by Teresa Hill
"Oh." Allie had felt a reckless, irrational surge of hope when she'd first hit on the idea. Megan was pregnant, and apparently the girl who died wasn't. She would have loved to believe someone had made a terrible mistake all those years ago, that somehow her sister hadn't died.
Then she thought of one more possibility. "What if Megan had the baby already?"
"If she'd given birth recently, it would have shown up on the autopsy, Allie. I know," Greg said. "It was an issue in a case I had last year. I ran through a similar scenario with a coroner in Atlanta, and she explained that it takes a while for the internal organs to return to their normal size after pregnancy. If Megan had given birth before she died, it would have shown up on the autopsy and been noted in the written report. Sorry."
Allie said nothing. She couldn't.
"You're grasping at straws, right?" Greg asked. "You don't have any proof that she was ever pregnant?"
"No," Allie admitted. "Just old gossip."
"Don't do that to yourself, Allie. They found her body. Your father made the ID himself. She's gone. Let's just concentrate on finding out how and why it happened."
"Okay. I just..." She had other reasons for wanting to know if Megan was pregnant. She wanted to know if it was Stephen's baby. And if it wasn't Stephen's, whose was it? "It might play into what happened to her. It might lead us to someone who could tell us something...."
"You're reaching," Greg warned. "But let's run through the possibilities. She wasn't pregnant when she died. She hadn't given birth recently. I suppose it's possible she had an abortion or a miscarriage months before. You could try talking to your family doctor. Or school friends of hers. You could see if there's anything in the house. A diary. A doctor bill or an appointment card, anything like that."
Allie thanked him and tracked down the family doctor through Mr. Webster, who'd paid her father's final medical bills. The family practitioner who'd once treated her entire family said he knew nothing about her sister being pregnant. He also said for problems like that—an unmarried pregnant teenager—people in small towns didn't normally see their family doctor. A girl would likely go to one of the clinics in Lexington, where no one knew her. Which meant Allie hadn't really learned anything.
As she saw it, she could either call Mitch Wilson, if he'd talk to her, search her sister's room, or ask Stephen. What a choice. Walking into her sister's room for the first time in fifteen years. Talking to a man who thought her sister had been murdered. Or asking Stephen if her sister was carrying his baby when she left.
* * *
Stephen struck out with his brother. Rich had managed to dodge him once again. But he had found Mitch Wilson, who hadn't told him anything new. But just the man's reaction to the questions Stephen asked was enough to make Stephen even more concerned.
He was on his way back to Allie's when he spotted a boy walking down one of the side roads near her house. Allie's lost boy, he thought. A computer check of reports of missing children told them he was apparently only thirteen and from Birmingham, Alabama. A runaway, the deputy told him when he checked in a few minutes ago.
Stephen pulled off to the side of the road a few feet in front of the boy and got out of the vehicle.
Taking in the kid's ragged appearance, his expression a cross between sullen disinterest and out-and-out panic, Stephen said, "Don't you run away from me."
He was in no mood to chase the kid.
"What would you care if I did?" the kid mouthed off.
"I never said I would, but Allie does. She'd never forgive me if I got this close to you and lost you."
The kid looked unconvinced, but he didn't run. "You're a friend of Allie's?"
"You know who I am. You've been staying at her house, scaring her half to death by sneaking around in the attic. I'll tell you right now, I don't appreciate that one damned bit."
"What? Me bein' in her house?"
"I don't appreciate you frightening her," Stephen growled. "Did you think of that?"
"That's all we're going to talk about? Me bein' in her house?"
"To start with. Let's get that straight right now, okay?" Stephen grabbed the kid by the arms and pushed him up against the nearest tree. "You're not going to hurt her. You're not going to scare her. Not ever again. If you try, you'll answer to me."
"You think you own her or somethin'? Just because you spent the night with her?"
"I think it's none of your business what Allie and I do together, except that you understand I won't let you hurt her." Stephen glared at him, wondering if it was possible to intimidate a thirteen-year-old who thought he knew everything. "I'm bigger than you are. I'm stronger. I'm faster. And I know all three of the local judges. If I wanted to, I could have you locked up on a breaking-and-entering charge. Or I could have you on a plane on your way back to Birmingham. Tonight."
The bravado drained right out of the kid at that.
"Yeah." Stephen backed off and let the kid go. "We know who you are. The sheriff's trying to find you right now to send you back."
"So you want me gone, too?"
"All I'm saying is that I could get you out of this town tonight, if I wanted to," Stephen said. "But I may not do that. Allie wouldn't like it, and unlike some people, I happen to care about her. I don't want to do anything to upset her."
The kid finally lost a bit of his cockiness. "I like Allie. She's been okay to me. And I wasn't gonna hurt her."
"No, you're not. I'm going to make sure of that, and much as I hate to do it, I'm going to make you a deal. I can take you back to Allie's house or I can call the sheriff. You know what the sheriff's going to do with you. Allie will probably offer you a shower and a meal and a whole lot of sympathy. If you're straight with me and her about what's going on with you in Birmingham, she may not call the sheriff. She may try to help you herself instead."
"That's it? That's your deal?" Casey gaped at him. "I piss you off, I get shipped back to Birmingham."
"You were expecting a better offer?"
"Man, I don't believe you." Casey was so agitated he couldn't stand still. His chest was heaving, his weight shifting back and forth from one foot to the other. He practically danced with nervous energy. "You don't have anything else to say to me?"
Stephen had the feeling he'd walked in on a movie and missed the entire opening sequence. He didn't have a clue what was going on, but he was starting to get a really funny feeling about this.
"Why don't you tell me what's going on here, Casey?"
"Why don't you tell me. Because I know who you are. You're Stephen Whittaker."
Stephen looked more closely at the mouthy kid. "Am I supposed to know you?"
"Hey, why would you?" Casey was nearly in tears. "If you don't want me here, at least have the guts to say so."
"If I don't want you here?"
"Yeah. Just say the word."
"Casey—"
"You really don't know?" the boy said.
"Know what?"
"I asked around about you today, after I heard your name. Everybody knows, so I don't see how you could not know."
"Know what?"
"Who I am."
Stephen looked the boy over carefully, head to toe. He needed a haircut. He was too skinny, his feet and his hands and his ears looked a mile too big for the rest of his body, but Stephen supposed that would all change in the next few years. The kid had blondish-brown hair and dark eyes, and there was something about that surly expression on his face that seemed familiar. Something cold and hard settled in the pit of Stephen's stomach.
"I don't want your money." Casey managed to look furious and hurt and terribly proud. "I don't want to stay at your house. Don't want to embarrass you or anything. You don't ever have to see me again. I just want one thing from you."
Stephen didn't so much as blink. "What's that?"
"I want to know if you're my father."
"What?" Stephen whispered. He would have laughed if he hadn't seen how stricken the kid looked, how deadly se
rious, too.
"No more games, all right? No more lies. Just tell me."
Of all the things that could have come out of the kid's mouth, that was the last one Stephen expected. Still, there was something familiar about the boy.
"I don't have any children. I'm careful about things like that, and I don't walk away from my responsibilities," Stephen said, looking at the kid more closely, wondering if Casey had confused him with his brother. It wouldn't surprise Stephen at all to find out his brother had an illegitimate child running around somewhere. "Why don't you tell me why you think I'm your father?"
"People around town say you're the only one they ever saw my mother with that summer. So you must be the one."
Stephen braced himself, sure he wasn't going to like the answer. "Who's your mother, Casey?"
"I think, a long time ago, her name was Megan Lynn Bennett."
Stephen let out a breath in a dizzying rush, thinking it couldn't possibly be true. Megan was dead. She'd been dead for a very long time. He'd heard that she was pregnant when she left town, but then there had been all sorts of rumors. He hadn't heard anything about her being pregnant when she'd been found dead, so he'd assumed that she wasn't, although she'd been gone a long time before she died. He supposed it was possible she'd given birth before she died.
"When's your birthday?" Stephen said.
"March 6, 1986."
"Megan Bennett died February 15, 1986."
"Did she? Or did she just want everybody to think she died?"
Stephen took a step back, shaking his head, thinking it was something to be bested by a thirteen-year-old in verbal combat twice in one day. He was simply stunned. For a second, he couldn't think. Of all the ways to explain that little discrepancy...
He couldn't help but think of Allie's mysterious letter, of Mitch Wilson who claimed someone had threatened to kill him if he asked any more questions about Megan.
After talking to him, Stephen spent the morning having the man checked out as best he could. He found nothing to indicate Mitch Wilson was anything but what he seemed—a man who ran a successful restaurant and bar in Lexington after moving here years ago to work his way through school at UK. He hadn't been in any trouble since he was a juvenile, and even then it had been nothing serious. Stephen hadn't found any previous ties to Megan or Kentucky. Which had him wondering what in the world Mitch Wilson was doing here. Now he wondered... had the man come here asking questions about Megan's death or looking for her? Because he had reason to believe she wasn't dead?
Of course, that was a question for another moment. Right now he had one very upset teenage boy to deal with.
"Why would Megan want everyone to believe that?"
"You tell me," Casey said, as changeable as the wind and once again the fragile-looking teenager. "Why'd she leave in the first place?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"She didn't tell me much of anything."
"Wait a minute," Stephen said. "Let's back up here. What's your mother's name?"
"Margaret Addison," he said. "But everybody calls her Meggie."
Stephen nodded, feeling worse by the minute. Meggie. He'd heard people call Megan that. "How old is she?"
"Old," Casey insisted. "Thirtysomething?"
"That old, huh?" Stephen thought of one more possibility. "Casey, are you adopted?"
The boy paled. "What?"
"The woman who raised you. The woman you think of as your mother. Could she be your adoptive mother? Could Megan Bennett have been your birth mother?"
The boy turned the color of chalk. For a minute he looked like he was going to be sick. "I don't know."
"Okay." Stephen put his hand on the kid's shoulder, to steady him, to try to apologize for springing that question on him so abruptly. "It was just an idea. Don't worry about that part of it right now."
Still, Casey looked positively ill.
"Let's go back to what you do know, okay?" Stephen tried. "Your mother, Margaret Addison, one day she... What? Told you her real name was Megan Lynn Bennett?"
"She was dying," Casey blurted out. "She hadn't told me much of anything until then. She said we didn't have any family. But... she was dying, and I guess she wanted to clear her conscience first. People do that, right? When they're dying?"
"I suppose," Stephen conceded. But he didn't think this was the truth. He thought the kid was lying through his teeth now, and he wished he'd gotten some more information out of the deputy, who called to tell Stephen he might have ID'd the runaway boy. A kid named Casey Addison had been reported missing from Birmingham, Alabama, and matched the description they had of Allie's runaway boy.
"So," Stephen continued, "on her deathbed, this woman who'd raised you said her real name was Megan Bennett, and that she was from Dublin, Kentucky."
Casey nodded, unconvincingly.
"What else?"
"Not much. She was pretty messed up. She got shot." He shrugged again, as if to say it was just one of those things. "We didn't have much time to talk. She said if anything happened to her, I should come here."
"Here? To this town?"
"Dublin, Kentucky, 307 Willow Lane. She said I should find Janet Bennett, that she was my grandmother. I couldn't believe it. All this time I had a grandmother, and she didn't even tell me."
"And then what happened."
"She died. I got sent to a foster home, but I didn't like it there. I didn't see why I should stay there if I had a grandmother. So I took off to find her." The kid kicked at the dirt with his oversize shoes. "So... if that lady was my grandmother, that means Allie's my aunt, right?"
"She would be," Stephen conceded, even as he dismissed nearly everything the kid said. It had the feel of a lie that got bigger with every question Stephen asked him. Except for the part about the adoption. The kid's reaction had been frighteningly genuine on that question. He'd been so scared, it had nearly made him sick.
Could some part of his story be true? Could this boy be Megan's son? One born right before she died and adopted by a woman named Margaret Addison from Birmingham, Alabama?
Stephen would love to believe that—complicated as it would be. He would love to find out that Megan had a child who was standing here in front of him. Because he cared about Megan, and he felt something even bigger and stronger for Allie. He knew what it would mean to her to have part of her family back. Allie, who ran on emotion alone and would want to believe everything Casey had to say, without a shred of proof.
"So," Casey said. "What did they do to my mother? To make her run away, I mean. Was it 'cause of me? 'Cause she was pregnant?"
"I don't know," Stephen said.
Casey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."
"She didn't tell me, okay? I don't think she told anybody."
Casey glared at him.
"I'm not lying to you," Stephen said. "I don't know."
The boy looked mad as hell. God, did he look a little bit like Megan, as well? Stephen ran a hand through his hair and tried to think. It was just as hard as it had been a minute ago when Casey dropped his bomb.
"You helped her get out of town," Casey argued. "And nobody saw her with anyone else that summer. I know because Allie's friend said so."
"What?" Stephen asked, thinking the situation couldn't possibly get any more complicated.
"I was at the house today. Allie's house... I went back to get my laptop. You found my laptop, right?"
"I found it. Tell me about Allie's friend."
"Carolyn. I heard her and Allie talking on the porch. Carolyn said everybody was sure Megan was carrying your baby, 'cause you're the only one anybody saw her with that summer."
"Carolyn Simms told Allie that Megan was pregnant with my baby?"
"Yeah. Explain that."
"Shit." That was it. Things couldn't get much worse than that. He should have told Allie this morning, but it wasn't something a man said to a woman after he'd just made love to her for the first time. By the way, half the town thinks I got your sister pr
egnant fifteen years ago.
"Shit," he said again.
"Yeah," Casey said. "She's probably dying to see you right now."
Stephen shook his head back and forth again. He had thought he could control this situation, like he controlled everything else. He had thought he could dish out the information a little at a time, all the while winning her friendship, her trust, and keeping his father and his brother the hell away from her.
He'd blown it all to hell instead.
"So," Casey said. "What do we do now, Dad?"
Stephen looked up and saw one angry, confused teenager standing in front of him, one who was obviously in dire need of a little male guidance and some manners.
"You and I are going to have to cut a deal," he said.
* * *
Allie sat on the floor of her parents' bedroom, stuff strewn all around her, when she heard the car pull into the driveway.
Anybody but him, she prayed. Anybody but Stephen.
He rang the doorbell, called out her name. She thought childishly of hiding in the house, hoping he'd go away, but she knew he wouldn't. Her rental car was in the driveway. If she didn't let him in, he'd come inside himself and start looking for her. Which meant she had to deal with him. She had to calmly, firmly send him away.
Allie shoved open the window and called out, "I'm up here." She took her key ring from her pocket and threw it down to him, thinking she'd stay right here, keep the length of the room and all of this stuff between them. "Come on in. I couldn't get to the door right now if I had to."
She sat back down, all sorts of papers and clothes and jewelry in piles all around her, thinking she'd simply sit here and work like a woman possessed while he said whatever he wanted to say. She would be calm and cool and rational, when a part of her wanted to scream at him, wanted to drag him in here and make him look at this room, make him look at what it was doing to her to be here, to not know anything for sure. Let him watch her dig through her mother's papers like a madwoman, searching for some clue about her sister's life, when he probably knew everything and had simply chosen not to tell her.