Her voice was emotional as she placed her hand on my arm, squeezing encouragingly. The gesture gave me hope. Maybe I hadn’t left prison empty-handed, and might have a chance?
“I think I’d like to get to know you too.”
“But I should also tell you, I live here sometimes—Uncle Brian and Aunt Becky, they’ve let me stay here on and off since I left home. I don’t keep a place of my own and kinda drift wherever my work takes me.”
“Uncle Brian and Aunt Becky?” I said, trying not to sound overly surprised, but I was more confused than ever. “He never mentioned—”
“No need to be cross. I made him promise not to say anything. I wanted to get to know you on my terms. I hope that is okay,” Snacks said. “Only, you kinda jumped the gun and showed up unexpectedly.”
“It was the only address I had. And when I saw it was the White Bear, I had to go.” It was a half truth. I think I would have found my way there eventually, anyway.
Snacks considered what I thought, mumbling, “I set up the phone for you . . . set it up with this address.”
“Unless Brian listed the Bear’s address for you,” I suggested, thinking Uncle Brian wanted me to find my daughter at the Bear. “I’m guessing he’s worried about you too, about your being there.”
“He worries a lot. I mean, like, all the time.”
“I guess he thinks he’s carrying the world,” I suggested. I changed the subject, wiping the last drops of blood from her face, and asked, “Is this a regular kind of thing—a kind of Wilts’ love?”
“Partially,” she answered. “Tommy didn’t like that you’d come around and asked for me. He said it was risky. Said you could’ve been trouble for them.”
My chest tightened at the thought of the Wilts knowing who I was. “Do they know?” I asked, and quickly added, “Do you know?”
“The history?” she answered. I nodded, fearing she’d tell me more than I wanted to hear. “Just that my father had killed Sam Wilts, and maybe he’d killed Tommy’s father too.”
“So they have no idea who you are?”
Her eyes grew wide and her skin paled. “God no!”
I placed my hand on her arm and pleaded, “Then why risk being there?” She took her arm from beneath mine, shifting awkwardly. I acted like it didn’t bother me and continued, “There are a million other jobs. What is so important about the whatever job you have at the Bear?”
A shy smile came over her face, and for a moment I saw the little girl I’d left behind. “It’s more than my job,” she answered. “Let me get to know you. And then I’ll let you get to know me.”
I searched for something else to say on the matter, but found no words. I had no grounds to stand on. “Fair enough.”
Snacks dipped her chin, adding, “I see you’ve found my stash.” She motioned to the whiskey bottle on the counter and pulled two glasses from the cupboard. “Up for a nightcap?”
“You’re a whiskey drinker?” I asked.
“Is there any other kind?” she answered with a laugh and handed me a glass.
“The Wilts?” I asked, still confused by what I’d seen at the White Bear.
Snacks shook her head with annoyance in her expression, “There’s a lot of families like them, but they are by far the worse.” As she handed me a glass, she added, “The world would be a lot better off without them.”
“The world won’t miss them,” I answered, and lifted my glass, recalling having said nearly the same decades before.
My daughter lifted her glass and then paused as the saying set in. “I know I’ve heard that one before.”
“Old saying,” I fibbed, and touched her glass to mine.
“Have you seen my father?”
I nodded, and asked, “Are you guys close?”
“Close enough—I have my life, more private. And he has his, which is in the press and on the news a lot.”
“It’s good you have a relationship,” I answered, wishing for the millionth time I hadn’t shut the door when I went to prison.
“Wilts have it in for him,” she said absently as she sipped the whiskey from her glass.
“What do you mean?” I asked, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Concerned.
“Well, he’s got the big campaign coming up. The Wilts own some politicians, and they haven’t forgotten what happened.”
“They want to fix the election?”
“It’s more than that. I mean, every time Dad is on the news, they talk. He’s like public enemy number one over there.”
I felt nervous for Steve. Scared for him. Maybe Snacks was being naïve and didn’t know just how dangerous the Wilts family really was. “Is it just talk, or is your father in danger?”
She shook her head, but I could sense the uncertainty. “The Wilts already have their politicians stacked, the guys on the take. But I think if Dad wins this election, it would somehow jeopardize the Wilts’ profits. They can’t afford the loss.”
“They’re nothing but profit—”
Snacks shook her head, she interrupted and added, “It’s a business. I’ve been with them a while now. They’re big, but they aren’t alone.” She poured two more drinks. “Dad’s win could shift things. It might take a few years, but it could mean the beginning of the end for the Wilts.”
“What are they planning?” I asked, believing they’d try to swing the election.
“That’s just it, I don’t know,” Snacks answered. “They’ve fixed elections before, but with the new T2 voting system in place, I don’t think it’s even possible anymore.”
“T2 voting?”
“Uncle Brian’s company,” Snacks answered, and quickly followed up, “He said you started the company, together, a long time ago, before . . . I mean—”
“Yeah, small company, a long time ago,” I said with embarrassment. “We have to warn your father.”
My gut wrenched with the thought of how far the Wilts might go if they couldn’t fix the election. Killing their own or another gang member was one thing, but killing a popular political figure was on a different level. I could see the Wilts tampering with votes, but if that path was shut down, what were they willing to do?
“I don’t think it’s just about the election though. It might have started that way, but some of their old-timers are talking retaliation. They’re saying the debt has never been repaid.”
My heart sank. I doubt my daughter knew what the old gang members were referring to, but I knew. They planned to kill Steve.
TWENTY-ONE
IN THE MORNING, I was fresh and awake and more alive than I’d been in years. I wasted none of the daylight spilling in through the windows and pulled some old breakfast memories. I rummaged through the small kitchenette, finding it had been well stocked, and discovered everything I needed to put together a classic Sholes breakfast. And while Steve and Michael weren’t here to enjoy it, my daughter would. And it might even stir a memory of her own.
As I whipped together some pancake batter, breaking the eggs, fishing out the shells, I heard Snacks take to the bathroom. In my mind, I heard her footsteps running across the upstairs hall, her scratchy voice calling to her brother to come to breakfast, taking his order. It’s funny how a smell can trigger so much.
I hadn’t cooked in a long time, but managed two plates of golden stacks, complete with a small side of bacon and a steaming pot of coffee. Top that off with a side of orange juice and you’d think I’d suddenly gone into the business of running a Bed and Breakfast.
“Oh, my that smells so good,” Snacks exclaimed as she entered the kitchen and picked off a piece of bacon. The bruise around her eye had turned a shade of deep blue with purple, but the swelling was almost non-existent. “You really didn’t have to. We could’ve gone out to eat. I found this great Diner near Dad’s office.”
“Maybe next time,” I said and put my hand near her face, inspecting her eye like a mother would. She didn’t shy away, but leaned into my hand, allowing me to mother her. “Good t
hing we got ice on that when we did. Your eye would be swelled shut if we hadn’t.”
“Appreciate the help,” she answered, taking a plate to the round oak table, sitting with her, seeing Steve’s chin and nose and my mother’s eyes. The sunlight climbed in through the window, catching her face and hair and showing me every bit of the beautiful woman she’d become.
“You look so much like your father,” I told her.
“That’s funny,” she answered, chewing clumsily. “Every chance he gets, he tells me how much I look like you. And beautiful too.”
“He does not,” I said, believing she was teasing. I stopped mid-pour, and asked, “Does he really?”
She nodded eagerly, adding, “All the time. You know, he never remarried.”
I thought of the empty driveway and the lone car. A part of me liked to hear he’d stayed alone, as though he’d been waiting for my return. But there was more of me that felt guilty about his never finding another love. He deserved better than the loneliness he’d been sentenced to when I went to prison.
“Never?”
Snacks nodded and added. “Ask him and he’d tell you he didn’t have the time.”
“Same here,” I joked.
“Oh my God!” Snacks blurted, laughing at my stupid joke. “That was funny.”
I smiled at her laugh, but couldn’t bring myself to join. I reached across the table and took her hand then. Her skin was smooth, young, no age in them to speak. I held her fingers, hoping she wouldn’t pull away. She didn’t. She stopped laughing when seeing the sincerity in my expression as though knowing I wanted to tell her about me, tell her why I wasn’t there for her, offer some kind of amends.
“It wasn’t an affair, was it?” she asked. “The detective you killed. I mean, Garret Williams.”
I shook my head, “There as no affair.”
“I read everything,” she said. “I mean, I studied you, the newspapers, the court documents, everything I could find. They all said the same thing. And I asked Uncle Brian, but he would never tell me more than what I already knew.”
“He wouldn’t tell you,” I assured her. “He could never tell you.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I do remember you,” she said as a tear rolled down her cheek. “And I remember pancake mornings too.”
I let out a laugh, sharing the same memory, and told her, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, that I missed your growing up. A daughter needs a mother, and I wasn’t there.”
“Why weren’t you there?” she asked sternly, the humor disappearing. It was my turn to cry, but I held it in, eager to get through what I wanted to tell her. “I needed you.”
“I did some bad things,” I began, trying to decide how much I should share. I thought of the first man I’d murdered, of the homeless man and his ruse to draw me in like Hansel and Gretel and the house made of candy. “There was a man who’d tried to rape me, and there was a fight, and during that fight, I killed him.”
“You were protecting yourself. Right?”
I gave her a nod, but then told her, “I was, but I didn’t call the police, I didn’t call your father, and it didn’t look like self defense.”
There was confusion in her expression. “I don’t follow,” she said.
“Your father found out I was the one who’d killed the man, and to protect me, he helped cover it up.”
“And the Detective?”
An image of Garret Williams flashed—a picture of our fight. We were in the field, and he was on me, pinning me, his hands wrapped around my throat. I shuddered. “I killed him,” I confessed. “And I served my time for killing him. He’d given me an ultimatum, threatening to destroy your father if I didn’t cooperate.”
“He blackmailed you,”
“He did,” I nodded. A dull ache turning in my gut—a scar I bore for having fallen into the Detective’s trap. “There was never an affair. It was an extortion plan that had gone horribly wrong.”
“Does he know?”
“Your father?” I asked, but immediately answered with a shake of my head, “No. He thinks the same thing everyone else thinks.”
“But why?” she asked, her voice lifting. I could sense the frustration. “We grew up with you being called a murderer. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
I hadn’t considered the extent of my crime, of what their days in school must have been like, of the bullying and the teasing they faced. But I could only answer with what was the truth, “I am a murderer. And for that I am sorry.”
Snacks plunked her fork onto the plate, pulling her hand from mine and readying herself to stand. “It was so bad,” she sobbed. “You have no idea!”
“Sit!” I said firmly. To my surprise, Snacks took to her seat, lowering herself slowly and waited. “I can’t do anything about the past, about what you and your brother must have gone through. But if you give me a chance, then maybe I can be someone in your life now?”
“And Dad?” she asked, surprising me.
“Yes, if he’d have me,” I told her. “I’d even settle for a conversation. Just enough time to tell him the truth. I served the time for my crime. I served it in full. No parole, no new trials, no anything. The truth of what happened that night is mine now. I earned it.”
“Mom, you need to tell him,” she said. “He needs to hear about what really happened.”
I nodded, agreeing, and said, “Already tried, but he wouldn’t see me.”
“Give him time.”
“Time,” I laughed. “No thanks, already had plenty.”
A smile crept through the tears on her cheeks. “Seriously though, he’ll come around.”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice fading to a whisper, suddenly feeling exhausted as my gaze fell to the open window and to the trees and the summer-green leaves and the flitter of birds playing a game of chase. “He seems so hard now. So cold.”
“Well that makes sense.”
“What does?” I asked, turning my focus back to my daughter.
“It’s because he never stopped loving you.”
A shiver crept through me then. “That’s good because I never stopped loving him.”
There was a knock at the front door, interrupting the moment. Snacks jumped up to answer before I could get out of my chair. I closed my eyes and listened to her bare feet run across the floor, the steps heavier than I remembered, the gate longer in stride.
“It’s a note,” she said. “Someone pushed a note under the door.”
I thought of prison notes passed from cell to cell and immediately considered Roxanne and the possibility of her reach finding me on the outside. Snacks handed me the folded piece of paper, my name penned in tidy cursive handwriting. This was no prison note.
“What’s it say?”
I unfolded the note cautiously, and read it aloud, “I heard you were home, and guessing you’ll want your sexy back? Signed C.”
“That dude does some good hair,” Snacks said as she cupped her coffee.
My heart warmed, knowing what our plans would be after breakfast. “I guess Carlos is still in business.”
“He’s a funny dude. I love going there.”
“It’s a bit overdue, but how about a date at Carlos’ shop?”
“Definitely,” she answered without hesitating.
While it could never make up for the years we’d lost, it was a start, and would give me time to consider the Wilts and what to do next.
TWENTY-TWO
I HADN’T BEEN DOWNTOWN in years. Even before prison, and after the kids were born, I’d only been in the city once for a job—the murder of a bike messenger, he’d met a tragic, and awkward ending with a taxi door. The image was still with me after all these years. I pushed away the memory with a more pressing need.
Today, I came to see Brian and was still not sure if I was mad at him, or just curious. I stepped up onto the sidewalk and passed the mouth of a subway—a warm breath of ozone lifting my hair. The ground shook with the passing
of a train and I eased into a wave of foot traffic, following along like a lemming until I stood at the foot of the tallest building in the city. My building.
The sight was nothing short of amazing. The skyscraper was a granite and glass marvel, the name T2 embroidered in magnificent steel above the grandest of entrances. I stayed on the sidewalk fixed in a trance as walkers pushed around me, some cursing under their breath while others shared in my stare, curious at what I was looking at.
“That’s my building,” I told a stranger.
“Good for you,” I heard, followed by, “And that one over there is mine.”
I let out a laugh and then heard, “Ms. Harris.” I found a doorman standing at the entrance, motioning. He wore an odd cap on his head and a formal uniform that reminded me of a tuxedo, only the jacket sleeves had gold leaf rings around the arms.
Reluctantly, I approached the open door when he tipped his hat in my direction. I told him, “I’m here to see Brian.” Only my statement came out sounding more like a question.
“Of course, Ms. Harris,” he answered, knowing my name, knowing who I was. “I’ve already secured the express elevator. Right this way.”
Before I knew it, I’d walked across a football field of granite floors, and gawked at towering pillars that spiraled upward and gave birth to floor after floor of offices. The elevator had glass walls too and I could see clear through the building as we drove into the sky, slowing only after we’d gone above the clouds. My stomach shot into my throat and stayed there until we were on the top floor.
“Need a minute,” I said to the gentleman escorting me.
“Of course Ma’am,” he said politely and held the elevator door. “Happens more often than you’d think.”
When my stomach returned, I left the elevator and started down a long hall, following the doorman. I am a lemming, I thought jokingly. But the humor was lost in the slight stares I saw from the corners of my eyes.
Grave Mistakes: A Deadly Vigilante Crime Thriller (Affair with Murder Book 3) Page 11