CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lucy was puking in the ladies’ room. God, worse than sleeping on the couch in Larry’s office, throwing up in the firm bathroom. She didn’t even have a toothbrush or anything. Maybe Larry would bring her one when he came back from trying to get her out of this. At least the police negotiator had gotten the crowd to let him out last night. Bad enough what she brought down on him, without his being a prisoner here with her! She certainly felt like a prisoner, with that mob outside, and representatives of the Rescue squad guarding the door.
She heard the toilet in the men’s room flush. Must be one of her volunteer guards. It was morning. She got up and walked gingerly over to the sink and stuck her head under the cold water. Better. She drank from the stream and gargled. She headed back for Larry’s office, hoping he might call her and tell her what was going on. Was that coffee she smelled? She turned toward the smell, coming from the firm coffee room.
“Coffee, Lucy?” Josh asked.
“What . . . what are you doing here? Everyone was supposed to get out last night,” she asked. “You might be trapped here. How did you get back in?”
“I was here all along,” he said. “But by the time everyone cleared out, you had fallen asleep, so I just went to sleep on the couch in my office. I checked on you a couple of times in the night, but you were sacked out. You didn’t hear a thing.”
She felt a slight stirring of warmth in her heart, frozen so long with grief and fear and flight. “You stayed? On purpose?”
“It’s nothing. I have all my stuff here for all nighters. Want a toothbrush? It’s a little damp, but . . . I have another shirt if you want to borrow it.”
“I’d love the toothbrush. Do you have toothpaste, too?” It seemed so odd to be discussing toothpaste with someone she hardly knew.
“Josh, you might be stuck here for days! What’s going on outside? You didn’t have to do this.”
“I thought you might be scared if you woke up alone in the office, with just those guards outside and all the stuff that you’ve been through. Don’t worry, Lucy,” he said sheepishly, pushing the blond cowlick off his forehead. “I don’t even have a dog to worry about. I’m sure Larry Glass or actually Kelly will figure out a way to get out of this, and, if they don’t, I’m not going to let them just take you away. I always thought I’d do something that mattered some day. That’s why I went to law school. That’s why a lot of us went to law school.”
“You sound just like my dad . . . used to,” she said sadly. If only she could trust him, like she did her dad. But next thing she knew he’d be asking her to do something for the cause. Look where that had gotten her dad. Dead.
He walked over to where she was standing by the coffee maker. Her phone rang. The moment passed. Josh walked out of the office and headed down the hall.
“Lucy, it’s Larry Glass. How are you?”
“I’m OK, Mr. Glass,” she said. “Josh stayed with me. Wasn’t that incredible of him? What is going to happen?”
“Well, first of all, I’m going to bring you some of your things and some breakfast. Is there anything you want? Flo packed your toothbrush and stuff and a set of clean clothes.”
“Could I have my new suit?” she asked. Joanna’s stuff was a little long on her. Wow, her phone had a zillion messages. Who could be texting? Hardly anyone had the number.
“Of course. I’ll get Joanna to show me where it is. By the way she gave your number to Michael Mecklenburg. I hope that was OK. He was driving her crazy to reach you when he saw the coverage.”
Ah, that explained all the texts. Meck. She was going to email him as soon as she got settled in Baltimore. Guess that wasn’t going to happen soon. Somehow Meck kept getting pushed to the bottom of the pile.
“I’ll be in very soon and we’ll talk about what we are going to do.” She went to the firm bathroom to wash up as best she could. She texted Meck that she was okay and he should stay in touch with Joanna. It was the first time she had pushed him off. But she had stopped dreaming about him, she realized. Somewhere on the Appalachian trail.
What they were going to do, it turned out, was a compromise. Lucy’s parents were going to apply to Governor Van Buren for her return. Under the fetal act, the states, as well as the federal government, had the right and duty to return pregnant runaways to their parents or husbands, so there was nothing irregular about that.
“Then, Lucy,” Larry Glass explained, “we will force the Governor to go to the courts to get the warrant enforced. And there we will make our defense.”
“But how?” Lucy asked. “I told you the pregnancy test was positive. If you turn me over, it’s just like giving me to the bounty hunters. What’s the difference if it’s the federal court or the state court?”
“We will make arguments about why you should not be turned back,” Kelly chimed in. “The federal courts have been selected by the Reds for so long, that they are little more than bounty hunters in robes. But the Maryland Courts aren’t like that. We elected two Rainbow candidates to the state Supreme Court last fall, when we ran Sheriff John. They will listen to reasonable arguments. There are things we can do. People have been starting to resist the Fetal Protection Act lately. I’ve been working with them. I’ll defend you. You can help me.”
“Why should Arthur agree to that then? Why doesn’t he just send the Federal police after me?”
“Look out the window.”
She walked over to the place where the protesters were visible. There was a huge white tent on the lawn in front of the old Post Office. Trucks from every imaginable TV and radio station were lined up all along the street. The blonde woman was giving another interview. There was a giant banner with – could it be – her picture on it? Where did they get that picture? A man in an old fashioned costume was bending over her in the picture, with a whip. Her hand went to her scars. Did the people from the Rainbow Road tell the protesters about her back?
Apparently not. “While you were in Virginia,” Kelly continued, “some ex-sect women raided a polygamy compound in northern Arizona and “rescued” some wives. Most of them weren’t older than fourteen. A lot of them had been beaten. The rescuers sent pictures from their phones. When Arizona state troopers chased the rescuers into California, the California national guard was waiting for them at the border. Seems the rescuers had a friend in Sacramento. They actually fired on the Arizona troopers. Luckily no one was killed, but it’s been a while since one United States police officer shot at a law enforcer from another state. Like a hundred and some years.”
“The paper said something about Governor Giffords and the national guard,” Lucy remembered.
“Right. Even the Maryland guard is stronger than most U.S. Army units. People don’t realize it, but most of the army volunteers came from blue states anyway. So a lot of the people who would have gone US have joined the state guards instead.”
“But won’t Maryland have to turn me over eventually?”
“We’ll see,” Larry said. We have a lot of work to do. Meanwhile, they’re going to let you stay here on house arrest. As if they had a choice. The last thing Barbara Van Buren wants to do is run in the New Hampshire Blue primary this year with pictures of her troopers battling the Rainbow Rescue Squad. Now, I have to go talk President Jane down there into letting my partners come to work. I have a feeling we’re going to have a busy week.” He squared his shoulders and strode out.
Lucy turned to Kelly. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Kelly admitted. “I did. You were willing to work way too long hours for someone with a sick mother at Johns Hopkins. I just googled Joanna’s junior high class and there you were: Lucy Atreides, daughter of the late Agamemnon Atreides, martyr of the Ohio election riots. I even found you in the sophomore class at the University of Chicago high school after that. If you thought you were keeping your identity secret, you are going to need a lot of training before they let you in the CIA. But I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“I didn’t know either!” Lucy exclaimed passionately. “I hadn’t even missed one period when I ran away. I just had to get away.”
“Why did you have to get away?” Kelly asked. “You left Chicago and went back to Virginia, a year ago right? Why did you go back? And then why did you turn around and try to run away? Anything you tell me is privileged, Lucy. You can tell me anything, and I can never be made to repeat it.” She fell silent, just looking at Lucy and waiting. A really long time passed.
Lucy took a big breath. She had a cover story: maybe the feral had raped her in the toilet that night. But the burden of the real story was suddenly too much for Lucy to bear alone. She was never going to get back to the innocent and happy life she had led before she went to Virginia a year ago. Even though she was afraid to go public, because of what he threatened to do to Mom, she couldn’t carry it alone any more. “My stepfather raped me.” There was something about Kelly, some combination of warmth and strength that opened Lucy up. Kelly loved her mother. She would understand. She actually felt like the iceberg that had been in her throat since that night six weeks ago was melting. But she was not going to turn it into tears. She was damned if she was going to cry again.
“But why. . .” Kelly started.
“My mother is really sick,” Lucy continued. “That part is true. My brother brings her illegal stem cell medicine from Baltimore every week. Arthur said if I told anyone he would cut off my mother’s medicine. And he was going to rape me again and again, because if I told anyone or tried to defend myself he’d kill my mother by letting her die.”
“It’s Virginia, Kelly,” she went on. Now that the ice around her heart was broken, it unleashed a flood of words. “There was nowhere I could turn for help. There are no women’s shelters. No one would believe me. My sister in law called me a whore, when they were discussing whether to try to sneak me out. Mom’s medicine is illegal there; he can cut it off. He wanted me. He was using Mom to be able to keep raping me. It was me. Or mom. How could I choose? All I could think of to do was run. And once I got here, all I could do was hide. You knew I was here, so you found out who I was. But I bet you didn’t find anything about me after I got out. I didn’t even write to tell Mom where I was, just that I was okay. If he couldn’t find me, he couldn’t threaten me with her. And now I’m all over TV.”
“But Lucy they’ll never get you now. This is Maryland. Once we tell the world your stepfather raped you, Maryland will never let the feds send you back.
Lucy could see Kelly, the budding campaign strategist, starting to process the possibilities in using her rape against her famous, powerful, Red stepfather. Just like the Guides had done before they dropped her off.
“I can’t.” Lucy said. “If he finds out I said anything about being raped, Arthur will kill my mother. He promised if I told anyone, he’d just cut off her medicine. We have to beat them some other way.” She looked at the woman she had trusted, the first person she had told since she spotted Arthur’s reflection in the mirror that awful night.
She trusted someone. Maybe it was the sight of all those protestors so selflessly guarding the law firm building all night to protect her that gave her a little faith. Now would Kelly stick by her? Or did her loyalty run to someone else beside Lucy?