Remember When

between his knees. "Don't you find him fascinating, at least? He was a man who made his own rules, lived his life on his own terms and took what he wanted."
    "Took what he wanted, no matter what it cost anyone else. Who so terrorized my mother she spent years running from him. Even after he died in prison, she kept looking over her shoulder. I know, whatever the doctors say, I know it was him and all those years of fear and worry that made her ill."
    "Face it, Dad, it's a mental defect, and very likely genetic. You or I could be next. Best to live it up before we end up drooling in some glorified asylum."
    "She's your grandmother, and you will show respect for her."
    "But not for him? Blood's blood, isn't it? Tell me about him." He settled back again.
    "I've told you all you need to know."
    "You said you kept moving from place to place. A few months, a year, and you'd be packing up again. He must've contacted her, or you. Come to see you. Otherwise why would she keep running?"
    "He always found us. Until they caught him, he always found us. I didn't know he'd been caught, not till months afterward. I didn't know he'd died for more than a year. She tried to protect me, but I was curious. Curious children have a way of finding things out."
    Don't they just? Trevor thought. "You must've wondered about the diamonds."
    "Why should I?"
    "His last big job? Please, you must've wondered, and being a curious child..."
    "I didn't think about them. I only thought of how he made her feel. How he made me feel the last time I saw him."
    "When was that?"
    "He came to our house in Columbus. We had a nice house there, a nice neighborhood. I was happy. And he came, late at night. I knew when I heard my mother's voice, and his, I knew we'd have to leave. I had a friend right next door. God, I can't remember his name. I thought he was the best friend I'd ever have, and that I'd never see him again. And well, I didn't."
    Boo-hoo, Trevor thought in disgust, but he kept his tone light and friendly. "It wasn't easy for you, or Grandma. How old were you?"
    "Seven, I think. About seven. It's difficult to be sure. One of the things my mother did to hide us was change my birth date. Different names, a year or two added or taken away on our ages. I was nearly eighteen when we stuck with Whittier. He'd been dead for years, and I told her I needed to stay one person now. I needed to start my life. So we kept it, and I know she worried herself sick because of that."
    Paranoid old bat, Trevor thought. "Why do you suppose he came to see you there and then?
    Wouldn't that have been around the time of the heist? The diamonds?"
    "Keeping tabs on me, tormenting her. I can still hear him telling her he could find her wherever she ran, that he could take me from her whenever he wanted. I can still hear her crying."
    "But to come then." Trevor pushed. "Of all times. It could hardly have been a coincidence. He must have wanted something. Told you something, or told her."
    "Why does this matter?"
    He'd plotted it out carefully. Just because he found his father foolish didn't mean he didn't know how the man worked. "I've given this a lot of thought since you first told me. I don't mean to argue with you, but I suppose it's upset me to realize, at this point in my life, what's in my blood."
    "He's nothing to you. Nothing to us."
    "That's just not true, Dad." Sorrowfully, Trevor shook his head. "Didn't you ever want to close the circle? For yourself, and for her? For your mother? There are still millions of dollars of those diamonds out there, and he had them. Your father had them."
    "They got nearly all of them back."
    "Nearly? A full quarter was never recovered. If we could piece things back together, if we could find them, we could close that circle. We could work a way to give them back, through this writer-this Samantha Gannon."
    "Find the diamonds, after over fifty years?" Steve would have laughed, but Trevor was so earnest, and he himself so touched that his son would think about closing that circle. "I don't see how that's possible."
    "Aren't you the one who tells me constantly that anything's possible if you're willing to work for it? This is something I want to do. I feel strongly about it. I need you to help me put it back together. To remember exactly what happened the last time he came to see you, to remember exactly what happened next. Did he ever contact you from prison? You or my grandmother? Did he ever give you anything, send you anything, tell