Utopian Day (29 page)

The team split up, taking opposite directions on the
paved road. They drove for another hour before Victor called off
the search and headed back to Toakama.

Chapter Forty-Five

“
Are you o.k.?” Mia said to Sasha,
looking at her bruised eye and cut lip. All she felt for the
kidnapper at that moment was hatred. She prayed he hadn’t sexually
assaulted her daughter. God help him if he had. On second thought,
she hoped God
wouldn’t
help him in that case.

“
I’m o.k.,” Sasha said, giving Mia
another hug. “I’m just so glad to be free now.”

“
Sasha, I need you to be honest
with me,” Nick said. “Did that man touch you inappropriately? Did
he rape you?”

“
No. No. he didn’t,” she
replied.

“
Guys, you should come see this,”
James yelled from down the alleyway that Victor had driven down
earlier.

Everyone walked
en masse
down the alleyway to
where James and Laura were standing. There, behind the building,
was the RV where Sasha had been held captive.

“
That’s where he kept me hostage,”
Sasha informed them.

Mia left Sasha’s side and walked determinedly
towards the RV. She went to the driver’s door, opening it up, and
began to look around the cab.

“
What is she doing?” J.T. asked
Nick.

“
She’s looking for clues to who
this man is or where he went. She’s quite good at it, actually.
It’s a skill she developed years ago when she used to track down
some of our more recalcitrant debtors,” Nick replied. “I’d wager,
if there is anything he left behind that indicates who or where he
might be, she’ll find it.”

“
I think I can help you with
that,” Sasha replied.

Nick and J.T. both turned to look at Sasha.

“
Do you know who he is?” asked
J.T.

“
Not exactly, only that he said
that he had been ripped off by a gambling website that you owned,
Nick. He also mentioned that he used to be a cop,” Sasha
continued.

Nick’s face showed a glimmer of recognition, which
he quickly hid. “Describe him to me,” he said.

A quick description of the kidnapper from Sasha
confirmed Nick’s suspicions.

“
We’ll get a sketch artist to help
draw a picture of him so that we can identify him and stop him from
doing things like this to anyone else,” Nick said with finality. He
was going to find him alright, and when he did, there would be hell
to pay.

Back in the RV, Mia had conducted a thorough search
and collected all the receipts and paperwork that she could find. A
quick review of the material indicated that the kidnapper had paid
cash for everything except the RV rental, which had required a
credit card. The RV rental paperwork she found in the glove box
listed the name of Silas McGruder.

Leaving his real name on the rental agreement was
either stupid, sloppy, or a planned deception. Mia had encountered
a few of the people she had tracked for Nick in the past who had
used this tactic. They had deliberately used their real names to
lead her off of their trail just enough to buy an airline ticket
using an alias and temporarily escape to some far-off destination,
supposedly out of her reach. If that was what Silas had planned,
she knew just what to do. Whatever the reason for using his real
name, she was anxious to find him as soon as possible.

Mia exited the RV and walked back to where Nick,
J.T., and Sasha were standing.

“
We need to get back to New York,
now
.”

Nick nodded in agreement. He turned on his two-way
radio, but got nothing but static when he tried to reach Victor. He
tried Victor’s phone, but it only went to voice mail. He left a
message telling Victor to call him with a report as soon as
possible, and let him know they were returning to New York. If
Victor had apprehended Silas, they would know soon enough. If not,
they needed to get back to New York and start tracking Silas down
from there.

They collected James and Laura, who had finished a
cursory search of the remaining town. They had found nothing else
that might be of help in tracking down the kidnapper. Everyone
piled in to the remaining SUV and headed back to Roanoke. Three
hours later, they were in Nick’s plane and headed back to New
York.

The next day, James, Laura, and J.T. boarded Nick’s
plane and went back to the Cayman Islands. Even with their new
identities, they reasoned it wasn’t safe to stay too long in the
States. Before they left, J.T. arranged for Sasha to fly down and
visit him in Grand Cayman on her spring break. J.T. and Sasha
shared a tearful goodbye as he boarded the plane.

Within a week, Sasha’s face had healed and life was
beginning to return to the new normal. Mia and Nick had insisted
that Sasha have a bodyguard for the time being, and she’d had to
answer a million questions from her friends due to the fact that he
followed her everywhere except to the ladies’ room. Over time,
though, it became second nature to have the bodyguard around, and
it only irritated her when she went on a date with her new
boyfriend.

Over the next few months, before Sasha visited him
on spring break, J.T. kept in touch with her via facebook, twitter,
and phone calls, trying to catch up for lost time. He was thankful
that she wanted to have a relationship with him and was looking
forward to seeing her when she came down to visit. He was
determined not to let her slip away the same way he had let her
mother exit his life. He had learned many things since going to
prison and beginning recovery. He had learned that although
relationships could be messy, it was worth it to work through your
problems and continue to reach out and invest in relationships with
those you loved.

James had been in contact with a youth center in the
United States for several months before the kidnapping episode.
Once they were back home, he continued working out the final
details to arrange for a yearly retreat in the Cayman Islands for
at-risk teens. The youths would fly down and spend a week biking
around the island, camping out, and fishing. He wanted to help
other kids avoid taking the wrong path like he had. In addition to
working on starting the youth camp, he finally convinced Laura to
marry him. They had a quiet marriage ceremony in the garden at
J.T.’s house. Laura continued to work at the women’s shelter,
occasionally providing some extra unlisted services to certain
women whose abusive former husbands or boyfriends just couldn’t
take the hint.

Nick and Mia continued to search for Silas. Mia
recognized that one of the receipts she’d found in the RV was from
a sub-shop in a part of town that she recognized. It was located
near where they had obtained the identification documents for J.T.,
James, and Laura. A visit to the document forger, along with a
memory-enhancing bribe, soon revealed the name of Silas’ new alias
– Bob Conner. They put Silas’ new name and picture out through
their usual channels in hopes of tracking him down, but it had been
two months and they still hadn’t heard anything. It appeared that
Silas McGruder had fallen off the face of the earth.

Chapter Forty-Six

Nick and Sasha were sitting on a bench in Central
Park. It was a beautiful day. Everything was beginning to bloom as
spring made its reappearance, and all seemed right with the world.
Walking in the park was something Sasha had done regularly with her
mother when she was alive. It calmed her and helped her remember
the good times she’d had with her mother. Nick had walked with her
through this section of the park many times when Sasha’s mother was
sick, and they had continued the practice in the years since.

“
Nick,” Sasha began, “I want to
ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth.”

Nick raised an eyebrow and looked over at Sasha with
interest. Whenever she asked him a question like that, he knew what
came next was going to be serious. He remembered the first time she
had used that phrase with him, “I want you to tell me the truth.”
It was after her mother had died. She had asked him then if he
believed in Heaven. Nick had never been one to prevaricate. He had
always told the truth boldly and without reservation. He was always
direct in asking for what he wanted. He admired that same quality
in Sasha. And so, when she had asked him that question, he’d told
her what he really thought. He simply said, “I don’t know if Heaven
exists or not. I can’t say I believe in something that I’m not
certain exists.” That seemed to satisfy her and she had never asked
him that question again.

“
Go on,” Nick prodded.

“
When that man kidnapped me, he
told me that you were a crook and that the money you were paying
him for my ransom was stolen from someone else. Is that
true?”

Nick smiled in spite of himself. He regretted what
Silas had said to her, but he admired the fact that she was bold
enough to confront him about it directly. He looked her in the eyes
as he answered.

“
Many years ago, I made a lot of
money by conducting illegal business deals. I was convinced that
nothing mattered but making money. A lot has changed since then.
Now, I’m not going to tell you that everything I do to make money
today is completely legal, but I don’t do things the same way
anymore. I’m more selective about my business dealings
today.”

“
Were my mom and J.T. involved in
what you did before?”

“
Yes,” Nick responded flatly,
wishing she hadn’t gone in that direction.

“
What did my mom do?”

“
She was an accountant. She helped
us launder the money and disguise the transactions so that we
didn’t get caught.”

“
But J.T. did get caught. He went
to prison for what you all did, right?”

“
Yes, he did.” Nick looked at
Sasha, watching the wheels turn in her mind, both regretting the
end of her innocence and feeling proud that she was ready to tackle
the muddy truth of it all on her own.

Sasha didn’t ask any more questions. She just turned
and watched a man playing frisbee with his dog in the field across
from where they were sitting.

About a week later, Sasha knocked on the door to
Nick’s office.

“
Come in,” he said.

She came in and sat down in one of the big wing-back
chairs facing Nick’s desk.

“
What can I do for you today,
m’lady?” Nick asked playfully.

“
Be careful what you ask for,” she
said in reply.

“
Ah, methinks the lady doth have
something weighty on her mind. What is it, my dear?”

“
I’ve been thinking about that
conversation we had in the park the other day.”

“
And?”

“
And I want to ask you a few
things.”

“
The usual part about telling the
truth applies, I suppose,” Nick responded.

“
Yep.”

Nick prepared himself. “O.k., fire when ready.”

“
Are you and J.T. still working
together?”

“
No, my dear. We stopped working
together a long time ago. Now we are simply friends who share a
relationship with you.”

“
O.k. Next question, sort of. I’ve
been thinking a lot about what you all did to make money back then,
and I’ve been having a hard time reconciling the fact that I love
all three of you, and Mia, too, whom I assume was involved in it
with you, as well. I need to be able to process it all somehow, to
make sense of it.” Sasha fidgeted with the corner of her shirt with
her fingers as she paused before blurting out, “Well, I’m having a
hard time with the fact that you were all doing illegal things to
make all of this money. There, I said it. I want to undo it but I
can’t. So instead, I want you to help me set up a foundation to do
good things with that money. I want to do something good with the
money you made doing something bad. I want to know that our family
is doing something to make the world a better place, not a worse
one.”

Sasha slumped back into the chair, obviously
relieved at having spit it out, but unsure about what Nick was
going to do with the request she had just made. Nick sat behind his
desk with the inscrutable poker face which she could never read. It
was the same way he’d looked at her the first time she had asked if
she could go out on a date with Teddy Fromeyer. That look betrayed
nothing. It was stone. She waited.

Nick looked off to a painting that hung on the wall
behind Sasha. It was a painting of ancient Rome being re-built
after the fire that had burned it down in 64 A.D. He’d always liked
that painting. It symbolized something good coming out of a
tragedy. Like his marriage to Mia coming out of his battle with
cancer, like Sasha coming into their lives out of the tragedy of
Katrina’s death. And now he was being given another opportunity to
bring something good out of a past that had produced wealth, but no
happiness. A past that had produced riches with emptiness that was
devoid of more than temporary fulfillment. It provided power and
influence, which was nice, but ultimately, it lacked the power to
fill one’s soul with real contentment.

He was not the same man as he once was. True, he was
no saint and probably never would be. He still ran an illegal
gambling business along with many legitimate gaming enterprises.
But as he grew older, he began to see the point that J.T. had made
to him years ago on the yacht while they’d been moored outside of
Grand Cayman. He wasn’t sure exactly where it came from or if he
even believed in God, but he did feel a sense of guilt about some
of the things he had done to gain the wealth he had acquired –
especially in the early days with J.T.