Текст книги "Cold Betrayal"

Автор книги: J. A. Jance

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

38

The space at the top of the driveway was full of cars—Chris and Athena’s new Ford Flex, Ali’s mother’s blue Buick, and a bright red Ford Fusion Ali thought belonged to Cami Lee from High Noon. Colin and Colleen came racing out of the house, followed hard upon by Bella. The kids were in the lead as they left the porch, but Bella beat them to and through the gate. By the time Ali opened the car door, Bella made an impossible leap, scrambling into the vehicle and up onto Ali’s lap. Laughing through a barrage of doggy kisses, Ali exited the Cayenne and bent down to greet the kids.

“Where were you?” Colleen demanded, greeting Ali with a serious frown. “Mommy was worried about you and so was Daddy.”

B. arrived on the scene and swung Colin up onto his shoulders. “And well they should have been,” he told them. “It’s been a tough night.”

“Daddy said you were chasing bad guys. Did you get them?” Colin wanted to know.

“I think so,” Ali told him. “I hope so.”

By then the adults had made their way out of the house. First came Ali’s parents. Edie Larson pulled her daughter into a tight hug. “You’ve got to quit scaring us this way,” she ordered.

“Sorry, Mom,” Ali said. “Didn’t mean to.”

Bob Larson hugged his daughter, too. He said nothing, but his silent reprimand made Ali feel far more guilty than her mother’s straightforward chiding.

To Ali’s surprise next up were Stuart Ramey and Cami Lee. Somehow Ali managed to keep from mentioning how surprised she was to see Stu out of his natural habitat in front of a computer terminal.

“How come you guys went dark on us?” Stuart grumbled. “Aren’t we supposed to be on the same team? I know everything went to hell in a handbasket up there, but as yet no details are being made public. Once your call to me ended, we’ve been shut out of the information loop along with everyone else.”

Stuart liked to sit at his computer terminal and feel like he was in tune with everything that was going on. Being out of the know didn’t work for him.

“I’m afraid that’s all Governor Dunham’s doing,” Ali said. “When we headed north to Colorado City, she made us all shut down our devices so they couldn’t be traced, and I’m sure the information embargo is part of her game plan, too.”

“Right,” Stuart said. “Everything was fine when they needed information from our drone. Now, though, it’s all hush-hush. That’s not fair.”

Ali turned next to her daughter-in-law and was surprised to see Athena’s eyes suddenly fill with tears.

“What’s wrong, Athena?”

“I started trying to call you about eight o’clock, right after I got off the phone with Gram. When it kept going to voice mail and I couldn’t reach B., either, I called Stuart. Gram told me some of it. Stuart told me the rest—that my mother’s been stealing money out of Gram’s accounts. Mom also has a boyfriend who happens to be the doctor who’s supposed to do the competency evaluation on Monday. When I learned all that, I was ready to get on a plane last night and go home to punch Mom’s lights out. Chris made me promise that I wouldn’t go until after I talked to you and B.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Chris said, stepping up for his turn. “I told her she needed cooler heads to weigh in on all this. Yours and B.’s are the coolest heads I know.”

Considering what had just happened in Colorado City, Ali almost objected to Chris’s kind words. Instead she turned back to Athena.

“We’ll talk this over,” Ali said. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. All of it.”

Leland Brooks appeared on the porch. “Come on in,” he said. “Breakfast is served.”

Colin and Colleen stayed in the kitchen eating their chocolate chip Mickey Mouse–shaped pancakes under Leland’s occasional supervision while everyone else tucked into coddled eggs and croissants at the dining room table.

“There’s a breaking news alert on TV about what happened last night,” Leland announced when he went around the dining room replenishing coffee cups. “I turned it off in the kitchen, but if you want to see it somewhere else . . .”

“Any word on the governor?” Ali asked.

“Hospitalized,” Leland said. “Guarded condition.”

No one leaped up to go see what the talking heads had to say. It would most likely play out as “another act of random gun violence, with thirty-one dead, including the shooter.” That’s how the media usually portrayed such things. News commentators would make a big deal of the governor’s involvement, debating whether or not this was a case of governmental overreach. By the time the DNA details were sorted out and the human trafficking issues at the background of the case came to light, the media would have lost interest and moved on to something else. After all, who cared what went on in some remote corner of northern Arizona?

“What’s going to happen to all those people, the women and children who have been left behind?” Athena wanted to know. “Where will they go? How will they live?”

“I have no idea,” Ali said. “Whether they stay where they are or move into town somewhere, they’re going to need huge amounts of assistance. The governor said she’d do everything in her power to help them.”

“If she lives,” Bob Larson cautioned. “But what makes you think she’s a straight shooter?”

“The gun that was tucked inside Richard Lowell’s pants was evidently one Governor Dunham took out of her purse when he demanded his hostages turn over their cell phones and weapons. While he was busy killing Sheriff Alvarado, she tried to take him down with that.”

“Okay then,” Bob said heartily. “Any woman brave enough to try to take down a guy armed with an AK-47 is a woman who gets my vote.”

“Mine, too,” Ali said. “But she’ll have to run for something in order for that to happen.”

39

After that, the conversation veered back to the situation with Betsy Peterson. In the end, the breakfast table discussion convinced Athena that it would be a good idea to have at least one cooling-off day before she went rushing off to Bemidji to kick butts and knock heads. They arranged for a further council of war on the following day, one where they would have access to any additional information Cami and Stuart might have dredged up in the meantime.

Once the company left, B. and Ali were done. They went into the bedroom, fell into bed, and slept. Neither of them noticed when Bella burrowed under the covers with them, but she was still there, late that afternoon, when they finally woke up. There had been no phone calls to awaken them. B. had had brains enough to turn off the landline extension before they crawled into bed, and if anyone was attempting to reach them by cell phone, those calls were being put through to devices locked in an evidence locker somewhere far out of hearing distance.

Prowling out to the kitchen, they found a note from Leland saying that he had thawed out the last two of the pasties he’d made earlier in the week. They were on a plate in a warming drawer and ready to eat. Ali remembered the day the pasties had been hot and fresh out of the oven and she had taken a pair of them along to Flagstaff to share with Sister Anselm. That seemed like an impossibly long time ago.

At the bottom of the note was a PS: “Please call Sister Anselm. She’s waiting to hear from you.”

On the kitchen counter they found two new cell phones, two new iPads, and a note from Stuart. “Picked these up for you this afternoon. I transferred all the info and numbers over from your old phones and iPads, including the High Noon security protocols. The old devices are bricked. Anyone trying to access them for any reason will get nowhere.”

Ali sorted out which phone was hers and called Sister Anselm’s number while B. logged onto the new iPad to see what fires needed to be put out in the larger world of High Noon Enterprises.

“I’m so relieved to hear from you,” the nun said. “When I couldn’t reach you, I talked to Mr. Brooks, so I know some of what went on, but tell me everything.”

“That could take some time.”

“No problem. The nuns from All Saints are looking after Enid and Baby Ann, and they’ll go stay at the convent in Tucson for a few days once they’re released from the hospital. I’m driving back to Payson right now, Bluetooth in my ear. I’ve got time.”

Ali told her all of it. There was a pause when the story finally came to an end.

“We lit the fuse on this,” Sister Anselm said quietly. “We didn’t mean to, but we did. Our getting involved caused all those deaths.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” Ali agreed. “Richard Lowell was a woman-hating rabid dog. I’d shoot him again in a minute if I had the chance. But the others? Amos Sellers claimed to be completely in the dark on the human trafficking business, and maybe the others were, too. Maybe they were all true believers living their lives the way Lowell told them to.”

“Like Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid,” Sister Anselm observed. “And then there’s the problem with Sheriff Alvarado. He’s most likely the father of Anne Lowell’s baby and her murderer as well, but without the evidence box, that case will never be closed, especially since, in the eyes of the world, the man died a hero.”

And B. would prefer to keep him that way, Ali thought, but with B. sitting right there within earshot, she didn’t say that aloud.

“I still want to know for sure Anne and Jane Doe are one and the same,” Sister Anselm said. “I want to know that for Enid’s sake and for mine as well.”

The landline phone rang. Caller ID said Caller Unknown, but with everything that was going on, Ali felt a need to answer it. Besides, she had talked on the new cell phone for so long that it was burning her ear. “I need to take this.”

“Bye,” Sister Anselm said, and she was gone.

Ali picked up the other phone and was surprised to hear Andrea Rogers’s voice. “Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you?”

“For what you did. If you hadn’t gotten us out of the van when you did, Bill Witherspoon, Patricia, Agnes, and I would have been sitting ducks.”

“You’re welcome,” Ali said. “I didn’t recognize your phone number.”

“That’s because I don’t have my cell—none of us do—and I’m also out of the office. I had a free moment, though, and wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“B. and I just woke up,” Ali said. “What’s going on?”

“Patricia, Agnes, and I did our interviews and then spent the rest of the night and part of the morning helping with next-of-kin notifications. Understandably, the women from The Family are beyond distressed over what happened. I’m not sure how we would have managed if Patricia and Agnes hadn’t been there to run interference.

“I rode down from Colorado City to Flag with the first busload of displaced women and kids. A dozen of those were Brought Back girls. One of the passengers was a girl named Mary who was being held in solitary confinement in a cell at the church. Patricia tells me she was a Cast-Off girl, someone who was betrothed to Richard Lowell and failed the required virginity test. The rest were women with three or four kids apiece. They’re all temporarily settled in donated hotel rooms with volunteers from Irene’s Place helping them get cleaned up and into suitable clothing. Bill Witherspoon has been a huge help, by the way. Governor Dunham gave him a blank check to handle whatever is needed.”

“With state money?” Ali asked.

“No, he’s authorized to use her personal funds.”

“Speaking of Governor Dunham,” Ali said. “How’s she doing?”

“Out of surgery. She’s in serious condition—serious but stable. Her husband told Bill that her doctors are hoping to save her leg. If the SWAT team guys hadn’t used a tourniquet on it when they did, the leg would have been lost for sure.

“Anyway, the bus went back to pick up another load, and I stayed here to streamline arrangements. It’s complicated. Some of the so-called wives who also happen to be mothers are considered juveniles out here in the regular world. I’m walking a fine line making housing arrangements for them. Patricia may end up being turned into a de facto housemother.”

“What about Agnes?”

“I believe she’s staying on up at The Encampment for now. She said someone needed to look after the pigs and other livestock. I went toe-to-toe with a woman named Edith Tower. She was evidently Gordon Tower’s first wife, which makes her his first widow, too. When she started throwing her weight around, I told her that Agnes is staying on voluntarily and she is to be allowed a room in the house—Enid’s vacant room as a matter of fact. I also let her know that, if she made any attempt to force Agnes back into a state of involuntary servitude, there would be severe consequences.”

“How many of the widows are going to stay and how many will go?” Ali asked.

“There’s no way to tell that right now. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I know we’re going to need more help.”

“Take down this number,” Ali said before reciting a number from memory. “That’s my good friend Sister Anselm. She may be able to conjure up some additional help for you. We both have a vested interest in making sure these women are dealt with in the most humane way possible.”

“Oops,” Andrea said. “The bus is just pulling in. Gotta go.”

Ali put the phone down.

“How about one of those pasties now?” B. asked.

“Good idea,” she said. “I’m ready.”

40

By ten o’clock Monday morning Ali and Athena were belted into a Citation X. According to the computerized map on the bulkhead, they were somewhere far above Colorado on a three-hour flight from Flagstaff’s KFLG airport direct to Bemidji. Athena had been prepared to go and beard her mother in her den all on her own. Together, Chris, Ali, and B. had nixed that idea. They wanted her to have backup when she walked into a difficult situation with information that would likely turn a bad situation into a war zone.

Had Athena flown commercial from Phoenix, the trip would have taken the better part of three days. Flying direct, using B.’s jet card, meant they could come and go in a single day.

They were traveling with an iPad loaded with a collection of incriminating photos of Athena’s mother, Sandra, and of Elmer Munson, who, judging from the many surveillance photos of the two of them together, was more to Sandra than just the family doctor. There were photos of the two of them at various cash machines where Sandra was lifting money out of her mother-in-law’s bank accounts. There were front desk photos of them checking into hotel rooms at various casinos in the area. There were photos of them laughing it up at blackjack tables—blackjack being Sandra’s preferred game of chance, although given the sizes of her losses, it probably shouldn’t have been.

The capper, though, and by far the most damning, was the video clip that showed Sandra paying a surreptitious visit to Betsy’s house on Friday evening. Joe Friday’s surveillance camera had worked its magic. The video feed, complete with a time and date stamp, showed Sandra, alone this time, entering Betsy’s house while Betsy would have been in Bemidji at the fish fry. Sandra had spent most of the time in the bedroom, browsing through her mother-in-law’s jewelry box. Alerted by Stuart the next morning, Betsy had done her own jewelry box inventory and discovered that her mother’s antique cameo was missing, as was the pair of uncharacteristically extravagant diamond earrings Alton had given Betsy for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Athena hadn’t told her grandmother she was coming, so this was to be a surprise visit. The plan was to arrive at Dr. Munson’s office at the same time Betsy did. Ali was concerned about Athena’s intention of confronting the two miscreants together, but she was only along as backup. This wasn’t her fight. What happened during the encounter at Dr. Munson’s office would determine if Betsy’s next step would be filing a police report or simply demanding restitution.

On the way, Athena spilled out her heart. Athena had been at odds with her parents from a very early age. The battles were waged mostly between mother and daughter. Athena’s father, Jim, had always taken Sandra’s part, while his parents, Betsy and Alton, had functioned as their granddaughter’s safety net and refuge. Athena knew that Betsy and Sandra had been on the outs for decades, but it was only this current crisis that had brought into sharp focus the seriousness of the rift between them.

“Until just the other day, I had no idea of Gram’s intention to write them out of her will.”

“I’m pretty sure your mother knew,” Ali offered. “If she and your father were to be appointed Betsy’s guardians, Sandra would have used her influence with your father to gain control of that money long before it ever got to you. She was probably also hoping to cover up what she’s been doing for the last year.”

“Which is stealing,” Athena said. “My mother is a thief.”

“And a liar and a cheat,” Ali added. “I guess that’s why you turned out to be the way you did. One way kids rebel is to be the opposite of their parents. That explains why you’re who you are, but now I’m worried about Colin and Colleen. Will they be throwbacks to your mom?”

“I hope not,” Athena said, and she wasn’t laughing about it, either. The idea that her sweet little twins might grow up and turn into chips off her mother’s block was clearly a disturbing possibility and one Athena had never before considered.

They landed in Bemidji and picked up their rented car with a good hour to spare before Betsy’s two-thirty doctor’s appointment. With Ali behind the wheel, they did a quick drive-by tour of the place, with Athena offering directions, pointing out the sights, and providing narration.

The sky was overcast, and the weather had veered into the high thirties, a temperature Athena said locals would regard as a regular heat wave. They drove through town and saw the schools Athena had attended, the house where her parents still lived, and her father’s dental office on Paul Bunyan Drive.

“That red Miata parked outside belongs to Jack,” Athena said, biting her lip.

Ali knew the fact that Athena’s parents continued to maintain a close connection with her ex, Jack Carlson, was an ongoing emotional issue for Athena. Having Jack now installed as a full partner in her father’s dental practice made things that much worse.

“I guess we won’t be stopping in to visit, then?” Ali asked.

“I guess not,” Athena answered in a pained but wry way that made Ali grateful Athena hadn’t attempted this difficult journey on her own.

They parked outside Dr. Elmer Munson’s office on Bemidji Avenue at two-fifteen. They were early enough to see Betsy, accompanied by an elderly man with a cane, clamber out of a battered Kia. The man had stepped out of the front passenger seat and then held the back passenger door open while Betsy wrestled herself out of the vehicle.

“That’s Marcia Lawson’s Kia,” Athena explained as the vehicle moved away from the curb. “She drives Betsy around when she needs to go somewhere.”

“Who’s the man?” Ali asked

“I have no idea.”

The old couple had already made their dignified way into the building when Sandra Peterson arrived. After a hasty job of bad parallel parking, she bustled in after them.

“Showtime,” Athena muttered.

By the time Ali and Athena located the office and entered the waiting area, there was already a palpable feeling of tension in the room. Betsy and her unknown friend sat next to each other against one wall by the receptionist while Sandra, looking put out, sat on a love seat on the far side of the room.

“Hey, Mom,” Athena said, waving a casual greeting. “How’s it going?” Then she turned to Betsy. “Hi, Gram.”

Sandra half rose from her chair. “What on earth are you doing here?” she demanded. Then, as if she knew, she sank back down into her chair.

Betsy struggled to her feet and limped over to give Athena a fierce hug.

“I heard Gram might be having some mental health issues,” Athena said, turning to answer her mother’s question. “Ali and I decided to fly up and see what’s going on.” Athena next stepped forward to hold out her nonprosthetic hand to the man with the cane who was rising from his chair and tottering over to greet her. The old guy had to be eighty if he was a day.

“I’m Athena,” she explained. “Betsy’s granddaughter.”

“Just call me Howard,” the old guy said. “You might say I’m BA and AA,” he added with a chuckle and a quick glance in Betsy’s direction. “That stands for Before Alton and After Alton. If I’d played my cards right way back then, maybe there wouldn’t have been any Alton at all.”

“Hush,” Betsy said, giving him a playful shove with her arm.

A nurse stepped into the room from a corridor that led to the examining rooms. “Betsy Peterson,” she announced. “This way, please.” She stopped short when everyone in the waiting room, with the exception of Ali, rose as if to follow.

“Wait,” the nurse said. “You can’t all come in here.”

“I’m Howard Hansen,” Howard said. “Doctor Howard Hansen. It’s probably a little before your time, but I was a G.P. here in town for many years. I came along today as Betsy’s friend and to offer my services as a disinterested bystander in terms of this competency situation.”

“You can’t go into the examination room with her,” the nurse objected.

“Exactly,” Sandra agreed, trying to push her way past Howard.

“If Betsy here wants me in the examination room, I most certainly can be,” Howard replied with a smile. “In fact, it might be best if you consulted Elmer himself on that particular issue.”

The nurse’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll see what the doctor has to say.”

The nurse had obviously taken offense at the idea that anyone would have the temerity to call her boss by his given name. She stalked off, returning a moment later with a man Ali easily recognized as a face in the rogues’ gallery of photos Stuart Ramey had collected from various surveillance photos. Dr. Munson was wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope.

“What seems to be the difficulty here?” he asked, frowning.

“Hello, Dr. Munson,” Athena said.

“Do I know you?”

“Probably not,” Athena said. “I’m Betsy’s granddaughter, Athena Reynolds. I know who you are, though. I recognize you from your photos. Several of them, in fact.”

Swiping her iPad to on, she then held it out for him to see while she scrolled through several of the damning photographs. When Elmer Munson realized what he was seeing, his eyes widened, and he glared at Sandra.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know . . .” Sandra began, but then she caught sight of one of the photos, too. Her eyes bulged, too. “What’s the meaning of this?”

The nurse, arms folded across her chest, stood behind the doctor and watched the unfolding drama with rising interest.

“I have no idea what you think you’re doing, young woman,” Munson said to Athena. “It would be a good idea if you left now.”

“We’ll do just that,” Athena said agreeably. “I can’t imagine that any of your findings about Gram’s ability to manage her own affairs will pass muster once the judge sees a sampling of these photos.”

With that, Athena turned on her mother. “As for you? My independent investigators have established that a minimum of sixty thousand dollars has gone missing from Gram’s savings accounts in the past year. It was withdrawn by way of fraudulent ATM transactions. That money is to be returned, with interest, as are Betsy’s cameo pin and the diamond earrings that were removed from her jewelry box by you on Friday night while she was at the fish fry.”

Sandra’s mouth fell open. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Easy,” Athena said. “Because I happen to have the video. Care to see it? This isn’t a court of law, Mother, and I’m not a journalist, either. I’m not using the word ‘alleged.’ I don’t have to. I’m your daughter. Right now this is still a family matter, but if you don’t return every dime of what you’ve taken, it will become all too public. As for telling Daddy about your friend here? You probably don’t need to.” She glanced meaningfully in the direction of the mesmerized nurse and the openmouthed receptionist. “I’m sure people will be lining up all over town to give him the news.”

Grim faced, Munson pushed past his nurse and disappeared down the hall, slamming an invisible office door behind him. The receptionist was still slack-jawed while Sandra stared at Athena in tight-lipped fury.

Unconcerned by her mother’s reaction, Athena took Betsy’s arm and led her grandmother out of the room. Howard followed, with Ali tailing along behind. Before the door had time enough to close entirely, it opened again and Sandra marched out, leaving a storm of conversation behind her in the waiting room.

“By God!” Howard said out on the sidewalk with a chuckle that was more a cackle than it was a burst of laughter. “That’s more fun than I’ve had in years! You certainly put that mother of yours in her place!” he declared. “Good on you, Athena, girl. Good on you.”

Betsy was smiling, too, but a moment later the smile disappeared and her expression turned serious. “We’ll need to find a bench somewhere. I told Marcia to come back in an hour,” she said. “We’ll need a place to wait.”

“No waiting,” Athena said. “We’ll give you a ride. We’ll call Marcia and let her know that she won’t need to come back to pick you up. How about an early dinner before we catch our plane home?”

“By all means,” Howard said. “We’re just in time for the blue-plate special at the diner. My treat.”

It turned out that the blue-plate special—served on honest-to-God blue plates—consisted of passable meat loaf accompanied by lumpy mashed potatoes with parsnips lurking inside them. The rest of the plate was covered with a pile of pale green beans. By color alone, Ali determined the beans had come straight from a can. Canned or fresh didn’t seem to make any difference to Howard. He cleaned his plate with obvious relish while Betsy barely nibbled on hers.

“Jimmy must have known what was going on the whole time,” she said at last. “How could my own son betray me like this?”

“Trust me,” Athena said. “My guess is he didn’t know. In fact, I doubt he had any idea. This is all Mom’s doing, Gram—all of it. We don’t have tapes of her coming into your house and turning on the gas, but I’m sure she did that, too. She may not have been trying to kill you, but her intent was to do you harm. She drove you out of your house and into the snow in the middle of the night with no care at all about what might happen. It’s a wonder you didn’t catch pneumonia.”

Betsy still looked pensive and lost. “What’s going to happen when Jimmy finds out your mother has been stepping out on him?”

“He won’t unless somebody tells him,” Athena said. “In fact, I doubt he’ll ever figure it out on his own. Mom has betrayal down cold. As far as Dad is concerned, what she says goes. She’ll convince him that no matter what anyone says, you included, nothing happened between her and Elmer Munson. She’ll claim people are telling lies about her, and Dad will believe every word that comes out of her mouth. And you know what? It doesn’t matter because I don’t care anymore. As long as she pays back every cent of the money she stole from you, what she does is none of my concern. And if she doesn’t pay you back? Then we go to the cops, plain and simple, and she goes to jail.”

“What about turning the other cheek?”

“No,” Athena said decisively. “Not with her.” She paused, then asked, “But what about from here on out, Gram? It makes me sick to think that anyone, especially my own mother, would take advantage of you this way, but what if someone else tries to do the same thing? You need someone looking out for you, someone closer. I’d like to see you out of that house—a place where you live all alone in the middle of nowhere. I’d like to see you in a spot where you’ll have people around who can help you in case you’re in trouble or having issues of some kind.”

“I’ve invited her to come live with me at my assisted-living place,” Howard interjected, “but she always turns me down.”

To Ali’s amazement, Betsy blushed at that remark. “They don’t take dogs,” she said, primly. “I won’t leave my Princess behind.”

“I’m glad you mentioned that,” Athena said. “I did some checking before we came here. Sedona Shadows, the place where Ali’s folks live, doesn’t take dogs either, but I’ve found another facility that does, and they happen to have a two-bedroom unit that just became available.”

“Why would I need a two-bedroom?” Betsy asked. “Besides, Sedona is too far away from home.”

“Having a guest room is always a good idea, because you just might have company,” Howard said, with a smile that was one short step from conniving. “I wouldn’t mind checking out of this joint and coming south in the middle of the winter for a visit. Just for a day or two, of course, nothing more.”

“Of course,” Betsy said, but the way she said it sounded as though she was warming to the idea.

“When school’s out, the kids and I can come north, help you sort things, and get your place listed,” Athena continued. “Then we’d hire movers to pack your stuff into a van to move it to Arizona. Meanwhile, you and Princess would drive back to Sedona with us. Easy-peasy.”

Betsy looked across the table at Athena. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “I really will.”