“Bite me,” the girl snapped. “I don’t gotta.”
“You know what? Screw it.”
She grabbed the young suspect by the arm and reached into the pocket herself. So much for the Fourth Amendment. It was too hot for this nonsense.
Sure enough, she pulled out a sweaty wad of three twenties and a familiar-looking Visa card. The name embossed across the front was Regina Cross.
“Your mama’s, huh?”
“All right, all right!” The girl didn’t miss a beat. “Some kid down the street gave it to me. I swear to Jesus Our Lord and Saviour! Right over there!” She pointed back toward the square.
Bree didn’t take the bait. “Let’s go,” she said, and started walking.
The mouthy little con artist didn’t have any choice but to move her feet and keep up. “What’re you doing? Where we going?” she said. “You can’t arrest me, I’m just a damn kid!”
“I’m not arresting you,” Bree said. “You’re going to show me where you dropped that purse. Then you’re coming down the street to apologize for what you did. And I suggest you watch your mouth when you do.”
NANA GOT UP off the couch as Bree came in with their mugger in tow. She seemed to want to make a point of meeting them in the front hall on her own two feet.
“Oh now, see that?” she said, looking the girl up and down. “I’m a little embarrassed. I told my granddaughter-in-law here that you were something scary.” She pointed a crooked finger at the dusty ball cap on the girl’s head. “And you need to take that off inside the house. It’s only polite.”
The girl squinted back. “You joking, right?” she said, but Bree snatched the hat off for her.
The hair underneath looked like baby dreds at first, but it wasn’t quite that. It was regular braids that had been chopped off at some point. Maybe to look more like a boy out on the streets, Bree thought. In the close quarters of the front hall, it was obvious this one hadn’t known a shower in a long time either.
“What’s your name?” Nana asked.
The girl thrust the tan leather purse out at her. “I’m sorry, okay?” she said, not sounding very sorry at all.
Nana let the bag hang there between them. “I didn’t ask if you were sorry. I asked what your name was.”
“Ava,” she grunted out. Then she set the purse on the newel post and looked at Bree. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I? Can I go now?”
But Nana wasn’t done. She still had the floor. “Tell me something, Ava, and that’s a beautiful name, by the way. What was the first thing you were going to buy with my money?”
“Huh?”
“Huh is not a word. What I want you to tell me is why you needed to take my purse. I got knocked down for it. I think I deserve to know why.”
Bree was almost starting to feel sorry for the girl now. Ava’s face was like a stone mask, but one tear had escaped down each cheek. She scrubbed them off with her sleeve right away.
“I dunno,” she finally said.
“Well, if you don’t know, then you can’t go,” Nana told her.
The girl’s jaw dropped open. “Say what?”
“That’s what I used to tell my students,” Nana said. “I was a teacher, see, about a hundred years ago, maybe more than that. It seems to me you need some time to come up with a better answer.”
The tears were coming faster now. “I never done anything like this before!” Ava blurted. “I swear!”
“That much I can believe. She was just hanging out in the square when I found her,” Bree said.
Nana turned away from both of them and headed toward the kitchen.
“Come on, Ava. I’m going to make some tea with milk. And from the look of you, I don’t suppose you’d mind a sandwich.”
Ava didn’t move, but Bree noticed she wasn’t angling for the front door anymore, either.
“I don’t drink tea,” she said sullenly.
“You do if I make it!” Nana said, and she disappeared on the other side of the swinging kitchen door.
IF BREE HADN’T called to give me the lowdown, I would have been caught completely off guard. Apparently, Nana had taken in a stray that afternoon, and the girl was still there when I got home after a long day of bureaucratic nonsense.
I could hear everyone talking — and laughing — as I came onto the back porch, but they all went still when I stepped into the kitchen. It was like something out of an old Wild West movie.
Jannie and Ali were at the table with the other girl, whose name was Ava. The kids all had plates of lasagna in front of them, but Ava was the only one eating right now. In the silence, I could hear the dryer running downstairs, and I recognized the old Bob Marley T-shirt she was wearing. It was something Damon had left behind when he went away to boarding school.
“Alex, this is Ava,” Nana told me. Despite the bandages, my grandmother didn’t look too much the worse for wear and tear. In fact, she looked a little smug.
“Hi, Ava,” I said.
“Hello.”
Ava didn’t look up and kept eating with her elbows jutted out on either side, like she expected someone to take her plate away at any second.
Jannie and Ali both sat up tall like a couple of meerkats, watching to see what I’d do next. I wasn’t quite sure myself.
“Nana, could I speak with you in the living room?” I finally said.
“I’m an old woman, Alex.”
“Now, please?”
I held the door for her and we walked to the far end of the house before either of us spoke. Then she jumped in first.
“The girl’s got nowhere to go,” she said. “She just needs a place to sleep where she doesn’t have to keep one eye open all the time.”
I ran my hand over my head, trying to gather some patience at the end of this very long day. “That’s what Child and Family Services is for,” I said.
“Why? So they can put her in the warehouse?” Nana said, and pointed up at me. “That’s right, I know what they call it down at the police department, so don’t even try that on me, mister.”
I couldn’t argue that point. The temporary holding facility where Ava would probably land was, in fact, pretty bleak, and it was called “the warehouse.”
“The poor thing’s been on the street for a month,” Nana added.
“So she says.”
“Look at her! She’s no bigger than my little finger. I don’t need a polygraph to tell me no one’s been looking after that child. Do you?”
Bree had wandered out behind us. She’d been playing Switzerland so far, but she spoke up now.
“For what it’s worth, Alex, her story checks out. The mother’s name she gave us is Olivia Williams. There was an Olivia Williams who died of a heroin overdose, DOA, at Washington Hospital on August tenth. Also, Kramer Middle School had an Ava Williams enrolled last year, but she hasn’t shown up for seventh grade.”
Nana gave me a told-you-so kind of glare. I could feel myself losing ground already.
“What about the father?” I said. “Other family? You check any of that?”
“Nothing on the school records. I think she really is alone,” Bree said.
“Damon’s room is just sitting empty up there. Besides, I already put clean sheets on the bed,” Nana said. Like that settled everything. The fact that I owned this house didn’t seem to count for much right now. Not enough, anyway.
“All right,” I said. “One night. But first thing tomorrow, Bree’s taking her over to CFS.”
“We’ll see,” Nana said.
“And I’m putting a lock on Damon’s door.”
“You most certainly are not!” she told me. “You can sleep out in the hall if you like. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve got a guest in the kitchen.”
I looked at Bree again, but her expression said it all: If you can’t budge Nana, how do you expect me to?
“One night,” I said again.
“We’ll see,” Nana said.
BREE TOOK A little nap after dinner bef
ore she went to her shift at work. I snuggled with her until she was asleep, then I went up in the attic to work some myself.
I must have fallen asleep at my desk and when I woke up Bree was gone and everyone else was sleeping. I checked on Ava and she was out for the count. Then I went to bed — alone.
I hated leaving everything so undone the next morning, but it wasn’t exactly a call-in-sick kind of day. I got up at four thirty and made it out to Langley by six.
The morning was a beauty, a burst of burnt orange on the horizon, but I wasn’t going to see much more of it, was I?
The truth was, I didn’t want to be anchored at LX1. Cops are creatures of the field. It’s where we do our best work. I wanted to be out there chasing leads and working the case at street level. That’s where I might actually do some good.
Then about halfway through the day, I got my wish. Kind of.
It was just after one o’clock. Peter Lindley came out of his makeshift office at the command center and waved to get my attention. Half a dozen agents and supervisors were coming out behind him, and he motioned me over. I was next.
Mahoney caught my eye as I crossed the floor. I shrugged back. I had no idea what this was about. He gave me the old pinkie and thumb to his ear — call me later — and I nodded that I would. Ned will never admit it, but he hates to be left out of anything. He’s also a lot more ambitious than people might think.
“Come in,” Lindley told me. “And close the door behind you, please.”
The space was normally a conference room, but most of the chairs had been taken out. Lindley’s desk was just an eight-foot folding table in the middle of the room. He had a triple monitor set up, just like everyone else, and half a dozen phones. One of those was in his hand right now. He was also holding a small yellow Post-it note.
“As soon as I have you, I’m supposed to call Nina Friedman at the White House,” he said, wagging the Post-it. “Do you know who that is?”
“No idea,” I said. “Should I?”
“Regina Coyle’s deputy chief of staff,” Lindley said. “What’s going on, Alex? Why is the First Lady’s office looking for you? Is there something I need to know about?”
I couldn’t tell if Lindley was pissed off, overcaffeinated, or just trying to be thorough. Maybe he didn’t like feeling left out, the same as Ned Mahoney.
“Peter, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I’m guessing this must have something to do with the kidnapping. Why don’t you give that number a call and we’ll both find out?”
He glared at me over the top of his half-frames like I was being coy or something. But he went ahead and dialed the number.
As soon as I took the phone from him, a woman’s voice was there.
“Detective Cross?”
“Speaking,” I said. “How can I help, Ms. Friedman?”
“I’m calling from the Office of the First Lady, here in the East Wing,” she said, unnecessarily. There was a rote kind of formality to her voice. “Are you available for a meeting with Mrs. Coyle?”
Even the question was a formality. Was I available for a meeting with the First Lady of the United States?
“Of course,” I said. “I could be there in about forty-five minutes.”
“Very good. I’ll have your name at the East Appointment Gate,” she said crisply. “I can meet you at the top of the drive, under the porte cochere.”
And out of sight of the press, if I was reading her correctly. This meeting wasn’t a secret, but discretion seemed to be the m.o.
When I hung up, Lindley was still staring at me. Two of his other phones were ringing, but he ignored them, waiting for an explanation.
“Well?” he said.
I shrugged. “I’m going to need some coverage on the desk.”
I didn’t really care if he thought I was tap-dancing or not. I had a meeting to get to.
AT THE WHITE house, there was all the expected, overt security– ID check and magnetometer at the East Gate; stepped-up Secret Service presence; Capitol Police everywhere. And then there was everything I couldn’t see. I wondered how many surveillance cameras and maybe even rifle sites were on me as I walked up the curved drive to the East Wing’s main entrance.
My only regret was that Sampson wasn’t here with me to see this. And Bree. And maybe Nana and the kids. A quick photo op with everybody?
Nina Friedman was waiting on the front steps as promised. She was just as efficient in person, juggling her BlackBerry to shake my hand even as we turned to head inside.
“Thank you for coming. Won’t you please follow me?” she said. That was it. There was no briefing, no explanation.
Once I cleared the security desk and another magnetometer in the entry hall, I expected to be taken to a conference room, or maybe up to the First Lady’s offices on the second floor.
But it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen. Ms. Friedman walked me straight through the East Wing lobby and out the other side.
I kept my mouth shut as we passed from one building to the next, down the long East Colonnade with its view of the Kennedy Garden, and into the ground floor of the White House itself.
It made sense, now that I thought about it. Secret Service was probably restricting Mrs. Coyle’s movement as much as possible. Her office time would have been kept to a minimum, at best.
They stopped us for another ID check at the base of the main stairs. Then again on the first-floor landing before we could continue up to the residence. By the time we got to the stair landing on the second floor, the agents seemed to be expecting us. They only nodded at Ms. Friedman as we passed.
The museum quality of the lower levels had given way to something more like a home up here. There was plush blue and gold carpeting, a baby grand piano, several built-in bookcases, with hardbacks that looked like someone had actually read them.
I’m not so jaded that I wasn’t tripping out a little on where I was, either. It was impossible to be there and not think about all the presidents and First Ladies who had walked through these very rooms for the last two hundred years — all the way back to John Adams.
I guess the word for what I felt is humbled.
The hall narrowed and then narrowed again through a deep arch that opened to a sunny sitting room on the other side.
Mrs. Coyle was there with two female aides. To my right was the Lincoln Bedroom. This was just shy of surreal. I was definitely in the loop now.
The First Lady’s deputy chief of staff started the introductions.
“Mrs. Coyle, this is —”
“Detective Cross. Yes, of course.”
As Regina Coyle came over to shake my hand, I could see her eyes were still red from whenever she’d last cried. Probably not long ago.
“Thank you so much for being here,” she said. “I’m hoping you can be of some help to me.”
“MRS. COYLE, I’M so sorry about every thing that’s happened,” I said. “I’ll do whatever I can.”
She gestured me inside while the others quietly left the way I’d just come. A few seconds later, the First Lady and I were as alone as we were going to get in that building, even upstairs in the private quarters.
She sat on a long couch with a view of the Treasury Department building behind her. I took one of the yellow upholstered chairs, the same color as the walls and curtains, while she poured coffee from a service of White House china.
“You have some relevant experience with kidnap investigations, isn’t that right?” she started in. “The Gary Soneji case and others?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Three major cases since Soneji. It’s not my primary expertise —”
“But you’re good at it,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but she waited for an answer anyway.
“Experience is probably the best teacher,” I said. “So yes, I’m pretty good.”
Mrs. Coyle nodded, then looked down. She seemed to be building up to something.
She was a quiet First Lady, as they we
nt. More Laura Bush than Hillary Clinton. Both she and her husband were originally from Minnesota farm stock, and I don’t think she ever relished the high-profile aspects of this job.
When she looked up again, her gaze was steady. More focused than before. I realized she was as strong as her husband.
“I know that most of the people looking for Ethan and Zoe right now probably don’t expect to find them alive,” she said all at once. There was no outward emotion to it. Just a fact. “I’m not blind to the statistics on this kind of thing.”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “But I hope you also know that you’ve got some of the best people in the world on this. You have since day one.”
“Of course,” she said, and fell back into another silence. There was obviously something else. I did what comes naturally to me and waited quietly for her to go on.
Then she said, “Your son was held hostage for several months, wasn’t he? Around the time he was born?”
That one, I didn’t see coming at all. Mrs. Coyle had done her homework and then some. It was true. Ali’s mother, Christine, had been kidnapped while she was still pregnant with him. The memory of it cut right through me. Christine and I had never recovered from the incident and its trauma.
I nodded. “It was the worst year of my life,” I said. “Ali’s mother’s as well.”
“And how is your son today?” she asked.
“He’s great, actually,” I said. “A little bigger every day. I’m very proud of him.”
“So you understand,” she said. The look on her face was as close to a smile as anything I’d seen. Just a softening around her eyes, really.
And of course, I did understand now. If it was possible for me to get my beautiful son back, then it was possible for her, too. For Ethan and Zoe to be returned to her somehow.
As Mrs. Coyle went on, she seemed to choose her words very carefully. “Detective Cross, I would never presume to tell you how to do your job,” she said. “But if you were to call your supervisor after this meeting and express an interest in getting more involved with Ethan and Zoe’s case, I can guarantee you that the answer would be yes. Whatever assignment you wanted, however you wanted to do your work. With a pretty free rein.”