The Rules for Breaking (4 page)

And so it continues around the house. Knowing someone—probably Thomas—rummaged through our house is nauseating. I hate knowing his hands were on our things, and I wonder if I will ever feel safe in this house again. Teeny and Dad point out a few things but everything is pretty minor. Nothing really looks out of place except to us.

When we’re back in the den, the four of us crowd onto the couch. The officer looks torn when he starts speaking. “We’ve taken prints and will run them through the system. We could find no evidence of forced entry. And the things disturbed are only visible to you who are familiar with your home. We’ve had officers talk with your neighbors and no one has seen anything. At this point, I’m not sure if this wasn’t just some kid or junkie looking for some loose money or pills or something like that.”

“But what about…” Dad pinches my arm before I can finish, then gives a small shake of his head. Does he not want me to mention Ethan’s truck, or Thomas…or the journal?

“We’ll be finished up shortly and the report will be ready in the morning if you want to make a claim against your homeowners policy for the missing items.”

Finally the officer walks off so I can ask Dad what in the world is going on.

“I called Agent Williams right after I called 911. He’s on his way right now, flying into Shreveport then driving here tonight. He told me not to mention Thomas or the journal. He didn’t say why but he was emphatic. He said he will handle things when he gets here. He should be here within the hour.”

I deflate next to Ethan and he pulls me in close. Our good day is officially over.

Rules for disappearing
by Witness Protection prisoner #18A7R04M:

When the suits tell you not to use the Internet, you should really listen to them.

New rule by Anna Boyd:

You should also listen to what the suits aren’t saying…sometimes that’s where the real truth is.

ticktock from the clock on the mantel echoes through the room, reminding me it won’t be long before the suits swoop back into my life. We’ve been waiting, just like this, for a few hours. Ethan is pacing and Teeny is asleep in a ball next to me on the couch. Dad’s holding down his chair in the corner.

“He should’ve been here by now,” Dad says.

And before he finishes his sentence, headlights flash across the room. They’re here.

Every other time the suits have shown up at our house, it’s been a team of at least four agents—I guess that’s how things roll in the Witness Protection Program. I can tell something’s different tonight. Agent Williams isn’t by himself, but there’s only one other agent with him. And it’s the one suit I hoped never to see again—the one who chopped my hair off just before we moved to Natchitoches—Agent Parker. She stands off to the side and I can’t quit staring at her. She’s prettier than I remember, but maybe that’s because I didn’t pay that much attention to her before.

Ethan drops down next to me, linking his hand with mine, and I cling to it like a lifeline.

Dad crosses the living room to shake Agent Williams’s hand, and then nods at Agent Parker. Ethan tries to do the same but I hold him by my side so he settles for an awkward wave. They both say hello to me and I just nod.

“Greg, thanks for coming so quickly,” Dad says.

“I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

Agent Williams and Agent Parker both look toward me.

“It’s good to see you, Anna,” Agent Williams says.

I snort. Whatever.

“And you’ve gone back to your natural hair color,” Agent Parker adds. “That looks so much better on you than that darker shade did.”

My jaw drops open a little. As if she wasn’t the one who picked out that horrible dye and forced it on my head!

“Yeah, I’m sure I look fantastic,” I answer back. “What color are we going with next time…bright red?”

“Anna,” Dad whispers my name. I get the warning.

“Start from the beginning and tell me everything, Anna.” Agent Williams sits in a nearby chair and I push deeper into the couch, dragging Ethan with me. I think about waking Teeny—she’ll be pissed if she finds out we left her out—but her face is so peaceful that I let her sleep.

Agent Parker perches on the back of the couch. I can feel her hovering and it’s hard to resist the urge to knock her off.

I quickly run through the events—the bumped chair at Will’s, the journal and note left in my pocket.

“And there was something else in the journal—a single daisy,” I add.

I feel Ethan stiffen beside me. I hadn’t told him that earlier. It’s the creepiest part, and I hated to even think about that, much less talk about it.

“A daisy?” asks Agent Williams.

“Like the little one tattooed on her shoulder,” Ethan says, then jumps up from the couch and starts pacing the room.

“Did you see him, Anna? Or anyone suspicious?” Agent Parker asks.

“No. There were a lot of people there, but all of them were kids my age.”

Ethan adds, “I didn’t see anyone there who didn’t go to our school either.”

“And what about the break-in today?” Agent Williams asks.

Dad tells him what was missing or out of place, then Ethan explains having a similar incident with his truck.

Agent Williams turns to Ethan. “And your truck was parked outside your home all day?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dad leans forward in his chair and asks, “Greg, why is he doing this now? If he wanted to harm these kids, he had every opportunity in Arizona. It doesn’t make any sense that he’d risk showing up here knowing Anna and Ethan would recognize him.”

Agent Williams shrugs and I notice the extra set of wrinkles that seem to have taken up residence in his forehead. “I don’t know. We’ve had agents working this case for weeks and we’ve got nothing.”

“I just don’t understand how
no one else
ever saw this guy!” Dad’s eyes jump to me when he asks, “How many times did he come see you when we were in the program…three…four times?”

“Four,” I squeak out. “In that coffee shop on Front Street, twice in the laundry room, and once at Pearl’s.”

“Four!” Dad exclaims. I shush him, reminding him that he will wake Teeny, and he lowers his voice a fraction before continuing, “Four times and not one of your guys ever saw him!” And then he turns on me. “And I still can’t believe you never mentioned he was visiting you, even if you thought he was an agent. You didn’t think it was strange?”

This is a conversation we’ve had a ridiculous number of times. Dad always seems to bring this up out of the blue—at the breakfast table, in the car, just before I tell him good night—it’s the one constant question. Why didn’t I tell him Thomas was contact-ing me?

And it’s a question I have a hard time answering. Do I get back into how awful Dad was acting back then—all secretive and silent? Do I remind him that Mom was falling down drunk all the time and my main concern was that she not kill herself with a bottle of gin?

But it’s more than that. And way worse. Every time a suit showed up, I would get nervous and panicked and jumpy, almost like I was allergic to them. But Thomas was so different than the other suits…obviously. He talked to me like I was an adult, not some useless kid. And I felt like I could trust him. That’s the worst part about this. I would have never mentioned him to anyone else because it never occurred to me that I should. He totally played me.

So I never really answer this question because I can’t bear to explain my stupidity.

Luckily, Agent Williams presses forward. “When you called me about the journal and note, I was very concerned that he decided to make contact with Anna. And in such a familiar way. But since it had already been a week and nothing else happened, I was stumped. But now that you have experienced a break-in, probably two, it seems like whatever this is, it’s escalating.” He turns to me and asks, “Where’s the journal now?”

I point to the small book in the plastic bag on the coffee table. The journal I once found so comforting now disgusts me. It was the only outlet I had when we were moved from town to town and it was devastating when I lost it. Agent Williams pulls a pair of gloves from his pocket and puts them on before reaching for it. I didn’t let Ethan or Dad look through the pages, but I know I won’t be able to stop Agent Williams. Or, it seems, Agent Parker—since she’s peering over his shoulder now.

As he flips through, a hole opens in my stomach. I cringe at the thought of all the suits reading what I wrote since most of it is about how much I despised them. And I was particularly unkind in my comments about Agent Parker after my makeover. Every feeling, thought, emotion, bad hair day, and bout with PMS I had while wasting away in the program for almost a year is written about in great detail in that journal. I may as well be walking around naked.

Agent Williams skims the pages, but thankfully closes it quickly. “Where is the note?”

“Folded up in the back of the journal.”

“And you received flowers last weekend as well?” Agent Parker asks.

Could that have been only a week ago—getting dressed with Catherine and Julie and greeting the delivery guy, wielding a huge vase of flowers, at the door?

“Yes. But I threw them out. After I got the journal, I realized they were probably from him.”

“He sent you flowers, too?” Ethan asks. He throws his head back in either disgust or anger. Or maybe a little of both.

I silently plead with him to come back to the couch and he finally drops down beside me.

“Anna, why didn’t you tell me this was going on?” Ethan asks me in a quiet voice.

I lean in close when I answer him back. “I don’t know. I think part of me didn’t want to admit it was really happening.”

This may be the last time I see him—the white, windowless van that moved us from placement to placement is probably gassed up and waiting outside. My hand moves to Ethan’s and I catch Dad’s look. He’s not crazy about how close we’ve become in such a short amount of time. And sometimes it feels weird to me, too, when I realize just how much I don’t know about him. But I still don’t pull my hand away.

Agent Williams pulls out the taped-together note and reads it out loud.

“
‘Dear Anna. I’m sure you have questions, and someday maybe I’ll answer them for you. I thought it was important for you to have this back. I hope the nightmares that haunted you are gone. Maybe one day we’ll meet again.’ And he signed it with just a ‘T.’ ‘P.S. Tell your friend the tracker was a clever move.
’
”

Agent Williams leans back in the chair, letting his head drop and his eyes shut while Agent Parker paces behind the couch. The clock’s ticking seems louder than normal as we watch them.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Just when I start wondering if he’s fallen asleep or something, he sits up in the chair and says, “I’ve debated how much of this to tell you, but it’s time for me to put it all on the table. The reason we didn’t bring a full team is because I believe we have a mole in our program.”

Dad comes in closer but still won’t sit.

Agent Williams takes a deep breath before continuing, “For lack of anything else to call him, we’ll just use Agent X. There’s no other explanation for how Thomas was always one step ahead. Or how he so perfectly impersonated a U.S. Marshal. Or how he contacted your father at his work and knew where to find you.”

“And the little details that were in your personal records, like the daisy tattoo,” Agent Parker adds.

My hand automatically goes to my shoulder where the single daisy sits. Ethan brushes my hand away and rubs his thumb over the spot instead. The pit in my stomach grows bigger and I feel like it’s going to swallow me up.

Agent Williams gets up from the chair and walks to the window. “I knew something wasn’t right toward the end of your time in the program, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. That’s why I had Agent Parker come in when we were moving you to Natchitoches. I needed some fresh eyes on your detail. She has been in another division and has never been on a case with any of the other agents in question. Since Arizona, we’ve narrowed it down to one of three agents; men who were on your detail from the beginning.”

“Which agents?” I ask.

Dad interrupts him. “Greg, maybe Ethan shouldn’t be here for this. I mean, this is family business.”

Ethan tenses beside me. I know it will be hard for him to be shut out of what’s happening.

I start to argue, but Agent Williams stops me. “Richard, this involves Ethan now. He saw Thomas in Arizona. Spoke with him. And for whatever reason, Thomas probably went through his truck in broad daylight in front of his house. There is something he wants and he wants it pretty badly to take those chances. I understand wanting to keep this private, but I think he should stay.”

Dad turns his back to the room; he doesn’t like not getting his way.

I’m not expecting Agent Williams to tell us who the suspected agents are, so I’m shocked when he says, “Agent Mullins, Agent Hammond, and Agent Webb are the three agents in question. Do you remember them, Anna?”

With all the moves, there were so many different agents. I tried really hard at first to remember their names but it became impossible, which is why I called all of them “suits.” But I do remember Agent Mullins and Agent Hammond. Agent Mullins was assigned to us in the first safe house and helped us understand how the program works and what we should expect. He was nice and patient, especially with Teeny. In the beginning, Agent Mullins was a common fixture when it came to ditching identities.

Agent Hammond was different. I’d seen him before but I didn’t learn his name until he showed up in Florida to relocate us. It was the night I was waiting for Tyler to pick me up. I remember him because I hated that move the most. I’d finally begun to have a life I was content with there. It wasn’t the same as Scottsdale, but I was happy—I had friends and a boyfriend, and life was starting to feel normal. I begged Agent Hammond to let me call Tyler, to make up some excuse of why we had to leave so he wouldn’t wonder forever about where I’d disappeared to. But he wouldn’t let me, and I hated him for that.