'She's asleep.'

Augustine looked up lazily from her magazine to Melissa, who was coming down the stairs. A fire was crackling in the fireplace as Hediyeh slept on the couch, her head in Augustine's lap. On her other side, Jonathan was slumped over, halfway watching the television and trying to pretend that he was such a big boy for staying up past ten. He yawned and nuzzled against Augustine.

'Was she upset?' asked Augustine quietly, dropping the magazine onto the floor before reaching around Jonathan and pulling him onto her leg, the one that Hediyeh wasn't sleeping against. He curled to her chest.

'I think it brought up a few memories,' Melissa said with a shrug. 'But I think right now she's just missing Jackson and wondering why he hasn't come home yet.'

'Were you able to get her mom's number from her?'

'I just took her phone,' Melissa replied as she stepped off of the bottom stair, walking across the wood floor in bare feet. 'I think we should wait a few more hours though.'

'Why?' she asked, giving Melissa a disbelieving look.

'He might come back,' she said with a little shrug. 'As far as we know, he's just gone back to his office and will come back after a few hours.'

Augustine popped her jaw again, narrowing her eyes at Melissa. 'I deal with crazies day in and day out. If one of them leaves, we have to find that person immediately. We don't just let them wander around in the city unattended; we call their primary care physician or therapist and track them down. We don't say "oh, he's gone home" or "perhaps he just went out for pirogies;" no, we find them right then and there.'

'You haven't dealt with Jackson before.'

'I've seen him more recently than you have,' she snapped back. 'He's been out late before at work, but he's always sent someone to tell us. He's never come home and then left again, and he certainly hasn't acted that violent. I mean, for God's sake, Melissa, look what he did to your arm!'

Melissa flexed her fingers in the triangle still holding her arm up.

'You should probably go to Mt Sinai or Bellevue to get that taken care of,' said Augustine, looking down at Jonathan, who was now sleeping, one of his thumbs in his mouth. 'I'll stay here.'

'I'm not going to the hospital,' Melissa said flippantly. 'My arm feels fine and I don't want the questions.'

'Say you fell running down the stairs to the subway,' the younger woman replied. 'It was rainy today, so it wouldn't be a surprise.'

Melissa didn't make a move, instead just sitting on one of the chairs and staring at the fire. The television played silently with misspelled closed captioning running along the bottom of the screen, but no one was bothering to watch the news. Both of the adults reviewed the last few hours in their heads.

'I saw that horrible Grecian woman today.'

The redheaded woman made a choking noise. 'What? Where?'

'At the hospital,' Augustine murmured, resting her head on Jonathan's as she rubbed Hediyeh's back. 'She shoved me into a storage closet and held a scalpel to my throat. I don't think she knew that I know what she smells like, and what her voice sounds like.'

'What was she doing here?' Melissa asked rhetorically. 'I don't suppose she was kind enough to tell you.'

'She said that someone was going to ask me about the conversation Jackson had with Anaïs, and that I wasn't supposed to tell that person about what I heard. From how she was saying things, I was afraid she might come after the kids,' Augustine replied. 'Hediyeh rides the L from Chapin every afternoon at about that time, so I figured I might be able to catch her if I ran from the hospital, and I was right.'

'Do you think that she's done something to Jackson?'

'No,' Augustine answered a bit brusquely. 'No, he brought this upon himself.'

Another bit of silence. 'What happened during that phone call?'

'I only heard one side.'

'Yeah, but you must have heard something important to have Eleni after you,' said Melissa, leaning forward in her chair. Her hair glistened in the firelight, making her look devious and partially Satanic.

'He told Anaïs that Poulain wasn't trying to kill her because she's too important to him,' said Augustine, leaning her head back as she thought. 'Something about Poulain finishing something... I think they were speaking in code, because it made no sense. They went on for about ten minutes, then he just stood in his office pacing and yelling her name into the phone and telling her to speak.'

'Anaïs was killed when she was on the phone with Jackson?'

'I don't know,' Augustine said in a tiny voice. 'To be honest, I think...'

As she drifted off, Melissa just leaned closer, her eyes begging for more. 'What? You think what?'

'I think she killed herself,' Augustine replied, looking over at Melissa with her eyebrows knit.

'Are you serious?' Melissa asked, finally falling back into the chair.

'I don't think... I don't think Jackson was ready for that,' Augustine said, her voice choked. 'One minute you're talking to someone, then you hear a gunshot and a splash, and that's it. He just—'

'Augustine, he's a hired killer,' Melissa replied with a little laugh. 'He's used to death and gore; he's even killed a few himself.'

'This was different,' Augustine replied sternly. 'He knew her, and he knew that without her mediating, something was going to happen, something horrible.'

Melissa gave her a suspicious look. 'What do you know that you're not telling me?'

'Jackson knew the disease he had; he's known it forever,' said Augustine with a vague smile. 'Times that he felt like he didn't want to be involved in something, if he actually felt feelings about a cause, Anaïs would lie for him to make him seem flawless to Poulain. He knew what she was doing and they had an unspoken understanding that very few people knew about. Poulain trusted her with him because he thought she was his confidante, but really she only cared for Jackson and his interests.'

Hediyeh moaned and shifted on Augustine's leg; she looked down at her for a moment until it was apparent that she was still sleeping.

'Anaïs was there with Poulain when his son Lucien died,' Augustine continued in a hushed voice. 'She hid it from him, but it was a love suicide. Lucien wanted to have a normal life with Meryem, but Poulain wanted nothing of the sort. He wanted to have a couple of stoic sons with no ties to anything or anyone. Lucien and Meryem knew they'd never be able to be together, so they killed each other.'

'How did you find this out?' asked Melissa, mesmerised.

'Momma,' said Augustine quickly. 'Anaïs didn't want that to happen to Jackson. She knew that he had that softer side that Poulain knew nothing about. She kept in contact with his American assassin and he filled her in on all of the details about how Jackson behaved around Lisa, and she knew that because of his lust for her, he'd never be able to be what Poulain wanted. Either he had to escape legally or Poulain would kill him, so she took charge.'

Augustine shifted Jonathan on her lap before curling him tightly in her arms and standing. Hediyeh sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking at Augustine with blurry eyes.

'Time for bed now,' Augustine said, taking Hediyeh's hand and guiding her toward the stairs. As Hediyeh started up, Augustine turned back to Melissa. 'Hey, I'll be right back once the kids are in bed.'

Melissa watched after them until the edges of Augustine's muddy pink scrubs disappeared into the darkness of the middle floor of the house. Overhead, she could hear the murmur of voices as the nanny put the kids to bed, and the murmuring let her mind wander. Staring into the fire, she tried to remember anything about Anaïs that would have hinted to the fact that she would be so strongly pulling for Jackson. They weren't the same age, but Anaïs wasn't old enough to be Jackson's mother; Anaïs had worked for Poulain since she graduated from high school in Switzerland, where she'd been attending as a foreign exchange student from Madagascar; she didn't have any family that she ever mentioned; and Poulain was basically never seen without her. She went to all of his meetings, on all of his vacations though not necessarily right next to him all the time, they worked twenty feet away from each other at the office, and Anaïs stayed there as long as Poulain did, even if he worked for twenty hours straight. To hear that Anaïs had nearly betrayed Poulain was absolutely stunning to her, something that caught her completely off-guard.

'Testicles.'

Melissa snapped her head, looking over at Augustine, who was again sitting at the couch. 'What?'

'I tried saying other words, but you didn't respond,' she said smoothly. 'The kids are in bed. Do you want to hear more, or are you—'

'How did Anaïs protect Jackson?' interrupted Melissa. 'I mean, how did she avoid Poulain finding out?'

'Who else did he trust more than Anaïs?' asked Augustine. 'By the time she died, she'd worked for him for twenty years, and he was completely dependant on her. If Anaïs didn't give him the message, he didn't get the message, you know? That sort of thing.'

'So you're saying that Poulain's senility allowed Anaïs to aid Jackson?'

'That's what she thought,' Augustine replied with a pained look on her face. 'And this is where the phone conversation turned out to be so important.'

'You said they were speaking in code.'

'Only after Jackson remembered I could speak French,' Augustine said quickly, holding a finger up. 'Anaïs apparently found out that Poulain was privy to her dealings.'

'Why didn't he find out years ago if she's been working to protect Jackson so long?' asked Melissa.

'A new woman came to the Geneva office from the Athens office,' responded Augustine darkly. 'One who has had a certain obsession with Jackson Rippner since she trained under my father.'

Melissa looked at her unbelievingly. 'Come on, you're telling me that a bimbo like her actually managed to bring down Anaïs Vioget?'

'Where there's a will, there's a way, and trust me, she has the will,' she replied. 'Crazy will. Anaïs depended on Poulain's being too busy running the Society to bother with Jackson, but she changed everything. It was like suddenly having a person in charge of the Jackson wing of the World Society. When she found out about what Anaïs was doing, she let Poulain know, and Poulain let Anaïs know about the accusations being thrown upon her.'

'So she killed herself.'

'Killed herself before anyone else could,' Augustine repeated. 'But she was kind enough to give Jackson advanced warning, I guess. I don't think it all worked out like she wanted it to.'

'She intended for Jackson to prepare for an onslaught, but this time, he knows he has weaknesses and is afraid that something will happen to them. I don't think it would affect him as much if Lisa weren't pregnant again, but having her in a high-risk pregnancy whilst this all goes down...'

'They've been firing workers.'

'Who?'

'The World Society.'

'Are you serious?' asked Melissa, gaping. 'People I would know?'

'Maybe some of them, yeah,' replied Augustine, tipping her head and looking up at the ceiling in thought. 'Mostly administrative... oh! Did you know Merit Browning?'

'Used to be Jackson's secretary?'

'Yeah,' she said, nodding vigorously.