The fern doesn’t answer, and neither does Henry. But talking to the plants helps him process the complicated grief of losing someone who harmed him and helped him.
Linda was manipulative. Linda was kind. Linda endangered his family. Linda provided for his family.
All of it true, real, and impossible to reconcile into a single coherent narrative.
So he doesn’t try. Instead, he researches how to care for the various plants she left behind. Emmaline calls from the nursery. “Caleb? Can you come look at this?”
He sets down the watering can and walks down the hall to the nursery.
A real room with a crib that fits properly, and a changing table, a little canvas sling bookshelf that holds Henry’s growing collection of board books, and a rocking chair by the window.
Emmaline stands in the center of the room, holding a paintbrush and looking around with satisfaction at the newly painted walls. They’re a soft yellow.
“It’s perfect,” Caleb says.
“It is.” She smiles at him. “We have a home.”
A home built on manipulation, terrorism, and his unwitting complicity.
He can’t change the past to undo the harm and bring back Linda or any of the people who died in attacks tied up with the thrillers he wrote.
But he can build a future with Emmaline and their son. He can write the books he needs to write now. His books.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “We have a home.”
He lifts Henry out of the carrier and hands him to Emmaline, then envelops them both in a hug that only ends when Henry grabs the bristles of the still-wet paint brush.
Chapter Forty
Three weeks after the gala
Outside Biz Linden’s Dupont Circle office, traffic is at a standstill. Horns blare, drivers lean out windows to see what’s causing the delay. A motorcade of glossy black cars zips through the traffic circles while everyone else sits locked in place.
Biz swivels around in her chair to see what Leo’s looking at.
“Motorcade,” he tells her.
“The French President’s in town,” she answers. Then she turns back to him and gets down to business. “So, talk to me. Do you want to write a memoir? Get into the thriller game?”
“I want to publish Linda’s book,” Leo says. “Posthumously. With full attribution.”
Biz sets down her coffee. “Linda’s book? False Flags: The Aftermath of the End of the Cold War?”
“That’s the one. She sent it to me before she died.”
“It’s unfinished.”
“It’s not. She was sitting on it until it was safe to publish. I do want to write an afterword contextualizing the book in light of what happened to her. And Ruth.”
“The aftermath of the aftermath?” Biz’s mouth quirks into a ghost of a smile.
“Exactly.”
“It’s an important work. It deserves to be published.”
“It’s also possibly classified.” Biz leans back in her chair. “Publishing it could land you in federal prison or get you sued.”
“The classified argument is a nothing more than saber-rattling. Linda focused on actions taken by former federal intelligence officers after they left their government roles. The organization they went to work for afterward?—”
