“Lucky.” It was the man. She knew this voice.
At this point, Sister Margaret Jean opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She took her cell phone out of the folds of her habit and held it in her hand, pulled up Valerie’s number, but didn’t dial it, not yet. She couldn’t be sure. She watched them approach the candles. The man was so much older. He no longer looked so sure of himself. But his shoes were still shiny. The young woman was beautiful, even with the ragged haircut, the bad dye job.
Sister Margaret Jean watched in silence as they lit candles. All at once, the young woman blew the candles out. Sister Margaret Jean was shaken from her dreamlike state. She ran toward them, calling out, but not sure what she was going to do.
If there had been any doubt in her mind that it was them, it was extinguished the moment she saw the woman up close. Her eyes were green like emeralds, the same as Valerie’s.
For almost thirty years, Sister Margaret Jean had held out hope that miracles could really happen in Queens, although she had never seen one—but now, here it was. It had come to pass. They had returned.
Her gaze moved from the familiar green eyes to the necklace that had once been familiar to her, now hanging around the young woman’s neck. It hadn’t had much meaning when she had owned it, but now that shining gold cross felt like a sign. Everything would break if she did the wrong thing. But what was she supposed to do?
That was when the man called her Mary Jean.
“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” she replied. She ran out the door of the church, pausing on the steps to write down the license plate number of the SUV she had seen them pull up in. She stepped into the street and hailed a taxi.
The drive lasted fifteen minutes. She got out of the taxi in front of the stately gray office building where Valerie worked. She had walked by it many times, although she had never gone in. They only ever met at the café. But today, for the first time, she pushed open those heavy glass-and-metal doors and walked to the security desk.
“My name is Margaret Jean, and I’m here to see the Manhattan DA, Valerie Mann. Please tell her it’s urgent. Please tell her it cannot wait.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“What happened in there?” Reyes asked when Lucky and John came out of the church and got back in the SUV. Lucky squinted in the city sunlight, too bright after the dimness of the church.
“I don’t know,” Lucky said, still dazed.
“I’m sure that was her,” John said. “Mary Jean? Maggie Jean? I can’t remember her name. Oh, it was so long ago.” He wrung his hands and glanced back at Lucky. “And then she took off. Maybe it wasn’t her. I don’t know, I just don’t know.”
“Well, if you’re talking about that nun who ran out, she did take down our plate number,” Reyes said, starting the engine. “That’s probably not a good thing. Anyway, we have to go; we’re due to meet my private investigator friend in half an hour.” She pulled back out into traffic and eventually the church was far behind them.
Reyes stopped the car again, this time in the parking lot of a low-rise building in the Bronx.
“Best for you to wait here,” she said to John and Lucky. “Keep your fingers crossed.” She got out of the car, slammed the door.
“I’m sorry,” John said in the silence after she had gone. “I hope you can forgive me someday. I hope you can understand.”
“I hate you for what you did,” Lucky said, and it was the truth. “But I also miss you.” Her voice broke. This was the truth, too. “I have for years. And now you’re here and I just—I can’t do anything. I can’t tell you I don’t want you in my life, and I can’t forgive you. Not now. I need time.”
“I understand that.”
They waited for Reyes in silence. She returned half an hour later.
“She traced her credit card easily,” Reyes said when she got back in the car. “And it’s a bit odd. Apparently she’s staying at a DoubleTree not far from the camp—back in Oneonta, only about twenty minutes away from there. So, looks like we have to drive back now if we’re going to find her, and figure out what she’s doing holed up with that ticket. Okay with you two?”
“We have to do it,” Lucky said, but she found herself thinking of the nun, and the possibility the nun knew something about her mother. There was nothing she could do about that right now, though. She could come back once she got the ticket back. If she got the ticket back.
John reached forward and turned off the radio.
“What’s our plan?” he said. “We need one, for when we get to the hotel.” He sounded like his old self again. Lucky was starting to get emotional whiplash, wondering who he’d be next: a doddering old man, or his calculating, smart old self?
“What if you accused her of stealing it from you, John?” Reyes said. “What if you called the police and said your ex stole your lottery ticket, and then you formally contested the win?”
“But John couldn’t have been in Idaho buying a lottery ticket on the date I bought mine,” Lucky said. “Because he was in prison.”
“We could say it was yours, Reyes,” suggested John. “And that Gloria stole it when we arrived at her camp.”
“Still no good,” Lucky said. “Reyes reports it stolen, there’s an investigation, they look at the security camera footage at the store I bought it at and they wouldn’t see Reyes, they’d see me.”
“So, there’s possibly a way to prove you bought it?” Reyes said.
“I don’t know,” Lucky said. “I honestly have no idea how this all works.”
“Come on,” John said. “Keep thinking. We need a plan.”
“Blackmail,” Lucky finally said. “If we can find her, I’ll tell her I’m going to call the police and tell them about the fake construction jobs. I can make her believe that I recorded her. I’ll make her think I’ll tell the police unless she gives me the ticket.”
* * *