the counterintel officer too dumb to have known her husband was a Russian spy. But because of what she’d done today. Any investigation would go straight through Silver State Gaming and the Bank of Nevada, and Liz Crandall was not likely to forget this morning’s chat.
Ahh but if Crandall disappeared—Rebecca laughed loudly enough that a guy wearing a Bellagio T-shirt stared at her. She really was thinking like a perp. Witness in the way? Just get rid of her. No problem that another crime couldn’t fix.
So yeah, telling the FBI would be an instant career-ender.
Maybe she could live with that humiliation. Maybe she even deserved it. But she couldn’t live with what the truth would do to Kira. Because Kira would put the pieces together too, the fact that she’d been taken to punish Brian.
Even worse, Kira wouldn’t think of herself anymore as a survivor who had escaped on her own. She would assume Brian had cut some deal to get her out. Rebecca was almost sure the main reason Kira had put her life back together so fast was because her escape had given her back her agency, made her the hero of the story, not a victim. Instead, she’d just be the daughter of a traitor.
Option A: not so great.
Option B: Keep her mouth shut for now. In a year or two, tip the NSA anonymously. Her career would still be over, of course. And in the meantime Brian would keep doing damage. And after he was arrested Kira would probably still put the pieces together.
Option B, maybe even worse than Option A.
Option C: Keep her mouth shut. Forever. Which would be fine. Except that Brian would keep on selling out his country to the Russians. Worse, Rebecca would be complicit. Worse—worser, was worser even a word?—if he ever did get caught, and the investigators talked to Liz Crandall, they’d realize Rebecca had known. Hey, maybe she and Bri wind up sharing a cell.
Option C, a new low.
Which left Option D. Which was so foreign to her she could think of it only in flashes, not words, much less complete sentences, much less a plan.
The father of her children. Her husband. The only man she’d been with for more than twenty years.
Kill him.
The thought went against everything she knew.
And she couldn’t imagine murdering anyone in cold blood. Self-defense, him or me, okay, maybe. But premeditated murder?
Not even Brian, not even now.
Yeah, put a pin in Option D.
There had to be another way. An Option E. But she couldn’t think of one.
* * *
She flew back to Los Angeles, and then she flew home, and she spent the next ten days in a haze.
She told Brian the FBI was looking for the Russian mole at the CIA, just to see what he’d say. Probably a mistake. Though he didn’t seem to care much. She thought about putting a tracker on his car. Snooping software on his phone or computer was definitely out, he’d find it before she even finished installing it.
Mainly she waited, hoping another alternative would suggest itself. None did. Paralysis by analysis. For the first time in her life she understood why people did nothing at all in the face of bad news, how they ignored the foreclosure letter from the bank, the glassine envelope in their kid’s backpack, the call from the doctor, We really need to talk about those biopsy results.
How about not, how about we just hope they go away?
Then Brian suggested the trip.
37
Chevy Chase
Winter was almost over now. Days longer, sun chasing away the cold. Spring coming.
In Brian’s mind, a seed taking purchase. Laying down roots.
A wooden box riding a conveyor belt into a crematorium. Hot enough to burn any sin.
The body of his wife inside.
He didn’t know what Becks knew. Or if she knew anything. They hadn’t talked much the last couple of weeks. She’d been busy. Working three big cases, she said. Awfully coincidental. Then again anyone with a pulse knew the Russians were making trouble these days.
If he had to bet, he’d bet she had no idea. Mainly because he didn’t think she could act well enough to fool him. Could she still talk to him? Sleep next to him? Fuck him? Back in Houston, he’d sniffed out her little quasi-fling with the ranger right quick.
Though in Birmingham, she’d played the fat real estate guy, Draymond, played him all the way to the federal penitentiary. Becks was a straight shooter. Until she wasn’t. So yeah, he’d bet she didn’t know.