Thursday, 2:01 pm
"Just so you know," Reid said gently, "Detective James wasn't dirty. Kieran's dad. He's a good cop, and he was genuinely concerned."
His daughter looked up at him. "How do you know?"
"I talked to him for half an hour this morning. I also had Garcia look into his financials."
"Hey!" Garcia said, mouth falling open. "You told me that was for - "
"An investigation," he said. "I've been working on this all night, over the phone with Atlanta. I think the first time I took a deep breath in the past day and a half was when I hung up with James."
Hotch's brows lowered. Reid felt himself flush and knew they were going to have a talk later about why he hadn't told everyone all of this last night.
He looked back at Elizabeth and felt his heart tremble again at seeing her there. What little sleep he'd snatched the night before had been swamped with dreams of seeing her on a cold steel slab, or a crime-scene photo. "You weren't in Atlanta, I knew that much, and if you were making your way to DC, I needed to be here for you. The last time I wanted to get on a plane so badly, and had to stop myself, was when you contracted appendicitis over Christmas. At least after I talked to him, I knew you and your mom were alive as of six o'clock last night."
Chevalier stirred. "Even if James wasn't dirty, somebody in his house was. There was a flurry of movement among Doyle's known associates in Chicago last night. Brief, over by this morning, and nothing to show for it, so we dismissed it. But if you'd gone with Detective James, or Chicago PD had succeeded in picking you up, I imagine that you'd be in a very different place right now."
Elizabeth shivered. "We didn't," she said. "We got away. But we weren't going to come here."
She has three tiny scars on her belly and lots of drugs. Strong drugs. It's almost too bad you would never take any painkillers for your knee that time you got shot, because it would have been falling-on-my-ass funny, if your daughter under the influence is any indication.
The nurse asked me if her daddy was going to come, because Libs kept asking for you. I had to say that you couldn't. She gave me such a look that I wanted to kick her teeth in. How dare she think of you that way. She doesn't know you or me, she barely knows Elizabeth, and it doesn't matter what she thinks at all, but how dare she think that you're some kind of deadbeat who won't stir his stumps to see his kid when she gets an emergency appendectomy.
I know I was harsh on the phone. I had to be. We just couldn't risk it. But at the same time, I kept arguing because hearing your voice was so comforting. I've spent so many years being worried alone that it seemed like a luxury being worried with another person, even when you're yelling at that other person not to come see their own daughter in the hospital. Even when I wanted to stop and say, "You know what? Never mind what I just said. Come here. Plane, train, automobile, come as fast as you can. I want you with me."
I can say that now that Elizabeth is out of the hospital and back on her feet. I couldn't let myself say it then.
I'm so tired of this. I'm tired of having to push you away when you want to be there for us. I'm tired of being afraid. And as I look at those words on the screen, I realized I've never said them before, but it's true. You probably already knew, but I want to say them again. I'm afraid.
Wednesday, 6:17 pm
"It's me," her mom said into the phone. "My kid is on the news. We almost got picked up by Chicago PD. What the hell, Malcolm? Call me back." She disconnected, frowning. "I don't know why we didn't hear it from him."
"Is it so bad, really?" Elizabeth asked.
They'd parked the car behind a boarded-up store while her mom called the new handler and Elizabeth tried to convince her stomach to accept a few cold french fries. Her stomach was not cooperative.
"Yeah, it is," her mom said, rooting through her bag and pulling out her gun. It gleamed cold black in the dim light.
Elizabeth eyed it and swallowed. "I don't get it," she said. "Why? Couldn't we just turn ourselves in and tell them - "
"What? We're on the run from an international criminal?" Her mom loaded the gun with a heavy chunk and slid it into the open side pocket of her bag, where she could grab it easily.
"It's the truth."
"No, honey, this is bad. Before, we only had Doyle's people looking for us. Now, your face is in every police station from here to Florida. Do you know how many eyes that is? And if someone does bring us in, even one of the good guys, all it takes is one dirty cop."
"Are you sure you're not being paranoid?"
Instead of getting mad, her mom explained, "Doyle particularly liked to corrupt law enforcement. Blackmail, bribery, sending one of his own into training. He used to say one spy was worth fifty foot soldiers. One phone call." She shook her head and repeated, "This is bad. We need to get out of this city." She got out of the front seat and into the back where there was more room. "Time for Sally and Jean to disappear, honey."
"Who're you going to be now?"
"Angela Chernekov." Her mom dug out a grey, shoulder-length wig.
"Oh, okay." Elizabeth dumped the fast-food bag with relief and started pulling Katie Chernekov's clothes out of her own bag. Katie was kind of girly and fluffy, not Elizabeth's favorite, but she'd do.
But her mom said, "Honey, I think we have to go more drastic with your new look."
Elizabeth twisted around, frowning at her mom. "What do you mean?"
Her mom held up a pair of scissors.
Elizabeth's hand jumped protectively to her hair. "Mom, no!"
"He called me son," Elizabeth groused as they climbed into the car they'd just rented. "I hate this."
In a protracted and bitter argument, her mom had dragged out the Amber Alert, the fact that police would be looking for a woman and a girl, not a woman and a boy, that short hair would be easier to put under a wig if they had to change out yet again. Faced with such logic, Elizabeth's only defense was that she'd been growing out her hair for the past five years and she really liked it long, and she didn't want to be a boy.
Her mom had won. Elizabeth now looked like a puffball dandelion, because everything but a few inches of her hair was shoved into the fast-food bag and buried in a streetside trash can somewhere in the mile between the boarded-up store where they'd left the last car and right here, where they were getting their next one.
The remainder of her disguise as "Kurt Chernekov" consisted of her loosest jeans and a blue t-shirt out of her mom's bag. It was depressing baggy on Elizabeth. The words on the front cheered her up slightly, however: "Also, I can kill you with my brain."
If she had to be a boy, she could at least be a boy with good taste in obscure cult television.
She'd been a little nervous about walking into the rental-car place. She'd tried to remember everything she'd ever observed about boys, tried lowering her voice and loosening her walk. In her most secret heart, she'd sort of hoped she would at least get a funny look, a double-take, and she'd have to say something about sports or farting to convince him that she was a boy.
But the rental-car guy had barely given her a second glance, and he'd told her mom, "You and your son have a nice night," as they were walking out.
Why?
Because she had short hair and all the feminine curves of a two-by-four.
"People see what they expect to see," her mom said. "For Christ's sake, Libs, give it a rest. What's with the vanity all of a sudden?"
Because it was easier to be bratty and pouty right now. Because she was scared and didn't want to be. "Gender identity disorder can be debilitating to a young girl's emotional well-being," she said.
"Given your vocal dislike of this particular cover, it's my learned opinion that we don't need to worry one bit about gender identity disorder in your case." At a stoplight, her mom reached over and ruffled her hair. "Libs, it'll grow, okay?"
She ducked out from under her mom's hand, fussily smoothing her hair down. It sprang up again, sticking out in several directions. "Only about an inch per month. At that rate -"
"At that rate, you're gonna drive me crazy in short order."
"I don't have to be a boy forever, do I?'
They swung onto the interstate. Her mom hit the gas, hard. "No, just until we get to Minneapolis."
"Good."
"Then we'll take on our new identities."
Elizabeth's head swiveled toward her mom. "What do you mean?"
"That's what our handler is working on. Setting up new identities for us. New names, new backgrounds. Everything." She frowned and glanced down at her phone, sitting in the cup holder. It hadn't rung.
"What's my name going to be?"
"I don't know. He's setting that up."
She chewed her lip. "Can it at least be Emily Elizabeth?"
"Honey, that's the first combo Doyle's gonna check. Ditto for Nora, Noreen, Lizzie, Beth, Libby, Emilia, Lizbet, and any other permutation of either of our current names. We have to be totally new people." Her mom glanced over at her. "I know you thought of this. You're just like your dad. You think everything to death, and then dig it up again for another go."
"Yeah," she muttered. "But - "
"And you have no problem being Violet or Jean or anybody else in your arsenal of disguises. You made up entire histories for them."
"That's different," she said. "That's . . . temporary."
She could play any one of the girls she'd made up, knowing she was still Elizabeth Emily. She might not know exactly what her last name should be - Brewster? Prentiss? Reid? - but her name was her very own. More than that, it was a tether that anchored her to roots she'd never had. Her grandma's name and her mom's real name. Without it, she might float away.
"You're still you. Just a different name. And it's not forever."
"Until when, then?"
Her mom didn't answer.
Elizabeth let out her breath in a frustrated wheeze. She dug out her phone, intending to distract herself with one of the books she'd downloaded. When it turned on, the CNN page came up again. Her face was still in the top screen, but bumped down by new stories. She started to close the browser, then paused, looking at one of the new top stories. The face was very, very vaguely familiar. "Mom?"
"Mm?"
"What's our new handler's name? Malcolm something, right?"
"John Malcolm."
"Did I ever meet him?"
"I think he might have stopped by the house a few years back. I probably told you he was someone from work. Why?"
"Pull over to the shoulder, Mom."
Her mom opened her mouth, then looked over at her. She closed her mouth and pulled over. Elizabeth handed her the phone, and watched as her mom squinted at the tiny screen to read the story about the businessman who'd been mugged and beaten to death in the Atlanta airport garage.
Her mom rested the phone against the wheel for a moment. Then she dug into her pocket, brought out her own phone, and popped the SIM cards out of both. Opening the car door, she dropped the tiny cards to the tarmac and stomped them, hard, then got out of the car and flung both the empty, useless cases into the water-filled ditch by the side of the road.
Elizabeth sat frozen until her mom climbed back in the car.
"Well. Minneapolis is out, then."
"Our phones - "
"I called him. Twice. We'll get replacements."
"You think he told them - "
"I don't know." She tried to turn the key again, but couldn't grasp it. She let her hands fall to her lap.
"What do we do now?"
Her mom stared out the window. "Get back on the road."
"To where?"
She thought for a moment. "Phoenix."
"Phoenix?"
"Not the city itself. One of the suburbs, where everybody's from somewhere else."
"No," Elizabeth said.
"Nice weather, low cost of living, desert's pretty."
"Mom, I don't want to go to Phoenix."
Her mom turned on her. "What do you suggest then?" She held up a hand. "Wait, no. Don't tell me. Washington, D.C."
"Yeah."
"Two of our handlers are dead in as many days, Libs. Clearly, somebody in D.C. is not our friend."
"But Dad is - "
"I don't want to hear one more word about your dad! We're going west. Now."
Elizabeth threw open the car door and jumped out into the ditch. Her shoes squelched into the water and flooded immediately. "No!"
"Get back in the car."
She folded her arms. "No."
Her mom got out too, with a thunderous look on her face. "You're not too big for me to pick up, still."
"I'm almost as tall as you are!" Elizabeth yelled.
"But you're about a hundred pounds soaking wet, and I am pissed off."
Elizabeth scrambled backwards, almost falling on her butt. "What's my name going to be?"
Her mom stopped dead in the road. "What?"
"In Phoenix. What's my name going to be?"
"I don't know. Just get in the car, would you? This isn't exactly low profile here - "
"Just not Elizabeth Emily, right? Anything but Elizabeth Emily."
"I so do not need this from you right now." Her mom started forward again.
Elizabeth threw out her hands like a traffic cop. "You remember, when I first found out you'd been lying to me all my life, I asked you if everything about me was fake."
It gave her mom pause. She stood halfway in one of the headlights' beams, her shadow stretching long and thin down the blacktop. "I remember."
"You said, 'Your last name is made up, but you are Elizabeth Emily. That's what's real. That's always what's real.' Remember?"
"I said two other things you left out. I know you remember them. Tell me what they were."
Elizabeth bit her lip. "You said, 'I'm your mother, and I love you.'"
Her mom nodded. "No matter what your name is, I'm your mother and I love you."
"It's not enough, Mom."
Her mom flinched, and then Elizabeth realized how awful her own words sounded. For a split second, her rage ebbed, replaced by a desperate desire to fling herself into her mom's arms and cry out that she didn't mean it, she couldn't mean it -
She clenched her fists and kept going. "Everything is gone. My home, my friends, my dad, my hair, my name . . . Mom, I was about to graduate. I was going to go to college."
"You can still do all of that in Phoenix."
"Not now. I can't just move in and graduate in three months, not without school records, and there are no school records for whoever I'm gonna be, are there?"
"You're thirteen. This is not your last chance to fucking graduate, Elizabeth."
"But I have to wait. And what happens if he finds us again? We take off running? Again?"
"Yes."
"So," she said. "This is gonna be my life now? Running away? Hiding all the time? Being scared, all the time?"
"Libs - "
"Don't call me that. You'll have to change it anyway. My name. My birthday. Everything, just like you did. When do I get to be myself again, huh, Mom? When I turn eighteen? When Doyle dies? When you die? When I die?"
"You're being melodramatic. I'm not exactly doing this for shits and giggles, you know. This is not - "
"A game, I know," she snapped back. "You've been telling me that for one year, five months, three weeks, and two days. You've been telling me that we have to be safe and careful and it stinks, Mom. My own dad, I've only seen him in person for three hours, and I'll probably never talk to him again. My own grandma that you named me after, she doesn't even know I exist, and the same for all those people in DC that are so, so special to you, Penelope and J.J. and Hotch, they don't even know I exist and they never will. I'll go back to stupid high school classes and try to graduate and then something will happen and we'll run again and over and over and over until I just give up on graduating and maybe get my GED instead and work at Wal-Mart like you did because it's safe and this is my life? This is what you want for me?"
She ran out of words and stood gulping cold air. The breeze fluttered her mutilated hair and chilled the tears tracking down her face.
Her mom stared at her for several seconds. Then she slowly sat down on the bumper, looking away down the road.
Elizabeth crept closer, climbing out of the ditch to perch on the very edge of the bumper, too. "Mom," she said in a very small voice. "I'm just . . . I'm so tired of being afraid."
Her mom looked over at her, touching one gentle finger to a lock that had fallen into her eyes. "I know," she said, and sighed deeply. "Get in the car, Libs."
She got to her feet, walked around the hood, and climbed into the driver's side. Her door slammed like the knell of doom.
Elizabeth sagged where she sat. Her feet, soaked by ditch water, started to tingle with cold.
Her mother's voice floated out the passenger-side door, still hanging open. "I said, get in the car."
"No," she said, knowing it was pointless, but unwilling to make it one bit easier than she had to.
"You want to walk to D.C?"
Elizabeth jumped up and spun around at the same time. "Mom?"
Through the windshield, her mom's face was white and drawn. "For the third time, Elizabeth Emily, get in the car. Before I change my mind."
While Elizabeth was so happy she wanted to sing and dance, it only took her half a mile to realize that her mom was the exact opposite. She stared at the road, her mouth flat, her hands locked on the wheel. Elizabeth's own elation began to ebb.
She thought resentfully, She looks like the world is ending. Why is it so bad, to be going back to Dad and all her friends?
She was about to say that when her mom stirred. "Libs, I need to be clear about this. We're taking a hell of a gamble."
"Uh-huh."
"Don't uh-huh. We're heading somewhere that Doyle's been watching like a hawk for years. I need you to listen to me."
"About what?"
"Everything. You do what I say, when I say it, whether you think it makes sense or not."
"Okay," she said.
"And I want you to promise me something."
"Okay," she said again.
"No. Don't just say that. I want your promise you'll do this."
"I don't even know what you want me to do, Mom."
Her mom spared her a brief glance. "If somebody takes me, you run for it."
"You mean leave you behind?"
"That's exactly what I mean. Promise me you'll do that."
"No! Mom, we're sticking together - "
"We're sticking together so I can protect you. If it gets to the point where I can't protect you, then you need to save yourself."
"I do have - "
"A purple belt, I know, honey, and under normal circumstances I have every faith in your ability to kick someone's kidneys out their nose. But these are not normal circumstances, and your first priority is to take care of yourself and get to your dad."
"But - "
"Promise me, Elizabeth Emily. Or we're going to Arizona after all."
"I promise, I promise!" she cried.
"Say it."
"I - " She gulped. The words tasted nasty in her mouth. "I promise I'll leave you behind if you get taken."
Her mom relaxed. "Thank you."
"But I still don't understand.
"He will target you," her mother said. "Because you're my daughter."
"And he wants to get you, I know."
"No. You don't get it. He will target you, because you are my daughter." She swallowed. "He wants to do the same thing to me that I did to him. He wants to destroy my child."
It seemed to trickle through Elizabeth's brain in pieces. "Doyle has kids?"
"He had a son. Declan Doyle was six."
A son? How could evil, homicidal criminals have a six-year-old son?
Elizabeth's eyes widened. "The little boy you knew?" It seemed like weeks, months since that conversation, instead of just a day. "Mon poulet?"
After a very long time, her mother nodded.
Had a son, she'd said. Past tense, implying that such was no longer the case . . . and he blamed her mom . . . "Oh, Mom," she whispered. "What did you do?"