The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,68
pill I gave you this morning should look after any chance of pregnancy. Have whatever other lab you go to send me the other results. In a few weeks you should be able to have peace of mind about other possible complications.”
“In the meantime, all I have to do is cope with my imagination.”
“I didn’t mean to make what happened to you seem insignificant.”
“I know, and I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful. You’ve been wonderful, and I appreciate it.”
“Well, look, I’ll give you my mobile number and my home phone. If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to call. Even if you just want to chat, call me. My weekend is wide open.”
“Thank you for that.”
She hung up the phone and sat up in bed. Her mind felt clearer. The compulsion to cry was gone. The ache in her stomach had ebbed. Perkasa was already en route. She needed to get organized.
She unpacked her bags. She had enough clean clothes for one more day. She dressed in her casual gear, went to the desk, and turned on her computer and iPhone. There was the usual barrage of emails from friends and family. She wrote to them all collectively. I’m going to be out of touch by phone and email for the next few days. I’m involved in some business negotiations that need my full attention. I’ll contact you as soon as issues here are resolved. Everything is going very well, so don’t worry about me.
Her voicemail was less busy. Maria whispering that she missed her. Sonny telling her that Uncle had gone to the hospital that morning but was now back at home. And Uncle just saying, “Ava, call me.”
She knew she had to call Sonny back. He was going to worry and keep phoning unless she did.
“Sonny, it’s Ava.”
“He went to Queen Elizabeth.”
“So you said.”
“And the woman thinks he recognized her. She stayed outside but he looked back at her when he went in.”
“There isn’t any need for her to follow him anymore, is there? We know where he’s going. Now we just need to find out why, and Doctor Parker should be able tell us.”
“When will that be?”
“I’ll be back in Hong Kong in two or three days, so please, Sonny, be patient until then.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
“Thanks. Now listen, I’m not going to be available to talk until it’s time for me to come back. We have some business here that needs my attention.”
“I understand.”
“Good. I’ll let you know when I firm up my schedule.”
She sat at the desk, staring at her notebook for a few minutes, after her conversation with Sonny. She was going to phone Uncle; she just needed to figure out what to say to him. Unless she was badly mistaken, he would already know that Perkasa was coming to Surabaya. She had learned over the years that with Uncle’s contacts, all roads led back to him. They might be assisting her, but it was because he had done the asking, and he was the man they wanted to please. So there were no secrets between them and her. She assumed that everything she said, everything she did, would be relayed back to Uncle in one form or another. It didn’t bother her. She had respect for their loyalty to him, and she was smart enough to know that it bound them to her. Still, if she was correct in assuming that Perkasa had phoned Uncle to say he was heading to Surabaya at Ava’s request, Uncle would be calling her to ask why.
Why.
In their years together, personal lives had sometimes meshed with the professional, but usually in alignment with a job. Completely personal matters weren’t for sharing. And how much more personal could this be for her?
She was certain, as much as she was certain about anything in her life, that if she told Uncle what had happened, it would not just be a matter of Perkasa coming to Surabaya. It would be Sonny and Uncle flying in from Hong Kong with blood in their eyes. And she didn’t want that to happen for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that she had pride in her ability to manage her life, and she wasn’t about to cede control to anyone when it came to Andy Cameron. He was hers.
There was also the matter of the humiliation Cameron had imposed on her. She was Ava Lee. There wasn’t a man on earth outside of her father