Late Thursday morning in Chicago, at O’Hare International, Rebecca was waiting with Jolie at the baggage carousel when Twyla appeared among the in-streaming travelers. Tall and slim, wearing a sapphire-blue dress with pin tucks at the shoulders and a lightly ruffled placket, carrying a coat over one arm, she looked less like a nineteen-year-old college student than like a famous model of perhaps twenty-five, radiating experience and sophistication. Her smile, when it came as she noticed them, made her yet lovelier.
Gladdened by the sight of her older daughter and wanting to believe they would together navigate the current storm, Rebecca nevertheless scrutinized the people who followed in Twyla’s wake, alert for someone who seemed unduly interested in her. But she was not trained in crowd analytics, and in such situations as this, either everyone appeared suspicious or no one did.
Twyla hugged her mother, kissed her. “I’ve really missed you.”
But it was to Jolie that Twyla gave herself entirely. The two embraced, fell into excited conversation and laughter, commenting on each other’s hair and clothes, often with the affectionate sarcasm in which they had engaged since adolescence.
Rebecca had half forgotten how much alike the sisters were, not quite twins in appearance, each with her unique style, but alike in their enthusiasm and intelligence. With only the two-year difference in ages, they had always been as close as twins. Twyla’s passion was art—her talent so strong that she was on a two-thirds scholarship through her sophomore year, with a prospect of receiving full tuition thereafter—while Jolie lived for literature.
One arm around Jolie, Twyla turned to her mother. “You said drop everything, come now, nobody’s dying, but it’s important. Such mystery, such drama! I’m crazy to know. Tell me.”
“Not here, sweetie. Let’s get on the road first.”
“Does this have something to do with Ms. Gundersun, that insane horribleness at the hotel? When Daddy called last week about that, he wasn’t like himself at all, he was having the vapors, going on about Boston being half a world away, which it isn’t, it’s not even an eighth of a world away. Mother, I simply can’t go to school in Milwaukee or, God forbid, St. Cloud, if only because that’s not where I have a scholarship.”
“First things first. Which is your suitcase, dear?”
Twyla had arrived with one large bag exactly like Jolie’s; their parents had given both girls the same three-piece suite of luggage a few years earlier. After they snared the suitcase from the carousel, they were soon in Aunt Tandy’s Dodge, where Jolie ceded the shotgun position to Twyla and settled in the backseat.
Leaving the short-term parking lot, Rebecca remained wary, frequently consulting the rearview mirror. But if she were being tailed, those following her would have to be numerous and operating in a fleet, for the vehicles behind her kept changing. Of course if the car was electronically tagged, their pursuers wouldn’t have to maintain visual contact. Yes, but it wasn’t likely that Aunt Tandy’s phone was tapped, that anyone knew she’d brought a car to Rockford the previous night. Rebecca and Jolie would have been on the road from Rockford before the men watching the station wagon at the motor inn realized that the Buick had been abandoned. And when she had summoned Twyla to Chicago—rather than Milwaukee—she had used her disposable cell and had taken steps to ensure that anyone who might be monitoring the girl’s phone or even running eyes-on surveillance would be thwarted. Yet…the rearview mirror compelled her attention, and she knew that Twyla was aware of that.
When they unsnarled themselves from the airport tangle and were headed east on Interstate 90, Twyla said, “Home’s not this way. Why are we going into the city?”
“We’re not,” Rebecca said. “Only as far as I-94, then north.”
“To where?”
“To a place filled with good memories for your father and me. You’ll see.”
“Is Daddy waiting there?”
“No, dear. He’ll call us later and let us know the next step.”
“The next step? Where is he now?”
“He didn’t say. Maybe he will later.”
Twyla leaned left to glance past the headrest at her sister in the backseat. “I know it isn’t possible that our parents have been deep-cover spies all our lives and are now on the run. That’s a TV show, and life isn’t a TV show. You know what this is about?”
“What I know,” Jolie said, “is that we’re in deep doodoo, but I’m not clear whose doodoo it is or why we’ve got to wade through it. And neither is Mother. Daddy is playing this one close to the vest.”
“I’ve never seen Daddy wear a vest.”
“He sometimes wears a Kevlar one.”