“French,” Nick repeated. He eyed the black backpack slung over Hailey’s shoulder, which contained the book and eagle, as well as her purse and a few minor tools of the card-counting trade she always kept packed and at the ready, in case she got the urge to hit one of the casinos a bit farther from home. Like the pair in Connecticut she’d ripped through so many times in the past—they should have both dedicated monuments to her.

“That struck me as well,” Hailey said. “Lafayette’s involvement in laying the cornerstone had always seemed a bit odd to me; he’d had nothing to do with the battle itself—he didn’t join the Revolutionary forces until two years after it was fought—and yet not only did he lay the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument, when he died, he was buried with dirt from this very spot, fulfilling his wish that he be interred with ground from both France and the United States. It was the sort of celebrity endorsement that ensured the Bunker Hill Monument would become one of the most famous shrines to the American Revolution, elevating this spot and the battle to historic proportions.”

As Hailey finally started forward through the park, toward the stone walkway and steps that led to the entrance to the monument on the other side of the Prescott statue, Nick waved toward the scene in front of them—the obelisk, the adjoining lodge, the museum across the street.

“Seems pretty historic to me.”

“Sure—but it’s all based on bullshit. Because this isn’t even Bunker Hill. This is Breed’s Hill. Bunker Hill is about eight football fields that way.”

She pointed past the museum across the street, toward a row of nearby renovated town houses.

“And the Battle of Bunker Hill didn’t take place on Bunker Hill. A small Revolutionary force had been given orders to fortify a spot on Bunker Hill, but instead they’d decided it would be too difficult to defend, so they set up camp here. The British promptly attacked, and the Americans lost—though the British suffered more casualties. One could argue that the battle was vaguely important because it affected the British strategy of trying to take the hills around Boston, or that it was so costly to the British that it somehow inspired the Americans to fight harder—even though, remember, it was a battle the American rebels lost. But these seem like pretty weak explanations.”