Then I asked the question that had been reverberating through my head since Drake had dropped the bomb about the accounts being in my name.
“I didn’t set up any of those accounts, so how could they possibly be in my name?”
Ivers’s expression was sympathetic when he said, “I really think that’s a question for your father, Charlotte.”
We sat in heavy, awkward silence while we waited for Drake to return.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, the door to the room swung open, and Drake strode back in, expression unreadable.
He crossed his arms over his chest, and once again, I held my breath.
“You’ve got a deal.”
Three weeks later.
I grabbed the heavy bag to slow its swinging motion. Sweat stung my eyes as I swiped the back of my forearm across my dripping face. Releasing the bag, I reached up with both hands to grip the beam where it hung from the ceiling of my garage. I leaned into the stretch and dragged in a few deep breaths. Exhaustion was the only way I could shut my brain off for a few minutes at a time. And God knew I needed a break.
To say the last three weeks had been brutal would be an understatement.
Prolonged uncertainty took a vicious toll on a person. Physically, mentally, and otherwise. The ability to compartmentalize that I honed in the service was all that was holding me together. My father had tapped into a well of strength I hadn’t known he possessed. Even before my mother opened her eyes, he’d seemed to make a decision that his capacity to fight for her was stronger than his fear of losing her. His spine had straightened, he’d cleaned himself up, and his eyes had regained the sharpness I was used to seeing there. I was starting to think he’d brought my mother back from the brink by force of will alone. She’d opened her eyes two days ago with a lopsided smile and whispered, “Jefferson? What happened?”
I’d dropped to my knees beside her bed as my father had pressed her small hand to his lips and thanked every deity known to man for bringing her back to us. A portion of the crushing weight I’d been carrying had lifted. She wasn’t out of the woods completely, but it was a hell of an improvement over watching her lay there, motionless, for weeks on end. The doctors had already started discussing moving her to a rehab facility. Today she’d insisted that I go home and get some rest. Take some time to myself.
Which is why I’d spent the last hour pounding the bag until my arms were almost too heavy to lift.
My father had urged me to go to New York, but Ivers had told me unequivocally it would be a wasted trip. The FBI wouldn’t let Charlie see anyone except him, and his visits were extremely limited. For ethical reasons, he couldn’t tell me anything except she was fine. It was a small consolation.
Since the day Charlie had been discovered, it had seemed like every media outlet in the country had tried to pin me down for an interview. We’d had to beef up security at the hospital, and I’d never been so happy to live behind a gate. It was all I could do to refrain from beating the shit out of the former intern who still waited outside my house, yelling that he deserved an exclusive for being the one to break the story. Every time I saw him, I couldn’t help but wonder if Charlie would have ever told me the truth. Because of him, I’d never know, and that fact ate at me, continually dredging up doubt.
The folded up letter in my wallet was all that kept me from losing hope. She’d said she’d left her heart with me. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted all of her.
The letter also kept me up at night because of what she didn’t include: an assurance that she was coming back.
I’d stopped myself time and again from asking Ivers to give her a message. I would move heaven and Earth to smooth the road ahead of us, but at the end of the day, she needed to decide that she wanted to walk down it with me. Charlie had to be all in for us to have any chance at a future. What would I do if she decided that disappearing again was easier than coming home? The thought sent me back to the bag. If I was too tired to move, hopefully I’d be too tired to think.
Three more weeks later.
The black Suburban inched through Manhattan’s morning rush hour traffic. Today was the first day I’d been permitted to leave the split-level in Staten Island where the FBI had stashed me. And I wouldn’t be going back. Because today I was regaining my freedom.
Six weeks in a safe house was certainly no vacation, but given the alternative, I hadn’t voiced a single complaint. Instead, I’d signed every piece of paper the feds had put in front of me. With each signature, I felt a sense of justice being served. That I was righting my father’s wrongs. And that feeling went a long way toward helping me cope with the boredom. I’d been allowed virtually no contact with the outside world. No internet access, no phone calls and, other than my rotating teams of FBI babysitters and rare appearances by Ivers to ensure the feds were holding up their end of the deal, no visitors. I surmised that my lock-down was to prevent the possibility of any information being leaked about the recovery of the money.
Regardless of the reason, once again I’d had altogether too much time to think. And as you might expect, Simon dominated those thoughts. And how could he not? He was the kind of man you waited your whole life to meet, even though you had no idea you were waiting.
I’d had endless hours to replay the shock, disappointment, and betrayal that had flashed across his features as the press had hurled their questions like daggers, shredding my carefully constructed charade. It didn’t matter that I’d finally decided to come clean. All that mattered were all of the times I’d chosen not to.