“So here’s what I think we should do,” said Franklin. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “There’s really only one way to tell your story and to have it make any impact. And that’s on the record. With real names. I can fly you out to Chicago. You can tell me everything exactly how you want so no one else’ll tell it for you. We’ll do pictures, and your story will be out in the open. Or, you can tell me to fuck off and just hang up right now.” He waited for her to say something.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “No fuckin’ way am I flying to Chicago,” said Asya.

  She looked out at Colorado: mountaintops haloed by clouds, sunlight on green water. She let the cool air fill her lungs. She held it in for a moment or two, then let it out. If she had been born here, it might not have meant as much, but Colorado would always feel like freedom to her. No matter what happened, she would have this view, one that all the Franks, Van Daans, and Acevedos in the world might never be lucky enough to have.

  “No,” she said. “If that’s really how we have to do it, you’ll have to come here.”

  *

  She decided she would do the interview right in the sunken living room of her house. Originally, she had suggested a coffee shop off US 36 where no one she knew would overhear. But in the end she decided Franklin was right: anyone would be able to figure out who she was, so she might as well act as if they already did.

  Franklin said there would be pictures, so she dressed for the interview: a gray RESIST T-shirt with a fist on it, worn over a black sweatshirt; a pair of silver wind chime earrings she had bought on a Hopi reservation during a road trip with the family when her kids were little. She made tea and egg salad sandwiches, turned on jazz on KCPR. Laurence had offered to cancel his lecture and join her for the interview, but she didn’t want to worry about him worrying about her, so she told him she’d call if she needed him. Ditto for Misha and Ginger, who had their own lives and didn’t need to be bothered.

  A silver rental car pulled into the driveway. Asya stepped out onto the front stoop and surveyed her garden. Her dad, the onetime hippie who lately had gone full-on Trump, had told her it was too wild the last time he visited. But Asya liked it this way: goldenrod and cornflowers hiding in the tall grass, black raspberries growing here and there, pints and pints if you knew where to look.

  Franklin wore wrinkled jeans, an untucked black T-shirt, and boots, a military green messenger bag over a shoulder. He looked awkwardly concerned, like someone paying a condolence call to a stranger. He loped toward Asya, arms open as if he’d been planning to give her a hug, which seemed pretty clueless to her. She held out a hand: “I’m Mrs. Loh,” she said. He shook her hand firmly: “Frank Lichtenstein.”

  “I thought you said there’d be a photographer.”

  Franklin tilted his head as if to comment sardonically about the state of his industry. He waved a cell phone at her. “That’s me,” he said. “I’m a one-stop shop.”

  Just about everyone else who visited Asya got a tour of her house, but Franklin had to ask, and even when they got to the rooms, she stood with Franklin outside them, like a museum guide making sure tourists didn’t go beyond the red rope.

  “You know,” Franklin said, inspecting the books in the study, “back in high school, I was a little scared of you.”

  “You were supposed to be.”

  “Yeah, you were pretty badass. Those concert jerseys, that beret, and that Guardian Angels jacket. Was that for real? Or were you just knocking around with all that?”

  “I never did things that weren’t for real,” she said.

  “You wanted to protect people.”

  “I guess.”

  Franklin laughed lightly. “Old habits.”

  They sat down at the living room table. Asya poured tea, and Franklin helped himself to a sandwich.

  “The only reason I’m even talking to you is because maybe it could help somebody if people find out who this guy really is,” said Asya.

  “You’re talking about Rob?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Tell me what it was like being with him back then.”

  “Well, if I’m being honest, it was actually pretty fun at first,” Asya said. “It was sort of liberating, being around a total asshole—especially when you thought you were kind of an asshole too. Both of us—we had a lot of the same anger, things that pissed us off.”

  “Like what?”

  “Parents, mostly. We both wanted to get out, go anywhere, leave them behind. We talked about that all the time.”

  “Not a lot of love talk?”

  “Fuck no, we never talked about love, only maybe to make fun of it. Love was bullshit; love was for suckers. People who said they loved you, we were like, ‘Fuck them.’ People who loved you died; people who loved you left you with your dad because they loved some guy in California more; people who loved you banged their waitresses and didn’t even notice if you were in the room or not. I mean, I didn’t want to love anyone, and Rob didn’t seem like he could. I thought that meant he wasn’t good at any emotion, which would’ve been fine with me. But I was wrong, I guess. He was really good at hate.”

  “Who did he hate?”

  “You mean other than me?”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  “Who did he not? His brother, his dad, Densmore.”

  “Who probably deserved it,” said Franklin.

  “But it wasn’t about that,” Asya said. “There wasn’t any righteousness to it, no matter what he said. It was just about winning. He liked setting traps, seeing who he could catch. Then he set another one, and he caught me in it.”

  Franklin checked the voice recorder to make sure it was still running. He unzipped his bag, pulled out a manila envelope. “I think I should show you these,” he said. The name FRANKLIN LIGHT was written across the envelope in neat black letters. “But I wanna warn you before you look.”

  Asya took the envelope, peered briefly inside, and saw there were photographs in it. “It’s okay,” she said. “I think I have a pretty good idea what’s in here. I still remember the flashes.” She glanced at the outside of the envelope. “No return address.”

  “Densmore’s handwriting, though. They came in the mail a couple days before he died.”

  “Where’d he get ’em from? That Eileen chick?”

  “Why her?”

  “Who else? I remember going down the stairs, some Prince song playing, and there’s Eileen doing the bump, camera bouncing against her hip.”

  “Yeah, her and Densmore seemed to have stayed pretty tight.”

  “Man, I’m so fuckin’ glad I got outta there.” Asya took out the photographs, went through them one by one: an unmade bed in an otherwise tidy room. A small girl lying naked—face toward the camera, eyes closed. A boy with his shirt pulled up, slacks pulled down. At first, she couldn’t see the boy’s face, just the back of his head and his mussed-up hair, but of course she knew who it was.

  She proceeded through the photos: the girl kicking the boy; the boy crying in pain; the boy on the floor. Then, one final image, this one in color: Rob at the Grenfalls’ poker table, dealing cards and chewing on a cigar. But that wasn’t a photograph; it was a memory: the last thing she recalled seeing before she left Fiona Grenfall’s house, ignoring Carrie calling after her as she walked back to an empty apartment, put on her GUARDIAN ANGELS jacket, and left to begin Asya’s life.

  She handed the photos back to Franklin. “I don’t need to see them any more,” she said. “I remember all of it.” She could picture the house in Skokie, she told him. She remembered waiting in the car with Eileen for Rob to come back with the coke. And then the house by the lake: iron gates; chandeliers; people dancing; grown-up guests in cocktail dresses and suits; polished marble floors and stairs; the rooms—so many of them. It was nobody’s idea of a prison, but that’s how she thought of it. She remembered Eileen giving her a drink, then dancing away with her camera; she remembered Rob leading her upstairs, the steps swirling, the carpet like sand under her feet, then Rob pushing her down on the bed; she remembered waking up naked as if no time had passed but seeing herself as if from outside rather than from within.

  “Fucking assholes,” she said.

  “Who specifically?” asked Franklin.

  “Rob, Eileen, Densmore . . .”

  “And Declan.”

  “I’m not sure Declan had much to do with anything,” Asya said. “I think Rob was pissed and wanted to get back at me. Declan was just a mixed-up kid.”

  “We all were.”

  Franklin took a breath. His eyes were red. He looked out the window and watched the bluebirds. He shut off his phone’s recorder. “Shit, I don’t know, maybe you’re right,” he said.

  “About what?”

  Franklin rubbed his forehead. “This,” he said. “Maybe it won’t accomplish anything. Maybe it’ll just fuck up your life and everyone else’ll just go on to the next thing. People’s attention spans, they’re just so short now. One day there’s some huge scandal; three days later it’s like, ‘Did that even happen?’ First they talk about kicking out Muslims; then it’s trans soldiers; then it’s another Black kid getting shot. Something can happen, worst thing you ever imagined; you leave town for a week, you come back, and no one even talks about it. Everything just keeps moving right along—tap tap, click click.”

  Asya shrugged. “I hear you,” she said. “If this were just about me, I’d let the whole thing go. I don’t need any of this in my life. I don’t want to have anything to do with who I was back then. That’s why I have the life I do: I keep my past in the past. But I saw the article you wrote about the girl, and I saw the pictures of her.”

  “Eleonora?”

  “Yeah. It’s not the past for her. You can see the trauma that’s still there, and I haven’t forgotten what that felt like. I managed to save myself—well, good for me—but what difference does that make if Rob or whoever goes after someone else and I don’t try to save them? I’m willing to put it all out there; I just want you to promise me something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Whatever you do with this story, whatever happens with it, this is the last time we talk, you and me. I don’t want to hear from you ever again, or anybody from back then. Don’t give anyone my email, my number, none of that. Nothing personal, but can you promise that?”

  “Yeah,” said Franklin. “Okay.”

  “All right,” Asya said. “Now turn that recorder back on.”

  Mr. Frank

  At Ronald Reagan Airport, another scrum of reporters was waiting for Robert Rubicoff, founder and president of DC (Damage Control) Consulting. While he joined the check-in line, they hollered the same questions they’d been asking him for the past week.

  “Mr. Rubicoff, how’re you feeling about the prospects for your nomination?”

  “Reasonably well, thanks.”

  “Have you heard anything from the administration about the confirmation timetable?”

  “Just what I read in the papers—same as you.”

  “Are you concerned that anything you said or wrote in the past might come back to haunt you?”

  “Everything comes back to haunt you, you’ll make sure of that. That’s your job.”

  “Where’re you flying to today, Mr. Rubicoff?”

  “Why? You wanna come with?” Rob smirked. “Sorry, guys, you’re gonna have to give me a little space and find something better to do with your time, or else people here’ll start thinking I’m a celebrity.”

  At the departure gate, Rob called his wife and told her he’d let her know when he had landed in Chicago. Then he sent a text to Franklin: Looking forward to chatting about old and new times. See ya at the New Apt, buddy.

  Ever since news had broken about Rob’s appointment to serve as deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in charge of immigration policy, he knew the shit would be hitting the fan. He just hadn’t known which particular variety of shit it would be. He had prepared to do battle with any number of old adversaries from the Carletonian, who, basing their allegations solely on rumor and innuendo, published an article blaming the Conservative Union, which he led, for the destruction of a cardboard shanty village built to protest their college’s investments in South Africa. He had considered that someone might unearth photos of the blackface Halloween party at Georgetown where he’d dressed up as Jesse Jackson in a rainbow Afro wig during the year he’d been in law school before deciding the legal profession was for suckers. He had been all but certain someone would question him about his time at Wharton when he had written a paper calling for the abolition of the minimum wage and the legalization of sweatshops. The email from Franklin asking him to comment on accusations that he’d spiked Amanda’s drink at a party where she’d been assaulted had come completely out of the blue. In the past thirty-five years he hadn’t heard a peep from or about Amanda. But he shouldn’t have been surprised: as he had advised George W. Bush, Tony Hayward, Robert Mugabe, and Crown Prince Abdullah, “Prepare for the attack from the enemy you don’t anticipate.”

  Be safe, Rhonda texted him.

  Always. Rob shut off his phone, looked up at the mounted televisions, and caught a glimpse of himself telling reporters nothing of substance before the broadcast cut away to an ad for antidepressants. People said TV put fifteen pounds on you, but the opposite seemed to be true for him—maybe because whenever he spoke, he imagined himself to be a much larger man.

  When the announcement came, inviting first-class passengers and platinum card holders to board the aircraft, he could see people around him almost but not quite recognizing him, asking themselves the same question: Is that the guy who was just on TV or just another fifty-something dude who looks like that? He waved the ticket on his phone at the gate attendant, then boarded the plane to O’Hare.

  He had reserved a room for two nights at the Standard Club downtown. If he had his choice, he would have spent his entire time in the city, never set foot in the suburbs where he was raised. But he had one trip to make just outside the city limits.

  *

  In Chicago, Rob rented a Thunderbird and drove south on the Kennedy Expressway, conducting phone interviews with Al Jazeera and National Palestinian Radio or whatever the local public radio station was called these days. He liked talking to the liberal media, liked playing the role of the affable conservative who brushed away challenges with a distant chuckle. He gently corrected their out-of-date stats about illegal immigration, laughed when they misquoted him, then directed them to the actual citations, and when they talked about what his proposals might mean for people like “Eleonora Acevedo,” he pronounced her name better than they did.

  White liberals like his interviewers were an endless source of entertainment for him. He liked confusing them by leading a more stereotypically woke lifestyle than they claimed to. No self-respecting critic could keep a straight face and call him a fascist, a xenophobe, or a racist when they knew that his wife, Rhonda, an attorney, had graduated from a historically Black college, that his eldest son, Boris, had started his school’s gay-straight alliance, and his daughter, Alex, posted selfies from every antigovernment protest since Trump had taken office. He understood the liberal mindset and how to mess with it because he’d grown up in that milieu and was well acquainted with its hypocrisies. The moment he had taken a job working for George W. Bush, his supposedly open-minded parents had stopped speaking to him and still hadn’t even acknowledged their grandchildren, even though every single one of his parents’ friends was white and rich, and the only Black person he’d ever seen them talk to was the lady who used to clean their house. And the only time he ever heard from his brother, chief muckety-muck of the environmental action whatever-it-was, was when the self-righteous piece of shit flamed him on Twitter. Republicans had their own sets of problems: plenty were idiots, self-promoters, and sleazebags who made him want to shower right after he’d shaken their hands, but at least they didn’t try to pretend they were saving humanity.

  Traffic was heavy on the Kennedy, but cars were moving fast. It was strange to think that of everyone on this highway—cabbies and limo drivers squiring healthcare and telecommunications CEOs from O’Hare downtown; moms taking their kids to hockey practice; traveling salespeople listening to sports talk shows; ambulance drivers racing gunshot victims to the nearest trauma center—he was probably the only one about to change history. Not in some amorphous way but in a very specific one. And what excited him most, what made him beat his palms hard against the steering wheel in time with the Isley Brothers’ tune that Lin Brehmer was playing on WXRT, was not the changes themselves but the fact that he could make them. What had it been like for the builders of this city—the Daniel Burnhams, the Louis Sullivans, the Helmut Jahns, whose architecture he could see up ahead—to look upon their work and realize they had changed their world?

  He exited the highway at Nagle, then headed east, driving past a world that never really changed. Oh, some of the businesses were different, sure. The Jewish steak house where his father treated elderly relatives to prime rib and double-baked potatoes, the Italian restaurant where waiters sang “Happy Birthday” as if it were an aria and arias as if they were “Happy Birthday,” the amusement park he had referred to as the “dirty Kiddieland,” the movie theater where he’d felt up Amanda during Stripes and gotten a hand job from Eileen during Tron—those were all gone, but the insignificance of the buildings that had replaced them was the same.

  Rob pulled into the U-Stuff-It Storage Solutions lot. On either side of the low, flat brick building that looked like the world’s grimmest motel were businesses that had recently gone under: a flattened restaurant encircled by fence and barbed wire; a suite of abandoned offices. Stenciled on their windows were names that sounded like fronts for sex trafficking operations: EXECUTIVE STRATEGIES, INC.; DESTINY ENTERTAINMENT PARTNERS; AMBASSADOR TRAVEL HOSTS.