protect his children. Maybe that was my excuse. Maybe that was your father's." "My father's?" "Your father was KGB. Did you know that?" "I don't have time for this." "This is a summary of his file. My people translated it into English."
"I don't need to see that."
"I think you should, Mr. Copeland." He held it out. I didn't take it. "If you want to see how far a father might go to make a better life for his children, you should read this. Maybe you'll understand me a little better."
"I don't want to understand you." EJ Jenrette just held the file out. Eventually I took it. He walked away without another word.
I headed back to my office and closed the door. I sat at my desk and opened the file. I read the first page. Nothing surprising. Then I read the second page and yet again, just when I thought I couldn't hurt any more, the words tore open my chest and shredded me apart.
Muse came in without knocking.
"The skeleton they found at that camp," she said. "It's not your sister." I couldn't speak. "See, this Dr. O'Neill found something called a hyoid bone. That's in the throat, I guess. Shaped like a horseshoe. Anyway, it was snapped in half. That means the victim was probably manually strangled. But see, the hyoid bone isn't this brittle in young people-it's more like a cartilage, I guess. So O'Neill ran some more ossification tests with X-rays. In short, it is much more likely that the skeleton belonged to a woman in her forties, maybe even her fifties, than someone Camille's age."
I said nothing. I just stared at the page in front of me.
"Don't you get it? It's not your sister."
I closed my eyes. My heart felt so damn heavy.
"Cope?"
"I know," I said.
"What?"
"It's not my sister in the woods," I said. "It's my mother."
Chapter 42
Sosh wasn't surprised to see me.
"You knew, didn't you?"
He was on the phone. He put his hand over the mouthpiece.
"Sit down, Pavel."
"I asked you a question."
He finished his call and put the phone back in the cradle. Then he saw the manila envelope in my hand. "What's that?"
"Its a summary of my fathers KGB file."
His shoulders slumped. "You cant believe everything in those," Sosh said, but there was nothing behind his words. It was as though he'd read them off a teleprompter. "On page two," I said, trying to quiet the tremor in my voice, "it says what my father did."
Sosh just looked at me.
"He turned in my Noni and Pope, didn't he? He was the source that betrayed them. My own father."
Sosh still wouldn't speak.
"Answer me, dammit."
"You still don't understand."
"Did my own father turn my grandparents in, yes or no?"
"Yes."
I stopped.
"Your father had been accused of botching a delivery. I don't know if he did or not. It makes no difference. The government wanted him. I told you all the pressure that they can apply. They would have destroyed your entire family."
"So he sold out my grandparents to save his own skin?"
"The government would have gotten them anyway. But yes, okay, Vladimir chose to save his own children over his elderly in-laws. He didn't know it would go so wrong. He thought that the regime would just crack down a little, flex a little muscle, that's all. He figured they'd hold your grandparents for a few weeks at the most. And in exchange, your family would get a second chance. Your father would make life better for his children and his children's children. Don't you see?"
"No, I'm sorry, I don't."
"Because you are rich and comfortable."
"Don't hand me that crap, Sosh. People don't sell out their own family members. You should know better. You survived that blockade. The people of Leningrad wouldn't surrender. No matter what the Nazis did, you took it and held your head high."
"And you think that was smart?" he snapped. His hands formed two fists. "My God, you are so naive. My brother and sister starved to death. Do you understand that? If we had surrendered, if we'd given those bastards that damn city, Gavrel and Aline would still be alive. The tide still would have turned against the Nazis eventually. But my brother and sister would have had lives-children, grandchildren, grown old. In stead..."
He turned away.
"When did my mother find out about what he'd done?" I asked.
"It haunted him. Your father, I mean. I think part of your mother always wondered. I think that was why she had such contempt for him. But the