by Lisa Gardner
“So,” Bobby said presently. “Your brother is doing better. Sent his lead pitcher to the bench like I recommended. Brought up the rookie. Good kid, lots of potential. Got ten strikeouts his second game.”
“That's good.”
“I painted the house. Gray, dark blue trim. Not that different.”
“You should've told me, I would've helped.”
“No need, I have plenty of time. Business is kind of slow right now.”
Another edgy silence.
“How's your back?” Bobby blurted out.
“Fine,” David lied.
“Taking those pills the doctor talked about?”
“Nope, no need.” Lied even more.
“David,” Bobby said. “I'm your father. Can't you at least tell me what's going on?”
David hung his head, then stared at the big trophy in the back, the state championship, won on the day his father had hugged him so hard, he'd thought his ribs would break. He hurt. He hurt too much and it had nothing to do with solidifying vertebrae and spasming muscles. He'd failed his dad. That was the bottom line. He could get over many things, but he couldn't get over that.
He said weakly, “I'm uh . . . I'm just busy, Dad. A lot of work right now. I really should be going.”
“I see. Fraud?”
“Fraud. Homicide. I'm not doing so good at staying ahead of these guys.”
“You'll catch up.” His father sounded confident.
David squeezed his eyes shut and said tightly, “You don't know that. Christ, Dad, it's not like I traded in a brilliant pitching career for a brilliant law enforcement career. I'm in healthcare fraud. I read reports, not change the world. As a matter of fact, because of me some young woman had to shoot a man to save her life today. Now she's on the run, frightened and scared and God knows what, and it's all my fault!”
“You'll help her,” his father said.
“Dammit! Listen to me, Dad, just listen. I don't save lives, okay, or the world. I save dollars and cents. That's it. I spend most of the year reading hundreds of pounds of subpoenaed documents. I don't need a souped-up Beretta with radioactive sights. I need Wite-Out! Wite-Out!”
The phone line fell silent. David realized what he'd just said, how much he'd said. Oh, Christ. He tried to backpedal furiously, though he knew it was too late.
“I'm sorry. I'm just working too hard. I'm not getting enough sleep—”
“I don't understand your job,” his father said somberly. “I try, David, I do. But I'm not book-smart like you. I didn't go to college. I'm good with my hands and I'm good with guns and I'm good with a baseball. When you were doing that too, I could understand. Then you got a degree, I mean a real degree instead of going to college for ball, like we thought you would. You got into the academy. God almighty, I can't imagine ever being chosen for something like that. Now you analyze things, you take on doctors and hospitals and insurance companies, and those people aren't stupid.
“No, David, I don't get your job. I'm just good with my hands and I'm good at fixing up your gun. Because you won't play ball with me anymore, David. Customizing your Beretta is pretty much all I have left. So that's what I do. I can't advise you, I can't coach you. Half the time I can't even speak to you. So I fix your gun. Maybe that seems silly to you, but I'd rather be silly than completely shut out.”
“Dad . . .” David didn't know what to say. He should reassure his father. Play nice. Get off the phone before he made anything worse. And then, strangely, he found himself whispering, “Dad, I failed a woman today. I mean more than professionally. She trusted me. She needed me. And I shut her out. I lied to her and told myself it was all right because of my job. I did something I know you'd never do. I don't know what I was thinking.”
His father was silent for a moment. He said quietly, “You're a good man, David. You know you made a mistake and now you'll fix it.”
“I'm not even sure where she is.”
“Then figure it out. You're the smartest man I know, David, and I mean that. When the doc told me your condition was hereditary, caused by genetics, I had a bad thought. Made me feel guilty for days, but I think it's still the truth.”
“What?”
“I thought that if one of us was meant to get it, marked for it, then I was glad it was you. You may have had the better arm, but, son, you also just had more. Where would Steven be without baseball? What would I do? You, on the other hand, you took after your mother. You got her brains. And now you're an FBI agent. An honest-to-God federal agent. Haven't you ever figured out how envious your brother and I are of you?”
David couldn't swallow. He said, “I guess not.”
“You did well, son. You did well.”
David couldn't reply. His throat had closed up on him.
“Ummm,” his dad said. “It's getting kind of late. I know you have a lot of work to do.”
“Yeah, yeah. I'll, uh, talk to you soon. Maybe bring in my Beretta. You can play with the sights.”
“Okay. I'll even bring some Wite-Out.”
David laughed a little hoarsely. “Thanks.”
“Good night, David.”
“Good night.”
He hung up. He sat for a while longer in the dining room, feeling a little wrung out. A little . . . reassured.
It had been a long time since he'd really connected with his dad. He was thirty-six years old. He kept telling himself his father's approval shouldn't mean much anymore, but that was a load of bunk. A parent's approval always mattered, regardless of age—
He stopped the thought cold. Comprehension washed over him.
Melanie Stokes on the run. Melanie Stokes feeling betrayed, as if her whole life had been a lie. Melanie Stokes wanting to know once and for all who she was.
He knew exactly where she'd gone.
He picked up the phone and roused Chenney out of bed.
TWENTY-EIGHT
A NN MARGARET DIDN'T go to sleep. She sat in the shadowed darkness of her little bungalow, still wearing her nurses' whites. She knew he wouldn't arrive right away, but later, when he thought no one was paying attention.
The back door finally opened. He walked quietly into the living room, hardly making a sound.
“I guess you heard,” he said at last.
She stared at Jamie from across the room. She realized there was nothing he could say that would make it right. She'd been foolish to wait up for him, but they had been through so much, first as friends, recently as lovers. She'd thought of him as her second chance at happiness. She'd thought she'd finally gotten it right. This time love would be kind.
She'd forgotten that she always fell for the wrong kind of man.
“I'm sorry, my love,” Jamie finally said softly. “I am . . . so sorry.” He took a step forward.
“Don't.”
“Annie, please, listen to me.”
“The agents told me Melanie shot him. Why would that happen, Jamie? What could've gone wrong?”
“I don't know, Annie. You can't believe for a minute I wanted this to happen. It's a real shame. I'll do whatever it takes to make it right.”
“The omnipotent Jamie O'Donnell.” Her lips twisted. She finally rose, surprised to find that her legs would support her. “If I said anything now, after all these years, you would kill me, wouldn't you, Jamie?”
“Don't say that, love. Don't talk like that.”
“It's true though, isn't it? You like to think you're better than Harper, but you're not, Jamie. You both piss on the people you love. Men should spend less time with guns and more time in childbirth.”
She brushed by him, her steps forceful. He tried to catch her shoulder, and she slapped him so hard the room rang with the blow. The muscle on his jaw twitched. They both knew it was in his nature to always fight back, even when in the wrong. But he checked himself now. He fisted his hands at his sides and weathered the blow for her. She supposed that meant he really did love her . . . and Patricia Stokes.
“I'm sorry, Annie,�
� he said again.
“Go to hell.”
“Even if you hate me, sweetheart, you struck a deal and I'll expect you to keep up your end.”
“Sold my soul to the devil.”
“Twenty-five years, Annie,” he said softly. “Very fine life. Better than you could've done on your own, and you know it. I kept my word. I told you that very first day that Jamie O'Donnell always keeps his word, and I meant it.”
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. The sight struck him more forcefully than her slap. He'd never seen Ann Margaret cry. Not once. He'd first respected her steel core, then grown to love that about her.
“Don't,” he said hoarsely. “Annie . . .”
“I loved you,” she whispered. “I thought it would make things better, but it only makes them worse.”
“It doesn't have to change.”
“But it does. You've always known, haven't you, that it would come to this?”
For his answer, he tried once more to take her hands. She pulled away.
“I don't want to see you or any of the Stokeses ever again,” she declared. “I made a mistake back then. I paid for it, but I won't keep paying for it.”
“You can't mean that—”
“And if anything happens to Melanie,” she continued, “I will hunt you down, Jamie O'Donnell. I will kill you with my bare hands. Don't think I didn't learn anything from the company I've been keeping, and don't underestimate me. When men are cruel, it's capricious. When women are cruel, it's serious.”
She twisted away from him and stalked down the hall.
Jamie watched her go, feeling that tightness again in his chest. In the back of his mind a little voice whispered he was having a heart attack. The rest of him knew better. His heart was breaking. He'd felt exactly this way the night Patricia walked out of his arms and told him she was going with Harper forever, going to give the bastard one last try. Jamie might be her passion, but Harper, sniveling Harper, was her kind.
It didn't change Jamie. It didn't and for that he was sorry.
Now Jamie O'Donnell whispered, “Don't do anything stupid, Annie my love. Please don't make me kill you.”
PATRICIA STOOD IN front of the liquor cabinet. She opened the door and took out the nearly full bottle of gin. Her hands moved slowly, as if weighed down by fifty-pound barbells.
She was alone. Her husband was off doing whatever it was he did at odd hours of the night, and she didn't care. She didn't care about anything anymore, and if she had been able to summon any emotion for her husband, it would have been a cold-hearted rage that would have forced her to hurt him once and for all.
She stared at the bottle of gin.
Don't do it. You don't have to make the same mistakes again. You don't have to fail again.
But maybe I do. Did we ever fix any of the problems in this family, or did we all just run away? Both my husband and my son still carry so much rage . . . and my daughter, my precious adopted daughter forced to shoot a man while still carrying the imprint of her father's hand upon her face.
The phone rang. She picked it up, uncapping the gin and saying, “What?”
“Mom,” her son replied evenly.
“Brian?”
“Are you drinking yet? I figured that's what you would do.”
“Oh, Brian.” She started crying. “I want my baby back. What have they done to Melanie, how could I have lost Melanie?”
“I want to hate you,” Brian said hoarsely. “Why can't I hate you?”
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything.” She set down the bottle and cried harder.
“I'm standing here tonight, figuring this ought to push you over the top,” Brian announced. “And I keep thinking, I shouldn't care. It's not my problem. I can't take care of you. I can't fix things for you and Dad, and I surely never figured out how to make either of you happy. But then I think of Melanie and how disappointed she'd be in me if I did nothing. Dammit . . . do you love her?” he asked abruptly. “Tell me, do you at least honestly love her?”
“Completely.”
“So do I,” Brian whispered, then blurted out, “What did we do wrong this time, Mom? How could we fail twice?”
And then he started to cry too. They cried together, in the dark, because they had been the ones who had wanted Melanie. More than Harper, they had been the ones determined to make a fresh start. And in loving Melanie and failing her, mother and son finally found common ground.
After a moment Brian pulled himself together. He told her about Larry Digger's arrival and accusations. About the altar in Melanie's room. Then Larry Digger's subsequent murder and Melanie's growing belief that she really was Russell Lee Holmes's child and that the Stokeses had somehow made a deal.
“That's ridiculous,” Patricia stammered. She reached once more for the gin.
“Is it?” her son asked. “Come on, Mom, I know you and Dad were fighting all the time back then and both of you hate to fight. For God's sake, what could make Dad angry enough to yell?”
Her heart thundered too hard. It was unfair, she thought, that a mother would have to expose herself like this to her son.
“It was Meagan, wasn't it?” he filled in calmly. “You were fighting about Meagan.”
“Yes.”
“And Jamie.”
Patricia closed her eyes. She couldn't say the rest.
Her son expelled a breath sharply. “Jesus Christ, she was Jamie's daughter, wasn't she? That's why she was so happy, so pretty. I knew this family couldn't produce anyone so happy! I knew it!”
“Brian—”
“He killed her, dammit! Don't you get it yet, Mom? Not Russell Lee Holmes. The police have proof he could not have killed Meagan. It was Dad! He murdered her for the million-dollar life insurance. And because he knew she wasn't even his own kid. Oh, God, he destroyed our family because he needed money. And we let him, Mom. We never suspected a thing.”
“You don't know,” she said desperately. “We don't know—”
“I saw the fucking ransom money, Mom! That day Jamie brought it over, but Dad didn't take that briefcase—”
“No!”
“Yes! I found the real briefcase under your bed. I saw Jamie's money. Dad pocketed it as well, because he knew he didn't really have to pay the ransom. Because he knew Meagan was already dead.”
“No, no, no! Don't say these things. You are his son, how can you say these things? He's always loved you—”
“He kicked me out of the family—”
“And he's been trying to reach you for days to let you back in. We're going to Europe. We're going to Europe as one big happy family!” Her voice had risen to fever pitch. She heard herself speak like a raving lunatic, and her bravado collapsed.
They were not one big happy family. Her own husband had kicked her son out of the family and had tried to turn her daughter over to the police. He had not paid Meagan's ransom. He had known Meagan was really Jamie O'Donnell's daughter. Oh, God, she had been living with the man who killed her own daughter and, worse, she had loved him. She had been grateful he brought her flowers, grateful for each crumb of attention, grateful that someday he would retire and truly be all hers.
Even now she was thinking, poor Harper, you're so desperately afraid of being commonplace, of never rising above your parents. You don't even realize how talented or loved you are.
Especially by Melanie.
Oh, Lord, she was going to be ill.
“I won't protect him anymore, Mom,” her son said quietly. “I can't believe what he's done to us.”
“He's your father—”
“Mom, you're an alcoholic, and your own husband keeps bringing home booze. Doesn't that tell you something? I'm going after Melanie. I already failed one sister, and I won't fail another.”
Brian hung up.
Patricia was left alone in the dark. She twisted off the cap of the gin, her hands shaking. She carried the pint into the kitchen, held it upside down in the huge stainless-steel sink and liste
ned to the gin pour down the drain.
You get what you deserve. You get what you deserve.
No! That is not true! I did not get what I deserved. I deserved two healthy, happy children. I deserved to watch my four-year-old daughter grow to adulthood. My only crime was being too human, and even that I was trying to fix. I had sent Jamie away, I had vowed to put my family first.
I told Harper that. I told him I loved him.
She found the whiskey and poured it down the sink. Astringent odors burned her nose.
The peach schnapps, the Cointreau, the pear brandy, the blackberry brandy, the Courvoisier, Kahlua, Baileys, Glenfiddich, Chivas Regal. Now the vodka, six bottles, all down the drain. She followed with vanilla extract, almond extract, and cough syrup, working her way through the kitchen, the downstairs lavette, the upstairs bathrooms. She cleansed the house of alcohol, ferreted out each and every conceivable source, dumped it out and kept purging.
He murdered her for the million-dollar life insurance. And because he knew she wasn't even his own kid.
Melanie, you were right. I should've let it all fall apart. We would have been better as a family if we'd fallen apart.
She returned to the kitchen with another bottle of cough syrup, dumped it out. It wasn't enough. She needed to do more, purge more. What else?
Her gaze fell on the refrigerator. Seconds later she ripped open the huge doors and plumbed the chilled depths. She tossed salads into the garbage disposal and ground them up. She followed with whole apples. She opened bottles of mayonnaise and ketchup and mustard and dumped it all in. Bread, beer, wine, cheese, eggs, yogurt, grapefruit.
Now she was in a frenzy, her hair whipping around her, her movements desperate.
Melanie, sweet Melanie, who deserved so much more. I will save this daughter! I will fight! For once in my life I will stand up for my children!
I am not just a drunk!
Harper walked through the kitchen door just as she stuffed half a turkey down the drain. He drew up short, staring at her with shocked, bewildered eyes.
“Are you fucking nuts?” he cried.
She snapped on the disposal and listened to it whir as it ground the bird to smithereens.