Chapter 25
GRAHAM
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After Marius leaves my office, I spend the next hour staring sightlessly at my laptop, wondering how Amy is coping, wondering if she’s still alive.
By the afternoon, I realize my presence at work is a waste of time.
I mumble a distracted farewell to my assistant and head home, where I compulsively check my email and mailbox every half an hour. I call Marius. He has no updates.
It’s dark when I check the mailbox again. And that’s when I find a parcel.
Oh, please, please, don’t let it be a finger. Or an ear.
Heart pounding, I pick up the parcel and call Marius as I run inside.
“I’ll be right over,” Marius promises, and hangs up.
I can’t wait. I take the parcel into my study and tear off the brown paper. It’s a USB stick. No note. My hands are shaking so much it takes several tries before I can open up the audio file. Amy’s voice fills my study like a swelling balloon.
Daddy, it’s Amy. I’m all right, they’re treating me okay. You need to do as they say and stop all your experiments on animals. Please don’t go to the police. Daddy, I don’t want to die.
#
“Graham.” Marius’s voice seems to echo from a long tunnel. “I need you to play me the recording.”
I stare at Marius seated in my study. I don’t remember letting the man in.
“You have to hold it together, man,” Marius orders. “There’ll be a lot of these difficult tasks to get through. Wherever you draw your strength—friends, family, work—use it. All right?”
A grenade of pain explodes in my chest. “What if Amy is the source of my strength?”
“Then you need to find another source,” Marius responds evenly. “At least for the time being.”
Work is my only other source. Work her kidnapper demanded I give up.
Struggling to maintain my composure, I press play.
I’ve listened to the fifteen-second voice clip so many times I’ve lost count, knowing I’m simply torturing myself hearing Amy’s quavering voice, so unlike her usual confident tone, stumbling through a prepared script.
Marius stares at the ceiling while he listens. “This is good.”
“Good!” I nearly choke on the word. “What’s good about this?”
“The man said he’d make contact and he has,” Marius explains, looking unrepentant at his word choice. “If they’re keeping to their word, it’s a good sign.”
My stomach clenches with a mix of anger and fear. “They also said they’ll kill Amy if I don’t do as they ask. Is that another promise they intend to keep?”
“It won’t come to that.”
“Is that a guarantee?”
“I don’t give guarantees. And you shouldn’t believe me even if I did.”
“I should be doing something,” I insist, the frustration settling in once more. “I feel so useless. There must be something I can do.”
“You can answer a question I have.”
“Ask,” I say wearily.
“Would you give in to their demands?”
“To stop my work?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you asking?”
“Call it curiosity.”
It takes me a minute to answer. “No.”
“Why not?”
The lie is right there, the lie I’ve been telling everyone for so long. Yet I can’t do it. After a moment, I spill the secret I’ve hoarded all these years.
Marius’s expression betrays nothing. “Does your daughter know?”
“No. And I want it to remain that way.”
“Anybody else?”
“Only her mother knew,” I say flatly. “But she took that knowledge to her grave.”
Marius nods. “Your secret is safe with me.”