Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  “How’m I doing?” she murmured.

  “You’re never going to play in the Bigs, but you’re coming along.”

  He laid a hand on her hip, rested it there, then stepped back. “Okay, Ty, you’re up.”

  Lana watched them, the man’s big hands over her child’s small ones on a fat plastic bat. For a moment her heart ached viciously for the man she’d loved and lost. And for a moment, she could almost feel him standing beside her, as she sometimes did when she watched their son sleep late at night.

  Then there was the muffled crack of plastic on plastic, and Ty’s bright and delighted laughter rang out. The ache faded.

  There was only her child, and the man who guided his hands on a fat plastic bat.

  Twelve

  It took three days before the site was cleared for work. During that time, Callie wrote reports, spent a day in the Baltimore lab. She cooperated with the county sheriff, sitting in his office for an hour giving her official statement and answering questions.

  She knew they were no closer to finding Dolan’s killer. She kept her ear tuned to town gossip, read the reports in the newspaper.

  And she knew when she brushed and probed at the earth that she was exploring the place where a man had been killed.

  Others had died there, she thought. Through sickness, through injury. Through violence. With them, she could gather data, reconstruct and outline reasonable theories.

  With Dolan, she was as much in the dark as the local police.

  She could envision the lives, the social order, even the daily routine of people who’d lived thousands of years before she was born. Yet she knew next to nothing about a man she’d met—one she’d argued with.

  She could dig here, and she could discover. Yet she would learn nothing about a man who’d died only a few feet away from where she worked.

  She could dig into her own past, and she would discover. But it would change nothing.

  “You were never happier than when you had a pile of dirt and a shovel.”

  She turned her head, swiped absently at the sweat that dripped at her temples. And felt her heart give a quick lurch as she saw her father.

  “It’s a dental pick,” she said and held it up. She set it aside, stepped over her camera and other tools, then boosted herself out of the hole. “I’m going to give you a break and not hug you because that’s a nice suit.” But she tilted her head up to kiss his cheek.

  She brushed her hands on the butt of her jeans. “Is Mom with you?”

  “No.” He glanced around, as much with interest as a means to put off the purpose of his visit. “You look pretty busy around here.”

  “We’re making up for lost time. We had to stop everything on-site for three days until the police cleared the scene.”

  “Police? Was there an accident?”

  “No. I forget this isn’t the world. I guess the news reports haven’t gone that far north. There was a murder.”

  “Murder?” Shock covered his face even as he gripped her hand. “My God, Callie. One of your team?”

  “No. No.” She squeezed his hand, and the initial awkwardness she knew they’d both felt dropped away. “Let’s get some shade.”

  She bent down first, grabbed two water bottles out of her cooler. “It was the guy who owned the land here, the developer. It looks like he came out, middle of the night, to salt the dig with some animal bones. He wasn’t too happy with the kink we put in his plans for the land. Somebody bashed in his skull. Probably a rock. Right now we don’t know who or why.”

  “You’re not staying here? You’re in a motel in town.”

  “Yes, I’m in a motel. I’m perfectly safe.” She handed him one of the water bottles as they walked away from the site and into the trees. “Digger’s staying here. You remember Digger from that knap-in you and Mom tried out in Montana.” She gestured toward where he worked, practically butt to butt with Rosie.

  “He found the body the next morning. He’s really shaken up by it. And the cops are drilling him. He’s got a couple of D and D’s on his record, and a couple of destruction of property or something. Bar fights,” she said with a shrug. “Right now he’s scared brainless they’re going to arrest him.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t . . . ?”

  “Yes. As sure as I am I didn’t. Dig’s a little crazy, and he likes to mix it up, especially if there’s a female involved. But he’d never really hurt anyone. He’d never walk up behind someone and crush their skull with a rock. It’s likely it was someone from town. Someone with a grudge against Dolan. From what I gather, he had as many enemies as friends, and the sides were divided over this development.”

  “What happens now, with your project?”

  “I don’t know.” It was a mistake, she knew, to become overly attached to a dig. And she always made the same mistake. “We’re taking it a day at a time. Graystone’s called in an NA rep to approve the removal of remains.”

  She gestured again toward Jake and the stocky man beside him. “They know each other, worked together before, so things are pretty smooth in that area.”

  He looked at the man who’d been his son-in-law. The man he barely knew. “And how are you dealing with working with Jacob again?”

  “It’s okay. As far as the work itself, he’s just about the best. Since I am the best, that works out. On the other front, we’re getting along better than we used to. I don’t know why except he’s being less of a pain in the ass than he was. Which, in turn, makes me less of a pain in the ass. But you didn’t drive all the way down from Philadelphia to see the project or ask me about Jake.”

  “I’m always interested in your work and your life. But no, that’s not why I came.”

  “You got the results of the blood tests.”

  “They’re very preliminary at this point, Callie, but I . . . I thought you’d want to know.”

  The Earth did not stop spinning on its axis, but in that one moment Callie’s world took that final lurch that changed everything. “I already knew.” She took her father’s hand, squeezed it hard. “Have you told Mom?”

  “No. I will. Tonight.”

  “Tell her I love her.”

  “I will.” Elliot’s vision blurred. He cleared his throat. “She knows, but it’ll help her to know it was the first thing you said. She’s prepared as much as any of us can be prepared. I realize you’ll need to tell . . . the Cullens. I thought you might want me to go with you when you do.”

  She kept staring straight ahead until she was certain she could speak without breaking. “You’re such a good man. I love you so much.”

  “Callie—”

  “No, wait. I need to say this. Everything I am I got from you and Mom. It doesn’t matter about the color of my eyes or the shape of my face. That’s biological roulette. Everything that counts is from you. You’re my father. And this can’t . . . I’m sorry for the Cullens. I’m desperately sorry for them. And I’m angry, for them, for you and Mom, for myself. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. That scares me. I don’t know what’s going to happen, Daddy.”

  She turned into him, pressed her face to his chest.

  He gathered her in, clinging as she clung. She rarely cried, he knew. Even as a child tears weren’t her response to pain or anger. When she cried, it was because the hurt went so deep she couldn’t yank it out and examine it.

  He wanted to be strong for her, to be solid and sure. But his own tears choked him. “I want to fix this for you. My baby. But I don’t know how.”

  “I want it to be a mistake.” She turned her hot, damp cheek onto his shoulder. “Why can’t it just be a mistake? But it’s not.” She let out a trembling breath. “It’s not. I have to deal with it. And I can only do that my way. Step by step, point by point. Like a project. I can’t just look at the surface and be satisfied. I have to see what’s under it.”

  “I know.” He dug his handkerchief out of his pocket. “Here.” He dabbed at her cheeks. “I’ll help you. I’ll do everyt
hing I can to help.”

  “I know.” She took the handkerchief from him. “Now dry yours,” she murmured and gently wiped away his tears. “Don’t tell Mom I cried.”

  “I won’t. Do you want me to go with you, to speak to the Cullens?”

  “No. But thanks.” She laid her hands on his cheeks. “We’ll be all right, Dad. We’ll be okay.”

  Jake watched them. He’d known, just as Callie had known, the minute he’d seen Elliot. And when she’d broken down, cried in her father’s arms, it had ripped at his gut. He watched the way they stood now, with Callie’s hands on his face. Trying to comfort each other, he thought. To be strong for each other.

  There was a tenderness between them he’d never experienced in his own family. Graystones, he thought, weren’t adept at expressing the more gentle of emotions.

  He’d describe his own father as stoic, he supposed. A man of few words who worked hard and rarely complained. He’d never doubted his parents loved each other, or their children, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his father actually say “I love you” to anyone. He’d have found the words superfluous. He’d shown love by seeing there was food on the table, by teaching his children, by the occasionally affectionate headlock or pat on the back.

  His tribe, Jake thought, hadn’t spent much time on the softer aspects of family. That had been his environment, his culture and his learning curve.

  Maybe that was why he’d never gotten comfortable telling Callie the things women wanted to hear.

  That she was beautiful. That he loved her. That she was the center of his world and everything that mattered.

  He couldn’t go back and change what had been, but he was going to stick this time. He was going to be there for her through this crisis whether she wanted him or not.

  He saw her walk toward the creek. Elliot picked up the water bottles they’d dropped and, straightening, looked over at Jake.

  When their eyes met, Elliot walked out of the dappled shade and back into the brutal sun that covered the site.

  Jake met him halfway.

  “Jacob. How are you?”

  “Well enough.”

  “I’d like to tell you that both Vivian and I were very sorry when things didn’t work out between you and Callie.”

  “Appreciate that. I’d better tell you that I know what’s going on.”

  “She confided in you?”

  “You could put it that way. Or you could say I pried it out of her.”

  “Good. Good,” Elliot repeated, and rubbed at the tension at the nape of his neck. “It helps knowing she’s got someone close by to lean on right now.”

  “She won’t lean. That’s one of our problems. But I’m around anyway.”

  “Tell me, before she comes over, should I be worried about what happened here? The murder?”

  “If you mean does it have anything to do with her, I don’t see how. Added to that, I’m sticking pretty close.”

  “And when you shut down the dig for the season?”

  Jake nodded. “I’ve got some ideas on that.” He looked past Elliot as Callie started across the field. “I’ve got plenty of ideas.”

  She knew it was a cop-out, she knew it was cowardly. But Callie had Lana call Suzanne and set up a conference, in her office for the following day. She’d have put it off a little longer, but Lana had an opening at three. Making excuses to change the day was just a little more of a cop-out than Callie could justify.

  She tried to work on her daily report, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. She tried to channel her mind into a book, into an old movie on TV, but she couldn’t pull it off.

  She thought about going for a drive, but that was foolish. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do once she got there.

  She wondered if she’d feel less boxed in if she gave up the motel room and camped on-site.

  It was a consideration.

  But in the meantime she was stuck in a twelve-by-fourteen-foot room with a single window, a rock-hard bed and her own churning thoughts.

  She dropped down on the bed, opened the shoe box. She didn’t want to read another letter. She was compelled to read another letter.

  This time she plucked one at random.

  Happy birthday, Jessica. You’re five years old today.

  Are you happy? Are you healthy? Do you, in some primal part of your heart, know me?

  It’s such a beautiful day here. There’s just that faintest hint of fall in the air. The poplar trees are beginning to go yellow, and the bush in front of Grandma’s house is fire-red already.

  Both your grandmothers came by this morning. They know, of course they know, that this is a difficult day for me. Nanny and Pop are talking about moving down to Florida. Next year maybe, or the year after. They’re tired of the winters. I wonder why some people want summer all year round.

  Grandma and Nanny thought they were helping when they came over, chattering and full of plans for the day. They wanted to take me out. We’d go to the outlets, they said. The outlets over in West Virginia, and we’d start our Christmas shopping. We’d have lunch.

  I was angry. Couldn’t they see I didn’t want to go out? I didn’t want company or laughter or outlet malls. I wanted to be alone. I hurt their feelings, but I didn’t care.

  I don’t want to care.

  There are times all I want to do is scream. To scream and scream and never, never stop. Because today you’re five years old, and I can’t find you.

  I baked you a cake. An angel food cake and I drizzled it with pink icing. It’s so pretty. I put five white candles on the cake, and I lit them and sang happy birthday to you.

  I wanted you to know that, to know that I baked you a cake and put candles on it for you.

  I can’t tell your daddy about it. He gets upset with me, and we fight. Or worse he says nothing at all. But you and I will know.

  When Doug came home from school, I cut him a slice of it. He looked so solemn and sad as he sat at the table and ate it. I wish I could make him understand that I baked you a cake because none of us can forget you.

  But he’s just a little boy.

  I haven’t let you go, Jessie. I haven’t let you go.

  I love you,

  Mama

  As she folded the letter again, Callie imagined Suzanne lighting candles, singing “Happy Birthday” in an empty house to the ghost of her little girl.

  And she remembered the tears on her father’s cheeks that afternoon.

  Love, she thought as she put the box away, was so often thorny with pain. It was a wonder the human race continued to seek it.

  But maybe loneliness was worse.

  She couldn’t stand to be alone now. She’d go crazy if she stayed alone in that room for much longer. She had her hand on the door when she stopped herself, when she realized where she’d been going.

  To Jake, she thought. Next door to Jake. For what? To crowd out the pain with sex? To block off the loneliness with shoptalk? To pick a fight?

  Any of the above would do the job.

  But she didn’t want to go running to him. She pressed her forehead on the door. She had no right to go running to him.

  Instead, she opened her cello case. She rosined her bow, settled into the spindly chair. She thought Brahms, and just as she laid the bow on strings, she reconsidered.

  She slanted a look at the wall between her room and Jake’s.

  Just because she couldn’t go running to him, did that mean she couldn’t make him come running to her?

  What was one more cop-out, in the big scheme?