“No, not at all,” he said. “What will you do?”
“Check my email,” she said. “It seems foolish, given where I’m at, but I just wanted to do something normal and be connected to the world again.”
“If you find anything interesting,” he said, “let me know,” as he sat back down at the table.
She sat down in front of the laptop in the living room and turned it on. Soon enough, with a full cup of tea beside her, now comfortably settled on the couch, she brought up her emails. When she got toward the bottom, she froze. “There’s one from my mother,” she cried out. He turned and looked at her. She didn’t know what to say.
“Is that so shocking?”
“Well, yeah, considering she’s dead and all.”
“Of course,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean she didn’t send it before, like while you’re on the yacht maybe.”
“Maybe.”
“Have you opened it?”
“No,” she said, “I’m too scared.”
“Scared about what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You’ve made me paranoid.”
He smiled at her. “Maybe you should open it before you panic.”
“I’m not panicking,” she said, finding just enough resentment in her voice to give it some strength.
He chuckled. “You’ll be good for Baylor,” he said.
Just as she went to open the message, she heard his comment, then stared at him in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, it’s obvious that the two of you have a thing going on,” he said dismissively.
“It’s not obvious at all,” she said, “because we have no such thing. Where are you even getting that from?”
He looked at her and said, “Didn’t you write the Help note to him?”
She frowned. “Yes, but that’s because he’s the only person I knew in this entire field. Hell, most people don’t even know anybody who does this kind of work.”
“Now that is very true,” he said, “so you didn’t actually think about him during your time there?”
“Well, sure I did,” she said, with a lopsided smile. “I was scared and upset, crying out for anybody to come and rescue us. Having someone to focus on made me feel a tiny bit hopeful.”
“Well, it worked,” he said with a big grin.
“Not fair,” she said, “and it makes it sound like he actually responded to my Help note or something. They were already coming to get us, although I didn’t know it at the time,” she said. “Well, not before I left that sketch behind.”
“And I do love the sketch you did. It was really good,” he said. “You should do more with your art.”
“Well, I would if I could,” she said, “but I don’t have anything I can really do with it.”
“In what way?”
“It’s just a hobby.”
“Well, you could do something much more serious,” he said. “You’re very talented.”
She thought about it, shrugged, and said, “Then I started doing the freedom work, and that seemed to be more rewarding.”
“So maybe you should consider doing artistic drawings of the people you’re setting free.”
She stared at him in shock, loving the idea. “Seriously,” she said, “I never thought of that. It’s a wonderful idea.”
“Well, it would combine both passions, wouldn’t it?” he said in that reasonable tone that she’d come to associate with him.
Slowly, her mind buzzing with all kinds of thoughts, she clicked on her mom’s email and brought it up, then sucked back her breath.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
She looked up at him, her eyes stricken. “She starts off with an apology.”
“And that could be for not telling you that she wouldn’t survive,” he reminded her gently.
She nodded quietly, then started to read aloud. “I’m sorry. I know you want to understand this, and I know you don’t agree with anything that your father does these days, but I have to tell you this is important. It’s important on so many levels. So please just accept that I’m gone one way or another. By the time you come home from this trip, I will not be here.”
Her voice fell silent as she looked up at Dane. “My God,” she whispered. “How is it that she knew?”
“Did you think she had less than a week?” he asked.
“No,” she cried out. “She was supposed to have multiple weeks. But then she did say something about not feeling very strong and being at the end of it all. At the hospital she said more as well, but it’s all a jumble in my head.”
“Good enough,” he said. “Can you forward that to me?” She looked at him in surprise and then quickly nodded. Just then came another phone call from Baylor.
“Hey, Dane, we’re outside the newest address, and I need you to run a license plate.”
Gizella heard the conversation through Dane’s phone.
“Give it to me,” Dane said, and he quickly typed in a series of numbers.
She got up and moved toward Dane, getting away from the email from her mother. She sat down at the kitchen table. “What did they find?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. When the registration came up, he whistled. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“What is?” Baylor and Gizella asked at the same time.
“That vehicle is registered to your father.”
*
Baylor heard the words from Dane with a shock and also heard Gizella gasp. “Gizella, any idea what this is about?”
“No,” she cried out in shock. “Why would my father have a vehicle registered here?”
“I don’t know,” Baylor said. “You tell me. Does he travel a lot as a governor?”
“Yes, but I’ve barely had anything to do with him for the last few years,” she said.
“Interesting. It’s also got a company name beside it.”
“He doesn’t have a company,” she said, bewildered. He heard it in her tone of voice, and this was adding so much more stress. She also added, “I checked at the hospital, and no personal belongings are there for Dad.”
“Do you have access to his emails or anything else?”
“No,” she said quietly. “His lawyer is stateside too.”
“We’ll contact him and see what’s going on,” Baylor said.
“I also just downloaded an email from my mother,” she said. “She made it clear that she wouldn’t
