Page 27 of Ford

Gerri shook her head. “They’re completely overreacting. But Ford has always been overprotective of his sister. It’s a twin thing.”

“Ma—they had her picture on the news! She tried to assassinate a Russian general!”

Oops.

“Ford! What the—?” Reuben said.

“Dude!” Tate put his phone down.

“Nice, kid.” Knox shook his head.

Gerri stood there, paling, as if he’d punched her.

“RJkilledsomebody?”

The question unseated him, coming from the balcony that rose above the great room of the log house. Ford turned, jolted a little by the sight of his brother Wyatt, his long dark hair wet and tucked behind his ears. He wore a gray Minnesota Blue Ox T-shirt and a pair of runners.

“Wyatt. What are you doing here?”

“Sheesh. Can’t a guy visit his family?”

“I thought you were in the Stanley Cup tournament.”

Wyatt descended the stairs. “Eliminated. What’s this about RJ?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Reuben said, “but someone who looked an awful lot like RJ showed up on CNN about a week ago linked to the shooting of some Russian general.”

“Are you sure it was her?” Gerri had retrieved her phone and was probably calling RJ.

The entire family listened as she held it up, pressed speaker. The call went to voicemail.

“Did you call her regular line or her burner phone?” Tate said.

Burner phone? Ford gave him a look.

“Just asking. She keeps her regular phone in her kitchen drawer.”

“Why would she have a burner phone?” Gerri said. “What is that?”

“It’s a phone you throw away, Ma,” Knox said.

“Why would she throw her phone away?”

“She probably doesn’t, but usually people get them when they want to keep their calls secret,” Glo said.

“Why would she—”

“Ma. I thought she told you,” Tate said, setting down his phone. “She works for the CIA.”

“Yes, of course she does. I knew that. But she’s an analyst, not some sort of secret agent.”

Ford stared at him. “What? What are you—what?”

“Sorry, Ford. I forgot, you weren’t here,” Knox said. “She told us a couple months ago when she was home for Ma’s birthday.”

“For Pete’s sake, I wasn’t being held captive. One email. One voicemail,anything.” He went over to a vacant stool and slid on it. “CIA. Wow. Really?”

“She really is an analyst, so don’t get worried,” Tate said.