The last box goes up at 2:58 AM. Neatly stacked with the others.
She closes the attic access. He pulls down the ladder.
They stand in the hallway in their formalwear, sweaty and exhausted.
She closes her eyes for the briefest moment. Then she says, “We need to get the kids.” Sasha says.
“After we dump the van.”
“Right.” She forgot about the van.
Deputy Head of Mission Palmer’s guard detail waves them through the gates at 3:30 AM.
Inside, the residence is quiet. Violet meets them in the foyer with hugs and murmurs about how horrible it is that Linda’s died.
The kids are asleep in a guest room, curled together like puppies. Despite the fact that Sasha and Fiona are roughly the same height, Sasha manages to carry her daughter as far as the foyer, where a helpful guard takes over. Leo carries Finn and the bags. They transfer them to the car still sleeping.
The drive home is silent except for soft breathing from the back seat.
At home, the kids stir when Connelly turns off the engine. So they pilot them on their own feet through the house and up the stairs. They both fall back to sleep instantly.
“We need to talk,” Connelly says quietly from the hallway.
Sasha closes Fiona’s door, then Finn’s. She follows her husband back downstairs, where they sit at the kitchen table. The house is dark except for the light over the stove.
“Sutton and the MDP have reached out to Homeland Security, the Bureau, and the CIA. It’s going to be a while before everyone figures out who’s in charge and what the charges are. I put Sutton in touch with Hank. He’ll shepherd her through the maze if she needs any help. But she’s solid.”
“A tough cookie, is she?”
She starts laughing at her own joke and can’t stop.
Finally, her laughter dies. She would cry but she’s too tired to.
“We need to decide if we’re out or if we want to stay and try to clean up the Lighthouse. Hank’s in, but only if we are.”
“We have Linda’s archives,” Sasha says finally. “We have her manuscript. We have Ruth in custody. Can we go to bed and think about the rest of it tomorrow?”
He gives her that lopsided smile of his and holds out his hand. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Two weeks after the gala
Caleb stands at Linda’s—no, his—sink and fills the watering can.
At some point, she changed her will to leave this apartment, her furniture, and her plants to him. She emailed Leo Connelly a copy of her updated will and her finished manuscript before she died.
Everything else belongs to her daughter and grandson, who will come back to DC this summer to take what they want and donate the rest, like the books that line the shelves in her living room, the “Keep Calm and Ask a Librarian” mug that still sits in the drainer by the sink, and her collection of silk scarves.
Everything except the weirdly empty metal bookshelves and equally empty filing cabinets that filled the guest bedroom. Those, Leo helped him move out and donate to a literacy nonprofit in Columbia Heights.
Linda used him. She manipulated him to write books that exposed secret information that she couldn’t or wouldn’t make public herself, and she endangered him and his family in the process.
Then she gave his family a home.
He waters the fern by the window, holding the spout out of Henry’s reach. Henry faces forward in the chest carrier now, his chubby hands waving and bare feet kicking, as they make their rounds.
Caleb talks to the plants the way Linda used to. “You’re looking a little brown on the edges. Too much sun? Or not enough water?” he asks the fern.
