I spend the next four days in a small FBI office in Portland.

I talk to psychologists and various agents who all start to look the same, reiterating my story over and over and over. They’re especially interested in the hot-shot attorney guy. I find out his name is Bradford Stone. Apparently, the parents tried to run a con on him, but it backfired and then he was blackmailing them for money and/or Paige, who they couldn’t give up because they needed her for their trust-fund scam.

“They really thought Paige would turn eighteen and just hand over the money?” I ask Agent Sparks.

She shrugs. “Maybe they hoped to ransom her. Or blackmail her.”

Hanging with the feds is actually not too bad. Agent Sparks is fairly young, only twenty-eight, and she’s nicer than I imagined an FBI agent would be to a young con like me. After the first day, we almost come to some sort of understanding of one another. I wouldn’t say we’re friends, she’s not like Tabby, but we get along.

She stays in a hotel with me, adjoining rooms, and we get room service every night. Every day I tell her, everyone else at the small office, and more people via conference and video call everything I know about everything that happened in Castle Cove. I even tell them about my childhood and young adult life. Over and over again. Then there’s paperwork that has to be signed, statements, you name it.

On the third day, I see Bradford Stone. They bring him in and I have to ID him as the man I saw with my parents the night they made Paige act as a cocktail waitress. Also the same person I saw loitering around the gala the other night.

“You have a good memory for details,” Agent Sparks tells me. “And it’s impressive how you pieced information together.”

I shrug. “I’ve adapted.”

Once they have gathered enough information and done their own research and hacking, they have enough evidence to nail the parents. For good. Or for at least twenty years in a federal penitentiary. They don’t tell me all the details, but I pick up enough.

I even learn their real names: Donna and Alan Crowley.

And just like that, I have a last name. Charlotte Crowley. Once I’m alone, I repeat the name out loud a few times, the syllables foreign and awkward against my tongue. I’m not sure what I had hoped for, exactly, but even saying the name over and over doesn’t lend me any sense of possession. More like they belong to someone else, some other Charlotte.

As for the parents, they have such innocuous names. Donna and Alan. Not that I really expected them to be named Beelzebub and Medusa, but I expected something a little less . . . normal.

“Do you want to talk to your parents before we’re done with all this?” Agent Sparks keeps asking me.

No, I don’t want to see them. Ever.

Agent Sparks shares information with me when we’re at the hotel and away from the office. She can’t tell me everything, but she probably discloses more than she should.

Father was raised as a con artist, just like me. But his parents were charged and imprisoned when he was fourteen. He was sent to live with an uncle who used him as a drug runner. When the uncle also went to prison, Father was tossed around from foster home to foster home before finally aging out of the system and starting up his own rackets.

Agent Sparks thinks it’s rather amazing he didn’t get caught himself, or turn into some kind of druggie. Most do, apparently. Her eyes are sad when she tells me that, and it makes me wonder about the things she has to deal with on a daily basis.

He met Mother when he was running a con on her parents. This part I already knew, but Agent Sparks adds some details that put the old story in a new light.

It’s true that Mother was raised by a wealthy family, but it sounds as though they were just as crooked as Father’s, albeit in a more white-collar way. Her father was a banker who allegedly laundered money for the mafia, and she was raised by a string of nannies. When Father and Mother first met, they had an instant connection. They understood each other, despite his more rugged upbringing. She helped him con her parents and then they ran away together. They’ve been running ever since.

I was an accident. I knew that. I am their biological daughter, but they didn’t want children.

Then came Paige. Or, really, Andrea.

Mother was already pretending to be pregnant for a con when they saw the article about Andrea’s parents in the paper. It was perfect. They took her and pretended she was theirs. After all, who would suspect them when she’d had a pregnant belly for months? They moved so much anyway, we left the area before Paige was more than six months old. It explains why they kept her relatively secluded. They raised her as their own, treating her better than they did me.

“Why is that?” I wonder aloud.

“Andrea was their ticket to wealth. Their retirement plan, so to speak. Plus, they may have some degree of self-hatred. Maybe they projected those feelings onto you, while Andrea, who doesn’t carry their DNA, embodies something better. A better life. A kinder world.”

Agent Sparks also explains a few other pieces I had been wondering about. Namely, Ruby. When Jackson Murphy, the accountant, had been trying to reach me, it was to let me know that she was coming back early. Apparently, her time with the Maharishi was cut short when he had to leave for speaking engagements on some kind of world tour.

Anyway, the whole FBI debriefing thing isn’t bad, especially since it becomes clear fairly quickly that they aren’t throwing the book at me. But I miss Paige. And Jared.

And Tabby, but that doesn’t last as long.

I only have one more day left in Portland. Agent Sparks and I are sitting on the couch in my hotel room, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show and eating room service, when there’s a knock at the door.

We look at each other. “Did you order any more food?” she asks.

“No.”

She gets up to check it out. Her hand unsnaps the gun always at her side, but she doesn’t pull it out of the holster. Looking through the keyhole, she releases a muttered curse.

She opens the door, but I can’t see beyond her frame. “I’ve told you at least twenty times to leave me alone. How did you find us?”

“What? Like it was supposed to be hard?” I recognize the voice. “You told me that once you caught the bad guy I could see her. Well you caught him. And here I am.”

It’s true, Agent Sparks told me that just today Bradford Stone was taken into federal custody. But there’s been no press release. The FBI hasn’t had a chance to throw one together yet.

“How did you—” Agent Sparks throws up her hands and moves back as Tabby shoves through the doorway. “Your friend is remarkably persistent. I’ll be next door if you need me.”

She disappears back into the adjoining room, leaving the door open an inch.

Tabby is here. She’s here. She’s wearing the same colorful top and jeans she had on when I first met her, except this time, instead of holding a casserole and standing on Ruby’s porch, she’s hovering near the door, as determined as I’ve ever seen her.

“Tabby what are you—”

“Do you know how hard it is to get an FBI agent to crack? It’s like trying to nail jelly to a tree.”

I laugh and some of my tension eases. She must not hate me. She’s here, she’s making jokes. No matter what else I’ve lost, if I still have a friend, that’s . . . everything. “But you managed it.”

She smiles. “You’re damn right I did.” She still hasn’t moved away from the entryway.

I clasp my hands together in front of me and meet her eyes. “I’m so sorry. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had, and I lied to you. You have every right to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” She finally walks into the room and plops on the couch, right next to where I’m still standing. “I’ll forgive you, but only if you spill it all. And give me the rest of your fries. And any time we play games, you have to let me win.”

Laughing, I sit next to her. “Is that it?”

“And you have to name your first child after me.”

“Even if it’s a boy?”

Her lips purse and her eyes narrow at me. “Especially then.”

“Done.”

Her lips grow into a wide grin and she leans over and hugs me.

 

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

The next day, my last day with the FBI, Agent Sparks takes me to see my parents at the local county jail, where they’re awaiting extradition.

I need closure after all. I need to let go of my past so I can have a future.

It’s like the movies. There’s a booth with a glass window and a phone that we have to use to talk through.

When I get there, only Mother comes out to see me.

She’s not wearing an orange jumpsuit or anything, just a plain black T-shirt and blue jeans. There’s no makeup on her face, and her hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail. She looks small and vulnerable, less of an imposing figure than I could ever imagine her being.

I wonder if she’s always been this way and I just saw what I wanted. Has my perception changed, or has she?

Maybe both.

When she picks up the handset, I expect her to say something terrible. Really lay into me with the guilt trips and anger, but instead she says in a low voice, “I’m surprised you came.”

“I am, too. I wasn’t going to.”

“Your father couldn’t make it.” She averts her eyes, her fingers fiddling with the phone cord.

And then we’re silent for more than a few seconds, sort of sizing each other up, each passing second increasing in awkwardness.

And then I have to ask. “Why did you keep the birth certificate? Why not get rid of the evidence of Paige’s birth when you knew it could be used against you? Why remind me of the safe to begin with? It was intentional, wasn’t it?”

She swallows and meets my eyes. “Being in the game isn’t easy, as you know. You’re always on the run. Always looking behind you. Always making plans and covering tracks. It was exciting when I was younger but . . . it was time for it to be over.”

Her words floor me. “You wanted to get caught?”

She shrugs. “We were in over our heads. It was too much. Everything had spiraled out of control.”

I know the feeling.

“Your father doesn’t know.” She lowers her voice, as if he might hear her. “He never had anyone who loved him but me, you know.”

I don’t really understand the comment. Is she making excuses for him?

There are things she’s not telling me. About why she was done. Did she do it to protect us? Maybe even a little bit?

I don’t know what to say to her, but I don’t have to because she keeps talking.

“I know we won’t get out of this, no matter how much your father promises me he has it all figured out. Will you come see me sometime? Maybe bring Paige, too?”

“I don’t know.” How could I? I’ve spent the last three months running from them and now she wants me to spend time with them willingly? Even just Mother? I guess it helps if they’re behind bars. I don’t think I can forgive them, but I have to move forward.

I wouldn’t be here if Mother hadn’t tipped me off about the safe. I bet she even left the car door unlocked on purpose. And all the breaks they kept giving me, when she convinced Father to give me more time . . .

I know eventually I have to make peace with them, even if only in my own mind and heart.

I leave the courthouse a bundle of damaged nerves. All raw sensation and exposed underbelly. Agent Sparks takes me back to the hotel and we order cheeseburgers and raid the mini fridge. I don’t know what to think about anything anymore, but I’m glad I talked to my mom. I have to make peace with my past. It’s part of who I am.

It’s my last night. Tomorrow, they’re releasing me back into the wild. Or, you know, back to Castle Cove. I’ve been avoiding all thoughts of Jared and what’s going to happen when I go back, or where I’m going to stay and what I’m going to do. I have to go back, though. Paige is there. Even if I can’t have her, even if I can’t see her, even if I have to sleep on the street, I’m going to find a way to stay close.

“What am I going to do now?” I ask Agent Sparks.

“Have you ever considered a career in law enforcement?”