All Fall Down

  “Grace, I know you must have questions …”

  Grandpa doesn’t even say hello when he reaches his office. He doesn’t ask what I was doing out until midnight, or who I was with — none of the typical questions an adult authority figure is supposed to ask. He’s already been briefed by Ms. Chancellor. He is ready for this fight.

  Which is a good thing because I’m already up and shouting, “You know him?”

  “Now, Gracie …” Grandpa starts slowly. His tie is loose and the top button of his shirt is undone. When he walks to the small rolling tray by the window and pours himself a drink, I can tell it isn’t his first of the night. The way things are going, it almost certainly won’t be his last.

  “I told you what I saw. I came to you and you know him. You knew him all along and you told me I was seeing things!”

  “No.” Grandpa’s voice is sharp. He’s not doing the folksy Southern-gentleman act anymore. This is the man who negotiated the Treaty of Caspia. This is the man who championed the development of the EU. This is why the president and the prime minister and a half dozen other world leaders call him their friend.

  I’m supposed to be intimidated. But I’m not. I’m disgusted.

  “I told you, Grace Olivia, that you did not see the man who killed your mother. And you didn’t.”

  “Who is he?” I demand.

  Grandpa takes a slow sip of his whiskey. When he speaks again, his accent is stronger than I have ever heard it.

  “He is a man I’ve known for years. He’s a friend.”

  “Who is he?” I shout.

  Grandpa’s voice remains soft. “His name is Dominic Novak. He’s the head of security for the prime minister. He is a decorated war hero and a key advisor to one of the most powerful men in Europe. He is trusted and respected and … He’s just a man with a scar, Grace. It doesn’t make him evil.”

  “I know not all people with scars are evil,” I snap. “I’m not living in a cartoon. But I also know —”

  “You know what?” Exasperated, Grandpa throws open one of his desk drawers and pulls out a file. “Tell me what you know, Grace. Because I remember when you just knew you saw your mother’s murderer two years ago in Santa Fe.” He pulls a photograph from the file — a face I thought I’d never see again.

  “Or the man in the airport in Chicago.” He pulls out another picture. And then another. And another. “This one was a corporal at Fort Meade, wasn’t he?” My grandfather keeps pulling photographs out of the file folder, dropping them onto the desk. One scarred man after another. “And let’s not forget the priest in St. Louis. You were positive it was him. Even after we found out he’d been in South America when your mother was killed. Even then you shouted and insisted and —”

  “Okay!” I yell. “Enough!”

  “You said these men killed your mother, didn’t you, Grace?” Grandpa asks, and I stand silent. “Didn’t you?”

  I stop shaking and look him in the eye.

  “I’m right this time. I saw him.”

  “Well, let me tell you what I see.”

  He takes a step toward me, gestures with the hand that holds the glass. Brown liquid sloshes over the side and stains his expensive rug, but my grandfather doesn’t notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.

  “I see a girl who witnessed a horrendous thing and never let herself deal with the trauma. I see a girl who, upon seeing a man who has a scar — any man with a scar — jumps to a terrible conclusion. But, most of all, Grace” — his voice is heavy and tired — “I see a girl who has said all of this before.”

  “I know how it looks. I know —”

  “You don’t know anything!” My grandfather’s voice is so strong, so loud, that I half expect the windows to shake, the security alarms to go off. “My Caroline is dead!”

  It is the first time in three years that I have heard him say my mother’s name. It is the first time I have ever seen him cry.

  “She died in a terrible, tragic accident. And if I thought … If I thought that there was someone who needed to be punished for that, I would do it.” His voice grows low, gravelly. Desperate. “So help me, I would do it myself.”

  Grandpa is staring at me now. And for the first time I can’t fight the feeling that a part of him hates a part of me. For bringing this memory to his door. For looking a little too much like her. For taking his daughter away from him all over again.

  “Dominic is a good man, Grace,” Grandpa says, finally tearing his gaze away from me. “The best of men. I would trust him with my life. I would have trusted him with my daughter’s life.” He waves me and my crazy, irrational worries away. “He would not have hurt her.”

  I feel embarrassed and indignant. Both. But I don’t argue anymore. “Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”

  “I did.” Grandpa takes a sip, then shrugs. “Or I tried to. Don’t bother Dominic, Grace. Leave the poor man alone. Stay out of the affairs of the prime minister. These are busy people in troubling times. None of us need more worries or stress or wild, unsubstantiated theories circling around.”

  I have to laugh a little. “You really don’t trust me, do you?”

  Grandpa studies me. “Of course I do.”

  But the words are too slow, the eye contact too fleeting.

  “For a good diplomat, you really are a very bad liar,” I tell him, then leave before he can say another word.

  “Noah,” I say, shaking his shoulder. “Noah, wake up.”

  He rolls over, mutters something in Hebrew that I can’t translate but is probably the Israeli equivalent of “Ten more minutes, Mom.”

  I shake his shoulder again and he swats me away, like a fly.

  So I slap him.

  “Grace!” Noah shouts. Then he seems to remember where we are and lowers his voice. “What are you doing in my room?”

  “So you can break into my room, but I can’t pay you a call?”

  “I was … I had … I mean …”

  “Relax,” I tell him. “Lila let me in. She’s super cheerful in the mornings.”

  “Yes.” Noah drags his groggy body out of bed, swings his feet onto the floor. “You know, keep this up and I’m going to get a reputation.”

  “You’re wearing Spider-Man pajamas. I think your reputation can handle it. Now come on.” I toss a pair of jeans in his direction. “Get dressed. We’ve got to go.”

  “Go where?”

  But I just step into the hall and wait for him to change.

  “Grace …”

  The breeze is cool, but Noah’s voice is colder. We stand close enough to touch on a sidewalk, staring across a busy street at a building that is three stories tall. A black wrought-iron fence and two guards are positioned between the front door and the sidewalk opposite us.

  It’s just an ordinary street in a lot of ways. Buses pass. Café owners are busy setting up their sidewalk tables. I can smell the day’s fresh bread. It is a perfectly lovely morning in every way but one.

  And that is why I stand, not moving. Now is not the time to be careless or rash or … Grace-like. Now is the time to make the exact right move at the exact right time. Now is when I have to be patient.

  “Grace,” Noah tries again. “That’s the prime minister’s residence.”

  I take a sip of coffee and never let my gaze leave the door. “I know.”

  “And I’m pretty sure the prime minister doesn’t have a scar on his face.”

  “I know.”

  A bus passes, temporarily blocking my line of sight. It’s all I can do not to panic until my view is restored. But a split second later I’m looking back at the same tall, black iron fence. The same empty sidewalk. The same polished gold door knocker. I can’t help myself. Part of me just wants to cross the street and ring the bell — tell the prime minister that he is being guarded by a killer.

  But then another, scarier, thought occurs to me: Maybe he already knows.

  “So I’m pretty sure that the prime minister could not have killed you
r mother,” Noah finishes, proud of himself.

  “I know the prime minister didn’t do it,” I tell him.

  Noah actually sighs with relief.

  “Good. Because for a second there, I thought you were going to say —”

  A streetcar is coming, its bell ringing in the air. When it passes, I look across the street, stare at the man exiting the prime minister’s residence, and say, “He did.”

  I know the way people look at you when they think that you’re crazy. Call it a byproduct of being me. So I know that Noah hadn’t thought I was making it up — that my mind was playing tricks on me or it was just the trauma speaking. But he still sounds surprised when he mutters, “It’s him.”

  Surprised and a little terrified.

  Looking for a killer from the safety of your bedroom inside a foreign embassy is one thing. It’s quite another when the killer is about to cross the street and head in your direction.

  “It’s really him,” Noah says again.

  “Yes,” I say. “It is.”

  “We have to do something,” Noah says. “We’ve got to go tell your grandfather or … I don’t know.”

  “I did tell my grandfather. He said that the Scarred Man’s name is Dominic Novak. He is the head of security for the prime minister and a generally upright dude. He says that I am crazy.”

  “He didn’t say that, Grace,” Noah guesses.

  Noah is sweet and nice, a little naïve. I have to shake my head as I tell him, “They always say that.”

  When the Scarred Man crosses the street, he comes within five feet of us, almost close enough for me to reach out and touch the scar on his left cheek. For a second, I’m tempted to do just that — to make sure it’s real. It was one thing to look at it through a small crack in a door. But I’m standing on a sunny street now. I can hear birds singing and the bells of the trolleys in the distance. Everything around me is alive. But as soon as I see that scar, I think of death.

  “Grace,” Noah says very, very slowly, “is he still behind me?”

  “Yes … no. He’s moving now.”

  “Okay.” Noah draws a deep breath. “Okay. Good. Now we can go get someone or do something or —”

  “There is no one to get, Noah.”

  “But someone has to do something!”

  “I know.” I reach into the bag I have slung across my body and pull out the walkie-talkies I got for my twelfth birthday. “That’s why we’re going to follow him.”

  Noah and I stick together, trying to mimic the Scarred Man’s pace. It’s erratic, though, like he knows someone might be back here. And then I realize that, yeah, he probably does.

  “Just so I’m clear,” Noah says, his voice lower than it needs to be, “this man is the head of security for the leader of a small but prominent European country.”

  I might glare at him a little because Noah pulls back, wounded.

  He throws up his hands. “What? I just thought someone should point out the obvious.”

  “Okay,” I tell him as the Scarred Man turns onto another busy street. Noah and I wait a beat then follow him up the hill.

  “The obvious,” Noah goes on, a little out of breath, “being that he is probably some super secret assassin or something. And I’m not as tough as I look.”

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m way tougher than you look.”

  Noah levels me with a glare. He’s not teasing as he says, “Don’t you think we might be out of our league?”

  I can’t tell him that he’s wrong. Or that he’s right. I can’t tell Noah any of the things he probably has a right to know, mainly because I don’t want to lose him yet. I don’t want to skip ahead to the part where he pities or distrusts or even hates me. I like that he is different from everyone else I’ve ever known in that one essential way.

  We’re passing by an antique store and for a moment I stop. Frozen.

  I see my mother’s face in the glass, hear a little girl ask, “Momma, do you like that locket?”

  But my mother doesn’t answer. She will never answer me again.

  And that is why I turn to Noah and say, “We’re the only league there is. Right now, you and I are all we’ve got.” I mean it. I mean it so much more than he will ever know.

  When the Scarred Man turns down another street, I start to follow. But this street isn’t busy like the last. It’s narrow — not much more than an alley lined with apartments and houses. Quiet and sleepy, this is the kind of street where a trained operative would know if someone were on his tail.

  “We’ve got to split up.”

  “What? No! I’m not leaving you.”

  “That’s why I brought the walkie-talkies,” I tell him, already stepping into the street.

  “Grace, wait!”

  “Just go to the end of the block. Wait there. I’ll tell you where to meet up and then you can take my place and we can tag-team it — like that.”

  “Grace —”

  “I’ll be okay, Noah,” I tell him. I press the button on the walkie-talkie. “See?” My voice echoes in stereo. Scratchy and haunting. “I’m okay.”

  Part of having the world think you’re crazy means you always have to remind yourself of the truth. Always. Especially if you don’t necessarily like what you have to say. And right now I’m alone on a street so narrow only the noonday sun can shine upon it. I’m walking thirty yards behind the man who killed my mother, pecking at my phone, trying to act like a normal, harmless, well-adjusted teenage girl.

  But I am none of those things.

  And I am anything but okay.

  “Hey, Grace,” someone says an hour later. I jump, startled. Did she just appear out of thin air? Or was I so hungry and tired and focused on my target that she has been following me for thirty minutes and I didn’t even notice?

  In any case, I try to sound as calm as possible when I say, “Hi, Rosie.”

  The tiny girl eases closer. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Sorry, Rosie, but I’m a little busy at the moment.”

  I start to ease around the corner, needing to be ready if and when Noah tells me it’s my turn. But mostly I just need Rosie to get away from me. It’s bad enough I’ve already corrupted Noah; I can’t stand the thought of putting Rosie in danger, too.

  But Rosie is holding back a laugh. “Oh, I can tell.”

  I’m just about to ask what she thinks is so funny when Noah’s voice comes ringing out of the walkie-talkie I’m holding behind my back. “Grace, we have movement on the south side of the building. I repeat, we have movement, and it’s coming your way.”

  I look at Rosie. Rosie looks at me.

  “Grace,” Noah says after a moment. “Grace, do you read —”

  “Go ahead,” Rosie tells me. “Answer him.”

  Slowly, I hold up my walkie-talkie. “I read you.” I can’t take my eyes off of the small girl with the very self-satisfied smile.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” Rosie says.

  “Sorry, Rosie. I wish I could stay, but I —”

  “But you’re trying to follow one of the most security-conscious, not to mention paranoid, men in Adria,” Rosie tells me. “And you’re doing it wrong.”

  For a moment I just stare at her. I don’t have a clue what to say. All I know is that I will not tell her that she’s crazy — that she’s making it all up. I will never use that as a weapon against another human being as long as I live.

  Rosie looks at my slack jaw, my dazed expression. “I’ve spent my whole life tailing after people who think they’re more interesting than me, Grace.”

  “But —”

  “I’m not an idiot! I’m just twelve. I’m a twelve-year-old girl and neither of those facts are my fault.”

  I was thirteen when I saw my mother die, when I told my story. When I started “having a hard time,” as my grandfather likes to say. Would they have locked me up if I’d been thirty? If I’d been a boy? It’s a question I do not dare to ask.

  “Grace?” Noah’s scra
tchy voice cuts through the air. “Grace, are you there?”

  Before I can stop her, Rosie pulls the walkie-talkie from my limp hand.

  “Noah,” she says into it. “This is Rosie. Hang back twenty meters and do not cross the street. We’re going to get ahead of him.”

  She hands the walkie-talkie back to me. “This is how you do it.”

  I am a natural tree climber, swimmer, and window-crawler-outer. Turns out, what Rosie does best is disappear.

  She’s small enough that she weaves, totally unseen, through the crowded market. She blends in easily among the tourists that gather outside the palace. And when the man with the scar stops cold and turns, he walks right past her — and Rosie lets him — as if both of them are exactly where they are supposed to be.

  For the most part, Noah and I do as we’re told. When she says to get on a streetcar, we get on. When she tells us to split up and wait on opposite corners outside the national cathedral, we do that, too. We are students of a twelve-year-old ninja. And we have a lot to learn.

  When the Scarred Man comes out of the church and turns onto a street I’ve never really seen before, I am the one who is closest, so it’s my job to follow.

  The Romans built this part of town and I’m walking on cobblestones a thousand years older than my home nation. The world has changed. Wars raged and governments rose and fell, but the streets of Valancia have stayed exactly the same. Curving, twisting, climbing.

  As I follow the man who killed my mother up the winding street, there is a moment when I realize that I am not afraid. I’m actually happy that there is something real that I can do. If I can see him I can follow him. And if I can follow him I can find proof of what happened three years ago. And then I can do what they’ve been telling me to do ever since that fateful night: Move on.

  There’s laughter on the street behind me. A little girl holds tightly to her brother’s hand.

  “Jamie, come on!”

  “There’s nothing down there, Gracie.”

  “But I saw Momma come this way.”

  “No. See, Grace, Mom isn’t here.”

  “Grace?” Noah says. “Grace, are you there?”