“How come?”
“He said it wasn’t finished. He seemed very protective of it.”
“Like he cared about it a lot?”
“Just like that.”
Julia thought about Dutch caring more for a painting than for her. “Then maybe we should finish it for him.”
Slowly, Neesy grinned. “Maybe we should.”
Near the easel was a table with a bunch of stuff on it. Paints and brushes and scissors and cans of turpentine and pencils and boards with licks of paint on them. Neesy found a tube, squeezed it onto the table. Bright blue gushed out. She stuck a brush in it and got a gob of paint. “Go ahead. What color do you want?”
Julia picked up a tube that said BURNT UMBER and squeezed some out. It was a dark blackish brown. Perfect.
“Would you like to do the honors, or should I?” Neesy said.
“Oh, I think you should,” Julia said.
Neesy whipped off the cover, revealing a strange, half-finished sight: a woman lying on a piece of glass. She wasn’t wearing regular clothes; she was mostly naked, and the parts that weren’t were wrapped in furs. She had short dark hair but no mouth or eyes. Her face was just a creepy blank oval.
Around the lady’s throat was a necklace. Only it wasn’t painted; it was like a real necklace. Or at least, the jewel part of it was. The chain was painted, but hanging on the chain was a real… something. It looked hard and plasticky, a tiny, ugly, grayish box. There was a small depression in the canvas, which made a little place for whatever it was to sit.
“What the…,” Neesy said. “Hannah, come look at this.”
Julia peered closer. “What is that?” She poked at it with her brush. A gob of paint stuck to the thing, and when she tried to rub it off, the box got loose and fell. It hit the floor and cracked open, splashing water and letting out a bad smell. Something rolled and landed at Hannah’s foot.
“Oh, my God,” said Hannah.
Julia and Neesy ran over. “Lord in heaven,” said Neesy.
Julia said nothing. She just stared at the thing lying at the end of Hannah’s shoe.
It looked like someone’s… eye.
51
Mitch felt as though his skin could peel off; he was that nervous. The last time he saw Julia was months ago. She was near death, her pale, dessicated body hanging loose-limbed and unconscious in the portrait gallery. She was alive, thriving even, according to Hannah, but until he saw it for himself, he would never be free from the familiar swirl of fear that had always been his constant companion.
But to see her, he had to face her. Face the lies and the life he’d forced on her. He ran his tongue around the inside of his sandy mouth. Would she understand? Forgive?
He took in a huge breath, glancing around at the crowd streaming in and around the steps and the huge stone lions that anchored them. Some might say the New York Public Library was an odd place for a reunion, but Julia had always been comfortable around books. And he wanted her to be comfortable. He wanted her to feel natural enough to say whatever she wanted, even if it was “I hate you.”
He checked his watch. He was ridiculously early. But after Rikers, he couldn’t stay in the hotel room, pacing between the walls. He had to get out in the air, walk, adjust to the simple freedom of going where and when he pleased.
And yet, would he ever be truly free? He’d hoped his release would ease the memories, but there were still times when he could hardly move without thinking about Alicia and all the other victims of Dutch’s madness.
His paintings—his masterpieces. The creations he’d given to the world. Every one was tangible proof that he could get away with murder. God, how he must have enjoyed that. The shows, the renown. The sick satisfaction of knowing that every owner of a Dutch Hanover portrait paid hundreds of thousands to hang a forensic tour de force on his or her wall.
He’d mixed blood into all the paint. Blood dosed with sodium citrate to keep it from coagulating. And every painting contained an eye, each one preserved in a sac of formaldehyde, placed in a special box inserted into the canvas, and then painted over. Impasto, the art experts called it. A special layering technique that gave oil paintings three-dimensionality. Except Dutch’s jeweled necklaces had only enough layers to disguise what he’d hidden. The gruesomeness of it staggered Mitch, but he was also grateful for it. He’d never have been cleared without it.
And perhaps the truth about Julia would never have come out, either—at least not enough for the courts. But they had a solid DNA sample with Alicia’s eye, which was taken from Dutch’s unfinished painting. That, plus a cheek swab from Julia and Mitch, was all they needed. Dutch’s mad ramblings about never reproducing proved to be the one sane thing he’d said. He was sterile, a fact brought out by a second autopsy.
Julia had been Mitch’s child all along, and a paternity test proved it with a 99.9 percent certainty.
Which is why Dutch had carved that letter into Alicia’s skin. The saddest thing was, he’d been wrong. She hadn’t cheated on him. She’d just slept with Mitch first. She was probably already pregnant when Mitch caught her with Dutch.
“Then why the hell didn’t she say so?” Mitch demanded when Hannah brought him the news. He’d still been in jail, still waiting on the slow pace of justice.
“Maybe she didn’t know.”
“Right. How can you be pregnant and not know?”
“I understand it’s possible.”
“Only in soap operas.”
“I spoke with several doctors, Mitch. You can carry the baby in such a way that you hardly show. You can even have your period—or what you think is a period. If that’s what happened to Alicia, she could have misread the signs and the month of conception. She could have thought Julia came early. Was she a small baby?”
Mitch shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“She had no reason to lie to you, did she?”
Mitch slumped in his seat, suddenly drained. He propped his elbows on the table and hung his head between his hands. “No. She begged me to help her, and I refused. If she knew the baby was mine, she would have told me.”
“But Dutch knew,” Hannah said softly.
His arms fell, and his gaze met Hannah’s. She reached over and squeezed his wrist. “She’s yours, Mitch. Concentrate on that.”
“Concentrate on that.” Like he could think of anything else.
It had taken the lab a month to do the DNA work, and then he’d had to wait another two weeks for the court schedule to fit him in. He’d been out two days, and it felt like two minutes. There was a jackhammer inside his chest, and he almost ran. He needed more time, another hour, another day. He hadn’t figured out what to do with her, what to say to her.
Just then, his gaze caught a bobbing burst of bright auburn in the crowd. Strangers parted like the Red Sea, and there was Neesy walking down Fifth Avenue toward him. At her side was Julia.
His breath caught. They looked good. Both of them. But it was the child who held his attention. Underneath her open jacket, she was wearing shorts, which made him frown because it was the middle of May and hardly warm enough for shorts. At least her legs were covered, even if it was with red-and-white-striped tights. Neesy had warned him that Julia had discovered Pippi Longstocking and was growing out her hair so she could braid it. Mitch understood the attraction. Pippi lived in a house with a monkey and a horse and no adults to screw up her life.
He watched Julia march forward on the biggest, clumsiest pair of black clodhoppers he’d ever seen. God, she looked silly. Silly, weird, and wonderful, and he had trouble keeping that boulder in his throat from choking him.
He was planted at the foot of the lion where he’d arranged to meet them, and they stopped the minute they saw him. Neesy bent down for a conference, but she was too far away for him to hear what she said. Instead, he watched her zip up Julia’s jacket and kiss her on the cheek. She rose, gave him a small wave and an encouraging smile, then turned back the way she’d come, leaving Julia alon
e on the sidewalk facing him.
The first thing she did was unzip the jacket. Then she stood there, clearly as unsure of what to do as he was. But he was the adult, after all, so he braced himself and started forward.
“Hey, Junebug,” he said, because that was all he could think of now that she was there in front of him.
She smiled, and it was so full of everything he remembered it nearly broke his heart. He knelt down to her level, and the minute he did, she burst into tears and threw her arms around him.
He lifted her up, holding her tight. “It’s okay, Jules. Everything’s going to be okay now.”
“I… know,” she said between tears. “It’s just… it’s just…”
“What? It’s just what?”
“It’s just…” She sniffed. “No one’s called me Junebug in, like… forever.”
He carried her to a stone bench in the shadow of a lion and set her down, then sat beside her.
He handed her a crumpled tissue from his pocket. “You’ll always be my Junebug.”
She scraped the tears away with the back of her hand, then loudly blew her nose with the tissue.
“Better?” he asked when she was through.
She nodded.
“Want to go inside now?”
She looked down, playing with the tissue. “I know you don’t have to… I mean… I know you’re not really—” She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at him bravely. “If I’ll always be your… your Junebug”—she gulped a breath—“will you always be… be my dad?”
That boulder in his throat turned into an entire mountain range. He lifted her chin. Her blue eyes were red-rimmed and filled with worry.
“You don’t have to decide right away,” she said quickly, and hiccupped. “You can think about it. I know I’m kind of a pain and—”
“I don’t have to think about it, Junebug.” He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Her bangs were long and raggedy, but he didn’t care. “I already know the answer. It’s yes. Unequivocally. And, anyway”—he tried grinning at her, though it wasn’t easy since his face wanted to crumple up with emotion instead—“I don’t exactly have much choice.” And he told her about the DNA test.
Her eyes widened, but a speck of wariness mingled with the hope he saw there. “You’re sure? You’re not… you’re not just saying that to make me feel okay?”
There was a time when she trusted him to tell the truth. That time was over now, and he was sorry for it. “No, I’m not just saying that. It’s the truth. I’ll show you the papers.”
He wanted her to say she believed him without proof, but she didn’t. “Okay.”
He’d been carrying the test report with him ever since he got it. Now he took it out of his wallet and handed it to her. Carefully she unfolded it, then took her time reading it. Mitch waited silently, his jaw clenched, a cold wind roaring inside him. When she was done, she folded it up again and handed it to him.
“Thanks,” she said solemnly.
Tentatively he put an arm around her, half expecting her to pull away. “You know it wouldn’t matter either way. I’ve got your back, Jules. I always have. I always will.”
“That’s good.” She leaned into his embrace, snuggling close. “Because I’ve got yours.”
Hanover House sold for 95 million dollars, setting a record in New York for the sale of a single-family dwelling. Mitch put half the money aside for Julia and the other half he donated to the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted.
Along with the deed of the mansion and the many legal papers he’d had to handle, Mitch was given a letter from his mother. As a condition of her will, it had been kept secret from Dutch. Had he not been underground, Mitch would have received it years ago. It was a short letter, in her own hand.
If you are reading this and your brother is still alive, I am no longer here to stand between you. Beware, Mitchell, dear. Be careful. And most important of all, be warned.
I’ve loved you the only way I could and kept you safe—from a distance. I don’t ask for forgiveness, only understanding.
She’d signed it with a wobbly flourish that indicated her poor health. It was dated the week before her death.
The letter set everything he’d known and experienced on its side. From that perspective, he was forced to look back with new eyes. He could see now that his mother might not have been simply favoring one brother over the other. Her behavior could have been strategic and deliberate. She’d isolated herself with Dutch and steadily drove Mitch away to keep him out of his brother’s reach.
The necessity of the sacrifice sickened him. But for the first time—ever—he wished his mother were alive so he could talk to her. Recapture a little of what Dutch had taken from them. But she was gone and so was Dutch. Much as he might regret what could have been, Mitch could not forget what was. His brother was out of his life now, and Mitch wanted him out of his head, too.
So he didn’t dwell on the letter and its revelations. As soon as he could, Mitch took his girls and left New York. They flew to Bermuda, where he bought a boat, hired someone to teach him how to run it, and took Neesy and Julia around the world. For six months they went where they wanted, stayed as long as they wanted, and left when they got restless. Julia’s skin turned a golden tan, and Neesy’s freckles went wild. And in all that time, no one mentioned Dutch or New York or murder or death. Silently, separately, each of them buried the past at sea.
One warm and glorious night, Mitch was out on deck. The moon glittered on the sea and the only thing on the planet seemed to be their ship and the stars. He was leaning over the rail enjoying the solitude when Neesy’s tart, lemony smell drifted over, and the woman herself slipped beneath his arm to lean against his chest.
She stayed there awhile, not saying a word. He didn’t think he could ever explain how good it felt to have her beside him. To know there would always be someone he could confess anything to and she would believe and understand.
“Missed you,” she said at last.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Anything I can do? Warm milk? Shot of Jack?”
He turned so his back was against the railing and she was facing him. He brushed back her hair and took her face in his hands. “How about a shot of you?”
He leaned in and she met him halfway. Her lips were soft and familiar now. Welcoming, loving, a place he could always come home to.
The boat rocked gently, and the kiss went on. It led to another and another. He was fine to stay out there all night in the dark with the scent of the ocean and Neesy mingling together.
But footsteps interrupted them.
Julia came up on deck and stopped, clearly not expecting to find anyone there. “What are you guys doing here?”
“What are we doing?” Mitch kept his arm around Neesy. “What are you doing, Junebug? It’s late. You went to bed hours ago.”
She shrugged. “I know.”
“Something wrong, baby doll?”
She shrugged again.
Mitch didn’t like the ambivalence. She didn’t used to be so cautious.
“Tell you what,” Neesy said. “How about you sit there and keep your daddy company while I make us all some hot chocolate?”
“Not the powdered kind,” Julia said.
“You’re pushing it, kid,” Neesy said, and disappeared down below the deck where the galley was.
Mitch dragged a couple of deck chairs together, and they sat in them side by side looking up at the stars.
“You got something on your mind, Jules?”
“Kind of.”
“Well, go on. Spit it out.”
“Well, I like the boat and the ocean and, well, you know all the stuff we’ve been doing.”
“Uh-huh.”
She took a deep breath and kind of scrunched down in her chair like she was afraid he was going to hit her or something. “The thing is…”
“Julia…”
“Okay, okay
. Don’t be mad, though.”
“When do I ever get mad?”
“Right.”
“Come on, you’re killing me here.”
She got out of her chair and climbed onto his lap. “Are we ever going home?”
Mitch opened his mouth and closed it again.
“All this floating around—it’s not some kind of… of punishment, is it?”
“Punishment? Why would you think that?”
“I know I shouldn’t have run away. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. If I hadn’t run away, he wouldn’t have been so mad and then maybe he wouldn’t have—” Her voice cracked, and he put his arms around her.
“Aw, Jules, no.”
“But then he put me in that room and you had to call the police and take me to the hospital and that’s why they caught you and—”
“Listen to me.” He hugged her tight against him. “Dutch wanted to hurt me. And he knew he could do that by hurting you. It was never about what you did or didn’t do. It was only about me and him. It’s not your fault.”
She sagged against him. “Really?”
“Really.”
She sniffled. “Then why can’t we go home?”
Mitch paused. He didn’t know what to say. “I… I didn’t know you wanted to.”
“Don’t you?”
“Well… by ‘home,’ what do you mean exactly?”
“Home. Crossroads. The carriage house. I miss Sara Jean. And it’s summer now and school will be over, and she’s going to camp, and I’ve never been to camp, and there’s this boy she’s been e-mailing me about, and—”
While she chattered on, he looked back at the golden weeks on the ocean. Suddenly they seemed less a refuge of healing and peace and more a retreat—part of the same pattern he’d been following for years. Never staying in one place too long. Never making more than superficial contact with people. Always moving, always changing.
But Julia had thrown away her backpack. Was it time for him to do the same?
He held up his hand, signaling a stop to her lava flow of words. “Okay, okay.”
“Okay what?” Neesy came on deck carrying a tray with three cups. She set it down on the deck and handed out the cups. “Put a little something extra in ours.” She winked at him, and he tasted the Baileys with the chocolate.
Two Lethal Lies Page 29