CHAPTER THREE
The drive to D.C. was long and uneventful. We hit traffic at Quantico, then finally got there in about four and a half hours. We parked in front of a nondescript government building, and everyone got out of the van. Liam was the last to hop out. He turned to me, holding out his hand to assist me in jumping down. I took his hand gratefully. When I was safely on the asphalt, he let go of my hand and wiped his palm on his pants. I looked up at the building in trepidation. What was in store for me here?
At Liam's urging, I followed the marshals through the front doors into the lobby. There was a significant security area at the front of the hall, but we got fast-tracked through that after the marshals showed their badges. After we walked through security, I was taken to an empty waiting room while Liam and the other marshals went off in separate directions.
I sat alone in the waiting room for an hour, anxious and bored out of my mind. There was a television in the waiting room, but it was playing the golf channel, so I almost wished there hadn't been a television at all. I didn't have a cell phone to play with, and I still really had to pee. All I could do was lean my head back and try to take a nap. I was just starting to drift off to sleep when a woman wearing a pantsuit approached me with clicking heels.
“Ms. Jones?" she asked, looking down at me kindly. I looked up and nodded. "Hi, I'm Sandra. Follow me, please." I stood up and followed her, walking quickly to keep up with her brisk pace. She stopped at a keypad on the wall and swiped her badge. The light went from red to green, and she ushered me through the doorway into a long hallway which was lined with more doors. Sandra slid her badge again at the furthest door on the right and opened the door for me. Inside was a spartan bedroom equipped with a toilet, a sink, a bed, and a trunk laid out at the side of the bed. It looked more like a jail cell than a bedroom to me.
“Go ahead and settle in here, and someone will be along shortly to retrieve you,” Sandra said from behind me.
“Settle in?" I asked, turning to look at Sandra, but she had already turned on her heel and left the room. I turned back to look around at my jail cell, but there wasn't anything to see. I sat down on the bed and eyed the toilet. Did I have enough time to empty my incredibly full bladder before someone barged in on me? I decided to risk it because it was pretty much an emergency at this point. Thankfully, no one came in while I was relieving myself, and I quickly zipped my pants back up.
I eyed the trunk, wondering what was in it. I could check, but I didn’t want to get caught snooping around in a federal facility. I sat down on the bed and looked around. Was this where I was going to hide out for the week? The thought was incredibly unappealing.
After a half hour of staring at the wall, curiosity got the better of me. I knelt down in front of the trunk and lifted the heavy lid, peering in. It was filled with clothing and shoes. There was a parka on the top of the pile, resting on a snowsuit and some fleece-lined boots, all in my size. I lifted the parka, inspecting it. I was interrupted by a knock and the door swinging open. I dropped the coat quickly when Liam walked in.
“Hey," I said, looking at him guiltily. What if I wasn't supposed to be rifling through this trunk? Liam didn't say anything about it though, so I wasn't about to mention it.
“Hey,” he said. “Settling in well?”
“As well as I can, I guess,” I replied. “Not much to settle into though.” I looked around the barren room.
“Well, it's only for the night, so I think you'll survive," Liam said, sitting down on the bed. He shifted his belt and his gun and badge readjusted themselves. I didn't miss the way those jeans stretched over his groin, and I quickly raised my eyes back to his face, hoping Liam hadn't caught my stare. Judging by the quirk of his eyebrow, he had.
“This is just for tonight?” I asked in relief. “Thank goodness. I thought I’d have to stay an entire week in this prison cell.”
Liam shook his head. "No. My director will tell you all about your placement. Hopefully, you'll find that place more comfortable than this." He stood, pulling his belt up and shimmying it around his waist distractingly. "You're to come with me so I can get you briefed and ready to leave tomorrow morning."
“Okay," I said, following him to the doorway. Liam stopped short to pull the door open, and I smacked into the center of his back. "Oof. Sorry." He looked back down at me in annoyance, and I smiled up at him apologetically. He didn't return my smile.
Liam strode out into the hall, pulled out his key card badge, and swiped the lock on the door at the end of the hallway. I followed him through a maze of corridors, turning left twice, right three times, left again, until I lost track of where we were going. We finally arrived at a large double doorway. Liam swiped once more, then held the door open for me. I walked through and stared.
It was a large room that looked like the backstage dressing room for a Broadway show. It was so surreal and out of place in this lifeless federal building that I did a double-take. Was I still dreaming? There were small groups of people bustling around, getting things ready, rolling racks of clothing across the floor, wrapping up cords to hair dryers, sweeping up bits of hair next to barber chairs. I looked up at Liam, who was gazing out over the room as if this was business as usual.
“What is this place?" I asked. Liam looked back down at me and gave me a long perusal. He frowned when his gaze got to my hair. He frowned and I touched my hair self-consciously.
“It’s where we’re going to give you a new identity,” came a new voice from my left. I swung around to face the man striding forward with his hand outstretched. I shook it bemusedly. “I’m Chief Inspector John McIntyre, Senior Inspector Sullivan’s boss. You’re in safe hands here. Follow me, please, and I'll apprise you of your situation and what we're going to do to keep you safe." I looked up at Liam, who nodded and followed Chief Inspector McIntyre to a room off to the side. There was a side table with a coffee pot and a long table with four chairs in the room. I helped myself to some coffee and sat down.
“Now, Ms. Jones, you are in a perilous situation, and for us to keep you safe, we need your full cooperation. Understand?" Chief Inspector McIntyre asked. I nodded over my cup of coffee as I nervously fingered the paper edges of the cup. McIntyre slid a thick file folder towards me, which I grabbed and opened. "You have been targeted by a brilliant, very connected serial killer. Until he is in custody, you will no longer be Kelsey Jones. You are now Agnes Day."
I looked up at him and wrinkled my nose. “Agnes? Am I also a ninety-year-old knitting aficionado?”
McIntyre looked back at me humorlessly. “You’d better get used to being called Agnes, Mrs. Day.”
“Mrs. Day?" I asked. "Am I married in this new scenario?"
Liam cleared his throat. “Yes, Agnes Day is married.”
“Oh,” I said. “When do I get to meet my dearly beloved?”
“I'm going to be your husband," Liam stated, with a similar humorless tone to McIntyre's. Man, these guys sure took life and death situations seriously. I wasn't wholly opposed to the idea of shacking up with Liam for a week, but his seriousness would get old fast.
“You two are going to take a flight to Langdon Falls, New Hampshire at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. From the moment you step off that flight until the moment you board your return flight, you are Agnes Day, housewife to Amos Day, a carpenter. You and your husband are from Florida on vacation in New Hampshire. You are to avoid making any personal ties with the townspeople, but if they ask, this is your cover story. Langdon Falls has a tiny population, only about a thousand people, so it shouldn't be too hard to avoid people." McIntyre looked at me, assessing. "How attached are you to your hair? It's very distinctive."
A wave of horror rose in me. I’d been growing out my mane of wavy blonde hair for the better part of ten years. I was pretty damn attached to it. “Um, I would rather not change it.”
“Would you rather die with a pretty head of hair or live with slightly different hair?" McIntyre asked wryly. I considered this, truly not knowing the answer. "I'll put it this way- you've got no choice. Full cooperation, Mrs. Day." I slumped in my seat, dreading whatever they were going to do to my coif. "Take this file and memorize it."
I took the file hesitantly, trying one last time to save my hair. “If I’m only going to be in hiding for a week, is all of this really necessary?” I asked.
“A week is just a rough estimate. This could last anywhere from a week to ten years." With that, McIntyre stood up and walked towards the door. He held it open, indicating that he wanted Liam and me to exit. We walked through the doorway and into the large open space, where a team of Marshals was standing near the barber chair. McIntyre gave me a curt nod and left.
“I’ll be back shortly to pick you up.” Liam inclined his head to me and turned on his heel, following behind McIntyre.
“Looking forward to it, Amos,” I said, waving goodbye to him. I turned to my makeover team with distrust. “What are you going to do to me?”
A woman with brown hair tied tightly back in a bun stepped forward. “I’m Linda, your stylist for the evening.” Linda pursed her lips, assessing me. “Your eyes and lips are pretty distinctive, and you have beautiful hair,” she said. “Unfortunately, we can’t do much about your face, but we can cut and dye your hair to make you less of a knockout.”
“Dye my hair?" I asked. I'd never in my life considered dying my hair. I was cringing at the thought of permanently damaging it. I did agree to full cooperation, though, so I sighed, inwardly accepting whatever was coming to me. "Okay, do your worst." Linda smiled.
“I’m thinking chocolate brown. And we’ll cut it.” I was pushed gently into the barber chair and had an apron thrown across my chest. Linda swiftly gathered my waist-length hair into a ponytail. I watched in horror as she raised a pair of shears and cut off the ponytail, leaving me with shoulder-length jagged edges. “This should be good enough. Unless you want to go shorter?” she asked, looking into my eyes from the mirror. I shook my head rapidly. “Okay, time to clean up the edges, then get this mop dyed.” She winked at me. I tried to hold back my tears. I knew it was vain, but I had loved my hair.
While she cleaned up my edges, Linda chattered away, trying to make conversation with me. I tried to answer and keep up with the conversation, but I was distracted by the gnawing dread growing in my belly. Somehow changing my physical appearance had made this situation feel more real, more so than being whisked away in a van or seeing Jack’s face on the television. I shook my head slightly to clear my thoughts and tried to focus on whatever Linda was chatting about now.
After my haircut was cleaned up, Linda took me over to a sink, where she worked dark hair dye through my strands. She wrapped the hair in a shower cap, and I was instructed to sit there for a half hour. Linda sat down next to where I was twisting my fingers. She grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“Listen, I know this is scary. I don’t know the particulars of your situation, but I’ve seen quite a few people come through this building. Ninety percent of them are criminals themselves, but that other ten percent, innocent people like you, they all have that same look on their face. It’s fear of the unknown. Sullivan is one of our best marshals, and he will make sure that you’re completely safe out there. You have nothing to worry about.”
I gave her a grateful smile and nodded. "This situation is just so surreal. I went into real estate law to avoid the drama and intrigue of criminal law."
Linda’s lips upturned. “Well, sometimes drama and intrigue find you despite your best efforts.” She squeezed my hand again. “Now let’s get that dye washed out of your hair and see what you look like as a brunette.” I leaned back over the sink as she washed all the dye out. I closed my eyes as her fingers worked through my hair, massaging my scalp. She wrung my hair out, then sat me up and ran a blow dryer through my hair. Turning me around to face the mirror, Linda let out a low whistle.
“Damn, girl, even dyeing your beautiful hair doesn't even the playing field for us regular women." I rolled my eyes at the praise and inspected my new hair. It was insane how just changing the color of your hair thoroughly changes your appearance. The brown hair didn't look as mousy as I'd expected. Instead, it made me look exotic, especially when paired with my pale blue eyes and lips.
“Do you think I look like Angelina Jolie?” I asked, looking up at Linda hopefully.
“Don't press your luck," she said. I laughed, then looked over my shoulder at the sound of footsteps approaching. It was Liam, holding a suitcase. He eyed my hair silently but didn't comment. I was a little disappointed by this, but didn't want to examine that feeling just yet. I smiled brightly, ignoring his frown.
“Take this and go through it tonight. We’re wheels up at eight tomorrow morning, so be ready to go by seven,” Liam said, holding out the suitcase.
“Sure thing, Amos,” I said, accepting them. “Hey, am I going to get fed? I’m starving.”
Liam nodded. “Follow me.” I hopped off the barber chair as Liam led the way, waving goodbye at Linda as we walked. We walked back through the maze of hallways, eventually coming back to my room. Inside, someone had placed a tray with a sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of water on the bed. This gesture didn't help to dispel the prisonlike ambiance.
“Inside that suitcase, you'll find your new burner cell phone. There are two numbers programmed in there- mine and McIntyre's. That should be all you need. Don't call any family members or friends on that phone. We don't need anything linking you to this." Liam stared at me. "Got it?"
I nodded. “No personal calls, I got it.” I clasped the suitcase tightly. “Anything else?”
Liam stared at me for a beat, seeming to be on the verge of saying something. “No, that’s all,” he said in a clipped voice. “Make sure you’re ready tomorrow morning.”
“Good night!” I called to his back. He waved his hand in the air, but didn’t turn to look at me. Spending the week with Mr. Personality was going to be fun.
I closed the door to my room and flopped down on the bed, eyeing my food tray. I was so famished that even jail food looked appealing. I scarfed the food and chugged my water, placing all my trash neatly back on my tray. I stared up at the ceiling, desperately trying to fall asleep. My thoughts went wild though, and I stayed awake for hours, contemplating all the different scenarios that could play out once we hit New Hampshire.
I hope this Sullivan guy is good at his job.