"They haven't done anything wrong, except want to be together. There's no crime in that."
"I wouldn't go that far, Lana," Tess said. "They've been pulling welfare-fraud scams and robbing banks throughout the Midwest. And didn't they hire Amos to kill Mark? Wasn't that the plan? To arrange Mark's death by a third party, then let Natalie come home and inherit everything?"
Lana shook her head in adamant disbelief and denial, even as Vera nodded, sad and resigned.
"I believe it. She cares for no one but herself, that one. From the day she was born. She took and took and took, just like her father. I didn't leave him, I left them. I was scared to close my eyes living under the same roof with those two criminals."
"Where are Natalie and the children?" Tess asked. "Did they call Mark last night, arrange a meeting? If they end up killing him and you don't help me, you'll be responsible. I'll tell the police you're an accessory."
Lana still didn't answer. Her misplaced loyalty was almost admirable. Tess had seen her all this time as a cold accomplice, but Lana was simply a smitten friend. When Vera turned her back on her own teenage daughter, Lana had been there to play the part of mother, sister, and ardent admirer. Lana had reflected back to Natalie the person she wanted to be-beautiful, worthy, deserving of whatever the world had to offer. She was the nurse to this Romeo and Juliet. Or, given Natalie's frame of reference, the Anita to their Tony and Maria.
"They've gone to make a deal," Vera said. "They're going to sell the children back to that idiot, make him pay for what is legally his."
"Where's the meeting place?"
Vera shrugged, while Lana stared at the floor.
"Lana, get out now. Whatever you've done to help them, I can't believe you would agree to murder."
"They wouldn't-"
"They would. Amos was going to kill Mark, and he would have killed me, too, just because I was there. Amos is dead because of them."
Tess was hoping Lana had some residual warmth for the man she had married. Whatever had passed between Lana and Amos, however mercenary it might have been in its origins, there must have been something genuine there. The Velvet Frost had said she was distraught earlier in the week. Lana's name was one of only five in Amos Greif's address book. SlavicBeautee.
"The business," Lana said at last. "But then they're coming back here." She looked at Vera, as if daring her to contradict. "They said they would come back for me and give me my share of the money, pay me back everything I've loaned them and more."
"The business? You mean Robbins amp; Sons, over on Smith Avenue?"
"No, the place they keep the furs, out in the country."
"How much of a head start do they have?"
"Enough," Lana said, gloating a bit. "You won't catch up to them."
"Only fifteen minutes or so," Vera said. "But those twins can't go long without a bathroom break, especially with Natalie making them drink all that hot chocolate before they went out. So strange, a hot drink on a night as warm as this. But Zeke said they had to drain their cups."
Chapter Thirty-nine
ISAAC SAT AS FAR FORWARD ON THE SEAT AS HIS SEAT BELT would allow, fighting his own drowsiness. He didn't understand why he felt so sleepy, not after being stuck in that little house all day with nothing to do but watch television and reread his book. But he couldn't stop yawning, despite his excitement and anticipation. The twins had already nodded off, one slumped on either side of him. The woman they said was his grandmother had chased them around all day, although not in the happy way he thought a grandmother would have. Her only concern had been to keep the twins from touching anything in her house, not that there was anything interesting to touch.
And Lana was there, too, standing by the door while his mother and Zeke shared secrets somewhere else in the house. Isaac guessed that was because they were in Baltimore now and they knew if he got even a chance, he would start running, running, and running until he found a pay phone or a policeman or even a street he knew. He would run all the way to his father's house or store if he had to. But now they said they were taking him to his father, so he didn't have to run. Still, he studied the landscape, determined to figure out where they were.
So far he hadn't even seen anything familiar. He tried to memorize the landmarks that went past. There were the usual stores and restaurants, and now they were on a highway, but it wasn't the baseball highway to Camden Yards or the big highway they took north to New York and south to Washington. Instead they seemed to be heading away from the city. In the middle of this highway, an empty subway car went rattling past, all lit up, but with no one on its blue seats, so it was like a subway car for ghosts. Isaac hoped Zeke wasn't lying. Zeke had promised them their father, but Zeke was mean enough to make a promise and break it. He was, he definitely was.
Natalie hadn't wanted to do the cocoa thing tonight, but Zeke had insisted. He said the children would get overstimulated at the reunion, that they would be hard to control once they saw their father again. "This is trickier than it looks," Zeke told Natalie. "We need time, as much as we can get. So you've got to let me take them in, give them to Mark, and go. No drawn-out good-byes. Everybody wins, right?"
"Not me," she had told him. They had been in her old bedroom, which her mother had stripped of every memory after Natalie left with her father, as if Natalie never existed. Vicious old bitch, refusing to fight for her own daughter. Natalie was a better mother by far. "I won't have my children. It doesn't matter how much money Mark gives us if I can't have them."
"If you hadn't killed a police officer, we might have more options," Zeke had said. He had been saying that a lot the past two days, holding it over her head, enjoying it almost too much. Whatever he wanted, it seemed, could be justified by her one mistake. A big mistake, sure, but she hadn't done it for herself, she had done it for him. He was the bank robber, he was the one who would have gone back to prison if they were caught. That had been her only thought at the time, to save Zeke. "You and I need to go somewhere far away and start new lives. We can't do that with the kids. Mark will never let us be. The two of us together have a chance. The five of us-never."
"I don't know…" This was late afternoon, and they had been lying on her bed, the narrow single bed where she had dreamed about the glamorous life she so clearly deserved. Her mother could redecorate all she wanted, but she couldn't erase Natalie from this room. She was in the floorboards, the wallpaper, the dust floating in the air. In this bed, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, Natalie had dreamed about a man like Zeke, and now Zeke was wrapped around her, the fingers of his left hand entwined in her hair, his right index finger tracing the line of her jaw, her eyebrows, the not-yet-visible lines that would bracket her mouth one day, when she was old and sour. No, unthinkable. She would never look like that woman downstairs.
"Trust me. I know what's right for them. And you." He began kissing her deeply, more passionately than he had all these weeks on the road. She assumed it would be the same routine, that he would unzip himself and press her head down to him, then use his hand so she would feel some release, too, their usual teenage courtship. But he began undressing her instead, taking his time, revealing each part of her as if it were a treasure. Strange, but now she was the one who balked, nervous and unready.
"The children…"
"Vera and Lana are watching them."
"The door…"
"I locked it when we came in here."
"It's not the Ritz." But she was teasing him now, her excitement making her giggly, almost silly.
"Sure it is. Just close your eyes."
But she didn't. She left them open the entire time, so she would remember everything. She was there, she was with him, but she was also hovering above them both, observing. For more than a decade, a third of her life, this man had been the only person who shared her vision of herself, who saw her as something precious and special. She was worried that waiting so long would make it anticlimactic, but it was even better than she had dreamed. She was his now.