CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“What happened in there?” Reyes asked when Lucky and John came out of the church and got back in the SUV. Lucky squinted in the city sunlight, too bright after the dimness of the church.
“I don’t know,” Lucky said, still dazed.
“I’m sure that was her,” John said. “Mary Jean? Maggie Jean? I can’t remember her name. Oh, it was so long ago.” He wrung his hands and glanced back at Lucky. “And then she took off. Maybe it wasn’t her. I don’t know, I just don’t know.”
“Well, if you’re talking about that nun who ran out, she did take down our plate number,” Reyes said, starting the engine. “That’s probably not a good thing. Anyway, we have to go; we’re due to meet my private investigator friend in half an hour.” She pulled back out into traffic and eventually the church was far behind them.
Reyes stopped the car again, this time in the parking lot of a low-rise building in the Bronx.
“Best for you to wait here,” she said to John and Lucky. “Keep your fingers crossed.” She got out of the car, slammed the door.
“I’m sorry,” John said in the silence after she had gone. “I hope you can forgive me someday. I hope you can understand.”
“I hate you for what you did,” Lucky said, and it was the truth. “But I also miss you.” Her voice broke. This was the truth, too. “I have for years. And now you’re here and I just—I can’t do anything. I can’t tell you I don’t want you in my life, and I can’t forgive you. Not now. I need time.”
“I understand that.”
They waited for Reyes in silence. She returned half an hour later.
“She traced her credit card easily,” Reyes said when she got back in the car. “And it’s a bit odd. Apparently she’s staying at a DoubleTree not far from the camp—back in Oneonta, only about twenty minutes away from there. So, looks like we have to drive back now if we’re going to find her, and figure out what she’s doing holed up with that ticket. Okay with you two?”
“We have to do it,” Lucky said, but she found herself thinking of the nun, and the possibility the nun knew something about her mother. There was nothing she could do about that right now, though. She could come back once she got the ticket back. If she got the ticket back.
John reached forward and turned off the radio.
“What’s our plan?” he said. “We need one, for when we get to the hotel.” He sounded like his old self again. Lucky was starting to get emotional whiplash, wondering who he’d be next: a doddering old man, or his calculating, smart old self?
“What if you accused her of stealing it from you, John?” Reyes said. “What if you called the police and said your ex stole your lottery ticket, and then you formally contested the win?”
“But John couldn’t have been in Idaho buying a lottery ticket on the date I bought mine,” Lucky said. “Because he was in prison.”
“We could say it was yours, Reyes,” suggested John. “And that Gloria stole it when we arrived at her camp.”
“Still no good,” Lucky said. “Reyes reports it stolen, there’s an investigation, they look at the security camera footage at the store I bought it at and they wouldn’t see Reyes, they’d see me.”
“So, there’s possibly a way to prove you bought it?” Reyes said.
“I don’t know,” Lucky said. “I honestly have no idea how this all works.”
“Come on,” John said. “Keep thinking. We need a plan.”
“Blackmail,” Lucky finally said. “If we can find her, I’ll tell her I’m going to call the police and tell them about the fake construction jobs. I can make her believe that I recorded her. I’ll make her think I’ll tell the police unless she gives me the ticket.”
* * *
Reyes pulled the SUV into the parking lot of the generic-looking hotel. They had found a boarding kennel for Betty. They would pick her up when this was all over, but for now, they needed to keep her out of the way, and definitely safe.
The trio walked inside and stood in the lobby, looking around at the beige walls, beige tiles, burgundy and gray couches and chairs. “I’m going to get her room number,” Lucky said. “Reyes, give me your cell phone.” She turned the phone off. “Go stand by the elevator, you two. Once I get the number, I’ll meet you there.”
“Hi,” Lucky said, approaching the concierge with an apologetic smile on her face. “I’m so sorry, but can you help me with something? I’m meeting someone here—Gloria Devereaux? And she texted me her room number, told me to come on up when I got here, except my phone died”—she held the phone out in front of her, and pushed the home screen; the screen stayed blank—“so I have no idea what room she’s in. Would you mind looking it up for me?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information. But I could call up to her room for you and let her know you’re here, Miss…?”
“Shoot. Okay, sure, give her a call.” The concierge lifted the receiver to dial—and Lucky caught the numbers he pressed with a quick glance: 513.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You know what? She’s probably at the casino. You can hang up, it’s okay.” He did, but Lucky heard a woman’s voice saying hello just before he landed the handset back on the receiver.
She walked toward the elevator, where Reyes and John waited.
There was a couple on the elevator with them. They didn’t speak until they got to the fifth floor.
“Okay,” John said. “Let’s go over the plan one last time.”
“Maybe Reyes should knock. She could say something like, ‘Time for your complimentary turndown,’ and then—”
“Gloria will like that. Tell her you have chocolates.”
They walked down the hall while Reyes knocked. “Who is it?” came Gloria’s voice.
“Housekeeping,” Reyes said. “Chocolate turndown service.”
“What the hell is that?” Gloria growled.
“You get a special turndown service… with chocolate.”
“Just leave the chocolate outside the door.”
“There are a few different kinds to choose from. Chocolate mints, chocolate strawberries, chocolate-covered orange peels—”
“Go away.”
Silence.
“Shit,” said Reyes, under her breath.
Lucky stepped forward and knocked on the door now. “Gloria? You know who this is. You have something of mine. But I have something of yours—a recording of you admitting to all those fake repairs and bilking senior citizens. I have witnesses back at the camp who are pretty upset. And I have the police on speed dial.”
Still nothing.
John stepped forward. He tapped on the door. “Gloria. It’s John Armstrong. Open the damn door.”
A moment later, the door flew open. Gloria’s hair was sticking out in all directions and her eyes were wild. “Jesus Christ, could you all just shut up?” She looked down the hall, then stood aside. “Come in. Quickly.”
When they were all inside, Gloria double-locked the door.
“Who the hell are you?” Gloria asked Reyes.
“A friend,” Reyes said.
“I’ve met the kind of friends she has,” Gloria replied, nodding her head toward Lucky. “And they are truly fucked-up people.”
“No greeting, Gloria?” John said. “It’s been thirty years, and you don’t even want to know how I’ve been?”
Gloria just stared at him. “Do you really think I care about that right now? I know what you’re here for, and the ticket is gone.”
Lucky had been looking around the room, at the clothes strewn about, the empty take-out containers. A bottle of Blue Moon was open on the dresser.
“What do you mean, gone?” John asked.
Gloria sat down on the bed and put her face in her hands. Then she looked up. “Look, I’m sorry. She got all pissed-drunk on some hundred-proof I gave her, started babbling on about winning the lottery, so after she passed out, I checked her wallet. Looked the ticket up, saw it was a winner, and I just—lost
my mind a little. But when I left the camp, I didn’t get very far. Some crazy bitch and her bodyguard ran me off the road. They asked me what I knew about Lucky. I said, Who the fuck is Lucky?”
“That’s her real name,” John said. “Luciana, actually.”
“Well, I know that now. They knocked me around a bit, until I told them I may not know anyone named Lucky, but I had recently met a young woman named Sarah who fit the description they were giving. And then they made me march toward the river.” Gloria’s voice was shaking now. “They were going to shoot me and push me in, I heard them talking about it. So, stupidly, I told them I had a winning lottery ticket that was worth a lot of money, and they shouldn’t kill me. The big guy got all excited. They took the ticket from me and took off. That was it. I came here. I was too afraid to go back to the camp. I’ve been hiding out here ever since.” Now, she looked at Lucky. “Listen, I’m sorry.”
Lucky shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. It was over. She wasn’t going to be able to get the ticket back from Priscilla. If she went anywhere near Priscilla, Priscilla would just kill her. The odds had always been stacked against Lucky, but now they were insurmountable.
“I’m going to take a walk,” Lucky said.
Reyes stepped forward. “Here,” she said, holding out her car keys. “Go sit in the car. It’s raining again.”
“Okay. I’ll be back.” The lie felt worse than any of the others she had told.
Lucky walked through the lobby. When she got outside, she stood underneath the car park overhang for a minute, looking out at the rain. She forced herself to focus on the tiny glimmer of hope left, in order to keep herself moving forward. Yes, turning herself in would mean prison, but she could also tell the police everything. She could tell them about the lottery ticket, stolen first by Gloria and then by Priscilla. She could see if they’d be willing to investigate that. If she could manage to prove the ticket and therefore the money was really hers, if she could get someone to look at the footage from the Idaho gas station she had purchased the ticket at, maybe it could be held in trust until she got out of prison.
Lucky stepped forward into the rain. She walked a few steps—and saw that ahead of her in the darkness was a woman. The woman’s hair was wet and her face was streaked with dirt. She was sitting on a blanket that was soaked through. She was holding a piece of cardboard over her head. The words on the sign in front of her were starting to run, but Lucky could still read it: BROKE, STARVING AND SAD. A HOT COFFEE WOULD MAKE MY DAY.
Lucky reached into her pocket. She still had the bills from when she had shortchanged the cashier at the grocery store. She handed them to the woman. “Thank you,” the woman said. “Bless you.”
“Hey, is there a police station near here?” Lucky asked.
“Sure,” the woman said. “About eight blocks down that way.”
As Lucky began to walk away, a car pulled up beside her. When she heard the window roll down, she said, “Please, Reyes, it’s over. Pretend this never happened. I’m turning myself in.”
But when she looked up, it wasn’t the white SUV at all.
“Hello,” said a woman in the driver’s seat. “I’m not Reyes.” The woman had red hair, streaked with gray, pulled back in a low bun. Green eyes. Familiar eyes. This was the woman Lucky had seen on television back in Vegas, when she had been in the midst of conning Jeremy Gibson. It was the Manhattan DA. And her eyes—Lucky saw eyes like this in the mirror every day. All the hairs on her arms stood up.
“My name is Valerie Mann. I’m wondering if you might be willing to speak with me for a few moments.”
So this was it. She was being arrested. “It’s okay,” Lucky said. “You don’t need to cuff me. I’ll go quietly.”
“No.” Valerie shook her head. “It’s not that. I want to talk to you because… I think I might be your mother.”
October 2008
ONEONTA, NEW YORK
“I was sixteen,” Valerie began. “I fell in love. I thought I would die without him. Now I don’t even know where he is. Now he doesn’t matter at all. But I’ve thought of you every single day. After I left you on the church steps, thinking it was for the best and you would have a better life without me, I went back to look for you. But you were already gone.”
The young woman wrapped her hands around the coffee cup in front of her, but it looked like it had gone cold. She closed her eyes. She bowed her head. Her shoulders shook, and Valerie recognized that; it was the way she cried, too—silently, quickly. It was over, and the young woman looked up. Her daughter. Those eyes. “What’s your name?” Valerie asked.
“Luciana,” she said. “But people call me Lucky.”
Valerie wanted to tell her the name she had given her that night, but it felt too soon. “I’ve always counted your birthdays,” she said instead. “Twenty-six of them so far, right? I think I see you everywhere, and find myself constantly searching for you in the faces of strangers.”
“Me too,” Lucky said.
“Abandoning you was a terrible, terrible mistake. Can you ever forgive me? I would love to be able to get to know you.”
“Then you’ll be getting to know a criminal. I’ll tell you everything, and then you can call your colleagues to come and arrest me.”
“No,” Valerie said. “I already know all that. I want to help you. That’s not going to change, no matter what.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When the coffee shop closed, they moved to Valerie’s car. The windows fogged up as they kept talking, safe in their little cocoon. First, Lucky told Valerie everything about her own journey—including the story of the lottery ticket, and its theft. Then Valerie told her how she had managed to find her.
“When Sister Margaret Jean came to tell me she had seen you, I started to piece it all together,” Valerie said. “I traced the license plate number she gave me, found it belonged to a Marisol Reyes, and learned who she was, and that she had just picked up John Armstrong at San Quentin. When I showed Margaret Jean a picture of John, she confirmed he was indeed the man I was looking for—the man who had taken you from the steps all those years ago. But that wasn’t all there was to it. I dug deeper, and it was your involvement with David Ferguson—whose real name is Cary Matheson—that I was interested in.”
“Cary. Yes. He was my partner.”
“Do you know that he was the son of Joshua Matheson and Priscilla Lachaise?”
“I know Priscilla, not Joshua.”
“Joshua Matheson was a drug kingpin who was killed years ago by a gang leader in California. But the theory has always been that Priscilla had him killed. She didn’t deal drugs, though; she laundered money. Less messy, easier profits. But she was greedy. She started a fake charity to launder the money, but started pulling in large enough sums that someone looked into it. She went to jail, as did John and Reyes. Priscilla came out of jail claiming to be a reformed woman, but I’ve been investigating her for years. And I’m not the only one. Police departments across the country have been trying and failing to prove that she is still a massive money launderer with deep ties to organized crime in several states. She’s been so hard to catch. Apparently she doesn’t trust anyone.”
“Except family,” Lucky said.
“Exactly. Which brings me back to Cary. I checked in to see if there had been any John Does admitted to Nevada hospitals in the past month—and they found someone who fit Cary’s description.”
“Oh my God.” Lucky’s hand rose to her mouth, and for a moment she tried to keep her emotions in check.
“He was found badly beaten in an alley near the Bellagio. He’s in a rehab facility now, and claiming he has amnesia—but I think we both know that probably isn’t true. Are you okay? Here.” Valerie reached into the back seat and handed Lucky a bottle of water and a tissue box.
“We know where Priscilla is,” Valerie continued. “She’s staying at a hotel in Syracuse.”
“She stole the lottery ticket from Gloria,” Lucky sa
id.
Valerie nodded. “Meaning she’s probably holed up, planning to cash it in—but she may be delaying for a few reasons: because she won’t be anonymous after, and because all of her contacts will catch up with her and make her pay for her crimes.”
“I have crimes I need to pay for, too,” Lucky said.
“You haven’t had many choices in your life. And what you’ve done pales in comparison. Plus, you can help us. I’m going to be able to negotiate a plea bargain if you work with us on catching Priscilla.”
“I don’t want to avoid punishment. It’s about time I actually tell the truth and make amends for what I’ve done. I’ve wronged people, stolen from them—I’ve made conscious choices. I need to repay all the money I took. And then I can serve my time. Someday, maybe I can start fresh. Without any black marks to atone for.”
Valerie looked at her thoughtfully. “There are different ways to pay for things. Yes, if we can get the ticket, and you can cash it in, those funds could be restitution—which is a big part of redress when it comes to crimes like this. But if you help us put Priscilla behind bars, trust me, you’ll have done a lot more good for society than you realize. Are you willing to help my department with that?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll help with Cary Matheson, too?”
“Yes. Him too.”
Valerie had been looking out the windshield, but now she turned to Lucky. “And then, after that,” she began, “we can find a way—” Her voice broke, and she reached for a tissue, but then crumpled it in her hand and swallowed her tears, in a manner Lucky recognized. She did this too. Valerie kept gazing at Lucky steadily. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“I know,” Lucky said. “I believe you.”
* * *
The calls would be recorded. Lucky was surrounded by police officers and FBI agents. She had a wiretap on, ready for the next steps. The phone call to Cary was the first one.
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