Fort Morgan (44 page)

“
But
how. . .?”

“
My life
was. . . bad,” Sissy said. “I was scared all the time
that Charlie was dead or that mom would disappear. Sandy and Mom
were in a fight. If I talked to Sandy, I betrayed Mom. If I didn’t
talk to Sandy, I betrayed Sandy. I wanted to make everything right.
I felt like it was my job to make everything right. But I couldn’t
tell anyone what was going on — at home or inside me — so nothing
changed.”

“
You couldn’t tell even
me?”

Sissy shook her head.

“
I cannot have
the. . . silence,” Ivan said. “If you. . . and
me. . . you must tell me. If we are together, we take on
the good and the bad of our lives together. Can you
promise?”

“
I promise,” Sissy said
with a nod. “But. . .”

“
But?”

“
I think we should date,”
Sissy said.

“
Not get married
tomorrow?” Ivan grinned.

“
Are you asking
me. . .?” Sissy flushed. Her hands went to cover her
mouth.

“
Nothing would make me
happier,” Ivan said. “So you know, I have spoken with your sister,
Seth O’Malley, Ms. Behur, and. . .”

“
You have?”

Ivan nodded.

“
What did they say?” Sissy
asked.

“
It’s about time,” Ivan
said with a shrug.

“
That’s what they said?”
Sissy asked.

Ivan nodded.

“
I will speak with your
brother and Sandy’s husband when I am in Denver next,” Ivan
said.

“
Wow,” Sissy
said.

“
I am thorough,” Ivan
said.

Sissy nodded, and he smiled.

“
I didn’t know you
felt. . .” Ivan said. “I couldn’t have
hoped. . .”

Sissy smiled. He took her hand and kissed
the back of it.

“
Would it be okay if we
just try it for a while?” Sissy asked. “You know, go really slow?
You’ve been the most important person in my life. I don’t want to
lose that because we couldn’t make it work.”

“
Of course,” Ivan said. “I
thought you should have boyfriends, go to dances, and enjoy your
young life before being saddled with me, but Nadia said I was being
stupid.”

“
That is stupid,” Sissy
said.

“
Why?”

“
My teacher, Ivan, always
said. . .” Sissy shifted her voice to imitate him again.
“Once you know what you want, you should go after it with all your
might. If you go halfway, you waste all the effort and get
nowhere.”

“
Okay, okay,” Ivan said as
she laughed.

“
Will you and
Nadia. . .?” Sissy wasn’t sure how to ask the
question.

“
Nadia shares my
apartment,” Ivan said. “She has no mind for a home and would sleep
on the street if she didn’t live with me.”

“
Oh.” Sissy’s
disappointment was palpable.

“
We do not share a bed,”
Ivan said. “Not since before I went back to Denver to dance with
you. She has her own rooms. I have mine. We are family.”

“
I wouldn’t like it if you
had other girls,” Sissy said. “Do you. . .
need
to?”

“
No,” Ivan grinned at her.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You?”

“
No.” Sissy
laughed.

Overwhelmed, Sissy stared at the ceiling.
Ivan was silent. After a few minutes, she glanced at him. He smiled
at her.

“
You’re quiet,” Sissy
said.

“
My dreams are coming
true,” Ivan said. “Have a little respect.”

Sissy grinned at him.

“
Should we kiss to seal
the deal?” Sissy asked.

His lips were on hers. Sissy felt she’d
stuck her finger in a light socket. Every cell in her body woke up
at the same time. Her heart pounded in her chest and on the
monitor. He stopped kissing her to look at the machine.

“
How embarrassing,” Sissy
said.

He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his
heart. His heart was beating fast, too. At that moment, the nurse
came in.

“
I wondered what made our
girl’s heart go pitter pat,” the nurse said with a
smile.

“
He’s. . .”

“
Your sister told me,” the
nurse said. “You know, there’s space if you want to get in bed with
her.”

“
I. . .” Ivan
looked embarrassed.

“
No hanky panky,” the
nurse said.

Ivan looked at Sissy, and she nodded.

“
No,” Ivan said. “We
agreed to go slow. We will go slow.”

Sissy watched him closely.

“
I am not going to blow
this now,” Ivan said with a smile. He turned to the nurse. “May I
sit right here?”

“
Of course,” the nurse
said.

Ivan took a seat near the bed. With the
nurse hovering close by, Sissy felt like a stupid idiot. But when
he took her hand, she was sure that she was exactly where she
belonged. He kissed her again.

Her heart went crazy.

“
You probably have to stop
that,” the nurse said.

“
Yes, ma’am,” Ivan
said.

“
No one will know you’re
here if I wake you when I leave,” the nurse said.

“
Thank you,” Ivan
said.

The nurse nodded to him and left the
room.

“
Is it okay?” Ivan
asked.

“
It’s awesome,” Sissy
said.

“
I love you, Sissy,” Ivan
said.

When she didn’t respond, he leaned over to
look at her. She was sound asleep with a wide smile on her face.
Chuckling, he sat down and closed his eyes.

~~~~~~~

Friday early morning — 2:12 a.m.

Denver, Colorado

“
Hello?”

Valerie yelled from the front door of the
Marlowe School. Hearing nothing, she grinned to herself. She’d
waited through dinner and a whole bunch of ridiculousness and even
long after Mike was asleep, to sneak out. She glanced down at where
Jackie was sleeping against her in a tight sling.

“
I’m going to find out
what they were hiding,” Valerie said out loud.

She started out at an even pace, but found
that the dark silence of the new school made her uncomfortable. She
reduced her walking speed and carefully placed her feet. Silently,
she made her way to the kitchen, where she’d been when Jacob had
arrived to escort her from the building.

She stopped at the door to listen. The
entire building was silent. Smiling to herself, she peeked into the
kitchen to see if she’d missed anything. Everything was still. She
let the kitchen door swing closed and continued her quiet walk down
the hallway.

She turned the corner and stopped short. A
translucent woman floated in the middle of the hallway. Valerie
blinked. She remembered that Jacob has said that a ghost still
lived in the old house.

But Valerie had never seen a ghost.

“
Hello?” Valerie
whispered.

The ghost pointed in a
manner that Valerie thought looked like Jacob Marley in the 1938
version of
A Christmas
Carol
, her all-time favorite
movie.

“
Me?” Valerie gasped.
Slightly quoting the movie, she gasped, “I’m forging a chain link
by link and yard by yard! I’ve gartered it on of my own free will
and by my own free will, I wear it!”

The ghost gave her a confused look and
floated closer. The ghost’s mouth moved.

“
Groaning from the pain,
no doubt,” Valerie said. “Poor thing.”

The ghost’s mouth moved again. Valerie
couldn’t help but notice that the ghost seemed to be saying
something. She watched the ghost’s mouth.

“
Turn on the lights?”
Valerie asked. “You mean, I should turn on the light to my own
greed and thoughtlessness.”

Valerie’s head moved up and down.

“
I should be more
grateful,” she said.

The ghost pointed again. Valerie’s eyes
followed the ghost’s arm. The ghost was pointing to a light
switch.

“
Oh.” Valerie felt a
little silly. “You want me to turn on the lights.”

Valerie flicked on the switch.

“
Are you afraid of the
dark?” Valerie turned toward the ghost and gasped.

She was looking at a large formal portrait
of her mother, Celia Marlowe. Celia’s face was in a partial smile
as if she’d just said something funny and was waiting for the other
person to laugh. Drawn like a magnet, Valerie slipped across the
hallway to the painting. Celia was seated in front of the large
marble fireplace. The mantle of the fireplace held individual
pictures of Valerie, Jacob, and a picture of her father and mother
together.

“
Mom,” Valerie
whispered.

Her fingers reached out toward the
painting.

“
It turned out nicely,
didn’t it?” Jacob’s voice came from behind her.

Valerie spun in place.

“
How. . .?” she
started.

“
I was up with the boys
and heard you leave,” Jacob said.

“
I just. . .”
Valerie turned back to the painting. “Why did you hide
it?”

“
It wasn’t ready,” Jacob
said.

“
Mike?”

“
He’s worked on it for
most of the last year,” Jacob said. “He started it here and shipped
it to New England while you worked on the movie.”

“
How did I not know?”
Valerie asked.

“
You were working or with
Jackie,” Jacob said. “He wanted to surprise you, so he just kept it
to himself. With Noelle’s help, he was able to finish it
up.”

Valerie glanced at him and turned back to
the painting. Jacob came to stand right behind her.

“
It’s fabulous,” Valerie
said.

“
A true masterpiece,”
Jacob said.

He put his arm around his sister’s shoulder,
and she leaned into him.

“
I miss her,” Valerie
said.

“
More now than ever,”
Jacob said. “Have you noticed how much the boys look like
her?”

“
I was just thinking
that,” Valerie said.

They stood staring at the painting for a
while.

“
Come on,” Jacob said.
“I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“
The Cap’n?” Valerie
asked.

“
You read my mind,” Jacob
said with a smile.

Arm in arm, they left the school.

~~~~~~~~

Friday morning — 8:24 a.m.

New York City, New York

“
Da,” Otis said into his
phone.

He rolled over to turn on the bedside lamp.
Mari leaned against him.

“
Otis?” Jill asked. “It’s
Jill.”

“
Jill?” Otis asked. His
voice indicated that he didn’t know who she was.

“
Jillian?” she asked.
“Anjelika’s youngest daughter.”

“
Jillian!” Otis said. “How
are you, my dear?”

“
I need some help,
actually,” Jill said. “I’m wondering if you could meet me in Denver
this weekend.”

“
Oh Jillian.” Otis’s arm
went around Mari She looked up at him and kissed his cheek. “It’s
not a convenient time. I’m right in the middle of
something.”

“
That’s too bad,” Jill
said. Her voice was hard. “Tell Mari that Fin and Edie are here.
She needs to be here, too.”

“
Who?” Otis
asked.

“
You’re funny,” Jill said.
Her voice was unforgiving. “You can pretend you don’t know what I’m
talking about. You can even pretend that you’re too busy to come to
Denver. But you cannot pretend one simple thing.”

“
And what is
that?”

“
You owe me,” Jill
said.

Otis was so surprised by her words that his
mouth fell open. It had been a long time since anyone had dared to
question his answers. His first response was absolute rage. He
opened his mouth to say something to Mari when he realized
something.

Jill was right. He did owe her. He owed her
for giving him the bearer bonds that Roper had stolen. In fact, he
owed his entire new, wealthy, and free-from-fear life to her
willingness to save the bearer bonds and return them to him without
strings.

He looked at the cell phone before putting
it back to his ear.

“
You
are
my granddaughter,” Otis said
with a chuckle.

“
See you tomorrow morning
at the Castle,” Jill said and hung up the phone.

“
Who was that?” Mari
asked.

“
My granddaughter,
Jillian,” Otis said. “We need to be in Denver tomorrow
morning.”

“
Why?” Mari asked. “We
just got here.”

“
I don’t know,” Otis said.
“Can you ask your sister?”

“
Sure,” Mari
said.

She got out of bed. She walked into the
sitting area of the suite. Holding her hand out, she whispered
Edie’s name and requested a chance to talk with her. A small
version of Edie appeared in her hand. They talked back and forth
for a moment before Mari nodded and returned to the bedroom.

“
So?” Otis
asked.