Sidney Sheldon - The sands of time

The account amounted to a little more than thirteen million dollars.

"How would you like it handled?" the banker asked.

"Could you transfer it to one of your associated banks in

Brazil? Rio?"

"Certainly. We'll send you the documentation by messenger this afternoon."

It was that simple.

Lucia's next stop was at a travel agency near the hotel.

There was a large poster in the window advertising Brazil.

It's an omen, Lucia thought happily. She went inside.

"May I help you?"

"Yes. I would like two tickets to Brazil."

There are no extradition laws there.

She could not wait to tell Rubio how well everything was going. He was in Biarritz waiting for her call. They would be going to Brazil together.

"We can live in peace there for the rest of our lives," she had told him.

Now everything was finally set. After all the adventure and the dangers… the arrest of her father and brothers and her vengeance against Benito Patas and Judge Buscetta … the police looking for her and her escape to the convent… Acoña's men and the phony friar… Jaime Miró and Teresa and the gold cross… and Rubio Arzano. Most of all, dear Rubio. How many times had he risked his life for her? He had saved her from the soldiers in the woods… from the raging waters at the waterfall… from the men in the bar at Aranda de Duero. The very thought of Rubio warmed Lucia.

She returned to her hotel room and picked up the telephone, waiting for the operator to answer.

There will be something for him to do in Rio. What? What can he do? He'll probably want to buy a farm somewhere out in the country. But then what would I do?

An operator's voice said, "Number, please."

Lucia sat there staring out the window at the snow-covered

Alps. We have two different lives, Rubio and I. We live in different worlds. I'm the daughter of Angelo Carmine.

"Number, please?"

He's a farmer. That's what he loves. How can I take him away from that? I can't do that to him.

The operator was getting impatient. "Can I help you?"

Lucia said slowly, "No. No, thank you." She replaced the receiver.

Early the following morning, she boarded a Swissair flight to Rio.

She was alone.

The meeting was to take place in the luxurious drawing room of Ellen Scott's townhouse. She paced back and forth waiting for Alan Tucker to arrive with the girl. No. Not a girl. A woman. A nun. What would she be like? What had life done to her? What have I done to her?

The butler walked into the room. "Your guests have arrived, Madam."

She took a deep breath. "Show them in."

A moment later, Megan and Alan Tucker entered.

She's beautiful, Ellen thought. Tucker smiled. "Mrs.

Scott, this is Megan." Ellen looked at him and said quietly,

"I won't need you anymore." And her words had a finality to them. His smile faded.

"Good-bye, Tucker."

He stood there a moment, uncertain, then nodded and left.

He could not get over his feeling that he had missed something. Something important. Too late, he thought. Too bloody late.

Ellen Scott was studying Megan. "Sit down, please."

Megan took a chair, and the two women sat there inspecting each other.

She looks like her mother, Ellen thought. She's grown up to be a beautiful woman. She recalled the terrible night of the accident, the storm and the burning plane.

You said she was dead… There's something we can do. The pilot said we were near Ávila. There should be plenty of tourists there. There's no reason for anyone to connect the baby with the plane crash… We'll drop her off at a nice farmhouse outside of town. Someone will adopt her and she'll grow up to have a lovely life here… You have to choose, Milo.

You can either have me, or you can spend the rest of your life working for your brother's child.

And now here was the past confronting her. Where to begin?

"I'm Ellen Scott, president of Scott Industries. Have you heard of it?"

"No."

Of course she would not have heard of it, Ellen chided herself.

This was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated. She had concocted a story about an old friend of the family who had died, and a promise to take care of his daughter—but from the moment she had first looked at Megan,

Ellen knew that it would not work. She had no choice. She had to trust Patricia—Megan—not to destroy them all. She thought of what she had done to the woman seated before her, and her eyes filled with tears. But it's too late for tears. It's time to make amends. It's time to tell the truth.

Ellen Scott leaned across to Megan and took her hand. "I have a story to tell you," she said quietly.

That had been three years earlier. For the first year,

until she became too ill to continue, Ellen Scott had taken

Megan under her wing. Megan had gone to work for Scott

Industries, and her aptitude and intelligence had delighted the older woman, giving her a fresh outlook and reinforcing her will to live.

"You'll have to work hard," Ellen had told her. "You'll learn, as I had to learn. In the beginning, it will be difficult, but in the end, it will become your life."

And it had.

Megan worked hours that none of her employees could even begin to emulate.

"You get to your office at four o'clock in the morning and work all day. How do you do it?"

Megan smiled and thought: If I slept until four o'clock in the morning at the convent, Sister Betina would scold me.

Ellen Scott was gone, but Megan had kept learning, and kept watching the company grow. Her company. Ellen had adopted her. "So we won't have to explain why you're a

Scott," she had said. But there was a note of pride in her voice.

It's ironic, Megan thought. All those years at the orphanage when no one would adopt me. And now I'm being adopted by my own family. God has a wonderful sense of humor.

A new man was behind the wheel of the getaway car, and it made Jaime Miró nervous. "I'm not sure of him," he told Felix

Carpio. "What if he drives off and leaves us?"

"Relax. He's my cousin's brother-in-law. He'll be fine.

He's been begging for a chance to go out with us."

"I have a bad feeling," Jaime said.

They had arrived in Seville early that afternoon, and had examined half a dozen banks before choosing their target. It was on a side street, small, not too much traffic, close to a factory that would be making deposits there. Everything seemed perfect. Except for the man in the getaway car.

"Is he all that's worrying you?" Felix asked.

"No."

"What, then?"

It was a difficult one to answer. "Call it a premonition."

He tried to say it lightly, mocking himself.

Felix took it seriously. "Do you want to call it off?"

"Because I have the nerves of an old washerwoman today?

No, amigo. It will all go as smooth as silk."

In the beginning, it did.

There were half a dozen patrons in the bank, and Felix held them at bay with an automatic weapon while Jaime cleared out the cash drawers. Smooth as silk.

As the two men were leaving, heading for the getaway car,

Jaime called out, "Remember, amigos, the money is for a good cause."

It was out in the street that it began to fall apart.

There were police everywhere. The driver of the getaway car was on his knees on the pavement, a police pistol at his head.

As Jaime and Felix came into view, a detective called out,

"Drop your weapons."

Jaime hesitated for one split second. Then he raised his gun.

The converted 727 was flying thirty-five thousand feet over the Grand Canyon. It had been a long, hard day. And it's not over yet, Megan thought.