“Why are you bringing up your military service? Is that supposed to impress me?” Kassidy asked, and her accent thickened as her anger grew. “All men in Finland are required to serve in our military, so your service has no effect on me.”
“Look, Kassidy, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here,” I said, trying to suppress my exasperation. It wasn’t like me to allow someone under my skin so quickly. “I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable in any way, or been the cause of this conversation veering off track so quickly.”
“Thank you,” Kassidy said, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement drew my eyes downwards, before I snapped them back up a moment later.
“You’re welcome.”
“So what happens now?” she asked, more calmly than before. That fire was still there, though, hovering just below the surface.
“Now I investigate them,” I said, glad that I’d at least temporarily salvaged things between us.
“And you don’t want me to pass off any other information I learn?”
“No. Honestly, I’d rather you not interact with them at all.”
“That’s not an option. It’s part of my job,” she said, and again, her accent was just the slightest bit thicker in her annoyance.
“Is that the only reason you plan to keep contact with them?” I asked, poking at her just a little.
“Why would you ask that? What other reason could there possibly be?” she responded, and I studied her.
“I can’t think of any other reasons,” I said. “But at the same time, I can’t help questioning why you’re being so defensive. It almost feels like this is too important to you. Are you sure you haven’t heard from Paradise Cruises since your meeting?”
Her eyes suddenly flashed with indignity, and she stood up. “This meeting is over.”
I sighed, running my hands through my hair, trying to buy myself a few more moments to gather my thoughts and attempt to turn this meeting around for a second time. As I studied her, though, I noticed something I hadn’t before. Her hands were shaking.
Why were her hands shaking?
The only reason I could think of was that Kassidy was afraid of something. Yes, she was filled with heat and fire at that moment, doing an excellent job of standing up for herself, which told me that I wasn’t what she was afraid of. I also doubted she was afraid of the FBI in general. She wouldn’t have reported the trafficking to the FBI if she was part of it or if she was worried about drawing our attention to herself.
That led me to the most logical conclusion: That she was afraid of Paradise Cruises. And if she was scared, it was because of something bigger than just working with them and anonymously reporting them. Those actions wouldn’t put her in danger. So if I had to guess, she was scared because she was doing something she shouldn’t, something she hadn’t told me about, and she was worried about what Paradise Cruises would do if they found out.
While I could only speculate about some things, there was one thing I knew for sure. This was not the woman I remembered from Afghanistan. What had she been through in the past few years to make her into this frightened, defensive shell of herself. What happened to the fearless woman who’d faced an attack and a blackout in Afghanistan without fear, and had taken care of those around her? How did the Kassidy who barely blinked an eye when a bomb detonated nearby, turn into this Kassidy, whose hands shook and accent thickened during a conversation? I didn’t think any less of her for the changes I saw, but I wanted to know why. I wanted to remove everything in her life that scared or upset her, because I’d seen who she was and what she could do when she wasn’t afraid.
“No, this meeting isn’t over,” I responded. I stood as well, and the atmosphere inside her small office became tense as we faced off against one another.
“Do I need to call the police to escort you out?” she asked me, her eyes narrowed.
“Do I need to arrest you for interfering with a federal investigation?” I shot back. When she didn’t answer, I kept going, but softened my tone. “You’re the one who contacted the FBI, Kassidy. You’re the one who asked us for help. Please let us help you. Please let me help you.”
As the seconds ticked by, she didn’t speak, but I watched her closely. I could almost see the wheels turning, considering what to do. Eventually, I saw her begin to relax, and I knew she was going to give me the rest—the information she’d been hiding.
Unfortunately, it was at that moment that my phone rang, the sound shrill and ear-piercing in the small room. The noise interrupted Kassidy’s almost-admission, and I watched her shut down, every emotion disappearing from her face. I yanked my phone from my pocket, silently cursing the bad timing of the call, but when I saw the caller ID, dread filled me. It was my younger sister, Ava, and if she was calling during work hours, it could only be bad news.
“Sorry, ma’am, I’ve got to take this. Give me one second,” I said to Kassidy before turning my back to her. “Hey, sis. What’s up?”
I heard Ava sniffling on the other end of the line, even before she spoke. “Dad put mom in the hospital,” she said, and my mood changed from frustration to rage in an instant. I took a deep breath as I tried to stay in control.
“Are you and Olivia okay?” I asked first, needing to make sure that she and my niece were safe. My sister no longer lived in the home we’d grown up in, but she was living just a few minutes away with her daughter, and her worthless husband, who wouldn’t lift a hand, even if the women around him were being hurt. There was a chance Ava had been at our parents’ house when our dad lashed out, and that she had tried to intervene.
“Olive and I are fine; we weren’t here when it happened,” Ava answered my unspoken question as well as my spoken one, “but they had to put mom in a coma until the swelling in her brain goes down.”
As I realized just how serious our mom’s injury was, I felt my entire world drop out from under me, and it took an extraordinary effort not to fly apart in Kassidy’s office while on the phone with my sister. I had to be stronger than that, though. My sister was depending on me.
“I’ll be on the first plane there,” I promised her.
4
KASSIDY
I watched Evan rush out of my office, fear written all over his face, and I couldn’t help but feel for him. I’d heard enough of his phone call to know that his mom was hurt, and that he was worried about his sister. I was concerned about them too, even without knowing exactly what was going on. And it told me a lot about Evan, that he loved his family so much that he’d immediately drop everything to get to them.
That wasn’t the only reason I felt so attuned to his emotions, though. When he called me ma’am, just like he had five years ago, I finally realized who Evan was. I was shocked it took me so long to figure it out; My only excuses were that we’d spent most of our time together in darkness, and that he now had a good deal of facial hair, as opposed to the smoothly-shaven look he’d sported five years ago. I wondered if he recognized me as well, or if he’d forgotten all about my existence years ago. Either way, he was my Evan, the one I’d thought of more than I cared to admit over the past few years.