**********
The following week was a whirlwind of frustration as minor and not-so-minor issues kept popping up while Evie helped Tommy, Nissa and Lana get through the paperwork and details of preparing for Paula’s memorial and getting things in order so Aaron wouldn’t have to worry about it when he got back.
Evie had just hung up with the funeral home when Tommy came into her office looking a little chaotic. His tie was loosened, and it looked like he’d rubbed his hands through his hair a hundred times.
“Have you found anything that tells us where she wants to be buried yet?” he demanded, dropping into the chair in front of her desk.
Evie shook her head. The first problem they had run into was that Paula hadn’t filled out all her paperwork, and she wasn’t looking forward to telling Tommy that Aaron hadn’tfilled his out correctly either. “Haven’t come across anything.” She gestured to the two thick folders on her desk, licking her lip nervously. “And Aaron’s paperwork wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped it would be.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you mean?”
“Because his paperwork just says he wants to be buried in New York.” She shifted, knowing that was going to irritate him.
“Jesus.” He groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “He didn’t pick a cemetery? A borough? Write down a religion? Anything?”
“No to all of those, but I know both Paula and Aaron are agnostic, and he grew up here in Brooklyn, so I think we can safely assume a non-denominational cemetery here for him.”
“That’s it.” Tommy threw his hands up. “HELIX, go through everyone’s files and make sure they’re filled out correctly and in full.”
“Yes, Mr. Sloane.”
“I take it Paula’s parents weren’t helpful?” Evie asked carefully, not wanting to make his mood worse.
She knew his trip to Massachusetts had been extremely uncomfortable for both him and Nissa. Despite Paula listing her adoptive parents and her birth mother as her next of kin, he’d found out Paula had been estranged from her adoptive parents since her first year of university, and they knew nothing about her.
Her birth mother had collapsed sobbing into Tommy’s arms, but once she calmed down, the first thing she did was insist that Tommy make sure Aaron was investigated for Paula’s murder because she was sure he had something to do with her death.
Tommy snorted, rubbing his hands over his face. “Her adoptive parents had no idea, but since they were surprised to hear she was married, that wasn’t shocking. Her birth mother once again insisted we send Paula’s body to her, claiming Paula wanted to be buried in Springfield. It wasn’t until I reminded her that Aaron was still alive and it would be costly for her to have Paula’s body dug up and shipped back to him that she admitted she didn’t know. Then she asked how my investigation into Aaron’s involvement in her murder was going.”
He sighed and slumped in the chair. “This is such a colossal shitshow right now. Thorn and Cole are pestering me to send them down to pull Aaron out, but Nissa is against it. She pointed out that the government paid us to take out this guy, so we might as well let Aaron do Paula’s final job for her and give him some sort of closure.”
“I think Nissa is right.” Evie shrugged, playing with her pen. “Even Thorn said he would do the same thing if someone hurt me, and Cole might not have said it, but we both know that if someone hurt Lana, he’d go after them without a second thought.”
“True.” Tommy nodded slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I just don’t understand how she got caught. She’s done dozens of missions without a single hiccup. If you read her mission plans and her reports, they match up almost perfectly.” He watched the small momentum toy on Evie’s desk complete a circuit. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Evie frowned. Nissa’s report had gone into detail about what went wrong on Paula’s mission, and she was shocked it hadn’t come up in discussion between them at some point.
“You didn’t read Nissa’s report?” she asked quietly. “Or talk about what happened?”
“I haven’t had a chance.” Tommy looked up, thrown off by her question. “And we’ve been so exhausted with this whole thing, I think we’re both avoiding talking about it at home. Why?”
“HELIX, ask Nissa to come to my office, please.” As the AI confirmed her request, Evie looked at Tommy. “I think you need to hear it from her; she can explain it better.”
When Nissa came in a few minutes later, Evie noticed she had the same slightly chaotic look as Tommy. Evie stood up and shut the door behind her.
“He doesn’t know what happened on Paula’s mission yet,” she explained as Nissa sat in the chair next to Tommy and gave Evie a questioning look.
“You never read my report?” Nissa looked at Tommy, a faintly annoyed expression crossing her delicate features.
“I haven’t had time,” Tommy repeated defensively. “And reports don’t exactly make the best bedtime reading material. If it’s so important, why didn’t you just tell me?”
Nissa ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. “Because I felt like it was tainting her memory, and I didn’t want to talk about it. I thought we had mutually agreed not to discuss it.”
Evie sat back in her chair. “Well, it needs to be discussed. I never understood this whole ‘don’t talk ill of the dead’ thing people do. Nobody’s just one thing. The good stuff they did doesn’t wipe out the damage, and the awful stuff doesn’t erase the parts where they mattered. Ignoring the truth doesn’t protect their memory; it just lies about who they were.”
Nissa huffed out a small laugh but nodded. “Fair enough,” she smiled teasingly at her. “When did you become so wise?”
“I ripped it off Doctor Who,” Evie admitted sheepishly, feeling her cheeks heat up. “The actual quote is: ‘The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.’” She shrugged self-consciously. “It’s always spoken to me.”
