Sins of the Father (41 page)

“No, no. What’s wrong? Has something
happened?”

“Just wanted to see how things are going
with you. I didn’t hear anything after our dinner last week, and I
was concerned.”

I relaxed. “Things are much better, David.
Johnny and I were talking about calling you last night, actually.
Not about us, but about this business with Sanderfield.”

“Ah, well I can give you the update in less
than ten words. We haven’t made any progress.”

“Nothing?”

“We can show questionable practices as far
as his campaign finances are concerned, but as to the affiliation
with the human trafficking ring, no, we’ve got no evidence
whatsoever. If we want to say that support from Sherman is
circumstantial evidence, we’d be incriminating the current governor
as well, since he once enjoyed Sherman’s support.”

“Speaking of Sherman, what do we know about
the wife, David?”

“She isn’t speaking to anybody, even with
her attorney present. He’s following the party line that the
adoption of Sofia Datello was legal as far as Sherman knew.”

“What about her personal history? Who is
she? Where did she come from?”

David chuckled. “You should be talking to
the former members of OSI about that, Helen. Devlin and Crevan were
the ones involved in compiling the file with all of that
information after she was arrested.”

“Hmm.”

“I know that hum. What’s on your mind?”

“I’d like to talk to her. I’m not a cop. I
can’t even be accused of being an agent acting on behalf of the
police, David. My husband isn’t a cop anymore either.”

“No way will the DA go for that, Helen. I
think her attorney might protest as well.”

“I don’t know how else we’re going to get
the answers, David. Why have so many people been willing to die to
protect this woman, to make sure that she doesn’t face criminal
charges for what she did?”

“We know the answer to that question, Helen.
Proving it is another matter.” He paused for only a second. “You’re
sure that things are better between you and Johnny?”

I glanced at my husband. “Hold on a second,
David.” I put the call on speaker. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes. What’s going on? Did you just put me
on speaker?”

“I did. Now ask that question again.”

His smile was audible. “Then things really
are better between my favorite newlyweds?”

Johnny chuckled. “Things are a hundred
percent better, David. I want to thank you for what you said last
week. I’m grateful to have my wife back.”

“If I could convince the two of you to get
out of town and away from all this other nonsense for a couple of
weeks, I’d feel like I pulled off a major coup. Sorry, my friends,
but you’ve had far too much stress lately. You deserve to step back
from it. Devlin and Crevan can handle whatever you have going on in
the business. Doesn’t a proper honeymoon sound nice?”

“We’ve got an appointment with the
obstetrician next week, David. I’m afraid traveling might not be
something she’d endorse right now,” I said.

“But we could ask,” Johnny said. “Might be a
good idea for us to go away for a little time alone, Helen.”

I frowned at Johnny.

“Well, we can wait for certain things
anywhere, Helen. It’s not like we wouldn’t be in contact with
anyone while we were away.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good girl, Helen,” David said. “And
Johnny’s right. If anything new develops, I’d call you immediately,
if for no other reason than to offer you additional peace of
mind.”

I was ready to pick a fight by the time the
call ended. “You put him up to that, didn’t you? What did you do,
call him while I was in the shower?”

“I didn’t say a word, honey.”

“Don’t you
honey
me. You’re trying to
distract me from thinking about Dad.”

“Maybe I’d like to get you away from all of
this before you have another attack of truthfulness and do
something really stupid like tell Levine that your father isn’t
really dead.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Have you thought about how we’re going to
explain any information we get from him when he does contact
you?”

“Assuming he gets any of my messages.”

“Helen, he’ll contact you.”

I shoved my barely eaten food away and
rubbed my temples. “No, I haven’t thought about it.”

“If we had a vacation, we could tell David
that we went back to the house on Long Island, that we found some
record that Wendell left at the house.”

“I’m not leaving, Johnny. We have to stay
here. We can have a honeymoon any time.”

A pointed stare at my belly, and twitching
eyebrows foreshadowed his argument. “Oh really? You’d leave our
children for a romantic getaway? Or will this honeymoon take place
when the boys are eighteen and off to college?”

“Who says I’d leave them then? Do you have
any idea how many bad things happen to college students? Look at
that poor college boy that Fulk Underwood murdered.”

“Which one?”

“My point exactly. Bobbi Tippet wasn’t a
college student like Kyle Goddard. They both might’ve survived with
a little more parental involvement in their lives.”

“Helen –”

“I know. The Goddards accepted Kyle’s
lifestyle.”

“You’re not going to be a neurotic, over
protective mother.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said.

The iPhone rang before the argument could
escalate. I grabbed it and sighed. Blocked caller. “Seriously?
Telemarketers on Sunday morning?”

Johnny frowned. “I doubt it. Answer the
phone.”

“Hello?”

“Ms. Eriksson?” The voice was distant,
hollow, but definitely male.

“Yes, who is this?”

“I’m answering a message that you left at
National Bank in Grand Cayman.”

I nearly dropped the phone. “I was under the
impression that my messages were private, sir.”

“I assure you they are. The party to which
that message was directed requested an immediate response, miss. I
was instructed to deliver it via telephone, as he seems to feel
that our online form is less secure.”

“What was the message?”

The man spoke a string of numbers,
segregated by dashes, a total of eighteen digits.

“That’s it?”

“Yes miss. The respondent assured me you
would understand the message.”

“Thank you.” I clicked off the phone, those
eighteen numbers committed to memory instantly. I recognized them,
in a way. The 011 in the beginning sequence told me it was a
telephone number, but obviously one located outside the United
States, since 011 was the exit code to dial out of this
country.

“Helen?”

“It was Dad.”

“Seriously? He called you?”

“Not exactly.” I pushed away from the table
and ran upstairs to the nanny’s room on the third floor. Johnny’s
footfalls echoed behind me.

I dug the old disposable cell out of the
corner where I left it tucked away and plugged in months ago.

“Helen, what’s going on?”

“He’s in Europe. It was a phone number,
Johnny.”

“You can’t call him from here. What if
someone traces that phone back to you?”

“It’s disposable.”

“And you can make an international call on
it?”

I cursed softly.

“Let’s trace the number and find out where
it is. We can be on a flight by noon –”

“Johnny, he’s not going to stick around long
enough for us to get there. Give me your Blackberry.”

His eyebrows danced again. “So we’re letting
this be traced back to me.”

“It’s conceivable that you had the phone in
your back pocket and dialed inadvertently. The numbers won’t make
any sense if someone examines the phone.”

He laughed. “We’re blaming your call to a
felon that you helped liberate from Attica to
butt-dialing
?
No, Helen. Let’s get a phone that is capable of making
international calls and dump it the second that you’re done
talking.”

I nodded. “Will you go get one?”

“You’re not coming with me?”

I shook my head. “Hurry back.”

When he was gone, I dialed the number on the
disposable cell. It rang once.

“Yes?”

“Daddy?” I whispered.

“Sprout, you got my message. What’s
wrong?”

“I…” felt more than a pang or two of
disappointment that he hadn’t dropped everything and come
running.

“You what? What is it, sweetheart?”

“I need you,” I said.

“Honey, tell me what’s wrong.”

I explained what we’d learned in the weeks
since my little adventure landed me in upstate New York.
“Everything you know about Lyle Henderson would be helpful. Dad,
did you have any reason to believe that this man, that Marie’s
mother for that matter, was involved in something illegal? Crevan’s
mom identified Suzy as the nurse who disappeared after I was
abducted.”

“I knew very little about them. I didn’t
want to know more than that. They were crazy people, Helen. Please
let this go.”

“I can’t, not as long as the threat Andy
Gillette leveled toward me is still hanging over our heads. What if
somebody comes after me again? Or worse, what if someone steals
my
children?”

Wendell grew very quiet.

“Dad?”

“You never mentioned this when we spoke
last.”

“I thought I did. He said it wasn’t the
first time I’d been sold, Dad.”

“And he threatened my grandchildren?”

“Not the way you think.”

“Stop being reticent. Tell me exactly what
this man said to you, Helen.”

“He indicated that I was more valuable
pregnant.”

“That son of a… all right, Helen. I
understand why you don’t want to leave this alone now.”

“It has nothing to do with how I feel about
you, Daddy.
You
are my father. I never had a mother and I
never will. But I can’t ignore a threat to the boys.”

“Boys?”

“Yes,” despite the dire situation, I beamed.
“I’m having sons, Dad.”

“Promise me that you won’t go after these
people. Tread water. Tell Johnny whatever you must to placate him.
I’ll need some time to put a plan in place –”

“Dad, I don’t want you putting yourself at
risk over this. You’re free
and
dead. Nobody’s looking for
you. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“It’s not what you think, Helen. Trust me.
Please don’t lose faith in your old man now. I need a little more
time.”

“But –”

“Promise me, Helen.”

“All right.”

“Who knows about this call?”

I gnawed the inside of my cheek.

“Sprout?”

“Johnny went out to buy a disposable
phone.”

“You called me from a number that could be
traced?”

“No, I just let him believe that I couldn’t
make an international call on the disposable cell that I’ve had for
almost a year. I didn’t want him to hear what you wanted to say to
me.”

“All right. This is better, actually. When
he comes home with the phone, call me again. I’ll have information
for you that will buy time. Do you trust me, Sprout? Do you trust
me to protect you?”

There wasn’t even a shadow of doubt left in
my mind. Especially when there should’ve been.

Chapter 39

The phone was ringing off the hook before I
got back downstairs to the kitchen. My iPhone had vibrated to the
edge of the kitchen table. I glanced at it first. Restricted caller
on the ID. I rushed to the kitchen phone before it could roll over
to voice mail.

And really scowled.

J. Collangelo.

“For the love of… you’ve got to be kidding
me.” I grabbed the phone and answered with a not-so-friendly snarl,
“Is this some kind of joke?”

“Dr. Eriksson, I presume.”

Could I call him Governor Spineless
Douchebag to his face now and get away with it? Probably not a
prudent moment for a battle of wills with the man who hurt my
husband.

“Presume away, so long as you don’t call
this number again.”

He sighed impatiently. “I haven’t got time
to pretend niceties with you, Dr. Eriksson –”

“It’s Orion now, in case you’d
forgotten.”

“Speaking of which, I’m trying to contact
Johnny.” A pause stretched out, and with it the smug assurance that
only a politician born and bred to the bone can convey. That
I-will-not-be-denied sort of bullshit. “I assume he’s home.”

“Assumption is never safe. If you want to
talk to him, I suggest you try his office or his cell phone, unless
of course, you threw those numbers away when you trashed Johnny’s
career.”

Another pause, much less packed with hubris.
“I suppose I deserve that, Helen.”

“And I never gave you permission –”

“Forgive me in advance for whatever I said
or did to earn your latest bout of ire. I haven’t the time or the
patience for this. I tried Johnny’s cell phone. He’s not
answering.”

“A message in itself, perhaps.”

“Then he is there? With you, I mean.”
Collangelo’s relief hitched in his throat, or perhaps it was an
agonizing grasp at hope I heard.

“No, he isn’t home.”

“Call him,” Collangelo said. “Call him
immediately.”

“I don’t know where you get off –”

“Doctor, we don’t have time for this!”

Something in his tone gave me pause, made my
heart seize just a little bit. Yet he didn’t need to know that.
“Give me a moment,” I grumbled. The phone clattered to the kitchen
counter in testament to my disdain. Moments later, I dialed
Johnny’s cell from mine.

“Hey.”

“I’m hurrying home as fast as I can – I’ll
be in the driveway in about three minutes.”

I listened to the grin across the digital
connection and wondered why in the world Joe Collangelo’s urgency
should inspire anything from me but contempt. Why should I ruin
Johnny’s good mood, his happiness at the sound of my voice?