Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [164]
Jack calmed his mind, gradually stopped the spinning of the whirlpool, reducing it to lines of text. Haltingly at first, then more easily, he read the title page of Billy’s graduate school thesis. The first ten pages were more difficult because there were twenty-two lines of type filling each page. Jack skimmed, struggling.
Then he turned to the eleventh page. It was totally different, and so were the next fifty pages. Pages and pages of numbers, six columns to a page. These were the Syrian’s account transactions from Middle Bay Bancorp.
Jack looked up and handed the album to Carson. “I believe this belongs to you.”
EPILOGUE
ALLI RETURNED to Fearington Academy after dinnertime. She had spent the afternoon and early evening being debriefed by Paull, Alan Fraine, and Nona Heroe. Then she had dinner with Jack and Annika at her favorite restaurant in D.C. Liridona and Edon were still with Dennis Paull, recounting in incriminating detail all they knew about Arian Xhafa’s business. Paull had promised Alli that he would set the sisters up in an apartment and see they got jobs. Alli was determined to see them as often as she could.
She was sitting on her bed listening to Inbar Bakal’s gorgeous, ululating vocals when Vera walked in. The moment Vera saw her, she stood stock still. Alli took her earbuds out.
“No one told me you were back.”
Alli stared at her. “I know what you did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you dosed yourself with the roofies.”
Vera looked over her shoulder as if she expected the police to be coming out of the shadows in the hallway. Then she stepped into the room.
“I should report you.”
Vera seemed mesmerized by her as she sat down on her own bed. “Why haven’t you?”
Alli shrugged, put her earbuds in, and lay down on her bed, her iPod between her breasts.
Vera stayed that way for a very long time. Then she came and sat on the edge of Alli’s bed. After a moment, Alli stopped the music and freed her ears.
“I hated you from the moment we became roommates.”
“You didn’t hate me,” Alli said, “you envied me.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Alli laughed softly. “Maybe for you it is.”
It seemed to Alli that Vera’s ultrahard shell had begun to crack. She watched curiously as Vera stared down at her hands.
“The truth is…”
Vera wiped her palms down her thighs. Could she be nervous? Alli wondered. That would be a first. She concentrated all her energy on this woman.
“The truth is,” Vera began again, “except for hate, or maybe, like you said, envy, I don’t feel much of anything.”
“Join the club.”
Vera’s head snapped up and she scrutinized Alli’s face, possibly to see if Alli was making fun of her. But quite quickly she saw that Alli was serious.
Vera gave a little cry that was a half sob. “How I hate being numb!”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“But what can we do about it?”
Alli sat up. “The only thing we can do, I guess. Talk about it.”
* * *
ANNIKA, NAKED, her long, heart-stopping legs dangling over the side, sat on the bed in Jack’s old, rambling house at the end of Westmoreland Avenue. She was bent over while he traced his fingertips gently down the vertical scars on her back.
Jack thought about Edon’s ordeal at Arian Xhafa’s hands, and then immediately turned his mind away from gruesome matters.
“That’s important only to you.”
She sighed deeply and, turning around, slipped into his arms. “Do you think it will ever be possible for us to be a real family?”
“If we want it, Annika, then we’ll have it.”
The question he left unsaid was: Do both of us really want it?
“Until I met Alli, I never thought about having children,” Annika said.
“You wish Alli was your daughter.”
She pulled back a little to peer into his eyes. “Is that so terrible a desire?”
“Not at all.” He ran a hand down her cheek. “On the other hand,