The Torturer's Daughter

“That’s just what a spy would say.” She matched his teasing tone before she realized she was doing it.

“I could always make something up,” he offered. “Would it sound more believable if I told you I was raised by wolves for the first ten years of my life?”

“Maybe. It would depend on how convincingly you could howl.” An unexpected smile creased the corners of her mouth. Even with her suspicions, something about him put her at ease. The rhythm of his voice made her mind stop racing.

Of course, if he really was a spy, he was probably doing that on purpose. Her smile dropped away.

The waitress approached, pen poised above her pad. Becca and Jake looked at each other. “Pepperoni?” asked Jake.

Becca nodded. “And… anchovies.” Why make this easy for him?

Jake raised his eyebrows. “All right. Pepperoni and anchovies.” He passed their order along to the waitress. When she was gone, he tilted his head at Becca. “You don’t strike me as the anchovy type.”

“I’m full of surprises.” She smiled again without meaning to.

She wished he would quit talking to her like that, and quit looking at her like he was actually interested in her. This would be a lot easier if he’d start asking her questions about Heather instead. That way she’d know for sure.

But then he’d lose his chance to catch her off-guard, and she wouldn’t tell him anything. If he wanted to find out whether Heather was a dissident, it made a lot more sense for him to do what he was doing. Make her let her guard down. Get her to like him.

Jake rested his arms on the table and leaned closer. “So what about you? If having a boring life means I’m a spy, what makes your life so interesting?”

She bit her lip and frowned in an exaggerated look of concern. “Okay. You caught me. My life is as boring as yours. Does that make me a spy too?”

He laughed, and she smiled back. She tried to remind herself that she was only pretending to have a good time.

As they talked, Becca kept waiting for him to segue into a question about Heather. He didn’t. In fact, Heather’s name didn’t come up once in the conversation. They talked about school, and about the town where Jake had lived for the past couple of years, and about which of them had seen the most bad movies in their lifetime. Their pizza arrived, and they paused to scarf down two slices each—the anchovies actually weren’t so bad, and if they bothered Jake, he didn’t show it—and then they talked some more while munching on what was left.

Sometimes Becca almost forgot the real reason Jake had brought her here.

And when Jake still didn’t ask about Heather, she started to wonder if maybe he had been telling the truth after all.

Did she have any concrete reason to think he was a spy? She thought about it, but couldn’t come up with anything.

And then there was what he had done when Laine had gone after Heather. Maybe he hadn’t done it to make Becca less suspicious. Maybe he really had just wanted to help.

As Becca finished the final piece of pizza, Jake glanced down at his watch.

“I guess I really am that boring,” said Becca lightly. “I must be working for Internal.”

“What?” Jake frowned. “Oh! No, it’s just my dad. He doesn’t like me to be gone for too long.”

“The overprotective type?” Becca’s mom used to get like that, before she started spending too much time at work to be able to keep track of Becca’s whereabouts. Now, out of necessity, she pretty much trusted Becca to keep herself out of trouble.

At least, she had until she had decided Heather was a dissident.

“It’s not like that.” Jake’s whole demeanor had changed. He seemed to shrink, like he was collapsing in on himself. “When my mom died, he took it really hard. He’s still having a tough time. I stay home as much as I can, to make things easier for him.”

Becca opened her mouth to say something sympathetic—and stopped.

Something was wrong with what he had said.

It took her a few seconds to place it. “You said your parents split up.”

Seconds stretched by. Jake didn’t answer.

“You know what? Don’t bother coming up with an explanation. I don’t care.” Becca stood up. She pushed her chair in so hard it squealed against the floor.

So he had lied to her. No big surprise there. It wasn’t as if she had ever really thought he was interested in her as anything other than a source of information. Why did it make her so angry to find confirmation of what she had already known?

Jake started to say something. Becca interrupted. “I don’t want to hear it. Just take me home.”

* * *

When Becca came in, her mom was waiting for her. She set aside the papers in her lap as Becca closed the door behind her. “You’re back early.”

At the sound of her mom’s voice, Becca’s nausea returned. She wished she hadn’t eaten all that pizza. “I’m going to bed.”

Her mom’s eyebrows rose. “It’s not even nine o’clock.” She patted the spot next to her. “How about sitting with me for a while and telling me about this guy?”

“Not now, all right? I’m really tired.”

“If we’re going to fix whatever went wrong between us, we have to start somewhere.”

Becca’s stomach churned. “I don’t want to talk, okay? I just want to go to bed.”

“Your best friend is a dissident. You go on dates without telling me. Something is bothering you, but you won’t talk about it.” Becca’s mom stood up. “Something is wrong here. You know it as well as I do.”

Like any of that meant anything compared to what Becca’s mom had done. Something was wrong here, but it wasn’t Becca’s fault. “Maybe you can tell me something.” Her voice came out harsher than she had intended. “What exactly did Heather do besides having the wrong parents?”

Her mom sighed. “I thought we were done discussing this. Dissident parents often pass their ideology on to their children. I could show you a hundred different examples—and in most of those cases, the children look completely innocent.” She paused. “Is that what this is about? Heather?”

No, it’s about how you lied to me. How you’ve been lying to everyone by giving dissidents manufactured crimes to confess to on TV before their executions. “So if you work for Internal, that must mean I work for Internal too, right?”

“It’s not as simple as that, and you know it.”

“If she’s so obviously a dissident, why not arrest her? Why let her go and then send spies to talk to her friends?” Becca’s voice rose. “Have any of you people actually talked to her? She’s the furthest thing there is from a dissident. The idea of her parents being dissidents is tearing her apart.” Despite the problems they were having, Becca was more certain than ever that Heather wasn’t a dissident. Heather would never have reacted the way she had to Becca’s revelation otherwise.

Heather had rejected the information. Becca had tried to get her to believe it. Which of them had acted like a dissident?

Only a dissident would think any of that could be true.

She pushed the thought away. She could deal with it later. Much later.

“Wait.” Her mom frowned. “What do you mean, send spies to talk to her friends?”

“That guy I went out with? Turns out he was just trying to get information about Heather.” She tried to make it sound like it was no big deal. Her voice still came out angry.

Her mom’s lips tightened. “And why was he trying to get this information from you? Why not from Heather?”

“How should I know? I guess he thought I’d be less likely to suspect him.”

Her mom straightened her shoulders. She looked like she was preparing for battle. “This is completely inappropriate. They should have arrested that girl along with her parents. To let her go and then spy on my daughter, as though you’re the criminal here… and taking you on a date to do it, no less…” She brought her focus back to Becca. “This is going to stop right now.” She pulled out her phone. “What’s his name?”

“Jake.” Becca thought. “He never told me his last name.”