Smolleck nodded.
“Give me your phone,” McDonough said. He took it from her, connected it to a machine, then put a pair of headphones over Aubrey’s ears.
She could hear ringing. Three rings. Four. Five.
“Hullo?” said a coarse voice. Gertrude, not Star.
“This is Aubrey.”
“Yeah. Your mother said she recognized your number.”
“Is my mother okay?”
“Sure. She’s fine.”
“Good,” Aubrey said. “I want to talk to you about something I believe is important to you.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Your brother, Willis.”
It seemed to Aubrey that Gertrude’s breathing had gotten heavier.
Don’t hang up. Please, don’t hang up.
“The government did your family a huge disservice,” Aubrey said.
“They killed my brother.”
“Yes, I know,” Aubrey said. “I understand your anger.”
“Do you?”
Wrong approach. “You’re right,” Aubrey said. “I can’t understand how you feel, but I understand why you would be angry.”
She heard what sounded like a sigh. “We were so normal,” Gertrude said. “So wonderfully ordinary. My brother played football. I was a cheerleader. My parents went to all our games.”
Not so different from how Aubrey’s family had once been. A family in a snow globe. And then without warning, everything had changed.
“And then they took him,” Gertrude said. “He had just turned eighteen. We were a trusting family. My parents didn’t play games like a lot of people who got their kids doctor’s excuse letters or had them join the National Guard. When Willis was called up, he went proudly. And we let him go.”
Aubrey waited for her to continue.
“When they came to our door to tell us he’d been killed in action, my parents were heartbroken.” Gertrude swallowed. “I thought I’d never recover. I had loved my brother more than anything.” Her voice became a whisper. “I worshipped him.”
Aubrey thought about the young, pretty girl in the photo, fingering her dead brother’s dog tag.
“The letter came a few weeks later from a buddy of his saying Willis’s death had been an awful accident. Their squad leader had mistakenly led them into a free-fire zone, and Willis was shot by one of our own soldiers. We contacted our congressman and asked him to look into it, but the government stuck to its story. They refused to apologize.”
“They were wrong,” Aubrey said.
“My parents never got over it,” Gertrude said. “Dad died from a heart attack, and Mom ended up in a mental hospital.” She didn’t speak for a few seconds. “The government destroyed my family.”
“And you want to get even,” Aubrey said. “But hurting more people won’t bring your brother back, or your family.” She took a breath. “The government owes you justice for Willis. They have agreed to reopen his case.”
Star didn’t react.
“Get justice for you brother,” Aubrey said. “For your mother, and for your father. Get justice for yourself. But please, don’t hurt anyone else.”
Star was silent.
“Please, Star. Let Ethan go. Let my mother go.”
“Okay,” Star said, so softly Aubrey wasn’t sure she heard her correctly.
Smolleck nodded.
“Thank you,” Aubrey said. “Thank you, Star.”
The line went dead.
Aubrey’s hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. Would Star do it? Would she let them go?
She didn’t want to think about the alternative.
CHAPTER 50
It was strange, yet also familiar, for Diana to be sitting so close to her college roommate.
Gertrude’s cell phone had been ringing every five minutes or so, but this last time, Gertrude had frowned at the number on the display and shown it to Diana. Aubrey’s number.
Gertrude had sat down on the sofa beside her, so close that Diana could smell her scent—a not-unpleasant smell like spicy sausages. She was reminded of the early days of their freshman year when they’d go to the dorm lounge to watch a movie and share popcorn out of a chipped mixing bowl.
The memory was a distant whisper, as Diana strained to hear what Aubrey was saying on the other end of the phone.
Something about Gertrude’s brother.
Then, Gertrude had become agitated as she told Aubrey things about her brother and parents Diana had never known. Diana was starting to understand what had made Gertrude the irreverent, passionate woman she had once admired, but also feared.
The government destroyed my family, she’d said to Aubrey on the phone.
No wonder Gertrude wanted to set off bombs.
Diana caught a word on Aubrey’s end. “Justice.” And it seemed Gertrude’s face changed, but to what? Sadness? Defeat?
“Okay,” Gertrude said softly, then put her phone down and sat without moving, as the air conditioner hummed.
“Justice for your brother,” Diana said. “That’s what you always wanted, wasn’t it?”
Gertrude shifted, as though awakening. “It was in the beginning.”
“That’s why it was so important to you to make a statement,” Diana said. “The library would have been that statement.”
Gertrude got up from the sofa and went over to the kitchen counter. It was cluttered with pipe bombs, dynamite, and Molotov cocktails, just like the workbench in the brownstone basement had been.
Suddenly, Diana understood. “I took it away from you. Your only way to be heard, your voice. I left you with no choice.”
Gertrude met her eyes. Blue and wide. She’d always had the prettiest eyes.
“That’s why you blew up the brownstone,” Diana said. “But how did you survive?”
Gertrude gave her a small smile.
The memory of that day pushed against Diana like a rough wave, but as it receded, she was left with clarity. “After I told you about the deal with the FBI, you went back inside,” Diana said. “You thought it was all over.”
“I knew it was over.”
“So you ran back down to the basement where Gary and Michael were working on the bombs for the library.”