Page 41 of Grave Danger
“She’s your mommy’s mother, right?” asked Righley.
“That’s right,” said Jack.
“How old was your mommy?”
“You mean when she died?”
“No, I’m asking how old she was when she was born,” Righley said with sarcasm. “Duh.”
Righley was unquestionably her mother’s daughter. “She died when I was very young. A baby.”
“Not you. How old was she?”
It made Jack sad to say it. “She was twenty-three.”
“How old is Abuela?”
“Eighty-nine.”
Righley stopped cold in the hallway. “That’s so unfair. Why did your mommy die so young, and her mother is still alive?”
Jack took a knee and looked her straight in the eye. “I can’t answer that, honey. I don’t think anyone can.”
“Mommy says that’s what your new trial is about. A mother who died too young.”
“Your mother told you that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“When did the two of you talk about my case?”
“We saw you on the news. I asked, and she told me it’s about a mommy who died young and her daughter who misses her. That’s why it’s so important to you, and why you’ve been working so late every night.”
Jack found it interesting that Andie thought the case was more about Ava and Yasmin than Zahra and Yasmin. “That’s really what Mommy said?”
Righley covered her mouth. “Oh. Was I not supposed to tell you that?”
“It’s okay. I’m glad you told me.”
“Is Mommy right?”
Even though it hadn’t occurred to Jack that this case might be personal to him, he couldn’t say Andie was wrong. Maybe that was what his father had meant, too, when he’d told Jack that the stakes in this civil case were higher than any criminal case he’d ever handled.
He rose from his knee and took Righley by the hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go save Abuelaa seat at the bingo table.”
It was after seven, and Andie was still at the Miami field office, knowing that Jack and Righley were visiting Abuela. Wednesday was supposed to be “Mom’s night off,” the one evening each week that she didn’t have to cook dinner for the family, help Righley with her homework, make her lunch for the next school day, and get her ready for bed.
Somehow, Mommy’s night off had turned into Mommy’s night to work late at the office. Seven was the soonest the division chiefs from the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues could videoconference with her. She was alone in her office, and their images were on her desktop LCD screen: Chief Comstock, overseeing Europe, and Chief Davis, covering the Eastern Hemisphere.
“I’m sorry,” said Comstock. “The State Department can neither confirm nor deny what you’ve told us, Agent Henning.”
Andie had laid out in detail the visit from the woman who had taxied to Key Biscayne and told her that the US government was negotiating with the Iranians for her husband’s release from a political prison.
“Let’s break this down a little,” said Andie. “When this woman told me that the United States and the Iranian regime are currently engaged in sensitive negotiations, that was true, correct?”
“Chief Davis and I told you that much in our last meeting,” said Comstock. “We are in active negotiations of some form.”
“And she was also in sync with the State Department when she told me that Jack is putting those negotiations at risk by resurrecting the sensitive issue of whether or not Ava Bazzi was murdered by the Tehran morality police.”