Gone by Morning
Page 30
So, sadly, an errant shot by a trigger-happy FBI agent had ended Max’s life. Internet conspiracy theorists swarmed the story like annoying gnats. But they’d come nowhere near the truth. The family’s own publicists had anonymously planted some of the most outrageous conspiracy theories on Reddit. Once Max was dead, Roger had only needed to make sure the FBI never ran Max’s DNA profile through its database, which would have led them to his genetic relationship to Jackson. Since there had been no reason to run the DNA of a dead perpetrator whose motive was clear, it had taken Roger relatively minor effort to have his people inside the Bureau guide that portion of the investigation.
Roger strode down a grassy slope to the private road that wended through the cemetery. Drivers bustled out of their seats to open the passenger doors.
There hadn’t been an extraordinary amount of mainstream speculation. The family lawyers, publicists, and well-placed allies had provided plausible explanations for Max’s actions and swiftly spun and killed news stories as they arose. Solid planning was Roger’s forte. Long before Jackson bombed the subway, Roger had obliterated any possible connection to the boy who sought to be part of the family. Roger’s agents had paid the genetic relatives handsomely to take down their family trees from the various DNA websites and sign an NDA. Then accounts had been opened in the names of Roger’s nephews and children using false DNA. He’d ensured that Jackson’s DNA would never be linked in any meaningful way to the family.
Thankfully, Jackson had used a pseudonym and covered his online tracks for his own DNA searches, so no one Jackson had spoken with knew he was the Subway Bomber, or that he had any relation to the requests they received to take down their information. None of them had any idea that they could peddle that information.
Sharon had been a clean kill too. No one would question or find leads on her. Roger had used professionals. True professionals. He didn’t make the kinds of mistakes Max made. Booking mercenaries on the internet? Giving a contract hit to a street gang? That was some sort of generational idiocy.
Roger’s mistake had been confiding in Max about Jackson before the subway bombing. He’d had more of a bond with Max than with his legitimate children, who didn’t have the gene. He’d recognized Max from the first time a pet went missing from the estate when Max was just a preschooler. The blood that traveled through Max’s veins had traveled through the centuries, making their family the most feared inquisitors, land barons, and plantation owners. But Max had been arrogant, thinking he knew better than Roger when he was instructed to leave well enough alone after Sharon was killed. Wayne Carrier would never have exposed Roger, lest he be disbarred for his involvement with Jackson’s illegal adoption. It wasn’t just the NDA that bound Wayne. And Kathleen wouldn’t have destroyed Roger even if she found out he’d fathered a terrorist with Sharon. Not unless she had hard evidence that Roger had killed Sharon. She would never have gotten that.
But Max had gone rogue, insisting on a scorched-earth approach. He’d thought Roger was too soft, over the hill. Max had deluded himself into believing that Roger needed his help, a young man’s courage to handle the situation. Max was sure he needed to get rid of anyone who could threaten the family. But Max had gotten it wrong. Roger was smart, not soft.
Roger sighed as he entered a Rolls Royce to return to the family estate. His children, whiny and coddled by their mother, climbed into the back seat after him. With Max all but forgotten in the media, Roger looked out the window, relieved that he could return to his life. He looked forward to focusing on Sullivan’s presidential campaign again. He’d lay low for a few days as a grieving uncle, but it was time to get back to work.
CHAPTER
76
Before
JACKSON LOOKED AROUND his kitchen. The sound of dawn birds floated in through a screened window. A crow screamed at an interloper, probably a hawk that dared sit on a branch of its tree. Jackson identified with that hawk. He was mightier and wilier, catching and killing, not feasting on leftovers like most people.
Jackson’s duffel bag was packed, ready to go. He wouldn’t leave a good-bye note for his mother, who would still be snuffling softly in sleep across the hall. She would get the point in a few hours. He set the timer for the explosives he’d reserved for her and his dad, then hefted the duffel bag onto his shoulder and headed out into the pink dawn.
He drove south for twenty minutes until he reached the Peekskill Starbucks. He stopped outside the store, pulled his laptop from the bag, and logged into the shop’s Wi-Fi. He wanted no trace of his internet activities that might result in a premature release of information. He wanted everything to go according to his plan.
He logged into a site used to schedule tweets to be sent automatically. You could schedule tweets weeks in advance.
Jackson drafted a tweet and reread it to make sure there were no typos. No need to look like an idiot in his last bequest. He copied and scheduled it to go out as individual tweets directly to the New York Times, New York Post, and Daily News. He added the Beacon Free Press, mostly for the irony. Small-town boy makes it big.
In the tweet, he said simply, “I, Jackson Mattingly, am the son of Roger Merritt.”
Jackson provided his XFactor username and password and a screenshot. He added a link to a clip of the audio of his only conversation with his father at the townhouse. It was the portion in which Roger all but admitted to being his father, the moment when Jackson almost thought Roger would claim him.
It was Roger who was the fool. He’d underestimated Jackson. And Roger would be sorely surprised when he learned that Jackson wasn’t stupid enough to kill himself while leaving his asshole father unscathed. He would never give Roger that gift. He hated too deeply for that.
Jackson clicked into a blue calendar and selected a date two months in the future. That would give his father time to stew on how fucked up his life would be if Jackson’s relationship to him ever came out. Roger’s squirming anxiety from the first time he learned of Jackson’s attack would turn into a long, razor-wire strangulation. All on Jackson’s terms.
Jackson clicked SCHEDULE PUBLICATION.
He closed the laptop and breathed in. He felt a deep satisfaction that finally soothed the fury that had burned hot in his belly since the day he’d met his father. He drove south in the car that Roger’s Bitcoin had bought. Jackson’s only regret was that he wouldn’t be around when dear old dad realized that Jackson had beaten him.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
TO HELP PREVIOUSLY incarcerated people regain stability and receive a second chance at life, please visit The Fortune Society at https://fortunesociety.org.
To support an end to violence against sex workers, please visit Sex Workers Outreach Project at https://SWOPUSA.org.
Also available by Michele Weinstat Miller
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
An Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards semifinalist, Michele Weinstat Miller is an attorney who lives in Upper Manhattan with her husband, eighteen-year-old twin sons, two cats, and a large dog. Until recently, Michele served as the chief government ethics prosecutor for NYC. Her experience and the crazy stories that reached her desk from in and around City Hall bring realism and humor to Gone by Morning. She currently serves as legal counsel to a nonprofit agency that provides reentry services to the formerly incarcerated. Michele has a black belt in the Jaribu system of karate and was once a roller-disco champ.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TO CROOKED LANE—ESPECIALLY Katie McGuire, Melissa Rechter, Madeline Rathle, Rachel Keith, Rebecca Nelson and Jenny Chen—for helping to bring Gone by Morning to life.
To Writers House, particularly Susan Ginsburg and Catherine Bradshaw, for their undying support. I am deeply grateful.
To Dawn Walker and Sheila Stainback, who made sure I had the facts right about a press officer’s life at City Hall. Any mistakes are my own.
To Ellen Weinstat and Katy Garrabrant,
trusted first readers and much more.
To my Thursday writer friends for holding my hand during the roller coaster ride. A special thanks to Lawrence Block for his gentle prodding, guidance, and grimaces over the years.
To all my friends and fans who read, review, comment, share, and tell their friends about my books. It is a great pleasure to live in fictional worlds with you. I thank you for your support.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Kai, Shane, and Jerome Miller, my cheer squad and pandemic coworkers, for all your unconditional love, encouragement, and forbearance. I love you guys so much.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Michele Weinstat Miller
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-740-4
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-741-1
Cover design by Meghan Diest
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: August 2021
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