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“Not everyone comes from a picture-perfect family like Annie,” Lori said. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting the Weavers?”

“Lord no,” Annie said. “Can you imagine them in Los Angeles?”

“I spoke to your mother on the phone once,” Helen said to Annie. “Briefly. She was very polite.”

“That’s Midwestern for rude,” Annie said.

“No.” Helen shook her head. “Concerned, maybe.”

“I’m going to be thirty years old, and they still treat me like a high schooler, no matter what I’ve accomplished.”

“You’d think leaving the Company would buy you a little leeway.” Lori tensed, glancing at Helen. “I mean—”

“It’s all right,” Annie said. “She knows about that.”

In fact, Helen probably knew more about Annie’s current life than Lori. She and Lori had been close, the best of friends, but time and distance had changed things. Likewise, Annie no longer knew everything about this confident, polished mother of two, the same woman she’d eaten greasy fast food and done tequila shooters with on the Tuesday night before a huge final. Anyway, being coerced into doing contract work for any law enforcement agency that requested her wasn’t really something to put in a letter or chat about over the phone.

But she saw Helen every day, and she was so easy to talk to. She wanted to listen, and even though Annie wasn’t usually much for sharing, something about Helen always made her want to spill.

She hadn’t told Helen about Dasha, obviously, or Yeva, or why her time in Belarus and Europe and the CIA had ended abruptly. She’d given Helen the polished version that night through her tears. How she’d been recruited out of college. Trained and fast-tracked and thrown into the deep end. She still couldn’t tell anyone what she’d done or why she’d done it because some things were classified, and other things were simply too horrible to say out loud to another person.

Things like seducing a married woman with a small child and getting them both murdered. Practically sending two of her coworkers to their deaths. Probably the husband’s blood was on Annie’s hands too.

“Honey?” Helen stood in front of her, gripping her bicep.

“Huh?”

“You okay?” Helen asked. “You were drifting.”

“Oh.” Annie laughed nervously. “Just tired, maybe.”

Lori was looking at her strangely, but the sound of the garage opening distracted her. “Oh, that’s Louis. We can have lunch!”

“Come on,” Helen said. “Come help me with this pie crust. It’s easier with extra hands.”

Annie knew that was a lie, but she went along anyway.

* * *

After the girls went to bed, Louis got out Rummikub. He had campaigned for the Dune board game but was vetoed by everyone else in the room.

“We used to play Risk,” Annie explained, “but I won too much, and they banned me.”

“She was Machiavellian,” Lori said, laughing. “She was ruthless!”

“She made Lori cry!” Louis snorted.

“That was once!” Annie said defensively. “One time and banned for life! Talk about unfair!”

“Well, this is more my speed anyway.” Helen chuckled.

They set up their game trays as Louis mixed the tiles on the glass table, making a loud clatter that seemed to echo in the big, open house. It seemed like all the tables were glass panels on black metal frames, giving the illusion of transparency, of objects floating over the pretty walnut floors. It wasn’t Annie’s style, but it was impressive nonetheless, and certainly an improvement over the cinder-block-and-board shelving and used furniture of their college years.

“Helen likes to pretend that she’s a hundred-year-old grandma, not a badass cop,” Annie said.

“And professor,” Helen added primly, winking at Lori.

“Oh yeah!” Annie said excitedly. “I signed up for her class next quarter.”