Utopian Day (24 page)

They finally located a good hospital in Costa Rica.
Research had revealed that Costa Rica had some of the finest
medical care in all of South America. The whole procedure would
cost them each ten thousand dollars, plus the cost of the charter
plane split three ways. They flew into San Jose on a Friday
afternoon, spent the night in a hotel, and then had all three of
their devices removed on the following day at a local clinic – no
questions asked. One more day in town to monitor for any signs of
infection, and it was back to George Town on Sunday.

All in all, life had been good for the three of them
during these past eleven years since they had been kidnapped from
Utopia. Not only had they escaped re-capture, but they had been
able to build new and fulfilling lives in Grand Cayman and become
good friends all around. They had no idea that their world was
about to be turned upside down once more.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Sasha’s eighteenth birthday party had been a huge
success. The party started out with a trip to the Trapeze School of
New York, where Sasha and a group of her friends tried out swinging
from the trapeze. Next, it was back to the Bartonovich’s brownstone
for a catered birthday lunch, complete with three-tiered birthday
cake, presents, music, dancing – the whole nine yards. Lastly, they
finished it off with a movie.

The following morning before breakfast, Nick and Mia
asked Sasha to come into the library so that they could give her
one last birthday present. They sat down around the coffee table
and Nick placed a manila envelope on the table that had Sasha’s
name on it. Sasha was still on a party-high from the events of the
day before and she was grinning from ear to ear.

“
Thank you again for the party
yesterday, Nick and Mia. It was the best birthday party
ever.”

Although it had been years since they had officially
adopted her, she still preferred to call them by their first names.
Mia could understand completely. No one could replace Sasha’s
mother, nor did she want to. She was just glad to be a part of
Sasha’s life.

“
Sasha,” Nick began, “I’m very
glad you had a good day. We have one more present to give you, but
it’s not what you might expect. I have some very good news for you,
but it also might be very difficult news.”

Sasha looked from Mia to Nick and back, a quizzical
expression on her face. “O.k., what is it?” she asked.

“
When we adopted you, there were
certain facts about your life that we didn’t feel you needed to
know at the time,” Nick continued. “Mia and I talked about it and
decided that you needed time to grieve and adjust to your new life
before we told you. Due to other circumstances that will hopefully
be clear in a few minutes, we decided it would be best to wait
until you turned eighteen to tell you those details.”

Sasha had moved to the edge of her seat with
curiosity, wondering what was about to be revealed.

“
Sasha, your biological father is
still alive.” Nick paused to let Sasha process what he had just
said, knowing that her entire world would shift with the words he
had just spoken.

“
That can’t be possible,” a
confused Sasha replied, “my father died in a car crash in Canada
when I was a baby.”

“
Sasha,” Nick continued, “I know
this is hard to accept, but your mother didn’t tell you the truth
about your father.”

“
So you’re saying Mom lied to me
about my father’s death? Why would she do that?” Sasha said,
visibly upset.

“
Look, I know this is a lot to
process, but your mother had a very good reason for not telling you
the truth about your father. Your father is a man named J.T.
Thornbacker. When you were born, he had just been sent to prison
for twenty-five years. He didn’t even know your mother was pregnant
with you. In fact, he doesn’t even know you exist at this
moment.”

“
I’m sure your mother just did it
to protect you,” Mia added, touching Sasha’s hand gently as she
spoke.

“
Why did you guys wait so long to
tell me?” Sasha asked, looking hurt.

Nick and Mia looked at each other.

“
Your father is currently on the
FBI’s wanted list. He escaped from prison nine years ago,” Mia
answered.

Sasha’s eyes widened and her mouth came open with a
look of surprise.

“
What?”

“
I know it’s a lot to take in.
Everything you need to know is in this envelope,” Nick said,
tapping the envelope on the coffee table with his finger. “Once you
have had a chance to look over it, ask me anything you
like.”

“
So no one knows where he is?”
Sasha asked, picking up the folder and placing it in her
lap.

“
We
know where he is,
Sasha,” Mia said.

Sasha looked at Mia with a mixture of surprise and
bewilderment.

“
He is living under an assumed
name in another country,” Nick went on. “We can arrange for you to
meet him, but there are some complications. Because he is a wanted
man, if the FBI finds out about him, he will go back to jail for
the rest of his life.”

Sasha stood up, clutching the manila envelope in
both hands. She began backing away from Nick and Mia. She was
upset, her brain not sure which question to ask first. Should she
be mad at Nick and Mia, or her mom, or at anyone? She didn’t know.
Her thoughts were a jumble of emotion-filled firecrackers.

“
I need some time to think,” she
said as she turned and practically ran out of the library and up
the flight of stairs to her room. Nick and Mia heard the door
slam.

Sasha sat down on her bed. She opened up the manila
envelope and poured out the contents onto her bed. Her eye was
caught by an 8 ½ by 11 inch photograph of J.T. Thornbacker. He was
smiling as he faced the camera, and dressed in a three-piece suit.
She went over to her mirror and held the picture beside her face as
she peered into the mirror so she could see her image side by side
with her father’s. The resemblance was undeniable. She wondered
when the picture had been taken.

There were various articles in the pile on her bed.
One was about J.T. being appointed CEO of some company. Most of the
others were about his arrest and trial for embezzling funds and
various other illegal business practices. She read them all,
devouring them for information about who her father was and what he
was like. The last article was about J.T. Thornbacker’s amazing
escape from prison, along with two other prisoners. It detailed how
the hideout that they had fled to after leaving prison had been
discovered, and that all indications pointed to their plan to flee
to Europe and live under false identities. She wondered how Nick
and Mia had found him after all these years.

Before today, she had believed her father’s name was
Steven Byers, and that he’d been a school teacher who had died in a
car crash in Canada. Today, she had learned that she had been lied
to by both her mother and her adoptive parents about one of the
biggest facts in her life. It was unsettling. The more she thought
about it, the madder she became.

She needed someone she could talk to, someone she
could trust. She called her best friend Marty to see if she could
come over and talk.

“
Hi Sasha,” Marty
answered.

“
Hi Marty. Can I come over? I need
to talk to you.”

“
Sure. What’s up?”

“
I can’t talk about it on the
phone and there’s something I need to show you first.”

“
O.k. When do you want to come
over?”

“
I have to wait until the coast is
clear. Maybe in about an hour?”

“
No problem. Just text me when you
leave to come over, o.k.?”

“
O.k. See you soon.”

She was taking a risk in talking to Marty about her
real father. But she needed someone she could trust to listen to
her. Right now, she was having some definite trust issues with Nick
and Mia. Marty had been her best friend since grade school. She had
been Sasha’s confidant when her mom had died. If she couldn’t trust
Marty, then she couldn’t trust anyone.

Sasha grabbed her backpack and tossed in a
windbreaker, a flashlight, and her phone. She collected all of the
papers spread out on her bed and put them back in the envelope,
tossing that into the backpack too. Now all she had to do was wait
until Nick and Mia went to bed. She didn’t want them knowing where
she was going and she certainly didn’t want them asking a lot of
questions or trying to stop her. She was eighteen, after all – old
enough to do what she wanted.

Mia came and knocked on her door around 10:30
p.m.

“
Yes?” Sasha responded.

“
Are you o.k.?” Mia said without
opening the door.

“
Yeah, I’m o.k. I just want to be
alone right now.”

“
O.k. If you need anything, just
come and get me.”

“
Alright. Thanks.”

Sasha heard Nick and Mia’s bedroom door close down
the hall. She waited another thirty minutes until she no longer
heard any sounds coming from the direction of their bedroom. She
slipped on her backpack and quietly opened the door, looking down
the hall to make certain the light was off in her parents’ room.
She had practiced going downstairs without making a sound, marking
each place she would need to step without making the floors creak.
She paused before each floor to carefully peer around the wall
separating the stairs from the rest of the floor before coming down
to the landing, making sure Nick wasn’t still up. She went all the
way down to the basement, punched in the security code to turn off
the alarm, and exited the door that led out to the sidewalk. She
closed the door as quietly as she could, locking it with her
key.

She started walking in the direction of Marty’s
house. She turned the corner and was about to walk past an alleyway
when she was grabbed roughly from behind. She tried to scream, but
there was a cloth over her mouth. As she inhaled, she felt weak and
couldn’t keep her eyes open. In seconds, she lost
consciousness.

Silas McGruder dragged her into the alleyway, out of
sight of anyone who might be passing by.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Sasha’s phone didn’t have a password on it, which
was good for Silas. That way, he didn’t need to use the burn phone
he had purchased to send a message to Nick Bartonovich. It was 6:00
a.m., time to get the ball rolling. Silas took a deep breath and
exhaled it slowly. This text was about to start the events moving
that he had planned for so long. He had checked and double-checked
all of the details. Everything was in place. Now all he had to do
was send this text.

He scrolled through Sasha’s contacts and selected
both Nick and Mia’s numbers, and then he typed out the message:

I have sasha. 10 million in cash,
one hundred dollar notes, or you never see her again. Put the money
in a big cooler with wheels on it. J t thornbacker must deliver the
money. Will contact you in 24 hours to tell you where to meet me
with the money. No cops or else.

He checked the message twice to make sure he had all
the details right, then hit the send button. He then took a picture
of Sasha, duct-taped to the captain’s chair in the RV, and sent it
through, as well. Once the message and picture were sent, he
removed the phone’s cover and popped out the battery. It was just a
precaution so that they wouldn’t be able to track the phone. He
checked Sasha’s restraints one more time before climbing in to the
driver’s seat of the RV and driving away.

As Silas drove along, he thought about the events
that had led up to this moment, and a smile came across his face.
All of the planning, all of the time spent surveilling and
researching, the investment he had made in the miniature
microphones that he had placed around the Bartonovich’s house – it
had all paid off. Now the brass ring was in sight.

Many months before, when Silas began to focus on
Nick Bartonovich as the key to his future success, he had started
looking for a way to spend more time staking out their house. He’d
found a basement efficiency apartment on the opposite side of the
street from the Bartonovich’s home, down on the corner. It was the
perfect place from which to surveil all of the comings and goings
at their residence. Besides, he had needed a place to stay since
he’d lost the house in the divorce.

He had purchased a set of high quality remotely
accessible microphones that he was going to use to bug their house,
but he needed a way to get inside undetected in order to plant
them. One day, the HVAC company that the Bartonoviches used was out
doing routine maintenance on their system. Silas was home and was
watching the Bartonovich house that day. He noticed that Nick and
Mia left together shortly after Sasha headed off to school, leaving
the HVAC technician alone in the house. Silas had simply walked
over with a box containing the bugs, tipped the HVAC tech a hundred
dollars to let him in the house, and planted the bugs.

He had been settled on the kidnapping scheme for
some time. He decided that nothing else would provide the leverage
he needed to get what he wanted. He had everything planned out
except how he was going to get Sasha alone so that he could grab
her. Breaking into the house would set off the alarm, and doing
something in broad daylight near their house was too risky. Then,
when he had heard from the bug in Sasha’s room about her plan to
leave the house after dark without her parents’ knowledge, that
problem was solved. Finding out that J.T. Thornbacker was her
father from the bug in the library was just icing on the cake. He
couldn’t resist using J.T. as the courier. The last thing Nick
wanted was for J.T. to get caught by the cops – then he would be
connected to the prison breakout he had orchestrated and go to
jail. Every bit of insurance Silas could get to make certain the
authorities stayed out of his way was welcome. Yes, this was going
to be sweet revenge indeed.