I tell the dispatcher I’ll be there. He gives me the name and building to report to. I ask him to repeat the name, just to be sure.

Dr. Ailes.

As in Jeffrey Ailes, the Witchfinder.

He’s not even an FBI agent. He’s a DOJ computer scientist working with a team of geeks in a remote corner of Quantico.

This can’t be good.

The last time I heard his name, it was rumored that he had been using the FBI’s own profiling system to look for leaks within the agency. Invasive questionnaires had been passed around, and we all felt as if we were being insulted by some pencil pusher who’d never carried a gun.

I’d heard Ailes was an African-American professor of mathematics turned businessman who got rich designing black box computers for Wall Street before one day deciding what he really should be doing is telling us how to do our jobs. Being rich and having political connections helped him make that a reality.

God knows what he wants with me. I can only assume his computers flagged me for something. I haven’t done anything wrong.

Not technically . . .

This doesn’t help my anxiety. I’ve got things I’d rather not have brought up. Ailes is the kind of guy who would find them if he connected the dots.

I look over at Elsie and give her hand a squeeze. I’m tempted to tell the dispatcher I need another half hour. But to be honest, I don’t think I can make it another thirty seconds.

I give Elsie the sponge balls to keep. She acts as if I just asked her to take possession of the Ark of the Covenant. Before I go, she throws her arms around me to give me a hug. I look over at the nurse. Elsie has never done this before. The nurse raises an eyebrow over red eyes, then smiles.

I lean over and let her put her arms around my neck, being careful not to touch the sensitive skin.

Her tiny mouth whispers into my ear a little too loud. “I think you’re my favorite person.”

I know being a favorite is a fleeting thing with children, but it lifts me enough to face the Witchfinder. I can leave there with a happy smile. I’ll avoid crying until I get into my car.

I don’t care what Ailes’s computers and his geeks think about me. I’ve just been told by the purest soul I’ve ever met that I’m the best in the world.

2

I THINK I’VE SEEN Ailes a few times on campus. He has a stare that goes right through you. Like you’re a spreadsheet with a red flag pointing out something you’re trying to hide. The Witchfinder. He could fit into a movie where a medieval bishop points out the person guilty of evil deeds against the church and sends them out to the courtyard to be stood atop a pile of logs and set on fire. There’s an intensity and certainty about him that’s intimidating.