The Blue Zone

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Greg pulled his car up in front of the stone pillars on Beach Shore Road. An unmarked car from the U.S. Marshals office sat blocking the driveway. It was three days since Kate’s family had been taken into protective custody.

A young agent stepped out of the car and checked their IDs, looking at Kate closely. Then, with a friendly nod, he waved them through.

Kate stared at the quiet, closed-up house as they approached down the long, pebbled drive. “This is totally weird, Greg,” she said. “This is my home.”

“I know.” Greg nodded, reaching across the seat and squeezing her hand.

Kate had no idea where her family was. Only that they were safe and okay and thinking of her very much, Margaret Seymour had told her.

The five-car garage was empty now. Her father’s Ferrari had already been impounded. So had the Chagall, the Dalí prints, and the contents of the wine cellar, she was told. Her mother’s Range Rover was parked outside in the turnabout. It would find its way to them soon.

That was all that was left.

There was a notice taped to the door. The house had been impounded. Just walking through the doors, into the two-story vestibule, elicited the eeriest, loneliest sensation Kate had ever felt.

Their things were boxed and left in the front hall. Ready to go to some unknown destination.

Their possessions were there-but her family was gone.

Kate flashed back to how the place had looked the day they first moved in. “It’s so big,” her mother had said, gasping. “We’ll fill it,” her dad had said, smiling. Justin found a room with a loft on the third floor and put his dibs on it. They all went out back and peered at the water. “It’s like a castle, Dad,” Em had said, amazed. “It’s really ours?”

Now it was just filled with this stark, brooding emptiness. As though everyone had died.

“You okay?” Greg squeezed her hand again as they stood in the vestibule.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Kate lied.

She went up to the second floor while Greg checked around downstairs. She remembered the sounds of the place. Footsteps pounding up the stairs. Emily shrieking about her hair. Dad watching CNN in the den on the big screen. The scents of Mom’s flowers.

Kate looked into Emily’s room. Photos were still taped to the walls. Arcade snapshots with her school friends. Her squash team from the Junior Maccabean games. They’d had to rush out so quickly. These were important.

How were these left behind?

One by one, Kate started to untape them. Then she sat down on the bed and looked up at the blue, starry ceiling.

She realized she was going to miss seeing her little sister grow up. She wasn’t going to see her go to her prom. Or watch her graduate. Or see her kick ass playing number one for her school. They wouldn’t even have the same last name anymore.

The tears rolled down Kate’s cheeks, angry and unexplainable. Greg came bounding up the stairs. “Hey, where are you? Look at this!” he called.

He came into Em’s room holding large masks of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, from some Halloween party her parents had gone to the year before. He saw Kate’s face and stopped.

“Jeez, Kate.” He sat down next to her and took her in his arms.

“I can’t help it!” she said. “I’m just so goddamn fucking mad. He had no right to do this to us. He stole our family, Greg.”

“I know… I know…” he said. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. You want to go?”

Kate shook her head. “We’re here. Damn it. Let’s do this.”

She picked up Emily’s pictures and before they went downstairs opened the door to her parents’ bedroom. There were tons of boxes in there. Clothes, perfumes, pictures. All packed. Ready to go.

A dresser drawer was open, and Kate noticed something inside. A leather folder crammed with old stuff she’d never seen before. It must have been her father’s. It was filled with old pictures and documents. Early photos of him and Sharon, when he was at NYU and she was a freshman at Cornell. Some gemological certificates. A photo of his mother, Rosa. Letters…How could he just leave them behind?

She bundled the folder up and tossed in Em’s pictures. These were all Kate had.

They went downstairs and stood in the high-ceilinged vestibule one last time.

“You ready?” Greg asked eventually. Kate nodded.

“You want to take these?” He grinned, holding out the Bill and Monica masks.

“Nah, my father hated Clinton. That was just his dumb idea of a joke.”

He tossed them in a trash bucket by the door.

Kate turned around one last time.

“I don’t know what to feel,” she said. “I’m going to walk out this door and leave my entire past.” A wave of sadness came over her. “I don’t have a family anymore.”

“Yes you do,” Greg said, and pulled her toward him. “You have me. Let’s get married, Kate.”

“Right.” She sniffed. “You know how to hit a girl when she’s down. Screw the big wedding, right?”

“No, I’m serious,” he said. “We love each other. In eighteen months I’ll be practicing. I don’t care if it’s just you and me. Let’s do this, Kate-get married!”

She stared at him, struck silent, with glistening eyes.

“I’m your family now.”