Perfect Paige

by Ines Saint

  “Let’s go, Dad,” Riley said. It was obvious she was trying to diffuse the tension. Finally, with both kids urging him on, they left.

  Alex went to the living room and sat down, feeling both spent and on edge. It took him longer than usual to get back to a place where he could focus on work.

  But the tension from Paige and Glenn’s encounter never fully went away.

  Chapter 7

  Throughout the evening, Alex worked on a case involving a sophisticated Ponzi scheme run by a couple from a nearby suburb. At the rate the couple was spending, there’d be nothing left for restitution. They had to move fast, and that gave him the motivation he needed to focus.

  Unfortunately, as he analyzed the couple’s bank statements, tax returns, and transactions, he couldn’t seem to keep a corner of his brain from traveling to the apartment across the hall.

  It was near 11 p.m. when his phone rang. The name on the screen gave him pause. “Agent Hooke here,” he answered.

  “Agent Hooke? This is Amala Kumar. I—I am sorry it is so late. Did I awaken you?”

  “No, no. I was awake. What can I do for you, Dr. Kumar?”

  “Well, I am sorry for the hour, but if you are okay to talk, I think what I have to discuss cannot wait.” Dr. Kumar’s soft voice and clipped accent came through the receiver.

  “I’m okay to talk,” Alex assured her.

  “Well—I was at Gerry Galloway’s home tonight for dinner, and Glenn and the children were there, and it very much strikes me that he is not at fault. I have known Glenn since he was a child, you see, and he has always been a good-mannered, sensible boy. I cannot believe he took my laboratory journal.”

  Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. Glenn Galloway’s disgusting insults were still fresh in his mind. The last thing he wanted was to hear all about how well-mannered and sensible the jerk was. “I appreciate your insights, Dr. Kumar, and I assure you we are looking closely at everyone who could possibly be involved.” He felt like a politician, trying to appease with carefully selected words that meant nothing at all. Glenn must’ve played a convincing victim that night, but he was only fooling himself. Eventually, the trial transcripts would come out. Everyone would learn everything he’d done.

  Dr. Kumar’s voice took on a frustrated edge. “Agent Hooke, I am afraid the FBI does not understand. While you are looking at the wrong people, someone might already be studying all my data. The last entry shows the potential for this engineered bacteria to contaminate large bodies of water and drinking supplies with methyl mercury. This is mercury in its most organic form! Severe neurological damage would result to those who drink it, especially children. I have tried to explain this to you and to Dr. Hess. We must find my data. It must be destroyed. I believe if Glenn knew the truth, he could be wired and talk to Dr. Dwight to discover something. I know Dr. Dwight was at fault. I never trusted him. And you see, I was not wrong.”

  Alex chest tightened. “Dr. Kumar, I assure you the FBI understands and shares your concerns.” Again, he hated the way he sounded. She needed to be convinced, not appeased. He tried a different tack. “The idea of how effective a bioweapon this could be keeps me up at night. It is my main assignment, and though I can’t discuss particulars with you, we are very close, and we have evidence that, although it is not in our hands, it is secure. But this is all part of an ongoing federal investigation and you cannot discuss this with Gerard and Glenn Galloway, or anyone. I need you to understand that.”

  “I have not discussed the results with anyone. I am only sharing my thoughts.” It was the second time Alex had felt she sounded miffed at being asked.

  The last time he’d insisted, she’d grown testy. Regardless, he tried again. “And you’re sure no one knows about this potential but you?”

  “I already told you I have not shared anything!” Again, the normally calm, measured woman grew testy.

  “You’re sure no one else knows?” he pressed.

  For a moment, only breathing could be heard on the other end. When she spoke again, he was relieved to hear her voice sounded calm. “I am sorry. I do not like the feeling of being accused. I understand you are only doing your job. Only I know what the engineered bacteria can do, Agent Hooke. And I will do my best to trust your department.”

  Although she couldn’t see him, Alex nodded. “Would it help if Dr. Hess or I called you every few days? Like I said, we can’t give you particulars, but we’d be happy to share what we can.”

  “Yes. That would be helpful.”

  “Thank you for calling me and sharing your concerns, Dr. Kumar. Please know I share them, too. And you should feel free to call me anytime.”

  “Thank you, Agent Hooke. Get some sleep. Sleep is necessary. Good night.” Click.

  He ran a hand through his hair. Sleep is needed. Right. After that phone call, it was doubtful he’d get any. He sat down and put his hands on his head, thinking about the consequences that both Hess and Kumar had laid out.

  First thing the next morning, he’d have to call and get someone to visit Dr. Kumar, to reassure her and to assess whether she’d spilled anything to the Galloways. Right now, he had to focus and take it step by step. Pressure and anxiety did nothing to move a case forward. Clear and critical thinking were paramount.

  He sat down and went over everything once more, thinking every possibility through, until a noise outside the door caught his attention. A quick glance at the microwave’s clock told him it was past midnight. The last hour had gone by quickly and had helped reassure him he was on the right track.

  Looking through the peephole again, he saw Paige in nightwear consisting of a pink T-shirt and purple shorts, sitting on the top step, petting the kitten on her lap, a clear container full of what looked like double chocolate-chip chunk cookies next to her—where he could see it. His heart sped up.

  Double chocolate-chip chunk cookies . . . He battled both excessive saliva and a strange sort of glee. It was just what he needed to get a second wind. But he kept his cool. The cookies were in his line of vision and she was sitting outside his door because she wanted something. Something else caught his attention then. She’d changed her hair color.

  They’d already had one productive midnight conversation. It was usually a vulnerable time for people. The lonely, but intimate nature of darkness made them more prone to sharing. He’d never found out what the name of the kitten was, or what had happened to Mad Madeline. It was the perfect moment to build trust, to see if she would allow him to pick her brain about the days leading up to April twenty-six. With Dr. Kumar getting antsy and believing that Glenn was innocent, it was more pressing than ever they find the damn thing.

  He took a moment to get his saliva and anticipation in check before stepping out and shutting the door behind him. Paige looked up. Their eyes met. “Can’t sleep?” he asked.

  “My mind’s too busy,” she shared before smiling an extra-pretty, self-deprecating smile.

  So this was to be another tango where neither knew what the other was really up to or really thinking. He continued to look down at her, refusing to release her eyes. There had to be a way to get past the act again. He tilted his head and studied her in an analytical way. “Did you do something to your hair, Mrs. Galloway? It makes you look more human, and less packaged and practiced.” It wasn’t a lie. Chestnut brown suited her. She also must’ve been out under the sun, because a few freckles had popped up around her nose. She was as beautiful as ever, but the freckles and new hair color combined to make her look more natural and appealing.

  Paige didn’t bat an eyelash. Her steady gaze did not waver. “I did. And thank you,” was all she said with as much poise as if she were dressed in one of her usual designer outfits.

  He couldn’t help it, he smiled.

  “Is something amusing you?” she asked.

  “We’re amusing me. Why don’t we just drop the acts and the games?”

  * * *

  At that moment, with his guard somewhat lowered, Paige was
able to look past the stone-like, calculating eyes that normally stopped her cold, and see there were yellow sparks around his pupils, spread through his irises like tiny sunrays.

  The job at the Twelve Bridges could very well depend on him seeing she was human, too. If she gave a little, would he explain to Mrs. Hernandez that she was completely cleared, even though he still hadn’t found the journal? She looked down at the delicate French manicure capping off her hands. “Packaged and practiced, you said. And you’re right. It didn’t take long to realize some people became my friends for all the wrong reasons. When it hits you that you can’t always know who’s who and who wants what and why or how they really feel about you, you find ways to protect yourself. And I know it’s all a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things, but at the end of the day, most of us go back to our little corner of the world, and that’s what we deal with day in and day out. It can be easy to forget what’s meaningful and what’s meaningless. But I was always sincere in my intentions, and in a way, that’s what I had to learn to protect.”

  “Sincere in what intentions?”

  She looked out into the dark, moonless night, not sure how to explain. “In caring.”

  He sat down next to her, and Jinx, the traitor, jumped onto his lap. Agent Hooke petted him with the back of his hand and she noted his nails were clipped and clean. “I forgot to ask what the kitten’s name was.”

  “Jinx.”

  He smiled at the name. “I also forgot to ask whatever happened to Mad Madeline.”

  Paige stretched her legs out in front of her. “Well, her husband was arrested for bootlegging. He’d been hiding the loot in the vault of her parents’ bank, with the help of a cashier who happened to be his mistress. When the feds raided their house, she threw a fit of epic proportions, breaking every bottle of alcohol the agents discovered, before tripping and falling down the stairs.” Except for the end, the story ended up being closer to Paige and Glenn’s story than she’d had time to think about before blurting out, “She broke her neck.”

  They were quiet for a while, until he surprised her by asking, “Are you okay?”

  There was a rough edge to his voice, but Paige didn’t know if it was because his question was insincere, or because he was also uncomfortable about how closely Mad Madeline’s story resembled her own. Either way, he was telling her what she already knew. He’d witnessed her argument with Glenn.

  She stifled a sigh and pushed back at her reluctance to share intimate things. They didn’t like each other, and they were as different as a kitten and a pitbull, but she needed to make him see she was more than a wannabe society wife missing the good life before Monday rolled around and he got the phone call.

  Still, she had to take a deep, steadying breath before speaking truths to him. “I’m okay . . . The verbal assault was new, but the underlying sentiment wasn’t.” She shrugged. “Glenn’s parents have never liked me. They wanted him to end up with someone like them. Someone who wouldn’t bring emotional baggage or bad genes into the marriage. They kept saying that it wasn’t personal, that they were realists and forward-thinkers, and that those were the qualities that had allowed them to make the decisions that led to their happy life. In the beginning, all I wanted was for them to see that that was all I wanted, too. A happy life.”

  He remained silent and she looked at him again. He was quiet, but his gaze was thoughtful, and he surprised her by asking. “Did Glenn ever make you happy?”

  She took her time, wanting to be truthful. Alex Hooke had been right outside the door when Hope had accused her of only going for a nursing degree in order to marry a doctor. A nursing degree that had once meant the world to her and could mean so much again. If the FBI didn’t get in the way. Could she make him understand? “I don’t really know. He proposed during my last semester of college and it had been a horrible year. Mom died, and Hope and Gracie had their . . . difficulties. Glenn was thirty, and he seemed like he had it together, you know? He also was charming, and so kind and sweet to me. Later I realized that it was because he felt paternalistic, which made him feel good about himself, but to me, at the time, it felt like kindness. Looking back, I think all I wanted was a reprieve from all the sadness and guilt. It wasn’t really about me, though. It was about this future family life I envisioned. I grew up around people who seemed to have it all and it all looked so warm and so safe. But with Glenn, it all soon became about me proving to his parents that they were wrong about me, that I would work harder than anyone to make their son’s life a happy one.”

  “What’s a happy life to you, Paige?”

  She wondered why he was asking. Glenn had been involved in something that had affected lifesaving treatments, vaccines, and even medical devices. Her dreams were unimportant next to that, even she knew it. A speck of dust. Still she answered, if only to see where he was going with his questions, and to see whether it could come to a new understanding. “A worry-, anxiety-, and stress-free home life.”

  “I grew up in a worry-, anxiety-, and stress-free home.” There was no inflection in his voice. She’d given up a tiny piece of herself, and now he was giving her something in return, letting her read between the lines and giving her the choice to dig a little deeper if she wanted to.

  Enough to get her to trust him. He still didn’t know whether she had revealed everything she remembered about the days leading up to April twenty-six. She took the bait and tried to tell herself that even though they’d agreed to be real, even being real was a calculated decision. But the truth was, she was curious now. “It wasn’t a happy home?”

  “By your definition, it was.”

  She smiled despite herself. He caught it, and smiled, too. His real smile. The one that reached his eyes. “Fine. What is happiness, then, Special Agent Hooke?”

  “It’s Alex. And according to my grandmother and great-aunt, happiness is just an American buzzword.”

  “American buzzword . . . Where are they from?”

  “Russia.”

  It took all Paige had not to laugh, but he caught her amused expression anyway.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just when I first saw you, I thought you were a KGB agent. The KGB invading my house made as much sense to me as the FBI raiding us. It was that unexpected. And you were so mean and unfeeling. I thought you looked like Ivan Drago, from the Rocky movies. Anyway, did you, uh, spend a lot of time with them growing up?”

  “They raised me.”

  “Oh.” Now she was really curious. But she knew she had to proceed with caution. “How long have they lived in the United States?” It seemed like a safe, neutral question.

  “About seventy years. They left their homeland during the Nazi occupation in World War II.”

  “So they’ve seen a lot. More than either of us can imagine. It must put things into perspective for you.”

  His eyes met hers again, and she caught a hint of amusement. “I’m sure they’ve seen it all, but they don’t talk much about it. They don’t whine, they don’t complain, and they don’t make excuses. Things are what they are. That’s their perspective. Starting over here couldn’t have been easy for them, but they’ve been running a successful taxi company for over sixty years. According to them, hard work leads to satisfaction, and that’s all you need.”

  Now she had all sorts of questions, but she couldn’t ask them because they were personal questions, and they weren’t friends. Obviously, his parents hadn’t been around. What had happened to them?

  As a way of curbing her curiosity over him, she thought back to times when she’d been satisfied. Singing and dancing around the house and watching silly movies with her mom and sisters when her mom was feeling like the best version of herself, a good report card from her sisters and now her kids, pulling off fund-raisers and new recipes . . . all required work and were satisfying, but only a few made her happy, and those were the ones that involved family. Those made her feel real joy. “How do you all feel about joy, then?
”

  “Have you been talking to Ruby about me?”

  “No, why?”

  “She said I was joyless.”

  Paige laughed. “Are you?”

  He shrugged, but there was the hint of a self-mocking grin there. “I don’t know.”

  “Something must bring you joy. I was just thinking that for me it’s seeing my kids conquer something they’ve struggled with. Their faces, especially, when they light up, and their smiles hit me, right here.” She put her hand to her heart. “And it spreads and makes me feel like life is great.”

  He watched her a moment before looking down, as if he was really thinking about it. “A Bengals win,” he finally answered with a confident nod.

  “A Bengals win?” Paige bit her bottom lip to try to stop herself from laughing.

  “Yeah. A Bengals win. It makes me feel exactly the way you just described. There’s no better feeling.”

  “I’ll tell Ruby not to worry, then. You’re only joyless three hundred and fifty-five days out of the year.”

  He sent her a questioning look.

  “The Bengals win something like ten games per season. That’s about ten days of joy every year,” she teased.

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Football is the one thing I get emotional about, in general. Even watching Riley and Tyler learn to throw felt good.”

  That last admission surprised her, and Paige wondered how the subject had gotten away from her, how they’d ended up there.

  “But I shouldn’t have taught them to throw the ball. That’s a dad’s job, and he took his anger about it out on you. I’m sorry about that,” he added, looking into her eyes.

  Was he truly sorry? Or was he merely trying to get insight into Glenn’s current psychological state? She decided it didn’t matter. “The look in Glenn’s eye when he got out of the car and looked at me . . . I know the look. It’s like he’d been thwarted and outmaneuvered. Only his dad thwarts him like that, and he’s been keeping it in forever.”