He looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”
He pocketed the phone, and Marianne said to me, “Sure, I can get you text files.”
She let her fingers loose on the keyboard, and a string of text messages appeared on the screen before me, hyperlinked to place markers in the video footage. And I began scrolling through the hundreds of snippets of text, looking for anything that might relate to Mollie Fischer’s abduction.
58
“Paul,” Tessa said as he approached her. “What are you doing here?” She tried to keep her voice even.
“I came to apologize.”
“Really.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know where I was?”
“One of my lawyers knows Mr. Lees, the manager. He mentioned that the FBI had showed up again and-”
“You’re almost as bad a liar as…” She hesitated. “Some people I know.”
He eyed her. “Would you believe I followed you here from your house?”
She shook her head. “Patrick would have noticed. He would have seen your car.”
Paul spoke softly. “Very few people would have.”
She stared at him questioningly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, all right, you came to apologize. So apologize.”
“There are some things we need to talk about. Can I have a seat?”
“That’s not an apology.”
“I’m sorry that I was a little overbearing at the museum.”
“A little?”
“Please?” He gestured toward the chair.
She slid her purse and still-open laptop from the chair beside her to the end table and looked away as a way of acquiescing. He sat down, then she eyed him. “I already know what you’re here to talk about-the custody thing.”
“Patrick told you.”
“Of course he told me. I’m his daughter.”
She’d chosen the word daughter on purpose and waited for Paul to dare correct her, but he just accepted it and said, “I want what’s best for you.”
“Then leave me alone. Leave us both alone. You were never a part of my life before, and we all got by just fine. I don’t like how you took advantage of my mom and I don’t like how you questioned me about Patrick. And I don’t want you around me. End of story.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but remember the letter? The one I sent to your mother when she was planning to abort you? I wanted to be a part of your life. From the very start.”
She hated to admit it, but that much was true, the letter had been unequivocal.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“You barely even knew Mom. You told me you didn’t love her. Why did you want to be a part of my life?”
“Because I’m your father.” His voice was soft, sincere.
She was quiet.
“Look,” he said. “I came here to clear the air, to tell you what I did before I went to live in Wyoming.”
“I thought you came here to apologize.”
“Both.”
“I already know what you did. You worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.”
“Not quite.”
“Oh, so that was a lie too.”
“I worked for the government.”
“Yeah? So?”
He waited as if he were expecting her to catch on.
Of course she knew that the phrase “I work for the government” was often used as a thinly veiled way to avoid admitting that you worked for the FBI or the DEA or CIA. Or maybe the ATF. You didn’t have to be a Washington insider to know that.
“What?” she said. “Are you telling me you were a spy or something? Oh, or maybe an assassin? A special forces black ops guy?” Then she leaned close and whispered, with faux admiration, “Are you the real G.I. Joe?”
He didn’t argue with her. And his silence seemed to be a way of making his case.
Enough of this.
“Either tell me what you came here to tell me or get lost.”
“I worked for the Secret Service, Tessa.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“How did I manage to follow you this morning without being seen? Without letting an experienced FBI agent notice he was being tailed?”
Patrick had no reason to think he might have a tail. Duh!
“Prove it. Show me an ID or something.”
To her surprise, Paul reached into his pocket and produced a credentials case similar to Patrick’s.
Her stepfather had been so intense about her not dating older guys that he’d taught her how to spot fake IDs, and when she studied Paul’s creds, even though they were six years out of date, they looked legit.
He tried to protect you when that sculpture shattered at the museum… He knows people at the Capitol… Used to live in DC. .. Patrick couldn’t dig up any dirt on him at all; the Secret Service could have done that-erased his record…
She gave him back the ID. “If what you’re saying is true, my mom would have told me.”
“I was in the middle of the application process when I met her. She knew that having a family, having attachments-especially children-was not… Well, let’s just say, when the government is looking for people willing to lay down their lives, they don’t want you to have any reason to hesitate.”
“And children and girlfriends are good reasons to hesitate-is that the deal?”
“Yes. The Secret Service doesn’t give the highest priority to applicants with lots of attachments.”
The vasectomy? Is that why he got it?
“So you’re saying I was a liability to your career. How nice.”
He ignored that. “I’m not sure what your mother was thinking, but I’ve always believed that she left because she wanted to protect both of us.”
“Or maybe she just didn’t want to be anywhere near you. Have you ever considered that?”
“Yes. I have.”
She eyed him. “How would it protect me? If she left you?”
“Family members of Secret Service agents are often targeted by people who might want to compromise that agent.”
Though she hated to admit it, some of what he was saying actually seemed to make sense. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
“Really? Who is Julia?”
“There is no Julia. I visited the Hirshhorn the day I flew in, chose a sculpture, and decided that its creator would be my reason to be in the city.”
“When all the while the real reason you’re here is to try to get custody of me.” She didn’t offer that as a question.
“You turn eighteen this fall. I couldn’t wait until then or it would be too late to get to know you before you moved away to live on your own.”
“You lied to me.”
“If I would have told you the truth up front, would you have agreed to see me yesterday?”
“I don’t know. But at least I’d trust you more than I do now.” As she mentioned that, she felt a slight sting of hypocrisy-after all, she’d deceived Patrick in almost the same way. And it’d probably had the same effect on him.
Paul didn’t reply.
Despite herself, she was starting to believe him. “How did you get into sculpting then?”
“I took some classes at a community college.”
That would explain why he knows, like, nothing about art and had to read all the explanatory plaques at the museum.
“So how come you live in the middle of nowhere? Were you fired from the Secret Service-and I’m not saying I believe you were ever actually in it, but if you were-were you fired or did you quit?”
“It was a mutually agreeable arrangement that I leave.”
“Explain ‘mutually agreeable arrangement.’”
He glanced around the atrium for a moment, then leaned closer and lowered his voice even more than he’d been doing for the conversation up until then. “Six years ago I was protecting Vice President Fischer when there was an attempt on his life, here, at the Lincoln Towers Hotel.”
59
Tessa said nothing.
“You were only eleven, you probably don’t remember that.”
“No. I do.”