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They walked down the street, the sound of Helen’s work heels filling the silence between them. Annie had a million questions: about Helen’s kids, about the house, about what happened after she left. But she held back from asking them, wary of scaring Helen off.
The Mexican restaurant was busy but large enough that they were seated right away. The server dropped a basket of warm tortilla chips and a bowl of house salsa onto the table. Another server brought cool glasses of water.
Annie cleared her throat. There was no time like the present. “When I was in my early twenties, I went to Eastern Europe on assignment, and the work I did there ended up getting the family of a government worker murdered. A woman and a little girl. The husband went missing and was presumed dead. I returned to the States, quit my job, then decided to go back to school.”
“Annie, you don’t have to tell me everything in the first five minutes.”
“I just want to get it out,” Annie said.
“All right. So that had just happened when you met me? Those people had died?”
Annie told her about Clifton and his machinations. “I think he thought I’d get tired of it and go back.”
“Didn’t you?” Helen asked softly.
“No,” she said, “because I met someone and fell in love.”
The server approached to introduce herself and drop off menus. Annie glanced over the menu, but the words didn’t make sense.
“I know what I want,” Helen said and ordered.
Flustered, Annie pointed to a number and handed the menu back. She would eat whatever came. It didn’t matter.
After the server left with their orders, Helen prompted, “Go on.”
Annie told her about the assignment with the houses, how she broke into the last one at night and encountered the missing man from Minsk. How Clifton had set off her pager intentionally, but how no one knew that the man had a gun. Annie thought that her rescuer had been one of Clifton’s goons but found out later that Buck had had her followed just in case.Agent Katz, the assigned agent, rushed her to a hospital when he heard shots fired.
In the end, Clifton got what he wanted. Annie recovered at home with her parents and then moved back to Washington. Clifton had made good on his threat and had nearly gotten her killed. She had no reason to doubt that he would do it again.
“It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t normal—his obsession with me or the things that he used his power to do.”
Helen leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “Okay. Then what happened?”
“He got caught and was forced to retire.”
“I meant with you.” Helen had replaced her wire-framed glasses with dark, plastic ones that accentuated her brown eyeliner and the lashes heavy and black with mascara. “You could have called me and explained all of this back then.”
Annie shrugged, though she was embarrassed because she’d never been sure whether or not she’d made the right choice by not reaching out. “By the time I felt like it would have been safe to call you or write to you, it had been years and—I don’t know. I figured you were probably better off without me. And I figured since you never got in touch with me, it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“But you’re here now.”
“I like LA,” Annie said.
“I did try to find you,” Helen admitted, leaning back in her chair. “I suspected you went back, but I didn’t know why. I thought maybe you were unhappy with us. That you decided to drop out of school and were embarrassed to tell me.”
Annie shook her head.
“I contacted the CIA, trying to find out… I just wanted to know if that’s where you went back to.”
“What happened?”
“Someone from the CIA called the chief of police and told him that I was poking around. The chief called me into his office and said if I wanted to keep my job, I should mind my own business, that I wasn’t a detective.”
“Jesus.”
“Annie, I had three young children. I couldn’t afford to lose my job.”
“I know.” Annie stared at the basket of tortilla chips. “I loved living in your garage, for the record. I loved your family. I loved—”
