Page 21

CHAPTER TWENTY

As instructed, Keller treads across campus toward the Bronco Suites.

The sun is shining, the sky an unbroken swath of blue, and Keller admires the campus as she strides under the palm trees among the Spanish-style buildings that seem more fitting of a resort than an institution of higher learning. She eyes the giant cross; SCU must be a Catholic university. Keller attended one herself—Notre Dame—but the campuses bear no resemblance to each other. Though it’s in an aggressively Midwestern town in Indiana, Notre Dame has the feel of a New England college: old stone buildings, manicured grounds, statues of old white men. Keller’s father attended Notre Dame for both undergrad and law school—a Double Domer. A career lawyer in Big Law, her father expected her to follow in his footsteps and attend law school. He expressed his extreme disappointment when she announced that she was joining the Bureau. She shakes the thought.

There is one thing she misses about Notre Dame, though. On nights when she was stressed with school or life, she would go to the Grotto, a small cave made of boulders filled with twinkling candles. It was remarkably peaceful and calming.

This school has its own peacefulness about it. Students laughing and basking in the golden rays. Except for the damned skateboarders, she thinks as one barrels toward her. He’s distracted, wearing earbuds, trying to look cool, and she’s afraid he won’t see her. Grown-ups are invisible in places like this. But he makes a sharp turn in the nick of time, oblivious that he nearly plowed down a federal agent.

She makes her way to El Camino Real. The campus bleeds into the town of Santa Clara—no barriers or markers separate them. She can see the sign for the Bronco Suites, a small economy lodge, across the street.

She makes it to the hotel lobby, which has a front desk with a single employee and the remnants of a continental breakfast on a table to the right. Keller hears the chime of a phone and it takes a beat for her to realize it’s the burner. They know she’s here, which means they’re watching her. She glances around and doesn’t spot the detail.

The voice on the phone, the same one from earlier, says, “Take the elevator to the parking garage.”

“Should I call you ‘Deep Throat’?” Keller asks.

He doesn’t laugh. Instead, the phone goes dead again. Maybe he’s too young to catch the reference. And honestly, Keller’s too young to be dropping Watergate references.

She spies the elevator bank and follows the instructions. The door spreads open and two burly men in suits wait inside. One of the men pushes the button for L3.

When the doors open to the garage, there’s a line of four identical black SUVs, all idling. One of the men from the elevator walks her to the fourth SUV, opens the passenger door.

Keller peers inside, sees a stately woman in the back seat. The woman gestures for Keller to get in, which she does.

“Welcome to my life,” Cynthia Roosevelt says dryly.

The bevy of SUVs then tears out of the mouth of the garage, each one close on the rear of the next. Then, one by one they split off in different directions. Decoys, in case anyone is watching. Keller now realizes that they met underground to evade drones or satellites. Sent her to a hotel as if she were simply staying there, in case she had a tail. Cynthia stares ahead, annoyed.

A voice from the back, a third row in the SUV, startles Keller.

“I’m Paul, Secretary Roosevelt’s chief of staff.”

A thin arm threads through the gap in the bucket seats and Keller shakes his hand. “Sorry for the theatrics, but our team thinks that it’s necessary until we get a better handle on the situation.”

Keller catches Cynthia rolling her eyes.

“Stan says you’re one of the Bureau’s best,” Cynthia Roosevelt says at last.

“You know Stan?” Keller should’ve assumed that this went through HQ.

Roosevelt gives her a sharp look. “They say you’ve handled high-profile cases—including one involving college kids.”

Keller nods. Doesn’t elaborate on the Pine family case from five years ago. She helped uncover what happened to an NYU student’s family, murdered while vacationing in Mexico.

“You’re from the New York office,” Roosevelt says, not a question. “You got here fast.”

“I’m temporarily here on assignment,” Keller replies, again without elaboration. If she’s going to get any information, she needs to take charge, which could be a challenge here. Cynthia Roosevelt is accustomed to running the show. “I know this must be difficult,” Keller says. “I hope this turns out to be a—”

Roosevelt waves away the preliminaries with a hand. “What do we know so far?” Her tone is calm, but Keller hears an underlying thread of fear. Roosevelt may be a high-powered official, but right now, she’s first and foremost a mother.

“It’s early in the investigation and there are no solid leads. Yet. But we’re pulling CCTV, phone records, interviewing their friends. And talking to the parents…”

Taking the hint, Roosevelt nods for Keller to continue.

“So let me start by asking: Does your team think it has anything to do with your ‘situation’?”

Roosevelt exhales, like this is a waste of time. Her chief of staff leans in from behind them. “The government levied a strike against militias associated with the administration behind the bounty this week. But there’s been no chatter. No indication they’re involved here. Still, out of an excess of caution, we’re operating under elevated security protocols.”

“You’ve been under protection for some time,” Keller notes.

“Nearly a decade.”

“Have they made any prior attempts on your life?”

“Not for several years. There was a plot to lure me to Dubai, but our team quashed it. Nothing else since.”

“I understand that Blane, when he was a boy, was taken. Is there any reason to believe—”

Roosevelt cuts her off with a sharp shake of her head. But she grows pale, her hands gripping each other tightly. It seems as if this second possible abduction of her son is almost more than she can bear, and she’s doing everything she can to hold it together. “The men who took him weren’t affiliated with any government. Just two idiots who thought they could cash in. They were wrong.”

Keller debates pushing this line of questions, but decides to wait.

“My people are certain,” Roosevelt says, “it has nothing to do with what happened to Blane.”

“Is there anything other than the strike that suggests they’d come after you or your loved ones now?”

Secretary Roosevelt shakes her head. Her hands are still wound so tight they must be losing circulation.

“Have you received any demands?” Keller continues. “I know kidnappers will often threaten their targets not to alert the Bureau and there’s pressure to handle it privately, but that would be a mistake.”

“No contact. Nothing.”

Keller scrutinizes the woman. She believes her.

“Has Blane ever gone off the grid before? To clear his head, get away for a little while? Or go on an adventure he didn’t want you to know about?”

“Blane is no angel. He’s certainly never met a party or pretty girl who couldn’t lead him astray. He’s like his father that way.” She pauses. “But he’s never just disappeared. He knows better because”—she gestures to the agents in the front seat—“because of my ‘situation,’ as you called it. He knows it would cause alarm. That’s why I had my team track his phone’s location last night. It’s unlike him to simply ignore me.”

“What do you know about Blane’s friends?”

At this, a manila folder slides through the gap between the seats. The chief of staff says, “This has standard background checks on all of them. We worked it up for the Secretary’s visit for Parents Weekend.”

Keller clasps the file, doesn’t open it. The SUV takes a curve fast. They appear to be driving to nowhere.

“You mentioned Blane’s father. Is he here this weekend?”

“No. We’re divorced.”

“Have you spoken to your ex-husband, asked if he’s heard from Blane?”

“I spoke to Hank yesterday afternoon,” Roosevelt says. “I’ve been trying to reach him all morning, but he takes pleasure in ignoring my calls. If you get hold of him, please tell him he’s an asshole.”

“I take it you two don’t get along?”

Roosevelt doesn’t reply.

Keller probes further. Most people fear crime from strangers, but you’re most likely to suffer at the hands of someone close. Cynthia Roosevelt doesn’t hold back about her ex-husband. He’s a novelist, she says, one who spends more time online virtue signaling than writing. Roosevelt uses the word woke several times with derision.

“Spend ten minutes reading his Twitter posts—or X posts, whatever it’s called now—and you’ll get a portrait of Hank.”

“Do you mind if I ask why you divorced?”

“How much time do you have?” She shakes her head again. “We got married too young. He had early success with his first novel, but nothing since. His publisher dropped him and he teaches writing at a community college. Between working on the Great American Blank Page and posting on social media, he likes Maker’s Mark. Oh, and he had a thing with his teaching assistant. For a writer who hates clichés…”

“Do you think he and Blane maybe just went off together or something?”

Roosevelt shakes her head. “Blane wouldn’t leave without telling me. And for all his faults, Hank wouldn’t…” She stops. “And that wouldn’t explain where the other kids are.”

“If this has nothing to do with your security situation or your ex, can you think of any reason Blane and his friends might disappear?”

She shakes her head. Then, as if thinking out loud, says, “He’s pledging a fraternity, so I suppose maybe it’s some hazing thing or something like that. You know how boys are. But that still wouldn’t explain the other students.”

Keller’s phone chimes. It’s a text from Chief McCray:

Pls. ask her if she knows this person

“Excuse me for one moment,” Keller says. She clicks the link that appears in the next text, which opens a video. It shows a college kid on a skateboard. He’s zipping on the sidewalk just like the boy from earlier. He then almost comically goes flying in the air, tumbles to the ground. Keller notes the time stamp: 6:55 p.m. yesterday. Right before the parents’ dinner.

A figure comes into the frame. He helps the kid off the ground. It’s then that Keller recognizes that the skateboarder is one of the students from the crime wall photos. Blane Roosevelt. The man helping him appears in frame, but for less than a second. The CCTV video then freezes on the man’s face.

“Do you know this person?” Keller displays the screen to Secretary Roosevelt.

“That’s my ex. Wait, Hank’s here? That doesn’t make any— What the hell is he doing here ?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”