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“You’re being awfully cagey about what it is.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“If you tell me, you’ll have to kill me?”
A sad half-smile twitched up the side of her mouth. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Nadine stared at Mere in her special way, as if she could see through her protective walls to the soft, squishy core of her being.
“Is he worth it?” she asked after coming to whatever conclusion her superpower offered.
“Yes,” Mere said without hesitation.
“I will rally the troops. Take a shower and go about your day tomorrow as normally as you can. I’ll call if and when I learn anything.”
“Thank you.”
Mere stood and stretched, the tequila giving her the warm fuzzies and making her sleepy. Something resembling optimism ran through her system along with it.
Nadine took a sip from her mug. “Did he ask you to go with him?”
She nodded.
“And you said no.” It wasn’t a question.
Mere nodded again.
“My dear, the chance for adventure only comes around so often. You should grab hold of it when it does. Your home will always be here.”
“I don’t know if I can go where he’s going. He’s the best thing to happen to me, and he’s leaving. He has to leave.”
Tears fell, sudden and unbidden. She collapsed onto the chair and sobbed, her heart breaking into tiny pieces. Though Tyson had damaged her body and her spirit, her heart had never hurt like this.
Nadine’s strong arms wrapped around her, hands stroking Mere’s hair as she sobbed out her grief. When snot ran down her tear-streaked face and her eyes dried out, her aunt gave her a kiss on top of her head.
“Good. Now, sleep. Your alarm is going off whether or not you want it to. Your best chance of helping him is to act normal. I’ve got your back.”
With a gentle shove, Nadine ushered Mere out the door. She shuffled to her half of the duplex and did as her aunt suggested.
16
WINDBREAKER-CLAD UNDERLINGS
After lunch the next day, the agents marched through the door, accompanied by the town manager and a legion of windbreaker-clad underlings.
“Hello, Mere,” said her boss.
“Hey, Ryo.”
“The special agents called me on my day off and told me you have given them some trouble complying with the warrant. They brought their own techs to scan our computers.”
She watched as a tech shooed an elderly patron from one of the public computers. Mere shook her head. “That simply isn’t true. Have you read the warrant?”
He glanced guiltily to the side. “Well…”
“The warrant specified our logs. I gave them all the logs we had available.”
“But the warrant specified server logs, and you failed to provide those to us,” Okabe said. “I could arrest you on obstruction and open a federal investigation into the town. Corruption is always a good reason.”
