The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) by Spencer Baum

went to hit the send button
and found it grayed out. Her eyes drifted to the top corner of the screen,
where she saw zero bars.
    No reception. She flipped over
to the settings and checked to make sure she was connected to the wireless on
the airplane.
    But there was no wireless.
Nothing coming through at all.
    She opened the door and stuck
her head out.
    “Hey Heather, is the wireless
working?” she asked.
    Ryan laughed. “I can’t sit on
the toilet without my phone either,” he said.
    “You hush,” Nicky said.
    Heather had finished cleaning
the floor and was wiping off the end tables.
    “I know. I’m so sorry about
that,” she said. “There are all sorts of problems out there.”
    “What do you mean?” Nicky asked.
    “I don’t really know,” Heather
said, punctuating the statement with a little giggle. “Something with the
satellites. The pilots aren’t getting all the info they’re used to either.
They’re navigating this flight the old fashioned way.”
    “That doesn’t sound good,” said
Ryan.
    “It’s fine,” Heather said. “Both
of them did this flight hundreds of times before satellites did all the work
for them.”
    “So it’s not a problem on the
plane.”
    “That’s what they’re telling me.
Some satellite in outer space is on the fritz. What do you want to bet that
will be an expensive fix?”
    She let out another little
giggle.
    Nicky was about to press for
even more info. For some reason, Heather’s news about the wireless made Nicky
anxious, and she wanted to ask if they were sure they didn’t need to reboot the
server, or the router, or whatever it was that made the wireless work on the
plane.
    “Thanks for your help, Heather,”
Ryan said, using a tone of voice that told Heather it was time for her to
leave.
    “You’re quite welcome,” she
said. “Buzz me if you need anything.”
    She disappeared behind her door.
Ryan patted the bed with his hand.
    “We were having a conversation
I’d really like to continue,” he said.
    “Yes. Me too.”
    Nicky sat down. She grabbed hold
of Ryan’s hand and leaned close so they could speak quietly.
    “The truth,” she said.
    “The truth. I am so ready to
hear the truth.”
    “Geez, where do I even begin?”
    “How about about at the
beginning?”
    The beginning seemed like a
ridiculous place to Nicky. But they were on a transatlantic flight with hours
to go. Maybe starting at the beginning would give this story enough context
that Ryan would actually believe it.
    “If we’re starting at the
beginning, you should know that Nicky Bloom isn’t the name I was born with.”
    “I’m not surprised,” said Ryan.
“Did this secret consortium Jill keeps talking about give you a new name?”
    “Yeah, I suppose they did. But
even they aren’t what they seem—I mean…”
    Telling this story was
surprisingly hard. She liked her relationship with Ryan exactly as it was right
now. She liked how he looked at her, how he kissed her, and she wondered if
those things would change when he knew the truth.
    “Let me try again,” Nicky said.
“My real name is Celeste Nicole Allen.”
    “So Nicky’s taken from your
middle name.”
    “Nicky is what everyone’s called
me for as long as I can remember.”
    “And how long is that?” Ryan
said. The question was meant to be playful, but to Nicky it was all too
serious. Her encounter with Sergio before the Date Auction, his insistence that
her recurring dream was based on a real memory, the fact that she her childhood
memories didn’t go back nearly as far as everyone else’s…
    “When I was little…how can I say
this? I had a very strange childhood, at least, by Thorndike standards I did.”
    “You mean you weren’t always
filthy rich?”
    “Far from it, actually. I was a
jackal.”
    “A what?”
    “It’s a word everybody uses to
describe homeless children. A word they use outside of Washington, that is. You
guys are a little bit removed from what life is like for the rest of