The Witness

left her alone.
    “That wasn’t just impulse, and it wasn’t showing off. Exactly. I felt if they understood I understand, we might move more smoothly through this process. The pebble dropped into the river while I was speaking to the FBI waiter,” she added. “I think I’ll eat. The salad does look nice.”
    In his room, munching on some minibar nuts, Brooks just shook his head.
    What a woman he had.
    When she’d finished, she set the tray outside the door. Plenty of fingerprints, she mused, sufficient DNA as well. They could run her prints and save yet more time.
    She sat, drinking her tea, monitoring her computer for alerts and thinking how much she wished to be home with Brooks, her dog, her gardens. She knew now, really knew, how lovely it was to wish for home.
    When the knock came, she switched off the computer, rose, walked to the door to look out through the security peep at the lanky man and the athletically built woman.
    “Yes?”
    “Elizabeth Fitch?”
    “Would you please hold your identification up so I can see it?” She knew their faces, of course, but it seemed foolish not to take this step. She opened the door. “Please, come in.”
    “Assistant Director Cabot.” He held out a hand.
    “Yes, thank you for coming. And you, Special Agent Garrison. It’s nice to meet you in person.”
    “And you, Ms. Fitch.”
    “Elizabeth, please, or Liz. We should sit down. If you’d like some coffee—”
    “We were told you’d already offered.” Cabot smiled very slightly. “It’s on its way up. The agent you made is taking a lot of guff from his colleagues.”
    “I’m sorry. I was expecting you’d send someone in if you had the opportunity. And I’m very observant.”
    “You’ve managed to stay off the radar for a long time.”
    “I wanted to stay alive.”
    “And now?”
    “I want to live. I’ve come to understand there’s a difference.”
    Cabot nodded. “We’ll want to record this meeting.”
    “Yes, I’d prefer you did.”
    “Set it up, Agent Garrison. I’ll get that,” he said, at the knock on the door.
    Garrison took a computer out of a case. “I’d like to ask why you chose me as your contact.”
    “Of course. You have an exemplary record. You come from a solid family base, and while you excelled in school, you also took time for extracurricular activities, formed lasting friendships. I concluded you were well rounded, intelligent and had a strong sense of right and wrong. Those were important qualities for my purposes. In addition, in studying your higher education and your record at Quantico, then in Chicago, I concluded that, while ambitious, you wished to succeed and advance on your own merits. You have a healthy respect for authority and the chainof command. You may shave the rules, but you respect them as a foundation for the system, and the system as a means to justice.”
    “Wow.”
    “I apologize, as some of my research on you included invasions of your privacy. I justified that by the desire to serve as a source on the Volkov organization. The ends justify the means. That’s often no more than an excuse for doing the wrong thing, but in this case, at that time, I believed it was my only viable option.
    “Would you like me to pour the coffee, Assistant Director?”
    “I’ve got it.”
    Abigail held her silence a moment as she took a self-evaluation. Nerves, yes, she admitted. Her pulse beat rapidly, but without the pressure of panic.
    “I assume you verified my identity from prints on the room-service dishes.”
    Again, Cabot nearly smiled. “You assume correctly. Agent?”
    “Yes, sir. We’re set.”
    “Will you state your name for the record?”
    “I’m Elizabeth Fitch.”
    “Ms. Fitch, you contacted the FBI, though a liaison, expressing a desire to give a statement regarding events that occurred in the summer and fall of 2000.”
    “That’s correct.”
    “We have your written statement as provided, but again, for this record and in your own words, would you tell us about those events?”
    “Yes. On June 3, 2000, I argued with my mother. This is important, as I had never to that point argued with her. My mother was—is still, I imagine—a dominant personality. I was a submissive one. But on that day I defied her wishes and her orders, and it set off the events that followed.”
    As he listened to the retelling, Brooks’s heart broke again for thatyoung, desperate girl. She spoke carefully, but he knew her now. He knew those slight