Phyllis Garner studied the photo. ‘Smithson. I think I do recall that name. James!’ Phyllis called to her grandson, who was puttering around in her garage. ‘Come help me a minute.’ They vanished down into a basement, leaving Dealey, Evan, and Carrie to talk about the weather and college football, two of Dealey’s keen interests.
Phyllis returned fifteen minutes later, dusty, but smiling. The grandson carried a box. He set it on the coffee table and left to finish his puttering.
Phyllis sat down between Evan and Carrie, opened the box, and pulled out a yellowing scrapbook. ‘Photos of the kids. Mementos. They’d draw me a picture and sign it for Miss Phyllis. One girl always signed it for Mommy, told me she needed to practice on me, for the day when she got herself a real mother. It broke my heart. I wanted to bring her home but my husband wouldn’t hear of it, and it was the only argument I never won. My heart bled for those children. No one wanted them. That’s the worst thing in this world, to be unwanted. I hope you recognize your parents in here.’ She flipped through pages. Phyllis Garner, radiant and beautiful and probably every orphan’s dream. Evan wondered if she had been conscious of how the bereft children must have ached for her to slip her hand into theirs and say, You’re coming home with me. It might have been less painful if such an angel had kept her distance.
She pointed at a photo of a group of six or seven children. Evan’s eyes went to the children first, looking for his father and mother in every face. No. Not them. Then he noticed the man standing behind the children.
The man was short, balding, but not completely bald. He wore glasses and a thin, academician’s beard. But the shape of the face, the sureness of the stance, were the same. Evan had seen the face several times, in the news clippings left anonymously for him at his lecture four months ago. The man’s smile was tight, as though bottling in the scintillating personality that had made him such a force in London.
Alexander Bast.
‘That man. Who’s he?’ Evan asked. He kept his voice steady.
Phyllis Garner flipped the picture over; she had a list of names written in tidy cursive on the back. ‘Edward Simms. He owned the company that ran Hope Home. He only came here once, that I recall. I asked him to pose with a group of the children. In honor of his visit. My God, he smiled, but you would have thought I scalded him. He acted like the children were dirty. The other ladies found him charming, but I don’t have to count scales to know a snake.’
Carrie’s hand closed around Evan’s arm. Hard. She pointed wordlessly at a tall, thin boy standing near Bast. Shock on her face.
‘What’s the matter, dear?’ Phyllis asked.
29
A fter a long moment Carrie said, ‘Nothing. I thought… but it was nothing.’
‘Are you all right?’ Evan asked.
She nodded. ‘I’m fine.’
‘This was the last batch of kids that came in before the fire, I believe.’ Phyllis Garner laid the open scrapbook on her lap, ran her fingers along the page. ‘I remember they were shy at first. And of course, they were older kids, not babies. Sad that they hadn’t been adopted yet. People wanted babies.’
Carrie pointed at one tall, lanky kid. ‘He was in the picture with Mr. Simms.’ She kept her grip on Evan’s arm.
Phyllis pried the picture out of the plastic page cover. ‘I wrote their names on the back… Richard Allan.’ She frowned at Carrie. ‘Honey, are you okay? You still look upset.’
‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you. You’re right, it’s sad, these older kids not finding homes.’ Carrie’s voice was normal again.
‘It was just so unfair,’ Phyllis said. ‘The focus on finding babies. This was an appealing group of kids. Nice- looking, bright, clearly well cared for, well spoken. At the orphanage, you’d see kids, and all the hope had died in them. Hope that they would not just find families, but have a life beyond low-end jobs. Orphans face such an uphill fight. These kids, they don’t look very broken at all.’
Evan flipped a page. A picture of two teenage girls, a teenage boy standing between them, brownish hair thick, a wide smile on his face, a scattering of freckles across high cheekbones, a tiny gap between his front teeth.
Jargo. His eyes were the same, cold and knowing.
‘My God, my God,’ Carrie said. It was almost a moan.
Sweat broke out on Evan’s back.
‘Did you find your dad?’ Phyllis asked brightly.
Evan looked down the rest of the page. Two photos down were two kids, a girl, blond with green eyes, memorably pretty but with a serious cast to her face. A boy standing with her, holding a football, sweaty from play, light hair askew, grinning, ready to conquer the world.
Mitchell and Donna Casher, young teenagers. Frozen in time, like Jargo.
‘May I?’ Evan asked.
‘Of course,’ Phyllis said.
He loosened the picture from the plastic cover, flipped it over. Arthur Smithson and Julie Phelps, written in Phyllis’s neat script.
‘Smithson,’ Phyllis said. ‘Oh, that’s it! Are they your folks?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ His voice was hoarse. He forced himself to smile at her.
‘Honey, then you take that picture, it’s yours. Oh, I’m so glad I could help.’
Carrie tightened her grip on his hand. ‘Phyllis, did any of this last group of kids die in the fire?’
‘No. It was younger kids. The older kids all got out.’
‘Do you remember where any of these kids went after the fire? Specific other orphanages?’ Evan asked.
‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t even know that I was told.’ Phyllis leaned back in her chair. ‘We were told it was best for us not to stay in touch with the kids.’
‘May we borrow these photos? We can make copies, scan them into a computer, give them back to you before we leave town,’ Evan said. ‘It would be huge for us.’
‘I never did enough for those kids,’ Phyllis said. ‘I’m glad someone finally cares. Take the pictures, with my blessings.’
After waving good-bye to Phyllis and Dealey, they drove toward the airport, where a computer and a scanner waited on the jet.
‘My father,’ Carrie said, her voice shaking. ‘That boy in the picture next to Alexander Bast, it’s my dad, Evan, Jesus, it’s my dad!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Our parents knew each other. Knew Jargo. When they were kids.’ She jabbed at one of the photos. ‘Richard Allan. My dad’s name was Craig Leblanc. But this is him, I know it’s him. Don’t go to the jet. Let’s go get coffee for a minute, please.’
They sat in a corner of a Goinsville diner, the only customers except for an elderly couple in a booth who exchanged laughs and moony smiles as if they were on a third date.
‘So what the hell does this mean?’ Carrie studied the picture of her father as if he might have the answers. Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Evan, look at him. He looks so young. So innocent.’ She wiped the tears away. ‘How can this be?’
This evil – Jargo – that had touched their lives went far deeper than Evan had ever imagined. It intertwined his life with Carrie’s even before they were born. It frightened him, made the threat against them seem like a shadow always looming over them, both of them unaware that they lived in darkness.
Evan took a steadying breath. Find order in the chaos, he decided. ‘Let’s walk through it.’ He ticked the facts on his fingers. ‘Our parents and Jargo were all at an orphanage together. The home burned down with all its records. The kids get dispersed. Then the county courthouse burns a month later, and it’s all blamed on a firebug
