He steps closer to encourage her to lower her voice. “Miss Gutmunsson—”

“Oh, please call me Kristin!” She smiles and smiles. “I have a special day pass from Chesterfield—my driver is outside in the parking lot. It’s very exciting, to be out on a field trip to the FBI. Have you been well?” She puts a hand to her mouth. “Goodness, what am I talking about, I just said how you’ve been busy.”

He decides to abandon chivalry and cut to the chase. “How did you get past the MPs and onto the base?”

“I had my lawyer call and request permission. It wasn’t easy, but here I am.” She looks around again at the atrium interior. “I can’t say I like the brutalist décor. There’s lots of blond brick, isn’t there? Very Marcel Breuer.”

It takes some wrangling with the sign-in desk, but in the end Bell gets his way. On the trip back down in the elevator, he stands beside and a little away from Kristin; she is not her brother, but he still finds her profoundly unsettling. The way she presents doesn’t help. She’s wearing a long charcoal coat over a white linen shirt with a pointed collar, loose white linen pants, and black ballet slippers. It looks like she’s thrown a morning coat over her pajamas.

“Are we going all the way down? We are, aren’t we, goodness.” She scans the numbers above the door, the inside of the elevator car. “I can’t believe the FBI put you in the basement, it seems completely bizarre. You should at least have a window.…”

She talks at him and over the top of his head. He can’t make her out. All things considered, he’s not sure he wants to. So he just stands there, pulling his shirt collar away from his neck.

Then he realizes Kristin might be chattering because she’s nervous, and that this trip is a big deal for her. And that his mother didn’t raise him to be a jerk.

“Uh, how are the puppies?” His words come out gruffer than he’d like.

Kristin responds immediately. “Oh, they’re doing so well! Sheba is wonderful with them, and I’ll be so sad when they’re adopted out.”

“They’re selling the pups?”

“Yes—Sheba has some pedigree, and a very long name that no one uses. Everyone just calls her Sheba. I’m thinking I might ask to have one of the pups, just the littlest one.”

Bell wonders if they’ll let her keep it. “The puppies are pretty cute.”

“Aren’t they? We had dogs when I was a child—Father’s hunters—but after Simon shot them, Mother said we couldn’t have any more pets.”

He feels his expression freeze in place. They’ve reached the basement floor and when Kristin steps out, he follows. “I’m sorry, did you say your brother shot your dogs?”

“Yes. It was very sad, actually. Simon loved those dogs—borzois and hounds and adorable German pointers.… But Father took Simon hunting when he was nine, and one of the dogs was quite old, and it couldn’t keep up on the hunt, so Father made Simon shoot it. Then later that evening, after they came home, Simon stole Father’s gun and shot them all.”