supposed to be – so Mona
could go back to being Mona and marry him.”
“But why was Jane doing
it? Did she know your parents?”
“No. Mona had to tell her
about them that time when we went to her house. Mona thought they
worked for the government, so the people who hurt them must be spies.
It took Jane a long time to find out that my parents didn’t
work for the government.”
“Then Jane was Mona’s
friend?”
“I don’t think so.
Dennis was the one who called her.”
Judge Kramer could imagine the
F.B.I, agent. He was going to make his career sorting all this out.
Not the least interesting question was why a prominent Washington
defense attorney had the telephone number of a woman who made people
disappear. They would be going over the record of Morgan’s
former clients right now to see if there were any on their Most
Wanted List.
Even Ambrose seemed to sense
that he had crossed the trail of an unfamiliar creature. “The
lawyer knew her?” he repeated. “Did he pay her?”
“No. Dennis said he tried,
but she had decided that so many people loved me that I must be a
fine boy.”
“Hmmmm…”
Judge Kramer had a vision of
Ambrose’s raised eyebrows, as he had seen them during
cross-examinations.
“Did anybody say anything
else about her?”
“Dennis. He said that from
then on we had to do everything that Jane said, exactly. It didn’t
matter what anybody else said, we should listen to her.”
“So she was the boss.”
“He said that he had done
everything he could to find out things, but the only way to solve
this was to walk into court and surprise everybody and say who I was.
He said the bad people knew I must be alive, so they would be
expecting me to come. Jane was the one who knew how to get us past
them.”
“So you all took an
airplane to California?”
“No. Jane said we had to
drive all the way or the bad people might see us. Every day we got a
new car. She would go to a place where they rented them, and then
drive all day and then leave it and rent another one. Then we were in
California.”
“What then? Did you stay
in a hotel?”
“No. Jane said that if
people were after me, they would be watching hotels near the
courthouse, because they would be expecting us to do that. So we went
to the courthouse right away.”
“What time was it?”
“About dinnertime. Jane
opened the lock on an office and we stayed there all night. I fell
asleep on a couch.”
“What happened when you
woke up?”
“I heard Dennis come into
the office. He had been out in the building by himself. He said they
had pulled a trick on us, and now we had to go to a different
building. So we ran out and got into our car and drove again. Jane
said on the way that it didn’t feel right.”
“Did she say anything
else?”
“She asked Dennis if there
was any way of doing this besides actually showing up in court. Could
we call and ask for a delay or something. He said that he didn’t
know who was honest and who wasn’t. A phone call wouldn’t
stop the case for sure, but it would tell the bad guys I was coming
for sure. Then he said if they fooled the judge they could do
something that day, right away. I don’t know what. Jane drove
for a long time without saying anything. Then she said, ‘is
there any way to know what’s in the building?’”
“What did she mean by
that?”
“She said, ‘We want
to fade in. If Timmy’s the only boy in the crowd, we’re
in trouble.’ She said something about adoption and custody.”
“I see,” said
Ambrose. “Did Mr. Morgan know the answer?”
“We stopped at a phone
booth and he looked in the book and made a call. He came back and got
into the car and made Jane scoot over, so he could drive. He said he
and Mona would be getting a divorce before they got married, and Jane
would carry his briefcase like she was their lawyer. But we would go
to Courtroom 22 on the fifth floor instead.”
“Did Jane agree?”
“At first. But then we got
near the