There was a gleam of emotion in Flynn’s eyes, but it was hard to read. “A tragedy has befallen the Black Raptor Society,” she announced. “I decided it was only appropriate for me to deliver the news myself, rather than allow it to filter down through our members.”
Lauren straightened in her chair. “What tragedy?”
Flynn stood, opening her arms as if to embrace the entire room. “My dears, we now face a change in leadership, for one of our own has fallen. My beloved brother, Orson, is dead.”
28
The tension between Natasha and Henry was so palpable that the kitchen felt suddenly claustrophobic. There was a beat of silence before Natasha, in a voice of deadly calm, said, “Nicole, would you excuse us? I’d like to speak to my husband in private.”
“Sure.”
As quickly as possible, I sidled out of the kitchen and trotted up the stairs. I sat on the top step, listening to the shower run in the nearby bathroom. It was easy enough to afford Natasha and Henry the illusion of privacy, but hell if I was going to miss out on Henry’s explanation. It was bound to be enlightening, and I still wasn’t sure if I trusted either one of them to keep me and Wes safe.
“Natasha,” Henry began in a low voice.
“No,” she said, stopping him. “You don’t get to talk first when I don’t even know your real last name. Who are you?”
“I told you.”
“Yes. Agent Henry Altman. I don’t know Agent Henry Altman. Who is he?”
“I’m still the exact same person, Natasha,” said Henry. “You do know me.”
“Do I?” The words wavered as they floated up the stairs to me. “Because I married a man who told me he worked on the farm that he grew up on for the majority of his life, and you, evidently, are not that man.”
“For the record, I did grow up on a farm. Just not this one. And my work was classified. I wasn’t permitted to share it with you.”
“Federal agents aren’t required to hide their identities,” my mother shot back.
“I was undercover.”
“Why?”
Henry sighed, and the sound of a kitchen stool scraping across the wood floors reached my ears. “Before I explain this, I just want you to know that this was never part of the plan.”
“What was never part of the plan?”
“You and me.”
I bit my lip, waiting out Natasha’s response. I could already see where this was going. From the sound of the story so far and the wistful sighs that Henry kept releasing, he had made the classic mistake of falling in love with his mark.
“How long?” asked Natasha in a small voice.
“I was assigned to this investigation in 1990.”
“Twenty-five years?”
“Twenty-five years.”
“Go on.”
Henry inhaled such an enormous breath that I could hear it from my position at the top of the stairs. “The Bureau had been looking into the Black Raptor Society for a while, but we were unable to find any concrete evidence of the society’s existence. We knew it was there, but back then, its members were significantly more skilled in hiding their tracks. They were guilty of everything, Natasha—laundering money, tax evasion, art theft, you name it—but the fact was that we weren’t making any progress on the case. The Bureau needed an inside man.”
“And you volunteered?”
“I was assigned,” corrected Henry. “I was one of the youngest agents on the case, so it was less suspicious for me to be seen on a college campus. I spent almost two years at Waverly, trying my damnedest to find even a whisper of the Raptors. I nearly gave up.”
“And then?”
“I attended the annual charity event,” Henry explained. “It was a last-ditch attempt at obtaining new information. The event had been planned and executed by one of Waverly’s most prestigious families: the Lockwoods. Of course, the whole family showed up in all their glory. By then, Catherine Flynn had already been married and widowed. I remember wondering why anyone would ever marry a woman like that in the first place. Even when she spoke at the event, she seemed cold and distant.”
There was a pause, during which I assumed Henry was reminiscing on his life-altering evening. My mother, like me, waited in silence. Henry went on.
“Later on, I caught sight of Flynn sneaking out of the event. I followed her. She met with another member of the society. She was livid, prattling on and on about ‘losing another lead.’ And then she mentioned you and Anthony both.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing of much use to me,” said Henry. “Instinct told me not to let it go. I researched the names. Can you imagine what I found?”
“Our death records.”
“Bingo. At first, I thought it was another dead end. Then I began to wonder. Natasha Petrov and Anthony Costello, both young and healthy, died within two years of each other. Something didn’t add up. Of course, my research on Anthony fell flat. He really was gone, although the circumstances surrounding his death were pretty hazy. I found you though. You’d changed your name, updated your ID, and moved out of state, but I found you regardless. So I moved to Palo Alto in order to track you down.”
“Oh, God.”
Behind me, the bathroom door swung open, and Wes emerged from the steam with a fluffy, tan towel wrapped around his midriff. I pivoted around, placing a finger to my lips before he could say anything. He paused, knelt down to my level, and mouthed, “What’s going on?”
“Henry’s with the FBI,” I whispered back. Hot water dripped off of Wes’s nose as I pointed downstairs. “Listen.”
Henry trudged onward with his retelling. Now that he had begun to explain his alternate life story, it seemed that he wanted to get it all out on the table in one fell swoop. “My orders
