“I don’t think we should be here,” Noah says the next afternoon. He has a point, but I don’t say so. “We are in Iran,” he says again, but the three of us ignore him. “Am I the only one who is concerned about this?”
“Yes,” Megan, Rosie, and I say in unison.
Megan sits with her feet in the water, a laptop beside her. Rosie does handstands on the other side of the pool, her bare heels resting against the tile mosaic. But me, I just sit watching the light flicker, shimmering across the ceiling, trying not to think about the smoke.
“Okay,” Megan tells us a moment later. “We’re live.”
She turns the laptop so that Noah and I can see it. Images flash across the screen, rotating between the cameras in the bedroom, living room, and kitchen. I can see the Scarred Man sitting in his solitary chair, staring off into space. He still has the cat, I notice, and it lies on his lap, sleeping. It looks as if he’s finally found a friend.
“That guy creeps me out,” Rosie says.
“Me, too,” Megan says, turning the laptop back around.
“How long until he finds the cameras?” Noah asks.
Megan shrugs. “It depends how paranoid he is. I mean, he could do a sweep every day. Or every week. Or never. In any case, we have them while we have them. That’s the best we can hope for.”
“What about his phone?” I ask.
“What about it?” Rosie says, flipping herself upright.
“Someone called while we were in there last night,” I say. “Who was it?”
Megan shakes her head. “The number was untraceable.”
“Untraceable?” Noah asks. “I thought we were supposed to be able to trace everything.”
The look in Megan’s eyes says it all: We were.
“He’s working for someone,” I say. “Someone’s calling the shots.”
“But is this someone going to get caught by the likes of us?” Noah asks. Nobody answers. Probably because it’s an answer none of us really wants to hear.
After hours of waiting, Noah goes out to get food and Rosie falls asleep on one of the lounge chairs.
Megan and I are alone, watching the Scarred Man washing his dishes by hand and putting them all away. I wonder if he is as bored as we are. But Megan doesn’t complain. She sits, patiently waiting — for what, I do not know.
“Hey, Megan …” I don’t know where the words come from; I don’t know how to stop them. “Did you go to my mom’s funeral?”
The dripping of the water is ever present in the basement. It punctuates my every word. I wish I could turn the volume down.
“Yeah,” Megan says, but she doesn’t face me.
“Was it nice?” I have to ask.
Megan nods, but doesn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m sorry you couldn’t come.” Megan swings her feet back and forth. I can see her wondering whether or not she should go on, but eventually she says, “The prime minister came. And Princess Ann, though they brought her in and out through a private entrance. I don’t think the public even knew she was there.”
“She and my mom grew up together. They were best friends.”
“That makes sense,” Megan says. “There were a lot of flowers.”
“My mom loved flowers.”
“Your grandpa gave the eulogy. He thanked everyone for coming and talked about how wonderful and beautiful your mother was. About how much she loved you and your brother. Everybody cried.”
From the sound of her voice I think Megan is crying now. I think I might be too but I’m not going to give my tears permission to fall. Not anymore.
“Was he there?” I ask, my gaze glued to the man on the screen. “Dominic? Did he come?”
Megan shakes her head. For the first time, she faces me. “If he was there, I didn’t see him. But it was at the national cathedral and it was packed. I bet there were five hundred people there, and I don’t think I saw him. Or at least I don’t remember seeing him. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, even though it isn’t. Even though I’m pretty sure that nothing will ever be okay again.
A moment later, the door swings open and Noah asks, “So what did I miss?”
Rosie sits upright and stretches, catching the sandwich that Noah tosses her way.
“Nothing,” I tell Noah.
He hands a sandwich to me, and I’m just about to dig in when, beside me, Megan mutters, “That’s weird.”
“What is it?” Rosie asks, but Megan just looks at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.” Megan tries to close the laptop, but not before Noah swoops it away from her. For a second, he just stares at the screen. I can’t see what he’s seeing, but somehow I know what he’s thinking. Maybe because I can see it in his eyes. Maybe because I’ve seen it so many times before.
Noah isn’t angry. Not yet. He’s hurt.
I don’t know what it is, but I know that I’ve done something wrong.
“I asked you if you had ever accused any other men with scars before,” Noah says.
“Noah, I —”