15

In Mexico during the late 1990s and again in Serbia in the fall of 2005, frogs fell from the sky. How might this be possible? How might it be impossible? In your answer, discuss whether the intersection of science and religion is moving, and, if so, in which direction.

I’m clearing out a file cabinet in my father’s study Saturday morning when my phone starts ringing downstairs. I feel that Pavlovian panic I’ve had ever since I got the call about Fred—something must be wrong—but then I remember Rory is at his study session. He’s fine. By the time I reach it, the call has gone to voicemail. It’s my friend and colleague George Voss.

“There’s a bench on a path behind the Embassy Suites in Burlingame,” his message says. “Meet me at noon?”

George and I were in the same class at Quantico. Later, we spent eleven months together on a major case in the woods of North Carolina. It was George who recruited me to the BAP team. We’ve worked together off and on for my entire career. We’ve always liked similar locations—off-the-beaten-path towns where the best motel has a “6” in the name and you’ll miss Main Street if you blink—so when a case comes come up in, say, Big Spring, Texas, we often end up working it together.

There’s one unspoken rule in this organization: when a colleague asks for help, you show up. See you then, I text.

I find George on a bench behind the Embassy Suites wearing a sweaty Seahawks T-shirt and green running shorts. His black hair is damp, his face flushed.

“How far?”

“Eight miles,” he says, rising from the bench. I’ve spent so much time with George driving around in cars, every time he stands to his full height—six foot four—I’m surprised by how tall he is. At five foot five, I have to crane my neck to talk to him. “Felt amazing. Weather has been shitty in New York.”

“Meeting someone?”

“Airport at three.”

“Shall we walk?”

We stroll along the path toward the abandoned Burlingame drive-in. The flat, gray water of the bay stretches toward the city skyline, blanketed in fog.

“Who’s your guy?” I ask.

“Eurasian diplomat coming in through Luxembourg. We haven’t seen each other since an awkward pitch at the UN seven years ago.”

“Must not have been too awkward. He’s meeting you again.”

“He doesn’t exactly know he’s meeting me. Hopefully, this time it won’t turn into an international incident.”

George bounces some ideas off me, and we talk about the best way to draw the guy in—how to make the approach, what to say and how to say it.

“I sense that’s not the only reason you’re here,” I say after we’ve hashed the whole thing out.

“Come back to work. Things are heating up with Russia. We need you.”

A plane comes in low over the bay, drowning out our voices. After it passes, I stop and turn to George. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“If I had a clear answer, I’d tell you. It’s just . . .”

“Just what?”

The wind picks up, small waves slapping the silt and rocks. “How much do you know about Yellow Beak?”

“Enough to know you’re not to blame.”

“You heard what happened?”

“Lina, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even your op at that point.”

“That’s the problem. I shouldn’t have passed it off.”

“I don’t know a single agent who would have made that meeting under the circumstances. And you somehow managed to follow procedures to the letter. Jesus, you wrote up the 1023 and the USIC referral the day after you buried your husband.” Another plane passes overhead, causing the ground to vibrate beneath us. When the noise subsides, George puts his hand on my shoulder. “We all want you back.”

“Thanks, that means a lot.” My eyes water. George squeezes my shoulder and gives me a tender look. “Damn salt air,” I mumble.

I get the feeling they’ve been talking about me back in New York, and everyone decided George would be the best person to approach me. I appreciate the effort. I’ve been feeling so isolated out here, so far from my friends and my normal life, it’s comforting to know someone still has my back.

I point out an abandoned boat several hundred yards out. “That was a fish restaurant in the late seventies. My parents used to bring me here after the school talent show.”

“How was the food?”

“Terrible. But it was dinner on a boat!”

I loved those evenings with my parents—the thrill of going out to dinner on a school night, the Naugahyde booths, the little red candle, the squares of butter in waxed paper, our discussions of the more questionable talent show acts. My dad used to make my mom laugh so hard she’d have tears pouring down her face. It was the best part about being an only child: the complete attention my parents gave me, the way they included me in their conversations, as if I were their equal.

That was before my mom took off, before my dad moved up the hill. When I became a parent, I tried to emulate that model threesome with my own family, the way I remembered it from the best years, at least. And it worked. Rory enjoyed being an only child. He never once expressed the desire for a sibling or asked why he didn’t have one. But two isn’t the same as three. Two is a straight line, not a triangle, as I know so well from my own adolescence. With Fred gone, the balance is off. If I’d been able to see the future, I would have had another child.

“How’s Rory?” George asks, as if he can read my mind.

“He kind of amazes me.” I smile. “He’s made a good friend already. Her parents are in the French foreign service.”

George raises his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s random!”

I give him a guilty look. “Not really.”

We turn and begin walking back toward the hotel. “I’ve got a puzzle for you.” I tell George about Kyle and the case of the Stafford boy.

George is intrigued—not just by the disappearance but also by the way the local cops are handling it. After college and before his master’s in psychology at UW, George worked as a police officer in the Northwest, so he understands small-town department politics. He asks me twenty quick, intuitive questions about Greenfield, Kyle, Crandall, Gray Stafford, and the Lamey twins. The efficiency of his questions, the way he gets to the heart of the matter so quickly and precisely, brings me back to my former life.

I miss the collaboration, the way the back-and-forth helps me put words to ideas that have been subconsciously percolating. George narrows in on the fact that the Stafford boy had no hair and may have come out of the ocean. “The baldness seems related, somehow, to the lack of smell, the rash on the twins,” he says.

“I thought so too.”

George nudges me with his elbow. “Only you could step away from the job and find yourself embroiled in a triple kidnapping case with a side of the seriously weird. I think you might have a professional on your hands.”

“Yes, but—”

George finishes my sentence: “A professional who kidnaps kids never gives them back.”