His Ransom 6(14)

“I didn’t think that you would be willing to meet me,” Sean said.

“Lacey convinced me to give you another chance,” Jake said bitterly. “So here’s your chance. Explain.”

Sean leaned back. He took a sip of wine.

“You found our father lying face down on his desk when you were five. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember,” Jake said, his eyes darkening. “He was drunk; his cigar was still burning. He had passed out drunk—”

“No,” Sean said.

“No?”

“That’s what they wanted everyone to think. But our father was dead long before the fire started.”

Jake was silent, listening.

“I was too young to remember,” Sean continued. “I was only a baby. But I’ve heard what kind of a man he was. He hurt his family. He was abusive. He wasn’t a good man. Maybe you remember that.”

I sat there without saying a word. Sean sipped at his wine. He didn’t seem to care about his father, but there was a bitter edge to his words even still.

“And he wasn’t only a terrible family man. He had done bad things with his company. He’d sold technology to overseas buyers without doing any due diligence. I doubt you know this, but he was on the verge of being tried by the U.S. government.”

“For what?”

“Treason.”

Jake’s eyes widened.

“That’s what they call it when you give military engineering secrets to enemies of our country,” Sean said. “But they decided to get rid of him in another way.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe so that his family would be spared the grief of living through his incarceration. Maybe they knew that other people would be coming to us for retaliation.”

“They wanted to kill him in order to protect us?” Jake asked.

“And so that the company would pass out of Carville hands. The next company executive in line wanted us to disappear.”

“So they staged a fire.” Jake’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. He held his glass of wine loosely in his hand. I don’t think he had taken a sip. All around us, people walked in the bright sunshine, completely oblivious to our conversation.

“The witness protection program was going to take all of us. We would leave through the back exit of the apartment and relocate. Different place, different names. We’d be taken from our rooms and swept away to a new life. Only…”

“I wasn’t in my room.” Jake said. He paused. I could tell that he was getting closer to believing what Sean was telling him. It made sense, in a weird way.

“It was the exact wrong time,” Sean said, nodding. “A mistake on their part. You found him, and you ran down the front exit. The firefighters found you before Witness Protection could. But there was no turning back. We escaped. And since then, Mom and I have been living here under new names, with new—”

“Wait, mom?”

Jake swallowed hard. I could almost see his mind whirling from that information.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I leaned forward and pressed against Jake’s arm for support. Sean waited while what he had said sunk in.

“She’s not… she’s alive?” Jake’s voice caught on the last word.

“Yes.”

“Is she here? In Paris?”

Sean’s eyelashes fluttered, the same as Jake’s had when he told me about his family. I could see the hurt in his face.

“Yes.”

Jake faltered. He glanced up at me, and his face hardened.

“Lacey, would you wait for me over there?” he asked. “I’d like to speak privately with my… with my brother.”



“Stay in sight,” Sean said, a warning in his voice.

“Don’t tell her what to do,” Jake said.

“It’s alright,” I said, wanting to preserve the tense peace between them. “I’ll be right over by that bench.”

I didn’t know what Jake wanted to talk about with Sean. Probably his mother. I didn’t want to get in the way, but it hurt me to know what Jake was struggling with. I wanted to support him in any way I could.

And if that meant leaving him alone to talk with his brother, then I would.

I sat on the bench across the lawn from the blanket where Jake and Sean were talking. Their faces were serious. I was so absorbed in watching them that I almost didn’t notice the man who came to sit next to me on the bench. Then I glanced over at him, and my heart nearly stopped.

It was the surgeon. Rien. The one who had helped to kidnap me.

I gasped and started forward. He put his hand on mine to stop me from standing up.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just keeping an eye on things.”