“Quinn Moore!” It was echoed over at least three headsets.
“Thing is, none of those attorneys were interested in taking his case, mostly because he can’t afford them. He’s in a bind because we managed to get a judge to agree with us that Quinn’s assets ought to be frozen, given the indications we have that he participated in some serious crimes. Enough indication to get a warrant out on him, although we’re pretty sure he’s out of the country. Just not sure where.”
“Yet,” Frank said.
“Yet,” Pete agreed. “Anyway, turns out old Roderick is Parrish’s half brother.”
“Half brother?” I said. “I’ve never heard of him having any siblings other than his sister.”
“Same father. The parents divorced, the dad remarried, Roderick is the child of that marriage.”
“How many more of them are out there?” I asked.
No one had an answer.
FIFTY-SIX
I spent a lot of time answering a lot of questions from people in law enforcement. Fortunately, our friend and attorney, Dina Willner-who had taken over Zeke Brennan’s law firm after he retired-loves a challenge. I don’t know how Dina managed to find the time and energy to keep all of us out of hot water, but she did.
I was able to talk the doctors at St. Anne’s into letting me go home two days later. Ethan had visited me as soon as I got back and told me to return to work only when I really felt able to do so.
“See you next week, then,” I said.
“You don’t know that yet,” he said.
“Neither do you.”
This led to a bet, which I won, but he got the best of me by teasing me endlessly when, on my return, I mentioned that I noticed the receptionist was gone. He made fun of the way I had tried to casually ask about it.
“Admit it,” he said. “You thought I was fishing off the company pier.”
“I wasn’t certain,” I said. “At least not about you. I apologize for that. But if you’re going to tell me she didn’t try to make a play for you-”
“I found a job for her at another station,” he said. “I couldn’t take much more of her making excuses to stop by my office.”
I raised a brow, picked up a pen, and tapped out a message on my desk in Morse code. He laughed and said, “It’s not bragging if it’s true.”
I stayed in touch with Donovan. We were all able to breathe easier when we learned that he was not going to be charged with any crimes. Dina convinced the D.A. not only that Donovan was coerced into all his activities on Parrish’s behalf but also that he had a great deal to do with my rescue and the arrests of several Moths. I, of course, would never agree to testify that I was drugged by him, since, after all, I was out drinking with a friend that afternoon. Who could say what had happened?
Then there was the matter of the police failing him when he initially reported his daughter and his former mother-inlaw missing, a failure that nearly caused the death of Marguerite Page and put the child at the mercy of a man like Roderick Beignet. That, Dina said, was being looked at by the people in her firm who handled civil cases.
Perhaps the most convincing argument was the way the public embraced Donovan himself. Aside from his story, there was his unblemished record of service to his country. He had a handsome face and a beautiful child, and they both became instant media darlings. The-elected-D.A. is not a stupid man. Besides, the D.A.’s kindness toward Donovan guaranteed the cooperation of important witnesses in bigger cases.
Kai loudon awaits trial. He has done a lot of talking about Quinn Moore from his jail cell.
Roderick Beignet, in a cell not far from Kai’s, does the same. Roderick has the gift, Pete says, of never telling a story the same way twice. “And still manages to avoid including facts in any version.”
Quinn Moore has not been seen since he checked himself out of the hospital.
I spend a certain amount of time in my life trying to convince myself he is unlikely to come after me.
So many kindnesses came my way.
Some that might seem trivial were important to me.
Travis, Ethan, and Jack went back to the mountains and made sure that no gear got left behind. Although law enforcement took everything in the cave, impounded the Subaru, and removed some of what was in our “camp” as evidence, there were a few items still there-and my guys made sure those items got taken out of the wilderness, and spared me having to revisit a beautiful place that was too freshly attached to nightmares.
I would be a liar if I tried to pretend that being able to fight back meant I walked away victorious and that was that. The mind plays tricks. Against fifteen minutes or so of action, I had hours of terror as Kai and Parrish’s captive. Even winning a brutal fight does not, it turns out, give a person a mental erase button. In fact, sometimes the replay goes haywire, and where you won in real life, imagination shows you a convincing picture of a different denouement. You pull the trigger and the gun doesn’t fire. The garrote breaks in two. A corpse rises and grabs you by the throat. You are held down by someone younger and stronger, who is reaching between you, and nothing you do stops him.
You wake or snap out of it, but not without moments of being unsure of the true outcome.
During those first weeks, Ben and J.C. called often, as did a couple of other survivors of the first trip, talking me through the days when even therapy sessions weren’t enough to keep me from feeling the vulnerability and terror that follow being held hostage. Other friends helped, too.
No one was as good to me, or as essential to my getting through those days, as Frank. He was, I realized, always going to be the luckiest thing that ever came of any of my luck.
Because of them, I persevered.
I was surprised when I went to visit Donovan, one day about a month after our adventures, to see that this one-time loner-who had already taken his former mother-in-law and his daughter under his roof-now had a tenant. Violet Loudon had moved in, along with an aide she had hired after selling her house.
Donovan and I sat on the patio, watching Miranda play with a calico cat-another addition. “This is quite a change for you,” I said.
“I find I do better with groups of women than I do living with just one.” He blushed. “That doesn’t sound right.”
I laughed. “I understood what you meant.”
“Miranda needs her grandmother. Violet needs all of us. I need all of them.” He paused, then said, “The universe is expanding, right?”
“Right.”
“You call on me, Irene Kelly, any time. I’ve got your back, however far out you stand on the edge of your universe.”
The universe expanded all about me. I could adapt, change, acquire new skills, accept the kindness of friends, accept a new kind of friend. What had seemed to me an impossibility-that I could prevail over such attackers-turned out to be within my grasp. And if that victory had a price, I knew defeat would have had a greater one.
A once utterly unimaginable possibility-that I would not be a newspaper reporter at this time of my life-was a reality. I still grieve the loss of the Express. In one way or another, perhaps I always will.
It turns out, though, that what we grieve can show us what we have truly loved and why we loved it, and what we should reach for again in the coming day, should we choose to reach at all.
I choose to reach.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was once told by a college professor that no classroom lecturer could be held responsible for the mangled information that ended up in his students’ notes. Similarly, the individuals who helped with this book should not be blamed for my errors.
I am indebted to my friends who work or have worked for newspapers. To all of you, wherever you find yourselves now, my deepest gratitude for your help. Thank you for your work as professionals in a field that deserves to be better valued.