So why is he coming in?
We take the stairs to the second floor. I glance over the banister and see that Blue Jeans is just standing there in the lobby. I survey the rest of the lobby, all those people and kids, and then I spot a couple museum employees, at least one security guard.
“Okay, let’s go.”
We turn away from the stairs toward the closest bank of elevators. I can tell David wants to ask again where we’re going but he manages to keep silent. We wait along with two mothers and their strollers and then we all squeeze into the elevator.
The elevator lets us off on the first floor. A museum employee is standing nearby. I walk over and set Casey down, make her hold David’s hand again, then step closer.
“Excuse me. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
She nods.
“See that guy over there, the one in the Nationals hat?”
She nods again.
I lean in close and whisper, “My boy over there said that man was watching him while he was in the bathroom.”
The woman raises her eyebrows.
Now it’s me who nods, gravely, keeping a straight face.
The woman stares at me another moment, then glances at David, then turns her attention back to where Blue Jeans is standing in the lobby, all those kids running around him. She unclips a walkie-talkie from her belt, starts speaking into it.
I turn away and walk back to the kids. I pick Casey up and start toward the exit.
“Miss, you need to stay here,” the employee says.
“I can’t.”
“But—”
Up ahead, two male security guards have converged on Blue Jeans. They step up close to him. One of the guards even puts a hand on the guy’s arm.
“What’s this about?” Blue Jeans asks, looking back and forth at the guards. As we walk past his gaze shifts to meet mine. I smile and wink at him and then we’re headed through the exit doors.
I scope out the steps, the sidewalks, even the street. All looks well. But then we reach the sidewalk and I can see Suit farther down the block, on the corner of 12th and Madison. He has his hand to his ear, listening to something (probably the guards asking his partner why he was in the bathroom looking at boys), and then he spots us.
He starts forward immediately.
Still holding Casey, I tell David to move it and turn left and we start walking.
As we walk, David can’t help but look back over his shoulder. I don’t bother telling him not to.
“The guy in the suit?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“He’s coming pretty fast.”
I increase my speed. David does too. We reach the end of the block and turn left up 9th. Just after we make the turn I set Casey down and once again put her hand in David’s.
“Take your sister halfway up the block. Stop when you get there. And don’t turn around until I tell you to.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go, David.”
Casey starts crying. “Holly, what’s happening?”
“Go!”
David starts pulling his sister forward. She cries harder now and people are looking and David once again becoming the good big brother tries to pick her up and carry her.
I don’t see how far they get.
I don’t because I can hear Suit coming, his shoes slapping the sidewalk.
I don’t because I’m pushing myself up against the wall right next to the corner, flattening myself.
I start counting, going one two three four, and then he appears, jogging now, and I step forward, throw my elbow into his face. The briefcase hits the sidewalk a second before he does. Both hands fly to his face, holding in the blood. I pick up the briefcase, grip it in two hands, bring it down on his stomach.
“Stop,” he says, or tries to say.
I bring the briefcase down again. I don’t think about the people watching us, about David and Casey behind me. I think about this man and his partner and about what it is they want to do with the kids and how I’m not going to let that happen.
The man takes his hands away from his face. I’ve busted his nose and more blood squirts out. He holds one hand up to block another blow as he reaches into his suit jacket with his other hand.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” I shout.
The man tries speaking but blood streams into his mouth, goes down the back of his throat. He coughs and only manages to say, “Me-eye.”
“I will smash your face in with this,” I tell him, holding the briefcase up over my head, and the man pauses in trying to reach for whatever it is in his jacket.
He opens one eye, looks up at me. Coughs again and forcefully enunciates, “F—B—I.”
“What?”
“Me … and my partner … we’re FBI,” he says, and judging that I won’t smash his face in with the briefcase, he pulls out his badge and holds it up.
And yep, there it is in big blue letters: FB-fucking-I.
Twenty-Nine
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want a good goddamned reason.”
“And what makes you think you deserve one? They’re my children, Holly. Like I told you before you took this job, my kids are the most important thing in the world to me. I will never let anything harm them.”
“And all of a sudden I’m not good enough to watch them myself?”
Walter doesn’t answer, at least not immediately. A long moment of silence passes. I’m out in the driveway, the kids inside with Sylvia, and I’m pacing around my car, my cell phone to my ear, Walter off in whatever secret corner of Washington he’s hidden himself today.
“You said yourself you wanted out. Didn’t you?”
“You were the one that said I’ve been on a gradual decline.”
“Holly—”
“I would never let anything happen to your children. You know that.”
“Yes, I do know that. Consciously, you would never let anything happen to them. But unconsciously …”
“What the hell does that
