Colorado, went to Iowa on a full ride, and in 1984 was selected for the US Olympic field hockey team. She came home with a bronze medal and no idea of what would happen next. It was like coming into the daylight after a dozen years in a tunnel of ambition and competition. At a college jobs fair, she signed up to get more info about the Bureau and was at Quantico three months later. She loved the FBI, every day, for twenty years. The bureaucracy, the paperwork, the regs could make you buggy, but to a person, everyone she worked with was incandescent with pride in the mission, and gripped by a zeal to do right. It was the same kind of striving that had been so central to her life in sports.
In 1992 she’d accepted an assignment to leave the Des Moines RA, resident agency, and go undercover here, pretending to be Evon Miller, paralegal, actually serving as the watchdog over a dirty lawyer who’d turned and was secretly recording his payoffs to various judges. She chose the name Evon herself, borrowing it from a second cousin whose parents had intended a country spelling of Yvonne. But nobody, not even her cousin, pronounced the name that way. ‘Like “even better,” ’ her cousin customarily explained. DeDe longed for the same self-confidence.
Petros, the undercover project, was a far-reaching success—six judges, nine lawyers and a dozen court clerks and sheriff’s deputies were convicted—and after the last trial Evon had been called to D.C. to receive the FBI Medal, the greatest honor bestowed on agents. Even her mother sat there with her chest puffed out, accepting everybody’s congratulations.
But by then, there had been a bigger reward. The chance to be someone else had made her someone else. She came out, for one thing. But far more important, she began to understand what it would feel like to enjoy being herself. The thought of going back to DeDe was as unwelcome as returning to prison. She changed Kindle County to her OP, office of preference, and received permission from D.C. to continue to be known as Evon Miller, the only name anybody here had ever called her. By now, even Merrel, the sister Evon had always been closest to, had taken to referring to her that way.
She was so much happier than earlier in her life, when she’d felt like a handball ricocheting at high speed off walls she’d never seen coming. These days her main preoccupation, in the rare idle moment when she let her mind light there, was wondering how happy she had the right to be. No one could expect perfection.
She tended to deliver that admonition to herself at moments like this, when she was holding off the familiar combination of anger and humiliation that consumed her at the prospect that Heather Truveen, her girlfriend, would disappoint her again. It was Saturday night and Evon sat in the ballroom at the Kindle County Athletic Club, a gorgeous old room, with oaken pillars three stories high, that had been beautifully transformed for the wedding of Francine and Nella, the friends who had introduced Evon to Heather. The rows of stacking chairs had all been jacketed in white satin and an amphora full of white roses marked the spot on the riser where the ceremony would occur. Beside her, Evon had saved a seat on the aisle, knowing Heather would savor every detail of the brides’ attire. But any second, they would be stepping down the satin runner on the opposite arms of Nella’s dad. Evon had discreetly removed her BlackBerry from her handbag to see if Heather had sent any messages, when she finally arrived.
“Made it,” Heather whispered, and dropped her blonde head to Evon’s shoulder and nuzzled her for a second. Heather smelled surprisingly fresh, as her scent, Fracas, briefly surrounded Evon.
They had been together a year and a half now. Heather was thirty-eight, a creative executive at Coral Glotten—funny, a little wild, clever and very beautiful. She’d been a model to start, a tall elegant blonde whose grace
In 1992 she’d accepted an assignment to leave the Des Moines RA, resident agency, and go undercover here, pretending to be Evon Miller, paralegal, actually serving as the watchdog over a dirty lawyer who’d turned and was secretly recording his payoffs to various judges. She chose the name Evon herself, borrowing it from a second cousin whose parents had intended a country spelling of Yvonne. But nobody, not even her cousin, pronounced the name that way. ‘Like “even better,” ’ her cousin customarily explained. DeDe longed for the same self-confidence.
Petros, the undercover project, was a far-reaching success—six judges, nine lawyers and a dozen court clerks and sheriff’s deputies were convicted—and after the last trial Evon had been called to D.C. to receive the FBI Medal, the greatest honor bestowed on agents. Even her mother sat there with her chest puffed out, accepting everybody’s congratulations.
But by then, there had been a bigger reward. The chance to be someone else had made her someone else. She came out, for one thing. But far more important, she began to understand what it would feel like to enjoy being herself. The thought of going back to DeDe was as unwelcome as returning to prison. She changed Kindle County to her OP, office of preference, and received permission from D.C. to continue to be known as Evon Miller, the only name anybody here had ever called her. By now, even Merrel, the sister Evon had always been closest to, had taken to referring to her that way.
She was so much happier than earlier in her life, when she’d felt like a handball ricocheting at high speed off walls she’d never seen coming. These days her main preoccupation, in the rare idle moment when she let her mind light there, was wondering how happy she had the right to be. No one could expect perfection.
She tended to deliver that admonition to herself at moments like this, when she was holding off the familiar combination of anger and humiliation that consumed her at the prospect that Heather Truveen, her girlfriend, would disappoint her again. It was Saturday night and Evon sat in the ballroom at the Kindle County Athletic Club, a gorgeous old room, with oaken pillars three stories high, that had been beautifully transformed for the wedding of Francine and Nella, the friends who had introduced Evon to Heather. The rows of stacking chairs had all been jacketed in white satin and an amphora full of white roses marked the spot on the riser where the ceremony would occur. Beside her, Evon had saved a seat on the aisle, knowing Heather would savor every detail of the brides’ attire. But any second, they would be stepping down the satin runner on the opposite arms of Nella’s dad. Evon had discreetly removed her BlackBerry from her handbag to see if Heather had sent any messages, when she finally arrived.
“Made it,” Heather whispered, and dropped her blonde head to Evon’s shoulder and nuzzled her for a second. Heather smelled surprisingly fresh, as her scent, Fracas, briefly surrounded Evon.
They had been together a year and a half now. Heather was thirty-eight, a creative executive at Coral Glotten—funny, a little wild, clever and very beautiful. She’d been a model to start, a tall elegant blonde whose grace
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