GREGG AND Mackenzie had given Ingrid an attic room, away from the center of the house, but what they didn’t realize was that the central air also funneled the sounds upstairs, so when they fought Ingrid could hear every word. Which was why it took forever to get Clare to sleep.
Not only their words, but the nuances of their words, the thump of an angry fist hitting a wall, the sound that Mackenzie’s voice made when she didn’t want to cry. At first Ingrid thought she was the reason for their fight, she and Clare, but she soon realized she was unimportant. The reason for the fight was Rachel, and that Mackenzie had taken them in. Gregg, apparently, would have sent them packing.
It was educational, this eavesdropping. She learned that Gregg was Rachel’s ex-husband, and however they’d ended it there was still a lot of baggage between them.
She didn’t begrudge them their fights, because the upstairs room she and Clare had been given was also an office, with a foldout couch and a computer connected to the internet. After months hidden away from the online world, she was finally back, reading about the demonstrations that had persisted despite the release of the FBI report. Analysts had been picking it apart since its release Tuesday morning, boiling it down for the masses. “You can’t fight violence with kid gloves,” said a conservative commentator, while someone from the other side of the political spectrum said, “In its rush for a ‘quick win,’ the FBI demonstrated the sin of impatience, which is how people get killed.”
She read an interview with Assistant Director Mark Paulson, who had been directly involved in the hunt for the Massive Brigade, and was impressed by his calm, measured tone. “The fact is that no one in the Bureau wanted this kind of a win, certainly not Special Agent Rachel Proulx, who spearheaded the case. What happened was tragic, but had we not moved against them when we did there’s no telling how many more acts of violence they would have committed.” Impressive, too, was the way he smoothly inserted Rachel into conversations, so she would be the one to take fire.
When she heard the front door slam and the quiet sound of crying, Ingrid crept down to the second floor, where she tracked the noise to the closed bathroom door. “Mackenzie?” she said. “You all right?”
The crying ceased; there was a loud sniff. “Hey, yeah. I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, of course, and Ingrid didn’t want to leave it at that. After reading about the demonstrations, seeing with her own eyes that people were no longer content to wallow on their sofas and let the world go to shit on its own, she’d been filled with optimism. While she couldn’t join the crowds just yet, she could at least help the one person she had access to. She leaned against the door and said, “Look, we’ll leave tonight.”
“No.”
“I’m not getting between you and your husband.”
Mackenzie pulled the door open, and her face was splotchy, her eyes bloodshot. “Really,” she said, her voice choked. “You and Clare should stay.”
There was something in her face, something Ingrid couldn’t put her finger on. But it was familiar. It reminded her of her childhood. She said, “What’s wrong?”
Mackenzie shrugged, a thin smile. “I don’t like fights, I guess.” Then she turned to go to the sink, and Ingrid saw it: the way Mackenzie’s shoulder twitched, as if an exposed nerve had been tapped.
She knew.
“Wait,” Ingrid said, following her into the bathroom.
Mackenzie looked back.
“Raise your arms.”
“What?”
“Raise them.”
Unsure, Mackenzie raised her arms. When her elbows reached shoulder height she flinched but kept reaching until her arms were straight up in surrender. Slowly, Ingrid lifted her blouse. Mackenzie did not stop her, only stared down at Ingrid with those bloodshot eyes. By the time the blouse was up to her bra the bruises were exposed, running up and down the left side of her ribs.
“Jesus,” said Ingrid. “I thought he’d punched the wall.”
Self-conscious now, Mackenzie lowered her arms and pushed down her blouse. “Jesus had nothing to do with it.”
Ingrid stepped back, feeling the past wash over her, seeing again the bruises that had been a familiar part of her mother’s body. Here she was—those same bruises in front of her—and she felt as impotent as she had as a child.
No.
“I’m going to kill him,” Ingrid said.
“You don’t understand,” Mackenzie protested. “It’s not—he’s not like that.”
“He’s not?” The anger was coming now, that sweet, warm anger. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“Get out of here.”
“You’re a pretty little idiot,” Ingrid told her.
“Go!”
She didn’t want to go; she wanted to beat the facts of life into this woman. But she’d been dragged too quickly into her past again; it had tongue-tied her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to say anything of use, not now. So she went back upstairs and checked on Clare. Then she sat in front of the computer and stared at the swirling screen saver. She saw flashes of fists, drunk men and cowardly women. She saw the child she’d once been, hiding in her closet to save her own fucking skin.
She woke the computer and searched until she’d found a Tor client. She installed it and typed in the IP address that she and Martin Bishop had established back in July. It connected, but there was no one waiting on the other end. Not yet. There was just a blank space where her cursor blinked, waiting to be used.
“Hey,” she heard, and turned to see Mackenzie in the doorway.
Ingrid turned away from the computer to face her. For a moment neither spoke, until Ingrid said, “Sorry. I’m pushy. I know that.”
“No.” Mackenzie came inside and sat on the corner of the bed. She first looked at Clare, arms and legs spread, softly snoring. The only sound in the room was the baby’s breaths.
“My father was like him,” Ingrid said. “My mother waited and waited for him to change. In the meantime, she went from bruises to broken bones to internal bleeding. I tried to talk sense to her, but she didn’t listen. Maybe that’s how it always is. So it went on. In the end, I was the one who broke. I was sixteen, and he was going at her in the living room. I went to the basement and got a shovel and knocked him over the head. He turned on me—I could see in his face that he wasn’t really human anymore. The rage had turned him into a beast. Worse than a beast, because it wasn’t about fear but pride. So I hit him again. Again.” She inhaled loudly, remembering that moment. Mackenzie didn’t move. “They don’t get better,” Ingrid said. “I would have killed him had it not been for my mother, who climbed over his body in order to stop me. Do you know what I felt then? Contempt. Not for him, though. For her.”
Mackenzie turned away, unable to look into her face, focusing instead on Clare.
Ingrid said, “You’re going to leave him.”
“Eventually. Yes, probably.”
“No, Mackenzie. You’re leaving him tonight.”
She finally turned back to Ingrid, a queer smile on her face. “That’s crazy!”
“It’s the only thing to do,” Ingrid said as she turned back to the Tor client and, in the waiting space, typed “Circumnavigation.” She pressed ENTER, then quit and trashed the application.
“What did you do?” Mackenzie asked.
“We’ll find out soon enough.” Ingrid stood. “Now let’s take care of you.”