two

Tuesday, March 4, 7:50 a.m., Garrett Station

This office had probably begun life as a child’s room when the building was a three-bedroom ranch. Sunlight shone into Patrol Agent in Charge Mike Hewitt’s small office. The office was packed. Susan Perry, from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services; Peyton; and Bill Hillsdale, from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Portland, all sat in metal folding chairs across the desk from Hewitt.

Peyton was surprised by Hillsdale’s demeanor. The top USCIS official in the region had come to Garrett on routine visits and usually couldn’t go two minutes without adding a dry one-liner to any conversation. Now he looked like he was facing a root canal.

“Good to see you again, Susan,” Hewitt began.

She smiled. “You don’t mean that, Mike.”

“You’re right. The last time I saw you we were looking for the mother of an abandoned baby.”

“This isn’t that bad,” she said.

“Not yet,” Hillsdale added.

“You’re cheery,” Susan said to Hillsdale, who shrugged.

“Susan, a woman from the State Department called here today,” Hewitt said. “She says Washington is worried that this might set a precedent.”

Hillsdale cleared his throat. “We just want to make sure this is handled correctly.”

Susan said, “Do you mean ethically?”

“Not necessarily.” Hillsdale shook his head. “I mean correctly.”

Hewitt shifted in his leather chair.

“The USCIS people have had lots on their minds over the past couple years,” Hewitt said. “We can all understand why they would be jumpy, given what they’ve been dealing with on the southern line.”

“Bill,” Peyton said, “Washington sent you to this meeting to make sure the northern border doesn’t turn into south Texas in 2014?”

“Ukraine is bad, getting worse, and this kid took a boat from Hamburg, Germany, to Halifax. Stowaways have been doing that for years. But we’ve never had a thirteen-year-old show up here before. We think this could happen again and possibly escalate.”

“The northern border will never become what we saw in Texas. We’re not going to see fifty thousand kids walk across the border up here.” Peyton shifted in her seat several times, then finally reached to her service belt, unclipped the pepper spray canister digging into her lower back, and dropped it into her pocket. “This is isolated. The kid wants—and qualifies for—political asylum.”

“The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, in conjunction with the State Department, will determine if he qualifies for it,” Hillsdale said.

Bill Hillsdale was all of 150 pounds, ran 5Ks, and did a lot of hiking—a makeup typical of many Border Patrol agents. But Peyton got the feeling Hillsdale didn’t mind pushing paper as much as he did confrontation. So, she figured, given the choice between Border Patrol and immigration work, he’d made the right career choice.

Hewitt smoothed his shirt front. The silver oak leaf pinned to his lapel designated him PAIC, patrol agent in charge. He wrote something on his legal pad.

“Are those UGGs?” Peyton asked Susan.

Susan smiled. “You always notice my shoes.”

Peyton raised a black, ankle-length trail boot. “See why?”

“Ouch,” Susan said.

“My boots are Timberland,” Hewitt said and grinned, “if anyone cares.”

“Can we move on?” Hillsdale was staring at the floor.

“Lighten up, Bill,” Hewitt said.

Susan flipped through some notes. “The boy will speak to you this morning. His English is not great. Russian is his native language. Most people in Donetsk speak it. The foster parents should have him here by nine. They told me Aleksei woke in the middle of the night screaming about the explosion that injured his mother. And I’ve asked his aunt to come as well, to provide emotional support for him and to translate, if needed. Then he’ll go home with her afterward.”

“I haven’t approved that,” Hillsdale said.

“You don’t need to,” Susan said. “The boy is a minor, he has relatives here, and, as far as we know, his father consents to having the boy with his sister, the boy’s aunt.”

“What his father wants might not be relevant.”

“I see,” Susan said. “I can rationalize this situation another way for you: His aunt is the only person in this region who speaks the boy’s native language. We feel he should be with her.”

“Cute,” Hillsdale said.

“I can see that you want to make this difficult for the boy,” Susan said. “But the fact is, putting him with his aunt is pretty standard.”

Peyton shook her head. “If Washington honestly thinks this kid, who you say took a boat from Germany to Halifax, is going to set a precedent, then Washington is even more out-of-touch than I thought. I mean, Ukraine is landlocked, Bill. The kid made two long land journeys as well—first to Germany, then from Halifax to here. This isn’t going to happen often, if ever again.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just doing what I’m told, Peyton.”

“Well, someone has an agenda,” Peyton said. “For God’s sake, I’ve had friends I worked with, agents who dedicated their lives to doing what we do, get shot and killed in the line of duty, so I’m also against letting thousands of illegals walk into the country. But this is an isolated situation. The boy’s mother requires constant care, which the father is providing.”

“And when she’s well?” Hillsdale asked. “Will they follow him here then?”

“Given the severity of her injuries,” Susan said, “that could be years, Bill.”

“Have some compassion,” Peyton said.

Hillsdale looked at her. “You sound more like a mother than an agent.”

“Don’t insult my agent,” Hewitt said.

But it was too late. Peyton had turned to face Hillsdale.

“First off, Bill, I am a mother, a single mother, and proud to be a working mother. But I was speaking as an agent. And as such, I know what the hell I’m talking about. Don’t ever accuse me of getting my two roles mixed up, because you have no idea what it’s like to be in the field or, for that matter, to raise a child alone.”

Hillsdale sat looking at her. Hewitt centered his legal pad. Susan was staring at the floor.

Hillsdale finally shook his head. “This is going to take months to iron out. There’ll be lawyers and Washington officials involved, I’m sure.” He stood. “Tell the boy he can go with his aunt temporarily. But be clear that this isn’t permanent.” He looked at Hewitt and nodded, then walked out.

Hewitt looked at the two women across from him. “Peyton, you’re the first person Aleksei Vann met. I’d like you to interview him this morning.”

She nodded.

“Obviously,” Hewitt continued, “Bill’s report will most likely recommend the boy return to the Ukraine. If I were you two, I’d anticipate Washington sending a bigger gun the next time we meet about this.”

Both women stood.

Peyton said, “You think the comparison to Texas is crazy, too, don’t you, Mike?”

“I don’t get paid to express opinions on political situations, Peyton.” He shifted his legal pad again. “And, frankly, neither do you.”

With that, the meeting was over.

9:15 a.m., Garrett Station

Aleksei Vann didn’t look thirteen. Not up close.

Up close, he looked even younger than Tommy. He was in clean clothes, his blond hair had been washed, his blue eyes were clear now, his cheeks were no longer red, and his hands weren’t grimy. For all its flaws, the foster care system, Peyton thought, at least in this case, had done its job—the boy looked rested, clean, and even well fed.

Peyton was sitting across the breakroom table from him, her bag at her feet. This wasn’t her typical interview. No jingling handcuffs, no lawyers. Her iPhone lay between them on the table, ready to record the conversation. Next to it stood three bottles of orange juice, two apples, and two jelly donuts. Susan Perry was to meet with the boy afterward, and, eventually, Hillsdale would return. Or, based on what Hewitt said at the end of their meeting, Washington would send someone else to meet with Aleksei.

“Aleksei, do you remember me?”

He nodded and looked at the orange juice. “Coca-Cola today?”

She smiled. “Maybe later. It’s only nine in the morning. I’m Agent Cote. You can call me Peyton.”

“Peyton?” he said, his accent drawing her name out in two long syllables—Pee-tone. His eyes fell to the iPhone, its red recording button glaring.

“Yes. That’s my first name.”

“Are you record what I say?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

He looked from the iPhone, to her, and back to the phone, his tongue licking his chapped lips.

Casually, she reached forward and picked the phone off the table and slid it into her pocket. “You’ve taken quite a trip. Want to tell me about it?”

He shrugged, his smile vanishing. He turned to stare at the floor and picked at the cuticle of his thumb, his hands dancing as if independent from his body.

Clearly the question made him uncomfortable. Had he been told not to tell anyone how he’d gotten here? If so, by whom? His father? She hadn’t asked Bill Hillsdale where he’d learned the boy took a ship from Germany, but she assumed Hillsdale had questioned Aleksei Vann himself. And if that was the case, and the boy had spoken freely to Hillsdale, why was he balking now? She’d long existed in a male-dominated and militaristic professional world. Meeting men who saw her as weak and who were less cooperative because she was female was nothing new. But she’d never had that reaction from a thirteen-year-old before.

“Aleksei, you are thirteen?”

“Yes.” He bit into a jelly donut. She’d asked Miguel Jimenez to prepare the room. Leave it to Jimenez, who played the same games on his phone that Tommy did, to consider donuts an appropriate breakfast for a teenager.

“I have a son a little younger than you. I couldn’t imagine him making the trip you made. Were you alone?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get from the Ukraine to Germany?”

He shrugged.

“Has anyone asked you that?”

“No.”

“Did you meet with a man yesterday?” She described Hillsdale to him.

“Yes. I tell him.”

“Did you tell him how you got from Ukraine to Germany?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He did not ask,” he said, turning did to deed.

She had the iPad on her lap and had been typing notes on the virtual keyboard, but stopped. Had Hillsdale been so quick to have his theory proven—that the boy had made it from Eastern Europe to the northern US border (and, thus, it could happen again)—that he failed to learn any details of Aleksei’s trip? She wanted to give Hillsdale more credit than that.

“Well, I’m asking,” she said. “How did you get from the Ukraine to Germany? That’s a long way.”

Aleksei pushed away from the table and looked down at the floor.

She would try something else. Asking a specific question based on his recent experience meant he’d be more likely to confirm or deny, and thus less likely to shut down.

“Did you fly to Hamburg, Aleksei?”

“Fly?” he asked.

“Yes. Did you take a plane?”

He shook his head. “Car. Then walk a long time.”

“To Hamburg, Germany?”

He nodded.

She’d done her homework: it took nearly thirty hours to drive (or seven to fly) from Donetsk to Hamburg.

“Tell me about it. When did you leave?”

“February third, my mother birthday.”

“Your mother’s birthday?”

“Yes. My father say sending me was promise to her. And he keep it.”

“He promised to send you here, so he did so on her birthday?”

He nodded and finished his orange juice. “Coca-Cola now?”

She smiled. “Soon. Your mother—”

“She was hurt by the fucking bastards.”

Peyton was taken aback by his anger. Thirteen. Looked even younger. His words came from someplace deep inside him, from a place only someone with his life experiences knew. He’d seen death and destruction up close at a young age. Tommy would never know that anger. Neither would she. They were lucky, and she knew it.

“The ‘bastards’ are the pro-Russians?”

“Yes. Putin want take back all the land.” A smile formed on his face then—not one of humor, but one of pride. “But Father will not let that. He staying to fight.”

“Your home is in Donetsk?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about driving and walking to Hamburg.”

The boy picked up the second donut and stared at it, holding it without taking a bite.

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

“My father leave me at boat.” Overcome with sudden emotion, his pale face flushed quickly. “He go back …”

“You thought he was making the trip with you?”

He nodded. “But then say he stay to fight.”

“And you were on the ship a long time?”

“Yes, long time.”

“Who knew you were on the boat?”

He looked at her, puzzled.

She realized he wasn’t a stowaway. And she thought briefly of Bill Hillsdale, of his concerns.

“Your father paid someone to take you to Halifax?”

He nodded. “He not nice. Not like this.” The boy pointed to the door, indicating the agents beyond it who had immediately cooked a meal for him and found fresh clothes for him when he arrived.

“What was his name?”

He shook his head then.

“You won’t tell me?”

“Cannot.”

“He told you not to say?”

“He kill my father if I say.”

“If you tell me who he is, I can work to be sure that doesn’t happen.”

He made no reply, but his expression told her he simply would not say.

“Okay. That’s fine. Did you stay with him on the ship?”

“No. I was alone, locked in room with”—he searched for the word —“bed. Very sick.”

“Seasick?”

He shrugged, then nodded.

“What was the ship carrying?”

He looked at her, uncomprehending.

“Were there cars on the ship, or fish, or …?”

He looked down, embarrassed by questions he couldn’t answer. “It dark when I got on, and I come out of room only at night.”

“Were you locked in the room?”

Again, he nodded. “I taken out for air, like … like dog. Then, when we land, took me in car. Drove all night. Then stop. Tell me to walk, then wait. Then I see you.”

“Was the man who transported you Ukrainian?”

Aleksei looked at her but didn’t answer.

He wasn’t going to jeopardize his father’s well-being, but she’d learned one thing: Whoever had taken Aleksei Vann from Hamburg to the Canadian border knew what he was doing. He’d known an agent would be patrolling the land near McCluskey’s Processing. The drop of the boy, on the heels of a month-long journey, had been timed and executed perfectly. Whoever had gotten Aleksei into the US was every bit a professional and not unlike the coyotes on the southern border.

She knew why the kid made Hillsdale nervous.

11:35 a.m., McCluskey’s Potato Processing Plant

McCluskey’s Processing was Garrett’s largest employer, the region’s lone potato-processing plant. And it was owned by Kyle McCluskey, who, ten years earlier, inherited the facility from his father.

The guy wearing a dark knit cap and gloves in the gatehouse waved Peyton through the entrance.

As she crossed the lot, dirt and melting chunks of snow and ice beneath her feet, she thought of a poem she’d read years earlier at the University of Maine. “April is the cruelest month,” it began. T.S. Eliot had never lived in Aroostook County. Up here, March was the month that could never be trusted: it was forty-two degrees this day, and sunlight felt warm on the back of her wool field jacket, but the next day’s forecast called for eight inches of snow, which would push the season’s total near one hundred inches.

She entered the sprawling facility, told one receptionist she was there to see the plant president, was pointed to another receptionist, and walked a long corridor to the administrative offices, which, given the decor and ambiance, seemed a very long way from the plant’s floor where men sweat and hustled.

“You look familiar,” McCluskey’s personal assistant said. “Did you attend Garrett High?”

Peyton told her when she graduated and introduced herself.

“I was a year behind you. I’m Barb Michaud. I played JV basketball and remember when they put your banner up.”

Barb Michaud clearly had either just returned from a southern vacation or she spent time in an indoor tanning facility.

“That was a long time ago,” was all Peyton, now thirty-seven, said. She’d been the school’s first (and only) one-thousand-point scorer. The feat enabled her to attend the University of Maine and to graduate debt-free.

“You can have a seat,” Michaud said. “I’ll squeeze you in.”

Peyton thanked her and sat down. She took her iPhone from a pant leg cargo pocket and checked her email. Susan Perry wanted her to do a home visit, checking on Aleksei Vann’s move to his aunt’s home.

“You can go in now,” Michaud said, and Peyton did.

It was good to be Kyle McCluskey. Peyton knew it. So did anyone who drove past his five-thousand-square-foot home or saw his “camp” on Portage Lake. So did the men and women earning ten bucks an hour at the processing plant—and showering to scrub the smell away after every shift.

Peyton had spoken to the man twice since college, both at school events; McCluskey’s son, Peter, was Tommy’s age. Each time, she’d felt as if he considered himself to be the leader of the region’s First Family.

“What can I do for you?”

McCluskey came around his desk and motioned to the sofa along the far wall. His office was larger than the bullpen in Garrett Station and offered a glass wall overlooking part of the plant floor. Peyton recognized men and a few women from the diner, their faces covered with sweat and dirt or oil.

She sat on the sofa. McCluskey took the red leather chair across the glass coffee table from her. He was balding and had a deep voice, and only in his forties, he looked much older; he had a full, fleshy face and looked soft beneath his starched and ironed white shirt. The skin near his chin pooled and spilled over his tie.

It was not a comfortable look.

“You’ve done a few PTO things, right? This some PTO fundraiser? You need money?”

“No,” she said. “When I’m in uniform, I’m working. I don’t dress this way when I’m doing PTO stuff.”

“Yeah, I remember you from the book sale last summer. You wore pale-blue shorts and a white T-shirt.”

If someone had asked her what she’d worn that day, she couldn’t have told them. His memory—and the way he narrowed his eyes while looking at her now—creeped her out. He was thinking of something.

And the sudden redness in his cheeks told her what.

She wanted to slap him, but settled for, “You own quite a lot of land along the border.”

“It’s a large facility, yes.”

“Do you have surveillance cameras along the perimeter?”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

She’d seen that posture hundreds of times. Either bracing for bad news or preparing ways to avoid it.

“This isn’t going to be good,” he said, “is it?”

She smiled. “Well, I said it’s not a PTO visit.”

“We talking about another drug bust back there?” He motioned his chin toward New Brunswick. The skin hanging over his tie waddled.

“No,” she said, “but it appears someone illegally entered the US from Canada behind your plant.”

“What does that mean? He smuggling something?”

“No.”

“I’m not following you. If it’s not smuggling, why wouldn’t the asshole just cross at Customs?”

“I don’t know if that’s important, Mr. McCluskey. I’d just like to see any surveillance footage you might be able to provide.”

“Call me Kyle,” he said. Then, “Hey, I just realized something. You went to Orono.”

She nodded.

“You were a basketball player, right? I gave you a ride somewhere once, right? You grew up here.”

“You were a senior when I was a freshman both here and at Orono, and you gave me a ride home from U-Maine one weekend. You had a Corvette in college,” she said.

“Yeah. Great car.” He looked through the glass wall, recalling those days.

She didn’t like to. Those hadn’t been great days for her or her family. Her father had lost the farm. Without basketball, college wouldn’t have been an option. And even now, a Corvette still wasn’t an option. Her Jeep Wrangler had 110,000 miles on it.

“Where’d you go after college?” he asked.

“Texas. All agents start on the southern border.”

“And you wanted to come home?”

She nodded, not wanting to go into the details of how, after being shot at, she’d put in for a transfer. “The southern border was a great place for an agent, not for a single mom.”

He looked her over, appraisingly. “I bet you can hold your own.”

“I can. I’d like to see surveillance footage,” she said again.

“Are we talking about an illegal alien?” he asked.

“Do you have video cameras?”

“In the woods? No. It’s about five miles to the border.”

“Your land runs all the way to New Brunswick. It’s one of the only places that’s not separated from Canada by the Crystal View River.”

“Yeah,” he said. “A few years ago I got wind of a marijuana-smuggling operation behind the plant. I called Maine State Police, then I hired my own guys. I have one private security guy on at all times. When did you find this person?”

“Mid-afternoon, yesterday.”

He shook his head. “Hard to see how my guys missed him. One is a former state trooper. Did the asshole say how he got here? I don’t want any assholes using my land to come here and steal public services from our people.”

“You running for office?” She kicked herself for slipping into an informal tone.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I will be soon. I’d like to be mayor of Garrett.”

“Is Marty stepping down?” Marty Bartlett had been mayor for more than a decade.

“When I beat his ass, he will. I’d like to be able to count on the federal employees’ votes. I’m looking for someone to help me reach those members of the constituency. Interested?”

“I’m really busy with the PTO, as you know. Could I interview the security officer who was on duty yesterday?”

“Interview him?”

She nodded.

“He in trouble?”

“No, I just like to be thorough.”

“I like that in a girl.”

Girl, she thought.

“He’s got the day off today,” McCluskey continued. “I’ll tell him to call you. You guys still in that old house?”

She took out a business card and slid it to him. “Thank you.” She stood.

“I like people who are thorough,” he said. “I like you.”

“I’m not looking for validation.”

“I can tell. You’re a confident girl. I like that.”

“I think you meant to say I’m a confident agent.”

“Was I being patronizing?”

“Yeah, but you probably can’t help it,” she said and walked out.

3:15 p.m., 7 Drummond Lane

Bohana Donovan had a Ukrainian forename and an Irish surname and looked as puzzling as the combination suggested. Her narrow face was pale but, Peyton thought, striking—large jade eyes dancing like gas flames when they recognized Peyton; a long smooth jaw line; and somehow, as if her complexion was determined to live up to her married name, freckles dotting her nose.

The temperature had risen to thirty-seven, and the snow was melting.

“Oh, when they told me someone would be dropping by, I guess I didn’t expect you,” Bohana said. “I always forget what you do for a living.”

“Not working for the PTO today,” Peyton smiled and said for the second time in two hours as she entered the foyer. The house had an in-ground pool and was in a cul-de-sac. Peyton smelled onions. “What are you making?” she asked.

“Beef stew, for dinner. Michael loves it, and Steven will eat anything with onions in it.” She had an accent that reminded Peyton of the former Baltic states; clearly she was the boy’s aunt.

“That’s what I smell,” Peyton said. “How long have you been in the US?”

“Oh, about twenty-five years now. Nearly half my life. I never lost the accent, though.”

Peyton knew that while Kyle McCluskey owned the region’s largest company, Steven Donovan owned Donovan Ford, the largest—by far—auto dealership in Aroostook County.

Peyton had witnessed his success firsthand. When no dealer could find a used Jeep Wrangler that met her specifications, it had been Steven Donovan who called to say there was one in Virginia, and he was in the midst of a dealer-to-dealer swap to acquire it for her. And he’d not charged a penny above what Peyton’s research told her she should pay.

Success seemed to run in the family. Bohana was president of the PTO and their son, Michael, now a senior at Garrett High School, was ranked second in his class, according to an article in the Star Herald.

“Sorry to come at this time,” Peyton said. “I know school is over and the bus will be arriving.”

“Michael doesn’t take the bus. Steven gives him the worst used car on the lot in exchange for changing oil on weekends. Actually, he works on a lot of cars—that boy can fix anything. His father says he should become an engineer.”

Peyton smiled politely.

“And have you seen the new high school schedule? Seniors can leave at one every afternoon, if they have no classes. I’m pushing for some sort of in-service program. We have two hundred teenagers with nothing to do every afternoon.”

“That’s why I voted for you,” Peyton said. “You’re on top of things. Can we talk about Aleksei?”

“Of course. Come in. Coffee?”

“Black. Thanks.”

“I wouldn’t recognize you in that outfit—the gun, the baton—based on how you dress at PTO meetings.”

“I wear jeans to those.”

“And no hat,” Bohana said. “If I had auburn hair, I’d grow it to my knees.”

Government regulations dictated that Peyton wear her hair short, in a bun, or beneath her hat. This was still—and would always be—a major concession.

Bohana handed Peyton a coffee cup and led her through a stainless-steel kitchen to a living room with a stone fireplace. The fire was roaring.

Peyton sat on the hearth and held the cup in both hands.

“I love to have a fire,” Bohana said. “Even after all these years away, and even when I don’t need one in order to heat my house. We burn oil, too, of course, and Steven complains about the dry air from the wood. But, to me, there’s nothing like a fire.”

Peyton liked this woman, had liked her the first time they’d met at Garrett High School. Bohana Donovan, who sat in a leather chair beside the hearth, knew who she was and was comfortable in her own skin.

Peyton took her iPad from her bag. “I know you spoke to Mike Hewitt this morning, and I apologize for asking more questions, but I couldn’t be there.”

“It’s okay. I’m happy to help. I just want to be sure my nephew is allowed to stay in the US. He has nowhere to go back there.”

“I should tell you that the decision is not mine to make,” Peyton said.

Bohana looked at the floor.

“Did you know he was coming?”

“Not until my brother wrote telling me Aleksei was en route. Then I got a call from the woman at DHHS after he arrived.”

“Why did the boy land here?”

“I assume Dariya thought Aleksei would be sent to me, if he arrived here.”

Which was, Peyton thought, exactly what had happened. “How is Aleksei adjusting?”

Bohana thought about it. “Overall, well, I’d say. He struggles with verb tenses when he speaks, sometimes using them correctly, other times forgetting the verb altogether. But that’s minor, given what he’s gone through.”

“Have you heard from your brother?”

“Yes.” Bohana looked up. “He wrote me for the first time several weeks ago.”

“For the first time?”

“In almost three years.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Yes. He said he was glad to finally reach me.”

“Had he tried before?”

Bohana shrugged. “You know how it is. I was here, he was there. We each got caught up in our own lives. We fell out of touch.”

“I see,” Peyton said and continued typing notes.

“Dariya and I came here together, to study in Boston. Neither of us graduated. My father had worked to get us visas and saved for years to send us. I still feel badly about it. But I was in love. I met Steven—through a friend of Dariya’s, ironically—married, and moved here. Dariya went back to Ukraine. He never completed his degree.”

“When was that?”

“March of 1990. I’ll never forget it. I was sad for him, you know? He came here to achieve something, to get a journalism degree from Emerson College, but then he just up and left during his second year. I know he was finding the coursework very difficult—the language barrier, you know, made it so hard for him. I was sad to see him give up.”

“How did things go once he got back?”

“For us, on a personal level, not well. He never called and rarely wrote.”

“That’s too bad,” Peyton said.

“Yeah, but professionally things went well for him. Not immediately. It took him a few years. He traveled a lot for a while. But then he settled down and landed a TV job. After a time, though, he started to be viewed as pro-Western, which hurt his career. And he lost his network position.”

“What did he do then?”

“According to the letter I got last month, that was just two or three years ago. He was freelancing when Liliya was hurt. I think his house was targeted.”

“Targeted?”

“Yes. Aleksei woke up screaming last night. A nightmare. The missile took off one side of the house while they slept. Aleksei said Liliya was awake reading in the living room when it hit.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“A host of things. I don’t know all of the medical details, but she needs twenty-four-hour care. Dariya is with her, providing that.”

Aleksei went to bed with one life, Peyton thought, and woke with another. “And the letter told you all of this?” Peyton asked.

Bohana looked at her, then crossed the room, opened a coffee-table drawer, and retrieved a handwritten letter. She brought it back and handed it to Peyton.

“This is in Russian?” Peyton pointed to the text.

Bohana smiled apologetically. “Yes.”

Peyton counted twelve pages. “May I take it with me? I’ll return it tomorrow.”

“Oh. Can you read Russian?” Bohana said.

“We have a translator.”

“Oh, um, I guess you can take it.”

Peyton found her reaction odd. Had Bohana offered the letter only when she was sure Peyton couldn’t read it? “How’s your brother coping since his wife was injured?” Peyton asked.

Bohana looked at her and pursed her lips, thinking. Finally, she shook her head. “None of them are okay.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think he’ll end up dead, is what I’m trying to say. I try not to think about it. He’s my brother.”

“I see. Aleksei told me his father was staying to fight the pro-Russian separatists. That’s what you’re talking about.”

Bohana nodded.

“But his father is a journalist?”

She shrugged. “He wrote that he was staying to fight in his note to me as well. I wrote back, trying to convince him to leave too. But he never answered my reply.”

Peyton didn’t respond immediately. There was no way she would encourage Bohana to request her brother enter the country illegally. Overtaking the aroma of the fireplace was the aroma of onions and meat.

“So Dariya, your brother, wrote—his first contact with you in years—to explain that his son was on the way here?”

Bohana nodded. “And to tell me about Liliya, who I never met.”

“How did Aleksei get here, Bohana?” It was the question she’d come to ask.

“His father hired a man, someone he knew, to take him to Germany. There, Aleksei got on a ship with the man—I don’t know who, and it’s probably not important …”

It might be, Peyton thought, if it turns out to be a human-trafficking ring.

“… and he led Aleksei all the way to Youngsville, New Brunswick.”

“And to the woods behind McCluskey’s?”

“Yes.”

“This is a family friend?”

Bohana considered the question.

“Do you know the man’s name, Bohana?”

She immediately shook her head, the denial coming too fast. There was something there. Peyton had seen it many times before. “Bohana, I know your first priority is to keep your nephew here. With that in mind, it’s in your best interest to offer all the details you have. Aleksei has asked for political asylum. His situation is different than the kids who enter the US along the southern border.”

“Yes, that’s pretty clear, Peyton. Why do you feel the need to tell me that? He’s not going back.”

Peyton heard the agitation in her voice, saw it on her face. “Let me be more specific,” Peyton said. “We’re all trying to do right by this boy. However, given what has happened in Texas over the past couple years, the federal government is very leery of allowing that situation to arise again.”

“Up here?”

Peyton nodded.

“The man who brought Aleksei here,” Bohana said, “is no threat to do it again. In fact, I am surprised he succeeded at all.”

“Why?”

“He’d never done it before.”

“Is that in the letter?”

“Yes. And judging from what Dariya wrote, I’m not even certain the man can make it back.”

“Your nephew said he didn’t know whoever brought him here. But from what everyone has told me, I’m led to believe this entire trip was well organized and well executed.”

Bohana shook her head.

“Why do you deny it?”

“Is …”

“You know the man who brought your nephew here, don’t you?”

“No, Peyton,” she said. “I do not.”

And for the first time, Peyton heard something in Bohana’s voice that indicated a fierceness—the inner strength necessary to leave everything behind and start anew, and the determination necessary to help a loved one do it as well.

Peyton stood. It was time to go. Bohana was the person to whom Aleksei was closest. If she hadn’t done so already, Peyton couldn’t risk alienating Bohana because she needed to know who had brought the boy to the US.

“Thanks for your time, Bohana. I know you have lots to do.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

Peyton thanked her again and showed herself out, knowing she’d soon return, because she needed the coyote’s name.

6:45 p.m., Reeds Inn and Convention Center

Stone Gibson, seated at a window table, looked up from his menu and smiled broadly when she entered the restaurant.

Peyton could remember when the monstrous hotel had been called Keddy’s. Gram Russo’s, the facility’s restaurant, was still serving up the best Italian this side of Bangor. But Peyton wasn’t thinking about the ziti when she crossed the room toward Stone. She wasn’t even thinking about how Stone looked, wearing his blue sports jacket and clean shaven for the first time since he’d finished investigating a child-molestation case. The case had gotten to him, and she’d worried about him.

But even that wasn’t on her mind now.

She thought of her late father. Couldn’t step foot in Gram Russo’s without thinking of him. Charlie Cote, despite dying young, had taught her most of the lessons she needed to know. And she’d figured the rest out on her own.

When she thought of her father, she didn’t think of him at the end of his life. She rejected those final hours in the hospital, following his heart attack. She thought of him in the potato fields, on the tractor, or in the potato house—wearing his dark-blue Dickies work shirt and pants, his hands dirty, dust and sweat dry on his face, and always wearing the big crooked-toothed smile that hard work seemed to give him. Or she recalled him in the woods, toting his .30-06, hunting deer.

The thought of him dressed in green, mopping floors in her high school after the bank had taken their farm and left them with one acre, was too much. As was the thought of him dying in a white room with the tubes and the drip bags. If she had to think of that time—of him seated across the kitchen table from the men in suits, of him looking around the kitchen at his daughters and wife, the sense of failure she saw in his eyes—if her evil mind ran to those days, she recalled her father declining the trailer and instead building a thousand-square-foot home with his own hands. The bank be damned.

That thought always put a smile on her face.

“You looked sad for a moment,” Stone said when she reached the table, “but then you smiled again.”

She could smell his musky cologne.

“Just thinking,” she said.

“Don’t take that the wrong way,” he said and stood. “You look stunning. I was just concerned. Are you okay?”

She nodded. She was wearing a black dress with a cotton mesh bodice top and a V back that she’d gotten online from Nordstrom.

“I’m fine. And you’re a gentleman.” She patted his cheek. “Pulling out my chair. I should be asking you the same thing. How are you, now that the asshole is in custody?”

“I love a woman who can wear a black dress like that and still say asshole. I’ll be better when he goes to Warren.”

The Maine State Prison was in Warren.

He retook his seat, his eyes shifting away from Peyton’s. “The little girl, Sara, started therapy today. I brought her an Amazon gift card because she loves to read. It’s probably been her escape for years.”

“Nice of you.”

“Have to focus on the victim. If I think too much about the perpetrator, I’ll break the uncle’s legs.”

“He deserves it,” she said.

“And some.”

The waitress came to the table. “Hi, you two.” It was Marsha Campbell. She’d gone to high school with Peyton. “What can I bring you?”

Peyton asked for a glass of chardonnay; Stone asked for Omission IPA. They didn’t carry it, so he went with a martini.

“I haven’t been here in a long time,” Peyton said, when Marsha left. “The place always makes me think of my father.” She could smell garlic bread and meat sauce. A tiny white candle burned brightly between them.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t have suggested this place.”

“No, I’m glad you did.”

“Is it hard constantly running into people you grew up with?”

“Depends on the situation. When I run into them as part of an investigation, it can be.”

“They expect you to cut them a break. You’re one of us. All that bullshit?”

“Yeah. But when it’s not that, I like it. This is my home.”

They were quiet as they watched Marsha cross the room, carrying their drinks.

When she left again, Stone said, “How’s your Ukrainian boy?”

“Aleksei? I interviewed his aunt, trying to figure out who brought him here.”

“She helpful?”

“Partially. She gave me a twelve-page letter from her brother. It’s written in Russian, so I was at the U-Maine branch at Reeds this afternoon having Russian Professor Mark Rogers read it to me. There’s nothing in the letter that’s very helpful. Mark read it to me twice. Just a bunch of I miss you and take care of my son comments.”

“Nothing to indicate who brought the boy?”

“No. The letter is vague and describes the guy as incompetent.”

“No name?”

She shook her head. “And Bohana denies knowing whoever it is. Says only that there’s no need to worry about him trafficking anyone else because, based on the letter, she doubts he can even get home.”

“Is that meant to be reassuring?”

“I think so.”

“What does that even mean?”

“To me, it means we’re going to keep an eye on her to see if she meets up with the guy.”

“Whoever it is,” Stone said, “they sound lost or stuck.”

She nodded and sipped her wine and looked around. “Speak of the devil.” She nodded to a table across the room.

Steven and Bohana Donovan were eating with Kyle McCluskey and a blonde who looked far too young to be at the table. The blonde looked bored too. Peyton saw McCluskey touch the girl’s hand to get her attention. As Steven and Bohana spoke, he whispered something to her. She grinned as if they’d just shared an inside joke.

“Who are they with?”

Peyton said, “The big guy is Kyle McCluskey.”

“That his daughter?”

“Hardly.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Stone said, and Peyton heard a note of nervousness.

“Okay.”

“You know, these past six months, getting to know and spend time with you and Tommy, have been really great, Peyton. Best half year of my life.”

She could feel her face flush. The last time a man started a conversation on this note, she’d ended up married. Then she’d watched her ex, Jeff McComb, walk out on Tommy and her six years later.

She reached for her wine again.

“Maybe this isn’t a good time to have this conversation,” Stone said.

She was no longer sipping and set the wineglass down. “I need to use the ladies’ room,” she said and stood.

If she hadn’t been wearing mascara, she’d have splashed water on her face.

What was she doing? She’d nearly run across the room. She’d handled Bill Hillsdale, a federal hotshot, not twelve hours ago. But the thought of a serious commitment sent her jogging across the dining room in a black cocktail dress?

Tommy.

If Stone Gibson was about to propose, what could she say? She could not make such a commitment without consulting Tommy first. Was consulting the right word? She didn’t need an eleven-year-old’s permission to allow herself to be happy. Did she?

She wasn’t sure. She’d spent so much time since Jeff had left them focused solely on Tommy and his needs that maybe she’d forgotten her own.

Was that why she was hiding in the bathroom?

“Are you okay?” Stone said, when she returned.

“Just slightly neurotic,” she said, “but you’ve probably figured that out by now.”

It made him chuckle. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve told you that for four months. Do you believe it?”

“I do.”

“And you’ve said it back each time I’ve told you,” he said.

She nodded. “I have. And I told you I wish I had met you years ago.”

“Our lives would be very different, if we’d met then.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to take the next step.”

“How big is the step?” she asked.

“Not a leap,” he said, “just a step.”

7:30 p.m., 7 Drummond Lane

His younger cousin was weird.

Michael Donovan could tell that right off. How many thirteen-year-olds, after all, don’t like to watch ESPN?

Michael’s parents had gone out to dinner, and he was home “watching his cousin”—his mother’s description for babysitting. He’d only met this cousin a day or so earlier. And his mother kept telling him to be nice to the middle-schooler.

“Being nice” to his cousin, so far, had consisted of taking him to a basketball game and sitting with him in the bleachers and trying to explain to Jenny why he had a middle-schooler with him. (It was hard to convince Jenny to go under the bleachers to make out since he couldn’t leave Aleksei alone.)

And, Michael sensed, this was just the beginning. His mother said he’d be driving Aleksei to and from the middle school each day. Taking him to school wouldn’t be bad, but sometimes he and Jenny liked to stop on the way home. Each told their parents they stayed late for extra help, but Michael kept a blanket in the trunk of the used Pontiac. They’d been warm on even the coldest days.

Across the room, Aleksei sat up straight on the loveseat, his eyes leaving the TV to look out the dark window.

Michael wondered what Aleksei was thinking. For years, he’d heard his mother make occasional references to the uncle he’d never met, the one on his mother’s side in the Ukraine. His other uncle, the one on his father’s side, Ted, lived alone in the upstairs apartment.

“What you doing?” Aleksei asked, clearly bored by the NBA halftime show.

“Reading.”

They were in the great room, as his mother called it. He’d always thought that sounded arrogant, and it embarrassed him when she said it to guests. But he knew the house had been designed around the room with its vaulted ceilings, stone fireplace, bar, big-screen with surround sound, and its leather furniture on which Uncle Ted fell asleep at least one afternoon each week.

“What you reading?” Aleksei asked.

“You’re supposed to say are. ‘What are you reading?’”

Aleksei nodded. “What are you reading?”

“A book about art. It’s my homework. I’m taking a class at the community college.”

“College?”

“Yeah. I’m a senior. You can do that—take a community-college class to count next year at U-Maine.”

Michael could tell his cousin understood none of it. He would never say it to his mother, but he wondered how long Aleksei was staying with them. He wondered, too, about his friend Davey Bolstridge, wondered how the chemo had been on this day. His mind had wandered to Davey often recently. And he was glad he’d finally discovered a way to help him.

“You are lucky for college,” Aleksei said. “Very lucky.”

“You want to go to college?”

“Oh, yes. My dream. My father went to college here. He wants me to go college here also.”

His mother kept saying the situation was “complicated,” and Michael knew it was. Did this latest information mean Aleksei was staying with them until he was old enough for college? That was five years away. His mother told him about what happened to Aleksei’s mother and that his father was staying to fight the pro-Russian separatists, which seemed just plain crazy. They would never defeat the separatists, not with Putin funding them.

“I hear you’re starting school tomorrow.”

“I cannot wait,” Aleksei said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Look, Aleksei, don’t say that at school.”

“Why?”

“The tough kids will push you around.”

“No,” Aleksei said, “they will not.”

Michael set his book down on the arm of the chair. He’d heard a tone in his cousin’s voice he hadn’t heard previously in the voice of a contemporary. Impressive. And a little scary. Aleksei was thirteen, four years younger than him, but he seemed much older than that.

“You aren’t afraid?”

“Of who?”

“I don’t know … the bullies.”

“See this?”

Aleksei pushed back the hair above his ear. Michael got off his chair and moved closer. The scar was only two inches but jagged.

“That from one of Putin’s ‘bullies.’ He tell me move out of way. When I”—he shook his head, searching for the word, failing, growing frustrated—“not fast enough, he do this. He do not kill me. Your bullies will not either.”

“I’m just saying there are a few dickheads in school. And some teachers are jerks too.”

“My mother say education is a gift. I have not gone school since war started. Putin take school away.”

Michael hadn’t read anything about that, about Putin closing schools. Did he mean that literally? What was that all about?

“And he take my mother. I want to learn. It important.”

Michael looked at his cousin—pale, skinny, with dark rings under his eyes, but with a seriousness in his voice, to his words, that middle-school kids didn’t have.

“Are you homesick?”

“I miss Father. I think of him. . .” His voice trailed off. He turned back to the TV. The halftime show was over. The Celtics game was on.

Michael could tell Aleksei understood nothing of basketball. “I’m sure your father is okay,” Michael said. “Want something to eat? I’ll get it for you.”

Aleksei shook his head. “Thank you.”

“You like to read?”

Aleksei nodded.

“Like to play video games?”

Aleksei shrugged.

“I’ll show you,” Michael said.

Michael went to the TV and got the Xbox controllers. For the next half hour, they played Destiny.