Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Shut up and get in the car.”
The ride to the local office passed in dead silence. Neil seemed completely at ease, even when they went through the multistep process of getting through security, but Jean watched as Neil cased every exit and guard on his way. Jean, in turn, looked at nothing and no one save Neil. The FBI would likely write it off as nerves, but they’d be mistaken to think he was afraid of them. He couldn’t fear a government who was so easily infiltrated and manipulated; he could only fear his own potential missteps and the bloody consequences if he failed his master here.
When they finally made it to the elevators, Neil asked in French, “Chances of them understanding French?”
“None. They’re American,” Jean said.
“Hey,” Neil protested.
“You barely count. Don’t waste your time feigning offense.”
“Knock it off,” the agent nearer Neil said. “English only or we’ll separate you until we can get some interpreters onsite.”
They were brought to a conference room. Boxes were stacked on one end of the table, a few closed files rested in the middle, and a video camera was already set up on a tripod to record today’s discussion. A rolling stand beside the camera had a monitor on it, and they were being broadcast a video of another suited figure hunched over his desk. At the sound of the door closing and chairs scraping across the floor, the man looked up and scowled.
Neil greeted him with no warmth whatsoever: “Agent Browning. Kind of thought I’d never have to see you again.”
“Don’t start with me,” Browning said. “Want to explain to me what you’re doing in Los Angeles?”
Neil flipped his takeout box open and started eating. “I’m allowed to visit people.”
“People,” Browning agreed. Before Jean could decide if that classified him as a non-person, Browning spelled it out for him: “But Stuart Hatford is not just anyone, and last we checked he had no contacts in Los Angeles that would bring you both so far from home. Except perhaps he does,” he said, turning a heavy stare on Jean.
One of the agents who’d brought them here flipped open a file and tossed it down into the middle of the table. Jean looked instinctively, and the photograph stapled to the top knocked the wind out of him. He recognized that back deck from his childhood home. His father was standing in the middle, waving expansively as he ranted to an unfamiliar man. His mother straddled a wooden chair off to one side, a bottle of wine in one hand and a stack of papers in the other.
These people were unimportant. All that mattered were the two kids sitting in the backyard: Jean at nine or ten, with a tiny Elodie buried against his side. He remembered that dress of hers, with its little yellow ducks. He’d clumsily patched up the hem a half-dozen times when she tore it on the blackberry bushes taking over their backyard.
The chains creaked; Jean could barely breathe. Under the table he dug his fingernails into the bite on his wrist. Endure. Endure. Endure.
“Where did you get this?” he asked in a voice that didn’t sound like his.
“Interpol faxed it over from their records just a few minutes ago,” the agent said. “Where did you get this?”
By the gesture he made, he meant the scratches on Jean’s face, but Jean said, “I take after my mother.”
“Jean’s French,” Neil said. “He brings out violence in people every time he opens his mouth. Even the Trojans are human enough to have a breaking point.”
“You’re one to accuse others of intolerable attitudes,” Browning said, and Neil only shrugged indifference. Jean didn’t waste his time being offended by Neil’s half-assed insult, because the agents let the matter drop and moved on. “Time for one of you to start talking. Let’s take it from the top and—for once—without any of your usual bullshit.”
Neil looked to Jean, but Jean couldn’t drag his eyes off the photograph to respond. At last Neil pushed his dinner aside with a weary sigh and said, “Fine. What do you want to know?”
Neil’s spin on things was wretchedly straightforward. He and Jean had seen each other for the first time in years at the fall banquet. If the FBI wanted to ask around, they’d find witnesses to confirm the two had gone at each other in French. They’d realized who the other was and, afraid of getting caught out, had desperately tried to hash out where they stood with one another and whether their friendship was still strong enough to keep them safe. They’d inadvertently outed themselves to Kevin, who panicked and had to leave the banquet to deal with their frightening secrets.
Neil agreed to visit Evermore over Christmas more to reconnect with Jean than out of any real interest in the Ravens. Framed this way, it was easy to excuse Neil’s antagonistic opinion of the rest of the team and their captain. His reckless change in looks was inevitably blamed on Jean and their desire to play on the perfect Court together after graduation. Neil was afraid of being found out if he stepped onto a brighter stage, so Jean tried to prove that no one would remember or recognize him so many years later. An idiotic gamble in retrospect, but how could they have known how terribly it would backfire?