Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [53]
“I’m sorry, my friend. It’s all I could find.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s just what I needed.”
“Except that all I’ve done is to encourage you, when I should be attempting to get you to abandon this nonsense.”
I appreciate his sentiment. On the flight back from San Cristóbal, I went through all of this in my mind. Do I really want to add a globe-spanning pursuit to the list of things I’ve done over my vacation? Shouldn’t I just be happy I’m alive and that I can leave this crazy place and go back to Evanston? It’s possible that if I show obvious signs of giving up, they will leave me alone.
The only answer that makes any sense is that I don’t believe I have a choice. I feel as if some veil has been lifted, and it has shown me the mechanism that controls my life, and the man with the errant balloon who operates the levers and pulleys. I feel as if events outside of my influence have wrapped me up and carted me hither and thither. Now that I’m aware of the manipulation, there is that indefinable something inside that may want to explore choosing the destination. And, despite the fact that everything in my life over the last five years demonstrates disengagement, I can’t deny I have a need to see some light shed on what happened at KV65. It’s a need strong enough to set my destination away from where I’d rather go. Ethiopia will have to wait. In my mind is a picture of the man who killed Will; I have no doubt of it. And unless I do something, I don’t think going back to Evanston will provide me sufficient distance from myself.
As if on cue, my phone rings.
“He’s dying,” Duckey says.
“Hello, Ducks.”
“Reese has liver cancer. His chart lists it as undifferentiated hepatocellular carcinoma. It’s stage four.”
I don’t ask how Duckey got hold of Reese’s medical records. Nor do I tell him that I already knew Reese is dying. It will give him a sense of accomplishment to think he uncovered that by himself. “Thanks. That’s helpful,” I say. “Did you find anything else?”
“The fact that he’s dying isn’t significant enough?”
“We’re all dying, Ducks.”
“Some of us not quickly enough,” he grumbles. “Hold on, I have a few things jotted down here.”
There’s a span of several seconds, during which he drops the phone and I hear several choice phrases as he retrieves it.
“All right, here’s my list, in no particular order. Reese Industries netted more than three hundred million last year. Their stock split. He named his son CEO in March. He’s flown three times to San Diego, and once each to Vienna, Paris, and Addis Ababa—all in the last twelve months. He has four children and seven grandchildren, and one of the grandkids has terminal cancer.” He pauses, then adds, “She’s the one in San Diego.”
As he finishes, I’m working through the information, seizing on the bit that I find most alarming.
“He’s been to Ethiopia?” I try to keep the panic out of my voice.
“Got back yesterday. He spent two, maybe three days there.”
I quickly go back over the timeline. If Duckey’s right, then Reese left for Addis Ababa within a half day of my last conversation with him. I have no idea what to make of that. How could he have known of the Ethiopian connection before I’d connected the dots? It takes a moment’s silence—during which I can hear Duckey’s children yelling in the background—before the obvious answer presents itself.
“He has another team.”
“If you say so.”
I’d forgotten that I have yet to reveal the particulars of my employment to Duckey. He has no idea why I’m interested in Reese, much less that I’m leading a research team for the man. Rather, I was leading a research team for him. Now it appears I was just one of Gordon’s bets—one late to pay off. I find myself wondering, however briefly, who’s leading the competition?
The unpredictability of this enterprise has just increased by a factor of ten, and some of that has to do with the revelation of the granddaughter’s illness. I force myself to avoid thinking