Run Away - Harlan Coben Page 0,101
read it out loud to him: “Let me know of any new developments. It’s vital to keep me in the loop, even if I can’t reply.”
Ash nodded and told her to hit Send. She did.
“Now shut it down.”
They drove in silence for a few more minutes before Dee Dee said, “What?”
“You know what.”
“I really don’t.”
“Simon Greene’s text,” Ash said.
“What about it?”
“I assume the Aaron is Aaron Corval?”
“I assume the same.”
“So who is Paige?”
“Aaron’s girlfriend, right?”
“Why would her father be involved?”
“I don’t know.” Dee Dee turned toward him, tucking her feet under her butt. “I thought you didn’t care about the whys, Ash.”
“I normally don’t.”
“You didn’t like killing that woman,” Dee Dee said. “Men are fine to kill, but a woman?”
“Will you stop? It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“Someone connected the dots. That makes the motives and details my business now.”
Dee Dee turned and looked out the window.
“Unless you don’t trust me,” he said.
“You know I trust you. I trust you more than anyone in the world.”
Ash felt a small ping in his chest. “So?”
“As it was written in the Symbols, the Visitor and the Volunteer must be the first two male children born from the Truth,” she began. “Being male is, of course, paramount. Daughters—and the Truth has at least twenty—don’t really matter in terms of leadership. But male blood is the purest bond because it is the only one with a physical component. A spouse doesn’t share your blood. Neither does the closest friend. So in terms of scientific proof—”
“Dee?”
“Yes?”
“Skip the jargon. I get it. Vartage’s two sons inherit the leadership.”
“They inherit everything. That’s the point. That is how it is written in the Symbols: ‘The two sons will rise.’”
“So what does that have to do with all this?”
“It is also written,” she said, “that Truth Haven and all of the Truth’s possessions will be equally divided amongst his male heirs.”
“Okay, so?”
“It didn’t specify ‘just the oldest two.’ Do you get what I’m saying?”
Ash was starting to see it. “Vartage had more than these two sons?”
“Yes.”
“And the other sons—”
“—were put up for adoption, yes,” Dee Dee said. “Sold really. Daughters were kept. They’d be useful. But the sons could inherit and ruin the prophesies. This was all years ago—before my time.”
“So Vartage just sold his other sons off?”
“It was win-win, Ash. We keep the two-son prophesy—and we make a great deal of money for the Haven.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
“And the mothers would just agree with this?”
“Some would,” Dee Dee said, “and some wouldn’t.”
“So how did that work?”
“The Truth slept with a lot of women. Obviously, some got pregnant. They were told that if their babies were male, they would be destined for better things. That meant going to the Greater Haven in Arkansas. It would be best for the male child.”
“There’s another haven in—?”
“No, Ash, there’s not.”
He just shook his head. “And the mothers just bought this?”
“Some did, some didn’t. It was an internal struggle for these mothers between the way of the Truth and their maternal instincts. The Truth usually won.”
“And when the maternal instincts won?”
“The mothers were told that their babies died in childbirth.”
Ash wasn’t stunned often. He was now. “Seriously?”
“Yes. There was a big funeral and everything. Some of the mothers believed that the stillbirths were their fault, that if they had just agreed to send their child to the Greater Haven…”
“My God.”
Dee Dee nodded. “The male babies were sold. Do you have any idea how much a healthy white male baby could fetch? Beaucoup bucks. Alison Mayflower, who is still loyal to the Truth, worked as the go-between.”
“How many babies did the Truth sell?”
“All male.”
“Got it. How many?”
“Fourteen.”
He kept his hand on the wheel. “And now the Truth is dying.”
“Yes.”
“And the Vartage boys—the Visitor and the Volunteer or whatever—are afraid these biological sons are going to claim a share of the inheritance.”
“For years, the Truth, the Volunteer, and the Visitor—all of us, really—had nothing to fear. There was no way to connect the adopted boys to Truth Haven at all. They were scattered about the country, and just to be on the safe side, Alison Mayflower destroyed all the records. So the Truth could never find his sons—and more important, of course, the sons could never find the Truth.”
“So what went wrong?” Ash asked.
“Have you heard about these new DNA websites like 23andMe or Ance-Story?”
He had.
“Tons of adopted people put their DNA in the bank and hope for a hit,” Dee Dee said.
“So I assume some of the Truth’s sons—”
“Found out about each other, yes.”
“And then somehow linked it back