17. Three Covers and a Confession
THREE COVERS AND A CONFESSION
MILES
Ihave spent thousands of hours inside the CSA.
I’ve trained there, planned missions there, been debriefed there, slept there, celebrated there, and once required six stitches there after Ledger insisted the edge of a filing cabinet was farther away than it was.
I have never imagined Reese standing in the middle of the operational floor.
Annette has never set foot in the building.
Owen has never been inside. Mackenzie was on the floor once before she knew the truth, but Code Fourteen was active, so she only saw Lancaster Business Solutions.
A carefully constructed lie designed to make her leave without realizing anything had happened.
Reese watched the room become itself.
She stood beneath the CSA emblem while hidden desks opened, mission boards appeared, and every polished piece of the cover withdrew.
She saw my desk. My mother’s place at the front.
My father’s portrait on the wall. She saw Charlie and Emerson working the Rooke case and watched all of us become the people we are when we’re working at the actual family business.
Honestly, I thought seeing her there would feel…
wrong. The agency has always been the part of my life that didn’t belong to her.
Not because I wanted it that way, but because the separation had become one of the fixed laws of my world.
Reese existed outside the walls. I existed inside them.
I moved between the two, careful not to let either one touch the other.
Then she stood beside my desk holding the Batman mug she gave me three years ago, and for the first time, the room felt perfect with her in it.
Which is probably why Sunday was so difficult.
I’d told Reese I wouldn’t text her the entire day. She’d had to absorb a lot on Saturday, and I wanted to give her time to process without me being present and making her feel pressured in any way.
But that had been hard. I’d wanted to text her constantly.
I wanted to know what she thought when she woke up.
Whether she had slept. How she felt about everything.
Whether she regretted asking to see the CSA.
Whether she had spent the night constructing a corkboard of evidence with red string connecting every unexplained event from the past five years.
Most of all, I wanted proof that she was still Reese with me.
But asking her to explain how she felt would have required her to know. So, I told her she wouldn’t hear from me the entire day. It had sounded mature when I said it, but by about nine fourteen Sunday morning, it felt like a tactical error. Reese and I do not go entire days without texting.
Even during missions, there are usually messages waiting when I return. Photographs of misspelled signs. Updates about middle-school library drama. Ridiculous questions that beg for equally ridiculous answers. Yesterday, there was nothing.
I spent the day with a Reese-shaped absence following me from room to room.
It helped, though, to know that she wouldn’t have to process it all alone.
Charlie didn’t work yesterday, which meant that Reese had access to her roommate all day and could ask as many questions as she wanted.
Charlie knows what she can share, what she can’t, and when to stop talking before she accidentally reveals something that requires five new forms. Although knowing when to stop and being able to keep it from showing all over your face are two different things.
Reese also went to her mother’s for dinner.
Annette understands the experience better than most people.
She fell in love with Abraham before she knew that a significant portion of his history was classified.
She knows what it is to discover that the person beside you has lived inside an entire world you never saw.
And Abraham has been with the CSA since the year it was formed. If Reese wanted institutional history, operational context, or blunt answers from someone who had lived this life for decades, he could give them to her.
Knowing she had easy access to all of them helped. It did not make me enjoy the silence.
Now it’s Monday morning, and I’m sitting at my kitchen counter staring at my phone. It’s 6:42. The exact time I normally text Reese. She wakes at 6:45, although she sets three alarms beginning at 6:30. I open our texting thread, and my finger hovers over the keyboard.
I could ask how she’s doing. Ask if she wants more space. Tell her I’m here when she’s ready.
Except all of those options feel like they’re putting the burden of explaining on her. Maybe she doesn’t even know how she feels yet. And I don’t want our first conversation after the big reveal to feel like a debrief, anyway.
What I really want to do is test the bridge. Put one foot on it and see if it holds.
Outside my kitchen window, a man is jogging along the sidewalk while carrying a large potted fern. I watch him pass. Then I type.
Miles: A man just ran past my house carrying a full-size fern. Your interpretation?
The message delivers.
I set down my phone. Pick it up again. Set it down.
It buzzes seventeen seconds later. I don’t realize how tightly I’m holding my breath until I see her name.
Reese: Botanical heist. The getaway vehicle failed.
Relief hits so quickly I have to close my eyes. Then, I type back.
Miles: That was also my assessment.
Reese: Did your advanced intelligence training help?
Miles: Four years at the agency, and I’ve finally found a practical application.
Reese: I definitely feel like you’ve been underestimating how valuable your ability to identify office plants in hostage situations could be.
I smile down at the screen. The bridge holds.
It doesn’t mean everything is fine. I don’t know how she feels about the secrecy, the danger, or the fact that her best friend has spent years lying about where he goes. But she is still here. Still making up histories for random vegetation.
At 7:03, she sends another message.
Reese: Also, for the record, I appreciate you not texting me yesterday.
I stare at the words. Before I can decide how to answer, another message appears.
Reese: I hated it.
A laugh escapes me.
Miles: So did I.
Reese: Good. I would’ve been offended if you enjoyed your Reese-free day.
Miles: It lacked structure.
Reese: And joy.
Miles: And random facts.
Reese: Don’t worry. Yesterday was extremely productive on the random-information front.
Miles: How many people did you interrogate?
Reese: Charlie. My mom. Hammy. And Mackenzie.
Mackenzie. She was also a good one to talk to. She saw Lancaster Business Solutions while believing it was real. Then she learned that Jace and the rest of us had been living behind the cover.
Miles: Was it helpful?
Reese: Yes. My mom and I talked for a long time. Hammy, Mackenzie, and Charlie were helpful, too.
By the time I leave for work, we’ve exchanged twenty-three messages. None of them solve anything, but they don’t need to. I’m just glad to have Reese back in my day.
At 10:46, Emerson and I are reviewing the latest Rooke-network analysis, and my phone buzzes beside my elbow.
Reese: A sixth grader just asked whether library books expire.
I type back beneath the conference table.
Miles: What did you tell him?
Reese: Only the dangerous ones.
I look up from my phone to see Emerson watching me. “What?”
“You’re smiling.”
“The data has been particularly engaging.”
He looks at the spreadsheet between us. “One of Rooke’s suspected client companies dissolved fourteen months ago.”
“Fascinating.”
His gaze drops to my phone. “Reese?”
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
I shrug. “She’s texting me.”
“You were worried she wouldn’t?”
“A little bit.” I turn the page in front of me. “Can we return to Meridian Charter Holdings?”
Emerson nods and returns to the spreadsheet.
At 2:38, I’m the one to text first.
Miles: Ledger wants to know if you’ll testify that you reached the hangar through a surveillance blind spot rather than because he failed.
Reese: Tell him I’m willing to lie for a fee.
Miles: What’s the fee?
Reese: He has to subtract three from his current score against Zoe.
Miles: He declined.
Reese: Coward.
She isn’t pretending Saturday didn’t happen, and neither am I. The truth is present in every spy joke and every reference to the hangar. But it hasn’t swallowed everything else. We are still us.
At 3:21, my phone buzzes again.
Reese: Are you free tonight?
I read the message twice.
Miles: Yes.
Her reply comes immediately.
Reese: Excellent. I’m considering three options.
Reese: A) Burgers and a murder mystery.
Reese: B) Pasta and bookstore wandering.
Reese: C) Tacos followed by a new version of people-watching where I invent backstories for your cover identities in your fake passports.
I lean back in my chair.
Miles: You aren’t authorized to see my passports.
Reese: I can fabricate those, too.
Miles: Retired cover identities only.
There’s a pause.
Reese: Wait. Are you saying yes to option C?
Miles: I’m saying tacos are involved.
Reese: This is the best day of my life.
Miles: You learned I was a spy two days ago.
Reese: And now it has finally started benefiting me.
I should hesitate. I should consider whether spending the evening describing old cover identities violates the intention behind the boundaries my mother established.
But there are years of retired covers that can’t be connected to current operations.
Identities that no longer exist. Histories designed for completed missions in countries Reese will never hear about.
I can give her something that is no longer relevant in any way. Photographs, if I use sanitized ones, rather than ones on actual documents. Maybe a name or two. Jobs. Enough to let her make up stories. Enough to let one piece of my work life become part of our normal one.
Miles: I’ll pick you up at six.
Reese: I can drive.
Miles: I’ll pick you up at six.
Reese: This is discrimination based on an exaggerated interpretation of my traffic history.
Miles: You hit a mailbox last month.