As if I were simply a sixteen-year-old girl.
As if I couldn’t possibly be a threat.
Walking through the hotel lobby, I couldn’t help but remember the first assignment my covert operations teacher ever gave me: Notice things. Lights and cameras shone from every angle. A massive net full of red, white, and blue balloons snaked through the cavernous space like a patriotic python. Up on the mezzanine level, the Texas delegation was singing about yellow roses, while a woman walked by wearing a big foam hat shaped like a Georgia peach.
I scanned the masses of old women and young girls. Husbands and wives. College kids and senior citizens. The last time I’d been in a crowd like this was in a different season and a different city, so maybe it was the hotel’s frigid air-conditioning or just a memory of a chilly day in D.C., but for some reason, I shivered and fought against a serious case of déjà vu as I looked around and said the name I hadn’t spoken in weeks. “Zach.”
Then I blinked and wondered if a part of me would always worry that he might be on my tail.
“This way,” the man beside me said, but we didn’t stop at the end of the line, which twisted and turned in front of the marble-covered registration desk. We didn’t even slow down as we passed between two rows of elevators. Instead we turned down a narrow hall that seemed half a world away from the bright lights and tall ceiling of the lobby. Plush carpeting gave way to chipped linoleum tiles until finally we were standing before an elevator I’m pretty sure hotel guests were never intended to see.
“So, you’re a friend of peacocks?” the Secret Service agent asked while we waited for the doors to open.
