I stared at my cousin. Her eyes were on her glass, her hands cupped around it. Neither of us spoke, but Peter touched my knee under the table. His fingers felt warm and comforting—something real in a world suddenly gone rather mad.
I hadn’t liked my aunt and uncle, had barely known them. But it still wasn’t an easy thing to hear about people you’re related to—who all of your life have been described as “humanitarian activists,” serving the greater good.
When really what they should have been called was “world-class grifters.”
“So that was it,” Marianne continued flatly. “They expected me to pack up and join in. They said they were done paying my way, and they wanted a young, educated woman to—facilitate certain aspects of their scams. Just my luck, they’d decided I’d do for the job. They were willing to cut me in on their deals and sign me up for life. I told them hell no, and they said too bad, and I said I’ll quit school. So I went home and grabbed a few things and left. I moved into a hostel. After a few weeks, I found a temp job as an admin at a talent agency and just… just prayed that I’d heard the last of them. But of course I hadn’t. They weren’t in New York often, but my… he kept in touch. He kept saying it was just a matter of time. I thought about going to the police, but they’d said I’d regret it if I did and… I don’t know, I believed them. Besides, what proof did I have? Who’d believe me, even if I knew who to tell?
“Not long after that I met Mike at work and we went out a few times. He was really hot back then and had a great sense of humor—before he lost it and went all Charlie Manson. I didn’t see what a lunatic he really was. He came in furious one day because he didn’t get some modeling contract he wanted, and said he was leaving to rent a loft in Newark and bring down the system, or something. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Maybe I could lie low long enough for my parents to lose interest. They’d find some other woman to do whatever it was they wanted me for. I joined the ridiculous group at the loft and—gritted my teeth… and dealt with it, knowing it would be worth it if my parents left me alone. They found me after a while, of course—I knew they would—but my delay tactic seemed to be working. I put up with eleven months of it, slowly watching all of my ambitions and connections trickle away—but it was worth it.”
She finally looked at me.
“I knew how you felt about it, Lo. I didn’t blame you. I don’t know why I told you to come there. I guess I was just feeling so… isolated from everyone and everything that mattered to me. I missed you—I wanted you to be a part of my life again. I’d gotten so used to the—the squalor and the drugs, I forgot just how… repulsive it would be for an outsider.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, and reached out to squeeze her hand. She let me, but then pulled it back and put it in her lap.
“Well, no. But your visit did have a consequence that I didn’t—I should have expected. It made my parents remember how much you meant to me. I don’t know why it took them so long. They knew we grew up together. But neither of them has siblings—our moms are steps, you know, not half-sisters like we always thought. They only met when Rosemary was a teenager and your mom a baby. I guess it hadn’t occurred to them that they might use you as leverage. They knew there was nothing I wanted—they couldn’t bribe or threaten me with anything else. I’d proven that by the way I’d lived for almost a year. And then, not long after you visited, they sent a message—an email to an account I thought was secure, with no words but a picture of you and your parents. That was it. I didn’t know what they were threatening to do. I didn’t want to know.”
No. I wouldn’t have wanted to know, either.
“Before long they showed up again, and I knew I’d lost.” Her face was expressionless, unreadable. Whatever pain she’d experienced, she’d had to put it away. Bury it under layers of resignation and endurance.
“The man who came to the loft, that was your father?” Peter asked, after a short, heavy silence.
“Yeah. Our Leonard, champion of the little people. He told me my time was up and I had to make my choice. I knew I couldn’t risk Lola and her parents being hurt. They knew it too. Whether or not they really would’ve done anything, I didn’t know. Not then.” She finished her second drink. “Now I do.”
There was a long pause before she continued. My skin crawled at the quiet hatred in her voice.
“So I joined them. I learned fast, and I did well. Well enough that they didn’t object when I kept in touch with you, though I didn’t have much time for socializing.” She gave a bleak laugh. “I don’t know why I sent that stupid postcard. I guess it was just… a last-ditch effort to stay connected to my previous life. I can’t believe that creep remembered it, after all this time.”
“That building where we found you—that’s where you work?” I asked.
“Some of the time—it’s kind of a base of operations. They own the building and set up the dummy company years ago. Comes in handy for certain cons that pretend to have headquarters here—all under fake names and layers of bureaucratic camouflage, of course. They have an office in San Francisco, too—a west-coast base—and a few others. I’m here most of the time, sometimes I go wherever they happen to be. Finding marks—people with more money than sense, corporations that want a PR boost. There’s an endless supply of them, and most jump at the chance to come to New York. I make initial contact, welcome them to town, wine and dine them, convince them it’s all legitimate—whatever cause they’re being asked to invest in. I lie to them, dazzle them with glossy brochures and falsified budgets. Then I them over to Rosemary and Leonard, the true professionals, waiting to close the deal in whatever part of the world. It’s impressive to watch, if you can see past their cold-blooded greed.”
“How do they manage not to get caught?” Peter asked with interest.
“They move fast and talk a good game—most of our targets don’t realize their money didn’t go where it should, and those who do figure it out too late and don’t have enough to go on. I mean, they’re wanted criminals in at least ten countries, but they’re too slippery to get caught. By the time the authorities have gotten around to opening an investigation, they’re long gone. They don’t even trust the people who work for them enough to know their location, not exactly—and that includes me.”
“What about you? Could you get caught?” I demanded.
She moved restlessly in her chair and spoke with a kind of weary frankness.
“Yeah, well, I’m slippery, too. I… I got really good at it over the years. Selling their bullshit—staying out of sight. But I never wanted it. I’ve never liked it, Lo. I’ve hated everything they made me do. Most of all how they took me from my real family. When Aunt Gina was diagnosed… Her death really threw me. I knew how alone you were—even with your dad still around, it wasn’t the same. You’d lost me, and now your mom. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before your dad went, too—he looked so gray and… kind of defeated at the funeral. I was glad she didn’t even consider going. I think she really hated Aunt Gina.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what else to do.
“Anyway. It got me thinking that maybe there was a way out that I hadn’t seen. If it came down to just you, I might be able to protect you. If I could get collateral—find something to bargain with, maybe we could call it even. I could get out for good, and guarantee our safety until the two of them are caught or killed or die of old age in the Bahamas somewhere. I don’t care what happens to them. I’ll have to watch my back for the rest of my life—both our backs. But it could be done. As insanely paranoid and careful as they are, sometimes they’ve slipped. Left something undone, missed a trick. And the next time, I’d be waiting to catch whatever fell out of their dark little cracks.
“With your dad gone…” her face tightened. “Well, in one way it made things easier. One less person they could use against me. So that’s what happened. I waited—put the word out in a few places that there’d be value in something like that. Then earlier this year I got
my first bite. A deal in Rio went south a couple of years ago, and nearly came crashing down on them. They barely got out with their tailfeathers intact, and though they didn’t know it, they left a paper trail that tied two of their aliases to everything. About a month ago, I bought the only copy of a file one of their associates had kept on the deal. It had been taken from a dead man’s office, mine for the price of substantial bribes to find the low-life who had it and a whole lot of patience.
“I made contact with the guy, and eventually we reached a deal—I paid, he scanned everything and sent me instructions for how to get it. He said he burned the original. I had to trust him, but—somehow they… they caught on. Maybe they were watching my contact—or bribing the same people, or something. They couldn’t know for sure—I was careful, they couldn’t trace anything back to me—but if they heard there was a buyer looking for dirt on them and had the slightest whiff of it from Rio, it’d be enough to set them off. That’s how they’ve stayed in business as long as they have. They don’t wait for proof. The guy ended up in an alley in São Paulo with a bullet in his head—a week too late to stop him, but still not good news. As soon as I got word I moved to get you out of sight fast, the only way I thought they wouldn’t notice. I flew into Mexico City so it would look like a routine banking trip and drove hell for leather up to LA. Then it was back here for business as usual.”
I couldn’t take this in. Bribes to informants thousands of miles away. A dead man in an alley, shot in the head. A frantic race to Mexico, and from there to LA, where I joined the story. My mind circled dazedly around her words, listening even as it struggled to arrange and comprehend.
“They’re watching me even more closely now,” she went on. “They’ve always known they can’t trust me not to give myself up and destroy everything they’ve built. I’m the best contender to be plotting against them, even if they can’t prove it. They know I’m not cut out for this—‘don’t have the stomach for it,’ as Leonard would say. You’re the only leverage they have on me, and they’ll use it. But as soon as I get my hands on the collateral, we’ll be free.”
The words were positive, even triumphant, but were flattened by the bitter resignation in her voice. She didn’t really believe freedom was possible. She believed they would win, just like they always had. I could see it in the tightness of her eyes, the angry gestures of her hands. Marianne thought we’d probably lose this fight.
Maybe they’d get to me and do whatever she was afraid they’d do—I couldn’t let my mind go there, beyond that blank white wall of unknown terror—or maybe they’d wait and get us both the next time she tried to act against them. It would happen sooner or later. Her acceptance of the futility of her plan settled across my tight chest.
“Where did the São Paulo guy put the evidence?” Peter was asking.
Marianne blinked and came out of her abstraction to wordlessly order yet another round.
“On the darknet. He told me how to get it, it just isn’t safe to try right now. They’re monitoring everything I do—it’s not some Word doc I can download on the free computers at the library. There’s no one I can trust to help—not anyone on their payroll. It’s too big a risk. I don’t even know for sure that it’s there.”
“Assuming it is, you’d be able to access it?”
“If I had the time and equipment, yes.”
“And what’ll you do with it once you have it?”
She met his steady gaze. Hers didn’t falter, and I saw a gleam of the old defiance in it.
“Set up a hundred fail-safes. A thousand, if I have time. And then show them enough to prove I have it—and walk away.”
“Is it enough to convict them?”
“If it’s what the guy said it is, it’s enough. It proves that they were mixed up in a nasty case that Interpol would give their left nuts to solve—and would probably lead to more convictions.”
“And even so, you wouldn’t turn them in,” Peter said evenly.
Her dark eyes flashed.
“You think I’m afraid to be arrested? I couldn’t care less. But—they can do a lot from prison. If they even get there. I know how officials can be bribed, even the law isn’t immune to corruption for the sake of hard cash. Not to mention, they’d see the cops coming from a mile away—assuming I could even say exactly where they are. No. This is the only way to keep us safe.”
I knew by “us” she meant the two of us. Her and me. My big sister Marianne. Protecting me this whole time. Turning herself into something she despised so my parents and I wouldn’t suffer whatever punishment two sociopaths dreamed up for us. She hadn’t sent me into hiding to protect herself, or to stop me from leading someone to her. It was only for me.
I hadn’t ever really known her. I couldn’t have imagined the depth of her ingenuity or bravery or strength.
She deserved so much better than this. So much more than what she’d been dealt. Immured in that sad dingy room, in beautiful clothes, completely alone.
I’d have taken up smoking, too. At the very least.
“And then… what?” I asked gently.
Marianne let out a little gasp of laughter, a tiny burst of hysteria that held no amusement.
“I have no idea,” she said. “But… I’d start with never seeing them again.”
I reached across the table and took her thin, cold hand in mine. This time she didn’t pull away.
■ ■ ■
Peter asked if we could order some food. I was starting to feel a slight buzz from my third gin and tonic, though Marianne appeared to be as stone cold sober as when she arrived. Peter hadn’t touched his third. After considering his suggestion, Marianne waved the waiter over and asked for “the usual eats,” which he approved with a respectful nod.
“I can’t stay much longer,” she said. “I’ll settle the bill before I go. Don’t let them charge you for anything.”
I didn’t want her to leave. Upsetting and strange as it was to see her like this, to see the real Marianne at last, something in me reared up in anxious protest at the thought of losing sight of her again.
“I’ve been thinking,” Peter said slowly, as if Marianne hadn’t spoken. “I might know someone who could help us.” At our equally blank looks, he explained, “A hacker. He’s legit now, but he got into a lot of trouble when he was younger breaking into high-security systems. Now he teaches cyber security at U of A.”
Marianne’s eyes rested on me, somewhat speculatively, but she spoke to Peter.
“You trust him?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Peter said.
“And you think he’d be up for it?”
“It’s possible. It’d be an interesting experiment, I think. He’s bored with his job, but no tech firm will trust him because of his record. The university took a chance—and they keep a tight leash. I think the government has tried to recruit him a few times, but that doesn’t interest him.”
Marianne thought furiously for a moment.
Across the silence, the waiter gave us each a small white plate, then set a long board filled with delicacies in the center of the table. Olives of all shapes and sizes, two thick slices of pâté, small wedges of toast, thin curls of cured meats, stuffed mushrooms, devilled eggs, tiny tarts bubbling over with melted cheese… Suddenly ravenous, I reached out for the first thing that came to hand and stuffed it indelicately into my mouth. Marianne nibbled unenthusiastically on a piece of toast with pâté while Peter and I finished everything else.
As I ate, I wondered, with a kind of distant curiosity, if Peter’s friend really could help us. I knew of the darknet, but not much about how it worked. The whole situation seemed too impossible to be true, but then my aunt and uncle were vicious criminals and my cousin had been blackmailed into working for them for years, so what did I know?
Only once the board had been taken away and the small plates cleared did Marianne respond.
“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “I don’t want to wait until they’
ve dropped their guard—it could be months. Longer. It’s too risky to wait. They’re spooked by São Paulo, and when they’re spooked, there are consequences. They’re out of the country now, as usual, but… What do you propose?”
“We change our flights tomorrow to Tucson, and I talk to my friend and see if he can help us. Knowing him, it’ll be best if I ask him in person. If he’s willing, we give him your instructions and spend a little time in the area while we wait. Should it take long?”
“No, not for someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“After that, we go home and… wait and see.”
She glanced between us, considering.
“You’d go together,” she stated, and at Peter’s nod and my murmured “of course,” she gave a worn version of her old grin. “What will the two of you do in Arizona?”
“I lived in Tucson before I moved to California. I can show Lola around, visit some friends in the area.” Peter took an unhurried sip of his drink. “My ex-wife, for one. She’s a detective with the Tucson PD.”
I wasn’t sure exactly why he told her that, but when Marianne had taken the information in, she seemed to understand what he was saying.
“Right,” she said composedly. “Every fail-safe possible.”
“Will they send someone to follow us?” Peter asked.
“Mm… I don’t think so. I don’t see why they’d bother. They probably only had one of their people keeping an eye on you because they saw Lo was out here and it was unusual enough to make them curious. Once they know you’ve left town—and see that I’m still where I’m supposed to be—I don’t think they’ll pay much attention. Not until they notice that you’re off the grid, which might be a while.”
“Won’t they be afraid that you gave them away to us?” I asked. I couldn’t seem to think of the people behind this as anything other than “they,” even though I knew their names perfectly well.
“I doubt it. It wouldn’t occur to them. They don’t trust anyone but each other—just like they don’t give a crap about anyone else. It protects them, but it also means that nobody knows what anybody else is doing. I’m sure whoever was following you has no idea who you really are. No one knows I’m their kid, thank God.”
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