Page 6 of So Normal

The rest of dinner continued in the same vein. Ellie was nervous and shy and when she did talk, she was softspoken and giggly and almost sickeningly sweet. Faith realized uncomfortably that Ellie was nearly the opposite of Faith herself.

She hated that she thought that. She and Michael had spit mutually nearly two years ago and almost a year ago had agreed that they would never be romantic again. She had no interest in Michael, and he had no interest in her, so why did it matter how Ellie compared to Faith?

She realized she was slipping into the detective role again. She couldn’t resist the hypothesis that Michael chose Ellie specifically because she was different from Faith. She wasn’t sure why that bothered her. It shouldn’t bother her. So what if that was the reason? If he was happy, then that was good.

Then again, there was that mysteriously lingering husband to worry about.

No! No more!God, she just needed to get through this one dinner without prying into Michael’s personal life.

After dinner, they put on a movie about a mail order bride who leaves New England in 1910 to marry a widower farmer in Kansas who struggles to raise his two children after his wife dies giving birth to the youngest. It was a good movie, but despite her best efforts, Faith found her attention traveling to Ellie.

She leaned against Michael’s chest while they sat together on the couch. Michael was clearly enamored with her, looking at her with a fervent, earnest expression that Faith had never seen on his face before, not even when he and Faith believed they were in love.

Ellie occasionally looked up at Michael and smiled at him. They would kiss softly, and on the surface, they looked exactly like two lovers in the first bloom of romance.

Faith’s curse was that she could never look only at the surface. Ellie’s smile was soft and glowing, but the corners of her mouth were just slightly too stiff. She melted against Michael, but there was the barest hint of tension in her shoulders and arms. Her pose seemed relaxed, but Faith noticed her left foot twitched rhythmically as though she was tapping a rhythm in the air.

Turk sat in front of Faith, his eyes never wavering from her. Faith knew that he was as suspicious as she was, and she realized that he, like her, wasn’t entirely sure why.

The movie came to an end, and after a little more small talk, Faith announced it was time for her to leave. Ellie stood and smiled. “It was so great to meet you, Faith.”

She leaned forward, arms outstretched for an embrace, and Turk barked sharply and leapt in between them. Ellie jumped back, the blood draining from her face, and Michael jumped protectively in front of her.

“Turk!” Faith cried. “Stop it!”

Her face flushed red with embarrassment. She opened her mouth and started to stammer another apology when Michael’s phone rang.

He answered it, his eyes never leaving Faith. “Prince.” A pause. “She’s here.” Another pause. “All right. We’re on our way.”

He hung up and said, “That was the Boss. New case just dropped.” He turned to Ellie, who stood behind him, eyes wide with fear as she looked at Turk. “Sorry, honey.”

He looked at Faith and said in a clipped tone. “Let’s go. You drive.”

Faith followed him out of the house, mortified. She couldn’t believe Turk had behaved the way he did. She considered apologizing to Michael but decided to save that for later. He was almost certainly not in the mood to hear it now.

And while she did feel terrible about what happened, her larger concern was why Turk behaved the way he did. His instincts were flawless when it came to people.

What did he see in Ellie that made him feel she was a threat?

CHAPTER THREE

When Faith was sixteen, she attended her junior prom with Freddie Macintosh. Neither of them liked each other. Freddie was an introverted kid who didn’t even want to go to the prom and was only going because his parents insisted that he be social. Faith was not at all attracted to Freddie and resented being forced to go with a boy she didn’t like instead of just going alone.

She and Freddie had planned to split up when they reached the prom, since Freddie had no interest in Faith either, or any girl for that matter, but Mrs. Macintosh had insisted on chaperoning them “just in case Freddie’s hands go somewhere they don’t belong.”

That was probably still the most uncomfortable drive of her life, but this one was pretty damned close. Twice she opened her mouth to apologize for Turk’s behavior, and twice she closed it without saying anything.

Part of her, of course, was mortified, but part of her feared that if she started talking, she wouldn’t be able to help pointing out the signs she had noticed, the ones that suggested that Ellie might not be the sweet, perfect princess she seemed. Lettingthatcat out of the bag was probably the worst possible thing she could do.

Finally, they reached the field office, and Faith could breathe a sigh of relief. Then she remembered her encounter with Clark, and her relief faded. If Clark had gone to the Boss, then he would have no problem chastising her in front of Michael and announcing that she was off the case.

The Boss, whose real name was Grant Monroe, was the most decorated Special Agent-In-Charge in the Bureau. At one point, his name had been legendary, up there with Mark Felt, Melvin Purvis, and Joe Pistone. He was considered to be a shoo-in for Director when his time came, but a very heated, very public argument with a Deputy Director had relegated him to a permanent fixture in the Philadelphia Field Office, a punishment Grant took with pride.

To his agents, he was known simply as The Boss, and he wore that title well. He was also a hardass known for his acerbic and impatient demeanor, so the fact that he glared at them like an angry elementary school principal didn’t give Faith any indication that he knew about her interference on the copycat case.

“Good, you’re here,” the Boss said. “Sit down.”

They sat, Turk sitting in between the two chairs the agents occupied. The Boss tossed a file on the desk in front of them. Faith opened it, and Michael leaned over to look with her. The first document was an image of a man, dressed rather comically in a trench coat, dark sunglasses, and a wide-brim fedora, lying in the middle of what appeared to be a major subway terminal.

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