Never Ask Me

by Jeff Abbott

This plea didn’t move them.

  “You want YOUR baby? Go back into building, lady,” the guard told me. They pulled Anya away and I couldn’t stop them. I heard the threat in his tone.

  I watched them drag her away in the snow. She screamed “Sasha!” twice.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Danielle said. The three of us were back at the hotel, having dinner. I embraced being in Russia: I downed vodka in steady sips. The Robinettes were off buying supplies for the orphanage, as I did on my first trip, and I was grateful they couldn’t hear this conversation.

  My lie was a careful one. I told them that I had been in the building and had seen the woman, heard her scream Sasha’s name after the dog attacked her, hurried out to help.

  Not that I had talked to her before. That I kept to myself.

  “Did you know about this?” I asked Danielle.

  “That Sasha’s mother was being difficult? Not until today.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed her.

  “She wants her child back,” Kyle said.

  “How are we supposed to stand in her way?” I asked. He took my hand and I squeezed his.

  “Maybe if we could talk to her, reassure her that we’d be good parents to him,” Kyle said.

  “Or they should just give her back her child,” I said.

  But Kyle shook his head. “It’s been nine months. Not nine days. She had plenty of time to think this through. Why now? Why has she changed her mind now, once the adoption process started? We’re literally a day away from getting him. What happens when she wants him in a year? Do you give him back then?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you this because it’s no reflection on Sasha, but there’s an unfortunate history here. Anya gave up an earlier child as well,” Danielle said. I remembered the medical file told us she’d given birth once before. “She asked for him back. The orphanage returned him, even though they had concerns, but an adoption process hadn’t started. She returned that child to the orphanage four weeks later. He was hungry and neglected. They’re not going to give Sasha back to her.”

  “Danielle,” I said, very quietly. “She’s standing out in the freezing snow, looking at the building where her child is.”

  “She’s not well. You can’t talk to her again. Contact is forbidden. She doesn’t get the child back. What would it do to adoption here if the Russians cave on this?”

  “I don’t care about government policy. This doesn’t feel like adoption. It feels like kidnapping.”

  Danielle started to speak, and I waved her silent. “I got warned in the airport. Our car got run off the road. She wants this child and someone doesn’t want us to have him. What is going on here, Danielle?”

  “You know as much as I do.” Her voice shook. “I’ve done more than twenty adoptions here and this has never come up.”

  “She’s trying to scare off any adoptive parents,” Kyle said. “They won’t give her the baby back, so she’s mounted this campaign against us. The woman in the airport, the men who drove us off the road.”

  And the warning woman, with her quarter-million-dollar offer? It was too late to tell them about that. And maybe that was a lie. That woman could have somehow been helping Anya. I didn’t know what to think.

  I pulled Kyle’s laptop out of his bag and opened it. “Alexander Borisovich Stepurin. That means his father is Boris Stepurin, yes?” I did an internet search on the name. There were several hits, mostly on sites written in Russian. If I needed to drag Pavel down here to translate all night, I would. But then I saw a listing: a biography from a Russian investment firm. A man in his early thirties, blond and handsome like Sasha. Educated in Moscow and London. A senior investment broker.

  “Why worry about the father?” Danielle asked. She sounded a little uneasy.

  “He might have sway with her,” I said. “Maybe he fathered her other child, too.”

  “I should go see him,” Kyle said.

  “We don’t even know this is the right man,” I said. “The bio says he’s married to a woman named Irina. Not Anya.”

  “Maybe Anya was a girlfriend,” Kyle said. “A mistress.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t even know there’s a baby,” Danielle said. “I would not do this.”

  “If this is his child, he knows. They would have contacted the father when the child was surrendered at the maternity ward. He would have been given the option to claim him, right?”

  “If they’re not together, she might not listen to him,” Danielle said.

  “Look, what if he can convince her our adopting him is best for all?” Kyle said. “Then we can adopt him with a clear conscience.”

  I nodded. “The court hearing is tomorrow afternoon,” Danielle said. “After that, he’ll be yours.”

  “Do you think Anya could show up to protest?” I asked. I dreaded the thought. Even if she gave up and took back and gave up an earlier child, she is Sasha’s mother. For this to work, she must let him go of her own free will. Out of love for him, to have a better life.

  What if the judge sided with her? It could happen. A decision overturned, for the sake of a mother.

  Danielle stood up. “I feel like the two of you have decided not to listen to me anymore. I’m telling you, don’t go see this man. If the ruling goes your way, then fine, he’s yours. If not, he’s not.”

  “But he could be the deciding factor,” I said. “I…”

  “You asked me to get you a child. I’ve done that. I want no more part of it.”

  “Danielle…” I started, but Kyle stopped me.

  And let me just say, his indecision was gone. GONE.

  “Look, I get maybe she has regrets. But she gave Sasha up. That is a decision she has to live with. She might take him back and then want to give him up again in a month like she did with her first kid. We know nothing about her, her life, her circumstance, her mentality. You said she was well dressed. Well, if she can afford a fur hat, she can afford a lawyer. She’s skulking around the orphanage like a criminal, making accusations against the orphanage and the staff, and they’ve been nothing but fair with us. There’s a process and she’s failed it, more than once.” I just stared at my husband, my mild-mannered man, full of fire for his son. “If she can be reassured that this is the right decision, then that’s what we need to do. But not adopting this child isn’t an option. We’ve spent all the time, all this money, and we love him. He’s part of us now, and we’re not just giving him up because she changed her mind.”

  I had never heard your father talk like this before. Usually I’m the talker. I took his hand.

  “This could be what’s best for her as well,” Kyle said. I wanted to believe that.

  “We’ll go see the father?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Before the hearing. I’ll even stand over his desk while he makes the phone call to her.”

  We just had to get through the next twenty-four hours and our lives would be wonderful.

  43

  Excerpt of Transcript of TCSO and LPD Interview with Kyle Pollitt

  (Interview continues)

  Detective Ponder: And by cooperate you mean what?

  Pollitt: I will confess to killing Danielle Roberts. But it was an accident, not on purpose.

  Detective Ponder: OK, we’re listening. Tell us what happened.

  Pollitt: We were having an affair. The phones were to stay in touch. So Mike and Iris would not know.

  Detective Ponder: How long had the affair been going on?

  Pollitt: Only a couple of weeks. She approached me about it. I shouldn’t have done it, but things haven’t been great between me and Iris lately. It was obviously a mistake.

  Detective Ponder: Where would you meet?

  (Pause)

  Pollitt: Her house. When Ned was at school.

  Detective Ponder: What, you’d just walk over to her house? Isn’t your wife a stay-at-home mom?

  Pollitt: Yes, but she has a lot of volunteer duties. She’s gone most of the day.

 
; Detective Ponder: OK. Did you ever go to a hotel?

  (Pause)

  Pollitt: No.

  Detective Ponder: And how many times a week did you see each other?

  Pollitt: It had only gone on since she gave me the phone. Maybe we’d seen each other twice.

  Detective Ponder: Twice? You don’t know?

  Pollitt: Twice.

  Detective Ponder: Tell me about the night she died.

  Pollitt: I wanted to end it. I’m not made for having an affair. We spoke on the phone. I understand Ned heard her arguing about ending it.

  Detective Ponder: Ned said she used the phrase “I want out.” If you were ending things, why did she say that?

  Pollitt: Her pride was hurt, so she decided she did indeed want out.

  Detective Ponder: So you broke up. You ended the affair.

  Pollitt: Yes.

  Detective Ponder: So, if you ended it, why did you meet up with her again? She didn’t die at midnight.

  Pollitt: She had threatened to tell my wife and kids about it. I walked over to her house.

  Detective Ponder: What time?

  Pollitt: I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep. Maybe 4:00 a.m.? She called me on the burner. If you can access the damaged SIM card, you’ll see I’m telling you the truth. I went over to her house, and so we wouldn’t wake Ned, we walked up to the park.

  Detective Ponder: Did you plan to kill her? To silence her?

  Pollitt: No, not at all. We got to the park. She said she would tell Iris. We argued.

  Detective Ponder: Did you yell?

  Pollitt: No. We didn’t want to wake anyone in the houses by the park. We spoke in harsh whispers.

  Detective Ponder: Harsh whispers.

  Pollitt: Yes, that would be accurate.

  Detective Ponder: They must have been harsh indeed to escalate to death.

  Pollitt: She kept threatening to tell Iris. She was hurt and she wanted me to hurt. Finally I hit her, in the throat, I didn’t mean to hit her so hard. I felt something give; I guess I hit her windpipe just right. She collapsed. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I was going to call 911, but then…it would all come out. She died. I put her on the bench. I couldn’t be seen carrying her back to her house, and I didn’t want Ned to find her.

  Detective Ponder: You forgot her phone?

  Pollitt: I was out of my mind. I ran home. I went to bed; Iris woke up for a moment, and I told her that I’d been up late working. I have insomnia. She believed me and went back to sleep. Then, when I realized you’d find her burner phone, I destroyed mine.

  Detective Ponder: The injuries to your face. Did that happen that night? Did she strike you?

  Pollitt: No. I fell while running in the greenbelt.

  Detective Ponder: Running? Like for a jog?

  Pollitt: Yes.

  Detective Ponder: You killed a woman you were intimate with, went home, got into bed with your wife, slept a few hours, went to the crime scene because your daughter found the body, and then went for a jog.

  Pollitt: I’m a horrible person.

  Detective Ponder: You said you punched her in the throat.

  Pollitt: Yes. I’m very sorry about that.

  Detective Ponder: Which hand?

  Pollitt: My right.

  Detective Ponder: Show me the fist you made.

  (Pauses)

  Pollitt: I’m not sure I can remember. It happened so quickly. I’ve tried to shut it out.

  Detective Ponder: Try. Was it a closed fist? Was it like a karate chop with the side of your hand? Was it stiff-fingered?

  Pollitt: Closed fist, I think.

  Detective Ponder: You used your fist. Not a weapon. Not a blunt instrument.

  (Pauses)

  Pollitt: I didn’t have a weapon. It was my fist.

  Detective Ponder: You wear a college class ring on your right hand.

  Pollitt: Yes. I went to Rice.

  Detective Ponder: Your Rice ring’s extremely distinctive, isn’t it? That square shape of the crest. The chevron. There’s no stone. You’d expect it to leave a particular kind of mark with a punch of that force.

  Pollitt: Yes. Well. I don’t think I had it on though when I went to the park.

  Detective Ponder: You don’t remember.

  (Pauses)

  Pollitt: I’m sure I didn’t. I didn’t wear my wedding ring around Danielle. So I would have taken off both rings.

  Detective Ponder: I mean, maybe that was what cracked her windpipe. And not a blunt instrument.

  Pollitt: I don’t know.

  Detective Ponder: So you argued, you killed her, you came home—is that where we are at?

  Pollitt: Yes. Are you going to arrest me now?

  Detective Ponder: Yes. I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Danielle Roberts.

  44

  Iris and Grant

  Iris calls the attendance office and pulls both kids out of school for the day; Julia drives her brother home.

  She meets them out in the driveway, hurries them into the house.

  “What’s happening?” Julia asks, breathless.

  Iris explains to them that their father is being questioned because of the phone that was found in their trash and the phone found near Danielle’s body.

  They take the news in quiet shock. Grant looks scared, and Julia looks as though something is caught inside her chest. Her palm is pressed over her heart.

  “Grant,” she says quietly. “I need to talk to Mom alone. Please.”

  “Why? If this is about Dad, it affects me.” He’s in tears.

  “Please, Grant, please.”

  He storms outside, to the backyard.

  Iris wants to tell him to go upstairs so she can talk to him about the thousand dollars in cash in his drawer, but she keeps her focus on Julia.

  “Ned…” Julia doesn’t know how to say it. How much to say to her mother. This is going to destroy her mother’s image of her: the wonderful daughter, the outstanding student, the bright and spotless future. Of course, it’s not worse than her father being a person of interest in a crime. “Ned was acting like he knew who he thought had killed Danielle, and then Gordon texted him, and then he was all upset with Dad. I think he suspected someone else before.”

  “Who?”

  “He won’t tell me now. He thinks Dad is guilty. But…” What does she say? If she confesses what she and Ned have done, then it might help her father, but her future is over. It’s over.

  So, Julia takes a deep breath and tells her mother everything.

  Grant’s phone pings. It’s a text from Peter: my dad just told me to come home. That there are “developments” in the case. Have you heard anything?

  Grant wonders what he should do. But Peter has been helping him, so he writes: my dad is being questioned by the police and I don’t know what’s going on or what I should do.

  Peter says: wait I’ll come straight over

  His mom and Julia are having a long talk. They treat him like a child, when Julia’s only two years older and has done plenty of stupid teenager things.

  What if his dad’s been caught? The Sender knew his dad did something wrong. Maybe the Sender has evidence. The Sender must want something from Grant, to keep reaching out to him, to send him these things. So what is it?

  His phone pings again. Email. He opens it. It’s from the Sender:

  No pictures for you today. But go look in the tree for a surprise.

  Peter’s camera. If the Sender was there, it would have caught him or her.

  He closes the email. He decides to wait for Peter. Having a witness is important. And he doesn’t know how to get the video off Peter’s hidden camera.

  He texts Peter: come to my house via the greenbelt, not front door.

  Ten minutes later, Julia and Mom are still talking inside and he sees Peter loping up to the house. He’s flushed.

  “Hey,” Peter says.

  “Hey. I got another email. Directing me to the tree. I hope your camera work
ed.”

  Peter holds up a hand, and with a sinking feeling, Grant can see the iciness in his stare.

  “What did your dad do to Danielle?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “I think it’d be super hard to keep a big secret from your mom,” Peter says. “She’s just the type to see through that. It was something Danielle liked about her.”

  Grant bites his lip.

  “After my mom died, my dad was sad for a long time, and Danielle made him happy again.” His voice shakes. “When we came here from Canada, I was sad, because I couldn’t go visit my mom’s grave. But hey, I can go visit Danielle’s. She wasn’t my mom, but she was gonna try. Do you understand that? She was gonna try.”

  The pain in Peter’s voice is real, and Grant doesn’t know what to say at first. “Peter, I can’t believe my dad would hurt her. And all the stuff that’s happened, I haven’t made that up. I wouldn’t even know how to start.”

  “I know you deleted that email that talked about the bad thing your dad did. I found it. You can’t really delete stuff if I’m looking for it. It’s not gone; it’s just hidden. You want to tell me what that was?”

  “If we go check the camera down by the tree right now, we’ll have our answers,” Grant pleaded. “Please.”

  Peter turns and walks out of the backyard and down the trail. Grant follows, catching up to him. They get to the tree. Lying in the trail is Peter’s little camera with its USB drive, smashed, the adhesive tape that secured it to the tree in tatters.

  “Oh no,” Grant says. “Oh no.”

  He steps forward, and Peter stops him. “Don’t touch it. Even if it’s damaged, maybe I can get an image off of it.”

  Peter starts to step around the debris, toward the tree, and he gestures at Grant to stay back. “I’ll check the tree, if you don’t mind.” He kneels and looks into the cleft. From here Grant can see a flash of color.

  Peter pulls something out, and he audibly gasps. Grant can see it’s a book bag, quilted, imprinted with the logo of the Lakehaven Library. His mom has a similar bag. This one has Danielle’s name stitched on it.