If I'd Never Known Your Love (6 page)

Clyde chuckled. "I know you do. But somehow your mother got it in her head that they were your favorite."

"They're Evan's favorite," she whispered. "She baked them for him."

"Well, maybe he'll get to eat them. Nothing wrong with hoping for our own little miracle for Thanksgiving."

She put her arm around his waist. "Nope, nothing wrong with that at all."

He pulled a small package out of his coat pocket and handed it to her."Your mother and I bought you a present. It's one of those gifts that's as much for us as it is for you."

She smiled when she saw what it was—a new cell phone. "I assume there's something special about this one?"

"It's guaranteed to work. As long as you stay in the city, of course."

* * *

There was a small miracle over Thanksgiving, just not the one they'd hoped for. They received word through the local police that one of their undercover operatives had spotted a man who fit Evan's description in a small jungle village somewhere between Bogota and Tunja. The informant said that Evan had a beard and that his wrists were red from having his hands tied, but that otherwise he seemed healthy. By the time the police had arrived, however, he was no longer there.

The image of Evan was burned into Julia's mind, and was one she would carry with her forever. Appearing unbidden, it was like a hand taking hold of her heart and squeezing. Tears of frustration and fear and longing would tighten her throat and spill from her eyes and she would be lost in a cloud of agony.

As soon as they could, Julia and Clyde pored over maps of the region, noting the average nine-thou- sand-foot altitude, the amount of rainfall and temperature in this part of the Andes Mountains. Because of the direction the kidnappers had taken, Matt and George both figured it was the ELN, the National Liberation Army, that had taken Evan, and aggressively went after the contacts they had within that organization. The local authorities questioned their own informants and talked to a man who had been released recently from the same region. Nothing.

The kidnappers finally broke their silence in the middle of February. The ransom demand arrived a week to the day after an article about Americans being held hostage overseas appeared in a popular newsmagazine in the United States. It was an in- depth piece about the dangers of traveling to certain countries and included a lengthy sidebar with pictures of several hostages, including Evan. The information and photograph had been supplied by Harold's assistant, one of the few people they'd forgotten to tell not to give interviews. Undoubtedly believing she was helping, she'd told the reporter how important Evan was to Stephens Engineering, adding the un- publicized fact that he'd recently been made a partner.

George Black called her on Valentine's Day, her cell phone ringing in the middle of her Spanish class at the Embassy. "Julia, it's George. Do you have a minute?"

She got up and left the classroom. "I always have a minute for my favorite FBI guy."

She moved farther down the hallway, where the reception was better. "What's up?"

"We've heard from the people who have Evan."

Her knees went weak. She put her hand against the wall for support. "And?"

"They're asking for ten million."

She did a quick calculation. "What is that? About forty-five hundred American?" That was not only doable, she should have at least that much in her checking account. If not, she could get a cash advance on her credit card. Had she ever learned how, she would have done a cartwheel right there in the hallway.

"Not pesos, Julia," George said.
"Dollars."

Five seconds of joy. Was that all she was given after four months of agony? It wasn't fair. She fought to keep the fury and frustration from her voice."I don't understand. Why so much? We can't possibly pay it. What in the world would make them think we could?"

"Obviously, someone got hold of the article and figured if Evan was a partner in Stephens Engineering he must be worth a lot of money. I don't know...." For a brief, rare instant, he sounded discouraged. "Maybe this is what they've been waiting for all along."

"Do we know who has him? Is it the ELN?"

"They didn't identify themselves. My guess is they decided that for someone this valuable and with this amount of money involved it's more important to get paid than take credit."

She squeezed her eyes closed to block the inevitable tears and tried to concentrate on the fact that at last they had what they'd been waiting for— contact. "Now what?"

"We begin the negotiating process."

"How far will they come down?"

"I have no idea," he admitted.

"We can't pay ten million," she repeated. "That kind of cash outlay would cripple the company." Pain radiated through her like a sprung roll of barbed wire.

"I'm going to tell you something you already know but might need reminding. Every time you get frustrated with the process think about this."

She nodded, even knowing he couldn't see her.

"Negotiation is like creating a statue out of a block of marble. It's imperative to understand the stone before you strike a blow. Once something is removed, it can't be replaced. If we make a misstep with these people, we can't go back and start over."

"What do you want me to do?"

"As soon as we give them an answer, I want you to go home and see your kids and not return for a couple of weeks. There's no way we're going to hear from them again sooner than that."

"When will we answer them?"

"We're still working on that."

For the first time she felt an unbearable sense of hopelessness. She desperately wished she hadn't talked her father into leaving again. "I understand."

"I know you do," he said softly. "And I know that understanding doesn't make it any easier. Just keep telling yourself that this is a good thing. We've finally heard from them."

Four Months Missing

For seventeen years I'd lived in a cocoon, sheltered by parents who loved me and believed without question that I
was special, and a brother and sister who didn't just tolerate me but actually liked me. At least most of the time.

Which meant I wasn't prepared when you told me the truth about yourself and
broke my heart. I had no point of reference to understand that kind of pain. I knew
without hesitation that my mother would lay down her life for her children. I couldn't
conceive her being so self-absorbed that one of us would die as a result of her
carelessness. It was impossible to imagine her turning to heroin to ease her pain or
that she could pass out and leave something so dangerous within the reach of a four-year-old.

When your mother killed herself out of guilt, she couldn't have understood what it
would do to you, how finding her sitting in a bathtub full of blood would be the way
you would remember her forever, and how starkly alone you would be without her
and your brother. But then, maybe she thought she was doing you a favor, and that
you were better off without her. Maybe it was the only way left for her to tell you that
she loved you. All I know for sure is that you wouldn't have moved to Kansas if she
hadn't died, and we wouldn't have found each other. When I get angry with her for
doing what she did to you and the way she did it, I remind myself of that.

Did I ever tell you that my father had only known you a couple of months and wanted
to adopt you? Somehow he found out your aunt would only let you stay with her as long
as the state paid for your keep. I threw a holy fit when I heard him discussing it with my
mother. Of course I couldn't just come out and say that I was in love with you, that I put
myself to sleep at night planning our wedding, and how awkward it would be to explain
to everyone that I was marrying my brother. My mom must have figured it out and clued
in my dad, because he never mentioned it again. He did, however, spend a lot of time
with us that we could have been spending alone.

Mrs. Winslow got involved when she discovered you were two years behind where
you should have been as a high-school senior. She volunteered to help you catch up,
promising to keep your secret as long as you came to her classroom after school every
day and made progress. Dad and I pretty much ruined that for you when he made you
my chauffeur, leaving you caught between a hunger to learn and a need to belong somewhere.

I had no idea what I'd done until Mrs. Winslow drew me aside one day and told me
she was going to have to go to the principal if you didn't start showing up for her after-school sessions. Of course she assumed

I knew what she was talking about, and I was smart enough to listen to that little voice
in the back of my head telling me to play along.

That night on the way home I confronted you. I'd convinced myself that we were
friends by then and was angry, and more than a little hurt, that you hadn't said
anything. You just let me go on messing things up for you even after I'd reached the
point I could do a pirouette on my crutches and no more needed help getting on and off
the bus than the flies that came on board every day when we dropped Hazel off near the
fertilizer plant. As hard as it was to admit, I secretly thought you were a lot more
worried about losing your growing friendship with my dad than you were with losing
my company.

You didn't say anything for a couple of miles, then pulled off the road at Branford
Creek. We bumped along the rutted dirt road in silence until you found an opening
where you could park beside the creek.

We'd had a dry summer, and the cottonwood leaves had shriveled and dropped
prematurely, leaving the trees looking sad and desolate. I saw the same emptiness in
your eyes when you turned to me. Until that afternoon I'd lived a white-bread-and-mayonnaise life, never doubting that I was loved, never faced with a decision harder
than which dress to buy for the prom.

Then you told me about your mother and little brother, and I was irrevocably thrust
from the innocent, sheltered world my parents had created for me into a world where
terrible things happened to good people. I cried and you frowned, breaking my heart all
over again. You couldn't understand how I could shed tears over someone I'd never met
or how I could grieve for someone I'd known less than a month.

"There's more," you said reluctantly after I'd finally stopped crying and dried my
tears.

"How could there be?" I said, tears instantly welling in my eyes again.

"This is different. I really don't care who knows about my mother and brother. If
someone thinks I'm nothing but a piece of shit because of them, that's their problem. But
this other thing is my problem. You can't tell anyone, Julia."

"I won't."

"You have to promise."

I eagerly nodded. "I do."

"Are you sure?"

I crossed my heart and put my finger on the tip of my nose so that my eyes were crossed, too, then grinned. "What
more could you ask?"

"This is serious, Julia. If you tell anyone and they tell the wrong person, I'll be
arrested and spend the next ten years of my life in prison."

C H A P T E R 4

Five Years Later

Julia McDonald stared at the black suit she'd packed only moments earlier and wondered if it was too somber. It might be better to go with something lighter, the buttercup-yellow or maybe even the sea-foam green, a color that made her look more confident than she felt. She stared at the closet, contemplating her choices. Before Evan was kidnapped, she hadn't owned a single suit; now she owned ten.

"Still can't decide, huh?" Shelly said between bites of a banana, uncharacteristically early for school.

"What do you think of this one?" Julia asked, glancing at her daughter in the mirror, noting she'd changed from the sweater she'd had on earlier to the sweatshirt with UCLA written across the front in six- inch-high letters. Her uncle Fred, the UCLA professor, had sent it for her fifteenth birthday the previous week, innocently insisting he wasn't recruiting, just advertising.

Shelly studied her mother's reflection."It's okay, I guess."

"It can't just be okay. It has to be perfect."

"Then go with the red one."

"I can't wear red for this."

"Why not?"

"It's not serious enough."

"How can it not be serious when it's in the Colombian flag?"

"It just seems too happy."

"Why shouldn't you be happy? Isn't the whole purpose of this thing to convince the Colombian ambassador we think Dad is still alive?"

"We don't
think
he's alive," she snapped."And the purpose is to get them to start actively looking for him again."

"I thought the
purpose
was to bring Dad home," Shelly snapped back.

They had been on the verge of an undefined argument all week, Shelly moody, Julia preoccupied, her patience threadbare. "What is your problem? You've been like this for days."

"Sorry," she said without real regret. "I'll get over it. I always do, don't I?"

Julia shut the closet door. She had plenty of time to pack after Shelly left for school.

"I'm sorry, too."

Sorry for so many things that she'd stopped counting. A third of Shelly's childhood had been consumed in the frustrating, heartbreaking struggle to bring her father home.

Julia had missed holidays and birthdays, chasing promises that she knew better than to believe but couldn't ignore. "This meeting has me rattled." She offered a smile to go with the apology. "You'd think I'd be used to them by now."