“A great soldier.”
“Walter—”
“What was your ultimate goal in going out to that compound? Please, Holly, enlighten me.”
I’m quiet for a moment, remembering the cold darkness, the dirt crunching beneath my feet, the guards’ house and the ranch house and the rows and rows of cots, the sheets smelling of body odor and sweat and desperation.
In a very quiet voice, I say, “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Walter nods slowly, taking his hands away from my shoulders. He moves back to his desk and leans against it, crossing his arms. “So what you’re telling me now is that Scooter’s death was in vain. There was no ultimate purpose for what you were doing, so in his coming to give you backup, he essentially died for nothing. Now tell me—is my logic wrong?”
“Those girls were slaves.”
“I know they were, Holly. But so are a million other girls all over the world. And guess what—you can’t save all of them.”
“But—”
“Besides, you couldn’t even save the ones you tried to save Saturday night.”
I look at him again. “What?”
“Almost every single girl there was an illegal. When the police arrived, so did ICE. Those girls were sent back to Mexico.”
I don’t say anything, letting this sink in. I’d figured as much but actually hearing the truth is still like a knife being inserted slowly into my heart. After Scooter had been shot, the thought of those girls had left my mind. Even Rosalina, left by herself in the Town Car on the other side of that rocky hill, had vanished, and all I could think or care about was Scooter, dying in my arms.
“What about his parents?”
“What about them?”
“Do they know?”
“Of course they know. They know that early Saturday morning their son was driving home from a very late night at work. He must have dozed off behind the wheel and swerved off the road and struck a tree. Completely demolished the car, as well as the body inside.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What then would you consider fair? Should we tell them the truth? Should we tell them how their son was secretly working for a top secret government unit? That for the past seven years he has helped keep our country safe from terrorists? That he was in fact a hero?”
Walter takes a breath, slowly shakes his head.
“Those are all truths, Holly, something his parents would be very proud to hear, but something they will never know. As far as they’re concerned, their son was just an ordinary citizen who did freelance web design. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“When’s his funeral?”
“Forget it.”
“Tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter. You were never part of his life. You have no reason to go to his funeral. You have no reason to mourn with his family.” He raises a finger at me. “And don’t get any stupid ideas, either. I will have surveillance there and if any of them even catches a whiff of your perfume you will be taken away in a matter of seconds.”
I cross my arms, glare back at him.
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” Walter says, his voice slow and deliberate. “Scooter made the decision to go out there just like Nova did.”
I glance down at the floor, glance back up at Walter. “So what happens now?”
“Regarding?”
“Regarding me and Nova.”
“Nova is on indefinite hiatus. At least until a new team is formed.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Is the new team going to include me?”
“Give me one good reason why it should.”
I say nothing, look away from him.
“Just as I thought.” He stands up straight and walks back around his desk, lowers himself down in his seat. He seems to think a moment, his mouth half-open, and then sighs. “Holly, what I’m going to say to you now comes from a friend and not from your superior.”
“And that is?”
“What happened two years ago was terrible. It shocked us all. And unfortunately you were the most impacted and apparently still are. And ever since then you’ve had this stubbornness that makes you believe you can save the world. But the problem is you will never be able to do so. Why? Because when it comes right down to it, you can’t even save yourself.”
Seventeen
Blondie got engaged over the weekend.
She has been with her boyfriend now for three years, they’ve been living together for two, and over the weekend he finally popped the question—she has already told us about the dinner, the flowers and the wine—and for the fiftieth time in the past hour she extends her hand to us, letting the diamond sparkle in the sunlight.
“Oh my God,” Brunette says. “I just love it.”
“Really,” Redhead says, “it’s beautiful.”
Blondie smiles, says thank you, then looks at me.
I’ve been smiling for the past hour and am getting pretty sick and tired of it. But still I keep smiling when I say, “Absolutely gorgeous.”
We’re out at a public pool, these three girls and myself, all who put down on their W-2s the profession of nanny (only theirs is true and mine is just a cover). Blondie, Brunette, and Redhead are not their names, of course, but that’s how I think of them. I’ve known them now for two years and we’re friends to an extent, always seeing each other during the week while we drag our charges around D.C., and there have even been a few times when one or the other invited me to go out with them partying. I’d gone, just to show face, but had mostly stood in the corner, nursing a drink, declining invitations to dance.
I decided to come up with a cover story from the start that I was already involved with someone, a longtime boyfriend who lives out of state. This way none of the girls would try to fix me up with one of their friends. The only problem was I needed a picture. And, well, I had a picture of Scooter on my phone one day, a pretty cute one, actually, and this was what I had shown the girls.
Scooter, my fake
