
State of Lies Page 25
