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Lane didn’t say a word until we got past the grounds. “You saved me,” he said. “I was going to have you killed.”
“And you laughed about it,” I said.
Lane quieted down at that.
Emma was thrilled to see us when I brought him back to the boat.
“Daddy!” She gave him a hug, and then she came to me with a big, wet kiss on the mouth. I almost told her that her father was going to have me killed but I kept that to myself instead.
Aaron grinned at all of us. “The legendary Jack Baker does it again.”
I got in the boat, not really feeling like celebrating. Lane talked some with Emma. Apparently, he was actually excited to see his grandson being born. We still didn’t know the baby’s gender, but Emma humored him. I spoke with Aaron about Karen’s predicament.
“If she doesn’t fight them, the TKB won’t kill her,” Aaron said. It was a relief, but the question still remained: why were they even there?
Aaron answered that with pride. “Remember that favor I owed Dr. Chao? It wasn’t ventilators. It was the Reeds and the Kings. They’ll have to come back to the US to get their mansion back.”
I was floored by Aaron’s resourcefulness, and by the fact that he had gone above and beyond to help me.
Lane, however, was already getting buyer’s remorse from coming with us.
“Thisis how you want to live?” he asked Emma.
I shot Lane a warning look and he shut up.
Emma laughed. “It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with Jack,” she said.
23
EMMA
Iwas pleased with how adept Jack was at handling my every need. It was true that my father was an incredibly wealthy man, but Jack was able to take care of me in ways that money couldn’t buy. Jack’s friend Aaron had been immensely helpful and together we’d showed my father how to get a new identity. We spent some time quizzing him about his new name, Lester Prynne. I picked the name out myself, after some probing.
He had told me his account of what happened, which was as I suspected. My father had planned on selling out Jack so that he could continue to grow his wealth.
“Are you really wealthy without your family?” I asked my father.
Dad didn’t say much. He just brooded. “Wealthy is wealthy,” he said eventually.
“Quit your yapping,” Jack demanded.
I was turned on by how Jack commanded any situation. Even when he was in danger, he was still capable of making it all seem so easy. Handling my father was a tricky thing, the ultimate sacrifice Jack had made for me. We made our way into the seedy restaurant’s backroom to get my father’s fake documentation, an airport staple. Today it was much busier, so getting to the backroom involved much more subtlety. Jack was very clear that we weren’t to draw attention to ourselves. My father was the biggest concern, for both of us. We each went in one by one, after short intervals. Jack knew that Daddy didn’t like to wait, so he made me go first, then my father, then himself. Leaving my father completely alone just wasn’t an option, we were so scared that he would try and run off. To my father’s credit, once we were all in the backroom, he seemed to have begun to accept that we were really going to leave the country and start new lives.
“What can I salvage?” my father was asking Jack.
As annoyed as I was that my father wanted to hold onto every dollar, it wasn’t a bad idea to have some of his money for life out there. Jack whispered to my father, and Daddy cursed in frustration. I went to calm him down, but Jack put a hand out.
“Let’s just wait till we get settled before we start making withdrawals,” Jack said to my father.
“I don’t want to wait,” my father said. “It’s my money and I want it now.”
“It won’t be too bad,” I said trying to calm my father down. Of course, I didn’t know what exactly Jack had in mind.
Jack smiled at me, then said, “Emma’s the reason you’re alive. Those mafiosos would be taking your money right now if it weren’t for Aaron.”
I was surprised. “Aaron?”
Jack nodded. “It’s going to be a bit, but we have everything taken care of.”
