IRINA MILOSOVICI LOOKED AROUND the little conference room where the FBI had decided to keep her. It was comfortable enough; there was a couch and a big TV, and somebody had run out for sandwiches, but it was still a prison. The police were everywhere, the famous FBI. An army of strange men, just outside the door, studying her with prying, curious eyes.
Irina had decided that she trusted Agent Stevens, and his wife. She trusted the beautiful black woman who seemed to be friends with Stevens. The other agents, though, the quiet men, Irina did not trust.
Probably most of the other agents were good people. Kind men, and brave. Undoubtedly, though, a few of them were bad. They would watch her like predators. They would hurt her if they wanted, and she could do nothing to stop them. She could not even pick out the bad men from the good.
She did not want to be around any man right now, she decided. She didn’t want to take the risk. She would tolerate Kirk Stevens because he would help her find her sister. Because he had been kind to her. Because she trusted him.
She would not trust anyone else.
The translator, Maria, sat in an office chair at the conference room table, eating a croissant and watching a bottle blonde cling to a chisel-faced man on the TV set. The blonde was weeping, and the man was pouting. He was wearing hospital scrubs. Irina didn’t recognize either of them, and she knew most of the American movie actors.
A soap opera, then, and a bad one, judging by the melodramatic soundtrack and the woman’s ceaseless sobbing. Irina stood from the couch and walked to the window, gazed out over the high iron fences, the security guards by the parking lot, the roadway and the flat fields beyond. Yes, this was a comfortable prison, but it was still a prison.
Still, it’s better than what Catalina has.
Irina watched cars pull in and out of the parking lot, heading out into the flatland beyond. The countryside resembled Berceni—not a lot, but just enough that Irina felt suddenly, terribly homesick.
Her parents must be worried sick. She hadn’t talked to them in weeks, maybe a month. And Catalina had gone missing, too. They would be out of their minds with fear.
You stupid cow. Never thinking of others. Only thinking of yourself.
The guilt washed over her, threatened to knock her down. She turned away from the window, from the flatland beyond. Maria was still watching that insipid soap opera. Irina walked over to the TV, turned down the volume. Caught Maria’s eye when she looked up, surprised.
“I’m sorry,” Irina told the translator, “but I would like to talk to my parents.”