Disillusioned (Swept Away, #2)(14)
“Yeah, perhaps.” I nodded. I was about to tell her that someone had added a line to the letter Jakob had given me while I’d been sleeping, but I didn’t want her to know about the letter. I didn’t want her to think that Mattias was still threatening me. I didn’t want her to tell me that I had to come and stay with her. I knew that would be the smartest thing to do, but I wasn’t going to let someone drive me out of my home. “Yeah, let me call him.” I grabbed my phone from the table and made a call.
“Hello,” a teary-sounding voice answered.
“Is Larry there, please?”
“Who is this?” She sounded panicked.
“It’s Bianca London.”
“Bianca?” The voice froze. “Bianca London, did you say?”
“Yes, I need to speak to Larry, please, it’s urgent.”
“Larry’s gone missing.” Her voice dropped. “This is his wife.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone missing?” My heart stopped and my body grew cold at her words. How could he have gone missing? He was the only one who could help me. And then I realized that of course he’d gone missing. Mattias didn’t want me to find out the truth. First Steve was missing and now Larry? How convenient that both the men who could give me answers had disappeared.
“I was out shopping.” She gasped. “I just went to get some new clothes. We were going to go on a cruise. Larry wanted us to take a vacation. But while I was out, he called me, said that he thinks someone is in the house. He said that his old friend’s daughter is in trouble. That he shouldn’t have kept quiet.”
“What old friend?” I whispered frantically. I could feel Rosie’s eyes staring at my back.
“I can’t remember, but he said he owed his daughter, Bianca, the truth. I remember the name because it’s Mick Jagger’s ex wife’s name and I love the Rolling Stones.”
“What truth does he owe me?”
“I don’t know.” She started crying. “The phone disconnected, and when I got home, the house was ransacked and he was gone. All the papers in his office were on the floor, and I think there were drops of blood as well.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes.” She sounded frantic. “But they have no leads. He was taken, Bianca. I’m positive he was taken.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” My head was spinning. “Did he say anything else?”
“He told me that I should call you, Bianca. I didn’t call yet because I was too upset. But he told me to tell you to look through the papers carefully. He said, ‘The answers are in the papers, but the truth might not be.’?”
“The papers he gave me in the box?” I questioned frantically. “And what answers? Is he talking about my mother’s death? Is he talking about my dad still being an owner in Bradley Inc.?”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I have to go. All I can tell you is what he said, ‘The answers are in the papers, but the truth might not be.’?”
“?‘But not the truth’? Did he say ‘but the truth might not be’ or did he say ‘but not the truth’?” My mind was swirling a hundred miles a minute. What did that mean? And which statement had he actually spoken? If he’d said “but the truth might not be,” then the information in the papers might be valid. However, if he’d said “but not the truth,” it seemed to me that all of the answers I’d come up with might be false. “The answers are in the papers” indicated that clues were in the papers he’d given me, but maybe the clues weren’t as straightforward as I’d thought them to be.
“I don’t remember. I have to go. I’m sorry.” She hung up.
I held the phone to my ear for a few seconds, hoping that she hadn’t really hung up. I needed to know more. What did Larry’s comment mean? What did he know? And more important, where was he? Had Jakob kidnapped him as well?
“What’s going on, Bianca?” Rosie touched my shoulder, and I turned around slowly. I looked at her, but my eyes couldn’t focus on her face. I wanted to be alone. I needed to go through the papers again. I had to have missed something. The answers are in the papers, but not the truth.
All of a sudden I wasn’t so sure of the conclusions I’d made by reading all the papers my father had left for me. Things weren’t adding up, not the way they should be. I needed to analyze the information the papers held. My brain was throbbing with a dull excitement. There were answers to be found, and I was going to find them. I had to do this for both my mother and my father. There were too many questions and I wasn’t going to sit passively by and wait for the truth to hit me on the head. I was going to figure this puzzle out.
Why had Jakob let me go before the merger had been finalized? Why had Steve turned rogue? Where was Steve? And where was Larry? What did Larry’s message mean? Who had been in my apartment the night before? Was Jakob the one sending me the threatening texts as well? Had Mr. Bradley had my mother killed because he wanted to gain control of the company? All of a sudden, everything that had seemed so simple seemed weak and hazy. I’d thought this was just about proving that Jeremiah Bradley had stolen my father’s shares and had my mother killed. I’d been naive enough to think I could just get the information I needed and move on. I’d gone into this whole thing thinking it would be easy gaining access to the company through David. Whom had I been kidding? I was swimming with sharks, sharks that ate fish like me for breakfast.