Jack looked up and handed the album to Carson. “I believe this belongs to you.”
EPILOGUE
ALLI RETURNED to Fearington Academy after dinnertime. She had spent the afternoon and early evening being debriefed by Paull, Alan Fraine, and Nona Heroe. Then she had dinner with Jack and Annika at her favorite restaurant in D.C. Liridona and Edon were still with Dennis Paull, recounting in incriminating detail all they knew about Arian Xhafa’s business. Paull had promised Alli that he would set the sisters up in an apartment and see they got jobs. Alli was determined to see them as often as she could.
She was sitting on her bed listening to Inbar Bakal’s gorgeous, ululating vocals when Vera walked in. The moment Vera saw her, she stood stock still. Alli took her earbuds out.
“No one told me you were back.”
Alli stared at her. “I know what you did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you dosed yourself with the roofies.”
Vera looked over her shoulder as if she expected the police to be coming out of the shadows in the hallway. Then she stepped into the room.
“I should report you.”
Vera seemed mesmerized by her as she sat down on her own bed. “Why haven’t you?”
Alli shrugged, put her earbuds in, and lay down on her bed, her iPod between her breasts.
Vera stayed that way for a very long time. Then she came and sat on the edge of Alli’s bed. After a moment, Alli stopped the music and freed her ears.
“I hated you from the moment we became roommates.”
“You didn’t hate me,” Alli said, “you envied me.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Alli laughed softly. “Maybe for you it is.”
It seemed to Alli that Vera’s ultrahard shell had begun to crack. She watched curiously as Vera stared down at her hands.
“The truth is…”
Vera wiped her palms down her thighs. Could she be nervous? Alli wondered. That would be a first. She concentrated all her energy on this woman.
“The truth is,” Vera began again, “except for hate, or maybe, like you said, envy, I don’t feel much of anything.”
“Join the club.”
Vera’s head snapped up and she scrutinized Alli’s face, possibly to see if Alli was making fun of her. But quite quickly she saw that Alli was serious.
Vera gave a little cry that was a half sob. “How I hate being numb!”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“But what can we do about it?”
Alli sat up. “The only thing we can do, I guess. Talk about it.”
ANNIKA, NAKED, her long, heart-stopping legs dangling over the side, sat on the bed in Jack’s old, rambling house at the end of Westmoreland Avenue. She was bent over while he traced his fingertips gently down the vertical scars on her back.
Jack thought about Edon’s ordeal at Arian Xhafa’s hands, and then immediately turned his mind away from gruesome matters.
“That’s important only to you.”
She sighed deeply and, turning around, slipped into his arms. “Do you think it will ever be possible for us to be a real family?”
“If we want it, Annika, then we’ll have it.”
The question he left unsaid was: Do both of us really want it?
“Until I met Alli, I never thought about having children,” Annika said.
“You wish Alli was your daughter.”
She pulled back a little to peer into his eyes. “Is that so terrible a desire?”
“Not at all.” He ran a hand down her cheek. “On the other hand, I don’t see you changing diapers.”
She put her head down, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “That’s not so terrible, either.”
“What’s wonderful is the love Alli has awakened in you.”
“My mother loved very deeply—and you know what happened to her.”
Jack did. She had taken her life after Annika’s exceedingly powerful father had kidnapped Annika at the age of four.
“You’re not your mother, Annika. She was weak; you are anything but.”
She was silent for some time. He could feel her heart beating in her chest, could imagine her blood coursing through her veins and arteries.
“Annika,” he said softly, “this isn’t what you want to be talking about.”
She remained silent, but connected to him in the most intimate, visceral way.
“What is it you want to ask me?”
She stirred at last, as if from a dream. “Nothing.” She kissed him warmly on the lips. “Nothing at all.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Safe Banking Systems does, in fact, exist. Located in Mineola, New York, SBS provides the financial services industry with software solutions that combat money laundering, fraud, terrorist financing, and other criminal activity. SBS has the unique capability to find the “bad guys” by uncovering hidden risk and identifying the “six degrees of separation” between disparate individuals and entities.
SBS’s public service report, issued in June 2009, identified terrorists and drug kingpins with valid FAA licenses, including the infamous PanAm Lockerbie bombers. When this story broke in
In October 2010,
BY ERIC VAN LUSTBADER
THE JACK MCCLURE/ALLI CARSON NOVELS
THE PEARL SAGA
