Arianna swallowed, trying to comprehend that her relative safety was a sham—perpetrated by the man she thought she trusted and loved. No tears came; only blankness.
“Why are you telling me now?”
Trent’s wretched gaze met hers. “Because the warrant finally came through.”
She closed her eyes.
“By the time you get home,” said his hollow voice, “your phone will be tapped, and Dopp will be waiting outside your building in an unmarked car with a radio interceptor. It can pick up any sound near your phone, even when you’re not using it. From now on, they’re going to monitor you and follow you until they get what they want, and I don’t know how much more I can do about it.”
Shocked silence. She gawked at him as a sliver of her consciousness marveled at how fast the situation had deteriorated.
“So what you’re telling me is that right here, with you, is the last time I’m going to have total privacy?”
“Yes.”
“And what if they don’t catch me? Are they going to give up?”
“I don’t know. Not soon.”
“So you’re telling me that I’m going to be under government surveillance indefinitely?”
“Yes.”
“Do they know about Sam?”
“No. Nothing about him or the lab or the group. We just need to keep it that way for one more week.”
“We?” She turned her chair toward the door. “I have to get out of here.”
“Arianna, wait.” He looked desperate as he ran up to her side. “What about us?”
“What about us, Trent? Is that even your real name?”
“Yes … please…”
“Please what? Our entire relationship was based on a lie!”
“I’m sorry. I’ve done everything I could. I love you.…”
“Just open the door. I need to get out of here!”
He obeyed and she zoomed past him into the hallway.
“When can I call you?” he yelled.
“Don’t,” she snapped over her shoulder. “I can’t lie as well as you.”
She propelled herself forward, bumping over the uneven carpeted floor to the elevator. The doors opened and she whisked inside.
“Arianna, wait,” he called, running after her. There was a kind of madness in his eyes, that of a man who has gambled everything and lost. “I’ll do anything!” he cried. “When am I going to see you again?”
She kept her eyes on the lobby button, jabbing it hard. An undeniable part of her yearned to answer him, to pretend that she was still safe, and he a writer, and that they were two lovers, in love with life and each other, with time at last on their side.
The doors closed before she looked up again.
NINETEEN
At 1 P.M. the following day, Trent was still in bed, with his head buried under the pillow and the comforter tangled around his legs. His body slept long past its needs, as if gripped by an innate survival tactic to protect his mind from pain.
Just to his left, sunlight streamed through the window’s maroon drapes and illuminated the dusty wooden floor. For such brightness, Trent’s pillow was too weak a fortress. Light glared against his eyelids. He opened them, squinted, felt his stomach clench a second before his mind recognized why. And then he moaned. He shut his eyes to retreat again into sleep, but the harder he tried, the further away it seemed, like a sailor chasing the horizon.
He threw the pillow off his head, sat up, and grabbed his cell phone from the dresser. Two missed calls. His breath caught in his throat; could they be from her? He flipped open the plastic lifeline and saw that both were from his mother, ten and fifteen minutes ago. Frigid disappointment rushed in. He sighed and listened to the single voice mail: “Trent, where are you? Your father and I have been waiting here for twenty minutes. We’re starting to get worried.”
He moaned again, remembering it was Sunday—brunch with his parents. He had never canceled before, let alone stood them up. But his remorse was halfhearted. He wished he could communicate directly somehow with Arianna. A phone call was out of the question, and a text message was risky, since Dopp could intercept any message that passed through her phone. The phone company would quickly retrieve any text message and then bounce it to a special electronic transmitter in Dopp’s car. Anything Trent wrote to her now would be read. But he worried that their prolonged—and obvious—lack of contact could be dangerous. And he desperately hoped that once her outrage subsided, she would come around to understanding why he had lied.
Trent typed her a careful message: Missing you. I know you’re not feeling well, but try to call when you can.
He sent it and waited, phone in hand. A suspenseful minute passed before two notes rang out, not from his phone, but from his door.
He grimaced, inferring what must have happened. There was no putting off two worried parents, especially when both made a habit of fearing big-city crime. He slid out of bed, pulled sweatpants on over his boxers, and went to the door to look through the peephole. His parents were standing there, wearing their fancy church attire and looking concerned. He opened the door with gritted teeth.
“I’m really sorry,” he said immediately. “I just woke up.”
His mother’s brows knotted in surprise, revealing that this was the one possibility she had not considered.
His father checked his watch. “It’s one eighteen,” he snapped. “We waited for forty minutes. And just because you decided to sleep late?”
Trent took a deep breath, unprepared to deal with their anger.
“Walter, wait a second,” Mrs. Rowe said, stepping inside and pulling her husband with her. “Trent, your eyes are all swollen. I knew something was wrong.”
He reached up and touched his lids; they felt puffy. He nodded. “Yeah, actually, I’ve been kind of stressed.”
Mr. Rowe’s irritation evaporated. “What’s going on?”
“You can talk to us, honey,” Mrs. Rowe said, touching his arm.
Trent felt torn. They looked so sympathetic, but at the same time, he knew he could not elaborate.
“Is this about that case?” Mr. Rowe asked.
He nodded. “But I don’t want to
