Twist of Fate

by Mary Jo Putney

  Lyssie broke the tension by skipping up the steps to present him with a bouquet of autumn blossoms. "Welcome to the world, Mr. Monroe." Her voice was very clear. She and Val had worked this out in advance. "Lots of people are glad to see you."

  Daniel's expression softened, and he went down on one knee to accept the bouquet. "You're Lyssie. I've heard a lot about you. Thank you for the flowers." His fingertips skimmed over the petals of the gold and bronze chrysanthemums. "In the old days, I never noticed how beautiful flowers are."

  Beaming but suddenly shy, Lyssie scooted back to Val and Rob.

  His expression more sure, Daniel rose and walked down the steps to Kendra and Jason, straight into their arms. "Oh, baby, baby, baby," he said hoarsely.

  She wasn't sure if he meant her or Jason. Both of them, probably. His powerful body was both familiar and unexpected. They had been lovers once and would be again, she knew in her bones.

  To her shock, she began to cry, burying her face in Daniel's shoulder as great wrenching sobs tore through her. "I'm sorry, honey," she gasped. "I...I wouldn't let myself cry in front of you when you were in prison, but now..."

  "It's okay, girl," he said with a grin. "If I weren't such a big mean dude, I'd be cryin' myself."

  As she and Jason laughed, Luke and Angel came forward, then Val and Rob. After greeting his brother and sister-in-law, Daniel gave Val a hug that swept her off her feet. "Just a bit of a thing," he said fondly.

  He turned back to Kendra and said in a voice so low that even Jason couldn't hear, "The first time I met your mama I said I'd marry you, but I never got the chance. I'm not fit for marryin' now any more than a bulldog just off his chain. I've got a lot of learnin' and livin' to do. But a year from now--well, by then I should be ready to ask you a question. Think about it between now and then."

  She smiled through the tears that insisted on stinging her eyes. "Yes, Daniel, I'll think about it." She'd think, she'd weigh the pluses and minuses, maybe even make a neat list of pros and cons. She would think about whether they still looked as if they belonged together.

  And then she'd say yes.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Val watched misty-eyed as Daniel and his family moved forward into the crowd of reporters. Lyssie's gaze had the sharp observation of a potential writer. Val could almost see the mental notes her little sister was making. With the improvement in health Louise was showing now that she had better care, Val was unlikely to become Lyssie's guardian, but they were sisters forever.

  "It's been six months since I decided to open my own office so I could practice more do-gooder law," Val said quietly to Rob. "So much has changed."

  He put his arm around her shoulders. "Pretty much all for the better, too."

  For sure. Rob had taken to the Meeting like an eagle to the air. His hard-earned clarity and integrity made him a natural Quaker. She would spend her life working to be a better Friend, but that was another battle worth fighting. "I've been thinking. Now that the weather's getting colder, surely you and Malcolm would be more comfortable living at my place until you finish the main remodeling work at your house."

  "If that's an invitation, we accept," he said promptly. "But didn't you say that people who lived together first were more likely to get divorced if they later got married? Maybe we need to do something so we don't become victims of a statistic."

  "I've thought of that." With a grin, she stuck out her palm. "Hand over the keys to the Corniche, and let's start looking at dates."

  Author's Note

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Capital punishment arouses strong opinions on both sides, but just about no one is in favor of executing innocent people. While any thinking person has to assume that sometimes the justice system makes mistakes, the advent of DNA testing has proven how alarmingly often those mistakes occur.

  Ever since then public awareness of the problem has been stimulated by stories such as those coming out of Illinois. With the help of energetic journalism students from Northwestern University, more men were released from death row as innocent than were being executed. The stories were so outrageous and horrifying that eventually the governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on executions.

  While my characters and plot are fictional, most of the details are derived from real cases. A major inspiration for this book was the case of Michael Austin, imprisoned for murder in my hometown of Baltimore. Austin was convicted by the flip-flop testimony of a lying eyewitness, and a business card that turned out to be totally irrelevant. Not only had several other eyewitnesses described a killer of very different appearance, but Austin had been at work at the time of the murder and had a time card to prove it.

  t took twenty-seven years for the truth to set him free.

  With the intervention of Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey organization dedicated to helping wrongly convicted prisoners, Michael Austin was released after spending half his life in prison. Anyone interested in learning more about wrongful conviction can find more information on the Internet. One good site is www.justicedenied.org, which has a bibliography of books and articles on the subject.

  Excerpt

  from

  The Burning Point

  Book 1 in the Circle of Friends Trilogy

  Prologue

  Twenty-five years ago

  A piercing wail shattered the dawn air. The waiting crowd, safely restrained behind barriers, began to buzz with anticipation. In the command post, Kate Corsi danced excitedly from foot to foot. "Now, Papa?"

  Sam Corsi laughed. "Not yet, Katie. That's just the two-minute warning siren."

  She tried to stand still, but two minutes seemed like forever. She'd always known that her father's business was blowing up buildings, had even seen movies of his work. But this was different, her very first live shot. She tugged restlessly at the ribbon that held back her blond hair. "Can I push the button?"

  "If you're good, someday I'll let you set off the blast, but not this time." Sam Corsi ruffled her brother's dark hair. "Someday the business will be Tom's, and he has to learn what it's like to control so much power."

  Tom put one arm around Kate in an apologetic hug. "Your turn will come, short stuff."

  The countdown by Luther Hairston was progressing. When he saw Kate watching, he closed one dark eye in a wink without stopping his steady counting.

  "All right, Tom," Sam Corsi ordered. "Put your finger on that button and wait for me to say 'now!' Don't push it before I tell you to."

  Looking a little sick, Tom set his finger on the button. But Kate knew he wouldn't make a mistake. He was the smartest big brother in the world.

  Seven, six, five, four, three, two....

  "Now!" her father barked.

  Tom pushed so hard his fingertip whitened. Nothing happened, and for a terrible moment Kate's heart stopped.

  Then machine-gun sharp bangs rattled from the tall building across the street, and clouds of dust rolled from the empty windows in the lower floors. Next came deep, deep booms that shook the bones. Walls pitched inward and the huge structure slowly collapsed into its base. Kate shrieked with joy.

  Her father swooped her up to his shoulder for a better view. "Take a good look, Katie. This is Phoenix Demolition at work, and we're the best!"

  Kate bounced in his arms. "Someday I'll blow up buildings, too."

  Sam chuckled. "Demolition is no place for girls. Tom will run the company. If you ask nicely, maybe he'll let you work in the office."

  "The times are changing, Sam," Luther said. "That lively little girl of yours might make a fine PDI engineer when she grows up."

  "No daughter of mine is ever going to work demolition."

  Kate sniffed. Papa was stubborn, but so was she. She'd make him let her into the business.

  Because Katherine Carroll Corsi wanted to blow up buildings.

  Chapter 1

  Present day, outside Washington, DC

  One hour until detonation.

  Dawn was still a long way off. Donovan ent
ered the warmth of the Phoenix demolition site office, a construction trailer parked near the shabby apartment building that was PDI's current project. His boss, Sam Corsi, poured a cup of coffee and handed it over without being asked.

  "Thanks." Donovan swallowed a scalding mouthful. "Damn, but it's cold out there. Hard to believe in global warming."

  "Everything in order?"

  Donovan nodded. "In order, and even a little ahead of schedule. The only thing left is the final walk-through. Want me to do that?"

  "Hell, no. I didn't spend all these years building PDI so that punk kids like you could have all the fun."

  Donovan grinned, not having expected any other answer. The last sweep through a structure on the verge of demolition had a special kind of excitement, and Sam pulled rank shamelessly to do the job whenever he could. No way would he let his right-hand man take his place, even on a night that could freeze fur off a bear.

  Sam's daughter, Kate, had shared that Corsi capacity for exuberance. Kate, Donovan's long gone but not forgotten ex-wife.

  Sam knocked back the last of his own coffee, his gaze on the dark hulk of the Jefferson Arms, silhouetted against the lights of Washington, DC. Closer to hand, police lines kept spectators at a safe distance. Because of the early hour and the bitterly cold January weather, not many people had come to watch the implosion. Voice brusque, he asked, "Ever thought of getting back together with Kate?"

  "Jesus, Sam!" Donovan almost strangled on his coffee. "What the hell put that in your head? It's been ten years since Kate and I split up, and as far as I know, she hasn't set foot in Maryland since."

  Sam shrugged, his gaze still on the Jefferson Arms. "Yeah, but neither of you has shown any signs of hooking up with anyone else. You married too young, but there was something damned good between you. Besides, Julia'd like some grandkids to spoil."

  Donovan winced as the conversation moved onto dangerous ground. "You're right that we were too young. But even assuming that Kate was interested--and frankly, I think she'd see me in hell first--there is the small matter of her living in San Francisco. Not exactly dating distance."

  "Things change." Sam glanced at the clock, then put on parka and gloves in preparation for the walk-through. "Maybe I'll give Tom a call one of these days."

  That remark was even more of a shock than the wacko suggestion about Kate. Remembering Sam's unexpected trip to the emergency room the month before, Donovan asked uneasily, "Did the doctors find something wrong with your heart that you haven't told me about? I thought they said it was just indigestion."

  "Nothing wrong with my heart, and I've got the cardiogram to prove it." Sam shoved his hard hat onto his salt and pepper hair and picked up a big beam flashlight. "But I'll admit that getting hauled off to the hospital got me to thinking. Nobody lives forever. Maybe it's time I knocked a few heads together."

  Seeing Donovan's expression, Sam grinned and lightly clipped the younger man's shoulder with his fist. "Don't worry. If I do any head cracking, it will be for your own good." He headed out into the freezing night.

  Wondering what the hell that had been about, Donovan did radio checks with the other members of the team. A perfect shot didn't happen by accident, and PDI's flawless safety record was a result of painstaking care at every stage of a job. This implosion was pretty routine, if there was ever anything routine about reducing a massive building to ruins in a handful of seconds. Soon the structure would be swept away, not with a whimper but an almighty bang. Then something better would rise.

  A moving beam of light marked Sam's progress through the Jefferson Arms. Inside the echoing structure, he was meticulously checking the explosive charges, the wiring, and even the flour the crew had scattered in the stairwells to reveal if a homeless person or animal had taken refuge in the building.

  Twenty minutes until demolition. Restless with the adrenaline of an impending shot, Donovan picked up the microphone of the radio base station again. "How's it going, Sam?"

  "Everything's fine," his boss boomed. "This dump might've been a lousy place to live, but it's going to make a great pile of rubble. I'll be out in ten minutes."

  Donovan was about to switch off the mike when Sam muttered, "That's odd."

  "What have you found?"

  "Not sure. Just a second..."

  Suddenly the quiet of the night shattered. A series of explosions ripped through the Jefferson Arms, engulfing the building in thunder and flame. Walls pitched inward and the structure majestically collapsed as gritty clouds of dust spewed in all directions.

  "Sam! SAM!" Donovan shouted in horror, instinctively hurling himself out the door of the trailer.

  But it was too late. A thousand tons of concrete had already crushed down on the man who had been boss, friend, and surrogate father for half his life.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Three days later

  Funerals were hell, and the post-burial gatherings weren't much better. Reaching the limits of her endurance, Kate Corsi slipped away for a few minutes to collect herself before she broke down in front of dozens of friends and relatives. Since the first floor offered no privacy, she made her way through the grand house and up the lushly carpeted stairs, ending in the back bedroom her father had used as a home office.

  Everything in the room spoke of Sam Corsi, from the souvenirs of demolished buildings to the faint, lingering scent of cigars. Kate lifted the century-old brick salvaged from the implosion of a derelict factory complex in New England. It was the first PDI project to be featured in a Hollywood movie--an invasion from outer space flick--and Sam had been over the moon. Since then, a number of the company's implosions had shown up on the big screen.

  Putting the brick back on his desk, she took a cigar from the walnut humidor and pressed it to her cheek. The tangy vegetal scent reminded her of her father in an intense, primitive way. He'd done most of his smoking in this room, but the faint odor of cigars had followed him everywhere.

  She replaced the cigar and crossed to the window, hot tears stinging her eyes as she rested her forehead against the icy glass. Life had been surreal for the last three days, ever since she'd been yanked awake at 4:00 A. M. by a ringing phone.

  If she lived to be a hundred, she'd never forget the timbre of her mother's shaking voice as she broke the news that Sam Corsi had been killed in a shot that went wrong. In the space of a heartbeat, Kate's estrangement from her father had vanished as a lifetime of love welled into devastating grief.

  By mid-morning she'd been on an airplane from San Francisco, flying back to Maryland for her first visit in almost ten years. By the time she landed, her father's body had been found in the rubble and the funeral had been scheduled.

  Ever since then, she'd been caught up in chaos as she helped her mother with the decisions and arrangements that surrounded a sudden death. Sam Corsi, like his business, Phoenix Demolition International, had been one of a kind, and his death in a premature explosion was front page news in The Baltimore Sun. Now he lay in the ice-hard earth, after a graveside service that had been rushed because of the bitter winds of the coldest January on record.

  She still had trouble believing that someone as stubborn and generous, likable and maddening, could be gone. Unconsciously she'd thought her father would live forever. Or at least long enough for their estrangement to fully heal. She should have worked harder at reconciliation. Now it was too late. Too damned late.

  Warned by the tap of high heels, she hastily straightened and brushed at her damp eyes as another woman entered the room. The dark window reflected an image that could almost have been herself. Her mother, Julia, had bequeathed Kate her own height and lean build and fair hair. Only Kate's chocolate-brown eyes were a visible legacy from her Italian father.

  Turning, Kate went straight into Julia's arms for a hug, needing to give as much as she needed to receive. "How are you doing, Mother?"

  "Enduring." Julia clung to her daughter, brittle to the breaking point. Kate held her close, aching that she couldn't do more.


  Tension eased, Julia stepped away, but lines were sharply etched around her eyes and her complexion was grayed by grief and fatigue. "I saw you leave, so I came up to say that after the guests have gone, Charles wants to talk to us about your father's will."

  No doubt her mother had also been glad for an excuse to briefly escape the chattering crowd. "I thought reading the will to the assembled family was only done in Victorian novels."

  "This won't be quite like that." Julia's gaze shifted away. "But there are...things that need to be discussed."

  Before Kate could ask what was so important that it had to be dealt with tonight, her mother dropped onto the edge of a wooden chair and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "I do hope everyone leaves soon. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

  Kate placed a gentle hand on Julia's shoulder. "Mother..."

  Julia clasped her fingers over her daughter's. "It's good to hear people talking about Sam and how they remember him. But it hurts, too. I've spent all day fighting tears."

  "No one would mind if you cried."

  "I'd mind, because I don't know when I'd stop."

  Kate tightened her grasp on her mother's shoulder. Blue-blooded Julia Carroll had been very different from Sam Corsi, an East Baltimore boy and proud of it, but that hadn't kept them from a good marriage. She had the right to grieve in her own way. Kate understood, because she shared her mother's need to face the world with composure.

  Julia closed her eyes. "I'm so glad you're here, Kate. Visiting you in San Francisco just isn't the same as having you home."

  The reason Kate hadn't visited Baltimore for almost ten years was downstairs, handsome as sin and twice as dangerous. But today, Kate's problems paled next to her mother's loss. "Of course I came. Dad and I had our differences"--an understatement--"but we've been on better terms the last few years. Not like Dad and Tom."