Jack Mars - Agent Zero

“In the city,” Reid repeated.

“Yes, Dad, in the city. And I’d need a dress. It’s a fancy place. I don’t really have anything to wear.”

There were many times when Reid desperately wished Kate was there, but this might have topped them. He had always assumed that his daughters would date at some point, but he was hoping that it wouldn’t be until they were twenty-five. It was times like this that he resorted to his favored parenting acronym, WWKS—what would Kate say? As an artist and a decidedly free spirit, she probably would have handled the situation much differently than he would, and he tried to stay cognizant of that.

He must have looked particularly troubled, because Maya laughed a little and put her hand on his. “Are you okay, Dad? It’s just a date. Nothing’s going to happen. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “You’re right. Of course it’s no big deal. We can see if Aunt Linda can take you to the mall this weekend and—”

“I want you to take me.”

“You do?”

She shrugged. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to get anything you weren’t okay with.”

A dress, dinner in the city, and some boy… this wasn’t anything he’d actually considered having to deal with before.

“All right then,” he said. “We’ll go on Saturday. But I have a condition—I get to pick tonight’s game.”

“Hmm,” said Maya. “You drive a hard bargain. Let me consult with my associate.” Maya turned to her sister.

Sara nodded. “Fine. As long as it’s not Risk.”

Reid scoffed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Risk is the best.”

After dinner, Sara cleared the dishes while Maya made hot chocolate. Reid set up one of their favorites, Ticket to Ride, a classic game about building train routes across America. As he set out cards and plastic train cars, he found himself wondering when this had happened. When had Maya grown up so quickly? For the last two years, ever since Kate passed, he had played the parts of both parents (with some much-appreciated help from their Aunt Linda). They both still needed him, or so it seemed, but it wouldn’t be long until they were off to college, and then careers, and then…

“Dad?” Sara entered the dining room and took a seat across from him. As if reading his mind, she said, “Don’t forget, I have an art show at school next Wednesday night. You’ll be there, right?”

He smiled. “Of course, honey. Wouldn’t miss it.” He clapped his hands together. “Now! Who’s ready to get demolished—I mean, who’s ready to play a family-friendly game?”

“Bring it on, old man,” Maya called from the kitchen.

“Old man?” Reid said indignantly. “I’m thirty-eight!”

“I stand by it.” She laughed as she entered the dining room. “Oh, the train game.” Her grin dissolved to a thin smile. “This was Mom’s favorite, wasn’t it?”

“Oh… yeah.” Reid frowned. “It was.”

“I’m blue!” Sara announced, grabbing at pieces.

“Orange,” said Maya. “Dad, what color? Dad, hello?”

“Oh.” Reid snapped out of his thoughts. “Sorry. Uh, green.”

Maya pushed some pieces his way. Reid forced a smile, though his thoughts were troubled.

After two games, both of which Maya had won, the girls went to bed and Reid retired to his study, a small room on the first floor, just off the foyer.

Riverdale was not a cheap area, but it was important to Reid to ensure that his girls had a safe and happy environment. There were only two bedrooms, so he had claimed the den on the first floor as his office. All of his books and memorabilia were crammed into nearly every available inch of the ten-by-ten first-floor room. With his desk and a leather armchair, only a small patch of well-worn carpet was still visible.

He fell asleep often in that armchair, after late nights of taking notes, preparing lectures, and rereading biographies. It was starting to give him back problems. Yet if he was being honest with himself, it wasn’t getting any easier to sleep in his own bed. The location might have changed—he and the girls moved to New York shortly after Kate passed—but he still had the king-sized mattress and frame that had been theirs , his and Kate’s.

He would have thought that by now the pain of losing Kate might have waned, at least slightly. Sometimes it did, temporarily, and then he would pass her favorite restaurant or catch a glimpse of one of her favorite movies on TV and it would come roaring back, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.

If either of the girls experienced the same, they didn’t talk about it. In fact, they often spoke about her openly, something that Reid still hadn’t been able to do.

There was a picture of her on one of his bookshelves, taken at a friend’s wedding a decade earlier. Most nights the frame was turned backward, or else he would spend the entire evening staring at it.

How stunningly unfair the world could be. One day, they had everything—a nice home, wonderful kids, great careers. They were living in McLean, Virginia; he was working as an adjunct professor at the nearby George Washington University. His job had him traveling a lot, to seminars and summits and as a guest lecturer on European history to schools all over the country. Kate was in the restorations department at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Their girls were thriving. Life was perfect.

But as Robert Frost famously said, nothing gold can stay. One wintry afternoon Kate fainted at work—at least that’s what her coworkers believed it to be when she suddenly went limp and fell out of her chair. They called an ambulance, but it was already too late. She was announced DOA at the hospital. An embolism, they had said. A blood clot had traveled to her brain and caused an ischemic stroke. The doctors used barely comprehensible medical terms wherever possible in their explanation, as if it would somehow soften the blow.

Worst of all, Reid had been away when it happened. He was at an undergraduate seminar in Houston, Texas, giving talks about the Middle Ages when he got the call.

That was how he discovered his wife had died. A phone call, just outside a conference room. Then came the flight home, the attempts to console his daughters in the midst of his own devastating grief, and the eventual move to New York.

He pushed himself up from the chair and spun the photo around. He didn’t like thinking about all that, the end and the aftermath. He wanted to remember her like this, in the photo, Kate at her brightest. That’s what he chose to remember.

There was something else, something right at the edge of his consciousness—some sort of hazy memory attempting to surface as he stared at the picture. It almost felt like déjà vu, but not of the present moment. It was as if his subconscious was trying to push something through.

A sudden knock at the door startled him back to reality. Reid hesitated, wondering who it could be. It was nearly midnight; the girls had been in bed for a couple of hours. The brisk knock came again. Fearing it might wake the kids, he hurried to answer it. After all, he lived in a safe neighborhood and had no reason to fear opening his door, midnight or not.

The harsh winter wind was not what froze him in his tracks. He stared in surprise at the three men on the other side. They were decidedly Middle Eastern, each with dark skin, a dark beard, and deep-set eyes, dressed in thick black jackets and boots. The two that flanked either side of the exit were tall and lanky; the third, behind them, was broad-shouldered and hulking, with an assumedly perpetual scowl.

“Reid Lawson,” said the tall man to the left. “Is that you?” His accent sounded Iranian, but it was not thick, suggesting he had spent a decent amount of time stateside.