The path to the front door was paver brick, and there were three garage doors that looked like they’d been taken from a barn, an element of style that had bloomed quickly and would no doubt wilt with equal haste. At the entryway Sorensen sank an elaborate doorbell button shaped like a horseshoe. The door opened a few beats later, and the woman from the Elks Lodge picture greeted her. Jean Stewart was fiftyish, nicely groomed with ash blond highlights and summer skin. She was brightly dressed for a dull Thursday morning in yellow slacks, whose fit could not have been off the rack, a cream blouse, and laceless therapeutic shoes. She was pretty in a manufactured way, the routine battle to subtract years wherein success fell inevitably in arrears to expenditures and effort.
“Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you?”
Sorensen had spent a long night behind the wheel preparing the answer to this question, along with subsequent options based on how things progressed. She quickly flashed her CIA credentials, two fingers loosely obscuring the agency emblem, and with precise wording said, “My name is Anna Sorensen. I’ve come about your daughter, Miss Stewart.”
The use of “Miss” had been a gamble, but Sorensen saw that it didn’t matter. The woman’s smile collapsed. “Oh, God… did you find out something about Kristin? Is she all right?”
“Yes — at least, I don’t have any new information. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. This must be terribly stressful.”
A heavy sigh, then, “Please come in.”
Sorensen walked into a nicely appointed living room, and Stewart recovered quickly. “I’ve made coffee — can I get you a cup?”
“Yes, that would be lovely,” said Sorensen, although she already had the jitters.
“You people never say no.” Stewart disappeared into the kitchen.
“A little caffeine goes a long way,” Sorensen called out as her eyes wandered the room. On a stone fireplace mantel she saw framed photographs of an abbreviated family. Jean and Kristin Stewart on a ski slope. Jean and Kristin Stewart on a beach. Another with what might have been a set of grandparents, and a candid shot of a younger Kristin with a friend — they were making silly faces in the front yard of a much smaller house.
“Is Agent Smithers off duty today?” Stewart called from the kitchen. “She’s usually the one who comes.”
“I’m not sure, I just go where I’m needed. But they did give me a briefing. Perhaps if you tell me what you already know, I can fill in any gaps.”
The hostess came back with a tray presenting two cups of coffee, cream, and sugar. Sorensen took one, added cream, and began to sip, hoping Jean Stewart was the chatty type who enjoyed filling black holes of silence. She was in luck.
“It’s been a nightmare — three days now since that airplane crashed and nobody seems to know anything. All I’ve been told is that Kristin is missing.” Stewart sank into a plush sofa, the tray rattling as she set it down. Her hands began to grapple and she forced them into her lap. “I don’t know how much more I can take. Kristin is all I’ve got — all I’ve ever had. Do you have children, Miss Sorensen?”
“No, not yet. But I’m hopeful.”
“You always hear that there’s nothing worse than losing a child. You nod like you understand when it happens to a friend of a friend, but let me tell you…” She rubbed one eye, trying to hold herself together. “You can never understand until it becomes real.”
Sorensen was sitting on the couch next to Stewart, and she took her hand. As a CIA officer, she was well schooled in contrived gestures. This wasn’t one of them. “You haven’t lost her. There’s still hope.”
“Hope?” Stewart said, her voice breaking. “A tiny airplane goes down in a jungle and everyone is dead, only they can’t find my daughter’s body. You call that hope?”
“Remember, she’s not the only one. There are two girls missing.”
Stewart’s eyes darted up. “What?”
“Nobody told you that?” Sorensen asked, trying to cover her mistake.
“No. I was just told that Kristin had gone missing, that they hadn’t… hadn’t found her in the wreckage.”
Sorensen’s first impression of Jean Stewart had been that of a shallow soul, a woman of vanity and appearances. Now she thought she might be off track. Perhaps this was a woman battling for sanity, clutching elements of normalcy in the face of a mother’s ultimate horror. Looking into a pair of tortured blue eyes, Sorensen no longer had the will to keep up false pretenses.
“I should explain something,” she said. “I’m not with the Secret Service.”
The damp eyes fell puzzled.
“I’m here on the behalf of a man who—”
“Not—” Stewart stuttered, “not Secret Service?” In a transformation that took Sorensen completely by surprise, Stewart’s pain went instantly to anger. “You’re a goddam reporter!” she shouted. “Get the hell out of my house!” She jumped up from the couch and pointed firmly to the door.
“No! No, I’m not a reporter. I work for a different government agency. I—”
Stewart drew a cell phone from her pocket and placed a call. Two touches, like a number on speed-dial. “The number I am calling is not 911! Security will be here in less than a minute. For your own safety, you had better leave!”
“I’m with the CIA!” said Sorensen, pulling out her credentials and displaying them more openly than the first time.
Stewart held fast with her phone, and when the connection was made, she said, “I need help!” She lowered the phone and ignored Sorensen’s ID. “Out!” she repeated, grabbing Sorensen’s elbow and shoving her toward the door.
“All right!” Sorensen said, jerking her elbow away. “Just listen for thirty seconds, then I’ll go if that’s what you want.”
Stewart stood back, venom in her gaze.
“Does the name Thomas Mulligan mean anything to you?”
A hesitation, but no denial.
“He was on that flight with your daughter, and he died. Did the Secret Service tell you how?” Sorensen saw the first crack.
“Thomas was a good man,” Stewart said. “He was there to protect Kristin. But he died in the crash like the others.”
“No, not like the others. Thomas Mulligan was shot twice through the heart.”
Stewart looked at her, stunned.
“There are two girls missing from that flight,” Sorensen continued. “I can’t say that I know what’s it’s like to be in your position, to have a child who might be in mortal danger, or possibly already dead. But I know a man who is in exactly the same position as you — the father of the other missing girl. It just so happens he’s an aircraft accident investigator, and he’s in Colombia right now scouring the jungle for both of them. When he learned about Thomas Mulligan, he called me for help because he doesn’t understand what the hell is going on. My friend is doing his damnedest to find his daughter and yours. But to do that he needs to know why your daughter is getting protection from the United States Secret Service.”
A rush of footsteps on the pavement outside. Sorensen’s eyes remained locked on Stewart as she said, “Jen Davis. That’s the other girl’s name. A nineteen-year-old student with a bright future and a frantic father. Help us, Jean! Help us find them both. Why is your daughter so important?”
Hard footfalls on the front porch. Then a commanding female voice. “Miss Stewart, it’s Special Agent Smithers! Are you all right?”