“Hello?” Josh answered tentatively.
I could hear other people talking in the background. “This is Debbie calling back,” I told him.
“And Jay,” Luke added.
“It’s great to hear your voice again, Debbie. Give me a second to get outside where it’s quieter.” There was the sound of a door closing, and the background noise dissipated. “That’s better. Can you hear me okay?”
“Yes,” Luke answered for me.
“I read the newspaper articles about what happened when I was young, and I confronted her,” I told him. I still couldn’t use the kidnap word without getting angry.
“Her who?” Josh asked.
“The woman who lied to me this whole time and told me she was my aunt.”
Josh cleared his throat. “Did you get away from her, or them?”
“She has,” Luke answered for me. “She’s safe now, but I have a question.”
“Go ahead,” Josh answered.
“How did the FBI know to contact you?”
My jaw dropped, and I looked over at Luke. I hadn’t remembered to ask that. I’d dismissed it after Josh knew about the flash flood.
“Easy,” Josh said. “The DNA Debbie thought to leave on the bank floor.”
I couldn’t remember doing anything on purpose. “The what?”
“The spit,” Josh added. “Very smart, Debbie.”
I gasped as I realized he must’ve been talking about the moment after Dom shot that lady. “I didn’t do that on purpose.”
“No?”
“No,” I reiterated. “I was trying not to throw up.”
Josh waited a few seconds. “Does that answer your question, Jay?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
“Who is Dom?” Josh asked.
Luke put a hand on my arm. “We need to discuss immunity for Debbie before she gives up any more information.”
I pulled my arm away from Luke. “I want to talk to my real mom and dad,” I said.
Josh hesitated. “I think it would be best if we met in person.”
Luke shook his head. “Immunity first.”
“And you can give them the bank robbers?” Josh asked immediately.
Luke nodded at me, and I answered. “Yes.”
“I’ll get the family busy on that,” Josh said. “The FBI is under a lot of pressure to catch them now. We have a lot more leverage since the killing.”
That had me looking to Luke for an answer.
“What killing?” Luke asked.
“You didn’t know?” Josh said. “They shot a teller last week in Silver Spring.”
Guilt and horror froze me.
“We didn’t know,” Luke said.
“How do I get in touch with you?” Josh asked.
The background noise increased and a woman said, “Josh, you coming back in?”
“In a minute,” he told her.
“We’ll call you,” Luke said.
“Give me a day,” Josh said. “And Jay?”
Luke leaned in. “Yeah?”
“Keep her safe.”
Josh’s words rolled over me like a wave. He was family, and he cared about me. I had a whole family out there to meet—a real family.
Luke squeezed my arm. “Always.”
“Talk to you soon, then,” Josh said.
“Soon,” I answered, but the call had already disconnected. I couldn’t hold back. “It’s my fault,” I told Luke.
Luke grabbed my shoulder. “None of this is your fault.”
I shook my head. It didn’t seem that way to me. “If I’d faced up to this earlier like you said, they would have been stopped, and that teller would be alive. It’s my fault for thinking I could run away from it.”
Luke started the car. “You can’t think that way.”
Chapter 39
Debbie
The morning after the longest day of my life, Luke and I sat in front of the computer at the kitchen table in his house. Josh had said to give him a day, and sitting doing nothing yesterday had been nerve-wracking, but we’d done it. This morning I’d engaged the VPN for this call, but we’d decided since I trusted Josh, we didn’t need to go the extra mile security-wise of connecting through the library’s Wi-Fi.
Luke squeezed my hand. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’m going to be.”
“Trust me?” he asked.
“Always.” I clicked the mouse.
Josh answered the phone as soon as the computer connected. “Josh here.”
“It’s Debbie again,” I answered.
“Yeah, and Jay,” Luke chimed in.
“I’ve got some good news,” Josh said. “I’ve got a lawyer for you. He’s a family friend I’ve known for years. I trust him completely, and he’s here with me now.”
“Oh… Okay,” I answered tentatively.
Luke shrugged. He’d been the one to suggest a lawyer earlier so I wasn’t surprised.
“Hi, Debbie,” another male voice said. “My name is Steven Covington. As Josh said, he’s retained me as your counsel, and that means everything you tell me is confidential.”
Luke nodded, and I could tell he liked the sound of that. “So where do you think we stand on getting Debbie a deal?”
“I’ve had a preliminary conversation with the US Attorney’s office, and I think it looks good,” Mr. Covington reported. “The press coverage can have quite an impact on these things, and the FBI in particular doesn’t like bad press. That’s what they’re getting with the fatality at the bank last week.”
Luke looked over at me before continuing, “How do we go about this, then? Debbie’s not coming in until we have a deal.”
“Of course not,” Josh concurred. “And Adam tells me his bosses at the Bureau have intensified the manhunt this week, which is why we flew out last night to get going on this.”
“You’re here?” I asked.
“In DC as we speak,” the lawyer answered. “We need to meet so I can put together the proffer letter. That’s the commitment of the evidence and support you’ll provide in exchange for a deal.”
Luke held up a finger to silence me. “She’s not meeting in person with anybody, including you, until we have a deal.”
His paranoia about law enforcement was showing.
The other side was silent for a moment. “Then let’s do it now, over the phone,” Mr. Covington said. “I’m going to need to know what information we have to trade.”
Luke nodded. “Go ahead, Deb. Explain it all, just like you told me.”
I recited the whole story about the money that appeared out of nowhere, the cookie tins, the buried cash, the license plate changing, and being forced at gunpoint to go into the bank. I explained the shooting.
Josh filled in the part about the DNA from my spit, which had allowed the FBI to identify me.
It ended with a simple question from my attorney. “And you’re willing to testify against them in court?”
I didn’t give a crap about Dom, though a month ago I wouldn’t have considered testifying against Sylvia. But that was before I knew what she’d done—back when I still called her Mom. My feelings were tangled, but I knew things were different now.