The Girl She Used to Be (5 page)

M-E-L-O-D-Y G-R-A-C-E M-C-C-A-R-T-N-E-Y.

Sean groans under his breath; he knows what’s coming next.

“A few minutes later the aide disappeared. Ninety minutes after that, I was grabbed off the playground and tossed into the
back of a Chevy van, flanked by three of your finest along with my ghost-white parents.”

Sean winces. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you. How long had you lived in Arkansas?”

“About five weeks. We lived in a motel outside Texarkana while waiting for you guys to set up our new identities for a longer
period of time—almost two months.”

I turn to look out the window and groan under my breath. Man, I hated that place. Not Arkansas, mind you—the motel. I always
despised the motel phase. I remember being so bored, so lonely. There was nothing to do, no kids to play with, no toys. I
would just sit around and watch television and pray that my parents would have a few free minutes to talk to me or read to
me or play with me. But they were busy, always busy, with what they gently termed
big guy stuff
.

I turn back to Sean. “I felt bad, though—even then. I sort of knew what I’d done, even though it was unintentional. My dad
had just gotten a new job—as a warehouse foreman, a significant departure from his career as a senior chemist for Pfizer—and
we were just on the verge of getting settled… and I accidentally threw it all away.”

“I’m sure your parents didn’t blame you.”

“No, they didn’t, as a matter of fact.” I look down and whisper under my breath. “At least, not at first.”

“What do you mean?”

Ignoring Sean’s follow-up, I glance out the window and see a road sign that reads POCOMOKE CITY
and it occurs to me that I know neither what road we’re on nor where we’re heading—and worse, I don’t even care.

I undo my seat belt and twist in my seat and prop my leg up; Sean and I are distorted mirror images of one another.

I try to think of something to continue a lighter conversation, to enjoy this tenuous form of company, but the weight of the
day rushes in and sleep is again forcing itself upon me. Just on the verge of dozing, I accidentally tip over, drop my head
to Sean’s shoulder, fall into his embrace like a lover. He gently places his hands on me, one on my head and one on my neck,
and pulls me down to his chest where I rest—awake—for a long time, long enough for the other deputy to have brought us to
the fringe of the Commonwealth of Virginia. I have not enjoyed the smell and feel of a strong man enveloping me since my father
passed away, and I decide I will not leave this position until I am asked to.

The car comes to a stop and the engine is turned off; we have either reached our destination or someone needs to get a drink
or relieve himself. I open my eyes and see the red sheen of a Sheetz convenience store sign beam into the car and, though
thankful we are still on the road, I realize I must lift my head.

Sean casually strokes my hair—fixing it, really—as he stiffens his back, stretching.

“You need anything?” he asks.

I shake my head. “We almost there?”

“Another hour.”

The deputy gets back in the Explorer and the air that rushes in is warm and moist and the smell of the sea remains long after
the door has closed. My command of typically useless rudimentary math finally comes in handy: 4.5 hours, heading south, at
an average forty-five miles per hour, with two five-minute breaks. Then I factor in the smell.

“Virginia Beach?”

Sean laughs. “Close.” The other deputy tosses him a pack of Hostess CupCakes. “We’re not crossing the Chesapeake. We’ll be
staying at the end of the Delmarva Peninsula, in a town called Cape Charles.”

Never heard of it, and I’m not surprised. I do know this much, though: The town will consist of a smattering of fast-food
joints, a couple of gas stations, maybe a bank; the motel in town, the
only
motel, will be a dump; the rooms will have old, noisy radiators and the walls will be thin and I will be able to hear the
conversations in the neighboring rooms, including the phone calls of the marshal who is protecting me, who is complaining
of me, who is wishing he was home, because he has a home, and there is no place like home.

Sean wrestles with the wrapper and I catch the waft of synthetic cream-filled cake. “Do they have the orange ones in there?”
The two guys look at each other. I smile and say, “Sorry.” Out goes the driver.

Your tax dollars hard at work. Again.

Sean shoves half a cupcake into his mouth and stares inside the Sheetz. After a mighty gulp, he says, “You really want to
know why I left the FBI?” In goes the rest of the cupcake.

In all my years on the run, this is the first time a marshal has ever offered one shred of personal info; I seize. “Sure.”

Sean responds with a laugh, as though preparing me for a naive notion. “I joined the Bureau because I wanted to help people—
protect
people. Kids, mostly. Take down child abusers and child pornographers.”

“Certainly noble.” I catch his eye. “Were you successful?”

He shrugs a little and wipes his lips. “Somewhat. We nailed some bad guys, closed some rings. We were gaining some momentum.”

“
Were
? What happened?”

“Nine-eleven happened. Suddenly, the only thing anyone cared about was terrorism.”

“They cut your team?”

“That was only part of it. All the prestige and excitement had shifted to working on the terrorism cases. I’d get guys on
my team who were annoyed to be there. Heaven forbid you got detailed on the Ashcroft porn cases, where you were going after
illegal pornography. Most of those agents were whining all the time, calling themselves the porn police. You know, the
why are we worried about porn when our country is in danger
sort of thing.” He turns and looks into the Sheetz again. “Once you’ve seen the crap I’ve seen, you quickly realize our country
has been in danger long before the towers came down. Just because it’s not biological or chemical doesn’t mean it’s not a
poison.”

Sean ends his rant and I watch our driver jog back to the car. The deputy hops in the front seat and tosses the cupcakes in
my general direction and they fall to the floor. I pick them up and ask for a napkin but he ignores me and pulls onto the
road. Sean hands me a half-empty pack of tissues.

Though I know in my gut the reason Sean joined WITSEC was to continue to protect people, I ask, “So your solution was to leave
the FBI and abandon the effort of ridding the world of abusers and pornographers altogether?” I unwrap my beauteous imitation-orange-flavored
treat and wait for him to answer.

He snickers, like I could never understand his plight, and raises his cupcake for me to clink as if we are toasting. “Here’s
to running.”

I smile and bump his cupcake with mine and a little orange gets on his and a little chocolate gets on mine, and that’s as
close as we’re going to get to
becoming one
tonight.

The deputy driving is getting either bored or annoyed, as his speed is topping the posted limit by at least fifteen miles
per hour. Sean and I are getting too chummy for his taste, I would imagine.

“I read in your file that you never asked for a specific job type until we moved you to Columbia. Why’d you want to teach
math?”

“If you’re asking why I wanted to teach, it’s pretty simple. Summers off, steady union pay scales with mandatory increases,
spring break, Christmas break, blah, blah, blah. You guys gave me five inauthentic years of teaching experience, which landed
me forty-five grand a year. Not bad for ten months of work. But if what you’re really asking is why I wanted to teach
math
, well… that’s a different story.”

“I am.”

I lick the sticky, orangey residue from my fingers and think of how to answer, wondering how to explain that I might be in
love with the discipline as much as I could ever be with any man. I inhale and breathe out my answer. “It’s rigid. It’s firm
and unyielding. It never lies.”

Sean smiles, and for the first time it seems he has realized there is some depth to me that he does not understand but wants
to make the journey there.

I continue, “It is always right, and all you have to do is take the most logical path to find an answer. It brings reality
and truth to every scene on earth. Every business that has fudged its numbers gets flamed out in the end. Every woman who
riskily toys with her menstrual cycle increases the odds of yielding human life. If you have six chambers and two bullets,
the worst you will do is pull that trigger five times. Everything comes back to math. Build a bridge, cut out paper snowflakes
with your kid, balance the federal budget—everything gets answered, built, and destroyed with math. It always tells the truth.”

“Like, the whole is always equal to the sum of its parts?”

“No, more like… no matter how many times you cut a number in half it never reaches zero.” I giggle suggestively. “You’re
not going to seduce me with your amateurish Euclidean axiom.”

“You’re right,” he says. “I’m not going to seduce you.”

Lousy chocolate-cupcake-eating, wedding-band-twirling, garlic-and-onion-breathing scumbag.

Oh, what do I care; he’s a nice guy and a good-looking guy, but the most alluring part of this young marshal is his compulsory
interest in my well-being.

Sean drinks half a bottle of water and I can’t help but imagine he used to do the same with Gatorade on the sidelines of some
game. He nods at me, like he’s waiting for more.

I deliver. “I became obsessed with math after my parents were murdered. I spent all my free time going through puzzle books,
but they became too easy. I started working through high school math textbooks, then moved on to college textbooks.” I shove
in another bite of cupcake and say through a full mouth, “I pretty much mastered everything through differential equations
and linear algebra.”

“Sounds like a blast.”

“Yeah? I’ve got a super book on stochastic processes I could lend y—oh, that’s right, I left it back at my apartment in Columbia.”

“Now, that’s a shame.”

“You know what’s most valuable, though? The math that every person on this planet should be forced to master?”

“I’m trembling with anticipation.”

“Probability. You’ll use it every day of your life.”

“I’m not much of a gambler.”

“You think probability is just for Vegas? Here, let me save you some time: The odds are in favor of the house. Now go save
some money.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“But if you really want to put this to some use…” Sean suddenly looks bored. I need to bring him back around; the fact
that I’m going to make my point is incidental. “What are the odds you’ll get hit by a car crossing the street?”

Sean shrugs.

“About one in eight thousand. How about this: What are the odds you’ll die from food poisoning—not from terrorism, mind you,
just your everyday case of salmonella?”

He shakes his head.

“About one in twelve thousand. But what do you say we get more practical.” I lean in toward Sean, close enough for him to
smell the orange cream on my lips. “What are the odds I’m going to live a full, normal life?” He swallows. “There is a number,
Sean, and I want to know what it is. As my protector, I want you to apply the math and bring me the honest, perfect truth.”

He licks his teeth, though it seems it’s more of a nervous reaction than a need to clear his molars of chocolate cake. “I
don’t know.”

“Let’s work the numbers. How many victims and witnesses have entered WITSEC since its inception?”

He takes a deep breath. “About seventy-five hundred witnesses. If you include the family members and loved ones, it’s closer
to seventeen thousand.”

“And how many have been murdered while active in WITSEC?”

Sean thinks, but it seems like he’s pondering whether to tell the truth. He lowers his voice, I assume to keep the other marshal
from hearing, and says, “Forty-seven.” He scratches his head and adds, “So, roughly one in four hundred.”

“Not so fast, Slick. How many of the forty-seven were from Mafia cases?”

“I would guess all of them.”

“How many witnesses and family members are tied directly to Mafia cases as opposed to drug- and gang-related cases and so
on?”

He clears his throat. “About five thousand, give or take.”

I move a little closer. “And how many of the thirty-seven deaths were tied to the Bovaro family?”

He stares into my eyes, and it seems that for the first time he’s noticed their color. “At least… at least twenty-five.”

I move closer still, so he can feel my breath. “And how many witnesses and family members were being protected because of
the Bovaro family?”

He swallows. “No more than two hundred fifty.”

I fall back into my seat. I grab the other orange cupcake, break it apart, and shove a piece in my mouth. “That’s one in ten,
Sean. The odds of my survival are one in ten. Not too good, huh?” I gobble the rest and wipe my fingers on my jeans.

I can feel him staring at me, stuck.

Eventually, I say, “You asked me if I ever get to the point where I feel safe. The answer is
no
.”

He reaches over and touches my leg in a way that is not romantic. “C’mon, no one is going to hurt you. We’re going to keep
you safe.”

I wash down the remainder of the orange cake and savor the flavor, as though it may be the last one I ever eat. “Like I said,
Sean… math never lies.”

Cape Charles is just as I imagined: another freaking pit stop. In this case, it’s your last chance to take a potty break before
crossing the arduous Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a twenty-mile-long combination of bridge spans and tunnel pieces that must
be the nightmare of every gephyrophobe and claustrophobe on the planet. If you’re going to take a break, this is a good place
to take one. Though a bed-and-breakfast or two and a few antique shops give this town character, it still holds no more promise
for me than any other two-month layover.