The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [79]
“And in five years she hadn’t been offered for adoption?”
Sean turned and stared into Nikola’s eyes. “She had a very frail constitution and had needed constant attention, so the nuns said. We raised her as our daughter and gave her as much love as any child could have.”
“And her schooling? And the university? Who paid?”
“We don’t know.”
“Sean, I ca—”
“I swear. We don’t know. We never met him.”
Nikola reached for the stone-cold dregs of his tea and wet his lips. The bastard was telling the truth. They had never met their benefactor but knew it was a man. “How did you keep in touch?”
Jenny stiffened and Sean slouched his shoulders, defeated. Nikola waited for the man to release their best-guarded secret. He could get all he wanted from the wretches after a couple of hours downtown at a beautifully appointed cellar with slightly inclined floors and a large drain in the middle, but he’d already wasted enough time.
“He left us a telephone number.”
Nikola put his hand out, palm up.
Sean sighed and climbed to his feet. After a slight hesitation and a glance to his wife, he neared the photograph display, reached to one of the tabby cat’s portraits, and picked a yellowed card from behind it. “It won’t do any good. It’s an answering service.”
“How did it work?”
“We would call and leave a message. Afterward—sometimes the same day, other times a few days later—a man would call. If there was no reply, we tried again a week or so later.”
“And the money?”
“It was wired to an account we opened in Laurel’s name to pay for her studies.”
“Please let me have a bank statement with details of the account.”
“Look, Mr.—I mean, Nikola. I don’t think—”
“You don’t think? You don’t want your daughter returned?”
“Of course, but—”
“Give it to him.” Jenny was now standing. She looked close to collapse.
Sean handed over the card. It was a blank business card, aged and dirtied by grubby fingers, with a string of numbers penned in blue ink. A moment later, after rummaging in the drawer of a side table, he returned with a bankbook from the local Wells Fargo, showing a balance of $6,316.82.
“That’s what’s left of her money. She used it to pay for her studies. We never touched a penny.”
Nikola placed the card inside the bankbook and slipped both into his jacket pocket. Then he turned on his heel and walked toward the door, whispering hurried instructions to Dennis via the microphone on his collar. As he climbed into the van, he darted a glance at the group of armor-clad men spewing out of an unmarked truck, heading toward the house.
chapter 28
22:11
A motley crew lined the platform to see them off, like a congregation of derelict souls waiting for a train.
As soon as they’d returned, burdened with the bulky backpacks full of explosives, Henry had excused himself and retreated to a quiet corner to write with a cheap ballpoint pen in a grimy notebook, pausing often to glance away or adjust his dangling flashlight. Laurel and Raul sat nursing fresh mugs of the wicked brew that passed for coffee and recounted their explosive-gathering odyssey to Floyd and Lukas, mentioning only a warehouse—thus omitting the army base and any reference to Santos Hernandez.
Lukas seemed a little more spirited than when they’d left, no doubt thanks to Floyd’s pep pills, and Russo remained, according to Floyd, stable. During their absence, one of Henry’s pals—a young African-American man with the strange nickname of Pinky—had delivered a box containing assorted IV bags of ionic solutions, new and probably stolen minutes before. The drips had begun to rehydrate Russo and to restore the mineral imbalances in his blood. The plasma, blood units, and other bits and pieces Floyd had requested would be waiting when they arrived at the safe house.
When Henry finished writing, he neared the group, then leaned over a wizened old woman and whispered something. The woman scampered away, returning a few seconds later with a glassine bag housing a seemingly new cellular phone. Henry reached