“I put in every email I could think of,” Nola explained from the back seat. “Same response every time: ‘User ID not recognized.’ On a hunch, I put in your email—”
“How’d you get my email?”
“I put in your email. New words appeared. ‘Enter password.’”
For a moment, Waggs sat there, looking at the rearview mirror and studying this young woman curled like a fist in the back seat. For years now, Waggs had heard stories about Nola—about her childhood, her father, her temper. But to finally see her in person, Waggs was struck by her sheer intensity. It radiated off her, like plutonium.
“Black House,” Nola said, never raising her voice.
Waggs cleared her throat, glancing again at the security guard in the distance. “Y’know what, Nola? I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided I want to help you, because once I do—”
“I won’t bother you anymore.”
“No. You’ll continue to bother me. But. I need you to stop bothering Zig. That’s my offer. We talk—I’ll tell you what Black House is—but after that, you leave him alone.”
“You talk about him like he’s a child.”
“Can you please—？”
“I didn’t ask for Mr. Zigarowski’s help.”
“That’s irrelevant! Help is his specialty. You were friends with his daughter . . . You saved her life. Do you have any idea what that does to him? When you stir up all that emotion? It’s like having a long-lost family member show up out of nowhere.”
Nola stopped drawing, her head still down. In her lap, her notepad was tilted just enough so that Waggs couldn’t see it. But Nola’s sudden pause at the mention of a long-lost family member confirmed exactly what Waggs was looking for: whatever was going on, Nola’s brother was definitely mixed up in it.
“Hand me your phone,” Waggs said.
Nola stared at Waggs skeptically.
“I’m not pulling this up on mine. Now do you want to know what Black House is or not?”
Nola handed over her phone, shooting Waggs a look.
“The proper response is ‘thank you,’” Waggs said, grabbing the phone. “As for Black House, it’s a military term—a government site that dates back to, well . . . Y’ever heard of Richard Nixon?”
32
Two hours later, Zig was sitting in his backyard, in his favorite rusty lawn chair. He had a beer in one hand, his phone in the other.
Onscreen was Facebook—his ex-wife’s profile.
In a relationship.
“Don’t judge,” Zig warned his favorite girls.
Mmmmmmmmm, his hive sang back, hundreds of bees swirling and crawling around a white wooden box as big as a two-drawer file cabinet. Zig had built the box himself, complete with dovetail joints. Up on concrete blocks, it was the only piece of furniture Zig had kept from his old house, and the house before that—his and Charmaine’s house.
“Oh, c’mon,” Zig challenged. “No one’s cool when their ex is around. Even Brad and Angelina crumbled.”
Mmmmmmm, twenty-five thousand bees replied.
“I know,” he said, refreshing Facebook again—In a relationship—not even sure what he was looking for. He could make a few more calls about his daughter and the videotape—that’s what he’d done right after Charmaine left. He called Waggs （who must still be out on her date）， he called an old CIA connection from Dover, and of course he texted back and forth with half a dozen people from their old hometown whose daughters used to do Girl Scouts with Maggie. There were still a few more calls he could make. But as he sat there nursing his third beer, staring at Facebook, and trying to lose himself in the hum of the bees, he knew that nothing good came from picking at old scabs.