I STEP INSIDE PENN Station with its ninety-two-foot-tall ceiling and enormous glass skylight. I spot a large photography installation featuring the station’s transformation dating back a hundred years to present day and a ticket booth next to it.
I quickly dash over. “When does the next train to DC leave?” I ask a woman with her hair pulled back in a red bandana.
“Regular or express?” she asks.
“Express,” I say.
“Now,” she says.
“One ticket, please,” I say, handing her my credit card, which she swipes and hands back to me.
“It’s gonna be close. Platform four,” she says.
I scan the numbered signs, run toward number four, hop on an escalator, and race down the steps. When I get to the platform, the train is still there, and I jump inside the first door I see.
I walk through a couple of cars to get to my assigned seat before sitting down. Nearly every seat is taken.
The conductor speaks into the intercom: “Attention, passengers. We have a nearly full train today, so please don’t block the aisles or doors. We’ll be moving shortly.”
The doors start to close when a man squeezes in just in time. The train begins to glide down the tracks as he walks toward me.
He sits on one of the few empty seats left across from me. When he rests his hands on his knees, I notice the small heart-shaped birthmark on top of his hand.
The back of my neck immediately breaks out in a panicked sweat. The train is already in motion. I can’t hop off. It’s also an express with limited stops, so the next one won’t be for a while. Maybe I should stand up and move to another car.
“Hello, Beatrice,” he says. “I’m special agent Jason Fields from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He holds up an FBI badge.
I couldn’t tell a real one from a fake one. It could be fake, or maybe he’s a real agent with a real badge bought out by the Cadells.
“I’m working with Detective David Thompson from the LAPD on Cristina Cadell’s disappearance …”
“I already told him everything I know when he came to my office,” I say.
“I’m not here to question you.” He lowers his voice. “Detective Thompson wanted me to let you know that you were right. He went back to the sailboat where Cristina’s mother died to take another look. It appears someone tinkered with evidence to frame Cristina for Maria Cadell’s murder, which makes sense because we still have no motive for why she’d murder her mother. Everyone close to both of them who we’ve questioned described an incredibly close relationship between the two.”
I take in the information, unsure whose side he’s on, not knowing whether to believe him.
“Why have you been following me today?” I ask.
“We wanted to make sure you weren’t trying to meet with Cristina. It’ll take a few days to put our case together, and she’s still considered a fugitive. Trust me, you don’t want to aid and abet a fugitive,” he says.
“How would I be able to meet Cristina in New York when she’s fled to Europe?” I ask.
“Rich people have a way of getting around. Nobody’s sure if she’s still there,” he says. “You visited multiple hospitals today. We thought maybe Cristina was hospitalized, and you were trying to meet her at one of them. But I spoke with Ramona Marino at Bell Hospital, who told me you were looking for your late mother’s medical records for your own health reasons.”
I’m not sure if this is a ploy to get me to trust him more, to make me open up about Mom, or to give him information about what I may know about her whereabouts. I still don’t know whose side he’s on.
This is all too much. My hands start to tremble on my lap. I drop them by my side to hide my nerves, but not quickly enough, because he notices.
“Are you all right?” he asks me.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Where you headed?” he says.
“DC, like you,” I answer.
“Why?” he asks.
“To advocate for mental health services for veterans. I’m a psychologist.”
He looks down at the ground—on either side of me.
“No suitcase?” he asks.
I don’t respond.
“By the time we get to DC, it’ll be dinnertime,” he continues. “How much advocating can you do at the Capitol after it closes?”
“I’m having dinner with a Senate staffer,” I say. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“Part of the job,” he says, smiling for the first time, revealing a toothy grin.
I wish I could turn my phone back on and pretend like I’m texting someone to give him a hard signal that I have no interest in continuing this conversation. But I can’t turn it on because then Paul and Eddie will know where I am, and I know they’d try to stop me from doing what I’m going to try to do in DC.
I look out the window instead, hoping Jason will get the hint that I don’t want to talk to him. He takes the cue and pulls out his cell phone, leaving me alone, at least for now.
I don’t stop staring out the window for the entire three-hour train ride as we pass wetlands, a baseball stadium, a giant sign on the Delaware River bridge that reads: “Trenton Makes—The World Takes,” 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, an old cemetery, and the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel.
As we pass landmark after landmark, I think about Mom, who made this trip decades ago when she went to testify against the Cadells. Was she scared? Why did she do it? Why was she willing to put our family at risk?
We finally arrive in DC, which has no skyline apart from the Washington Monument. When the train pulls into Union Station, I finally look away from the window and down at my watch. It’s after six. I doubt anyone will be working at this hour, especially senators. I might have to go to a hotel room and wait until the morning.
“Good luck at your dinner,” Jason tells me.
“Thanks,” I say.
The train stops, and we both stand up when it abruptly jerks again. Jason bumps into me.
“Sorry about that,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I say, slightly annoyed.
I get off the train and step onto a platform leading to Union Station.
I quickly look for an information kiosk and spot one next to an enormous arch with gold accents.
An older woman with dyed black hair and gray roots sticking out of her scalp greets me.
“Good evening. How can I help you?” she asks, adjusting a flower brooch on her jacket.
“I need to catch a ride to the Capitol,” I say.
“The Capitol is a large place,” she says. “Where exactly are you trying to go?”
“Where the senators work,” I say.
“That would be the Capitol building. There’s a large protest going on. Not sure how close you’ll be able to get,” she says.
“Can I walk there?” I ask.
“You could,” she says. “It’s a little less than a mile away, or you can exit that door and catch a taxi.” She points to a glass door with a taxi sign above it.
“Thanks,” I say and rush toward the door.
There’s a line with a few people waiting when I step outside. I stand in the back and think about Eddie, how worried he must be that I’ve been out of touch for several hours, and I feel so guilty.
I try to remind myself that I’m doing this for us, so that I can get my life back and we can be together again. But it doesn’t do much to assuage my guilt. I still feel awful knowing what I’m putting him through.
When it’s finally my turn, I jump inside the taxi.
“Where ya goin’?” the driver asks.
“The Capitol building.”
He pulls away and drives me down a long street until we reach it. The woman at the station was right—there’s a massive protest going on.
As we get closer to it, I make out some of the signs the activists are holding:
OUR KIDS ARE NOT FOR SALE
I SPEAK BECAUSE THEY CAN’T
#SAVEOURCHILDREN
I pay the driver, get out of the car, and walk toward the building. A familiar woman is standing on a podium dressed in a suit, speaking next to half a dozen people.
“Child trafficking isn’t a red or blue issue. It’s a human issue. The passage of this bill is the beginning of the end of high-tech companies profiting off our children’s bodies,” she says.
I now recognize her—she’s a senator from Hawaii.
“I’m proud to be joined today by some of my colleagues,” she says, pointing to the people next to her. “Senator Judith Levine from California, Senator Hernando Rosario from Nevada, Senator Walter Lyon of West Virginia—”
I stop listening and immediately start wading through the crowd, trying to get closer to the stage where Senator Lyon—the only remaining member of Congress who Claire said was on the committee hearing that Mom testified in—is standing with a half dozen of his colleagues. For the first time in days, luck is on my side. He’s the person who I came to DC to try and meet with.
The senator from Hawaii finishes speaking, and I hear some applause. I’m about halfway to the stage when I see the senators being directed off by security guards.
By the time I finally reach the podium, they’re all off to the side, taking questions from reporters. There’s a mousy-looking woman with glasses and frizzy brown hair dressed in a gray suit next to senator Lyon.
After the senators finish speaking with the reporters, the guards usher them back to the Capitol building, which is taped off. The mousy-looking woman stays back, next to the reporters, texting on her phone.
“Excuse me,” I say, approaching her. “Do you work for Senator Lyon? I saw you standing next to him.”
She looks up from her phone. “Yes,” she says, pushing up her glasses to the top of the bridge of her nose.
“I have a question for him. Is there any way I can speak with him?”
“Any constituent question needs to be directed to his website—”
“It’s not a constituent question,” I interrupt. “It’s about a congressional hearing that my late mom testified in. Senator Lyon is the only remaining member of Congress that participated in it. I’m trying to find out what she said.”
I’m near tears. The day has caught up with me. First, learning Mom was an addict, then learning she chose to testify over our family’s safety, and now realizing if I don’t solve this riddle, I may never get my life back.
“The transcript might be available online,” she tells me.
“It hasn’t been unsealed yet,” I explain.
“What hearing was it?” she asks.
“The TriCPharma hearing in 1997,” I say.
Her eyes go wide. “I’m sorry,” she nervously says and quickly walks away.