“Here’s my absolute favorite. In August of 2013, when you were sixteen years old, Vera and Miguel were in Cairo. She was interviewing people in the peaceful, six-week-long mass sit-in as eighty-five thousand people protested the ousting of President Morsi. Your father was photographing it all. At eight a.m. on the fourteenth, the Egyptian military opened fire with tear gas and birdshot. There were also bulldozers and rooftop snipers. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands injured. Among the dead were five journalists. Your mother reported on it all and your father’s photos of the violence were shown around the world. It became known as the Rabaa Massacre.” He looked at her but she said nothing. “No reply?”

“None. So now what? You blackmail me into helping you do something my mother doesn’t want? You promise to keep your mouth shut if I spy and sneak and tell you family secrets?”

He looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought of that. Would it work?”

“No.”

“Then I guess I won’t try blackmail. What I’m really curious about is why all the secrecy?”

She hesitated before answering. “My family is complicated, and there are things that are better not to tell.”

“Like people not knowing who your parents are?”

“Everyone in this town knows exactly who my parents are! Vera and Miguel are my biological parents, but Vera has—”

“You call her ‘Vera’?”

“Yes. Mom is Cait, Dad is Dr. Cooper and Papi is Miguel. Vera is Vera to everyone. Including me. The four of them came up with a plan before I was born. Mom and Dad couldn’t have children, and Papi and Vera wanted to travel, so it worked out. For school and all, legal guardianship was signed over to Mom and Dad. I spent winters and went to school here in Kansas. In the summers Papi found a place overseas and I stayed with them. Simple.”

“I see,” Griff said. “If Cait and Dr. Coop and, it seems, your aunt Kelly knew you were being hauled into the middle of massacres, there would be legal problems.”

She glared at him. “And if they were told now, there’d be family problems. Lots of yelling and tears.” Her voice rose to falsetto. “‘You lied! How could you do that? We trusted you!’”

Her mimicry was so perfect that he laughed.

At his laughter, her eyes softened. “What are you hoping to find out?”

He pulled a chair up and sat by her. “What I can’t find by research. Your mother is a national treasure. I think she deserves a place in history.”

Mike couldn’t help smiling. She agreed. While he’d been talking, she was searching through computer files.

“What is it you’re looking for?”

“Falklands, 1982.”

“I’ve never read that Vera was involved in that.”