Afraid of the Dark - James Grippando [82]
Grandpa nodded—as if he truly understood—and it had Jack’s mind working overtime. For more than a week, Jack had been thinking about his conversation with Grandpa’s lady friend—specifically, Ruth’s mention of how the stage play about Pio Nono and Edgardo Mortara had deeply affected Jack’s grandfather. Then, in Washington, Neil had explained his own family name change, which prompted Jack to do some research on Jews who had fought to survive by hiding their Jewishness from the Nazis. Sometimes a name change was just the start. Some Jewish children were sent to live with gentile families. In the saddest cases, young children whose parents were taken away to die in concentration camps grew up in non-Jewish homes without knowing that they were Jewish. As the Greatest Generation passed, deathbeds and nursing homes had a way of letting those secrets loose.
Jack presumed that his grandfather still had relatives named Petrak in the Czech Republic. He was starting to wonder if he had lost other relatives on his great-grandmother’s side—perhaps those who hadn’t changed their name to Petrak to survive the war.
“Grandpa?” asked Jack.
His eyes were closed. Jack was about to nudge him, but his cell rang. Not even the Carrie Underwood ringtone that Andie had programmed into Jack’s phone was enough to get a reaction from Grandpa. The caller ID said PRIVATE, and Jack had a feeling that it was Andie. He was right.
“I’m so sorry,” said Andie. “I just heard about Neil.”
Jack rose and went to the other side of the room, away from Grandpa, to bring Andie up to speed. He hit the highlights quickly, ending with the double murder of Neil and his new client—and how it was no coincidence that they were on a mission to unravel one of the threads that seemed to lead all the way back to a secret detention facility in Prague.
“I’m coming home,” said Andie.
“How long can you stay?”
“I’m putting in a request for at least a week. Longer, if I can swing it.”
That was good news on one level, but it gave Jack pause. “Honey, I want to see you, and I’m definitely down in the dumps. But I don’t want your career to take a hit over this.”
“Don’t you understand how dangerous this has become? Your client and your partner are dead: first Jamal Wakefield, now Neil. Has it occurred to you that someone out there might think that the third one’s the charm?”
It had, especially after the threat against his grandfather, but Jack didn’t want to go there.
“Harry!” Grandpa shouted, calling for Jack’s father. “Harry, where are you?”
Jack asked Andie to hold on, went to the bedside, and spoke in a soothing tone. “Harry is not here, Grandpa.”
“Harry!” he shouted.
The nurse muttered under her breath about his “combativeness,” and she grabbed him hard by the wrists. Jack reached over and grabbed hers. She didn’t seem to like it, either.
“Grandpa, it’s okay,” Jack said as he stroked his head. Grandpa settled down, but he continued to mumble about Pio Nono and his curious obsession with Pope Pius IX.
Andie’s voice was on the phone. “Jack, is everything okay?”
“Yes. Just a little confusion, that’s all.”
Jack glanced at the nurse, and she seemed to take his cue that gentle was better, even if it did take a little more time than grabbing an octogenarian like a steer and strapping him to the bed. Jack stepped aside but stayed in the room to keep an eye on things.
“Listen to me,” said Andie. “I’m coming home as soon as I can. Hopefully this weekend. But promise me that you are not going to take this into your own hands. You have to let the police do their work.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t say ‘sure.’ I want you to promise that you won’t.”
Jack struggled for a response. As the future Mrs. Swyteck, Andie was perfectly within her rights to reel him in, and her concern wasn’t at all out of line. There was just one problem. Neil was gone. And he was never coming back.
It was personal now.
“I promise you,” said Jack, “that I will never make you a promise that I can’t keep.”
Chapter Forty
Chuck Mays woke early on Sunday, skipped breakfast, and drove to the cemetery. Vince