I looked at Uncle Bob, questioned him with a gesture.
“I don’t know, pumpkin. I mean, he was asking a lot of questions about you, but not in the way that you think.”
“What does that even mean, Uncle Bob? Look at this place.”
“He was asking if I’d ever seen anybody following you. Keeping tabs.” A quick glance toward Reyes told me he thought Dad had been talking about him.
“He was asking about Reyes? Why? I mean, he met him. Reyes bought the bar from him.”
“It’s not me,” Reyes said, studying the paraphernalia. “He asked me a few questions when we first met. His intentions had been honorable. He cares for you very much. But this is something else. Look at them.”
He pointed to one picture in particular, and both Ubie and I stepped closer. “He’s in this one, and it looks like —”
“A surveillance shot,” Ubie finished for him.
“And this one.”
We followed him to another area.
“See these? They aren’t of you, but of a man. Do you recognize him?”
He was average height, average weight, but it was hard to make out anything else. “I’ve never seen him,” I said as Ubie shook his head. “But that’s —” I leaned closer. Squinted. “— that’s my apartment building. He’s right outside my apartment building.” I pointed to another. “And he’s on my fire escape in this one!” I shrieked. “He’s looking in my window. The camera was on night vision when someone took this shot.”
Reyes slipped a hand into mine when my anger slipped and the ground shook, just barely, beneath us. Uncle Bob stepped back and grabbed hold of a lamp. Not sure why.
“Was that an earthquake?” he asked, astonished.
“Must’ve been,” Reyes said, lifting my chin until our eyes met. “We good?”
I filled my lungs. “We’re good. Sorry.”
“Anger is something I’m very familiar with.”
After offering him a pensive smile, I turned to Uncle Bob. “So, what? Dad is following this guy? Do you think that’s why he’s not picking up?”
“That would be my guess. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. He did tell me he was investigating something and that he would be unreachable for a while.”
“Uncle Bob, why didn’t you tell me that?”
He lifted a sheepish shoulder. “He told me not to. Now I know why.”
“But why is this guy following me?”
“And from the looks of it,” Reyes added, “he’s been doing it a long, long time.” A dimple appeared at one corner of his sensuous mouth. “Not that I can blame him.”
I grinned. “Yeah, but you followed me for a reason.”
“This guy looks like he has a reason.”
“Or he thinks he does,” Uncle Bob said. He was on the phone with the captain. “I’m not really sure what to do here, pumpkin. It’s your dad’s investigation. Maybe we should leave it for now, wait for him to clue us in to what he’s up to.”
“I agree. But for now, I want to know everything he does about this guy.” I sat at the desk and tried calling once again, but Dad’s phone was turned off this time. His battery may have died, and now we had no way of tracking his whereabouts.
“We can triangulate from your earlier calls, pumpkin. If nothing else, we’ll figure out where he’s been.”
I nodded and started sifting through papers.
“Okay,” Ubie said, hanging up, “just don’t remove anything. I have to get downtown.”
“Go,” I said. “We’re good. And thanks so much, Uncle Bob.”
He walked forward and kissed my temple. “Anytime. And don’t give that desk clerk too much crap. He was just doing his job.”
“I know. But that’s what makes it fun. Wait,” I said, spotting a familiar picture. “I’ve seen this picture.”
Ubie and Reyes took a look. It was of me in Uganda. We were helping a group of refugees to a safe camp we’d set up with fresh water. I was carrying a little girl, her head resting on my shoulder. The memory was one of my more powerful, and I knew why it was of interest to the Vatican. A lion had been attacking villagers, but word soon spread that the lion was afraid of me. That it wouldn’t come near an encampment where I was. I had no idea how that rumor got started. There was zero truth to it, but we began getting new refugees every day.
What I hadn’t known at the time, and what the photographer had captured beautifully, was that the lion stood crouched in the brush to the right of us. I couldn’t see it in the smaller black-and-white Father Glenn had brought, but I could see it now in full color, its amber eyes almost glowing in the setting sun as it watched us.
The shot was spine-tingling and heart-stopping at once. The lion was close enough to reach out and sever my jugular before I even knew it was there. The Ugandans would have taken that as a sign of a miracle. No wonder they thought I was protected.
“Where did you see this?” Reyes asked.
“In the file the Vatican has on me.”
Ubie ogled us both. “The Vatican has a file on you?”
“Didn’t I mention that?”
“As in the actual Vatican in Italy?”
“No, Uncle Bob, the fake one in Poughkeepsie. Yes, the real one in Italy.”
He scrubbed his face with his fingers. “What does that mean?”