Celtic Sister

by Pentermann, Meira

  “We found it. That’s how Amy figured out some of your clues.”

  Emma’s eyes lit up. “Amy figured out the clues?”

  “Some of them,” Amy said.

  “Why all the clues, Emma?” Sam asked. “Why not just leave a note?”

  “Did you not get what I said about Dad and our family?”

  “So what?”

  “So what? I felt responsible for that. I went and got myself pregnant and everyone else would have to suffer.”

  “Then why write clues at all? Brent said you tried to give him the notebook. If you were afraid for Dad, why risk that? You aren’t making sense.”

  Emma’s face fell. Sam’s words wounded her as if he’d wielded a sword.

  “I’m sorry, Emma. That wasn’t nice.”

  “It’s okay. It’s true. I was waffling. But that notebook only came together in the last couple of days. By that time, I started to panic. I didn’t want to just disappear.” She cleared her throat. “But remember that day in the park, where we just left off? I didn’t even know they intended to take me out of the country until Brent mentioned a passport.”

  “Right. Let’s just listen, Sam,” Amy said. They both turned to look at her. “But first I need a quick bathroom break.”

  Amy returned, sufficiently lubed up for the second installment of “Emma Foster versus the Richardsons.” Emma continued where she had left off.

  “The next couple of days dragged on into eternity, what with the passport remark hanging in the air and all. I kept telling Mom and Dad I was out looking for a summer job, but I was just killing time, wandering around. Tuesday afternoon I came home, and there was a note on my bed. My bed! I don’t know who left it there. It told me to be waiting in an alley by the Jiffy Lube at nine the next morning. Easy enough. You all thought I was out job hunting, so who would think anything of it?”

  “You behaved so strangely those last few days. I should have been paying closer attention,” Sam chastised himself.

  “Stop it. Water under the bridge.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “So I’m waiting there behind the Jiffy Lube for at least ten minutes. Then this van pulls up, like a painter’s van, no windows in the back. The door flies open and someone grabbed me. Literally. It was like something you’d see in a movie. They even put a bag over my head.”

  “Are you serious?” Amy interjected.

  “The whole nine yards. We drove for about an hour before they parked somewhere and hustled me out of the car. Must have been a garage of some sort. I didn’t feel the sun on my skin, and their voices echoed a bit. When they finally removed my hood, I was in a small room with an overweight man sitting at a desk. He had thinning dark hair and a three-day-old beard. Kind of nerdy. Clearly on the technical side of organized crime, not like the men who had grabbed me. The man looked bored, sort of put out that he even had to deal with me. After the thugs yanked off the hood, they left the room and it was just me and the man. Said his name was Igor.”

  “Igor?”

  She held up three fingers as if making a pledge. “Honest to God. He had a thick Russian accent too.”

  Sam chuckled. “Sorry for laughing, Em. I know it must have been traumatic.”

  “Don’t be. I was almost laughing myself. I was hoping James Bond would burst into the room and save me. In the end, it was Igor who rescued me.”

  “Really?” Amy asked, completely captivated.

  Emma nodded, and she smiled. “Igor, my hero.”

  “So what happened?”

  “At first he was gruff, asking me one-worded questions. Height? Weight? Age? Eyes? That sort of thing. He stopped and looked into my eyes to see if I was telling the truth when I said green. At that moment, I chanced a question of my own. ‘Do you know where they are sending me?’ That got his attention. His whole demeanor changed. The idea that I was there against my will hadn’t quite sank in.”

  “You came in with a hood on.”

  She shrugged. “Apparently everyone does. It was one of Igor’s rules. He told me later. Didn’t want every Bill and Betsy to know how to find him. He did work for a lot of people, but he didn’t want to have to vet every friend of a friend who needed his services.”

  “Makes sense, I guess, if you’re in the business of illegal identification,” Sam mused.

  “Right. But when I meekly asked him where they were sending me, his expression softened. He sat back and examined me thoughtfully for at least a minute before asking, ‘How could a sweet young thing such as yourself get into trouble with the Richardson family?’” She attempted a Russian accent. “Sorry. Trying to recreate it. He had such a rich voice.”

  “That sounded pretty good actually,” Amy said.

  “Thanks. Anyway, he asked me the question in his deep voice that was filled with concern. I looked down and touched my belly, trying to think of what to say. I mean, I promised I wouldn’t tell. I’d even agreed to take money, so I was wrestling with my integrity, as flimsy as it was. The belly touching wasn’t a calculated move. My hand just went there instinctively. But, of course, that was all it took. Igor figured it out before my eyes met his two seconds later.”

  She gazed off into the distance, a loving expression formed on her face.

  “‘Ah, I see. Where would you like to go, young lady?’ Igor whispered. I shrugged. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’ He nodded and continued to hold my gaze. ‘That’s no longer a possibility for you I’m afraid.’ ‘I understand,’ I said. By this time, tears were streaming down my face. Igor handed me a handkerchief. ‘But do not let that mean you are a prisoner for the rest of your life.’ When he said this, his voice took on a bitter, resentful flavor. ‘What do you propose I do then?’ I asked him. He fumbled through a bottom drawer on his right and pulled out something that looked like a mangled, black kitten. He threw it at me. ‘Run,’ he said.”

  Emma tossed her head back and rolled her R, as Igor might have done. The confidence and cockiness of her accomplice’s attitude came alive in Emma’s tone and movements.

  “It was a black wig. I stared at it, wondering what he was thinking. Clearly I couldn’t don the black wig and walk out of Igor’s office straight past the thugs. Finally, I stammered, ‘I… I don’t understand.’ He swung around in his chair and leapt to his feet as if he were a dancer and not a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound Russian forger. He went to the back corner of the room where he had a camera set up against a stark white wall. ‘Today we will make you two passports. The one the Richardsons asked me to make. We’ll call her Jennifer Johnson.’ I stared at him. ‘Come on,’ he said, motioning for me to join him. ‘Don’t be shy.’ So I let him arrange me for a photo. After he’d taken a couple of shots, he rummaged through another drawer and pulled out a brush and some makeup. Then he had me tuck my hair into a skullcap that matched my skin. He spent about thirty minutes fussing over me before he handed me a mirror. I was stunned. I looked like I was twenty-three. He’d managed to comb out that mangled black wig until it had a rich sheen. It had bangs, and it framed my face very nicely. I saw no freckles. They were all covered up by makeup. I looked almost olive-skinned at that point.

  “Igor grinned. ‘Meet Charlotte Young, your ticket to freedom.’ Then he proceeded to take photos of me as Charlotte. He checked his screen several times. When he was satisfied, he handed me a container of baby wipes. ‘Remove every trace of makeup,’ he instructed. While I was working on removing the makeup, he was busy typing on the computer, fingers flying. There was a pounding on the door. Igor screamed some obscenities and the knocking stopped. When I handed him the wig and skullcap, he inspected my skin, looking for a trace of evidence. ‘Now,’ he asked me again, ‘where do you want to go?’ ‘Ireland,’ I told him. He nodded. ‘Interesting. Doubt that’s where they’re sending you. They typically go for north Africa or the middle east.’ This took me aback. ‘How often do they send people away?’ ‘Typically, they help people relocate in exchange for favors. It’s a mutually beneficial relation
ship.’ ‘So you’ve never run into someone like me who they’re trying to make disappear?’ He chuckled derisively. ‘When they want to make someone disappear, they usually don’t use my services.’ Of course I was seventeen, and I had to digest this for a moment before I understood what he meant. The expression on my face must have been priceless. He frowned. ‘Watch out for that baby,’ he told me pointing at my belly. ‘The Richardsons don’t like to lose.’

  “You can imagine now, since you’ve been following my clues, I took Igor’s words to heart. I’ve been running and hiding, always looking over my shoulder, wondering when a Richardson minion would show up on my doorstep and whisk Samantha away.”

  She shook her head, caught up in the debilitating emotions that had kept her prisoner all these years.

  “What happened to Igor?” Amy asked. “I mean, wasn’t he afraid of crossing the Richardsons?”

  Emma’s eyes flew open. “That’s what I wondered. When I got my wits about me, I realized he could get into some serious trouble. ‘Why are you doing this for me?’ I asked him. He didn’t give me a straight answer. Instead, he rattled off a bunch of nonsense. Reading between the lines, I got the feeling the Richardsons had threatened someone he loved or they were holding something over him, and he was sick of them exercising their power at a whim. He said something to the effect of ‘Maybe it’s time.’” She looked at her hands. “Eventually, they had to have figured out he helped me escape. And I have no idea what happened to him. I don’t even know if he’s alive.”

  “Maybe we can look for him,” Sam said.

  Emma looked at her brother as if he had a few screws loose. “I don’t know where to look. A guy like that doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Good point.”

  “But he was my angel, so there’s a place in heaven for him. That is for certain.”

  The possibility of Igor’s demise silenced them for a moment, but Amy’s curiosity prevailed.

  “How did it play out?” she asked. “Did you slip Charlotte’s passport in your pocket when you left?”

  “Oh, no. The passport process was far more complicated. I didn’t get to take them with me during that meeting. We spent another thirty minutes going over details. The thugs knocked one more time. Igor went out into the hallway and gave them a chewing down. When he returned he apologized to me, explaining he had appeased the thugs by telling them I was not very bright, so I needed a thorough training before they took me home.”

  “Why didn’t they just keep you?”

  “I couldn’t disappear yet,” Emma explained. “They wanted me out of the country before anyone could start looking for me.”

  “That makes sense,” Amy said. “Sorry. Please continue.”

  “Anyway, Igor had to quiz me about the identities, so he gave me a full story to memorize on each character.”

  “Ugh. That must have been nerve-racking.”

  “Yes, but he made me a cheat sheet with some very cryptic notes that included a couple of crude sketches. Jennifer was from New York, so he drew an apple. Charlotte was from Arizona, so he drew a mesa. That’s how I got the idea for picture clues actually. He told me to spend most of my time practicing to be Charlotte Young. Then I should do a brief review of Jennifer Johnson before leaving in case whoever was assigned to be my handler quizzed me on the way to the airport.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Everything you ever wanted to know about creating a false identity, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But it was the airport switch that made me the most nervous. Igor knew they planned to pull me on Saturday, probably in the wee hours of the morning. Three a.m., to be exact, I found out later. A guy made me climb out the window. Threatened to break my neck if I made a sound.” She shuddered. “Igor made arrangements with a woman he knew named Sonya. Said it would be absolutely a slam dunk that Sonya would help me, given my situation. I was to meet Sonya in a specific bathroom in the main concourse. Ditch my handler with a complaint of anxiety and a diarrhea attack. Sonya would join me in the bathroom and help me put on the wig and makeup.”

  “Right under the handler’s nose?”

  “It worked. She was fast. She also wore a black wig, and she made a big deal out of being seen by the handler when she entered the restroom. She was taller and bustier than me, but she gave me her oversized sweater and black stretchy pants. We moved the stuff from my carry-on into her huge shoulder bag. I even had the Richardsons’ money. Only about a third of what Brent originally promised me, but it was something. When I first got into the car, the Richardson thug gave me a carry-on. The money was in a side zip pocket. I didn’t check the amount until later.” She looked around the room, trying to regain the thread of the story. “So Sonya and I put everything in her shoulder bag, left the carry-on behind, and I walked out right past the handler. I’ve never been so scared in my life. It was as if my heart was right inside my head, pounding like a bass drum.”

  “So Sonya dressed you up in the restroom, gave you the passport, and let you go on by yourself?”

  “No. She got me boarded. After I slipped past the handler, Sonya ditched her wig and caught up with me at our second meeting point outside security. Probably was only five minutes but it seemed like an eternity. She had a cheap domestic ticket, so she could get through security. When we were on the underground train to terminal B, I felt better. My flight, the one to New York, was leaving fifteen minutes earlier than the Richardson-purchased flight to Chicago from a different terminal. In Chicago, I was supposed to change planes and continue on to Morocco. I was a little nervous in New York. I mean, now I was all by myself, and they’d been looking for me for more than four hours. They could’ve been waiting for me when I got off the plane.”

  “I’m surprised they weren’t,” Amy said.

  Emma shrugged. “I think they assumed I’d given them the slip and left the airport on foot, maybe caught a taxi. The idea that I could have a dual identity and be leaving the country may not have come up as a possibility until it was clear I hadn’t gone home.”

  “Good point,” Sam said. “It would seem like too complicated a plan for a seventeen-year-old runaway.”

  Emma frowned. “That’s why my heart breaks when I think of Igor. Surely they figured out he helped me.”

  Sam touched her on the arm. “Igor wanted to help you. It was probably one of his more defining moments in life.”

  Emma nodded. “He saved me.”

  “I know.”

  “So what about the clues, Emma?” Amy asked. Now that the story was falling into place, she envisioned the soon-to-be-runaway plotting her next move after she met with Igor, before they took her to the airport.

  “Right. Well, as I said, Igor’s pictures gave me the idea for cryptic clues. The thought of disappearing forever terrified me. How was I to raise a baby by myself in a foreign country? And how could I do that to my family? Cause them such heartache?” She smiled sadly. “But I also wrestled with the idea that I had agreed to keep my mouth shut. I was ashamed about the money. At that point, I fully well intended to take it. I didn’t think I stood a chance if I went into hiding without it. And I was worried about Dad’s business. Basically, I was a wreck.” She pantomimed holding a piece of paper. “So I was looking at Igor’s cheat sheet and the idea came to me. I’d make a little notebook and fill it with clues. If I was clever enough, I could drop it right under Brent’s nose. And if he handed you the clues, it absolved me somehow.”

  “Why did you even care at that point?” Sam asked. It was clear that part of him felt resentment for the years lost because of the disastrous outcome of the notebook fiasco.

  She grimaced. “Because I was taking the money. Hush money. You can’t take hush money if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”

  “So your integrity told you to make the clues as absolutely difficult to find as possible? Hide them in a birdhouse?”

  “No. By the time I got to the birdhouse, that was sheer desperation. I met Brent
Friday morning to go over the plan. That’s when he told me I needed to be ready to leave at three in the morning on Saturday and I was not allowed to bring a suitcase. Just a plastic bag with clothing. I showed Brent the notebook and asked him to give it to you. I thought I was perfectly innocent and convincing, but it didn’t work. When he said no, I figured to hell with it, and I planned to just leave it on my desk.”

  “That would have been perfect.”

  “But he called me later that afternoon asking questions about the notebook. He was very angry. Said it violated our agreement and that the guy who was coming to pick me up would search my house.”

  “He certainly wouldn’t have gone into our parents’ bedroom while they were sleeping. You could have left it in their room. Under their bed even.”

  “Good point. He must have thought of that because he started rambling off a bunch of other nonsense. Said they had someone on the police force already lined up to be part of the investigation into the Disappearance of Emma Foster. Then he started up with the threats against Dad’s business again. Said I would have to live with the consequences of our family’s ruin if the police ever uncovered anything that looked like a secret message. Of course he alternated with the smooth, slick talk about my promise to keep my mouth shut and take the money. By the time I got off the phone, my brain was like scrambled eggs. At that point, I was more determined than ever to give you the notebook, but now I had to make sure some dirty cop didn’t get his hands on it first. So now the top of the desk wasn’t an option. Neither were the drawers or any other place in my room.”

  “That’s why,” Sam said.

  “What?”

  “One of the police officers spent a lot of time rummaging through drawers and looking in cupboards. Someone, it might have been the same guy, tore apart my dorm room and gave my roommate the third degree. It really pissed me off. We all knew we were on the top of the suspect list for a while, so Mom asked me to be polite and patient.” He frowned. Huge creases formed on his forehead. “But now I realize the cop must have been looking for your notebook. Bastard.”