Andy felt like an asshole. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Clara stood up. She walked to the refrigerator and opened it. Instead of getting something out, she just stood there.
“Clara, I’m so—”
“It’s Evans. Paula Louise Evans.”
Andy’s elation was considerably tempered by her shame.
“I’m not completely bonkers.” Clara’s back was stiff. “I remember the important things. I always have.”
“I know that. I’m so sorry.”
Clara kept her own counsel as she stared into the open fridge.
Andy wanted to slide onto the floor and grovel for forgiveness. She also wanted to run outside and get her laptop, but she needed internet access to look up Paula Louise Evans. She hesitated, but only slightly, before asking Clara, “Do you know the—” She stopped herself, because Clara probably had no idea what Wi-Fi was, let alone knew the password.
Andy asked, “Is there an office in the house?”
“Of course.” Clara closed the fridge and turned around, the warm smile back in place. “Do you need to make a phone call?”
“Yes,” Andy said, because agreeing was the quickest way forward. “Do you mind?”
“Is it long-distance?”
“No.”
“That’s good. Edwin’s been grousing at me about the phone bill lately.” Clara’s smile started to falter. She had lost her way in the conversation again.
Andy said, “When I finish my phone call in the office, we could talk some more about Andrew.”
“Of course.” Clara’s smile brightened. “It’s this way, but I’m not sure where Edwin is. He’s been working so hard lately. And obviously the news has made him very upset.”
Andy didn’t ask what news because she couldn’t bear to risk setting the woman off again.
She followed Clara back through the house. Even with the bad knee, the dancer’s walk was breathtakingly graceful. Her feet barely touched the floor. Andy couldn’t fully appreciate watching her move because so many questions flooded her mind: Who was Jane? Who was Andrew? Why did Clara cry every time she said the man’s name?
And why did Andy feel the desire to protect this fragile woman she had never met before?
“Here.” Clara was at the end of the hall. She opened the door to what had likely been a bedroom at some point, but was now a tidy office with a wall of locked filing cabinets, a roll-top desk and a MacBook Pro on the arm of a leather couch.
Clara smiled at Andy. “What did you need?”
Andy hesitated again. She should go back to the McDonald’s and use their Wi-Fi. There was no reason to do this here. Except that she still wanted to know answers. What if Paula Louise Evans wasn’t online? And then Andy would have to drive back, and Edwin Van Wees would probably be home by then, and he would probably not want Clara talking to Andy.
Clara asked, “Can I help you with something?”
“The computer?”
“That’s easy. They’re not as scary as you think.” Clara sat on the floor. She opened the MacBook. The password prompt came up. Andy expected her to struggle with the code, but Clara pressed her finger to the Touch ID and the desktop was unlocked.
She told Andy, “You’ll have to sit here, otherwise the light from the window blacks out the screen.”
She meant the giant window behind the couch. Andy could see Mike’s truck parked in front of the red barn. She could still leave. Edwin would be home in less than an hour. Now would be the time to go.
Clara said, “Come, Jane. I can show you how to use it. It’s not terribly complicated.”
Andy sat down on the floor beside Clara.
Clara put the open laptop on the seat of the couch so they could both see it. She said, “I’ve been looking at videos of myself. Does that make me terribly vain?”
Andy looked at this stranger sitting so close beside her, who kept talking to her like they had been friends for a long time, and said, “I watched your videos, too. Almost all of them. You were—are—such a beautiful dancer, Clara. I never thought I liked ballet before, but watching you made me understand that it’s lovely.”
Clara touched her fingers to Andy’s leg. “Oh, darling, you’re so sweet. You know I feel the same about you.”
Andy did not know what to say. She reached up to the laptop. She found the browser. Her fingers fumbled on the keyboard. She was sweaty and shaky for no reason. She squeezed her hands into fists in an attempt to get them back under control. She rested her fingers on the keyboard. She slowly typed.
PAULA LOUISE EVANS.
Andy’s pinky finger rested on the ENTER key but did not press it. This was the moment. She would find out something—at least one thing—about the horrible woman who had known her mother thirty-one years ago.
Andy tapped ENTER.
Motherfucker.
Paula Louise Evans had her own Wikipedia page.
Andy clicked on the link.
The warning at the top of the page indicated the information was not without controversy. Which made sense, because Paula struck Andy as a woman who loved controversy.
She felt a nervous energy take hold as she skimmed the contents, scrolling through an extensive bio that listed everything from the hospital where Paula had been born to her inmate number at Danberry Federal Penitentiary for Women.
Raised in Corte Madera, California . . . Berkeley . . . Stanford . . . murder.
Andy’s stomach dropped.
Paula Evans had murdered a woman.
Andy looked up at the ceiling for a moment. She thought about Paula pointing the shotgun at her chest.
Clara said, “There’s so much information about her. Is it horrible that I’m a bit jealous?”
Andy scrolled down to the next section:
INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ARMY OF THE CHANGING WORLD.
There was a blurry photo of Paula. The date underneath read “July 1986.”
Thirty-two years ago.
Andy could remember doing the math back in Carrollton at the library computer. She had been looking for events that had taken place around the time she would’ve been conceived.
Bombings and plane hijackings and shoot-outs at banks.
Andy studied the photo of Paula Evans.
She was wearing a weird dress that looked like a cotton slip. Thick, black lines of make-up were smeared beneath her eyes. Fingerless gloves were on her hands. Combat boots were on her feet. She was wearing a beret. A cigarette dangled from her mouth. She had a revolver in one hand and a hunting knife in the other. It would’ve been funny except for the fact that Paula had murdered someone.
And been involved in a conspiracy to bring down the world, apparently.
“Jane?” Clara had pulled a blue afghan around her shoulders. “Should we have some tea?”
“In a moment,” Andy said, doing a search for the word JANE on Paula’s Wikipedia page.
Nothing.
ANDREW.
Nothing.
She clicked on the link that took her to the wiki page for THE ARMY OF THE CHANGING WORLD.
Starting with the assassination of Martin Queller in Oslo . . .
“QuellCorp,” Andy said.
Clara made a hissing sound. “Aren’t they awful?”
Andy skipped down the page. She saw a photo of their leader, a guy who looked like Zac Efron with Charles Manson’s eyes. The Army’s crimes were bullet-pointed past the Martin Queller assassination. They had kidnapped and murdered a Berkeley professor. Been involved in a shoot-out, a nationwide manhunt. Their crazy-ass leader had written a manifesto, a ransom note that had appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Andy clicked on the note.
She read the first part about the fascist regime and then her eyes started to glaze over.
It was like something Calvin and Hobbes would concoct during a meeting of G.R.O.S.S. to get back at Susie Derkins.
Andy returned to the Army page and found a section called MEMBERS. Most of the names were in blue hyperlinks amid the sea of black text. Dozens of people. How had Andy never seen a Dateline or Lifetime movie about this insane cult?
William Johnson. Dead.
Franklin Powell. Dead.
Metta Larsen. Dead.
Andrew Queller—