Die for You (34 page)

“And how’s that?” I snapped.

He raised his eyebrows at me.

It was dark and we were both exhausted when we crossed the Charles Bridge to return to our hotel. Jack went up to the room and I stopped at the single computer monitor in the lobby to check my e-mail. There were nearly twenty messages, from booksellers and fans who had seen the news, one from my editor asking if everything was okay, another from my sister. The message box was blank but the subject line was: “Goddammit, you stubborn pain in the ass … COME HOME. I love you.”

Then there was one from Detective Grady Crowe, subject “Things YOU should know.”

That said, much of the information you provided has proved valuable to us.

We have not been able to identify the woman you know as S. Her photograph does not match those in any domestic criminal files; Interpol will take longer. But we do know that Ivan Ragan is associated with the Albanian and Russian Mob, that he was recently released from state prison for gun possession. He was arrested after an anonymous tip was phoned into police. I’d bet money that Kristof betrayed him after the Marcus Raine disappearance—probably murder—and theft went down, which is probably why he wound up on that dock about to be fitted for a pair of cement shoes.

A question: I have been going over the banking records for Razor Tech. Every quarter there was a ten-thousand-dollar donation to an orphanage in the Czech Republic. What do you know about this?

Anyway, be careful, Isabel. You’ve got a tiger by the tail. Make sure he doesn’t turn around.

I went back to the computer and printed out Detective Crowe’s e-mail and the attachment, a copy of the transfer order for the money being donated to the orphanage. Then I headed upstairs to Jack. It seemed he had already fallen asleep on the couch, fully clothed, with the television on, tuned to the BBC. There was an image of my face on the screen. The sound was down but there was a ticker running beneath my picture:
Person of interest wanted for questioning relating to crimes in the U.S. Notify police if spotted
. It was such a surreal moment, it almost didn’t register.

One arm rested over his forehead, the other was folded over his middle. I thought about leaving Jack in that moment, my decision to ditch him coming back to me. He was a sound sleeper. I could pack a few things, leave him a note, and take off on him. He’d have to wait here or go home, not knowing where I’d gone. But the truth was I didn’t want to leave him. I wasn’t brave enough.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring at him, suddenly remembering the night we’d shared. What had I felt that night? I tried to remember. How had it compared to what I felt for Marcus? Was it any more or less real? Instead of leaving, I found myself kneeling beside him and touching his face. I felt a familiar warmth in my center, a feeling I associated only with him.

I trusted him completely and I always had, like I trusted my sister, like I trusted myself. Meaning that I understood the way his mind worked, what moved and motivated him, what was important to him. I never felt that way about my husband, I realized. I did trust him for a time, but on some level didn’t I always sense he was a stranger? Is that what kept me with him? The shadow of unknowing; the place that drew me inexorably.

Jack opened his eyes but didn’t startle. We stared at each other for a minute. He raised a hand to push the hair back from my face.

“Did you see your picture on the television?” he asked.

I nodded.

“We’re in trouble if someone at the hotel recognizes you,” he said. I’d kept my hat and glasses on. My hair, my most distinguishable feature, had been caged beneath my cap. I was hoping that was enough.

“Why did you come?” I asked.

He held my eyes, let a beat pass. “You know why. Don’t you?”

I nodded. Then: “You remember?”

He didn’t ask me what I meant. “Of course. Did you think I didn’t?”

“I didn’t know what to think.”

“You left. You were gone when I woke up.”

I thought about it a second. Why had I left him there? Snuck off in the early morning before he woke? I remember thinking that he was my only successful male relationship and I had just screwed it up for good. Maybe if I left, pretended it never happened, we could remain as we had always been.

“I didn’t know how you’d feel in the morning. If there’d be regrets. There’s never been any awkwardness between us. I couldn’t bare it.”

“Isabel,” he said. “You were drunk. I wasn’t, not really.”

“Yes you were.”

“No. I was loose, maybe. Uninhibited. But I knew what I was doing. What I was saying.”

I’ve always loved you, Isabel
. The words hung between us. I looked away from him, sat on the floor. He sat up, planted his feet on the ground.

“I think I took advantage of you that night.”

“No.” I shook my head.

He hung his head, released a slow breath. “Anyway, you can trust me now. I know what you need here. I’ll be that. You take the bed. This couch is pretty comfortable.”

“Jack.”

He reached out and pulled the cap off my head, then ran his hand along my cheek. I took his hand and held it, closed my eyes.

“This is the last thing we need to talk about right now,” he said. “Let’s fix what’s broken, leave everything else be.”

I didn’t argue, and handed him the e-mail, which he read.

“I guess we know where we’re headed tomorrow. The guide will be here at six. Let’s get some rest.”

He understood longing. It lived in him, always had. Even when he’d satisfied every desire, when everything he had wanted was in hand during his years with Isabel, it lived in him. He understood only recently that it was a chronic condition that might be treated but never cured.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that you have a special kind of beauty, very delicate, pure. Like an orchid.”

The color rose on her cheeks and she bowed her head. “Charmer,” she whispered with a smile. She let him take her hand.

Walking past the outdoor cafés where people sat even in winter, coated, beneath heat lamps, they moved through Old Town Square decorated with festive Christmas trees. The craft market, set up for the holiday, was teeming with people. A gypsy played an accordion, and some young people danced with his vested monkey.

They strolled along a narrow street, picking their way through the crowd, and moved toward the Charles Bridge. Kristof remembered how he’d charmed Isabel on this very walk, pointing out all the attractions, speaking to locals in Czech. It hadn’t even been Christmas then. Now it was like a fairy tale, with a light snow falling. It couldn’t have been more romantic. Martina was enchanted.

On the bridge, vendors lined up with their wares—wood carvings, watercolor paintings, marionettes. Prague had turned into a bit of a circus in recent years, mobbed with tourists. Every year since the fall of communism, the city changed, more people came. First the gray cast that had hidden the beauty of the buildings was washed away, revealing pinks and yellows, oranges, elaborately decorated facades. Heavy iron doors were finally unlocked, revealing squares and gardens no one knew were there.

During communism, no one was allowed to have any flourish or show. Now people planted flower boxes in their windows, restored what had been neglected or destroyed. It was a revival that drew the world. Tourists flocked to this jewel of Europe. But Prague wasn’t the Czech Republic, and what visitors saw while following their guidebooks wasn’t really Prague.

“Do the tourists bother you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“You’re frowning.”

“Ah,” he said, forcing a smile. “Maybe they bother me a little.”

He leaned in and gave her a light kiss on the lips. Their first. He pulled away to look at her face—she seemed surprised, pleased. He kissed her again, deeper, snaking an arm around the small of her back. Her body melted into his. He felt nothing really. No warmth, no affection for her. He only felt a physical arousal and the thrill of success, of conquest. He might have felt something different for Isabel, even for Camilla. But those moments were distant, like all the other lives he had lived.

It was then, with the blush of success on his cheek, that he saw that dark river of curls, that confident gait. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating, that she was so much on his mind he was seeing her where she wasn’t.

But no. Isabel moved past him, unseeing. Her face was pale; she looked so unhappy, so angry. He turned away quickly, pretended to guide Martina over to the stone wall. He pointed across the black and brooding water to an outdoor café.

“The best view in Prague is had at those tables,” he said. He wondered if his voice betrayed the adrenaline racing through his system.

“So let’s go,” she said.

Nothing could keep her from coming after you
. Sara’s warnings echoed in his ears.
You’re weak when it comes to women
.

He kept his arm around her and watched Isabel as she disappeared into the throng on the bridge. Just before she did, he realized she wasn’t alone. Beside her was someone, a man he recognized, but it took him a moment to place the face. When he did, a cold rage filled him.

“Are you all right?” Martina asked, maybe sensing the change in his mood. “Marek, are you unwell?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Walk with me.”

He took her hand and he followed after them.

He knew Martina thought it was strange that he’d cut their date short, but he had no choice. He’d made an excuse, seizing on her question about his not feeling well, and brought her back to her hotel, promising to see her tomorrow. He could tell she was hurt. He’d make it up to her.

On the way back to his apartment, he called Sara. She sighed.

“I told you.”

“I need some help.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

He felt a rush of urgency. “
I
need to take care of it, Sara.”

More silence on the line. Then: “As you like it. Where is she staying?”

Even from the road there was a palpable aura of despair, though there was nothing especially grim about the building, gray and squat against the green countryside. I’d read enough about postcommunistera orphanages to be a little worried about what we’d find. But as we drew near, the building and surrounding lawns looked tidy and well kept, if barren in the winter months. Some tall trees must have, in summer, provided leafy green shade over a winding walkway, and kids who just looked like your average U.S. high-school students milled about. One girl read a book under a tree in spite of the cold temperature, another listened to headphones with her eyes closed, sitting on the steps that led up to the double-door entrance. A group of boys gathered off to the side, smoking cigarettes. They looked a little on the gaunt side, a little on the rough side, with very young eyes.

I felt all their gazes fall on us as we emerged from the Mercedes and climbed up the stairs. A youngish American couple with an obviously local guide pulling up in a Mercedes caught the attention of the place. I saw some small forms move to the windows above.

“The healthy Czech and Ukrainian infants go right away,” said our guide, Ales, in his perfect English. “But these Romas will be here until their eighteenth birthday. Then—who knows? They’ll deal drugs, become prostitutes.”

“Romas?” asked Jack.

Ales couldn’t hide his disdain, though he seemed to try to keep his tone neutral. “Gypsies. They cause a lot of problems here politically, economically.”

Marcus had told me about the hatred in Czech for the Romas, the terrible crimes that were committed against them throughout history and to this day. Even the most liberal, educated Czechs cursed the Romas, considered them only thieves and criminals, addicts, cons, a terrible drain on social systems. I thought of a line from one of Emily’s books,
Madeline and the Gypsies:
“For gypsies do not like to stay. They only come to go away.” But the Czech government had outlawed their nomadic lifestyle and then was forced to create housing for them, fostering more resentment and hatred from the Romas and the Czechs for different reasons. “A bad situation without end,” Marcus said. “Like so many bad things.”

“Look how they watch you,” said Ales with a sneer. “They think you are like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, come to take one of them home to your mansion in America.”

He was a young man, maybe just in his early twenties. He was pale, with light blond hair and hazel eyes. There was something wolfish about him, with his hunched shoulders and ranging gait. When he smiled, you could see his teeth were sharp and yellow. I didn’t like him, but we were stuck with him for the time being and he
did seem
to know his way around.

“Did you hear that?” Jack whispered. “He thinks I look like Brad Pitt.” He was trying to be funny but I didn’t have the energy to laugh.

“I hope your car is here when we get back,” said Ales, issuing a throaty laugh that morphed into a smoker’s cough. He had smoked un-apologetically out an open window the whole way here; both Jack and I were too polite to ask him to stop.

I glanced behind me. One of the boys had already left the group and was circling the vehicle while his buddies looked on laughing.

Inside, Ales said something softly in Czech to the young girl at the reception desk. She stood up from her perch, disappeared for a few moments, then returned and uttered a few words. He nodded and ushered us over to a few orange plastic seats.

“I told her you were a journalist doing a story on Czech orphanages. She said someone will come.”

I frowned at him. Not the best tack to take, I thought. Czech orphanages were not exactly the darling of the media. I remembered a recent BBC report that they were still keeping disabled children in “cage beds.” Though I have to admit that in the footage the beds actually looked more like cribs than cages. Still, it was a sensational story that captured world attention.

“Maybe we should just tell them the truth,” I said.

He shook his head. “This is better. You’ll see.”

Minutes turned into nearly an hour and, finally, Ales left us to go chain-smoke on the stairs. Jack had been mostly quiet, tense, barely saying a word all day. We’d been roaming the Czech town I’d visited with Marcus, and other towns in the area, showing pictures and asking questions, receiving only blank stares and shaking heads. Even with the help of our guide, we were treated like interlopers, a nuisance. One woman threw us out of her store.

“She said she doesn’t like Americans,” Ales explained with a sneer. “She thinks you’re all pigs.”

“That’s nice,” said Jack. “Great.”

Ales laughed, finding some humor that eluded us. By the time we’d arrived at the orphanage, I was demoralized and exhausted. By the looks of him, Jack wasn’t feeling much better.

“I wonder what it’s like to grow up in a place like this,” he said when Ales left.

I looked around at the gray institutional walls, the heavy metal doors, the harsh fluorescent lights.

“Lonely,” I said.

A young woman emerged from behind a closed door. Petite and pale, with blond hair pulled back dramatically from her face, she wore strangely garish red lipstick, though her outfit—narrow gray pencil skirt, white oxford button-down, and plain black pumps—was very conservative, professional.

“I’m Gabriela Pavelka, the director here. Can I help you?”

“You speak English,” I said, relieved. I didn’t want to have another conversation through Ales.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. I could tell in the way her shoulders squared that she was proud of this fact. “Are you a journalist?”

“No,” I said, looking back at Ales, who was leaning against a railing talking to a young girl with a tattoo on her face, something tribal looking around the eyes. She was smiling at him, took a cigarette he offered.

“Our guide misunderstood. Is there someplace we can talk?”

“May I ask what this is about? I am not at liberty to discuss anything with the media.”

“It’s about a private donation.”

“We can talk in my office,” she said, moving toward the door that led back into the building. I glanced over at Jack who lifted a hand indicating that he’d stay where he was, then I followed the director. I assumed Jack felt the need to keep his eye on our guide and the rental car, which didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Gabriela escorted me to a small drab office. The first thing I noticed was a wedding photo—her in white lace, kissing a handsome man with a wide jaw and short-cropped brown hair. Then, a small diamond ring and thin gold band on her slender finger. On her desk: A cup of coffee gone cold. A shiny red BlackBerry. A copy of
British Vogue
, hastily stuck under stacks of files. There was another picture of her in a frame with a dark-haired child on her hip. I recognized the background as Central Park.

“You’ve been to New York,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “I was an au pair for three years after college. This is where I learn better English.”

“Your English is excellent,” I told her, meaning it but also playing to her pride in the matter.

“Thank you,” she said, her professional smile suddenly seeming more genuine. “You’re American. From New York?”

“Yes.”

She picked up the picture and gazed at it. “I miss it. I loved it there.”

“Why did you come home?”

“Because too many young people are leaving the Czech Republic and not coming back. If we all leave, what happens to this country? I wanted to do something important with children, so I came here to run this orphanage.” She swept a hand around her.

“It’s important work.”

“Yes,” she said gravely, looking down at the picture for another moment, then returning it to her desk. “Now, the matter you wanted to discuss …”

From my bag, I extracted the copy of the transfer order Detective Crowe had attached to the e-mail, held it in my hand. I stared at it for a moment while she waited.

“Have you ever been lied to?” I asked her. I saw her eyes shoot over to her wedding picture.

“Everyone’s been lied to,” she said with a shrug. “That’s life. People lie.”

I told her what happened to me, leaving out some of the gory details. I saw her inch up in her seat as I spun the tale for her. By the time I was done, she was practically lying on her desk, she had leaned so far forward.

“I’m looking for him now,” I said. “I don’t know if you can help me, but this is the only connection I have.”

She shook her head slowly. “It’s terrible. I’m sorry. But I don’t know what I can do.”

“Do you know anything about the man who makes these donations?”

“I know of the donations, of course,” she said. “To us, this is a lot of money, forty thousand U.S. dollars a year. The donations come anonymously. The rumor is that the man who makes them lived out his boyhood here, applied for scholarships to the U.S., and left to go to school there when he turned eighteen. That now he is very rich and successful and wants to help other orphans like himself. But this is just a rumor.”

Outside the window, there was a wide expanse of flat land. In the distance, a large black bird flew a low wide circle in the air. I felt myself coming to a dead end. Yes, the money had come here. But so what?

“My husband’s real name is Kristof Ragan. He has a brother named Ivan. Do you have old records?”

She was already shaking her head before I finished speaking. “Since the fall of communism, all new records are being computerized. Old records were incomplete, nonexistent, or destroyed. In recent years there’s been a lot of purging.”

“But there must be something. Maybe someone who has been here for many years.”

“By purging, I don’t just mean old records. This is a privately run orphanage now but once orphanages like this were run by the state. The practices were archaic, the officials corrupt to an extreme. We’ve had to distance ourselves from those old ways to better serve the children in our care.”

She must have seen the despair on my face, offered a sad smile. What had I hoped? That someone here would know him, that they’d have a current address? That they’d open up old records for me and I’d find something there? I don’t know. I realized how pointless this trip had been. My husband was gone. His history was lost. Had he grown up in a place like this, in a communist orphanage, afraid and alone? Had anything he’d told me about himself been true? I had to face the fact that I might never know.

“I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “I don’t know how to help you. You know more about our anonymous donor than I do.”