Chapter 59

CHAPTER 59

A FTER ODOM GOT UP, SAXBY helped her pack her things and Devine drove them over to his hotel. He had upgraded to a two-bedroom, two-bathroom residence at the hotel on Uncle Sam’s dime, and with Campbell’s blessing.

He wasn’t planning on staying there long, though.

Odom wandered around the spacious hotel room and then stood looking out the window.

Devine sat watching her.

“So how are you doing?” he asked.

She remained staring out the glass. “Seems like I’m always tired even when I get plenty of sleep.”

“It’s called puberty and stress. They both wear you out.”

She sat down. “So what now? I stay in this hotel room with you until…?”

“Tomorrow, we’re going to your home in Kittitas. We’ve already confirmed with the judge, and I let Korey and Nate know.”

“It will be nice to go home, even if Mom and Dad won’t be there,” she said, her look one of sudden misery.

Devine decided to try to change the subject to pull Odom out of the despair that she seemed to be falling into. “So why did you want me to be your guardian?”

She turned to him. “Because I like you, and I trust you. I don’t think you’ll mess stuff up for me.”

“Does this mean you don’t want your uncle’s wealthy lifestyle?”

“If he wants to give me money and things, fine. That doesn’t mean I have to live with him. And why would he even want me around? It seems, I don’t know, weird.”

“In his defense, I think he really loves you.”

“Funny way of showing it. He was never around.”

“He told me your father wouldn’t permit it. That he’d sent money and clothes and other things, but your father returned them and wouldn’t let him visit or help you in any way.”

She nodded, looking thoughtful. “Dad really didn’t like him.”

“Your uncle said the same thing.”

“My… my mom liked him, though. She said he took care of her when she was young. Their father was, well, an asshole, I guess.”

“I’ve met a lot of them in my life. I’m sure you have, too.”

“Why did this RICO thing go away?”

“I’m not sure,” Devine said delicately. He couldn’t tell Odom things that might get her and him in trouble. But he could sense how vulnerable she was right now. And he didn’t want to lie to her, because the bond of trust he had delicately formed with her could easily be destroyed with any misstep of his.

“I think your uncle has some really good lawyers, and like I told you before, the government lost some witnesses that they really needed. So maybe they didn’t have enough evidence to keep going.”

“You think he had those witnesses killed, don’t you? You mentioned it before.”

With what he now knew, Devine wasn’t so sure about that. “Betsy, I can’t say one way or another, but if your uncle is guilty of the things they say he is, then, yes, he certainly could have had those people killed.”

“Are you going to keep looking for who murdered my parents?” she asked.

“Yes, and I am going to find them, I promise.”

“And then they’ll go to prison, right? I mean, you can’t kill people like that and get away with it, can you?”

“No, you can’t,” said Devine, even though he was thinking that, in this instance, that could happen.

“Do you… do you think my uncle had anything to do with it?”

Devine was on increasingly shaky ground here. Yet he answered as truthfully as he could.

“I did think that.”

“But you don’t think that anymore?” she said.

“Your uncle came to meet me after the court hearing. I asked him that very question, accused him of it really.”

Odom stared at him with such intensity that Devine wanted to look away but didn’t.

“And what did he say?”

“It wasn’t so much what he said as how he said it. The bottom line is I believed him when he denied any involvement in their deaths. He was… shattered, I guess is the word. Like you, he loved your mother very much.”

“Then who could have done it?”

“Do you remember anything else from that day? Anything at all?” Devine thought of what Dr. Coburn had told him about the cyanide combined with the DMSO. “I know this will sound weird, but did your parents touch something that you didn’t? Or were they touched by people who didn’t touch you?”

She stared at him in confusion. “ Touched? ”

He decided to be straight with her. “Your parents may have been poisoned, with cyanide. If inhaled, it can be deadly in less than a minute. But absorbed in the skin it takes a while to kill someone, unless it’s combined with another substance that can make it quickly absorbed into the bloodstream.”

“Is that what you think happened?”

“Yes. So is there anything you remember along those lines?”

She looked out the window and sighed. Then she closed her eyes and appeared to be concentrating, perhaps taking herself back to that awful moment in time. She opened her eyes. “I remember seeing that the two men who gave my parents the duffel shook hands with them.”

“They did? Wait, did your parents have gloves on? Did the two men?”

She closed her eyes again, apparently trying to get a firmer mental image of that moment in time.

Odom opened her eyes. “My parents never wore gloves. But the two men had gloves on. Thick ones, I think.”

Devine sat back. That must have been it.

“You said your dad put the duffel bag in the trunk? He didn’t show you what was in there?”

“No. They got back in the car and my dad drove off and that’s when he started getting sick. And then my mom.”

“They couldn’t breathe, you said. Were they also convulsing? Jerking around?”

She looked at him, her lips quivering. “Yes, they were. Do you… do you think the duffel was poisoned or something? Or maybe when they shook hands? The gloves the guys wore?”

“Yes, I think those two men poisoned your parents that way. Do you remember anything about them?”

“They were both tall, about your height. They had on big overcoats. One had dark hair, and the other one was blond.”

“Age?”

“About your age.”

“Had you ever seen them before?”

She nodded.

Devine’s features tightened. “I asked you that before and you said no.”

“No, you asked me if they looked like any of my uncle’s guys and they didn’t.”

A frustrated Devine rubbed at his face. “Okay, where had you seen them before?”

“They were the same two guys who showed up at where we lived before. They were meeting with my dad when we went out for ice cream.”

Damn , thought Devine. Contrary to what Ellen Saxby had said, CIA possibly had murdered two American citizens.

“Does that help you?”

He looked up at her. She appeared fragile and on edge.

“Yes, Betsy, it was a huge help. Thank you.”

She said nervously, “Travis, what’s going to happen to me? I mean, you’ve got a job and stuff, and I can’t live with Kor and Nate in that trailer till I’m grown.”

“I wish I had all the answers, but I do know that when someone is going through a tough time, like you are right now, it’s better to take small steps. If you try to think everything through, you’ll become paralyzed. But what I can promise you is that I’m going to do everything I can to help you all the way through this, okay?”

“Why? I mean, you don’t even really know me.”

“I know you’re a good person who got dealt a crappy hand in life. No adult I know would be handling this situation as well as you are. And I like to help people who are fighters, who get back up when they get knocked down. And you are a fighter, Betsy Odom, never doubt that.”

What she did next surprised Devine. She sat next to him and hugged him. And the tears finally came from the girl, until Odom was shaking with the force of her sobs.

Devine didn’t really know what to do, so he just held her as tightly as he could.