“I didn’t have any way to reach you,” Consuela says. “I would have stayed in touch. But you disappeared.” There isn’t any accusation in her voice, just a hint of resignation. It matches the dark circles under her eyes, visible even in the low light of the basement bar.
It’s an Irish pub near the ferry—dressed up to look like something rugged down by the waterfront, but the dark mahogany bar and velvet-upholstered booths are too clean to be authentic. The place smells like craft beer, expensive whiskey, and shepherd’s pie. Not grandma’s recipe, but something created by some handsome young man with bold ideas currently taking the culinary scene by storm.
“I ran away.” A rueful smile tugs at my lips. “But I have not forgotten Senator Jackson’s death. She deserves retribution.”
Consuela sighs as if the weight of how many people deserve retribution is heavy and exhausting. “I agree.” She stirs the straw in her drink, freeing bubbles clinging to the glass and swirling them amongst the ice. Consuela looks up at me, her brown eyes solemn. “I want to help you.”
“Help me what?” I ask, sitting back into the booth as if I’m a woman with no plans or ideas. A woman who needs no help. Consuela isn’t working for Homeland Security anymore, but that doesn’t mean she approves of vigilantism.
“Killing Richard Chiles.”
I choke on a laugh. Her expression is so serious—eyes hard as Baltic granite, lips a firm line, jaw clenched tight. I can’t help the grin that steals over my face. “What makes you think I’m going to kill Richard Chiles?”
Consuela huffs, a subtle smile pulling at her mouth. “As soon as Joyful Justice became a suspect for the blackout—the first time I heard him say the name in an interview—I knew you’d come for him.”
“And you want to help?”
She holds my gaze. “Yes.”
I pick up my drink and sip; caramel and smoke burn down my throat. “Can you help find Dan?” I ask. Richard I can handle, and I’m not planning on revealing my murderous plots to someone so recently employed by a law-enforcement agency. But Dan…well, we could use help locating him.
A muscle in Consuela’s jaw jumps and her eyes fall to her drink. She lets out another sigh. “I don’t know.”
“But you do want to help?” Revenging the assassination of her mentor makes sense. Freeing a vigilante hacker who’s madly in love with her may be a bridge too far. After all, it’s not unjust for Dan to be imprisoned for any number of illegal acts…unless you consider a complete lack of due process unjust.
Consuela takes a draw from her straw before responding. “Yes,” she answers. “I do want to help.”
There is a spark in her gaze, some tiny flame. Consuela has always been powerful and wise—she has spent her adult life working within the system to try to improve it. A noble pursuit. But one that must drag on her soul. The slow grind of change when done within the rules would make me insane. Not that I’m not already, but…
“How involved do you want to be?” I ask.
She looks down at her drink. “What do you need?”
“To be clear, we have a plan for Richard.” Her eyes come back to me. “We are going to expose him, not murder him.” My lie is as smooth as my whiskey.
Consuela’s brow furrows but she doesn’t voice her disbelief. “Okay,” she says slowly.
The bar door opens, and a group of twenty-somethings dressed in professional attire—suits and skirts in a whole array of grays, blues, and blacks—enter, their voices growing louder as they surround the bar. Our waiter, a white guy with an Irish accent and tattoos of snakes twining up his forearms, appears at our table. “Happy hour ends in ten, you lovely ladies need anything else?”
Consuela looks over at me. “I’ll switch to beer,” I say. “Whatever you like on tap.” He grins and nods, seemingly pleased with my order and faith in him.
“I’ll have another.” Consuela nods toward her Dewar’s and soda.
The waiter moves away and we sit in silence for a long moment, both watching the crowd at the bar as they order drinks, turning to each other, speaking with animation. They look like kids who just got out of school crowding up to the candy shop counter. The energy of freedom and nice paychecks buzzes around them.
“If you had to,” I say, watching Consuela out of the corner of my eye while keeping my focus on the quickly growing crowd, “where would you guess Dan is?”
She sucks up the last of her drink and sits back. “I’d guess either a CIA black site in South East Asia or Eastern Europe. That or he is being held by a US partner—a private military contractor like Dog Fight Investigations.”
Our waiter returns with our drinks, giving me a moment to collect myself. Her mention of Dog Fight Investigations, the company Robert Maxim created…and that I have part ownership of, has opened a pit in my stomach.
I haven’t heard that name or thought about it in years. Soon after signing the paperwork, I almost died. I spent weeks in a fugue state in a cave in the Iraqi-Syrian badlands with Rida Dweck. The idea of branding my savior, Rida, as the Her Prophet was born and my memory of the paperwork I signed with Robert Maxim faded. And it’s not coming back to me now, not clearly.
The waiter is telling me about my beer, and I’m smiling and nodding, but my brain is sifting through broken memories trying to find any pieces it can. The long-fanged, scaled monsters from my hallucinations flash into my mind unbidden, unhelpful and terrifying. My body releases adrenaline and my heart pounds. I swallow the fear, pushing it down. It’s not real.
But Dog Fight Investigations is…
The waiter leaves and Consuela watches me, her new drink untouched. “Do you think you can help us figure out where he is?” I ask.
“Don’t you think you can?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, knowing full well what she means.
“Don’t play coy, Sydney, it’s not a good look on you.”
I laugh because she’s right. Leaning forward, I rest my elbow on the table between us and circle my pint glass with two hands. “To be honest with you, I’m guessing you know more about Dog Fight Investigations than I do.”
She snorts and shakes her head.
“I signed that paperwork right before almost dying and spending weeks in a…I don’t even know what the medical term is for my condition, but I don’t remember it except in brief flashes.”
Consuela’s brow furrows again, but this time it doesn’t look like she thinks I’m lying. “Have you spoken to Robert about Dan?” Consuela asks.
I consider not answering but am looking to gain some trust here. “No.”
“Would you still consider testifying against him?” Consuela asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. Testifying against Robert Maxim never felt like my style—even if that testimony would just be stating I willingly handed over paperwork, as his wife. “Is there still a case?”
Consuela’s lips tighten. She pulls her drink closer but doesn’t take a sip. “I’m not involved.”
“Declan said you’re working for a nonprofit now.”
She nods, picks up her drink and takes a draw on her straw before responding. “Yeah.”
“Hard to be out of the action?”
She meets my gaze. “Something like that.” Consuela looks back at the crowd surrounding the bar. Their laughter grows louder, one woman throwing back her head and cackling. Could Consuela and I even laugh like that after all we’ve seen? Does that kind of carefree joy exist in us or has all the death and pain drowned it?
Joy can co-exist with sorrow. I’ve had plenty of joy of late.…but I’m not sure that fearless glee can survive what we’ve been through.