She remembered Tim turning around then, his face lighting up with his usual anticipatory grin till he got a better look at the two black-clad men striding toward him and the grin faltered. He looked bewildered in that moment, as if he knew exactly what was to come and yet somehow didn’t, as if he were immune to the hurts and persecutions of the world. But of course, he wasn’t. And neither was she. Or Fitz. Or Corey.

Both men had reached Tim now and stood there at the edge of the pool, arms akimbo, until in a movement so graceful it might have been choreographed, they simultaneously reached up and positioned the hats on their heads. The one she knew introduced himself as an officer of the Federal Judicial Police and handed Tim a single folded sheet of paper. “What is this?” Tim demanded.

The man touched the brim of his hat, almost as if he were about to deliver a salute. “It is, Dr. Leary, a deportation order.”

In that moment, Tim looked suddenly old, stricken, his shoulders slumped and his muscles gone slack. He was trying to find his grin but couldn’t quite manage it. No one moved. The gurgle of the pool’s filter grew louder and louder till it was unbearable. Before she could think, she was up out of her deck chair and coming toward him, a pulse of outrage flashing through her—and not just for this Judas of a policeman (colleague: yeah, right), but for Tim too, because how could he be so careless, so stupid, and what did this mean? What? That they were all to be deported too, as—as undesirables? Drug users? Criminals? Didn’t these people know what this was all about? Didn’t they understand?

“Deportation?” Tim echoed. “You must be crazy.”

“You are a psychologist,” the man said, the one she knew. “Look at me and then take a look at yourself engaging in all manner of degenerate behavior under the guise of science, and you tell me who is crazy. This is a Christian country, Doctor. This is a country ruled by moral principle.”

She was right there now, right there beside them, and she reached out to pluck at the sleeve of the one she knew. “You,” she said. “You lied to me. You’re no colleague.”