by Meli Raine
I can’t let myself think about Alice right now, any more than I can let myself think about the countless people who have died over the last two years in this mess that Lily finds herself entangled in.
My phone buzzes at the same time that I hear Lily let out a grunt of effort. She drops a forty-five pound weight. Rhonda fist bumps her. Lily doesn’t smile back.
We’ve kissed twice now with no follow up to figure out what the hell it means. But it means something, right? It has to. Actions without meaning are performed by a robot. I might be a robot when it comes to my job, but not when it comes to Lily.
I look at my phone. It’s a text from Gentian. Get Lily on a plane to Jane’s ranch. Now. And bring a bag.
I know what bring a bag means. Means I’m on detail. Back when I worked at Alice Mogrett’s ranch full time, I didn’t need a bag. I had a set of work clothes there and a small room where all of the security detail rotated spending the night. Once Jane took over, Foster put an end to my work there and assigned me to Lily.
Roger, I write back.
Thought you were Duff, he replies.
Old joke. Still not funny.
I tally up what I’ve learned this morning. Jane trusts me. Lily mostly does. Gentian must, or he wouldn’t have me on detail at his girlfriend’s ranch. Foster, too.
Romeo doesn’t. And the president of the United States definitely doesn’t.
Lily’s parents are on the fence, and Romeo is working on them, against me. The percentages aren’t that great when it comes to figuring out where I am in the balance here. Are the people who do trust me enough to give me leverage? To give me access? To make Lily truly believe in me?
Or are we all being manipulated by a mastermind, five levels deeper than we ever imagined?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jane talking to Lily, Lily’s look of surprise morphing into something close to anger. Her eyes narrow. Her mouth opens. The words come out rapid fire, like bullets. Jane nods, intently listening. Even from afar, it’s clear she’s attuned to Lily’s signals and her words.
Jane speaks again.
Lily’s hands go to her hips, a stance that makes me study her even more carefully. She’s intuitively finding her own power.
Most people shrink from it. That’s understandable. We’re trained by society to be that way, or there would be too many leaders and not enough followers. It doesn’t work in a hierarchical structure to have too many leaders.
We have to find ways to make people relinquish their own authority.
Until the shooting, Lily fit into that social structure. She was happy, a bright light in an industry designed to give people joy–through something that eventually just withers and dies.
An interesting paradox.
So is the Lily she was before the shooting and the Lily she is now, as well as the Lily she is becoming. You don’t change like that unless there’s an underlying structure in place, deep inside the self, that’s been there all along.
Lily’s strength is so central to her core that I don’t think even she realizes how deep it goes.
We have primal selves that get activated in times of great stress or great change. A psy-ops trainer back in the army taught me this. People don’t really change if they’re exposed to trauma.
They just become more of who that primal self is.
Or they put their mind to it and do the work.
And for Lily, it’s both.
Chapter 13
Guys like me aren’t supposed to exist.
But we do.
And we serve a purpose.
Some of us don’t even have birth certificates. I’m not one of them. I am a real person, with a family and a core identity. Some of us don’t even have that.
They’re considered the lucky ones.
I’m not so sure I agree.
When you have no past, no foundation, no roots, it’s really hard to stay centered. People without an anchor are dangerous.
People in jobs like mine need to be internally driven. We respond to external stimulation. That’s the whole point.
We respond.
We don’t react.
We don’t let ourselves get triggered by the ebb and flow of life around us. We are steady. We are invisible. But we are always watching.
You can’t do that when you don’t exist.
There’s a yin and yang to being in this job. The internal and the external. If you don’t have any roots, or an identity of your own, then the external takes hold. If everything you do is driven by forces outside yourself, then the wrong external force can turn you evil.
That may be an extreme, but I see it in a lot of the guys who don’t know who they are. Who have no record of a day when they emerged into the world vulnerable, innocent, connected.
How do people function without a birth certificate? Sure, it’s just a piece of paper. Nothing more, nothing less. Simply an official document that says, “You are.”
It’s easy to dismiss something like that as trivial. But documentation matters. Especially when it comes to your very existence. If no one knows you’re there, what can you get away with? That’s the whole point. That’s why these people get recruited by the deep state.
Because when no one knows you are there, there are no limits to what you can do.
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Drew. It says, ETD?
I type back, 10 minutes
His response is immediate and simple, K.
I look up. Lily is staring at me. I definitely exist when she’s staring at me.
And there you have it.
That’s the danger of being anchored. Of knowing who you are, even when no one around you can see you. Lily sees me now. Lily wants to see me.
And I want to be seen.
I have to hold those truths in my head at the same time. I have to hold two selves in my head at the same time—two versions of myself. The one who knows how to implement and execute a mission. And the one who is a human being.
We are not allowed to be human beings when we’re working.
But we can’t just be robots, either.
Guys like Romeo are as close as they come to being robots, though.
There’s a sharpness about Romeo I don’t like.
I don’t mean intelligence. I’m talking about something else.
Most people have blurred lines. Their edges are indistinct. It makes them softer, more human.
He’s the other way around.
“Mom, I’m not arguing with you,” Lily tells Bee on the phone as we wait in the hangar for the go-ahead to board the plane to Texas. “I’m doing this.”
Pause. I hear a very upset Bee on the other end just as my phone rings.
Two guesses who that is.
Tom, the screen says as I accept the call.
“Duff,” he says before I can even give a greeting. “Promise me this is safe.”
“I promise.”
“Bee’s losing it.”
“I can hear. Lily’s right here on the phone with her.”
“Lily says the shooting at the coffee shop was the tip of the iceberg? And she’s rambling about some meeting with the president, who happens to be here in California at his private home? The neurologists warned us that there could be long-term paranoia and hallucinations associated with the shooting and the brain injury—”
I cut him off. “Every word she’s telling you is real, Tom. There is more to the shooting at the coffee shop. We believe Lily and Jane were directly targeted.”
A low whistle is all I get in response.
“And she did meet with President Bosworth,” I confirm. Gentian gave the clear on saying that to her parents.
“Why did he want to meet with our Lily?”
“I can’t say.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
“Then you damn well can.”
“No, Tom—I mean I can’t say.”
“This cloak-and-dagger shit gets old fast.”
&nb
sp; No kidding.
“Tell me I can trust you,” he pleads. “Tell me I’m not a stupid man who is putting his daughter in the hands of a liar.”
“I promise you I’ll keep her safe.”
I can’t promise him I’m not a liar, though.
“Bee’s so upset.”
“I’m sure she is.”
“She doesn’t trust you.”
I stay silent.
“Romeo says you can’t be trusted.”
“I’d go with your gut on this one, Tom.”
“Lily trusts you.”
That makes me feel better than it should.
“And I believe my daughter.”
“She’s worth being believed.”
At those words, Lily catches my eye and gives me a grateful smile.
Then she goes back to being angry with her mother.
“She’s twenty-five. A mature young woman. We had her young and then we waited awhile before having Bowie and Gwennie. She’s always been so sweet and friendly. The happiest child you’ve ever met. She was like helium, you know? You always felt so good when you spent time with Lily.”
I know, Tom. I know.
“And to think that some nutcase targeted her, out of all the people in the world. That he thought she was Jane Borokov was bad enough—but now he’s back and really trying to kill her? Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is it because she’s telling you guys something we don’t know?”
“Like what?”
“Like—like new memories?”
“Why are you asking me this, Tom? Why not ask your daughter?”
“Because Bee’s convinced she’s lying to us. Lying to everyone. And so is Romeo.”
“What does my co-worker have to do with this?” I ask, knowing the answer to my own question, but asking it anyway.
“He’s—how close are you two?”
“We’re colleagues.”
“I mean—” He lets out an aggravated breath. “I don’t know who I can trust.”
“Can’t blame you.”
“You’re no help, Duff.”
“Sorry, man.”
“What would you do in my position?” he asks, clearly hating himself for it. I get it. When you don’t know who you can trust, you finally weaken with the person you have some kind of connection to, even if it’s a bad connection. Tom and Bee blame me for Lily’s shooting.
Maybe for both shootings, now.
But I’m familiar. That’s another reason why we have long-term security details: being familiar is a tactical advantage.
“I can’t tell you what to do, Tom.” I know my words are meaningless, but I have to say them, and they have to be true. I don’t know what I would do in his position, but I do know that I have to keep his trust.
“I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t, aren’t I?” he says with a cynical hiss that makes me square my shoulders.
I start to pace. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lily engaged in her argument with Bee, her hands animated and gesturing, even though her mother’s on the other side of a phone. If I weren’t talking to her father and needing every bit of brain power, I’d laugh.
It’s amusing how our integrated bodies process data. Lily’s conscious mind knows that her mother isn’t there and can’t see her, and yet we have mirror neurons. Those neurons make us more human. We instinctively act out what we see and what we imagine. Parts of our brain light up from that kind of imaginary connection, even when we're not physically doing an activity or physically in front of another person.
Lily can’t help herself. She is deeply, intimately human. Her father can’t help himself, either. Faced with the impossible task of deciding who is best positioned to help his daughter, and knowing that it’s not him, he has to make a decision.
Fortunately for me, he chooses well.
“I don’t understand what’s going on with Romeo,” he says. “The guy keeps calling Bee and convincing her that Lily is holding back. And Lily is holding back. We know it. We know our daughter, and our daughter trusts you, Duff. By some sort of transitive property, that means we need to trust you. So let me say this: Take her away. Take her away to Jane Borokov’s ranch and keep her safe. Keep her safe until she gets to the point where she trusts someone in this mess enough to tell them whatever it is that’s eating her from the inside out.”
“You really think she's holding back, Tom?” I ask.
“I do, and I don’t understand why she’s continuing to hide something from everyone. Has she told you?” he asks, knowing damn well I wouldn’t give any sort of real answer even if I knew.
“No,” I say, telling the truth. “She hasn’t.”
“Then get her to. Use whatever magic skills they give you guys to pry it out of her.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“I know,” he says. “But try. She’s a stubborn one. Takes after her mother.”
As I watch Lily’s face fill with anger at whatever her mother’s saying to her on the phone, I smile.
“I’ve got to trust someone, Duff. Might as well be you,” he says, and then ends the call, leaving me staring at my own glass screen as Lily chucks her phone against the wall–
–and it shatters.
Chapter 14
Silverton, Texas is an unlikely place to have an impromptu safehouse.
But for now, it will do.
And as Jane said—it’s about as secure and locked down as you can get.
The descent is uneventful, Lily wide awake as the tires squeal on the runway, the pilot experienced enough to make rubber and asphalt converge like we’re landing on butter.
A line of black SUVs, five in all, are parked against the main building of this tiny airport. All of them, I suspect, are part of Drew Foster’s company. Since Alice Mogrett died, I also suspect they get slightly less use.
Then again, Jane is her heir.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Alice Mogrett was the child of a U.S. vice president who later became a beloved and respected Supreme Court justice. A self-described wild child, she was the talk of the town in the 1950s and 1960s, known for forming and living in communes, anti-war protests, and for a deep appreciation of art.
That turned into a radical understatement.
She became a well-known artist in her lifetime, unlike most, and settled into a professorship at Yates University in her fifties, at a time when most people are looking to retire. Jane Borokov was her student, and later a subject of her paintings—all nudes—but the most important role Jane had in Alice’s life was friend.
And then heir.
Inheriting eight figures from a controversial character was destabilizing for Jane, who was Public Enemy #1 when Alice died. Worse was having Alice die while Jane was here at the ranch, spending the night as a guest. I should know.
I was here, too.
I help Lily into one of the SUVs, driven by Ralph, a guy I barely know but have worked alongside for two years. Blond, Nordic, sharp cheekbones, all hard edges. He’s one of those guys who don’t exist. Not on paper, not on the internet, not anywhere. Paid in secret, never in a database, and completely, coolly designed to be the human equivalent of an airbag in a car:
You only know it’s there when you need it to save your life.
Watching Lily as she sees the ranch from a great distance, the flatland unrolling in an endless plane, makes me smile. I remember the first time I was summoned to Alice Mogrett’s place.
It was a lot longer ago than anyone here knows.
The unpaved road kicks up dust that some guy like Ralph will have to wash off once we’re done delivering our clients. It’s part of the job, and it never bothered me. You clean the black SUV. Keep it pristine. People want what they want and if the boss orders it—you do it.
Beats stewing in your own thoughts at the same time that you’re supposed to be blank and vigilant.
The Mogrett ranch gives meaning to the word sprawling. The windows are
covered in dust, but the colonial feel of the house makes you look twice. Lily presses her face against the car window, her nose bending slightly, enthralled.
The house has a white peak right in the middle, almost like a church in a small town. But make no mistake: this isn’t a house of worship. It’s a house owned by one of the most notorious women of the twenty-first century.
Black shutters border the windows. The symmetry of the original structure itself is somehow quaint and militaristic at the same time. The wings added to either side of the original house, though, make the ranch distinctive. On the right, there’s a single-story wing that spreads out the way that land in Texas takes over. It’s the footprint of the main house minus the other stories.
On the left side, there’s a double-story wing with an enormous porch up on the second floor. A windowed solarium is below it. Alice liked to paint there until she created her studio. I remember vines creeping up, hugging exposed beams, before extensive remodeling changed that.
As if they’re a security line, there’s a row of large trees, full and weeping, standing like drunken soldiers daring a windstorm to take them out.
It’s a home that says: This is a place of authority.
It’s a home that says: This is a place of power.
It’s a home that I’ve guarded for longer than I’m allowed to share.
Ralph pulls the SUV up to the front door. Lily steps out, grabbing sunglasses from Jane as she offers them.
“What’s this for?”
“Trust me. You’ll want them,” Jane says.
When you look at the property, you realize it’s all white. The trees break up the whiteness. The house itself is painted white, black shutters the only contrast. The trees provide contrast, too, but surrounding the buildings are white rock gardens. It’s a study in dark and light, just like Alice Mogrett.
“This is where you live?” Lily whispers to Jane, who shrugs and smiles. She slides an arm around Lily’s shoulders and turns her towards the front entrance.
“Come on in. I’ll give you a tour.”
“I don’t have three hours for that,” Lily says, deadpan.
Jane laughs, “How about we just go to the part of the house that I like the most?”