Finch was taping a newspaper clipping next to a picture to the board as Reese entered the main room of the library. “You’ve lost your dog, Mr. Reese.” He didn’t sound at all saddened by that development.
“He made a new friend. They’re having a sleepover.”
Harold looked him up and down. “I wasn’t aware that Miss Fitzgerald even liked dogs.”
Reese didn’t know if his enigmatic employer had identified his destination by the fresh clothes he was wearing or if he’d tracked him somehow. It didn’t really matter; one way or another, Finch always knew just a little more than John was comfortable with. He joined him at the board and held his phone out. “This is the friend.”
Harold barely glanced at it. “He’s befriended a rat?”
“It’s a kitten. Newborn. He found it in a trash can.”
“How … lovely. I’m surprised you didn’t drag it back here and expect me to look after it for you.”
“I thought about it,” Reese admitted cheerfully. “But I figured two furry creatures in one week would get me banned.”
“You thought correctly.” Finch looked at the board again, but Reese could see the tension in his body. “What did you tell her?”
“The kitten?”
“Miss Fitzgerald.”
“Nothing.”
Finch glanced sideways at him.
“She asked how you were. I said you were fine. That was the end of it.”
“Did you contact her while I was missing?”
“She was in Argentina until yesterday.”
“Is that a no?” Finch insisted.
“That’s a no.”
“Good.” He turned and went back to his computers. But he looked up at Reese for a long moment. “Is she okay?” he finally asked.
“Y-yeah,” Reese said uncertainly.
“Mr. Reese.”
“She’s fine, I promise.” John sighed. “Do you have access to surveillance cameras inside LaGuardia?”
Finch pursed his lips, turned his attention back to his keyboard. For a moment Reese thought he was ignoring the question. Then the genius answered, “I do now. Can you be more specific?”
“International baggage claim. Yesterday.”
The fingers flew with confidence. “What time yesterday?”
“I don’t know.”
Finch scowled and continued to type. Reese went behind him, leaned one hand on the desk to look over his shoulder. Harold ran the recording on two screens at high speed. One ran forward from noon, the other backward. “What am I looking for?”
“You’ll know when you see it.”
Finch glared at him briefly. “What did she do now?”
“That.” Reese pointed.
Finch stopped the playback, rewound, started the display at normal speed. There was no sound, but it wasn’t necessary. A dark-haired man dragged a crying toddler through the crowd toward the baggage carousel. A thin woman tugged at the man’s arm. He said something, half-raised his hand, and she retreated. Then he shouted at the toddler again, hauled him up by one arm, flipped the child over and hit him hard and repeatedly on the backside.
Reese hadn’t noticed Christine in the video before; she had her back to the camera and she was at the far edge of the frame. But before the second blow had fallen, she was pushing thought the crowd to stand right in front of the man. She waved both arms as she talked, fast and probably loudly. The man dropped the child and screamed at her instead. Christine didn’t back down; she stood practically on his toes and screamed back.
He drew his arm back and hit her in the face with the back of his fist.
Finch drew a sharp breath.
“She’s okay,” Reese repeated firmly.
On the screen, a dozen men from the crowd pulled the attacker away, not gently. At least two hit him as they dragged him back. Probably more hits landed after he disappeared under the pile. Security arrived, and then real cops.
The pale woman picked up the wailing toddler and slipped away.
Finch stabbed at the keyboard, freezing the image. “Mr. Reese …” he breathed, horrified.
“She’s okay,” Reese stated again. “She’s got a big bruise, but she’s fine. She provoked him on purpose.” He sighed again. “She could have ducked.”
Finch looked at him, desperation in his eyes. “The man …?”
“He’s in jail now, and when New York is done with him, Ohio wants him back. It’s been resolved, Finch. She took care of it. All by herself.” He was still angry, but he was also relieved. “And she’s fine. She’s kind of smug about it, actually.”
“Then why am I looking at this tape?”
Reese straightened. “Because I needed to be sure,” he finally admitted.
“That she wasn’t lying to you,” Harold completed.
“Yes.”
Finch was quiet for a moment. John knew he was thinking about Jessica Arndt. Or worried about John thinking about her. Maybe he should have tried to find the tape on his own. Or made Fusco get him the arrest report. But he’d wanted to get Christine in front of Finch, and the tape was the fastest way. Worrying about Christine was better for him than dwelling on Root.
But he hadn’t planned on Finch having to worry about him, too.
“Are you alright?” Finch finally asked.
“I’m fine,” Reese assured him. “Really. Who’s the new number?”
Harold nodded slowly toward the board. “Martin Keleman. Bread maker. Fifteen-year employee of a bakery in Brooklyn. Married, two teenage children. His wife, Beth, is a day care worker. They’ve lived in the same apartment for nine years. Mediocre credit, but no alarming debts. No criminal record, no obvious vices.”
“No hint why anybody would want him dead.”
“None so far.”
“Lovely.” Reese went back to the board and looked at the picture. The man was middle-aged, with pale hair and a round face. The clipping was from a neighborhood paper, a short story about Martin and Beth celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. They looked stiffly formal but happy. “I suppose I ought to take a drive.”
“I’ll send the pertinent addresses to your phone. And then see if I can learn anything more about him.”
Reese nodded. He stayed where he was for a moment, glancing over the other documents Finch had gathered. There were several small clippings about the children, all sports-related. The boy played football, the girl basketball. There was a credit report, a copy of their lease. Nothing that really caught his eye, but it was good to have a solid background.
It was good to be there, to hear the keyboard behind him. To have Finch back. He gave himself a minute just to enjoy it. A good day’s work.
But the clicking slowed, and finally stopped. He turned; Finch was frozen, staring at the screen. “Finch?” he prompted gently. He wondered if the genius had found something truly shocking about their new Number.
“I think it would be best,” Finch answered slowly, “if we had no further contact with Miss Fitzgerald.”
Reese stared at him. The genius wouldn’t meet his eyes. ”I have to get the dog back.”
Harold’s eyes flicked to him. His posture clearly said, ‘Why?’ But his eyes returned to the screens, and when he spoke, flatly, he said, “Of course you do.”
“After that,” Reese said slowly, “it’s your call.” She was Finch’s friend, after all. But he couldn’t believe that the recluse was willing to give her up. “But I think you’re wrong.”
Finch looked up sharply. “If Root ever got her hands on Christine …”
“Why would she bother? Christine doesn’t know anything about the Machine.”
Their gazes stayed locked. Reese saw Finch take a deep breath. “You told her.” He was jealous and angry first, and then he swore savagely at himself. Of course she knew. And the first thing he should have done when Finch was taken, the very first thing, was track her down and tell her that Random was in trouble and that he needed her help.
She would have been on the next plane home. She would have helped him. No questions asked. No hesitation.
If he had lost Finch because the man had kept this incredibly important secret from him …
“I didn’t tell her,” Finch protested. “Like our Mr. Peck ” and like Root ” Christine deduced the Machine’s existence all on her own. Once she became aware that I wasn’t dead, it was very short leap of logic to put us together.”
Reese shook his head. Being pissed off about it now wouldn’t help. Realizing that didn’t make him any less angry. But there was a more pressing issue now. Since she already knew ” especially since she already knew ” it was vital to keep her in Finch’s life. “She seems to have taken it in stride.”
Finch looked away, back to his screens. “She understands the Machine’s function. She relies on its omniscience to calm her own anxieties.” He paused. “She celebrates its existence. And she asks no questions.”
His voice was a little soft, a little warm. ,i>She celebrates its existence, Reese repeated in his mind. It sounded very much like you’re a soldier. It carried the same meaning, the same gentle benediction.
Despite everything she knew, she didn’t consider either of them to be monsters.
“Christine wouldn’t betray you,” Reese said. “She wouldn’t help Root gain access to it.”
“No, of course she wouldn’t,” Finch snapped. “She’d die first. Or more precisely, she’d make Root kill her first.” He shook his head emphatically. “We can’t risk that Root will ever locate her. And the only way to be absolutely sure of that … is to never contact her again.”
Reese heard the determination in his friend’s voice. It didn’t quite mask the despair that lay under it. Harold didn’t want to lose the young woman.
Neither of them had many friends, but Reese knew that Finch counted Christine as one of his. At the lunches John had listened in on, he hadn’t learned anything new about Finch’s secretive background. What he had learned was that Christine readily understood Finch’s cyber-lingo and his coding shorthand. They happily swapped stories of bad programming and idiot users, epically creative hacks and equally epic failures, until Reese’s eyes glazed over in boredom. Shop talk. She gave Finch a peer to talk to, or at least as near to a peer as existed for him. But there was more to it.
She made Finch smile, and once in a while even laugh out loud.
She was the only adult, outside of Will Ingram, that could touch Harold’s hand without making him flinch away.
When he was with Christine Fitzgerald, Harold’s ‘human interaction’ was not difficult.
Finch needed her. He deserved the little moments of happiness she brought into his life. And he’d lost enough, Reese decided. Root had taken too much from him already. Christine was as good for him as Root had been bad.
But the genius would do what he thought was in Christine’s best interest. He would sacrifice his own happiness without hesitation to protect her. John could argue about Harold’s emotional well-being until he was blue in the face. In Harold’s current frame of mind that argument would only harden his resolve. The man was trying to shut himself off from the world, from his friendships, from his feelings. He was drawing away from everyone, even John. I really didn’t intend for you to come and find me, Mr. Reese. Concerns for Christine’s safety gave him an excuse to shut her out.
Reese had another argument to make, one that might actually succeed. ”When I was with the Agency,” he said simply, “if I went to town looking for the biggest arms dealer and I couldn’t find him, I’d find the second-biggest arms dealer. Because even if he didn’t know where the big guy was, I could be sure the big guy knew where he was.”
Finch looked at him again. Reese thought he saw a glimmer of hope behind the glasses. He kept his voice flat, as if his reasoning were purely practical. “Root can’t come at you the way she did before. She’ll have to find a new approach. If she decides to find the second-best hacker in the city, that’s likely to be Christine.”
“Very likely,” Finch conceded.
“If you read her in, Christine can help us. She moves in different circles than you do. She may spot Root before she gets close.”
“I won’t use Christine Fitzgerald as bait,” Finch said firmly.
“Not as bait. As an asset. A look-out.”
“Mr. Reese …”
“We agree that Christine would never help Root, if she knew who she was and what she was after. But if a stranger walked into Chaos tonight with some convincing story about …” he spread his hands, improvised, “… I don’t know, her missing father, a computer tech with the Army who took brain damage when his convey hit an IED in Iraq. About how he walked out of a VA hospital and he’s off his psych meds and … let’s make him diabetic, too, just to ramp up the urgency. You know Christine. She would move hell and earth to help find him. Right up until she realized who Root was really after. And by then it might be too late.”
“She’s smarter than that,” Harold protested.
“Smarter than the two of us put together? Because you and I believed every word Caroline Turing said, right up until she put a bullet in Alicia Corwin’s head.”
Finch turned away. His lips tightened into a very thin line. “Turing,” he repeated bitterly. “The Turing test. I should have known.”
“Harold,” Reese said, “I know you want to protect Christine. But keeping her in the dark won’t work. She knows too much already.” Finch moved his head, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “But she’s smart, Harold. She hid from you for eleven years. …”
“I didn’t look for her very hard.”
“… and she can hide from Root, if she knows what to look for. If you tell her everything ” who Root is, what she wants, how she works, how she hacks ” then Christine can protect herself, and maybe help us.” He paused. “If you don’t, you leave her defenseless.”
There was a very long silence. John watched Harold’s profile closely. The man’s jaw worked side to side. His hands opened and closed over the keyboard. He continued to stare at the screen. The frozen melee that had resulted from Christine taking a hit to protect a child. Show me what you do, John thought again, and I’ll tell you what you believe. The image was not helping John’s case.
Finally, very quietly, Finch said, “I need to think about it.”
Reese let out a slow breath. He hadn’t won, but he’d come as close as he was going to. “Like I said, it’s your call.”
Finch had promised once that he would never lie to Reese. John had made no such promise in return. If he thought Root was back and a threat to Finch, he’d go to Christine himself and telling her everything he knew. If Finch didn’t like it, that was too damn bad. But for now, it was important to let Finch make these decisions for himself. To let him have as much control over his life as possible.
“I’ll let you know.” His voice was still soft. He wants to keep her, John thought with certainty, and I’ve given him a reason to let himself do it. But he was still too rattled to deal with her. She’d be kind, he realized, and Harold knows it. And that kindness, at this moment, could shatter the recluse’s brittle emotions.
Go ahead, keep her at arm’s length if you need to. For a while. Just don’t lock the door on her.
Finch finally moved. He pressed a single key, and Reese’s phone beeped with a text message. He checked it. It contained the address of their new client’s apartment and work location.
Finch pressed another button. Reese glanced over and saw that he was running the surveillance tape from the airport again. Harold shook his head grimly. “I don’t know why I worry about putting her life in danger,” he muttered. “She seems to revel in doing it herself.”
Reese grinned briefly. Gotcha. He hid the expression before Finch saw it. “She knew she wasn’t in any real danger.” He circled behind the desk, pointed to the screen. “Look. This big guy has kids of his own. These two are probably military on leave. There’s security over here. And this is, I don’t know, college wrestling team?”
Harold zoomed in the view to the young men’s gear. “Water polo.”
“Whatever. She knew this idiot would get one hit and no more. She did the math.”
“Yes.” Finch looked over at him. “But she would have done the same if there had been no one there to help her.”
John couldn’t argue that point. “You’re probably right.”
Harold shook his head and shut down the screen. “What did she name him?”
“Hmmm?”
“The kitten.”
“Oh. It’s a female. And she doesn’t have a name yet.”
Finch raised one eyebrow. “The woman who names her stand-alone hard drives hasn’t named her new kitten?”
Reese shrugged. “Honestly … she may not survive the night.”
“Give me your phone.”
Surprised, John handed his phone over.
Finch studied the picture of Bear and the kitten more closely. ”She’s gray all over?”
“Yes.”
“And Bear found her?”
“Yes.”
“Then her name is obvious, isn’t it?”
Reese frowned . Then he got it. “When you put it that way, of course it is.”
Finch looked at the picture again. Then he clicked to a new screen and sent a text to Christine.
BEAR FOUND HER. OBVIOUSLY HER NAME IS SMOKEY.
Reese let himself grin openly. Finch wasn’t ready to contact Christine one-on-one. He was using John’s phone, hiding gently behind his identity. But he was engaged again. Reese was willing to call it a win.
In a moment, Christine sent a text back.
OBVIOUSLY. BEAR APPROVES.
SHE HAS THE HANG OF EATING. LIKE A PIG.
I THINK WE’LL BE OKAY.
Finch made a noise, somewhere between a chuckle and a snort, and handed the phone back. He gestured to the board. “Mr. Keleman.”
“On my way.” Reese strode from the library, jingling the keys to Christine’s unexpectedly sweet car. When he got to the street, it was nearly dark, but the rain had stopped.
He paused and touched his earwig. Finch didn’t speak, but he could hear the keyboard in the background. It was as constant and steady as John’s own pulse now. Finch is in the library, and all is right with the world.
Reese grinned to himself, tossed the keys up and caught them out of the air. No, the world was not right. And it never would be, not entirely. For one thing, someone was planning to kill Mr. Keleman, or else Mr. Keleman was planning to kill someone. But Finch was safe and settling in, and John was back on the job, back on his path to the light. And the kitten was eating. The world was more right, and getting better all the time.
The End
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