Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHING
Z
Elena Markovic called me at 2:13 a.m.
I was awake, sitting at Chloe's kitchen table with my father's notebook open in front of me.
The number was blocked.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“Hello?”
A woman's voice spoke in Hungarian.
“Your father used to say that the stars were just holes in the dark.”
I stopped breathing.
It was a phrase my father had used when I was a child. Elena had heard him say it at our dinner table, years before his death.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Elena.”
I gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe enough to make this call. Not safe enough to tell you where.”
“Are you alive?”
A quiet, almost disbelieving laugh came through the line.
“Yes, Aria. I'm alive.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
For seven years, I'd imagined finding Elena.
Sometimes I imagined shouting at her.
Sometimes I imagined asking her to explain everything.
Now that she was speaking to me, I could barely form a sentence.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“You were the last person to speak to him before he died.”
Silence.
Then she said, “I spoke to him the night before the accident. I did not know it would be the last time.”
“Was his death an accident?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you know someone had altered the contract?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know my father was trying to correct it?”
“Yes.”
My voice broke.
“Then why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid.”
The honesty was so simple that it hurt.
“You let me believe he died without knowing why.”
“I know.”
“You disappeared.”
“I know.”
“You could have contacted me.”
“I tried once. Your phone number had changed. Your address was no longer listed. I was told you had left Ohio.”
“Who told you that?”
“I don't know. The message came through an intermediary.”
I closed my eyes.
“So you gave up?”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“I spent seven years trying to find the original document. I was threatened, followed, and once held in a hotel room for two days by men who wanted to know what your father had told me. I did not give them anything.”
I swallowed.
“Who were they?”
“I don't know their names. They never identified themselves.”
“Did Roman send them?”
“I cannot prove that.”
I almost laughed.
Everyone in this story had learned to speak in careful distinctions.
“Why are you calling now?”
“Because the original document has surfaced.”
My heart pounded.
“Where?”
“I don't know where it is now. But I know who registered it.”
“Who?”
“Victor Sokolov.”
I stared at the notebook.
“Nikolai's father?”
“Yes.”
“But Martin Keller said the original was missing.”
“It was missing from the registry. That does not mean it was destroyed.”
“Where would Victor keep it?”
“I don't know. But your father believed he had made a private copy of the original before the replacement was submitted.”
“Where?”
“He told me he had left a record with someone he trusted.”
“Pavel?”
“No. Pavel knew the registry process. He did not know where the copy went.”
“Then who?”
Elena took a breath.
“Your father told me the person would know the truth when the time came.”
I closed my eyes.
“That sounds like something he'd say.”
“He loved you very much.”
The words undid me.
I began crying silently.
Elena waited.
Then she said, “Aria, I am sorry.”
I couldn't answer.
“I should have found you sooner. I should have told you what I knew. I thought I was protecting you by keeping away, but I understand now that silence can hurt people too.”
I wiped my face.
“Where can I meet you?”
“Not yet. I need to know whether you have the notebook.”
“How do you know about the notebook?”
“Because your father told me he had left you instructions.”
I looked toward the window.
Someone had entered my apartment.
Someone had sent the photographs.
Someone had known about the sealed archive.
The person behind those messages might have been watching the same trail I was following.
“Can you prove who you are?” I asked.
“Yes. Ask me what your father gave me the night before he died.”
I swallowed.
“What did he give you?”
“A blue fountain pen. The nib was cracked. He said he wanted me to remember that even a damaged instrument could still write the truth.”
I began crying harder.
My father had owned that pen for years.
It was missing from his desk after the accident.
“Where is it now?” I whispered.
“With me.”
“Why didn't you give it to the police?”
“Because it has a small storage compartment inside the barrel. Your father hid a strip of microfilm there.”
I stood so quickly that my chair scraped across the floor.
“What?”
“The microfilm contains a photograph of the original contract. I haven't examined it. I was afraid that doing so might expose me to the same people who were searching for it.”
“Then we need to get it authenticated.”
“Yes.”
“Can you meet me?”
A pause.
“Tomorrow. Eleven in the morning. A public place. Bring your attorney. Do not bring Nikolai Sokolov.”
I hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I don't know whether his father was protecting the truth or hiding it.”
“And Nikolai?”
“I don't know him well enough to judge.”
The answer was fair.
“Where?”
“Grand Central Terminal. The information booth beneath the clock.”
I wrote it down.
Then I asked the question that had haunted me since the call began.
“Elena, do you think my father was murdered?”
Her answer came slowly.
“I think he was frightened. I think someone wanted him to stop asking questions. And I think his death deserves a proper investigation.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No,” she said softly. “It isn't.”
The line went quiet.
Then she added, “But I will tell you everything I remember.”
***
I told Rachel about the call.
She agreed to accompany me, notify the appropriate authorities, and establish a safe meeting plan. We would not attempt to recover or examine the microfilm without documenting the transfer and verifying its authenticity.
I also told Nikolai.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he said, “I'll stay away from the meeting.”
I studied him.
“You're not going to argue?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena asked you not to bring me, and she's entitled to that boundary.”
For the first time, his answer surprised me.
Then he added, “If my father concealed the original, I want to know. But I don't need to control how you find it.”
I nodded.
“Thank you.”
He looked at me.
“Aria, if Elena tells you something that contradicts what I've said, believe the evidence. Not me.”
I studied him for a long moment.
“You're changing.”
“I hope so.”
I picked up my father's notebook.
“Don't make me regret believing that.”
“I won't ask you to believe it yet.”
***
At eleven the next morning, I stood beneath the clock at Grand Central.
Rachel waited a few feet away, speaking quietly with a security officer who had been briefed on the meeting.
People moved around us in every direction.
Then I saw a woman in a dark coat approaching from the far side of the concourse.
Her hair was streaked with gray.
Her face was older than in the photographs.
But the small scar beside her eyebrow remained.
Elena Markovic stopped in front of me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she reached into her bag and took out a blue fountain pen.
My father's pen.
She held it between us.
“I should have brought this to you seven years ago.”
I stared at the pen.
Then looked into her eyes.
“Tell me everything.”
Elena nodded.
May you like
And as the station clock struck eleven, she began with the one thing she had never told anyone.
“The night your father died,” she said, “I was supposed to be in his car.”
