Baltimore, Elizabeth, 2014

I keep both hands wrapped around my red plastic cup of coke. My foot tapping anxiously one the ground. Isabel sipping on her second drink as Juliet talks at us.

"Should've stayed in LA, Bess. Now I have the burden of murdering two friends." She laughs, it's cold and heartless.

"If you can just kill us, were we ever friends?" Isabel spits at her.

"Maybe not." Juliet shrugs. Her apathy foreign to me. Was she always a sociopath and I just missed it?

"Were you keeping tabs on me?" I speak up.

"I was ordered to."

"By who?" I need the information. Juliet doesn't know it yet, but I'm not planning on dying today, and I'm not going to let her kill Izzy either. She leans farther over the table.

"I think you know who." She whispers.

"You know what he did, don't you."

"Bess, what makes you think I care about what happened to you?" Isabel looks from Juliet to me, confusion written on her face. I let the insult run down my back. What he did to me won't take him down. The war crimes, however.

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Bolivia?" Understanding comes across her face.

"That was a regrettable series of events." She sounds just like Conrad. Smug and unremorseful.

"People were murdered. Innocent civilians. Children dead." Juliet doesn't respond. But Isabel seems to be putting the story together.

"George, was talking about Bolivia a couple of weeks ago. He and I ran into Henry at a restaurant and George started on about a bombing, an illegal bombing." Isabel is three steps behind me, but she's catching up.

"It was a series of bombings." I tell her.

"Elizabeth, it would be really smart of you to not accuse the President of the United States of war crimes." Juliet warns.

"Why, you're going to kill us anyway." I counter.

"Oh, Bess. You are going to kill you." Her hand goes into her pocket. When it reappears she's holding a small baggie with a white powder that I know well. My hands clench around the cup I'm holding. It's the closest I've been to my drug of choice in years. I've never once sought it out, when I wanted to get high, I called George. Oh, George.

"Did you kill George too? What's POTUS doing tying up loose ends?" I ask her. Trying my hardest to ignore the heroin in her hand.

"Do you want a straw for this?" She ignores my question.

"What did you do to George?" Isabel pipes up, finally in step with me.

"I cut his brakes, car accidents aren't hard to manufacture." I flinch. George was my best friend. He took care of me when no one else could or would. He never judged my decisions or forced me into doing something I didn't want to. He knew that my control was taken away and he gave it back to me. And when he ran into Henry unexpectedly, he led him to me. He gave me the best gift I've ever been given, a second chance.

"You don't have to do this. I'll go back to LA, pretend none of this ever happened." I reach into my pocket to retrieve the copy of my flash drive. It's one of three. I need to buy five more minutes, then my contingency plan should kick in.

"Here. It's everything I have. All of the recorded conversations, all of the photos, all of the helo manifests, all of the payloads. It's all of the proof I have. You can have it. You can destroy it. We all walk away from this table now. And everything goes back to how it was." She's thinking about it, I can tell. Her head tilts to the side and her brow slightly raises. Her own had goes into her pocket, and she reveals a small burner phone.

Pittsburgh, Henry, 2014

My reminder alarm goes off. I got a text from a blocked number before we sat down to play Monopoly with the kids.

Unknown: 6731-A Reisterstown Rd, Baltimore, MD 21215. If I don't check back in within 20 mins. Call 911 and report a fire, then hang up immediately, don't let them ask any questions.

So I set the alarm, twenty minutes. And I've waited trying to act normal. But as those twenty minutes have ticked by with no return text, my heartrate has sped up. At fifteen minutes, my fingers started tapping on the table. Willing her to text again.

"Excuse me for second guys. I gotta make a call." The kids aren't phased but Jessica looks at me hard, her eyes narrowed. But I don't have time to worry about that now. I step out onto our front porch. And dial the number.

"Yes, there's a fire at 6731-A Reisterstown Rd, Baltimore, MD 21215. Please hurry." I hang up. I send up a prayer to keep her safe. And go back inside.

I take my seat back at the coffee table and am informed that it's my turn. I roll the dice.

"Doubles! Good job daddy!" Bobby exclaims. And my worry fades a little, kids are the best medicine. Jessica is staring at me, boring holes into the side of my head.

"What was that about?" She leans over and whispers in my ear.

"Tell you later." I shrug her off, not yet fully having a believable lie in place. She looks at me with hurt and suspicion. Once again I feel guilty.

Baltimore, Elizabeth, 2014

I hear the sirens. I take a breath. I can always count on Henry. Juliet is texting. She pays no attention until the truck pulls into the parking lot. I reach into my pocket and grad the gun. Taking advantage of the chaos.

"Isabel and I are leaving now." I tell Juliet as the firefighters loudly enter the bar. Juliet jumps up reaching her face surprised. She forgot her side arm. I pull the hammer back. She looks up at met when she hears it.

"You shouldn't have brought heroin to a gun fight." I grab Isabel's arm, and we run out to my rental car. Juliet on our tails. But I speed off faster than she can, thank God I kept my keys in the ignition.