Chapter 41

She found out on Friday morning.

Not from Engfa. From Freen’s operational report — the full one, not the summary, which Engfa had forwarded to Charlotte after the parking garage because the situation had moved past the point where summaries were adequate.

Charlotte read it at her desk with her office door closed.

Three interceptions. Not two — three. The tail six weeks ago that she had been told about. The second incident four weeks ago that she had not been told about. The parking garage Wednesday night.

She read it twice.

Then she picked up her phone and called Engfa.

—

Engfa answered on the second ring.

“Charlotte.”

“You withheld information from me,” Charlotte said.

A pause. “The operational decision was—”

“Don’t.” Charlotte kept her voice level. “Don’t give me the operational decision. I’m not asking about the operation. I’m asking why you didn’t tell me there had been two attempts on my sister before Wednesday night.”

“One attempt and one surveillance interception,” Engfa said. “The distinction matters.”

“Does it.” Charlotte looked at her window. The city outside. “Does that distinction matter to you when it’s my sister.”

Silence on the line.

“I was going to tell you,” Engfa said.

“When.”

“When the situation was stable enough that the information wouldn’t—”

“When, Engfa.”

Another pause. Longer. “After the trial.”

Charlotte sat with that for a moment.

“After the trial,” she said.

“Yes.”

“So I would have found out — after it was over. After the danger had passed. After Becky had gone through closing arguments not knowing that two weeks earlier someone had tried to—” She stopped. “You were going to tell me afterward.”

“I was protecting the mission.”

“You were protecting me,” Charlotte said. “From information you decided I couldn’t handle.”

“That’s not—”

“Isn’t it?” Her voice was still level. She was working to keep it level. “You made a decision about what I could know and when I could know it. Without asking me. Without—” She stopped. “You did exactly what I did to Becky.”

The line was very quiet.

“Yes,” Engfa said. “I did.”

“And you think that was acceptable.”

“I think it was necessary.”

“Those aren’t the same thing.”

“No,” Engfa said. “They’re not.”

Charlotte stood up. She walked to the window. The city below, Friday morning, people going about their lives in the complete indifference that cities had to everything happening inside the buildings above them.

“Three years,” she said.

“Charlotte—”

“Three years of professional distance. Three years of — managing everything. Keeping everything at the right temperature. And then I called you because I was scared and you came and I thought—” She stopped. “I thought this time would be different.”

“It is different.”

“You withheld information from me, Engfa.”

“To protect the mission. To protect Becky. To protect—” She stopped.

“To protect me,” Charlotte said.

Silence.

“Say it,” Charlotte said. “If that’s the reason say it.”

“Yes,” Engfa said quietly. “To protect you.”

“I don’t need protecting from information about my own sister.”

“I know that.”

“Then why.”

“Because—” Engfa stopped. Started again. “Because the first week I was here you stood at your window for forty minutes after I left and I could see you from the street and I—” She stopped again. “Because some decisions are easier than others and that one was easier.”

Charlotte looked at the city.

“That’s honest,” she said.

“Yes.”

“It’s also not good enough.”

“I know,” Engfa said. “I know it’s not.”

The line held them both.

Charlotte thought about the window. About Engfa seeing her from the street. About forty minutes she had thought nobody knew about.

“You saw me,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“No.”

“Why.”

A pause. A different kind of pause from the operational ones. “Because you would have managed it,” Engfa said. “You would have straightened your jacket and gone back to work and it would have been fine and professional and — correct.”

“And.”

“And I didn’t want to watch you do that.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together.

“So instead you withheld information,” she said.

“Yes. Which was wrong.”

“Yes. It was.”

“I’m sorry,” Engfa said.

Charlotte had not expected that. The apology landed differently from everything else — not the operational language, not the professional register. Just: I’m sorry. Said plainly.

She stood at the window for a moment.

“Becky knows everything now,” she said.

“I know. Freen told me.”

“She’s angry.”

“I know.”

“At me. At Freen. At—” Charlotte paused. “At herself, which is the part that worries me most.”

“She’ll work through it,” Engfa said. “She always does.”

“Six days.”

“Six days,” Engfa said. “Then it’s over.”

Charlotte looked at the city. “And then what.”

Engfa was quiet for a moment. “That depends on a great many things.”

“On Becky.”

“On Becky,” Engfa said. “And on — other things.”

Charlotte understood what other things meant. She had understood it since Tuesday when she had called Engfa’s name as she was leaving and Engfa had stopped and three feet of professional distance had changed without either of them moving.

“I’m still angry,” Charlotte said.

“I know.”

“The information. You should have told me.”

“Yes. I should have.”

“Don’t do it again.”

A pause. “Okay.”

“I mean it, Engfa.”

“I know you mean it.” A beat. “I won’t.”

Charlotte looked at the window.

Outside the city went about its Friday. Below her, invisible from this angle, the street where Engfa had stood and watched her at the window for forty minutes and not said anything.

“Why didn’t you come back up,” she said. “When you saw me.”

The question had not been planned. It arrived and she let it.

Engfa was quiet for a long moment.

“Because you hadn’t asked me to,” she said.

Charlotte closed her eyes.

She stood there for a moment with her eyes closed and the city noise coming through the glass and Engfa’s breathing on the line.

“This conversation isn’t finished,” she said.

“I know,” Engfa said.

“But I have a partners’ meeting in twenty minutes.”

“Of course you do.”

“Don’t.” Charlotte opened her eyes. “Don’t be dry about it.”

“I’m not being dry. You have a meeting. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. Nothing about this is fine.”

“No,” Engfa said. “It’s not.”

They sat with that.

“Six days,” Charlotte said finally.

“Six days,” Engfa said. “Then we talk. Properly.”

“Yes.” A pause. “We do.”

She ended the call.

—

She stood at the window for a while.

The partners’ meeting was in eighteen minutes now. She had notes to gather and a agenda to review and three points she needed to make about the billing cycle that couldn’t wait until next week.

She stood at the window.

She thought about honesty. About how much easier it was to manage things from a professional distance — to keep everything at the right temperature, to make the decisions that needed making and file them away and keep going. She had been doing it for thirty-two years. She was very good at it.

She was also, standing here now, extremely tired of it.

That was the thing about honesty. It was significantly more painful than she remembered. The anger of the phone call was real and the things she had said were true and none of it had felt like the managed professional conversations she was used to having.

It had felt like herself.

She had not felt like herself in — a while.

Both things were true simultaneously. The pain and the feeling like herself. She was very tired of both things being simultaneously true.

She turned from the window.

She picked up her notes for the partners’ meeting. She straightened her jacket.

She went to the door and opened it.

Through the glass partition she could see the outer office — Noey at her desk, Heng coming around the corner with files, the Friday morning of a firm six days from the end of a major trial. At the desk outside Becky’s office Freen was at her screen, working, the particular focused stillness she always had.

Charlotte looked at her for a moment.

She thought about Becky sitting across from her yesterday. You were managing me. The answer she had no answer for.

She thought about Engfa saying because you hadn’t asked me to.

She went to her partners’ meeting.

She was eighteen minutes early.