A Girl Undone

by Catherine Linka

  “Aveline is an innocent, and she needs to be found and returned home. I promise you the truth will come out and her name will be cleared.”

  “And you’ve offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to her return.”

  Return? Don’t you mean capture? I began to feel floaty, disconnected.

  “Yes. Here’s the hotline: 1-800-AVE-LINE.”

  I wrapped my arms across my chest as the number scrolled across the screen. “Oh my God.”

  Vera guided me onto a chair. “Come on now. Lean over. Head between your knees. Yes, good girl.” She rubbed a circle on my back. “You don’t look anything like that picture. Not now with your new hairdo.”

  “Some might say, Mr. Hawkins, that your search for Aveline is actually an attempt to clear your campaign of the scandal associated with your fiancée’s actions.”

  “I understand that people doubt my motives for defending Aveline, but what happened to her could happen to any young woman in America. This is why Paternalists fight to protect young women, because any girl can become a victim.”

  “Well, thank you for talking to us this evening, Mr. Hawkins—”

  Vera snapped off the TV, and a few seconds later I heard her bang the drapes shut in the living room.

  Luke stepped into the kitchen. “What’s going on?” When I didn’t answer, he bent over until he was looking me in the face. “What happened?”

  “They’ve got Yates,” I said, shaking my head. “Why didn’t I stay with him?”

  “You couldn’t have saved him.”

  “But I left to save myself.”

  “No. You left because I dragged you out of there.”

  Vera tapped him on the shoulder. “Avie, why don’t you go lie down. Luke can help me in here.”

  Luke stepped aside to let me by. I was still in the hall when I heard Vera say, “You’re pushing that girl—to do what, I don’t know—but she needs to get there on her own.”

  Luke mumbled something.

  “Son,” she said back, “you’ve both been through hell. Let her catch her breath.”

  I collapsed on the bed and pressed my fingers to my head, trying to stop the throbbing. Catch my breath?

  In the last two weeks, I’d seen a friend set herself on fire on the steps of the Capitol. I’d seen federal agents threaten an entire town and execute a woman trying to surrender. I’d seen every attempt to expose the vice president’s treason turned into proof that I was a terrorist.

  The Paternalists had captured the boy I loved and cut off all the exits, and Hawkins had put a price on my head.

  And still Luke wanted me to go on what was turning into a suicide mission to deliver evidence that had only a small chance of taking out the bad guys.

  How am I supposed to be anything other than scared as hell?

  I looked up as Luke walked in. His thumbs were hooked in his belt loops and his head hung down, making him look about fourteen. “Avie, I want you to know, I’m sorry about Yates. If I’d thought there was any way we could have brought him with us—”

  I let him sputter for a moment before I sat up. “It’s okay, I’m not mad. You were right. If I’d stayed with Yates, the feds would have taken me, too.”

  Harris tapped on the door. “Vera’s about ready to serve dinner.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Luke answered. I pushed off the bed and Luke held the door open for me like the gentleman that Nellie and Rogan had raised him to be. We sat down at the table and bowed our heads for grace, then Vera handed me the mashed potatoes, saying, “Help yourself and don’t be shy.”

  Harris picked through the chicken pieces. “I was telling Luke here that even though I haven’t found you a ride to Laramie yet, you shouldn’t worry. Folks here know me and I expect we’ll get some good news tomorrow.”

  The thigh that Harris had forked hovered over his plate like he was waiting for me to say I was okay.

  “I promise I won’t worry,” I said. “Not yet.”

  Luke piped up. “Hey, you know your granddaughter’s studying to be a midwife?”

  Harris jiggled the chicken so it dropped on his plate. “A midwife. Is that right?” He beamed at Vera. “I told you that Keisha was a crackerjack.”

  Luke and I could never pay Harris and Vera back for the risks they were taking, but I think Luke came close. Harris and Vera had never visited Salvation, and they hadn’t seen Keisha since she was twelve, but they glowed as brightly as the colored lights strung on the tree when Luke told them about Keisha helping the Johnson baby into the world and Beattie teaching the gospel of peace to the children of Salvation.

  On the mantel, a chipped ceramic angel spread his wings over the Nativity scene. I stared at his haloed head, hoping there was a real angel up above who’d help Luke and me get out of Pocatello.

  6

  “We can’t risk you sleeping on the couch,” Vera told Luke. She pulled blankets from the closet. “Hazel McAllister has a way of seeing right through her neighbors’ walls, and if she gets a whiff that something isn’t right, well—”

  For the first time ever, I saw Luke blush. Vera stuffed a pillow into his arms. “Be a gentleman and leave her the bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When I came out of the bathroom, Luke had made up a bed for himself on the floor in the narrow space between the bed and the bookshelf. He lay on his side, propped up on one arm, reading the book he’d gotten that morning. His arm muscles bulged even though he was relaxed, and the hair on his forearms was blond in the lamplight.

  I crossed to the bed, suddenly conscious of how I wasn’t wearing anything under my loose pajama top.

  He had undone the leather tie that held back his hair, and now it fell alongside his cheeks, reminding me of when I first saw him and thought he looked like Thor, the god of thunder.

  I climbed into bed. “We should listen to your friend’s message,” Luke said quietly. “The one on your phone.”

  I flipped the quilt over my legs, pretending I hadn’t heard that.

  “I know you heard me.”

  “Not now.”

  “Vera’s busy and Harris is asleep. There’s no better time.”

  “Sparrow said that the message was for Maggie. She specifically told me not to listen to it.”

  “What would she have said if she knew Maggie would be murdered?”

  Listen to it. Get it to the right person. “I don’t know.”

  I eased the chain with the thumb drive over my head, and Luke watched as I let it coil on the nightstand.

  “What do you intend to do about that?” he said.

  My cheeks stung. What did I intend to do with the video of Maggie describing the Paternalists’ secret dealings, the one I promised to get to her friend in Washington? “I’ll take care of it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But you’ll be happy to hear that most of the border crossings are closed so I can’t easily escape to Canada.”

  “I’m not happy about the border closing,” he said.

  “I find that hard to believe. You seem set on us going all the way to D.C. to deliver this drive in person.”

  “If Maggie thought that bringing down Jouvert was as easy as sending that thing through the mail, she’d have told you to do it.”

  I flipped over and turned my back to him, but Luke kept on talking. “Jouvert needs to pay. He killed Maggie and Barnabas, turned his guns on the rest of my family, and right now he’s holding them hostage. If you aren’t willing to do what it takes, then I will.”

  I turned around just in time to see Luke snatch the drive off the table and pull the chain over his head. He jutted his chin like he dared me to try to take it off him.

  I felt a flash of relief, seeing it around his neck. You want it so much you can have it. Then relief dissolved, and I jerked at the sheets that had twisted around my legs. I couldn’t just hand off what I’d promised Maggie I’d do.

  “Maggie spent five years collecting this information. I
will not let her life be wasted,” he said.

  She and the girls in her escort service had risked their lives, partying and spying on businessmen, bankers, and Paternalist leaders to collect what was on that drive.

  “Fine,” I snapped. “You want to go to Laramie? Let’s go.”

  “Good. I’m glad we’re in agreement.” Luke slapped his book shut and drew the blankets over him.

  I flipped off the lamp, heat pouring out of me. I’d go to Laramie, but after that—

  Out in the living room, the radio was on low. According to the Canadians reporting for Radio Free America, Congress’ Open Arms policy was a response to sixteen European nations banning their female citizens from traveling to the U.S. after too many went missing. Hundreds of thousands of Australians and east Asian women were expected to apply.

  I hugged my pillow, wishing I could stay right here, safe and warm, but knowing I couldn’t, not with a quarter-million-dollar bounty on my head. And Luke needed to get out, too. Those government agents back in Salvation were probably assembling dossiers on everyone the Council knew or was related to, and pretty soon they’d know Maggie and Barnabas had a son who got away.

  7

  I woke in the middle of the night. Luke’s pillow and blankets were on the floor, but he wasn’t. I got up and eased open the bedroom door. Light from the kitchen shone into the hall, and I crept out until I spied Luke alone at the table.

  His back was to me, but his gun was dismantled, and the parts were spread out on Vera’s red vinyl tablecloth. Luke picked up a small brass brush and inserted it into the gun barrel.

  I stood in the shadows, watching his hands move slowly and deliberately. Then I saw my phone lying beside his left hand.

  He looked up as I pulled out a chair. I’d have banged it across the floor if Vera and Harris weren’t sleeping. “You listened to it, didn’t you?” I said, pointing to the phone.

  His brown eyes snapped at me. “Somebody had to.”

  We glared at each other for a minute.

  “This is big, Avie. This could force the vice president out of office.”

  I could hear Sparrow’s giggles in my ears, the rustling sounds of clothing, ice, and glasses clinking, the vice president moaning. I knew it had to be more than a sex tape, even though I wanted to believe that was all it was.

  “I know you listened to the beginning,” Luke said. “I had to rewind it.” He slid the phone toward me.

  Vera and Harris were snoring in the front bedroom, a quiet snuffle and a ripper. There wasn’t a better time unless it was never.

  “Fine, if it means getting you off my back.” I put the phone to my ear and closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see Luke watch me as I listened.

  Sparrow laughed seductively, and I squirmed in my seat. I wondered where she’d hidden the recording device. Knowing Sparrow, she’d assembled something small, and tucked it into a necklace or her hair.

  “Mr. Vice President,” she murmured. She praised Jouvert, telling him how much she loved being with him at the meeting, seeing him wield power and get that Saudi sheik to give the U.S. so much money. One trillion. “Do you know how many pairs of shoes I could buy with that?”

  “A whole factory.” Jouvert laughed. “You could buy Thailand for a trillion dollars.”

  “Do I want to buy Thailand?”

  “Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “I can’t believe all the sheik wants is what we want anyway,” Sparrow said. “I want a man to pamper me, and take care of me, and decide for me.”

  “It’s the way things should be, isn’t it?”

  “Ugh, I can’t imagine having to get a job and go out and earn money, not when I can stay home and be a wife. And driving? Too scary.”

  “You should be cherished and protected just as the women are in his country.”

  “This was your idea, wasn’t it, getting the sheik to help us?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well.” Sparrow’s voice turned deep and teasing. “Time to pay for your crimes, Mr. VP.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath, a moan, and the recording ended. I opened my eyes, remembering the party in Vegas when Jouvert had boasted to the Paternalist leaders about getting the money. Sparrow was at his side.

  “You heard what I heard?” Luke said. “Jouvert admitting he made a secret deal with the Saudis?”

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I heard.” I saw the uncompleted branch on Maggie’s hanging, and my mouth went dry. The sheik’s name was the one she’d needed to prove Jouvert was a traitor.

  “The Saudis bribed the Paternalists, didn’t they?”

  I nodded. “They changed the laws for women just like the Saudis wanted.” I put the phone facedown on the table. “Jouvert brought Sparrow to the meeting with the sheik. Jouvert knows Sparrow hid proof of what she heard—she basically said that in a message she blasted before she died, but he might not know she recorded the two of them.”

  I dropped my head into my hands. “Why couldn’t she have sent this to one of Maggie’s allies or a reporter even? Someone who hated Paternalists as much as she did?”

  “Sounds like you’re the only person she trusted.”

  “Like I’m supposed to miraculously save the country?”

  Luke started to reassemble his gun. “We should divide the evidence. You carry the phone and the wall hanging. I wear the thumb drive. That way if something happens to you or me, the other still has enough to raise hell on Capitol Hill.”

  I shoved away from the table. It was late. I was tired. “I’m going to sleep.”

  I felt his eyes on my back, but I refused to think about one of us getting killed or captured, and the other still going on. I was doing what he wanted, going to Laramie, and I wished Luke would shut up about it and leave me alone.

  8

  Vera was cooking breakfast when there was a knock at the door.

  Luke and I had gotten up when we heard her rattling around the kitchen. We’d moved awkwardly in the cramped bedroom, saying as little as possible, mumbling sorry when we bumped.

  Luke was pretending to sip the coffee Vera’d handed him when we heard the determined tapping on the door.

  Vera threw down her hot mitt. “Only person with the nerve to show up this early is our next-door neighbor.” She pointed at me, then Luke. “Lovebirds, remember?”

  We both nodded, slightly guilty. Clearly, Vera had heard us argue last night.

  Luke and I couldn’t go on being angry with each other like this. As Vera went to the door, I showed Luke the sugar bowl. “Need this?”

  “You know darn well I do,” he said, cracking a smile.

  I held it up out of reach, taunting him for a second before he snatched it away.

  Forgiven, at least for now.

  I leaned forward to catch a peek as Vera talked to Hazel through the screen. Hazel was bundled in a blue coat and wore a raggedy striped hat over her white hair. She smiled behind her big, gray-rimmed glasses, straining for a glimpse past Vera.

  “Hi, Hazel,” Vera said. “You’re up early.”

  “I noticed you have a couple young people visiting.”

  “Did you?”

  Hazel waited a moment, but when Vera didn’t say any more, Hazel pulled something out of her pocket. “The Pocatello Princess Fundraiser Dance is tonight. I thought maybe they’d like to buy a couple tickets.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Hazel. Let me discuss it with them and I’ll—”

  Hazel was a snoop and the only way to deal with a snoop was to let her know there was nothing to snoop about.

  “I’d love to go to a dance, Cousin Vera!” I strode right over to the door and unlocked the screen. “Hi, I’m Tracy,” I said, giving Hazel a big smile. “How much are the tickets?”

  Hazel’s gaze focused on me through thick, yellowing lenses. “Twenty-five dollars a couple. It’s to raise money for the Bannock County Search and Rescue Team.”

  “Honey?” I called back
to the kitchen, where Luke leaned against the counter. “Can we? It’s for a good cause.”

  I’d caught Luke in mid-swallow, but his eyes told me he didn’t like the idea.

  “It’ll be fun!” I said.

  Hazel was standing on tiptoe now, trying to see past me. I beamed at Luke, showing off like a lovesick bride.

  He reached for his wallet and acted as if he was counting our money. “I don’t know—”

  “Please,” I whined.

  “Well, if it’ll make you happy.” Luke peeled some bills out of his wallet, and I pecked him on the cheek and snatched the money out of his hands.

  Hazel handed me the tickets. “Will we see you at the dance?” I said.

  She blinked behind her glasses, and her mouth went flat, before she drew it back into a smile. “Yes, indeed. I’m in charge of the cake table.”

  I skipped back to the kitchen, waving the tickets. “Look, we’re going to the dance!”

  Vera lingered at the door, watching Hazel retreat. Then she came back to the kitchen and stood over the half-cooked eggs, dabbing her neck with a paper towel. “Hazel’s cousin’s the chief of police,” she muttered to no one.

  Crap.

  Luke frowned and jerked his head, pointing to Vera with his eyes. We need to move on.

  I nodded, wishing he was wrong.

  “Now that you bought those tickets,” Vera said, “Hazel will be expecting you at that dance, and her tongue will wag if you don’t show.” She sighed. “I guess this is good. Best place to hide is in plain sight.”

  I leaned over to Luke. “I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

  “I hope this doesn’t mess up Harris getting us a ride.”

  Harris came in. He greeted us and sat down at the table at the exact moment Vera set down his plate. “Luke?” he said. “Can you give me a hand at the church after breakfast?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s see if we can get you on the road.”

  “That would be much appreciated,” Luke told him.

  “Yes, that would be wonderful,” I said. Even though tomorrow didn’t feel nearly soon enough.

  9

  Hazel McAllister peered through her blinds as Harris and Luke drove off.