Janeal did not carry a cell phone, though she had frequently wished for one. It was a connection to the world at large that she had not convinced her father she needed. She thought at times that he saw the phone as a threat to her, a device that would cut her last dangling threads of connection to the kumpanía. To him. And maybe it would.
Robert’s phone had cost him a hundred fifty dollars. Well, she’d be able to buy one now without her father knowing.
Instead of changing her shoes as instructed, she went into the meetinghouse through the front door, intending to use the phone in the back hall. Mrs. Marković’s chair by the front widow was empty.
Anyone in the kumpanía was allowed to use the phone, though hardly anyone ever did. There were few reasons to call anyone outside the camp.
Janeal tapped in the number written on her palm.
A woman answered the phone in a low voice. “What?”
Janeal lost track of what she meant to say. Had she expected Sanso to answer? She looked down the hall and whispered, “I . . . This is Janeal Mikkado?” She was irked with herself for having said it like a question.
“Just a minute.”
She thought she waited for several minutes—half worried Sanso would turn out to be a joke after all, half worried she would be interrupted by someone who wanted to use the phone.
“Janeal, yes.” Sanso sounded as much like a snake as his name suggested he was. “You have something for me?”
“It’s in my car. Under the carpeting of the trunk.”
“Good. Good. And your father doesn’t know you found it?”
Not yet, jerk. “No.”
“Because you understand that if he has staged your car as a trap, I won’t be there to fall into it. In fact, I won’t be there at all. I send lackeys I can deny knowing. Lackeys who are happiest when I let them loose to do damage when things don’t go my way.”
Janeal immediately questioned the plan she had set into motion. If the DEA could not secure Sanso tonight, what might the man levy as a consequence for her betrayal? Maybe she should let him take the money, try to defend herself to the authorities tomorrow. But her father—what would happen to him if that money vanished?
“And if any of the money is missing, even one bill, I will know.”
“Look, I didn’t stop to count it, you know?”
Sanso chuckled. “If you had, you might have a better sense of how much I would be willing to give to you. And there is more, Janeal Mikkado. Much more you would be entitled to if you choose the life I offer you.”
Janeal gripped the phone and reconsidered. Maybe going with Sanso would give her the solution she needed. She could go with him and the money, leave a note for her father explaining all that had happened, promise to keep in touch and lead the DEA to Sanso at her first opportunity. They’d work with her father under those circumstances, wouldn’t they?
“The car’s unlocked,” she said.
“You have thought about my offer?”
His stranglehold was more like it. She would give him the money and run away with him in exchange for her father’s life. Her father would live, but if anything went wrong, she would never be welcome among the family again.
“I . . . I can’t leave. It’s not like our people come and go as they please, you understand?”
“I wasn’t thinking you would go back, Janeal, not once you got a taste of what I have to offer you. Something tells me you wouldn’t want to.”
“My father—if I did that . . .”
“Think of his survival as your reward.”
Janeal’s stomach turned over. She wanted that reward. She also wanted that money.
She hung up before she gave him an answer she’d regret.
Turning, she bumped into Mrs. Marković. Janeal gasped. The old woman’s legs were as stable as oak tree trunks and as firmly rooted. How long had she been standing there? Janeal might have apologized, but the woman must have eavesdropped, and that was the worse offense.
Janeal took a step to move around the woman’s wide body. The agile Mrs. Marković matched her move.
“Excuse me,” Janeal said.
Mrs. Marković leaned forward, her neck craned slightly to place her tiny round nose almost directly under Janeal’s.
“I see you, Children.” The woman’s breath smelled of fresh mint.
Janeal’s lips parted. Children? She was not a child. She looked past Mrs. Marković up the hall. It was empty.
“Please let me pass,” Janeal said.
Mrs. Marković shook her head. “Not both of you, no. You two should not be free to roam in this place. I see you.”
Janeal took another step, and Mrs. Marković continued to block Janeal’s path.
“There is only one of me, Mrs. Marković. I promise to be the only one to leave. Okay?”
“Nobody can make such a promise. Especially not you, Children.”
Janeal huffed. She forced her way between the woman and the wall, and Mrs. Marković’s arm snaked out to grab her wrist.
Electricity shot up Janeal’s arm, as it had in the game room, only this raced, zoomed up her nerves and through the muscles of her neck straight into her head with a thunderous crack! of breaking bones. Janeal’s head ignited with the most intense headache she had ever experienced. It radiated from the center of her brain like a starburst, pounding on the inside of her skull like a million miners with picks.
Only Mrs. Marković’s firm grip kept her from sinking to the floor.
“Daughters, you are full of deceit,” Mrs. Marković said without any condemnation. She raised her hand to Janeal’s shrieking head, then placed her other palm on Janeal’s hair and stroked it maternally. “Do not lie to yourselves. There are two chambers in every heart, one for Judas and one for John.”
Janeal shivered though she was not cold. She wanted to escape this insane talk. Gliding over Janeal’s smooth hair, Mrs. Marković’s whispering fingers pushed the pain away. “One must be pumped out, or you will both die.”
Janeal’s head ached too much to sort meaning from babble. She leaned against the wall until the pain abated completely, and when she finally opened her eyes, Mrs. Marković was gone.