Finding North (26 page)

“
Why Paris?” Raz
asked.

“
I need to talk to Ben,”
Alex said.

“
And the team?” Raz
asked.

“
We need to look at that
bookstore,” Alex said. “French Intelligence requested we make our
presence known. Make it clear — the Americans are involved. They
think it will shake something loose.”

“
And the Zeno estate?” Raz
asked.

“
We need to meet Josh
Peretz at Zeno estate early tomorrow morning,” Alex grinned. “We’re
on a plane at 0600 hours.”

“
What?” Raz
asked.

“
You’ll see,” Alex
said.

F

Chapter
Nineteen

Wednesday, early
morning

May 18 — 3:06 a.m. EDT
(1:06 a.m. MDT)

The Warehouse apartments,
New York, New York

“
Alex!”

Troy’s loud whisper woke
her from a sound sleep. She opened her eyes.

“
Alex!” Troy
repeated.

She was wrapped in
blankets and sleeping on the couch in the CIA apartments. She sat
up. Raz was sleeping in the recliner next to her. When they’d
returned to the apartments, Colin’s friend and doorman “Tom” moved
them to the largest apartment — a four-bedroom, four-bathroom, two
offices, and a large living space. They had drawn straws for rooms.
Alex and Raz had drawn the couches. Troy and Matthew had drawn one
of the offices.

“
Alex!”

She looked in the
direction of Troy’s voice. He indicated for her to come with him.
She scowled and shook her head. She wasn’t up for hanging out with
Troy in the middle of the night.

“
It’s Helen,” Troy
said.

He held up his phone. When
Alex stood up, Raz opened his eyes. She walked by, and he grabbed
her hand.

“
I’ll be right back,” she
said.

He looked at Troy and then
back at her.

“
It’s Helen,” she
said.

He stood up from the
recliner. Troy gestured for them to come with him. They stepped
around people sleeping on the floor until they got to the
kitchen.

“
What’s going on?” Alex
asked.

“
Helen called through her
computer,” Troy said to Alex. “She’s very upset. Stefan got her to
video-call me, but I think she really wants to talk to you and,
oddly, you, too, Rasmussen. She won’t tell me what’s going on. She
just kept asking for you.”

Raz nodded.

“
Helen?” Troy asked. “I’m
here with Alex and Raz. Can you see us?”

Helen’s image came up on
Troy’s phone. She nodded.

“
What happened?” Troy
asked.

“
I decided
to . . .” Helen leaned close to the webcam. “Stay
the night with Stefan. First time, you know.”

Helen nodded.

“
Okay,” Troy
said.

“
He made the perfect
dinner,” Helen smiled. “We had wine and . . . He’s
so beautiful and . . .”

Helen’s eyes filled with
tears.

“
Afterwards, he said we
should have some cake to celebrate,” Helen said. “I made a cake
like Raz showed me.”

“
How did it turn out?” Raz
asked.

“
Really good.” Helen
smiled with pride, and then her face clouded. “He was in the
kitchen, making coffee and cake and . . . The
dishwasher was going, so he couldn’t hear
me . . .”

“
What happened?” Troy
repeated. Alex slugged him for being impatient. He said, “I’m
worried.”

“
I noticed his house
didn’t have any photos,” Helen said. “He said ‘Make yourself at
home’ so . . . I looked around. I found a photo
album tucked way under a bunch of books and
papers . . . It was kind of hidden.”

Helen nodded.

“
I was snooping,” Helen
said.

She turned to her right.
Stefan’s hand came around her shoulder, and he kissed her
forehead.

“
Tell them,” Stefan said
in his deep African accent.

“
I found all these
pictures of me.” Tears ran down Helen’s face. “And Stefan. All over
the world. Places I’ve only ever dreamed of
going . . . and . . .”

Helen started to cry.
Stefan came into the frame.

“
I’m sorry,” Stefan said.
“I promised to destroy the photos, but I just could not do it. They
are precious to me, and . . . I didn’t think she’d
find them.”

“
It’s okay,” Troy said.
“She needs to know.”

“
I need to know,” Helen’s
voice came from the side. She came back into view. “He tried to
tell me but . . . I . . .
um . . . Alex?”

“
Helen, you and Stefan
have been friends for a long time,” Alex said. “Secret friends. You
met on a physics panel a little more than ten years
ago.”

Helen’s head went up and
down.

“
Now that you say it, I
remember meeting Stefan,” Helen said. “He’s . . .
smart and nice and . . . fit, you
know . . . sexy and . . .
wow.”

“
La, la, la, la, la,” Troy
put his fingers in his ears, and Helen smiled.

“
You and Stefan were
friends for a few years before you both fell for each other,” Alex
said. “You hid your relationship by meeting at physics conventions
all over the world. He’d come to the States as a visiting scholar
for a few months; you’d go to Europe or Africa as a visiting
scholar for months at a time. It worked. You got engaged, and he
took an appointment at Stanford. You were going to live in San
Francisco. You’d received an offer from Berkeley but were holding
out for Lawrence Berkeley Labs.”

“
Did I know you then?”
Helen asked.

“
Not like we know each
other now,” Raz said.

Helen nodded.

“
After you were
hospitalized, there wasn’t anything Stefan could do,” Alex said.
“When you moved to Colorado, he took a job at the Air Force Academy
in the hopes that somehow, some way, he would reconnect with
you.”

“
Did he set up the
tutoring?” Helen asked.

“
Tutoring, and meeting him
again, and all of that — that was a happy accident,” Raz
said.

“
God’s will,” Stefan said.
“God himself knows we belong to each other.”

“
Herself,” Helen
corrected, and Stefan laughed.

“
My Helen,” Stefan
said.

He kissed her lips, and
she smiled. She looked back at the webcam.

“
Why don’t I remember?”
Helen asked.

“
Stefan asked you to marry
him a few hours before Hector killed Dahlia,” Alex said.

“
What did I say?” Helen
asked.

“
You said ‘Yes,’” Troy
said. “Dahlia and I knew about you and Stefan. You called to tell
me . . .”

“
And you were home,” Helen
said. “I remember talking to you, and . . . I’m so
sorry about Dahlia.”

Her demeanor changed, and
she looked absolutely crushed.

“
Me, too,” Troy
said.

“
I should have warned
you,” Helen said. Her voice was laced with guilt. Stefan held her
close.

“
You thought it was called
off because the contractor bailed,” Raz said. “You didn’t think
Hector would do what he did.”

“
I should have
known . . .” Helen said and fell silent. “Why don’t
I remember?”

“
You were happy and
proud,” Alex said. “You told your father . . . We
have the security tape.”

“
I did?” Helen asked.
“Why?”

“
I think you were
declaring your independence,” Alex said. “That’s certainly how your
father took it. You’d met a man you loved. You were moving to the
West Coast. You were going to be free of him and the family. You
had a horrible argument, absolutely terrible. In the middle of the
argument, the police arrived to inform you that Hector was dead.
Your father went nuclear. I’ve never seen anything like it. He was
like a tornado of rage. You got the brunt of it. Your mother came
in after, and . . . Well, she didn’t know about
Stefan or the marriage proposal or moving to San Francisco or your
father’s behavior. She thought you’d lost your mind.”

“
Our father locked you in
the basement,” Troy said. “When Mom left to find out what was
really going on.”

“
The
basement . . .” Helen looked confused.

“
Chained you in like a
wild animal,” Stefan said. “I came to look for you. Haemon said
you’d left the country rather than humiliate the family by marrying
a . . . Let’s just say he was most impolite. I knew
something was terribly wrong. I called the authorities, but there
was nothing they could do. At that time, I didn’t
know . . . your brother or his friends.”

“
How did I get out?” Helen
asked.

“
Mom,” Troy said. “She was
in jail when she realized that she hadn’t seen you in at least a
day. She worried you were in trouble. She negotiated with the
police to be able to look for you.”

“
Your mother looked
everywhere,” Stefan said. “Lord knows how, but she found you in
some kind of hidden room in the basement. You were dehydrated,
sick. The medics said you wouldn’t have lasted even a few more
hours.”

“
Your mind
was . . . gone,” Alex said. “Your mother called my
mother, of course. Raz and I came. We had no choice but to take you
to the mental hospital.”

“
Mom,” Helen said.
“Wow.”

Helen’s head went up and
down as if she understood.

“
Did I get a pretty ring?”
Helen asked.

They heard movement in the
background. Stefan returned with the ring. It had a round diamond
solitaire sitting on a string of matched rubies that went around
the band.

“
It is from my home. It is
from Ghana.” Stefan held the ring out to her. “All of the stones
and the gold.”

Chuckling, Helen blushed.
She leaned into the webcam.

“
I remember the ring,”
Helen said.

Alex, Troy, and Raz
laughed. They heard Stefan say something to Helen. She flushed
bright red and nodded. They hugged and kissed. Stefan put the ring
on her finger. She looked at the ring and smiled at them for a
moment. Her face clouded.

“
Alex, why don’t I
remember?” Helen asked. “I mean, Stefan’s amazing, and he says he
loves me, even now after all of this. And he says that he will wait
until I’m ready to be his wife, and . . . Why do I
remember all this awful stuff, but I don’t I remember
him?”

“
I think that you had
hope, real hope for your own life and a brilliant future with the
hot guy, for the first time in your life,” Alex said. “When your
father locked you in, you lost all hope. For human beings, there is
nothing more deadly. The trauma and disappointment fractured your
mind. You couldn’t afford to remember hope when you had lost
everything.”

“
You’ve been fighting like
hell to get yourself back,” Raz said.

Helen nodded.

“
Is it all right that you
don’t remember?” Stefan’s rich African voice came from off
screen.

Helen looked off in the
distance for a moment before nodding.

“
Can we do it all again?”
Helen asked.

“
Of course,” Stefan
said.

Helen smiled. She leaned
into the webcam again.

“
He’s pretty awesome,”
Helen smiled.

“
He is,” Alex
said.

Helen nodded. With each
nod, they could almost see the wheels of Helen’s mind working. One
last nod, and she scowled.

“
Dad did this to me?”
Helen asked.

“
He did,” Troy
said.

“
And he took Stefan away
from me?” Helen asked.

“
He did,” Troy
said.

“
And all of this — the
dream guy, the pictures of being so happy, everything — it isn’t
fake or a lie?” Helen asked. “Some CIA trickery?”

“
It’s not fake or a
trick,” Alex said. “I promise you. If you’d like to see the tape
where you tell your father you’re going to marry Stefan, I can show
it to you.”

“
I have checked every date
and every location of your trips with Stefan,” Raz said. “I have
records of your flights, hotels, bar tabs, everything. Before you
left, usually at the airport, Stefan always bought
you . . .”

“
Chocolates,” Helen said.
“I would eat them on the plane and save one for when I was going to
see him again.”

“
You have some memories,”
Alex said.

“
I have some memories,”
Helen smiled, and then her face turned hard. “I told you I didn’t
want to talk to Dad.”

“
You don’t have to,” Raz
said. Troy and Alex nodded.

“
I’ll do it,” Helen said.
“I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off, but I’ll do it. That
man . . .”