It would take time to sort through, and she needed to be patient. One hour bled into the next and Angie hadn’t made much progress. The anger remained, but as a simmer. She reflected on her life. Happy memories returned, of times with her parents at Lake Anna and Bethany Beach, of picnics and road trips, of dance recitals and softball practices, of all the things her mom and dad would have done had she been Angie or Amelia.
The office door came open and Bao entered, rolling in on his long board, bracelets jangling rhythmically from his wrists. He wore a white T-shirt adorned with an intricate graphic design and a pair of loose fitting jeans. His long, dark hair splayed across narrow shoulders.
“Yo, Ange, didn’t know you were here. I was coming up to do some work.”
“I’ll be here for a bit, but feel free to join me.”
Bao went to his desk and took out a laptop from the messenger bag draped across his shoulders. “My roommate is having a Magic tournament and I can’t concentrate.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, it’s a card game. Kind of cool. Kind of geeky, too.”
Angie had known Bao was back in town. He had come back from camping early to help Mike locate another runaway girl—another potential Nadine, but this girl was named Kelsey. Angie made Mike lead on the case so she could concentrate on the Isabella Conti investigation, now in a tailspin.
“Mind if I turn on a light?” Bao asked.
“Go ahead.”
The sudden brightness caused Angie to blink rapidly.
Bao glanced at her and saw what he couldn’t see in the darkness. “You all right?”
Out of the darkness, Angie’s raw emotions were on full display. Her agitation and anger had bubbled to the surface, where Bao could see it clearly.
“I’m fine,” Angie said.
He wasn’t buying it. “Come on, Ange, what gives? Is it something I did?”
“No, no, it’s not you,” Angie said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Of course not.”
“We think we tracked Kelsey to her friend’s house in Ohio, if that helps.” Bao pulled his desk chair closer to Angie’s.
“That’s great news,” Angie said, though the flatness of her voice contradicted the sentiment.
“Talk to me,” Bao said. “I wanna help. Is it about the photograph?”
Angie had vowed to keep her promise to her father and stop looking for a connection between Isabella Conti and her mother. She believed that sort of investigation could get them both killed by attracting attention from the wrong sort of people. But her promise didn’t mean she couldn’t talk about her family secret with those she trusted the most, Bao among them. It was her burden to guard, but she felt she could share something of her story, even if only in generalities.
“You have to swear you won’t tell anybody about this. Not even Mike,” Angie said. “I trust you, Bao, and I could use someone to talk to. But if word got out to the wrong people, it could be dangerous to me, my dad, and anybody close to me, including you.”
“You can count on me, Angie. Always and forever.”
Angie believed him. She recounted for Bao carefully selected portions of what her father had told her. How her mother and father’s backstory was fabricated; how she grew up in witness protection, but never knew it; how her real name was Amelia.
“Is that the Conti connection?” Bao asked.
“Let’s just say I’d rather not say,” Angie replied.
Sharing what little she had was cathartic on some level. The hurt wouldn’t go away any time soon (or ever, perhaps), but Angie hoped it would lessen with time.
“What are you going to do now?” Bao asked. His shocked expression reminded her of someone who had just driven past a horrific car crash.
Angie settled for a vague response. “I guess I’ll have to figure it out.”
Bao was young. Angie hadn’t confided in him for life advice as much as she did for release. His question, though, was a good one. What now?
Angie actually had some hands-on experience with her father’s unique brand of betrayal. As an investigator, she had found kids who had been kidnapped as young children or infants by a biological parent and raised under a different identity. Was her situation so different from theirs? Over the years, she had kept in touch with some of them, and the best outcomes, from her limited exposure, were the ones where the child forgave the parent. The kids who harbored resentment needed a place to put their anger and often turned to alcohol and drugs as means of coping.
An unsettled silence took over, before Bao finally broke the spell. “Look, Ange, this is pretty heavy stuff, and well, I don’t know how to make it any better.”
“I know. I’m sorry to dump it all on you.”
“But, I do have something to say.” He seemed deeply earnest.
Angie’s ears pricked up. “Yeah?”
“I was going nowhere in life until you came along. I mean I was doing drugs, I was angry all the time, a really screwed-up kid.”
“And look how you turned yourself around,” Angie said.
“But it happened because of you,” Bao said. “Because you were there for me, and you took the time to get to know me. You introduced me to my parents, and well, I dunno.”
A shrug told Angie it wasn’t an easy conversation for him to have. Bao had matured tremendously since they first met, but he still suffered from trust issues. Sharing his feelings was a lot harder than showcasing his computer skills or skateboard chops.
“I’m very, very proud of who you’ve become,” Angie said.
Bao looked pleased, but it was clear he still had more to say. “I guess my point is this. Angie or Amelia, I don’t really care who you are. I just care that you’re in my life, and that you were there for me, that you cared enough to help. To me your name doesn’t matter, who you were doesn’t matter. What matters most is that you’re you, you’re Angie, and I-I . . . well, I love you.”
Tears came to Angie’s eyes. She stood and opened her arms. Bao rose to his feet and embraced her. Then he started to cry, shoulders heaving sort of cry. He cried for his lost childhood, for the hard times, and the good ones that included his adoptive parents. Soon Angie couldn’t control her own waterworks. They hugged and cried together, and she stroked Bao’s long hair and told him how much she loved him.
When they broke apart, both dabbed at their watery eyes, laughing a little awkwardly.
“Sorry about that,” Bao said. “It’s just, you mean so much to me. I don’t know what I’d do without you, but I do know where’d I be if I hadn’t met you. And that’s nowhere.”
Angie tried to imagine life without her dad who meant so much to her, and the notion of cutting him off completely as punishment didn’t sit well at all. The question was how to find a new equilibrium with her father. It took Bao to make her see the path forward more clearly.
Still, her investigative instincts continued to ping. While she had promised not to search for the Conti connection, she’d made no such offers in regards to investigating her genealogy.
“All right, you’ve got an Ohio girl mystery to solve, and I’ve got to get some work done on my own,” Angie said.
“You want to be alone,” Bao said.
“Ya know, I like how you just get me, Bao. I really do.”
He gave her another hug, gathered up his things, and rolled away on his skateboard.
Over the course of several hours, Angie scoured the Web and various databases. She would have liked Bao’s help—he was good at that sort of thing—but there was only so much information she felt safe sharing. On her own, she managed to construct a rudimentary family tree with some pretty bare branches. She scrounged up a few names, some pertinent dates, but nothing close to the photographic treasure trove she sought.
Her grandparents might very well be dead. If they did have social media profiles, none were coming up in any of their searches. Maybe because of the things William Harrington—aka Gabriel DeRose, aka Angie’s dad—had done, they intentionall
y kept a low profile. The same could be said of her uncles, aunts, and various cousins.
Without more information to go on, Angie switched tactics and started to look into William Harrington’s past. She wanted to know everything she could about her father’s former life, and what had led him to the choices he had made.
On one database, Angie found documents incorporating her father’s financial business. An address was on file in New York City, but it wasn’t located near where Antonio Conti once resided. Still, Angie’s mom and Conti could have crossed paths at some point, given the clientele her father serviced.
Bigger questions loomed. Why weren’t there any articles about William Harrington? Why weren’t there news reports detailing her father’s Ponzi scheme? Why wasn’t the trial of the mobsters he gave up to the DA covered in the local press? Maybe the deals were done secretly. Perhaps for her father’s safety, arrangements were made to bury the truth. It would explain why details of his Ponzi scheme were kept out of the press.
One thing was certain. Instead of getting any answers, what Angie had were more questions for her father.
CHAPTER 55
Angie endured a fitful night’s sleep before finally surrendering to her anxiety-induced insomnia. She rose from bed before the sun came out. Her father had called a number of times, but she’d let his calls go to voice mail, same as she did calls from Mike and Maddy. Angie needed to be alone with her thoughts, painful and frustrating as they were. She showered just after sunrise, put on her favorite pink robe, and made a pot of Trader Joe’s coffee. The first cup of the day was life-affirming and trumped her lack of sleep and all the nagging questions about her past.
She had left her office late, only to come home and resume her hunt for information about William Harrington. Her search was going nowhere. As Friday had turned into Saturday, she knew come morning she would have to make the call she had hoped not to make. It wasn’t an impetuous decision, nor was it one she came to lightly. But after wrestling with her options, getting answers trumped Angie’s other concerns. Bryce was a good man, and she regretted putting him in any sort of compromising position, but he was best-equipped to help.
Angie waited until eight o’clock Saturday morning, though her restraint didn’t come easy. She occupied herself with the local news. The lead story was about a house fire in McLean, not about Ivan Markovich. He wasn’t the first criminal to skip bail, and the story didn’t have legs. To the public, Markovich was a pimp who’d gone on the lam. They didn’t understand the implications of human trafficking and why that story should have trumped a fire. Stinger being MIA meant Bryce had probably pulled an all-nighter trying to find him.
Angie was going to add to his misery.
Bryce answered her call after two rings. “Hey there. I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Good thoughts, I hope.”
“Always. I’ve been meaning to call, but we keep running into brick walls here and we’re not getting very far with our hunt. This Stinger guy, man, I dunno. He’s like a phantom or something.”
“Where are you?”
“DC.”
“That close? Can we meet up?”
“I would if I could. Believe me, I’d like to. How are things on your end?”
“Loaded question,” Angie said. “I’m not sure you want the answer.”
“Try me. Though I might have to interrupt you if the phone rings.”
Angie gave Bryce an information dump and he didn’t interrupt her once.
He fell silent for a time, and then said, “I’m reeling here, Angie. II don’t know what to say.”
“Say that you’ll help me,” Angie replied.
“Help you how?”
“Get into the records. I want to know everything about the DeRose identity. We’ve got to be in there someplace.”
“I’m sure you are,” Bryce said.
“I want to know who my father was, what he did, what kind of deal he struck with the Feds. There’s no mention of his big Ponzi scheme anywhere, or any of the mobsters he stole from for that matter, or how his information allegedly brought them down.”
“FYI, that’s a fast track to the unemployment line for me if I get caught.”
“I’d understand if you won’t help,” Angie said.
“It’s not a question of want to help. Of course I want to help. It’s more like, holy crap. Really?”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Look, maybe there aren’t any news reports because the information was used by the Feds, not for any trial, but just to get a sense of how these guys operated. That’s worth handing a low level Ponzi schemer a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card. No disrespect to your dad.”
“None taken, and I like your theory.”
“Good. Then we’re all set.”
“Will you look for me, Bryce?”
He made a heavy sigh. “I have to check with my guy, but okay. No promises here. A lot depends on our pal Markovich. But I’ll do what I can. What are you going to do in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I’m going to talk to someone who might be able to shed some light on my dad’s mysterious past.”
Angie had open-door privileges at the Odettes’ home, same as the Odettes had at her father’s place. She rang the doorbell anyway. It felt like the right thing to do because she hadn’t done a popover visit since her high school days.
Louise Odette opened the front door with a bright smile on her face. Her silver hair, cut just above her shoulders, wasn’t styled for public viewing. Even without the benefit of makeup, she had aged gracefully, and the striking woman Walter had married more than fifty years ago was easy to see.
At eleven o’clock in the morning, she was still draped in her floral patterned bathrobe—the perfect attire for a lazy Saturday morning. Angie wore her Lands End outfit—jeans and a white long-sleeved jersey with a fleece vest. She’d already had three cups of coffee, which in hindsight wasn’t wise given her level of agitation.
“Angie, sweetie, what brings you here?”
“I was hoping to speak with Walter if he’s at home.”
Louise stepped back and invited Angie inside. The Odettes’ home was tastefully furnished, bright and airy, very welcoming, but not at all extravagant. The color palette was whites and blues mostly, with plenty of collectables throughout—sea glass in mason jars, old watering cans, flea market treasures—all artfully arranged in wooden cases and displayed on wall-mounted shelves.
Walt was careful with his money (her dad’s influence perhaps) and spent it on experiences (and grandchildren), but not things. He enjoyed traveling and it wasn’t uncommon for him to be gone for months at time, sometimes with Louise, but sometimes without. The Odettes did retirement the right way, but given Angie’s tax returns, she was not on pace for such adventurousness. She had better odds chasing down adulterers at seventy-five then she did taking off for a few months to soak up the Bora Bora sunshine.
“Everything all right with your Dad?”
“Yeah, fine. Thanks.”
“Walt’s down in his workshop,” Louise said, tightening the tie of her robe as she led Angie into a spacious kitchen, the heart of most any home. “Do you want some coffee?” She glanced at the kitchen clock and noticed the time. “Oh goodness me, you probably want lunch. We’re not always this slow getting started, dear.”
“I’m just going to have water.” Angie helped herself to a glass. She knew where everything was.
“I’ll go grab Walt.”
Moments later, Angie and Walt were seated across from each other at the round kitchen table.
“Talk to me, Angie,” Walt said.
She glanced out the window and made sure Louise was still in her garden, watering plants in her bathrobe. Angie wasn’t sure if Louise was in on the secret.
“I know,” Angie began. “About my mom and dad . . . and me. About our being in witness Protection all these years.”
Walt didn’t look as shocked or surprised as she had expected. �
�Did your dad tell you or did you somehow figure it out on your own?”
“My dad,” Angie said.
Walt returned a grim nod. “You must be in a state of shock. Look, I’m sorry, kiddo. Keeping the secret wasn’t easy, but it was the job. I hope you understand.”
“I do, and I don’t blame you. Honest I don’t.”
Walt gave Angie’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks. That’s a huge relief. You know I love you and I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“I know. But I’m confused about something.”
“I imagine you’re confused about a lot.”
“There’s really nothing about William Harrington and his Ponzi scheme in any of the archives I’ve searched. Nothing I could find about my dad turning state’s evidence, either.”
Birdsong filtered in through the open kitchen windows and the aroma of Louise’s fresh brewed coffee tickled Angie’s senses.
Walt cleared his throat and pursed his lips. “I don’t know anything about that. My job was to help get your dad a new life, and that’s what I did. We were close in age back then, and well, we just became friends. It was the only time in my career with the Marshals that ever happened to me. I really liked your dad and I empathized with his situation. You were too young to remember anything from that time. It was very tense, very scary for your parents, but I assured them it would get better with time and it did. They built new lives as new people, and we’ve been close ever since. I’m afraid there’s not much more to the story than that.”
Angie leaned forward. “But there is, Walt. How is my mom connected to Isabella Conti?”
“Who?”
Angie took the picture out from her purse and explained all she’d learned about the Contis and what she had shared with her father.
“My dad stole from the Mob and Conti was in the Mob, and somehow this girl is connected to my mother.”
Forgive Me Page 31
