“This has nothing to do with my job.”
I close my eyes and let the memories rush in of warm summer evenings when Kit would sneak home past curfew, her blond hair slightly disheveled, her neck flushed with excitement. “We’re just having fun,” she’d said, perched at the end of my twin bed, jiggling her tanned bare foot. “I’m not like the others who go crazy for him. Some of those girls are psycho.”
A week later, she’d be gone. My only sister, vanished from a deserted Cape Cod beach on a moonless night, leaving me with nothing but questions. The first one being, who was that girl with her when she disappeared?
I suddenly focus on Will Pease’s female companion in the winter-white belted coat. She is slim with long black hair and cherry-red lips, her skin as pale as Snow White’s. She barely resembles the frightened teenager who ordered me to run, hide, and never tell anyone what I saw.
It’s her, I think, dizzy. Can it be?
“Who’s number 7?” I ask Renee, shakily.
“Um. She’s down as Isabella Valencia. Hey, you okay? You don’t sound too good.”
Isabella flashes a smile at Will and pivots on her heels. At that moment her dark eyes meet mine and we freeze. All movement around us slows. Distance and time cease to exist. For what could be seconds or hours, we explode in a silent burst of recognition.
You!
Then she swiftly gathers herself and matches her steps to Will’s as they head toward Global Entry and out of my life. I want to shout, but I can’t. My arms are heavier than concrete, my legs leaden, and when I open my mouth, I am mute.
Don’t let her get away! my conscience cries. Do something!
“Stop 6 and 7!” I holler to CBP. “Fast!”
“What?” he replies.
“Numbers 6 and 7. At Global Entry. Detain.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Renee says. “They’re not the threat, they’re the VIPs.”
My fingers tremble as I enlarge Isabella Valencia on my iPad, assessing her image from all sides. The pointed chin. The heart-shaped face. The long, aquiline nose. Check. Check. Check. I have never been so certain of a hit in my entire career.
Slipping the iPad in the interior pocket of my blazer, I speed-walk toward the front counters, not caring that I’m blowing my cover.
“Agent Ellison . . . Jane!” Renee cries into my earpiece. “You are way out of bounds.”
“Number 7 is a 1073. She needs to be detained ASAP.”
“You’ve made a mistake. I told you, she’s with the VIP.”
“She’s wanted for felony murder.”
“Where are you getting that? It’s not in my . . .”
I’ve stopped listening to Renee. My heart is thudding hard against my chest, pumping out adrenaline. I am an animal. I want to run and pounce, attack and capture.
Oh, no. You’re not slipping from my fingers this time.
I am almost at Global Entry. CBP has pulled Will and Isabella aside. Will is angry, gesturing madly as CBP opens a side door and ushers both of them into the interrogation room before the scene gets any more chaotic. I’m not sure if he’s sequestering them for their privacy or their safety, because Renee is right.
I am out of my mind.
“Stand down!” A massive hand materializes inches from my nose. It belongs to Kurt, a CBP officer, who has struck the pose, legs spread, right hand on his holster. He’s treating me like a threat.
“Number 7 is a fugitive from justice,” I blurt.
Kurt doesn’t budge and I can’t get around him.
“CBP claims she’s the executive director of the Pease Foundation in Bogotá,” Renee informs me. “Will Pease says she’s his fiancée. Doesn’t seem like the dossier of a criminal.”
My gut cramps. “Can’t we at least do a DNA test on her before she’s released?” The blood sample from Kit’s T-shirt. It could be a match.
“Unlikely. CBP says Pease is threatening to call the head of DHS and, considering his family’s profile, that’s a very real possibility. He’s going to have all our jobs unless you can come up with some solid evidence in the next thirty seconds of why you’re accusing a fucking international aid worker engaged to a celebrity multimillionaire of being a 1073.”
Of course, I can’t. I have nothing—but nothing to lose.
“That woman murdered my sister!” I yell at the top of my lungs, a last-ditch attempt to catch her attention, to force Isabella Valencia to explain what happened eleven years ago.
In a flash, CBP officers flank me on either side, hoist me by the arms, and drag me toward Security, my flats slipping on the linoleum, just as the unmarked, solid, gray metal door to the interrogation area opens. An officer gushing apologies escorts Will and Isabella out of the room, past Global Entry, and down the hall.
She does not grace me with a parting look, though Will does. He flashes me a thin, triumphant smile before leading away the only person in the world who knows the truth of what happened to my sister.
Two
EVE
Meg, sweetie, after we’re done, how about we order some lemon rasam and mushroom crepes from the café.” Eve Pease rubs her sore triceps, the reward of extending this morning’s Chaturanga Dandasana an extra two minutes. “This low-pressure system has totally blocked my energy.”
Blocked energy is the culprit behind ninety-nine percent of all problems, from acne and neck creping to poverty and climate change, in Eve’s theory of the world. If people would just adopt a clean Ayurvedic diet based on their own doshas, everyone’s skin would radiate from their inner calm. She is forever preaching her regimen’s anti-aging benefits on her personal lifestyle site, The Eve of Love & Pease, and its linked social media accounts. Yet, even the most ardent of her 7.4 million followers continue to sabotage their physical and spiritual progress by falling off the wagon to gorge themselves at a poison palace like Bob Evans.
Bob Evans! What made her think of that?
Evelyn Lushbaugh Pease may have left Paragon, Indiana, way back in high school, but the Midwest has never left her. On a miserable day like this, when the icy December sleet is pelting the mullioned windows of her Weston, Massachusetts, estate, she craves her childhood comforts of salt and fat. Lots of fat. She would give anything for a bowl of thick cheddar potato soup with bacon bits, a plate of chicken fried steak with buttermilk biscuits, and a chaser of coffee with two creams.
Alas, a fermented turmeric and ginger tea will have to do.
“Let’s shoot you with this.” Megan, her daughter and assistant, places the saucer and cup of tea on the hand-tooled maple table where Eve’s legs are propped while she steals a minute of downtime. “There.” Megan stands back, assessing the tableau. “I don’t know why, but odd numbers are so pleasing. Hang in there, Mom. We’re almost done.”
They’ve run themselves ragged shooting an Instagram video for the Love & Pease “Pause & Reflect” holiday campaign. It takes so much more effort than people realize to appear down-to-earth while wearing a $479 puff-sleeved, champagne-silk Henley top with Italian wide-legged wool trousers. For Eve, it requires heaps of quiet meditation on self-denial, like, for example, not being able to stuff your face with biscuits.