She finishes her rounds and sets the watering can in the kitchen. Then she goes to her desk—an old oak secretary that had been her mother’s—and opens the bottom drawer.
She pulls a thick manila folder from beneath a stack of fundraising files and library inventories and opens it on the desk. She stares down at the manuscript. False Flags: The Aftermath of the End of the Cold War by Linda J. Morrison is four hundred and sixty printed pages. Despite what she’s told Biz, it’s finished. It’s just not safe to publish. Yet.
She closes the folder and returns it to the drawer.
Then she waters one more plant. A small cutting she’s been nursing back to health after rescuing it from Abigail’s office. It’s struggling, as if it’s not sure it wants to survive.
“Come on, darling,” she murmurs, touching a fragile leaf. “You’re stronger than you think. Just need the right conditions. A bit more light. A bit more air.”
She checks the soil. Still damp. Good.
“Patience,” she tells herself as much as the plant. “Everything in its time.”
She gets ready for bed and pulls back her covers. Before switching off her bedside light, she picks up her tablet to check on The Payback. It’s become her bedtime ritual. The book is ranked thirty-three in espionage thrillers, and climbing.
Everything in its time.
Chapter Ten
The walk from the house to Foggy Bottom Preparatory Academy is just shy of a half-mile. Fiona suggests her parents walk on the opposite side of the street from her and Finn. Sasha counters that she’ll hold the twins’ hands, instead.
They settle on walking two by two, the parents trailing the kids.
Connelly grins at her, his eyes crinkling. “Nice use of the anchoring.”
“Me or her?”
“Yes.”
She cackles.
Other families of day students, identifiable by their uniforms, stream toward the school from all directions. A father in a turban with two little girls, a mother speaking rapid French to a boy who answers in English, an older woman who might be a grandmother or a nanny shepherding three children who look nothing alike.
“Everyone here is from somewhere else,” Fiona observes.
“Just like us,” Connelly says.
“We’re from Pittsburgh.”
“Which makes us from somewhere else, too.”
Finn is quiet, watching everything. Taking it in. Sasha reaches down and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back.
They reach the campus. The buildings are all stone and stately, with tall arched windows. There’s a central bell tower stretching toward the sky. The lawns are manicured.
“Okay,” Connelly says, stopping at the fork in the walkway. “I’m heading to the secondary building. You three are going to the primary wing.”
He kisses Sasha, then crouches to hug both kids. “Have a great first day. I’ll meet you right here to walk home after classes.”
“Good luck, Dad,” Fiona says.
“You, too, Fee. Knock ‘em dead, Finn.”
Finn just nods, but his eyes follow Connelly as he walks away.
Sasha leads the twins past the dormitories where the boarding students stay to the primary school building. Inside, the hallways are bright and cheerful, decorated with student artwork and multilingual welcome signs. Inspirational quotes hang from banners spaced throughout the main hall.
A young woman with a clipboard, large red-framed glasses, and an even bigger smile intercepts them. “You must be Finn and Fiona Connelly! I’m Mrs. Goode, the fifth grade coordinator. Welcome to Foggy Bottom Primary School.”
