by Lisa Jackson
“Nah.” Wilson cracked his knuckles in frustration. “I said it was a long shot, a million-to-one. Oh, Christ, it’s probably nothing more than a wild-goose chase. But just to make sure, let’s check it out.”
Twenty-nine
Sunny was waiting for her. Dressed in a long black gown, her gray-streaked hair pinned into a tight knot at the base of her skull, she sat on the edge of her bed, purse plopped in her lap. “Cassidy,” she said warmly, extending her hand. Her skin was dark and smooth, without a wrinkle, but one eye was clouded by a cataract she refused to have removed. She didn’t trust doctors with knives or lasers or whatever it was they used.
“I thought you’d like to visit Chase,” Cassidy said, walking up to her and taking her hand. She’d never felt comfortable around her mother-in-law and hated to think Sunny had been her father’s mistress, but it was still hard to see her here away from the home she loved.
“Been looking forward to it.” Sunny stood with difficulty. Though her skin was as supple as that of a woman half her age, her joints were becoming arthritic—a condition which had worsened, she’d confided in Cassidy years before, because she wasn’t able to get out to the woods to find the proper herbs. Even when she requested them from a local health-food store, her doctor wouldn’t allow her to take anything other than what he prescribed—store-bought pills, synthetic chemicals dispensed by huge corporations. Sunny didn’t have faith in man-made drugs and often refused medication.
Her old fingers tightened over Cassidy’s hand. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yes, the fire and—”
“No, there’s something else,” she insisted and Cassidy’s stomach clenched. Sliding her fingers from the old woman’s grip, she didn’t want to believe in the power of her mother-in-law’s visions despite the fact that she, regardless of her own arguments against it, had married the man Sunny had predicted she would wed.
“Here’s your cane.” She offered the walking stick made of smooth dark wood, the handle carved in the shape of a mallard’s head.
“You might not recognize Chase,” Cassidy warned as they walked down the carpeted hall past smooth, almond-colored walls where pastel watercolors had been bolted to the plaster.
“I know my boys.”
“But his face—”
“I can touch him, can’t I?” Sunny waited for the electronic door to be opened by the smiling blond receptionist who had only to press a button beneath her desk. With a buzz, the lock was disengaged and Cassidy shoved open the glass door.
“He’s covered in bandages and he might not want you to—”
“He’s my son. I can touch him,” she said stubbornly. “Chase is a good boy.” She said it too quickly, as if to convince herself. Cassidy wondered how often Sunny had argued with her conscience so that she could still keep faith in a son who had committed her to an institution she detested.
They walked slowly down the steps to the curb where Cassidy’s Jeep was parked. Cassidy held the passenger door open while her mother-in-law settled into the bucket seat.
Within minutes they were passing through open gates, Sunny waving to the guard. “What is it you want to ask me?” she asked.
So she’d sensed the questions racing through Cassidy’s mind. With one brief touch. It was damned weird. “It’s—it’s nothing.” This wasn’t really the time or place to ask her about her old lovers, about Rex Buchanan.
“Don’t lie to me.” Smiling sadly, Sunny brushed a stray hair from her face. “You want to know about your father.”
It was uncanny, almost as if she could read Cassidy’s mind.
“You found out we were lovers,” Sunny said and the air in the Jeep seemed to grow stale.
“Yes,” Cassidy said, unnerved as she eased the rig into the flow of traffic.
“He told you?”
For God’s sake, how did she know? Cassidy’s hands were suddenly clammy against the wheel. She cleared her throat. “I, uh, I don’t think he meant to.”
“It was time.”
Cassidy’s heart was knocking wildly, so hard she could barely breathe. “I should have known, before I married Chase. I should have known that you were involved with my father.”
“Chase knew.”
Cassidy nearly lost control of the Jeep. She swore under her breath. “He knew?”
“Well, suspected. I never admitted it.”
“For the love of God, he knew?” Her mind screamed the truth at her. Why hadn’t he confided in her? Why?
“I think he saw your father once when Rex visited. Chase was just a boy at the time, and after that we were more careful.”
Cassidy’s brain was thudding wildly with questions she didn’t dare speak, suspicions that should never see the light of day. “I don’t understand—”
“Lucretia was a cold woman.”
“But you could have gotten preg…I mean—”
“I did.” Sunny cast her a dark look. “It’s time you knew the truth.”
“The truth,” she repeated. How many lies had she lived with, unaware? Cassidy’s heart sank and she drove without thinking, automatically slowing for corners, avoiding oncoming traffic by habit, though her mind was disengaged, her actions rote.
“Buddy was your father’s son,” she said flatly.
“Buddy?” Cassidy repeated, stunned. “Not Brig—?”
Sunny sighed softly. “Brig was Frank’s boy. As is Chase.”
“But how could you be sure?”
With a superior expression reserved for women who’ve conceived and borne children, Sunny glared at Cassidy. “I know.”
“Oh, God.” Cassidy tried to breathe deeply, to think rationally. So Sunny and Rex had been lovers, so what? It didn’t change things. She wasn’t married to her half brother, hadn’t made love to someone related to her. Her stomach, so volatile these days, clenched and spewed acid to her throat.
“I would never have allowed you to marry Chase if he’d been your brother.”
“Sweet Jesus!” Cassidy whispered as the town of Prosperity came into view. She rolled down her window hoping fresh air would clear her head. “What happened to Buddy?” she asked, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. He could be dead, he could be stashed in a mental institution, a vegetable who knew no one, wouldn’t even recognize his own mother.
“Buddy’s safe.” She touched Cassidy on the arm with her soft fingers. “He lives with his father.”
“What—?”
Sunny chuckled deep in her chest, as if she was pleased that she’d pulled the wool over her daughter-in-law’s eyes. “You grew up with Buddy, Cassidy.”
“But—” Then it hit her, like a lightning bolt that exploded in her brain. “Willie,” she whispered, her stomach tying itself in ever tightening knots. Why hadn’t she guessed? Why hadn’t anyone in town put two and two together?
“Yes,” Sunny said, relief making her voice quiver slightly. “Finally, after all these years, I can go to him.”
“But why—why hide him?”
She stared out the window. “It was your father’s idea. After the accident where Buddy nearly drowned in the creek, it was obvious that Buddy would never be…well, normal again. Too much brain damage from lack of oxygen. Rex offered to take care of him, to see that he was put in the best facility available. He would pay all the bills, and since Frank and I couldn’t afford…well, that’s when Frank left. Not because of Brig, but because of Buddy.”
She seemed so lucid, so clear about the past. “How did you find out that Buddy was Willie?”
“Rex told me; oh, it was years later, when Buddy was nearly grown. The private hospital where Willie—that was the name Rex had given him after paying off the doctor in charge…anyway, the institution was closing, the hospital sold to a group of investors who had plans to tear it down and put in a strip mall or something—” She waved her fingers as if it didn’t matter. “Rex decided Willie would come to live with them. He wasn’t all that old, about ten or twelve, I think—you
were just a little girl. At first he lived with the family of that foreman of yours, Mac something or other, then Rex gave him a room above the stable. I believe he’s been there ever since.”
Cassidy didn’t recall Willie coming to live at her parents’ home. For as long as she could remember, he’d been there, hanging around the stable or the barns or the pool.
“Does my mother know?”
Sunny shook her head. “No one knows. Just Rex and me. Not even Buddy.”
This was too much to handle. “I don’t think you should say anything to Chase. Not until he’s better.”
Sunny shot her a disdainful glance. “I would never do anything to hurt any of my sons,” she said, as if Cassidy should understand her. “Never.”
“Good.” Cassidy shifted down and nosed the Jeep through the rounded corners of the tree-lined street leading to Northwest General. She wondered if the story about Buddy McKenzie and Willie Ventura was complete—or if there were holes left for her benefit. Sunny seemed remarkably clearheaded and yet her thoughts were known to wander; fact and fiction sometimes interwoven. How many times had Chase worried aloud about his mother’s sanity? Before he’d had Sunny committed, he’d always been concerned for her safety.
She dropped her mother-in-law off near the front doors, parked, then joined her in the reception area.
Together they took the elevator to the second floor, and at the door to her husband’s room, Cassidy paused knowing that he would be furious with her for openly defying him and bringing his mother to the hospital.
“Chase?” she called softly and entered the room where her husband lay unmoving.
Sunny tensed as she saw her boy, but she walked forward steadily. “Can you hear me?” Sunny asked and the unbandaged eye that had been closed opened suddenly. “I thought so.”
The eye narrowed up at her before shifting to Cassidy and accusing her of horrid things. “She wanted to see you,” Cassidy offered.
“Are they treating you well?” Sunny reached forward, and though Chase tried to pull away, she touched his swollen fingers with her gentle probing hands.
He blinked rapidly as she closed her eyes and whispered something in Cherokee. Cassidy couldn’t understand a word, but Chase seemed to. His eye focused on his mother and some of the anger disappeared from his face. “You will be well,” she said. “It will take time, but you will heal.” Tears filled the older woman’s eyes as she released his fingers. “I’ve been worried about you.”
Chase looked away, staring past Sunny to the wall behind her, and there appeared to be a tensing of the muscles in his face, though with the discoloration and swelling it was hard to tell.
Cassidy opened the door. “I’ll just be down the hall,” she said, understanding that she shouldn’t interfere between mother and son. Not that she ever had. Chase had never allowed it. “I’ll deal with my mother, you deal with yours,” he’d always said when there was some problem with Sunny. It was as if he considered her his personal burden; but he’d always felt that way, even before Brig had left. She walked past the nurses’ station and took a seat in the small waiting area near a picture window. From her vantage point she could look outside or at the door to Chase’s room, so that she’d see Sunny when she emerged. Later, she’d talk to Chase herself, tell him that T. John was about to identify the man in CCU.
As she glanced out the window, she noticed a cruiser from the Sheriff’s Department rolling into the parking lot. Lights flashed as it was parked near the front door. Detectives Wilson and Gonzales threw open the doors of the vehicle, kicked them shut and strode quickly into the hospital. Sunglasses firmly in place, faces grim, they disappeared from her view. Cassidy’s insides jelled. She told herself to remain calm, that even if they did come up to interview Chase, she could handle it. She’d wanted to warn Chase that they knew he could speak, that she’d told them he was stonewalling them, but she’d hoped to tell him when they were alone, without Sunny overhearing.
Now, it didn’t matter. She braced herself for the worst, expecting two determined detectives to storm past the nurses’ station and throw her hate-filled glances. With a soft chime, the elevator landed and an elderly couple emerged, a gray-haired man helping a stooped woman who shuffled slowly down the corridor.
Five minutes passed, then ten. Maybe Wilson was stopping at CCU, she thought. There was also a chance he was at the hospital for another reason—there were certainly other accidents to be investigated—but she couldn’t stop the restless feeling that something was wrong.
She glanced to the door to Chase’s room, still closed, then looked out to the parking lot again where the cruiser was parked at the front door. She licked her lips and told herself that she was just edgy, that she had no reason to be nervous, and yet…her reporter’s instincts were on overdrive. Something was happening. Something big. And she’d bet all the money in her checking account that it was about the fire. The elevator landed again. This time a doctor emerged, his face masked in a scowl.
Cassidy couldn’t stand the suspense a second longer. She walked to the nurses’ station. “I’m going to run back to my car for a minute,” she said, lying easily to the portly blond nurse at the desk. “Would you mind seeing that my mother-in-law—she’s in room 212 with Chase McKenzie—that she waits for me here? I’ll only be gone a second.”
“No problem.” The nurse didn’t bother looking up.
“Thanks.” Cassidy walked down the hall and into the waiting elevator car. Within seconds she was in the hallway in front of CCU, wondering how she could get inside without a police escort.
Reaching for the phone that connected directly with the Critical Care Unit’s nurses’ station, she heard voices, angry voices, then the doors burst open. Detective Wilson, chewing gum furiously, his features drawn together in a severe grimace, strode through. Gonzales was on his heels.
Wilson’s sunglasses had been shoved into a front pocket of his shirt, and his eyes, dark and ominous, landed on Cassidy with such intensity she backed up a step and hung up the phone.
“Well, well, look who’s here,” Wilson drawled, unable to hide his sarcasm. “Seems like you’re always around when there’s trouble.”
“Trouble?” she repeated, feeling the floor beneath her start to buckle.
T. John swiped a hand through his short hair and sighed. “Our man in there,” he hooked his thumb to the doors swinging shut behind him, “didn’t make it. John Doe, or whoever the hell he is, just died twenty minutes ago.”
Thirty
No! No! No!
Cassidy wouldn’t believe that Brig was dead. Though she’d lived for years telling herself that he’d left this world, deep in her heart, she’d always believed that he was alive somewhere and that someday she would see him again. Then, when she’d learned of the John Doe, when he’d been holding on to a St. Christopher’s medal, she’d let her imagination run away from her and convinced herself that he was Brig.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, tears threatening her eyes. He can’t be dead! Cannot be dead!
“Hey, you all right?” the detective said. He sounded far away, his voice muted. “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”
“No—” Her own voice was displaced. She ran a hand over her forehead and steadied herself against the wall. Blackness threatened the edges of her vision.
“I could call a nurse.”
“I’ll be fine,” she snapped, still reeling.
Wilson studied her. “You gonna tell me what you know about him?”
“The man in CCU?” She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Yet when I tell you he died, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What is it?”
“I—uh, I just hoped he would make it. So he could talk to me, to you, to explain what happened,” she said, her mind still filled with a kaleidoscope of images of Brig. It had been so many years, and yet she remembered him as clearly as if she’d been with him only yesterday.
“I think we should tell your husband.”
“He’s not talking to us, you know. Hasn’t so much as said a word, but I can tell he’s listening. Maybe this will loosen his tongue.”
“He’s with his mother now…” Impulsively she touched the officer’s arm. “Don’t say anything until you talk to the doctor, please. I don’t want Chase to take a turn for the worse.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about. But you.”
“I’ll be all right,” she lied, blinking against tears. “It was just such a shock…if you’ll excuse me.”
T. John watched as she pulled herself together. It was amazing how quickly she could transform. A second ago he was certain she would fall in a heap, but she managed to square her shoulders, dash away any sign of tears and offer him a sad smile before she disappeared into the elevator.
“She’s hiding something,” he said to Gonzales. Reaching into his pocket, he found the first pack of Camels he’d bought in months.
“But what?”
“Unless I miss my guess, she knows who the John Doe is.”
“And you don’t?”
“Can’t prove it. Not until we hear back from Alaska.” In frustration, T. John opened the cellophane wrapper from his cigarettes and even got so far as to shake one out. But he didn’t light it, just rolled it in his fingers as he stared at the elevator doors. Nurses, doctors, visitors passed him, but T. John didn’t notice; his mind was too focused on Cassidy Buchanan McKenzie and the secrets she so jealously guarded.
He’d find out what they were. Oh, it would take a little time and a lot of digging, but as sure as Elvis was dead and buried, T. John would find them.
“Call Chase McKenzie’s doctor—Rick, er Richard Okano, I think the guy’s name is—find out when we can talk to his patient.” He lifted the cigarette to his nostrils and smelled the fresh tobacco, then caught the eye of a nurse who stared pointedly at his hands, almost daring him to light up. He noticed the obnoxious no-smoking sign posted near the nurses’ station. Yeah, well, it seemed like you couldn’t light up anywhere around here anymore. Good thing he’d quit.