The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  60

  On a certain level, it was heartwarming to hear Cristina’s teacher, Candace Foster, speak so glowingly of how much my one and only ECHO employee had developed during her semester of ILA—the modern vernacular for what I’d called English when I was in high school.

  “On her first day of class, she was timid, afraid to read anything out loud, afraid to offer an opinion about what we were reading. But after a week of school, I could see a new, more confident person begin to sprout. She was eager to share her thoughts about the reading homework, and by the third week, she was reading a passage from our book of the week. It gave me such joy.”

  Candy—she’d asked me to call her that when we sat down for our first so-called parent-teacher meeting—wore pink-rimmed glasses. They sat on her high cheeks, which looked like they’d been supplemented by implants. I knew they weren’t, because her mother, Maxine Foster, my high school English teacher, had a similar bone structure.

  “That’s really cool.” I nodded, crossing my legs. “What you’ve done for her—helping her with her dyslexia, allowing her to understand it’s not a sign of her intelligence—is awesome. Thank you.”

  She smiled, and her cheeks swelled. I was sitting across from her at the desk in her classroom.

  “It’s really all my pleasure. I get so much out of seeing these adolescents grow, especially someone like Cristina, who I know hasn’t had the easiest life.”

  “She told you about her past, her mother, her mother’s boyfriend?”

  I could see a tear bubble in her eye. “She was sitting right where you were. I had asked her why she thought she had a problem opening up, trusting people. She burst out in tears. I went over there and hugged her. We talked another hour. By the end of that time, she said she didn’t want to live her life being afraid, of reading or anything else.”

  Candy had many of the qualities of what any parent, or guardian, would want from a teacher. She was just like her mother, the woman who literally changed my path in life. If she hadn’t taught me twelfth-grade English, I probably would have never gone to college and subsequently would have settled for any old job and any old guy. She had given me hope that I could change the course of my life.

  “Cristina’s had a tough go, but I’m proud of her. Overcoming a mom with severe addiction and mental issues is tough,” I said.

  “Boy, don’t I know it.”

  I tilted my head. “Your mom, she was like a rock. She doesn’t have those issues, does she?”

  She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her eyes wide for a second. “She’s a woman of amazing strength. Like my dad. They’ve needed to be. My brother—and I love him—but Harrison has been quite challenging.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, he has autism. It’s at the severe end of the spectrum.”

  “I’m sorry. Hasn’t been easy, I’m sure.”

  “Dad’s a doctor, knows a lot about the condition, and it still hasn’t been easy.” She sighed, then her shoulders slumped. It was as though her energy balloon had been popped.

  “I’ve read somewhere that there has been new research in that field. Is there any hope for a cure, or at least some new ways to help treat it?”

  “As a matter of fact…” She paused, looked out the window for a long second. Even behind her oversized glasses, I saw eyes that were in pain, eyes that had a story to tell. Would she tell me?—that was the question. I took in a breath, content with her taking her time, to find the courage or just to feel comfortable. But then she drew a straight line with her lips. She was retreating.

  “Where were we?” she asked, blinking a couple of times before focusing her gaze back on me.

  I wasn’t about to give up. “I have this friend. His son, Ethan, has autism. I can see glimpses of hope in him that would take your breath away. So many parts of him are amazing.” I took a hard swallow, squeezed my eyes shut for a moment.

  She took my cue, continuing the thought. “And there are other times where you wonder if he’s really all there, if he understands emotions like joy and love.”

  I offered a tight-lipped smile. I removed a tissue from my purse and dabbed my eyes. The tears were real. I’d been thinking about the fear that Ethan must have felt during those hours he was held captive. And I knew the torment that Stan had suffered. It had been nearly unbearable to witness, to see this beast of a man—albeit a few pounds lighter than his usual weight—devoured by the emotion of almost losing his son. Yes, his son had autism. Yes, his son was challenging, to the point where he and Beverly might have wanted to give up. But they never did.

  I imagined that all parents go through times when they wished their child was different—more of this, less of that. But parents who truly cared didn’t walk away. They found a way to get past the adversity and to ultimately see the best in their child. I heard Stan say the other day, with a tear in his eye, that Ethan was his hero. His emotion was real and deep from the heart. But to me, Stan and Beverly were just as heroic. Did they hope that somehow their child would miraculously be cured or at least have his condition improve? Without a doubt. But would they be willing to kill other children with the same condition just to make that wish came true? Hell no. I’d been around so many bad parents, people who either purposely were out to inflict harm on a child—on me when I was young—or who just didn’t give a damn. That only made it easier to identify the ones who were at the opposite end of the parental spectrum. Like Stan and Beverly.

  But not every child has a Stan and Beverly as parents. Or even an Armand.

  “The day before I graduated, your mother told me that she got such joy out of seeing kids grow, similar to what you just said as you’ve worked with Cristina.”

  She gave me an aw-shucks smile.

  “But…” I said with a heavy sigh, “my friend may not see his son reach the same milestone. Too many issues. Too much heartache. I’m just not sure how much more he and his wife can take.”

  I was becoming quite a good fibber.

  “Ivy, but there is hope.” She placed her hands face down on the desk. “That research you spoke of, it’s years behind what’s really going on in the field.”

  I sat a little taller in my chair.

  She licked her lips, as if she were in a struggle—her natural desire to help battling the side of her that told her to stay quiet. She took in a breath, then said, “My father is conducting a research study. Actually, he’s doing much more than that. He’s refining a surgical technique that might completely alter the neurological connections of a child with autism.” She brought her hands together as if she were about to break out in prayer.

  “Now? This is happening now?” I asked with excitement in my voice.

  “He’s made tremendous progress over the last six to twelve months.”

  “But how has he done something that hasn’t been done before and no one knows about it?”

  She bit into her lip as a tear escaped her eye and trailed down her face. “Harrison might not have that much longer to live. Not in the way that we could define living.”

  I nodded.

  “If you look at the history of medicine, the biggest leaps in treating conditions were when sacrifices were made.”

  “By all of the doctors and nurses...” I said.

  “And the patients.”

  I nodded, as if I were getting her line of thinking. “Right, I see what you’re saying.”

  “At their lab, they have a long hallway with pictures of all the kids who have made the ultimate sacrifice. They honor those young boys and girls. Without them, we would not be able to find a cure. And now we have hope.”

  “Hope,” I repeated, fighting every urge not to jump across the desk and slap her.

  “I’m sure they’re looking down on us right now, happy that their lives could actually mean something.”

  I stood up and pulled back my sweater to show a small wire and microphone. Her jaw dropped as the door to her classroom opened. A half-dozen detectives and
FBI agents swarmed the room. She and I held our gaze for an extra couple of beats as a cop recited the Miranda rights to her, then cuffed her. She began to mumble. A few seconds later, her mumbles grew into an eruption. She was kicking and screaming, throwing every four-letter word at me.

  Drowning her out, I turned and saw Stan walking in the room, Nick at his side. I walked over and hugged Stan. “Thank you, Ivy. I know how hard that was on you.”

  The room cleared. It was just Stan and me. I sniffled, and he pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to me.

  I winced, then said, “Handkerchiefs went out of style about three decades ago.”

  He stuffed it back into his pocket, and we strolled out of the room. “Have you decided how I’m going to pay off my bet?”

  We were in the hallway, and my eyes settled on a map that a class had put together, showing all of their travels during their high school years. An idea came to mind. “I want you and Bev to take a cruise…after you run the Boston Marathon. And it’s on me.”

  “But I should owe you. Are you screwing with me?”

  I smiled, shook my head. “It’s what I want you to do. You guys deserve it. I’ll take care of Ethan while you’re gone, with a little help from Cristina and Saul. And I bet Zahera will even help out. I know she will.”

  “Damn, Bev would love that. I’ve never taken her on a vacation like that.”

  Now he was getting glassy-eyed. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “I don’t know what to say, Ivy.”

  “You may be cussing me out tomorrow when I show up on your doorstep for another run. It’s time to take your training to the next level.”

  “Bring it,” he said with a smile I’d never seen before.

  We walked through the school, allowing me some time to think back to my high school years, and Mrs. Foster’s English class that had set the course for my life. The idea that the woman who had changed my life was more than likely in the circle of people willing to sacrifice a child’s life just to find a cure for autism…well, it was difficult to comprehend. But after some digging by Stan and Nick, it was plausible.

  Dr. Julius Foster was brilliant, but he’d overstepped his boundaries. He was the brainchild of the entire operation: the kidnappings, the fake kidnappings to help infuse funding, and even the trafficking of child body parts. He would be arrested and likely would serve the rest of his life behind bars. His wife, my teacher, might be able to strike a plea deal and serve a shorter term, from what Nick had said. Same with Candy Foster. They deserved punishment, but I also knew that the world was losing two great teachers.

  Udovenko, from what authorities had been able to ascertain, had likely retreated back to Eastern Europe.

  It was both ironic and sad that, in the end, the man who could offer the gift of life, had taken the most lives in his quest to help his son. I’d seen parents do anything for their kids, even to the point of harming others. Were they just wired differently? Or were most parents just lucky enough to not find themselves in a position so hopeless and despondent to the point of having their core values completely altered?

  Zahera had spent the days after our conversation questioning the principles of her father and of Zeke. But she told me something one day that I found insightful. “Love isn’t blind, although those who are in love sometimes can’t see. And it sure as hell isn’t pure. There just isn’t such a thing as perfect love. Which makes sense. None of us are perfect. But if there’s any quest worth continuing, it’s the one looking for that great love. The one that gives us the most hope.”

  She cried on my shoulder one last time after she uttered those words. And I cried right along with her.

  61

  “You first,” I said to Saul as a candle flickered between us at the kitchen table.

  He stuck a finger in the envelope, then looked up at me. “What if I don’t want to?”

  “You’re going to act like you’re ten all of a sudden?”

  “But we’ve had a great night. An incredible meal; we watched a romantic comedy…”

  “You just thought that Scarlett Johansson was hot.”

  He winked. “She couldn’t hold your bra strap.”

  I looked at my chest. “Actually, it’s the opposite.”

  “You’re the bomb, Ivy. You’re the coolest.”

  “That’s what I was aiming for.”

  He reached over, put his hand on mine. “You know what I mean.”

  I did, even if he was afraid to use the L word. We both were. But I had to let him off the hook. “It’s been a great night, you’re right. So let’s end it with a bang and—”

  He jumped out of his chair.

  “Where you going?”

  “The bedroom. You said…”

  I clapped out a laugh. “Later. If you’re lucky. Now open the letter.”

  He did. It only took five seconds for me to see the news. He broke out in tears…tears of joy. I was in his lap, my arms squeezing his neck. “I knew you’d do it. You’re smart, tenacious, and you’ve got a cute ass.”

  A few minutes later, after we’d toasted with glasses of champagne, he stood behind me as I stared at the laptop.

  “You going to hit enter?” he asked.

  “I don’t know if I want to know. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfect sense. But you keep wavering. I’d hit enter and see what happens. Keep your expectations low, but leave open the possibility that you could be surprised.”

  I took another glance at the online form I’d filled out. If I hit enter, the private investigative firm who owned this website would reach out to me to start the process of finding my real parents. They were specialists in the field.

  “Okay, here I go.” I punched enter.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Relieved. At least I made the effort. We’ll see what happens, like you said. But if I didn’t try, I’d always wonder.”

  He kissed the top of my head.

  I reached up and put my hand on his face. “You ready to end the night?”

  He splayed his arms, walked in front of me. “But I thought you said…?” He stopped short.

  I played dumb. “What?”

  “Well, nothing I guess.”

  I threw off my shirt and ran into the bedroom. “Let’s go, Saul,” I called out. “It’s time to end the night with a bang.”

  And we did.

  IN The End

  An Ivy Nash Thriller

  Book 6

  Redemption Thriller Series - 12

  (Includes Alex Troutt Thrillers, Ivy Nash Thrillers,

  and Ozzie Novak Thrillers)

  By

  John W. Mefford

  1

  To watch a person crumble before your eyes is a little like witnessing the demolition of an outdated stadium. You feel like you can stop it—you hope like hell you can stop it—if only you can somehow remove all the detonators before any irreversible damage occurs. But very quickly, as the first pillar buckles, you realize it’s too late. And the exercise of stopping the destruction suddenly becomes pointless.

  As a helpless bystander, you feel a hammering thud to your body with each detonation, all the while knowing that the building—a metaphor for the woman sitting on the other side of my desk—is enduring one targeted blast after another.

  The cumulative effect, as I watched this grief-stricken mother, was as though an atomic bomb had released a mushroom cloud, massive and far-reaching in its destruction.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, and I wondered if a tortuous memory had just registered, leading to another invisible internal explosion. Like a neutron bomb. The kind that “kills people and spares buildings.”

  I never understood that premise on so many levels. But that’s not my battle. I’m a private investigator by trade; someone who has a yearning—actually, a calling—to help kids, those who have little or no voice in society. Well, if you include social media, kids, unlike yesteryear, have countless opportunities to express themselves i
n all sorts of ways, to people they know and don’t know. But rarely do adults listen, to hear the cries for help before damage occurs. And damage, as it were, can be manifested in ways most people can’t imagine; nor do they want to imagine.

  Through my years as a special investigator at Child Protective Services in San Antonio and even now as the owner of my little PI firm called ECHO, I have found a few adults who do care. Typically, these are the stalwarts who feel every little prick of pain their kids feel. They are the kind of parents who try with all their might to connect with their kids, even during those intense, troubling teenage years, a time when many would rather just give up and walk away. They are the heroes of society because they never give up—on hope or their kids. Consuela Romero was one of those parents.

  She clutched about a dozen tissues against her nose, her arm quivering from applying pressure against her face, so full of red blotches. For about the twentieth time since she and her husband had entered my office, I wanted to reach out and take her in my arms, to let her know that everything would be okay.

  But I knew it wouldn’t be okay. It hadn’t been in her past. And it wasn’t now either. After all she’d endured, she was well beyond any type of consoling.

  This unplanned meeting early on a chilly November morning with Consuela and Raul Romero had begun with Consuela conveying her concern over the disappearance of her daughter, Mia. Consuela showed me a picture of her daughter, and her smile could light up a room. Mia was an affable, cute seventeen-year-old, who was an honor student and the captain of her high school basketball team.

  But less than five minutes into what had already been a mostly one-sided conversation, she happened to mention the name “Daniel,” her son and eldest child. A tangent was born, and for good reason. I soon learned how Daniel had died just one year earlier, almost to the day. That was when Raul began to break down and excused himself to the restroom. He hadn’t returned in the last twenty minutes.