“It’s time to come clean. We took a chance that this day would come eventually,” Coral said dully, giving in, causing Jasper to stare at her in alarm. She waved away his protests with a weary motion. “She’s not going to stop. We’ve raised an independent woman, who is very focused and driven.” At that, she spared Piper a smile that made her feel terrible for pushing so hard but Piper had to know what they were hiding from her. She couldn’t pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t. Acting had never been her strong suit. Coral leaned back in her chair and sighed, saying, “I’d do anything for a cigarette right about now.”
Piper’s eyes bulged. “Since when do you smoke?”
“I gave it up years ago, but it doesn’t mean I don’t wish for one now and then,” Coral answered. “And for the record, we’re not the only ones who’ve been hiding things. Did you think we wouldn’t notice that you’ve stopped being a vegetarian?”
“Says who?” she said, being evasive, though she wasn’t sure why. She was an adult. It was her choice. But still, she’d have preferred to keep that knowledge from her parents. “Did Farley tell you?” she asked, ready to pummel the man for snitching, but Coral shook her head, further confusing her.
“Darling, I can smell it on your pores.”
“Are you telling me I have meat stink?” she countered.
Jasper’s mouth twitched with a tired smile. “I think we’re getting off topic here.”
Ever the professor, but Piper was grateful. “No, you’re right. Okay, back to the point. I will share my secrets if you share yours.”
Coral made a resigned sound and nodded. “What I’m about to tell you may change the way you feel about us. Are you willing to take that chance?”
She swallowed. “Yes. I have to know.”
Coral and Jasper linked hands and the single action said without words that, no matter what, they’d face the situation together. For two nonconformists, they were surprisingly—and endearingly—traditional when it came to the love they felt for one another.
Coral began, taking the lead, while Jasper provided emotional support. “We were young college professors at the city college when we heard of the Aryan Coalition. Of course, we were disgusted by their tenets but intrigued, too. As students of human behavior we were fascinated by the way the purists perceived their place in society. We decided to infiltrate the group and then write a book about our findings.” A sad, contrite smile followed. “We were so naive and arrogant. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.”
Piper could imagine her parents, young and confident, yet hungry for the accolades publishing such a book would create. However, the image clashed completely with the one she’d associated with her parents her entire life.
“It soon became apparent that we were in over our heads. The Aryan Coalition was a hub of criminal networking, from drugs to guns, and they were making money hand over fist. Ty Garrett was at the center of it all. He had a way about him that drew people in and made them think that his ideas were their ideas. It was dangerous.
“Before long, there were so many within Dayton who secretly followed the Aryan Coalition. As you can tell from your research, when it all came crashing down, a lot of people were arrested or killed in the raid. It was shocking how many people were involved.” She drew a deep breath as if for strength. “There were some who chose to band together after the raid to create something good to make up for the terrible things they were associated with at Red Meadows.”
“Like a penance?” Piper asked.
“I suppose. Your father and I invited a few people we’d known at Red Meadows to come here to the farm so we could start rebuilding fresh and clean, without the stain of what we’d done.”
Piper could hardly manage the words but she managed to ask the single question that haunted her. “Did you become a racist?”
“God, no,” Coral gasped, shaking her head. “Never. But we did things we aren’t proud of in the name of research. And we carry the knowledge of that every day.”
Piper imagined it was a very heavy burden. She was carrying a pretty hefty load herself at the moment. She could still see Owen’s pain reflected in his stark gaze when she’d admitted she was going to write the story, that she’d planned to all along. “So why all the secrecy?” she asked.
Coral and Jasper shared looks. Jasper decided to take it from there. “Honey, when the raid happened…it was never supposed to happen like it did. When we realized something big was going to happen, we tried to contact the FBI, to let them know secretly but they brushed us off.”
“Maybe because they already had a man on the inside,” Piper interjected, continuing in a rush when her parents didn’t agree. “No, you see that’s what I found out… Ty Garrett was working for the FBI, under deep cover, to bring the Aryan Coalition down. But something went wrong and Ty ended up getting killed along with a score of other innocent people—one of whom would’ve been Owen himself if Ty hadn’t stepped in.”
“An FBI agent wouldn’t gun down an innocent child.” Coral scoffed at the idea.
“According to the documents, two children died that day,” she reminded her mother. “The youngest one being only six months old.”
Coral’s eyes misted. “Tabitha Aberline,” she remembered, a hitch in her voice. “It was a terrible accident. The bullet ricocheted and hit Patience, who happened to be running to safety with Tabitha in her arms. They both died that day. It was so awful. She was only a little younger than you. I used to babysit her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Piper offered, feeling her mom’s pain. “But that’s what I’m saying…kids did die that day. And you don’t know for certain that Owen’s life wasn’t in danger, particularly if someone was trying to cover their tracks and figured Owen was old enough to understand his father’s business.”
“Honey, I know you’re looking for ways to clean up the past, because for some reason you’ve gotten soft on Garrett, but we were there…he was no angel.”
“I’m not saying he was perfect. He probably had to keep up the facade in order to keep things kosher so no one suspected.”
“I saw a man beaten because of Ty Garrett’s orders,” Coral said quietly, shuddering at the memory. “It was horrific.”
Piper closed her eyes briefly to shut away the image but she stuck to her guns. She believed William Dearborn. “I think William’s shame and regret caused him to pull away from society, from his family. He shared a few things with me…things that were never in the reports.”
“Such as?” Jasper asked.
“Well, he was close to Ty, sort of his right-hand man, but he didn’t figure out the deception until right up to the raid. He said he heard Ty arguing with someone in the storeroom where they kept the drugs ready for shipment. He peeked inside and saw Ty with a guy he didn’t recognize but the expressions on their faces were intense. Ty said something like, ‘This wasn’t the deal’ but he didn’t catch the guy’s response, because gunfire erupted on the compound. Within minutes, the whole place was filled with smoke, bullets flying and people screaming.”
Coral looked as if she were trying to put it gently as she reminded Piper, “William wasn’t a good source of reliable information, honey. He had problems with reality.”
“Not about this,” she insisted. “Just because he was a recluse doesn’t make him crazy. Trust me, Mom. My instincts are right. William may have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t lying about the stuff he told me about Red Meadows.” Coral was clearly doubtful but she let it go, freeing Piper to continue with the last bit of damning evidence that she felt was proof positive that William had secrets to tell that someone wanted quiet. “Someone killed him not two days after I talked to him about Red Meadows. Someone knew he’d talked. And I think it was the same someone who killed Mimi LaRoche all those years ago.”
Coral’s eyes softened. “Oh, Mimi…such a beautiful, talented girl. I tried to warn her away from Ty Garrett in the safest way possible without outing ourselves but she w
as infatuated and my efforts were lost. Of course, she didn’t know he was leader of the Aryan Coalition because they’d met at the college where he worked as a carpenter.”
“But she had to know something was up by the time the end came near, because her last journal entry talked about the purists when they came to visit her.” She looked at Coral. “Do you know who killed Mimi?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
“No,” Coral answered, dabbing at her eyes. “We assumed it was Ty because we knew he couldn’t afford to have the information come out about his relationship with a black woman.”
“So how’d you get her journal?”
They exchanged glances. “Mimi didn’t have any family and, since we knew her from the college, after she died we volunteered to go through her effects to find what could be donated to charity and what could be thrown out. We found the journal between the mattress and the box spring. We’d considered giving it to the police but by that point, the investigation had simmered down and everyone was ready to close the door on the whole sordid affair. People needed to be able to grieve and move on. They wouldn’t have been able to do that if they’d known Mimi’s death was also possibly connected to the purists.”
Just saying that word made Jasper and Coral cringe. Piper could feel the shame radiating from their pores. She reached out to them. “Why’d you hide this from me all this time?” she asked.
“Because our shame was our burden. Not yours.”
“Why do you blame yourself so much? Your crime was pride and arrogance, but you weren’t like those people.”
“It left a stain, sweetheart,” Coral said with a sniff as Jasper nodded, his head bowing under the memory. “We almost moved out of Dayton completely but then we were offered positions at UC Santa Cruz and we figured it was best to try and rebuild, to help those who also shared the burden. We also felt we owed it to the fallen…to honor their memory in some small way.”
“Did you ever write your findings?” she asked.
Coral and Jasper paused, each waiting for the other, then Coral nodded her head, as if just admitting it was bad, as well. “We never published it,” she added in a rush. “It’s sitting in a box in the closet. It hasn’t seen the light of day since we put it away twenty-five years ago.”
“May I see it?” She held her breath. A first-hand account, written for posterity, in her parents’ possession. It was almost too much to hope for.
“Why?” Coral asked, pained. “It’s like digging up the dead.”
“Because it might have something you’ve forgotten about that day. Something that might help prove that Ty wasn’t the monster, that maybe he was the victim, too.”
Distaste registered on her mother’s face but she rose with a stiff nod. “I suppose, but I think you should prepare yourself for disappointment.”
Coral left and Piper went to her dad. He looked older, worn. She pressed a kiss on his receding hairline and hugged him tight. “I don’t think less of you for being at Red Meadows,” she told him. “I love you more for being honest with me.”
He patted her arm. “We tried to outrun the past so it wouldn’t touch you but it did anyway. I’m sorry, peapod.”
She grinned. “You have nothing to apologize for, Dad.”
Piper returned to her seat and he gave her a mock stern face. “So…eating meat, huh?”
She gave a sheepish grin. “Yeah. I’m actually quite the carnivore.”
He chuckled and offered a wistful sigh. “Ah, I remember the days of steak and potatoes. Now it’s just potatoes. I miss a good rib eye. Soy burgers and tofu balls just don’t cut it sometimes. Can you keep a secret?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper. She leaned forward to listen. “When your mother is gone on her educational summits…once in a while I eat a good, drippy burger, for old times’ sake.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth to contain her laughter, enjoying the sparkle that had returned to her father’s eye. This was the man she knew. And she was relieved to have him back.
“Any other deep dark secrets we should know about?” her father asked, his gaze speculative. “Like you’ve become a conservative or you’ve joined a spacey cult that thinks the next comet is going to wing them to heaven as long as they’re wearing the right shoes?”
Her father was joking but Piper knew he was asking for anything else she might want to come clean about. She toyed with the idea of telling him about Owen, but seeing as she didn’t know where that stood, she figured why risk blowing the feel-good moment over something that may be a nonissue, so she simply shrugged and shook her head. “Just the same old me. Except for the meat-eating part.”
“I guess I can live with that but I’d keep it on the down low with your mom. You know how she feels about that stuff.”
Yeah, she knew. She imagined if she came out and said, “Mom, I eat meat and I’ve given my virginity to Owen Garrett,” it’d be a toss-up which declaration would cause Coral to fall in a faint to the floor.
Her mother came back to the room and handed a thick manuscript to her. But as Piper began to scan the pages, eager to start, Coral stopped her with a gentle hand. “Not here. Take it and read it at home. Frankly, I’m relieved to see it go. It’s been under our roof for too long.”
Piper nodded her understanding and leaned in for a kiss on her mother’s cheek. She inhaled the sweet scent she associated with her mother and smiled.
“This is in good hands,” she promised, and then gathered her purse. She couldn’t wait to start reading. Hopefully, something stood out…something that might point her in the right direction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
OWEN RETURNED HOME at the end of the day, surly and tired. Even Timber kept a wide berth as he sensed Owen was not in the mood for much of anything aside from a cold shower and a few beers before bed.
He managed the shower part but as he toweled himself off, his cell went off and he saw it was Thomas.
He picked it up, the first real smile of the day finding him, but it died when he heard the somber tone of his foster brother’s voice.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, fear eating his gut. “It’s Mama, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Thomas answered. “You need to get a flight home. Now.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You know those tests the doc ordered? Routine, she said. Well, turns out maybe they weren’t so routine but she hadn’t wanted to worry us. They found something. A tumor. It looks like cancer of some sort.”
The strength went out of his legs, and luckily, he was near the sofa when it happened. Cancer? Mama Jo? She was tougher than rawhide. He wiped his palm down his jeans leg and swallowed the damnable lump that kept rising to choke him. “How bad?”
“I dunno. Just come home. She needs to see you, man.”
“Of course. I’ll take the next flight.”
“See you then. Call me with your flight details. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“You got it.” He clicked off and sat for a long moment, staring at his phone, unable to process the horror and fear of what was happening. Mama Jo…she was their anchor point, their touchstone. If she were gone… Tears gathered and fell. He wiped at them but they kept coming until he was sobbing, the sound hoarse and rasping as his heart poured out all the terror he’d known as a small boy alone in the world until Mama Jo filled the empty space with plenty of love. He couldn’t imagine her not being in this world, making it a better place.
He should’ve made more time to visit. Hell, he should’ve dragged her stubborn butt onto the plane so he could show her a slice of his world here in California. But he hadn’t. He’d been consumed with all the things that cluttered his life with crap. He’d forgotten what was important: family.
And damn it, all his family was back east…not in Dayton.
He went to his closet and pulled out a suitcase and started throwing clothes into it. When it was full, he zipped it up and placed it outside his door. He dialed up Timothy and asked him to look after Ti
mber for a few days, maybe even a week, and then after placing a key under the mat for Timothy to pick up later, he threw his suitcase in the back of the truck and climbed inside to leave. But Piper, driving like a madwoman, pulled in beside him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, not in the mood to chat. He didn’t wait for her answer. He had a plane to catch. “I was just leaving.”
“Wait,” she called out, her voice a high screech. She clutched a sheaf of papers to her breast as she chased after him. “I have to talk to you,” she said breathlessly, climbing into the truck in spite of his unwelcoming glare. “It’s about your dad. I think I’ve found what I was looking for that will prove your father’s innocence.”
“Get out,” he demanded, startling her with his curt response. “I have to catch a plane.”
She looked hurt—wounded even—but she covered well. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
She frowned. “To…Bridgeport?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
He gritted his teeth, unable to even say the words without tearing up. Man, what a big sissy he’d turned out to be. “My family needs me. Mama Jo…she’s sick. I’ve got bigger problems to deal with than your single-minded focus to earn a Pulitzer,” he added with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
“Okay, I might have deserved that one,” she allowed, even though her stare narrowed. “But I really think you should hear this.”
“It can wait,” he said, reaching across and opening the door for her in a not-so-subtle motion that said get out.
She glared at him and purposefully shut the door, placing the papers firmly in her lap. “If you want me out of the this truck you’re going to have to do it yourself.”
“Damn it, Piper, I’m not messing around.”
“Neither am I.”
Holy hell, how’d he get messed up with this crackpot? “Fine,” he said, getting out and going around to the other side of the truck to jerk open the door and grab her by the waist and flip her over his shoulder. She shrieked in surprise and barely managed to hold on to her papers, but that didn’t stop her from jabbering as she started making her case to his backside. “My mom wrote a research paper on the behaviors of the purists with the hopes of publishing it for her PhD when they were at Red Meadows.”
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