by A J Rivers
“It doesn't feel right,” I reiterate.
“He knew the choice he made. You and Eric were the closest thing he had to family. When he first put his will together, he probably thought he was providing for his future wife. That's the truth. But he didn't have it changed. He didn't put in a specification. Even after waking up, he didn't try to change it. He wanted to make sure if anything happened to him, you would be taken care of. It's what he wanted,” Sam tells me.
I reach across the table and stroke his cheek.
"Thank you," I say.
"For what?" he asks.
"Just thank you."
After that night in October, I haven't closed my bedroom window. Rain, snow, dipping temperatures. It has stayed open, letting me breathe. It brings in bitingly cold air as I slip out from under the comforter and tuck my feet into my slippers. Grabbing Sam's bathrobe from where he left it draped across the end of the bed, I shrug into it and wrap it tight around me. He went to sleep hours ago, but I imagine I can still feel some of his warmth in the fibers, taking away some of the chill.
Sleeplessness brings me into the office, and I sit down at the desk, opening my laptop. My fingers click over the keyboard to access the database. I don't check it as often now as I used to, but I can't stay away from it tonight. The chewing, nagging feeling in the base of my stomach makes me bring it up and read through the information carefully.
Behind me, I hear Sam walk into the office. His arms wrap around me, and he kisses my cheek.
"They're still there," he whispers. "Both of them are still there."
The prison information comes up, showing me Jonah’s and Anson's mugshots and identification numbers.
I nod.
"I know."
Chapter Three
“You've finished renovating the room in your attic?” my therapist asks.
“Yes,” I tell her.
“How does that make you feel?” she asks.
My eyes slide over to her, and she holds up her hands as she glances down at the notes in her lap and shakes her head slightly.
“Sorry,” she says. “I know you hate that question.”
“Does anyone actually like it? Have you ever had a patient come in for therapy and genuinely feel better after you ask them how it makes them feel to go through the worst experiences of their lives?”
She has her mouth open like she's going to answer, then closes it and gives a slight shrug.
“Different strategies work for different patients. Sometimes, no, they don’t. But sometimes patients need to actively confront and process whatever it is that’s troubling them so that they can regain a sense of normalcy with themselves.”
“But sometimes you just make them re-experience whatever trauma they had in the first place?”
She sighs but doesn’t say anything.
“That's kind of ironic when you think about it, isn't it?”
She nods. “So, let me ask it another way. Did renovating that room do for you whatever it was that you wanted it to do?”
“I think so. Knowing all the information and reminders of my uncle were kept in there for so many years was driving me up a wall. It felt like there was a part of my house that wasn't really mine. I'll always think of that house as belonging to my grandparents, but this is different. It's like that room was completely separate from everything else. It wasn't a part of the house; it didn't belong to anything. It was stolen, in a way. Does that make sense?”
“It only matters if it makes sense to you,” she says.
“Well, that's exactly how it feels. Even in all that time that I didn't go up there, I could feel it. It was looming there. This chunk of the past that made me feel sick when I thought about it. But I didn't want to get anywhere near it. All those things were hidden from me my entire life. I can understand why my grandmother wanted to keep them. No matter what Jonah did or continues to do, he was her child. He was her little boy, and no one could have imagined what he would turn into. She wanted to cling to that. Even if she could never see it or talk about it or acknowledge it even existed, she wanted to make sure somewhere in the world; there was still a part of him that she could hang on to.”
“As you've told me before,” my therapist notes, “you have a very strong grasp on why that room existed the way it did. But why don't you tell me more about why you wanted to change it. You could have just taken everything out, thrown it away, and sealed it back up.”
“I could have. But that would have been letting him keep it. It still would have been hiding something. This way, I have that space back, and I can use it the way I want to. Nothing needs to be hidden from me anymore. I know who Jonah is and what he's done. I don't have to make guesses or try to come up with ideas about why my mother was taken from me. I got all the answers I wanted about that, so there's no need to hide from it anymore. Jonah is in jail, and he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He can't hurt me anymore.”
“It's good to hear you say that.”
“Does it sound convincing?” I ask.
“That depends on who you want to convince.”
“I know both him and Anson are in custody. They're being held in maximum security and have no movement. They're not in the general population; they aren't being moved from facility to facility. Everybody is very aware of Jonah’s influence and Anson's intellect. They know what these men are capable of doing and are going to every extent to keep them from doing anything. I know that.”
“But?” she leads.
“But I can't get them out of my head. I can't stop thinking about what they might have planned or orchestrated that none of us know about. Jonah’s managed to exist under the radar for almost thirty years without me knowing anything about him. For more than twenty of that, everybody thought he was dead. He was able to continue throughout his life, rise to the top of a terrorist organization with a reach we are still trying to get a grasp of, and build up a following of slavish devotees without the FBI, the CIA, or anyone else detecting that he did not die the night of that car accident.”
Then she drops the million-dollar question.
“Do you believe Leviathan was behind Greg's death?”
It's a question I know she's been clamoring to ask me for months now. She touched on it early in my renewed course of therapy, but I closed it down. I wasn't ready to let my mind go there. But now that's where I'm standing. There isn't anywhere else to turn.
“I don't know,” I admit. “Obviously, that was the prevailing theory early in the investigation. He had only just survived more than a year of captivity and a near-fatal beating at the hands of that organization. It was his survival that directly led to us uncovering the details of Leviathan and confirming its existence. His information directly led to Jonah being captured. It only made sense that the organization would be out for his blood. They lost their leader who they saw as the most powerful and important person in the world.”
“Then why don't you sound convinced?”
“There wasn't enough evidence. Our understanding of Leviathan is still so basic. Even with my father back and revealing everything that he's learned about it after going deep undercover for ten years, we still don't know enough about the organization to be able to effectively trace the members, or even how the hierarchy is built. We can't figure out how to identify who is in the organization and what they're responsible for doing. It would seem that people walking around with these sea monster tattoos on their backs would be so obvious.”
“You would think,” she notes.
“And yet they're not. That's what's so frustrating about it. They stay undetected. They just moved about among everybody else without anybody realizing who they are or what they're capable of. Even if Greg's death was a hit in retaliation for Jonah’s arrest, we can't trace it.”
“It's more than that,” she tells me. “It isn't just that there's no concrete evidence. You've solved crimes before where you had barely anything to go on. What are you really thinking about Leviatha
n's responsibility?”
My eyes narrow slightly.
“I thought I was here to work through my personal baggage. Not the investigation into Greg’s death.”
“We're going to talk about whatever you want to talk about,” she responds coolly.
“Then let's talk about something else,” I tell her.
She opens her hand to me in invitation.
“Go ahead,” she says.
We spend the rest of the session dabbling into my relationship with Dean and what it's been like coming to terms with having a cousin fathered by the uncle I didn't know about. This lets our conversation drift over into what it's been like to have my father in my life again. From the beginning, I figured that would be deep analysis fodder. His disappearance has been a central part of my therapy from the first time I sat on the dusty pink couch and stared at the woman looking back at me with expectation.
It was never lost on me that she wanted me to come to terms with the probability my father was dead. She guided me right up to that point many times, but I never let her tip me over into it. It fascinated her, and now that he’s surfaced again, she’s eager to explore how it’s affecting me.
I feel like it's a disappointment to talk about. Of course, I'm thrilled that he's back and I can pick up the phone and call him anytime I want to. That I can ask him to send me a picture and get it in a text message seconds later. I know where he is and how he's doing. With a few exceptions of when he's gone on assignments, he's been back at the house and in a life just like before he left. Little has changed between us. We don't live together, and I have ten years of memories to tell him about, but there's no discomfort. No awkwardness.
My father was always a part of my world. Only now I can hear his voice. I can see him smile. There's more gray in his hair, more lines beside his eyes. But he is still my father. Nothing has changed.
Chapter Four
My phone rings as I'm leaned over, staring at containers of yogurt. I glance at the screen and smile.
“Hey, Dean,” I say, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear as I pick up two of the containers.
“What are you up to?” he asks.
“I am currently trying to determine if I am the type of woman who can eat sea salt caramel flavored yogurt,” I tell him.
“Doesn't that defeat the purpose of yogurt?” he asks.
“It's Greek,” I offer.
There's a brief pause.
“Does that mean anything?” he asks.
“I don't know. I think I'm going to take a walk on the wild side.”
“Go for it,” he says. I toss the yogurt into my cart.
“It'll be something I can talk to my therapist about at my next session,” I joke.
“How's that going?” he asks.
“I mean, it's therapy. So, it's not my favorite thing in the world. But I guess it's giving me the chance to vent a little. My last session was yesterday. I've been doing most of them on video chat, but I was in town yesterday, so I actually went into the office. I don't know why, but it feels completely different actually sitting there in the room with her.”
“Why were you in town? I didn’t think you were on an active investigation right now.” Dean says. “Were you seeing your dad?”
“No, it wasn’t for an investigation. I just finished consulting on a case, but it’s all remote. I saw Dad, but that wasn't why I was there. Greg's probate went through, so I was collecting his things,” I explain.
“Oh,” he says. “I'm—”
“Please don't say you're sorry,” I cut him off. “I have heard that so many times, and I just can't hear it anymore. Everything is out of his apartment, and most of it got donated right off the bat. I’m still going through a few of the boxes, but I don't really see myself keeping much if anything. It'll be a relief when that's over.”
“I haven't forgotten about him,” Dean assures me. “None of us have.”
“I know,” I tell him.
“We're going to figure out what happened to him.”
“I know,” I say.
I breathe through a tense silence, pushing my cart along the too-bright grocery aisle.
“Well, what else? I feel like I haven't talked to you in forever. What's been going on in your neck of the woods?”
“Not a lot, to be honest with you. I'm technically working in the police department with Sam in between working on cases. I go with him for some of the calls and have helped with a couple of investigations over the last few months. But for the most part, I'm just home researching. Grocery shopping and game nights with Janet and Paul across the street are my big moments of excitement recently since I haven’t had to travel for a case lately. I know I made the right call by telling Creagan I should stay out of potentially high profile, in-person investigations and undercover work for a while. But it’s bringing up all kinds of confusion.”
“What do you mean?” Dean asks.
“My whole adult life has been about investigating crimes. It’s what I’m driven to do. But I’m not feeling as comfortable with it as I used to. There are times when I miss the undercover work or constantly being on the run. But when I think about it, there isn’t that spark that used to be there. I feel like I got into a rut and kind of hit a wall. The whole reason I went into the FBI was to find out what happened to my mother.”
“I know.”
“And that’s what I did. It took seventeen years of wondering. Ten years of investigating. But I finally got the answers I was looking for. And now I just wonder if that means I don’t have that purpose anymore. Maybe there’s supposed to be something else. I’ve fulfilled that mission. So, do I keep going? Or do I find out what else is ahead of me? I guess I am trying to figure out what comes next.”
“You'll figure it out,” he says. “I still think you need to really consider getting your private investigator's license.”
“So, we could go into a family business together?” I crack with a smile.
“Something like that,” he says. “If nothing else, it would be something to have in your back pocket. You might figure out something else that you want to do or decide to go back to the Bureau in a more active role in the next year or so. You might find that small-town living isn’t right for you and that you want to be back in the excitement of DC. Or that you want to stay a consultant like B rather than a fully active special agent. But if you don't, being a private investigator is right up your alley,” he tells me.
He's right. At least, in theory. I'm trying not to push myself into any major career decisions right now. I need to concentrate on just reconstructing my life and figuring out who I am without all the questions looming over me. But when it does come time to join a world of normalcy again, it’s possible I’ll find that the FBI isn’t where I’m supposed to be at all. Sam often reminds me of the girl I was before I left Sherwood for the last time before entering the academy. I wanted to be an artist. My spirit was free and light, and I wasn’t constantly focused on the intense, massive cases that go to the Bureau rather than more localized investigative organizations.
Maybe Dean is right. Being a private investigator may be exactly what's right for me. I can choose my own cases and won't have to deal with the red tape and exacting protocols of the Bureau. Going up against them has created friction before. It’s appealing to think I could pursue more personal, smaller cases without having to deal with orders and do things at my own pace. At least to an extent.
“Speaking of which,” I say, trying to redirect the conversation, “how are things with you? I don't think we've spoken since you were trying to find that father who went missing in the middle of January.”
"That's a really messed up case. I'm still working on it.”
“No sign of him?”
“Nothing,” Dean confirms. “I have gone through every angle I can possibly think of and followed every lead that's come up. Some of them a few times. And I haven't been able to make any progress. It's like the man just evaporated.”
<
br /> “It can definitely feel like that,” I sympathize. “But we both know that doesn't happen. There's an explanation, and I'm sure you're going to find it. You just have to keep digging. Is there anything I can help you with?”
"I actually did uncover something I wanted to run past you to see if you had any insights."
"Go ahead," I tell him.
I go back to pinning my phone between my ear and my shoulder to dig through a bin of green peppers. Tonight was calling out for stuffed peppers, so I carefully scan the bin for the ones with the perfect shape.
“Obviously, we went over his financial records and bank accounts and everything from the very beginning. That's one of the first things you do, trying to see if you can track where cards have been used or if there's been any unusual money moving out of accounts,” he starts.
“Right,” I say, stuffing a couple of peppers into a bag.
“And it didn't seem like there was anything unusual. Just absolutely normal transactions right up until the moment when he disappeared. All his credit cards went dark, his bank accounts hadn't been touched, there were no unusual withdrawals in the time leading up to his disappearance,” Dean says.
“That's not usually a good sign,” I say. “People can't function without money. Either he was somehow saving for a long time to make sure he had enough that it couldn't be traced when he left, or he doesn't need money anymore.”
“That's what I thought, too. But without a body, I'm not giving up hope. So, I kept searching, and just the other day, I uncovered another bank account.”
“Of his?” I ask. “Didn't anybody run his social security number and personal information to track down any additional accounts he might have?”
“Yes. That's why we thought we had all of his information. But what we didn't realize is he had opened one under a different social security number.”
“Whose?” I ask.
"His wife's."
"Wait; what? You didn't tell me he's married."
"I didn't know. That wasn't part of the information given to me during the briefing. I asked the mother of his child and his family, and none of them knew either," Dean explains.