Canada!That was a shock. He knew a lot more than he had revealed so far. I set the fork down again. “They told me your oil sands industry poisoned an entire village, all of its lakes, tributaries, and groundwater. They said it had cost countless lives and that the Hampton Oil Company had tampered with the reports.Youhad the reports tampered with…” I paused for a moment. “Why didn’t you admit it was you? They would have released me after three weeks! As soon as you had revealed everything, I would have been free. Why didn’t you do it?” I said, leaving out the blindfold. I sounded much harsher than intended because the real question burned with a completely different intensity:Why don’t you love me enough?
Dad suddenly sat in his seat as still as he had stood when he saw me in the hall. “Because I didn’t know anything about it,” he stated calmly after a few seconds. “I had no idea.”
My pulse twitched in my carotid artery. “You’re lying!” I snapped.
He didn’t even reprimand me even though I had never spoken to him like that before. “Do you seriously believe that, Willa? Do you think I’m capable of that? Child, look inside yourself and listen to your heart.” He looked at me intently before frowning. “What did they tell you? That’s just crazy! Completely crazy! Why would I allow assessments to be manipulated when, as you say, it would cause catastrophic levelsof destruction? Don’t you think I have enough money? I could close the doors of the oil sands industry and still have billions. Give me one reason why I would support something like that?”
His words threw me completely off-balance. “It…it…it’s your company. Someone must have done it. And people are dying up there. Far too many people…and you said you would turn yourself in…that was what you told the kidnappers after they sent you the photos of me…or…they sent photos…” He must have received the ones from the Agamemnon shortly after Isaac boarded it.
Dad closed his eyes for a moment. “Yes. And yes, I told them I would plead guilty,” he whispered, suddenly sounding terribly exhausted, as exhausted as I’d felt for months. “What would you have done if you’d received those pictures of me? Wouldn’t you confess to something you didn’t do?”
Irritated, I blinked. “Then why did you deny it at first?”
“Because it wasn’t me. I had no idea about the huge mess that happened up north near Coldville. I thought that if I was honest and found the real culprit, they would let you go. I even offered them money.”
I felt myself turning pale. He had offered Isaac money at the beginning, but Isaac hadn’t passed anything like that on to the others.
“After they sent me more photos, terrible photos, I pleaded guilty. They threatened to do terrible things to you. Even worse than the ones I saw…” He had the courage to look straight at me. “Bill Luther from Arrow Corp advised me to plead guilty, but only after a period of reflection. The men in the unit were afraid that if I confessed publicly, they would kill you… They believed it was likely that I would never see you again…” He swallowed and his eyes filled with tears.
Now he looked like my dad again, not the man who played politics. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to believehim and hug him, but I forbade myself and clenched my hands to control the shaking.
He continued. “They’ve been keeping Coldville under surveillance for a long time. Since the claim was about the oil sands industry, they expected you to be held prisoner near Coldville. The men up there have few options and they’re…” He stopped and I had the impression that the word primitive almost slipped out of his mouth. “It took us a while to find out you weren’t being held in Canada.”
“How?”
Dad shook his head and regained control of himself. “That’s beside the point. Anyway, that was when we tried to stall them with my alleged confession so they could search elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“The Atlantic.”
Then someone from Coldville spilled the beans!“How did you arrive at that?”
“I told you, but that’s beside the point, honey. A complicated story, but it started with the photos. Bill Luther had the background enlarged and saw a crane like the ones used on fishing boats.”
My head was spinning as a storm of emotions raged in my heart. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Dad sounded so honest. It all sounded so plausible and he actually had men from his best military unit search for me. I hadn’t thought that mercenaries could be pulled out of a crisis area, but basically, the men belonged to my father, he paid them, so he could dictate the orders.
Dad looked at me. “Every day, I hoped for a sign, Willa. I prayed…and I haven’t done that since you-know-when.”
Since the death of Florentine and his son Nicholas. I involuntarily thought of Isaac.
“Do you know who was behind all this?” I asked, my throat tight.
Dad shook his head. “Not quite. A few men from Coldville, certainly. And believe me, I won’t rest until those men have been brought to justice.” He sounded almost like a mercenary himself now. And his expression was harder than a crowbar.
I had to ask him. Now. I had to say the name and ask him even if the thought alone sent me into an irrational panic. “I-Isaac,” I finally managed to say, feeling the echo like a cold shiver down the back of my neck. My tongue stuck, but I forced myself. “I-Isaac McCormack.”
For a split second, Dad’s eyes flashed. He knew the name. “Who is that?”
I stiffened. He was lying! He was lying to me! “You know.”
He was silent for a long time and then a deep breath went through his body. “Was it him? Did he have you?”
My lips trembled as the images burst forth without me being able to stop them. Isaac above me, kneeling between my legs, Isaac behind me, the horrific pain, the blood, and the faint ray of light, like a finger of hope… I closed my eyes for several heartbeats and then asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell me about him, Dad?”
He took the napkin from his lap and tossed it angrily on the table. “The nutcase who claims to be my son?”
“Heisyour son.” I had to get through this now no matter how hard it slammed me back into the past and the swamp.
