Taken (18 page)

“Is he dead?”

“No. He’s fine. He’s sedated.”

“Are you lying?”

“No. No more lying.”

My father climbed into the driver’s seat.

Then the three of us rode in absolute silence back to the house in Mangrove.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

T
he half moon was still shining weakly on the old car and on the yellow walls of the house when we pulled up. Albert unclicked his seat belt and ducked into the back of the truck. After a minute, he called out, “His blood pressure’s one fifteen over eighty.”

My father answered, “That’s good.”

“Shall we leave him here?”

“Yes. Let’s keep him in here, with the engine running. We’ll keep an eye on him through the monitor.”

My father then got out, so I followed. He led me through the screen door and into the living room, where he pointed to the recliner. “Why don’t you sit there, Charity.” He pulled up a red chair. “I’ll sit in this one.”

I hesitated, still too shocked to comprehend my situation, but I knew I didn’t want to sit down. I wanted to scream, but I held back.

I remained standing until Albert entered. For some reason, the sight of him released my anger. I snarled, “I guess your nephew was as stupid as I was! He believed in you, too!”

Albert looked at my father, and then at me. “I understand that you are very angry. And very confused as to why—”

“Angry?” I spat at him. “Do you really think ‘angry’ covers it?”

Albert shook his head no. He muttered, “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

My father added, “So am I. I—we are very sorry. We tried to make this as painless as possible for you.”

I turned to him. “As painless as possible? I’m supposed to be grateful for that?”

His eyes showed hurt. He finally answered, “No.”

I felt my anger surging like molten lava. “So…I’m supposed to thank you for poisoning me, for drugging me, for kidnapping me?”

“No. No—”

“For sticking me in front of a vidcamera and making me watch my own father’s death? Making me react to it? Is that what this was all about? Did I look crushed enough for you? Did I cry enough? Was it a convincing performance? Did we fool Mickie?”

After a long pause, he finally admitted, “Yes. You’re right, of course. That’s what it was all about. You did convince Mickie. She firmly believes that I am dead. And you’ll convince anyone else who ever sees that clip. Video doesn’t lie.”

Albert exchanged an uncomfortable look with my father, then finally mumbled, “Okay. I’d better start packing the truck. Someone could be watching us; someone could be waiting to get their hands on that currency.”

My father nodded. “Right. Do you need my help?”

“No. I’m only taking about half of this.” Albert pointed to the equipment scattered around us. “Only what’s in working order.”

“All right. Set up what you can. I’ll be down soon. Don’t forget to paint the truck when you get there.”

“I won’t.”

My father pointed to the chair again, but I just shook my head no. I stood and stared at the floor while he went about some final bits of business. He activated a small machine, a steel document shredder. I watched as he fed piece after piece into it—name tags, government IDs, papers. He also fed in the wig, followed by the surgical gloves and cap—all the props of their kidnapping plan. Finally he held up two items of mine—my red backpack and my footed pajamas—like he was asking my permission to dispose of them. I just looked away, so he stuffed those into the shredder, too.

Albert made about a dozen trips in and out with the medical equipment until the room was half cleared away. Then he hefted two trash bags.

As much as I hated to speak to Albert, I just had to know. I asked him, “So where did the second bag come from?”

Albert looked at my father for permission to speak. My father stopped his shredding to deliver the answer himself. “It came from our vault. It’s all of our currency. I pulled it out of the Robinson before I tipped it into the lake.”

“I see. So you actually got paid two ransoms?”

“Correct. The first one, supposedly, was destroyed.”

“I see. So how much was I worth, exactly?”

He winced at that, then answered, “A whole lot. A fortune. Enough to let us do what we want to do.”

I blurted out, “But you are a rich doctor! You already had all the money you could’ve possibly needed, ever, in a hundred years!”

He turned away from the shredder and stepped closer. “No. Dr. Henry Meyers did. He had enough money to be Dr. Henry Meyers for the rest of his days.” He pointed at his own heart. “But that’s not what
I
wanted.”

I shook my head. “No. This is nuts.”

“At first, Charity, yes. It seems nuts. That’s why you have to sit down and listen to me. To hear me out.”

I turned away, more determined than ever not to sit anywhere.

Albert made one final trip to the truck, then approached me in a manner that I would call, to use a Mrs. Veck word, sheepish. He said, “Listen, Charity: I don’t blame you for hating me. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.” He brought his big hand forward, and I looked at what he was holding. It was his leather chess set. “Nobody wants to be a pawn in the game, do they? Everybody wants to be a king or a queen.”

I wasn’t inclined to answer. He added, “But you can’t play without that row of pawns. Can you?” After another silence, he answered himself. “Take it from me, you can’t.”

He finally turned to my father, saying, “Well, I’ll see you down south,” and left without another word. A minute later, I heard the All-Natural Organic Fertilizers truck back out and pull away.

At that point, I had to speak, because I had to know. “What’s he going to do with his nephew?”

“Neve? He’s going to leave him someplace safe.”

“Abandon him, you mean?”

“No. I mean he’s going to take him someplace and wait until he’s all right. Then he’s going to tell him what really happened.”

“What really happened?” I scoffed. “You three were so screwed up, with your fake names and disguises and Plan B’s, and your need-to-know basis. Do any of you even know what happened?”

My father answered, “Mostly. I’ll tell you everything that I know in just a little bit. For now, be assured that Neve—”

“His name is Dessi.”

That seemed to confuse him. “Really?”

“Yeah. And I’m not feeling too confident about what you know. You don’t know the first thing about him. You don’t even know his name.”

“Okay. You got me there. But I know this: Albert will make sure that his nephew is all right—physically, financially, psychologically. Albert will tell him that we never killed anybody.”

I felt a rush of pity for Dessi. He really hadn’t known. He was just a pawn, too. I snarled, “Oh, isn’t that kind of Albert. And of you.” I glared at my father with real hatred. But my legs were now burning with exhaustion after that long run for freedom. I couldn’t stand for another second, so I flopped into the red chair. My father walked around and sat in the recliner. Just sat. He didn’t say anything.

I finally asked, wearily, “So what happens now? People think you’re dead. Do they think I’m dead, too? That we’re both dead? Do we just sit here and act dead? Is that Plan C?”

“No. Of course not. There’s so much I want to tell you. And the first thing is…that you’re free now. Right now. Free to use the bathroom, or get a drink in the kitchen, or spit in my eye. Anything. All I ask is that you hear me out for a few minutes.” He exhaled long and loud. He seemed exhausted, too.

I answered, “What do you have to drink?”

He smiled as best he could. “ElectroPlus. There are two bottles left in the refrigerator, a red and a blue.”

I got up, half expecting this to be another lie, but it was true. I took the red one and carried it back to my seat. Then, from years of training by Victoria, I asked, “Did you want one, too?”

He smiled widely. After a long look at me, he said, “What a princess you are. Really. You are.”

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a no. I can’t drink that stuff.”

I sat down. “If I’m free to go now, when can I go?”

“In a few minutes, I’ll drive you someplace safe, and Victoria can pick you up if you like.”

“That sounds great. Provided it’s true.”

“It is true. I swear it is.”

“You swear?” I scoffed.

“I swear on your mother’s grave.”

“My mother?”

“Yes. This is about you, and me, and her.” He leaned forward and cupped his hands like he was holding a large ball. “Remember how we used to live? With your mother? We were free. We had no walls, no security guards.”

“I remember,” I admitted.

He let the ball drop. “Then it all stopped. We moved into a prison called The Highlands. And you were like the princess in the tower. What’s her name?”

“Who?”

“The princess.”

“There are lots of princesses.”

“The hair one.”

“Rapunzel?”

“Yes. A princess locked in a tower. And that wasn’t going to change, ever. Except maybe change for the worse. You wouldn’t be the princess going to the ball, would you? You’d be the princess going to the guillotine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My…my fear for you. For us. And where life was leading us.”

“Us? My life was fine. Talk about your own life.”

“Yes. I will. Okay? Hear me out. This is what I wanted to say. Will you give me the chance?”

I took a deep swig of ElectroPlus. The taste flashed me back many years. I gave my father a gesture somewhere between a shrug and a nod, and he began:

“I don’t expect you to follow all of this, Charity, you being so young. But after I married Mickie, I found myself trapped in a life that I could not stand. I got up every day and played a role that was not me. I was as fictional a character as Victoria and Albert. But they at least had a purpose for their act, didn’t they? What purpose did I have? What did I actually do with my time? On a typical working day, I turned a rich woman with white skin into a rich woman with brown skin.

“I hated myself for doing that, but I continued to play that character—that DermaBronze playboy doctor. I guess I took a perverse sense of pleasure in playing someone I was not. Everyone was fooled. But deep inside, I felt nothing but pain. I was a sham. I was worthless. I did no good in my life.

“Then one day, on a trip to Miami, I happened upon a car accident. A child had been hit and left in the road. A hit-and-run. She was a girl just about your age. A woman and her son came running out of a house. They picked up the girl, which they shouldn’t have done, and carried her across the street to another house. They yelled at some kids to go get the girl’s family and bring them there, too.

“I watched all this, thinking, What does this have to do with me? I should just keep driving. But I didn’t. Instead, I decided to break the pattern of my life; to do something that was not like me at all. I decided to help these people.

“I parked the car and walked up to the house. Everyone was chattering in Spanish. I understood that the house was a clinic, but the doctor was not in. I didn’t hesitate. I raised my hands for silence. I told them all that
I
was a doctor. A real doctor. I set to work on that poor girl. It turned out she had a broken leg and contusions on her legs and arms, but nothing life-threatening. I had her in a leg splint and cleaned up in about twenty minutes.

“Well, you’d think I was the Second Coming of Christ! Suddenly the people were all around me, pumping my hand, hugging me, crying on my shirt. When I finally got free of them and started to go, I saw that a line of people had formed outside. They were waiting for that clinic doctor to return. A mother held a baby up to me and said, ‘
Ella está enferma.
She is sick.’ What could I do? I went back inside and started acting like a damn doctor.

“Somewhere along the way, someone asked me my name. I thought up ‘Reyes’ on the spot. ‘Reyes’ for the Three Kings, because that’s what I felt like. I added the
M
. later, just for fun. In one day, pretending to be Dr. Reyes, I helped over fifty people. These were people with serious problems—infections, sores, broken bones. I cured them all! I was so pumped up, so elated by the experience, that from that day on, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. With every remaining day of my life.”

I must admit, I was fascinated by his speech. I never knew he had it in him. Or I knew it when I was little, but I had forgotten. Between the words of this caring, enthusiastic man and the retro sweet taste of the ElectroPlus, I felt like I was five years old again.

He aimed both pointer fingers at me; his eyes were shining. “Charity, think about it. All of our time, energy, and money go into keeping people away from us, into building up walls. What if we didn’t do that? What if we became part of the world around us? What if we used all of that time, energy, and money for something else? For a greater good? We would no longer be people who were only worth a trash bag full of ransom money. We would be people who were worth something real. You and I, we could…redefine our lives; we could change them completely!”

He paused and waited for a reply. I didn’t know what to say. Foolishly, I blurted out, “Can I use the bathroom?”

He sat back, disappointed, I think. He answered, “Of course, I said you could. So go ahead.”

After I got up, he added tersely, “We could head out of here now, too. If you’re ready.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

I laid my bottle down and hurried into the bathroom. I could hear him tidying up in the living room. What was going on with this strange man? I still didn’t know if I could trust him. I still didn’t know who he really was.

When I came out, he was standing by the kitchen archway. He had a small brown suitcase in his hand. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

He led the way out the kitchen door. We crossed a patchy lawn to that old German car. It was a diesel hybrid of some kind, a two-door sedan with dark tinted windows. My father unlocked it manually. “Now, here’s a car nobody would want to steal. It’s very economical, though. It used to cost a fortune to run my 700D.”

I got in the passenger side. The car smelled like tacos. I asked, “Where are we going?”

“To the turnpike. We’ll stop at the rest area and talk a little more, if you’re willing.”

“Then what?”

“Then I will take off, in this car, to the south.” He paused and added, “I hope…with you. But I will fully accept it if you choose to go back.”