“And you can’t go back home until then.”
“Agent Decker will take us home to get some of our stuff, then we’ll head to an FBI safe house. I’m sure she would drop you off at your place on the way.”
Matt’s eyes were watering, and he was shaking his head. “No, I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t come.”
“I could if we were married.”
“Matt, we can’t decide something like that now, not after all we’ve been through the past few days.”
“I decided over a month ago. I already have the ring.”
Alex frowned. “I know. Actually, Beck kind of spilled the beans on that one. He didn’t mean to; he thought you’d already given it to me.”
Matt started in surprise. “I didn’t tell Beck.”
“Of course not. You didn’t even know him then. My handler told him.”
Confusion rippled all over that handsome face. “Who?”
“Matt, I don’t know how to say this, and I’m sorry I didn’t try to explain before, but the FBI has watched you closely from the second you showed an interest in me. They know your routine, your history, your entire financial situation. A lot of the stuff you told me when we were getting to know each other, they knew before I had a chance to learn from you. They’ve been way ahead of both of us this whole time.”
He glanced away from her and stared straight ahead.
“You don’t want to marry me. Because that’s what life would be like where Aggie and I are headed. You would have no secrets. Someone always would be watching, even if just to keep us safe… But still we’d never really be alone. On top of that, however long we had to be gone, you basically would be dead to your life here. Not just your job and the businesses of which I now happen to know that you own exactly twenty-three point eight percent, thanks to Agent Caplin. But your parents, your grandma, Jacob, Wendy, and the kids. Levi and your church. All of your friends.”
His eyes were closed. He was listening, she realized, but he was praying too.
“See, you don’t want to marry me. Not like this. And probably not ever.”
“But I do,” he said, very softly.
She shook her head. “Well, you can’t. I don’t want to go to the life Aglaya and I are headed to. I can’t possibly take you with me. I couldn’t live with myself if I took you from your family and home. I don’t know how long it all will take before I can come back to a real life, so it’s better if you go on with yours. You deserve to have a family of your own and a wife who doesn’t have all this weird crap going on. And children too, of course. You’ll make a wonderful father, Matthew, you will.”
They pulled up in front of her house, and he carried Aggie to the doorstep. His expression was flat, his eyes had no spark, and his shoulders drooped as though under a burden bigger than the man himself.
“I’m really sorry,” she told him, fighting tears of her own. “I told you at the beginning that something like this could happen.”
He smiled weakly. “I know. And I am still going to grieve, just like I did for Sarah. That’s my right.”
“Here,” Alex said. She put her hands on the back of her neck and fiddled with the clasp of the beautiful necklace he’d given her for their anniversary. “If you can wait a second, I will run inside and get the bracelet you gave me for my birthday.”
He shook his head though, almost frantically. “No, keep them, please. They’d look silly on me.”
Alex tried to smile, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll come in handy at your next stop down the road.”
He shifted Aggie into Alex’s arms, kissed the little girl on the head, and kissed Alex so gently on the lips. He gave both of them an open look of such pure love and affection it stopped Alex’s heart a second. Then he turned away.
“Aggie and I will only take a few minutes to pack. Then Agent Decker can drop you off at your place.”
He shook his head. “I’ll walk,” he told her. “It’s not far.”
Katya Kostaskaya glanced at the clock again and shuffled her feet nervously on the muddy, green linoleum. It was getting late. She really hoped this would be over before her mother got home from work. Mama didn’t know where her older daughter was, and she probably wouldn’t approve. Katya didn’t want to worry her mother. Her mother had enough to worry about with her grandmother, her little brother and sister, and her sick father.
Katya had to find some way to help. She knew it was a long shot, this whole modeling thing. So many girls came. But people were always saying what a lovely girl she was, so she hoped and prayed that would be enough.
Not that Mama ever asked for Katya’s help, but the thing was, Mama never asked for anything. Almost every night, Katya overheard her mother and father talking through the thin partition that separated their sleeping area from the bed Katya shared with her grandmother. “Everything is okay, Niko,” her mother would say with a cheerful tone, giving her father a kiss on the cheek. “Everything is fine. You rest now. I’m going to go for a little walk before bed.”
But Katya knew everything was not fine. She knew her mother’s job at the shop didn’t pay enough to take care of the family, let alone for her sick father. She knew that her nine-year-old brother Grigory got in trouble at school, her little sister Tanya wet the bed, and her father, Nikolai Kostasky, was dying from cancer. And she knew that when her mother said she was going for a walk before bed she actually was going to the alley behind their apartment building where she could cry, and her sick husband wouldn’t hear.
Katya had to do something to help Mama and Papa, to help her family. How could she not? So when she had seen the advertisement in the paper for pretty girls who wanted to be models, she had cut it out, hid it in her favorite book, and looked at it whenever she got the chance. She practically had it memorized.
It had brought her here. She left school early to come, and Katya was a good girl, a smart girl. She had never skipped school before. When she signed in for the audition, the woman gave her an application to fill out, and Katya had nibbled her fingernails, wondering if she would need her parents’ permission to become a model.
But the application was a funny thing. It asked who she lived with and their occupations, and what kind of place she lived. It had her describe herself, her looks and her personality and what she liked. It asked how healthy was she? Did she have any medical problems? But it never asked if she had permission; it never even asked for her parents’ names. She breathed easier, and when she returned the papers to the woman, she wore an even bigger smile than usual on her face.
But that was hours ago. And still she waited.
Many girls were taken to the back room, and some came out crying or frowning. Others didn’t come out, and when Katya asked, the woman told her they were in another room getting their pictures taken. And Katya worried some more, because if they thought she could be a model, how long would it take to get her pictures taken? Her mother would be home in an hour or so, and if Katya weren't there helping her grandma feed Grigory and Tanya, Mama would worry.
At last, the woman called her name. Katya sighed audibly. Maybe then, she would still have time. The woman led Katya back to a white room where a man about her father’s age, or a little older, sat at a table with a clipboard.
He stood and watched Katya while he waited for the woman to leave again. As he watched her, Katya suppressed a squirm; her stomach was heavy all of a sudden. He smiled, though, and she smiled back. “So this is Katya,” he declared.
Katya nodded nervously.
“You are a lovely, lovely girl.”
She gave him a weak smile.
“Don’t be scared, dear. This won’t take long at all.”
“Okay,” she whispered. She was still nervous, though it didn’t feel like it was for the same reasons as before…
The man picked up the clipboard, looked it over, and asked her a few quick questions about her application, which she
answered as best she could. Then he said, “Well, this is in order, and it looks good. If you follow me, we will take a few photos for your portfolio, and you can be on your way home. Then I or my assistant will let you know whenever someone likes your photos enough to hire you. Does that sound good?”
Katya nodded and smiled… but she still felt nervous. “Thank you, Mr., uh…”
He grinned and laughed. “Oh, we’re not that formal here. Everyone just calls me Ivanovich.”
Katya nodded quickly, and Ivanovich gestured grandly with his right hand at the door in the back of the room. “Right this way, sweetheart.”
Katya went.
Chapter Thirteen
If Alex had thought she was bored before… haha.
Alex didn’t know exactly where they were. It was probably still in California. She and Aggie had both been allowed to pack two boxes and a bag. They were told that the safe house was furnished. The kitchen, bathrooms, and linen closets would be fully equipped, so they should take only clothes, sentimental objects, and the things they would need to amuse themselves.
There wasn’t enough amusement in the world.
They had basic cable television, but all local programming and anything with a rating above PG was blocked.
Alex brought Aggie’s Kindle and her own laptop. They had WiFi internet, but it was government internet, monitored and filtered so that any communication to the outside, anything that could give away their location, and anything that would be considered anti-productive in a government office environment (in short, anything amusing) was blocked. Alex kept herself busy the first two days trying to find ways to bypass the filter. But then one of her guards put on his stern face, took her aside, and told her if she did not stop trying to circumvent their safety measures with regards to the internet, the connection would be turned off.
After that, Alex spent her time roaming the grounds, trying to get a signal on her smartphone. She hoped to find one that was strong enough at least to access the GPS and figure out her location. Not only did she have no luck (there was probably a signal jammer somewhere on the grounds), the same guard who had lectured her about internet responsibility caught her fooling around with the phone and confiscated it. It took two hours reasoning with, bargaining with, and whining to Agent White to get it back.
Alex and Aggie turned in a grocery list once a week, and most of what was on it was brought to them the next day in plain, white plastic bags. If Alex asked for anything a little strange, like cardamom pods or crème fraiche, it probably wouldn’t come. The next week she asked for cinnamon and sour cream. Often if she asked for a specific brand of something, she would get another brand instead, so she stopped specifying her choices.
Aggie was lonely. Some of the guards would play with her a little while, but most of them considered her a distraction from their work. And there were, of course, no other children and no elderly people, who were Aggie’s favorite types of people. Safe house life was torture for a social butterfly like Aglaya.
Alex was lonely too.
The day after their arrival, Edward Tokan was taken into custody after an Interpol strike force stormed his compound in Morocco. Alex’s chief “amusements” after that were the daily reports Agent White gave her about the case.
Interpol had confiscated files, computers, and all kinds of incriminating materials from Tokan’s seaside mansion, and analysts all over the world were processing pieces of it. Alex asked if she could be given something to work with, but Agent White said no, it would be a conflict of interest. They didn’t want to do anything to compromise the case.
Tokan had been forced to scale back his enterprise when he went into hiding, and about half of his brothels had been closed or cut off from his funding and protection for years. His empire already was crumbling, and law enforcement agencies around the world were moving daily and nightly on the pieces that were left. Alex grinned at the growing tallies of criminals in custody and bit back shouts of joy when the number of children and women freed went from dozens to hundreds.
Twenty-five days after they were taken to the safe house, they were taken out of it for the first time. Agent White explained that a medical expert for the defense was given leave to observe an independent examination of Aglaya, in order to determine, for the record, such relevant factors as her age and parentage. The outing was nerve-wracking, but Aggie was well-guarded. Alex was allowed to stand by her side while a nice pediatrician gave her a check-up and took a swab of the inside of her cheek.
On the way back, Alex tried to talk with Agent White about enrolling Aglaya in kindergarten next month. Alex knew how much her daughter missed being with other kids—
“No,” Agent White said.
“I didn’t even—”
“Aglaya cannot go to the local kindergarten. I will have the techs check out k12.com for you and make sure nothing Aggie needs will be blocked, or if you want to pick out some homeschool curricula, I will have it purchased posthaste. We can also bring in tutors if there is anything the two of you struggle with, but Aggie cannot go to school with other kids. Not now; it’s not safe.”
“Well, you could have a guard put in her class as an assistant or something, but really, she’s so lonely here, and—”
“No,” Agent White said in a tone that told Alex the discussion was over.
She couldn’t help adding, under her breath, “Think about it and let me know.”
Safe house life sucked.
Part of her wished she had let Matt come with them. He was a better playmate for Aggie than Alex was. But going twenty-five days without talking to his family would’ve been torture for him. She never could have asked that, not when he’d already given them so much.
She decided that she was being selfish to miss him so much.
* * *
It wasn’t all bad. Alex and Aggie put on hiking boots and newspaper hats and took to the yard like Lewis and Clark, prowling for animals in the scrubby, anemic wooded lot behind the house. In the featureless kitchen, Alex taught her daughter how to make homemade Rice Krispies treats and macaroni and cheese. Without anything good on television, they had a lot of time to cuddle together in the old recliner and tell each other stories.
Alex had been telling Aggie’s favorite story ever since she brought her home to the farm in Maine the first time as a toddler. No matter how many times Alex told the story, Aggie always listened wide-eyed and silent, her pink mouth forming a perfect O at all the biggest parts.
“Once upon a time there was a lovely princess named Katie who lived in a small house in a big city with her parents, the King and Queen, her grandmother, and her little brother and sister. She wasn’t a rich princess in terms of money, but she was rich because she had lots of love, and she was a very happy person who was as nice as she could be to everyone.
“One day a scary ogre and his boss, the wicked thief, kidnapped the Princess and trapped her in the cave where she lived with other children they had kidnapped. Princess Katie was scared, but she also was brave, because she always was nice to the other girls and boys, even when they were not nice to her. She told them to hope they would be free one day, because the High King would send someone to free them. She said no matter what happened when the High King came, it would be wonderful. Either they would go home to their mommies and daddies, or they would go to live with him in his huge palace, which was the nicest one ever built.
“Princess Katie did get sad sometimes, though, and one day when she was sad, an angel from the High King visited her in the cave and gave her a special new friend, a tiny baby fairy princess. Princess Katie named the fairy princess Annie, and she was happy to have Princess Annie to take care of. Even though Annie was only a tiny baby, Princess Katie told her all of the stories of the High King who would one day set them free.
“Well, the High King did send someone one day, but it wasn’t an army of knights or angels. It was just one lady, a police lady named Alice. Alice badly wanted to free all the little girls and boy
s in the ogre’s dirty cave. But she made a mistake, and she and Princess Katie had to flee the cave alone at night, and they could only take baby Princess Annie with them. While they were running away, a poisonous snake bit Princess Katie, and she became very sick. Princess Katie realized that she was not going to make it back to the little house in the big city where the King and Queen lived, but she was going to the High King’s palace instead. She gave her fairy baby Princess Annie to Alice, the police lady, and told her always to keep the baby safe from the ogre and the rich, wicked thief. And Alice said that she always would.
“The High King sent a beautiful golden chariot to take Princess Katie to his palace, where her father, the King, soon went to join her. Alice took Princess Annie away, and they ran around hiding, all over the world, awaiting the day when the ogre and the thief would be captured, and they could stop hiding forever. And you know what would happen then?”
“What?” Aggie always asked, looking like she couldn’t wait to hear the answer, even though she’d known the answer, word for word, as long as she could remember.
“Well, they could do whatever they wanted, of course,” Alex said. “And one day Alice would take Princess Annie to meet the Queen, Princess Katie’s mama, and Princess Katie’s grandma, and her brother and sister in the small house in the big city where they lived, waiting for the day when they could meet the fairy princess that Katie had loved so, so much!”
Then Aggie would grin her widest and announce, “The end!”
Aili stared at the coffin. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. She leafed through a mental scrapbook that contained memories of her father. None of what she recalled did anything to un-confuse her. She felt something between disappointment, numbness, and relief, and it didn’t seem like any of that was quite right.
She remembered the things he used to say:
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