Текст книги "Pandora's Daughter "

Автор книги: Iris Johansen

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CHAPTER FIVE

"MEGAN." PHILLIP HURRIED EAGERLY toward her as he saw her coming down the hill. "Are you all right? I was worried about you."

"I'm fine." She wasn't fine. She was angry and frightened and she wanted to get away from here, away from Grady. She could feel Grady's eyes on the center of her spine as she moved toward Phillip. "There was something I had to do."

Phillip's gaze was searching her face. "And did you do it?"

"Hell, yes," Grady answered for her as he reached them. "She was fighting off those echoes while I was running up the hill toward the cave. I couldn't believe she could do it." His lips tightened grimly. "And then she came up with an unexpected tidbit or two that surprised me."

"If you can call murder a tidbit," Megan said coldly. She turned to Phillip. "Did you know about what happened there twelve years ago?"

"Of course, he did," Grady said roughly. "Though I admit I filled him in with broad strokes that wouldn't offend his conscience. There was no use making him worry." He glanced uneasily around the deserted beach and then nodded at the Camry parked a few yards away. "Phillip, you drive her back to your house. I'll follow. I want to scout around and make sure that—"

"I don't need anyone with me," Megan said. "And I may not go back to the house. I have some thinking to do." That was an understatement, she thought bitterly. Her mind was whirling and she couldn't process anything in that chaos.

"You'll go back to the house," Grady said. "Or I'll trail behind you until you settle down and let me talk to you. Take your choice."

"I don't have to make a choice, you bastard." She glared at him. "I don't need you. Go ahead. Try to hurt me. Let loose your damn echoes. I'll handle them without your help."

"They're not my echoes," he said quietly. "They're yours and I've never wanted to hurt you."

"Bullshit."

She started toward the Camry.

"Let me go with you, Megan." Phillip hurried after her. "When you calm down, you'll realize you can use a friend in—"

"Down!"

Megan was knocked off her feet as Grady pushed her and Phillip to the sand. A bullet splintered the glass of the windshield of the Camry! "Shit." Phillip was crawling toward her. "Get her in the car, Grady."

"You get her in the car." Grady was covering her body with his own. "The gunfire is coming from around the side of the house over there. I saw a glint on metal. We can't risk exposing her to that—"

Another bullet plowed into the sand next to her.

Another bullet followed.

Grady was cursing. "Damn him to hell." He rolled them both over behind the car. "Stay here. I'm going after him."

"Who is—"

But Grady was gone.

Don't just lie here. Get inside the car. She'd left her purse underneath the front seat. She had to reach her cell phone and call 911. She started crawling toward the passenger door.

Another bullet hit the side-view mirror.

Where the hell was Grady?

And where was Phillip?

And then she saw him.

SHE WAS KNEELING IN THE SAND BESIDE Phillip when Grady came back to the car ten minutes later.

"I've been waiting for you," she said jerkily. "He's been shot. We have to get him to a hospital. I called 911, but I don't know when they'll get here."

"Any minute." Grady fell to his knees beside Phillip. "The sirens scared away the shooter. We were playing cat and mouse, but he jumped into his car and took off. How is he?"

"I don't know. The bullet plowed across his skull. He's unconscious." Her teeth bit hard into her lower lip. Hold on. Don't let go. She had to help Phillip. "Head wounds can go either way. Any trauma to the cerebral hemisphere is chancy. He could be okay tomorrow. Or he could be a vegetable. I slowed the bleeding. That's all I can do." Her hands clenched into fists. "I feel so damn helpless. I want to help him, Grady."

"We'll get him the best help, Megan," Grady said. "At the best hospital. I promise you."

"Why would anyone shoot Phillip?" she whispered. "He was good, Grady. Even you couldn't make him into something he wasn't."

"Then obviously he must have been guarded by the angels," Grady got to his feet as he saw the flashing lights of the ambulance spearing the darkness. "They've come for him. It's a bullet wound and there will be questions. I'll take care of them. You go with Phillip to the hospital."

She nodded, her gaze never leaving Phillip's face. She felt as if she were splintering inside. She wanted to scream and pound her fists into the sand. "I won't leave him. I'll never leave him."

PHILLIP DID NOT REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS in the next ten hours.

The next day he was transported by helicopter from the local Myrtle Beach Hospital to the neural ward at Emory Hospital in Atlanta.

"No change?" Grady asked the next morning as he came into the waiting room where Megan was sitting. He handed her a cup of coffee. "Test results?"

She shook her head. "They think there may be brain damage, but they're not sure. He just won't wake up. They say he may never wake up." She had to wait a moment to steady her voice. "He's in a coma. They have him hooked up to those machines to keep him alive." She swallowed. "I don't know how many times I've ordered patients put on life support. But this is different. This is Phillip."

"I'm sorry," Grady said gently. "He's a fine man. He didn't deserve this."

"No, but he got it, didn't he? It doesn't matter if he deserved it or not." She looked away from him. "I've been thinking a lot about Phillip while I've been sitting here. I never had anyone but my mother who cared about me until he came into my life. That's why it hurt so much when I thought he'd betrayed me. I felt... fooled. I thought he'd just been pretending."

"He did care about you, Megan."

"I know that. I could feel it. And it wasn't any of that psychic business. He was... We were a team." She shook her head. "He said he wished I could have been his daughter. I wished that too. My father died before I was born and I never knew him. But no one could have been more loving than Phillip. You can't imagine how good he was to me."

"I can imagine."

"Of course, you brought us together. But you know, that doesn't even bother me any longer. The important thing is that we had those years together." She drew a deep breath. "I have questions but I don't want to think about anything but Phillip right now." She had to talk to Dr. Pretkay, the specialist they'd brought down from Johns Hopkins. Not that they'd given her much hope. It was only one more avenue to explore. "I just have to know one thing. That bullet wasn't meant for Phillip, was it? He was shooting at me."

Grady nodded. "You were the prime target. Though I'm not saying that the shooter might not have wanted to eliminate all witnesses."

"And that night I was run off the highway?"

"Deliberate. Probably the same man."

"Why?"

"Nothing you did. The man who killed your mother wanted to eliminate every member of her family."

"What? That sounds like some Mafia vendetta."

"Molino would appreciate that comparison. He grew up in Sicily in the shadow of the Mafia."

"Molino? He's the one who killed my mother?"

"He gave the order. The man who actually killed her was one of his men, Ted Dagnos."

"Why would Molino want my mother dead?"

"Revenge."

"Revenge for what?"

"It's a long story and you said you didn't want to think about it now. I'll be here to answer questions when you're ready." He studied her. "You've accepted the fact that I wasn't her killer, haven't you?"

"As I said, I've had a lot of time to think sitting here. It was hard for me to accept that she was murdered." She added unsteadily. "But I have to do that. Whatever other madness and mental chaos I went through in that cave two nights ago, I do believe that my mother's death was not an accident. Everything else is still suspect. I have to prove it to myself." She immediately shook her head. "No, you're right. Not now. But I'm going to want all the answers, Grady. You'd better be prepared to give them."

"Any day. Anytime." He added soberly, "Let me know when you hear something more about Phillip."

She nodded jerkily. "It should be soon."

"Would you like me to stay?"

She gave him a level glance. "No, I can't say I like the idea of leaning on a man who's been as deceptive and manipulative as you've been with me."

He smiled. "You have a point. And I don't think you're afraid of me manipulating you anymore."

"I'm not." But it was true she no longer felt the danger from him was immediate. In the past days he had been with her constantly, fast, efficient, arranging everything for Phillip. He never intruded but was always a quiet presence in the background. "And you weren't the one shooting at me at the beach. You may have saved my life. I'm sure it was probably for purely selfish reasons, but you clearly don't want me dead."

"Very clearly." He turned toward the door. "You have my cell number. Call me if you need me."

"Where are you going?"

He shrugged. "You don't want me here, but I have to keep and eye on you. I'll be around. Give me five minutes' notice and I'll be here. I should tell you that I've asked Jed Harley to stop by and check on you occasionally. I don't want you to think he's one of Molino's pet vipers."

"Who's Jed Harley?"

"I've hired him to keep an eye on you. He's a good man."

"How good? In what way?"

"In all kinds of ways. Guns, knives, karate, tai chi. If you don't need him to put down someone, he's very good at keeping you entertained."

"I don't believe I'm in need of a court jester."

"Harley doesn't care what you need. He is what he is. Since you're having trouble enduring my presence I have to make sure you're safe. Nothing's going to happen to you, Megan." He walked out of the waiting room.

She felt a surge of comfort at those last words. She was feeling very much alone at this moment and was filled with confusion and sadness. Grady was not motivated by love or kindness but he wanted her protected. She would need that protection if she was to work her way through this bewildering maze.

"HI. BAD SCENE, HUH? Anything I can do?"

She opened her eyes to see a tall, loose-limbed man in a red Hawaiian shirt standing in the doorway. She straightened in her chair. "No, thank you."

"Sure?" He came into the waiting room. "I'm not just a busybody poking my nose into your business. That would piss me off too. My name is Jed Harley and I've been paid to stick my nose in your business." He dropped down in the chair beside her. "That should make you feel better. Protect and soothe. That's my job."

She stared at him. He was in his mid-thirties, tanned, with sandy hair and bright blue eyes. In that Hawaiian shirt he looked more like a beachcomber than the man Grady had described. "Your bedside manner is very unusual, Mr. Harley."

"Harley." He grinned. "And you're not in bed. Actually, my bedside manner is pretty damn good. I once had a job as an EMT driver and I was comforting as hell. The patients loved me. I just fit the manner to the situation. You're not a lady who would appreciate someone patting her on the back and soothing her. You're very independent."

"How do you—Oh, for Pete's sake, are you some kind of freak like Grady?"

"Lord, no." He shuddered. "Perish the thought. I relish the simple, uncomplicated life. I'm just a decent judge of character. I've been keeping my eye on you and you're not difficult to read. I feel as if I know you already."

"How nice," she said dryly. "Lately, I've been wondering if I know myself."

He grinned. "Talk to me. I'll set you straight." He leaned back in his chair. "Now, I'll shut up and let you relax. No, there's no way you'll relax. But you won't have to put up with my bullshit. Under other circumstances I'm sure you'd find it fascinating but not now. Just lean back in your chair, know I'm here for you and I'll do whatever I can."

To her amazement she found herself doing as he told her and leaning back in her chair. There was something curiously soothing and gentle beneath that brash exterior. "You don't have to be here for me. I'm sure Grady didn't mean you to sit here and hold my hand."

"So I'm an overachiever. I believe that life should be all parties and fireworks and it brings me down when I see someone who's been left out of the party. I have to try to do something about it." He crossed his arms across his chest and stretched his legs out before him. "Now ignore me until you need me."

Bizarre. He was totally bizarre.

But oddly comforting.

She closed her eyes again, her hands tightening on the arms of the chair, waiting.

Ten minutes passed.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

"Megan." Suddenly Harley's hand was covering her own. Warmth, strength, comfort. "I think that's your doctor coming."

Her lids flew open.

"Dr. Blair?" Dr. Pretkay, the specialist from Johns Hopkins, was standing in the doorway. Her grip tightened on Harley's. Pretkay's expression was sympathetic, compassionate and …regretful.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

PHILLIP WAS A SMALL MAN BUT HE LOOKED even slighter in the white hospital bed.

"Hi, Phillip," Megan said unsteadily as she moved toward the bed. "I'm not sure if you can understand me. All those specialists can't agree on what coma patients are able to process." She took his hand. It was cool and unresponsive, completely unlike the warm, affectionate grasp to which she was accustomed. "I thought I'd give it a try. If you can understand what's going on here, you may feel helpless and that sucks." Don't start crying again. "They say they can't do anything to help you right now. So we're moving you to a private nursing home and you'll have wonderful care. I may not be able to visit you right away, but I'll never stop looking for a way to get you well." She swallowed and whispered, "I love you. Thank you for all the years, Phillip." No, that sounded like good-bye and she would not give up on Phillip no matter what Pretkay said. "But we'll have more years together. Just give me a little time to work it out." She bent and brushed a kiss on his forehead. "See you."

She moved quickly for the door but she was blinded by tears by the time she reached the hall.

"Hey, easy." Grady was pulling her into his arms, cradling her. "Don't fight me. You need a shoulder to lean on and I want to be the one to help, dammit."

She didn't fight him. He felt warm and strong and alive. She needed that life after facing the half death that Phillip was experiencing. "Pretkay said he probably wouldn't ever wake up. He wanted to know if I wanted to take him off any life support." She buried her face in his shoulder. "Screw him. No way. Phillip hasn't even had a chance to fight his way out of this. I haven't had a chance to fight for him."

"Shh." Grady was stroking her hair. "You're right. We'll take care of him. And we'll find a way to help him."

"Damn right." She pushed away from him and wiped her eyes. "And the first thing we'll do is find that son of a bitch who shot him. I don't want that bastard prancing around when Phillip is lying there like a zombie."

"I've been working on it." His lips tightened. "Don't look so surprised. I'm the one who sent Phillip to you. There wasn't any question that I wouldn't go after that shooter. What do you think I was doing while you were sitting in that waiting room?"

"Who is it?"

He shook his head. "I'll know soon." Her lips twisted. "Crystal ball?"

"No, Atlanta Police lab. There were tire tracks in the sand from his truck and fiber on the porch where he was kneeling."

"That's not much."

"It's a beginning. I have contacts with the CIA and they'll put pressure to hurry up the investigation. And I called Michael Travis and he said that he knew someone who might be able to help."

She remembered that name. "Phillip said there was a Michael Travis who headed a Psychic Investigative Group in Virginia. I thought you said no crystal ball."

"It's the truth. Michael was talking about Atlanta City Hall. His contacts aren't limited to—"

"Freaks."

"Call it what you like." He looked her in the eyes. "No one has a better right."

He meant because she was one of them, she thought wearily. "I won't admit that yet."

"What? Not even after what you went through in that cave?"

"It could still be a mental problem. I'm a very pragmatic person and I have no evidence that would prove otherwise."

"The hell you haven't," he said roughly. "Accept it, Megan."

"When I can prove it to myself. I don't believe I'm schizophrenic. But do I trust what my instincts tell me and go against my logic? Do I go against what my mother told me? But what you did to me at the zoo has no logical explanation. Phillip believes what you told me and he'd never steer me wrong. I just don't know." Her hands clenched into fists. "You said that the voices are usually connected to the scene of a particular emotional disturbance. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"This hospital must be overflowing with those echoes. Why aren't I hearing them?"

"I'm helping a little."

"A little?"

He nodded. "You're doing a lot of blocking yourself. That's pretty incredible. It's got to be instinctive. I didn't have a chance to teach you."

"Why would you want to teach me? It would have taken away any threat you might be able to wield over me."

"True. I considered that possibility. However, eventually you would come into your own and it's better if you help me willingly."

"Come into my own?" she repeated bitterly. "Oh, yes. This great gift that could send me around the bend like it did Phillip's wife."

"She wasn't anywhere near as strong as—"

"I don't want to hear it." She cut him off. "Not now. I have to go home and check on something. Afterward I have to pack up Phillip's belongings." She shuddered. "They do that after someone dies. He's not going to die, Grady. And he's not going to go on living in that silent hell." She moved down the hall. "I have to find a way..."

THE COMPUTER SCREEN GLOWED blue in the light of Megan's desk lamp on the desk in the library.

Do it. Don't just stare at a blank screen. Tap the World Wide Web of information. You could find anything on a computer if you looked long enough. Or at least it would tell you where to go to find what you wanted.

But she didn't really want to know if her mother had lied to her.

Bite the bullet.

Concentrate. Remember the only echoes that had come clear. Hiram.

A long scream, fading. A woman falling? John, my baby.

What baby?

Pearsall. A woman done wrong by a man named Pearsall.

She didn't even know during what time period those episodes happened. It was pitifully sparse information to go on, she thought in frustration. Of course she could go back to the cave and try to let the voices return.

Yeah, sure. She was going to put herself through that again? No way. She typed "Myrtle Beach" in to the search engine.

She would dip into the local newspaper files and see if that babble was the echoes that Grady claimed them to be. Considering those references were so scanty as to be close to nonexistent. Lord knows how much time it was going to take her.

It didn't matter. She'd stay with it for as long as it took.

GRADY LEANED BACK IN THE DRIVER'S seat, his gaze fixed on the light streaming out of the library window. She had been up all night and he had an idea what she was doing.

Go ahead, Megan. Work it out for yourself.

I'll be here protecting your back.

CHAPTER SIX

IT WAS CLOSE TO NOON BEFORE Megan finally shut off the computer and leaned back in her chair.

Done.

She should be exhausted, but she was too wired to feel anything but excitement, tension, …and fear.

Get over it. She hadn't spent all this time and effort to let herself be blocked by an outpouring of emotion. Go take a shower and make a fresh pot of coffee. Think clearly and logically, go over the notes, and then come to a conclusion.

No matter how unclear and illogical the conclusion might prove to be.

"YOU PHONED?" GRADY SAID WHEN she opened the front door to his ring two hours later.

"Ten minutes ago." She frowned. "You must have been practically on the doorstep."

"Close enough." He came into the foyer and shut the door. "I told you I'd come when you called."

"But that was at the hospital."

He smiled. "That doesn't make any difference. I don't believe in short-term commitments. If you phoned, then you must have had a good reason. I'm not one of your favorite people at the moment."

"That's true." She turned on her heel. "Come into the kitchen and sit down. I need to talk to you. I'll even give you a cup of coffee."

"You're feeding me under your roof? Isn't that a medieval gesture of truce?"

"I'm not feeding you. I'm giving you a cup of coffee." She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table where she'd already set out cups and a carafe of coffee. "And the truce depends entirely on what you tell me."

"Then I'll start telling you about Phillip. I called the hospital and they have him comfortably settled in Bellehaven Nursing Home. I had Harley arrange for a guard to keep an eye on him."

She stiffened. "Wait a minute. You had no right to choose a nursing home without my input. Do you have any idea how many substandard nursing homes there are? A coma patient is totally helpless."

"I wouldn't put Phillip in a place where he'd not be well cared for. I checked it out. It's a fine place. Bellehaven has a special Coma Rehabilitation Unit in the annex run by Dr. Jason Gardner. It's small but high quality. They don't just let a patient lie there and vegetate. They try experimental medication, physical therapy, even study past psychological evaluations. I talked to Gardner and he's passionate about what he does. You should appreciate that."

"I do." Phillip needed all the passion they could give him in that dark world. "Has he evaluated Phillip yet?"

"No, he'll do that tomorrow. Right now there's no change in his condition. They're to contact both of us if there's any alteration, good or bad, tonight. Tomorrow you can talk directly to Gardner. He gave me his number and told me he's available to the families of his patients at any time."

"He sounds like a good doctor, a good man." She paused. "Thank you." It was clever of Grady to soften her attitude by appealing to her affection for the one person that they could discuss without conflict. "I just didn't think they were going to move him until tomorrow."

"I wanted him more comfortably settled."

"So that you could check him off your priority list?"

"No." He stared her in the eye. "So you could check him off yours. Yes, I wanted him to have the best possible care, but I also wanted your mind and focus clear. If that makes me a bastard, then so be it." He poured coffee into her cup. "But I don't believe my selfishness is that important to you at the moment or I wouldn't be here. Your move, Megan. Why did you want to talk to me?"

"Because you're the one with the answers." Her hands clenched around her cup. "I need to know more."

"More than what?"

She took a folded page of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. "When I was in the cave, these were the only conversations that I could distinguish out of that hideous cacophony. They were the strongest echoes."

"And?"

"I had to know that what you told me was true." She shook her head. "No, there's no way I can know, but I had to believe." She drew a deep breath. "That's why I spent the last sixteen hours at the computer searching through newspaper morgues trying to find some rock of reason to cling to."

"And did you find it?"

She didn't answer directly. "It wasn't easy. I had no date factor to enter into the equations. I had to go through every reference to the quarry since 1913, when the newspaper was established. I wasn't even sure what happened there would be mentioned. If there were crimes, they might not be known. If the emotional trauma was personal, there was no reason for it to be in the newspapers."

"No reason at all." His gaze narrowed on her face. "But you did find something. You're... pumped." He tapped the first name on the paper she had given him. "Hiram?"

"In 1922, Hiram Ludlow, a worker at the quarry was tried for the murder of his wife, Joanna. He pushed her from the cliff only a few yards from the cave. Then he went after his brother, Caleb, and shot him. He died in prison in 1935."

Grady pointed at the second name on the paper, "Pearsall."

"In 1944, Kitty Brandell sued Donald Pearsall for child support for her illegitimate daughter. She worked in the Pearsall Carpet Factory near town and when Donald came back from serving in the Army in World War Two, he evidently swept her off her feet. They had several clandestine meetings in the cave that summer and her daughter, Gail, was conceived there. He denied being the father and she was fired from her job and practically run out of town. But she fought back, saved up money for a lawyer, and filed the suit when her daughter was seven years old."

"Did she win?"

"No. His family had the power and the money. She ended up with nothing but court costs and a bad reputation, which was pretty terrible in those days. I wanted to find what happened to her later, but I didn't have time to investigate anything that wasn't pertinent to what happened in that cave."

He glanced down at the third name. "What about baby John?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't find anything in the newspapers. Maybe nothing violent happened to him at the cave. Maybe his mother just ran up there like a wounded animal when her baby, John, died or was hurt. There's nothing more wrenching than a mother who's lost her child."

Grady put a question mark beside baby John. "Two out of three. Not bad."

"Not bad? It's terrible. It's all terrible." She held up her hand as he opened his lips to speak. "Yes, I know you were talking about my so-called success ratio. But I just can't separate the voices and what they went through to cause that agony. I can't stop my own pain. It's as if I absorb it and can't let it go. Did Phillip's wife ever succeed in doing that?"

He nodded. "But she never felt the intensity of emotion that you do. Nora was never able to separate the voices. They were just one tidal wave of sound to her, like the howling of the inmates in Bedlam. I think it's like that with most Listeners."

"Then how did I get so lucky?" she asked bitterly.

He looked down into his cup. "Your particular talent may have other facets." He changed the subject. "You didn't answer my question. You were looking for a rock to cling to, some proof that could convince you. Did you find it?"

"It could all be pure guesswork, coincidence."

He repeated. "Did you find it, Megan? Do you believe me? Do you believe in what you are?"

She didn't answer for a moment. She didn't want to say the words. To make that final admission would be to change everything; her past, her present, her future. She would never be able to look at herself in the same way again.

"Pretty scary? If it will help, you won't have to face it alone. I'll be here for you."

"I don't want your help." It wasn't the truth. She wanted all the help she could get, but she couldn't take it. "I am what I am. I'm the one who has to handle any problems."

"And exactly what are you, Megan?" he asked softly. "Say it."

"I'm a fairly intelligent woman and a doctor."

"And?"

She hesitated and then haltingly said the words, "I'm a Listener, dammit." He smiled. "At last."

"But I'm not Nora and I will not be dependent on you as she was."

"That thought did occur to me after I had to chase you down when you decided you had to face your demons instead of being traumatized as most people would have been. I don't believe 'dependent' could ever be included in you character description."

She had stopped listening after that first sentence. "Demons," she repeated. "You said that before. But I can't think of the voices as demons if I have to live with them. They have to be people. Bad people, good people, selfish, generous, helpless, powerful, but human. Always human. If I have to deal with demons, then my life would truly be hell."

"My God."

"What?"

"You're already molding, defining, fashioning the situation to suit yourself."

"I'm trying to survive. I will survive."

"I'm sure you will." He took another drink of his coffee. "But you didn't invite me here to watch you struggle with your gift. You said you needed answers."

"I have an orderly mind. I had to take one problem at a time."

"You've obviously leapfrogged over the first one. Give me the questions."

Leapfrogged? She was still moving as sluggish as a turtle in accepting that damn Listener concept. Yet she had accepted it and now had to move on. "You said my mother was killed by a man named Molino. A revenge killing. Why?"

"He blamed her for killing his son, Steven. Molino is the slime of the earth, but he did love his son. He was proud of him and considered him a chip off the old block and he was probably right. From what I could gather, the boy was a liar, a sadist, and a rapist. All qualities that Molino shared."

"And he thought my mother killed his son?" She shook her head. "He was wrong."

"It depends on how you look at it."

"No, it doesn't. She was kind and gentle."

"Yes, but kind and gentle people do kill in self-defense."

"Why would she have to defend herself? Who the hell is Molino?"

"Scum. He dips his hands in quite a few cesspools. He's a drug dealer, owns a chain of whorehouses in Africa and South America and he dabbles in child slavery."

"What?"

"He pays bandits to steal children from the villages in Africa and handles the kidnappings in the U.S. and Europe himself. He sells them to clients all over the world. It's a very lucrative trade. Many tribal men in Africa believe breaking a virgin will rid them of AIDS."

She couldn't believe that horror. "No," she whispered.

"I wouldn't have given you ugly details but you had to realize just what a son of a bitch Molino really is." He paused. "And why your mother would have left you when she was approached to help stop him."

"And who approached her?"

"The CIA. They were getting flak from the government about the drugs that Molino was using to pay off the bandits flooding the market." He shrugged. "Not that it was more than a drop in the bucket. Molino's network was so extensive that they didn't think they could stop him, but they decided to make the attempt."