“Do you need me to stay, Agent Murphy?” a young guy in a dark suit said.
“I can handle it from here. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Sarah turned and looked at Blayne. They stood in silence until they heard the door to the SUV shut.
“It’s not… Actually, it’s probably worse than you think,” Blayne admitted.
“Let me stop you right there,” Sarah interrupted, raising a finger to stop him. “Wait for him to go.”
They stepped out of the way as the agent pulled the SUV into reverse and started leaving the parking lot.
“Remember, it’s the FBI. Always assume there are eyes and ears everywhere.” She then spun and looked up at Blayne. “What did you get yourself into?”
“A Texas-sized shit show. And before we go in there, don’t blame Kira. It’s…it’s complicated.”
“All right, I’m ready to hear just how complicated you’re about to make my life,” Sarah said, seemingly bracing herself.
* * * *
Dr. Hennigan
Hennigan washed her hands and splashed water on her face to freshen up. She’d been running at full pistons ahead and hadn’t really breathed for a few days. She lifted her shirt to inspect the sutures on her side. Thankfully, they didn’t look infected, which was her primary concern. As much as she acted calm, cool and collected, the pain in her side was constant. If she took one hit to the injury, she’d blackout from pain. But in her line of work, you often must suck up the pain until you could step back and deal with it directly.
She left the backroom and headed into the living room. Kira’s back was to her in an otherwise-empty apartment.
“Where’s Mr. Dickenson?” Hennigan asked. Kira’s shoulders jumped. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I was lost in my head. Blayne took the empty pizza boxes out to the garbage. He’ll be back in a second.”
“How are you holding up?” Hennigan asked.
“I don’t know what to think about any of this,” Kira admitted. “One day, I thought you were the devil incarnate, and the next, I’m having a phone conversation with your bestie, Cleo Barnes. Cleo Barnes, who is, of course, married to Jeffrey Barnes, the most powerful person in the world.”
“Yes, I can see how this could be overwhelming.”
Kira took a deep breath, trying to gather her ideas amid the whirlwind of information and revelations. Hennigan walked around the table and stared at Kira.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through,” Hennigan empathized. “This is the world I grew up in. It’s my normal. It’s a lot to process, Kira. The sudden unveiling of this hidden world and the interconnectedness of those running it can be overwhelming. The truth is far stranger than anything can imagine.”
Kira let out a hollow laugh. “I know there are little ‘t’ truths and big ‘T’ universal truths in this world. But your world takes the idea of truth, spins it around, molds it, reshapes it and spits it out as something that I don’t even recognize.”
Hennigan was about to stretch out her hand and touch Kira reassuringly when the front door to Blayne’s apartment opened. Hennigan slipped her hand into her pocket, rested it on the gun that sat there and put on her most comforting smile.
“Look who I picked up next to the dumpster,” Blayne tried to joke. The joke fell flat in the room. “Okay, uhh…I guess introductions are in order.”
“Agent Sarah Murphy,” Hennigan said. “It’s so good to see you again, especially since I’m not shooting at you. Your dad was a professor at Tulane until he retired four years ago, and your mother was an FBI agent who died of cancer…almost a decade ago now, I believe.”
Agent Murphy’s gun was leveled at Dr. Hennigan before Hennigan even realized she was going for it.She’s fast.
“Put that thing away, Agent,” Hennigan ordered, her tone firm. “I currently have my weapon leveled at Kira under the table. You shoot me, I shoot her and Blayne must clean up the blood in his kitchen…for the second time this week.”
“Who are you?” Murphy demanded, keeping her weapon raised.
“Do you really want to know?” Hennigan asked. “Everyone else in this room knows. This is your only chance to walk away from all this. Out of courtesy to Ms. Strickland, I’m allowing you to walk away.”
“Yeah, that’s not really an option,” Murphy said. “So, let me repeat my question in case you missed it the first time. ‘Who are you?’”
“That’s a complicated answer, and we don’t have time to go into it now. Instead, we will focus on why I had Kira call the First Lady, who called your director, who called you.”
