Need to Know (19 page)

I WALK INTO O'NEILL'S
sixty minutes later, on the dot. Little bells ring as the door opens, but no one looks up. The bartender's leaning against the bar, pounding out a message on her phone with her thumbs. There's a lone man seated in the center of the bar, hunched over a glass of something amber-colored. A couple's at the table by the front window, deep in conversation.

I walk farther in, let my eyes adjust to the dimness. I scan the room, neon-lit beer signs and old license plates and memorabilia from another decade, and I spot him at the back, alone at a table for two, watching me.

I walk over and take a seat across from him. He has a glass in front of him. Something clear, with bubbles. Tonic, maybe, or soda. He's not a drinker. And certainly not the type to drink while he's on the clock.

He's giving me an even look, hard to decipher. I think there's distrust, though. My hands tighten in my lap. This isn't some sort of trap, is it? Has he told anyone else at the Bureau about our conversation?

“What'd you find?” I ask.

He looks at me for a long moment, quiet. Then he reaches into a bag at his feet, pulls out a single sheet of paper folded in half, lays it down on the table in front of him. I can see a telephone number on it, handwritten in pen, local area code.

“Burner phone,” he says, and it doesn't surprise me, even if it disappoints me a bit. “No other call history.”

I nod.
Please let there be something. Something I can use.

“Purchased here in the city, a week ago. Cellphones Plus in Northwest. No CCTV, records are spotty at best. We've never had luck tracing burners from there.”

I feel like I'm deflating, hope draining out of me. How am I supposed to find Yury with this?

Omar's watching me, an expression I can't read. Then he pushes the sheet of paper across the table, toward me. I take it, open it. There's a map, a section outlined in red. I look up at him.

“That's the location of the call, based on the cell tower that pinged.”

I look back down, examine the map more closely. Northwest D.C. A radius of about twelve city blocks. Yury was close by. I look up at Omar. “Thank you.”

He stares at me, then sighs. “What are you going to do with this? Can't you let me help you?”

“You said you'd give me time,” I remind him. “Please, just give me time.”

He nods, ever so slightly, a resigned nod, his eyes never leaving mine. “Be careful, Vivian.”

“I will.” I fold the paper back in half, then in half again, slip it into the work bag at my feet, then push the chair back from the table, stand to leave. “Thank you again. Really.”

He stays sitting, watches me. I sling my bag over my shoulder and turn, and I'm about to take a step when his voice stops me.

“One more thing,” he says. “About that call.” I turn to face him. He gives his head a quick shake. “There was no patch-through from Russia.”

I drive home in a daze. I'm doing what I need to do
—
taking the right route, stopping at red lights, using my turn signal—but it's by rote. Everything around me is a blur.

No patch-through. That means Matt's not in Moscow. He's in Northwest D.C., in that neighborhood outlined in red. With Yury. But why?

And why did he lie to me? Something isn't right. Fear is tapping away at the edges of my mind, trying to break its way inside.

When I get home, Mom's in the kitchen, at the stove. Matt's place. She's wearing my apron, the one I've had for years, which usually sits in a drawer, untouched. The smells that fill the kitchen take me back to my childhood. Meatloaf, the same kind she's been making since I was a kid. And mashed potatoes—from scratch, loads of butter. Not the kind I buy, precooked, microwavable. There's something so familiar about it, so intensely comforting.

I greet her, greet the kids. Paste a smile on my face, nod when I should, ask the right questions.
How was school? How were the twins today?
I'm there, but I'm not present. My mind is on that little box outlined in red. Matt's there, somewhere.

Dad sits in Matt's chair during dinner. It feels odd to see him there, like he doesn't belong. Mom squeezes in on the other side of Ella. Too many people at the table, but we make it work.

Visions of Matt float through my mind. Tied up somewhere, a gun to his head as he talked into the phone, told me he was in Moscow. That's the explanation, right? That's the only one that makes sense, the only way he'd lie like that. I look down at the meatloaf, my appetite gone. Then why am I not panicking? Shouldn't I be panicking?

Mom's asking the kids about their day, trying to direct the conversation, trying to fill any silence with words, with normalcy. Dad's cutting meatloaf into tiny pieces for the twins, and they're shoveling it into their mouths by the fistful, as fast as he can cut.

Ella's answering her questions, chattering away. But Luke's quiet, looking down at his plate, pushing food around with his fork. Not engaging, not eating. I wish I could take this pain away. I wish I could bring his father back, make everything normal once again. Bring back his smile.

Ella launches into a story about the playground, a game of tag. I look over at her, say the right things in the right places, the little phrases that make her think I'm listening, that make her keep talking, but my eyes keep drifting back to Luke. At one point, I look up and see my mom watching me, concern etched on her face. For Luke, for me, I don't know. I catch her eye and hold her gaze, just for a moment. And I know she wants to take away my pain as much as I want to take away Luke's.

Later that night, three of the four kids are down and I'm tucking in Luke. I sit on the edge of his bed and notice his old stuffed bear tucked in beside him. It's tattered now, stuffing peeking through a tear where one ear connects to its head. He used to carry it around the house, bring it to school for nap time, sleep with it every night. I haven't seen it in years.

“Tell me what's on your mind, sweetie,” I say, trying to strike the right tone—soft, gentle.

He grasps the bear tighter. His eyes are open in the darkness, wide and brown and so smart, so much like Matt's.

“I know it's tough with Dad being gone,” I say. I feel like I'm floundering here. How am I supposed to make him feel better when I don't know what to say? I can't say his dad will be back. I can't say he'll call. And I certainly can't tell Luke the truth.

“It's nothing to do with you or your brothers and sister,” I say, then regret the words. Why did I say that? But isn't that what they say to do, when one parent leaves? Assure kids it's not their fault?

He squeezes his eyes shut, and a single tear leaks out. His chin is quivering. He's trying so hard to hold it all in. I stroke his cheek, wishing desperately I could take his pain and make it my own.

“Is it that?” I say. “Are you worried you made Daddy leave? Because you absolutely didn't—”

He shakes his head firmly. Sniffles once.

“What is it, then, sweetheart? Are you just feeling sad?”

He opens his mouth, ever so slightly, and his chin quivers more. “I want him to come back,” he whispers. More tears spill down his cheeks.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.” My heart is breaking for him.

“He said he'd protect me.” His voice is so quiet I wonder if I heard him correctly.

“Protect you?”

“From that man.”

The words make me go still. Fear rushes through me, makes me cold all over. “What man?”

“The one who came to my school.”

“A man came to your school?” There's a thudding in my ears, blood pounding through my veins. “Did he talk to you?”

He nods.

“What did he say?”

He blinks quickly, and his eyes get a detached look, like he's remembering something. Something unpleasant. Then he shakes his head.

“What did the man say, sweetheart?”

“He knew my name. He said, ‘Tell your mom I said hello.' ” Another sniffle. “It was just weird. And he had a weird voice.”

A Russian accent, no doubt. “Why didn't you tell me, honey?”

He looks worried, scared, like he did something wrong. “I told Dad.”

I swear my heart stops, just for a second. “When did this happen? When did you tell Dad?”

He thinks for a moment. “The day before he left.”

IT TOOK MATT AND ME
five months to get out of the house together after the twins were born, just the two of us. My parents were up from Charlottesville for the weekend. We'd finally established a bedtime routine; the twins were sleeping in their cribs, a long stretch at night, not waking until midnight or so. It seemed like my parents could hold down the fort for the evening.

Matt said he'd make plans, and I was happy to let go of the reins, looking forward to a surprise. I thought he'd make reservations at that new Italian place, the one I'd been wanting to try, the one that was far too quiet to take the kids.

He wouldn't tell me where we were going until we got there. I thought it was charming, fun, keeping me in suspense. That is, until we got there, and I realized the truth: He knew if he'd told me where we were going, I'd have refused.

“A gun range?” I said, staring at the sign out front, a big ugly warehouse of a building, dirt parking lot crowded with pickups. He pulled the Corolla in, bumped along toward an open spot, didn't answer me. “
This
is your surprise?”

I hated guns. He
knew
I hated guns. They'd always been a part of my life; my dad had been a police officer, wore a gun every day—and I'd spent every day of my childhood worried that a bullet would find him. After he retired, he still carried. It was a sore point between us; I didn't want guns in our house, ever. He didn't want to be without one. So we'd compromised. He could have his gun when he visited,
if
—and only if—it was unloaded, locked in a travel gun safe at all times.

“You need to practice,” Matt said.

“No I don't.” I'd been proficient long ago, those first years at the Agency when I wanted to check every box, be prepared for any assignment. But I'd let the certification lapse. I was perfectly happy being deskbound, close to home. I hadn't touched a gun in years.

He put the car into park, then turned to face me. “You do.”

I could feel anger starting to rise in me. There was absolutely nothing I wanted to do less right then than shoot. This wasn't how I wanted to spend my evening. And he should have known that. “I'm not doing this. I don't want to.”

“It's important to me.” He gave me a beseeching look.

I heard shots echo inside the building, and the sound made my skin crawl. “Why?”

“Your job.”

“My
job
?” I was utterly confused. “I'm an analyst. I sit at a desk.”

“You need to be prepared.”

I was exasperated at that point. “For what?”

“The Russians!”

His outburst silenced me. I had no idea what to say.

“Look, you work Russia, right?” His tone softened. “What if they come after you someday?”

I saw the worry on his face. I'd never realized before that my job scared him, that he was concerned about my safety. “It's not like that. They don't—”

“Or the kids,” he said, interrupting me. “What if they come after the kids?”

I wanted to argue. To tell him that it wasn't like that, that the Russians wouldn't “come after” an analyst, not like that. That they certainly wouldn't come after our kids. Did he really think I'd have a job that would put our kids in any danger? But there was something in his expression that stopped me, that took the argument right out of me.

“Please, Viv?” he said, and gave me that pleading look again.

This was important to him. This was weighing on his mind. This was something he needed. “Okay,” I said. “Okay. I'll practice.”

IF THERE'S ONE THING
about Matt I know for sure, it's that he loves our kids.

From the bottom of my heart, I believe he loves me, too. I may have some doubts; I was, after all, his target. But the kids? There's no question in my mind he loves them. The way he looks at them, interacts with them—that's real. That's why it's been so hard for me to believe that he would have taken off, left Luke to walk home from the bus stop alone, left the other three waiting at day care.

And that's why now it's impossible for me to believe it. Because if he'd heard that someone had brought Luke into this, there's no way he would have run off and left us.

He would have gone after the person who approached our son.

Late that night, when the house is quiet, I pad down the stairs and peek into the living room nook, over to the pull-out couch where my parents lie sleeping. My dad is snoring softly. I can see my mom's chest rising and falling. I walk quietly to my dad's side of the bed. There's a set of keys sitting on top of the end table. I pick it up.

The snores continue, unabated. I glance at my mom, see her chest still rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I walk over to their luggage, set against the wall, and open the largest suitcase. Lift some folded clothes out of the way, rummage around, until I see it. The travel gun safe, buried at the bottom.

I lift it carefully out. I find the smallest key on the ring, slide it into the lock and turn, hear it click open. I freeze and glance over at my parents. Still asleep. Then I open the safe and take the gun out, light in my hands and yet heavy at the same time. I pick up the magazines, the box of bullets. Set everything down on the carpet, close the safe, lock it. I put it back at the bottom of the suitcase, arrange the clothes on top. Our deal is Dad can't touch it while he's here; he'll never even know it's gone.

I place the keys back on the end table, careful not to let them clang. Slide the magazines and the box of bullets into the pockets of my bathrobe, then slip out of the room as quietly as I entered, gripping the gun tight in my hand.