Page 81 of Girl, Accused

‘It’s a brave new world out here.’

Ripley said, ‘I used to be the human lie detector. Canton was lying right to our faces. If I’d have looked a little closer, I’d have caught it and saved us a ton of trouble.’

‘Practice makes perfect, and you’re out of practice.’

‘That’s by design. I’ve spent the past five months trying to forget everything I knew.’

The terminal hummed with the white noise of collective human motion. A child wailed three gates down. The Starbucks barista called out order numbers. A businessman in a rumpled suit paced a six-foot section of floor while speaking urgently into his phone. Every airport in America housed the same cast of characters, Ella thought. Only the faces changed.

‘You know what they say,’ Ella offered. ‘You don't realize what you have until it's gone.’

‘Who says that? Hallmark?’

‘Almost everyone who's ever lost something. Five months isn’t long. Just long enough to get rusty.’

‘Apparently.’ Ripley smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her pants. The cream sweater she'd worn when she first arrived in Granville had been replaced by a charcoal turtleneck and dark jeans. The civilian disguise had all but vanished.

‘You think you’d want to do this again?’

Ripley closed her magazine and sighed. ‘Why? What’s wrong with your man?’

‘Luca?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nothing, but we don’t work cases together anymore. It’s too difficult.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘Fine,’ Ripley snapped. ‘And the answer is: I don’t know. I left for a reason.’

‘And now?’

Ripley tapped the armrest in thatspecific rhythm that meant her thoughts were outpacing her ability to articulate them. ‘It's not that simple.’

‘It's complicated,’ she said. ‘I miss it and I don't.’

‘Care to elaborate on that contradiction?’

'It's...' Ripley searched for words in a rare moment of verbal hesitation from a woman who typically fired sentences like bullets. 'It's like addiction battling with sobriety. I miss making the world a safer place. I don't miss seeing people I love as victims. I don't miss the fact I barely saw my kids growing up. The day my son got married, I was helping find a crossbow killer in England. I want to make amends through my grandson. He doesn't care about your body count or your closed case rate.'

‘I get it.’

‘My dad was a cop. Chicago PD. Missed my birth because he was working a double homicide. Missed my graduation because he was undercover. Missed my wedding because he was dead. Is that the circle of life?’

‘I didn't know that.’

‘Not in my file?’ Ripley's smile was sharp enough to cut. ‘Shocking. Bureau thinks they know everything.’

‘I'm sorry.’

‘Don't be. It was a long time ago.’

‘Still.’

‘The point is, I swore I wouldn't be that person for Max. That I wouldn't put the job before family.’ Ripley ran a hand through her silver-streaked hair. ‘And then you called, and Sister Mary started her holy crusade, and suddenly I'm back in it like I never left.’

---