by Kathi Daley
“Does it seem odd to you that a huge corporation with government contracts would hold their retreats all the way up here?”
“Not necessarily. It’s pretty private up here, if they were planning on testing.”
“I guess that’s true. I’m curious about the panel trucks and what they might have been hauling. I wonder if they were working on some sort of top-secret military operation.”
“It’s possible. However, if you’re thinking Peterman stumbled onto some sort of highly classified government secret and was killed to keep him quiet, I doubt it.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure you’re right. And while I’m interested to find out who shot Doug Peterman and why, I’m more interested in finding out who Finn was, who shot him, how he was related to my dad, and why my dad was calling himself Tuck when he was here.”
“We can ask Bilson about Finn. The store should be open tomorrow.”
“We can. And I can ask my mom if she remembers someone named Finn.”
“And how are you going to work that into the conversation?” Tony asked.
“I’ll just say we ran into someone who remembered Dad when we were looking for the dog’s owner, spending time with someone named Finn. I don’t need to mention that Dad went by an alias, or that we were intentionally digging for the information.”
“I guess it’s plausible the information about Finn could have come up during casual conversation. Especially if you introduced yourself and the man remembered the surname, although Thomas isn’t uncommon.”
“I doubt Mom will ask for details. If she does, I’ll just say I mentioned that Dad used to come to the lake and the man remembered him. I wonder what Mom plans to make for dinner.”
“Are you really hungry after that huge breakfast we had?”
“Breakfast was hours ago, and this mountain air is making me hungry. I know she brought a roast. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of Mom’s slow-cooked roasts with baby carrots and red potatoes.”
“That does sound good,” Tony agreed. “But it’s only two o’clock. I think maybe we might want to grab a snack to tide us over.”
“Mom brought some cheese and crackers. I think there might be cold cuts too. My feet are freezing despite my wool socks. Settling in by the fire with a glass of wine and a cheese tray sounds pretty darn relaxing.”
Tony leaned over and kissed my neck. “There are other ways to warm up your feet.”
I hit his shoulder. “Not in the middle of the day with my mom right there in the kitchen. But later. Definitely.”
Chapter 5
As I hoped, when we returned to the house, Mom confirmed she was making pot roast with all the trimmings for dinner. Mike and Bree hadn’t returned yet, but when I mentioned I was going to make a snack, Mom helped me put together a cheese and deli tray that we took into the living room, where Tony had stoked up the fire. The three of us shared a bottle of his expensive wine while we nibbled on our snack. Mom shared ideas for the week ahead while Tony and I gave her an abbreviated version of our search for Leonard’s owner. After a bit, Tony went out to chop some more wood, so it was just Mom and me.
“It’s so sad that little pup is on his own,” Mom said. “But it looks like Mike might step up if the owner isn’t found.”
“I had the same thought, By the way, we ran into a long-term renter who remembered Dad.”
Mom raised a brow. “Really?”
“He said Dad came here to visit someone named Finn. I tried to think back, but I’m sure I don’t remember anyone named Finn.”
Mom shook her head. “Your father never mentioned a Finn. He used to tell me he was coming up to the lake to spend some alone time. I never really bought it. If I’m completely honest, I suspected he was having an affair.”
I frowned. “If you thought he was having an affair, why didn’t you confront him?”
Mom shrugged. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. I do feel a sense of relief in the idea that he was here to visit a friend, not a lover.”
This was a very odd conversation to be having with my mother. I’d confirmed she hadn’t known Finn, so I changed the subject. “Did Dad go on other trips?”
Mom laughed, an empty, hollow sort of laugh. “Dad seemed to be going one place or another most of the time. He wasn’t around all that much.”
“Did he talk about his trips with you at all?”
Mom shook her head. “No. Never.”
“And you were okay with that?”
“In the beginning it bothered me that I didn’t know a thing about his life outside the time he spent in White Eagle, but as time went on, I learned to accept the way things were. If I had it to do all over again, I might behave differently, but I have you and Mike, so I don’t regret the decisions I made.”
It occurred to me that it was very odd indeed that a man’s wife wouldn’t know about his life outside the context of the time they shared. Had it always been that way? I tried to think back. I had never met any of my relatives on Dad’s side of the family. I suppose as a child I wondered about grandparents and cousins, but I had my mom’s parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews to call family, so I didn’t agonize too much over it. Still, from where I sat now, it was odd. “You know, I was thinking about family when I was working with Aunt Ruthie on the family tree I’ve been playing around with, and I realized not only did I never meet Dad’s parents, but I don’t even know their names or where they lived. I know Dad didn’t like to talk about them. I assume they were estranged before I was even born. But I do find I’m curious.”
Mom averted my eyes as she answered. “I’m sorry. I never met them either. And I’m afraid I don’t know their names, or even where they lived.”
“You never asked Dad about them?”
Mom glanced at me. “Oh, I asked. More than once. In the beginning. I thought it odd that Grant was so unwilling to give me even a clue about his past. I figured he just needed time to come around to telling me whatever it was he was going out of his way not to, but as time went on, I realized your father’s life before he arrived in White Eagle was totally off the table. I didn’t like it. As you know, family is important to me. But it was made clear to me that the matter wasn’t open for discussion, and if I couldn’t accept that, he’d move on. I chose to accept it.”
I let out a breath. “Wow. I’m not sure I could live with that degree of ambiguity.”
Mom’s expression softened. “You live with what you’re forced to live with.”
I sat back and let what she’d said bounce around in my mind. Tony had said Grant Thomas didn’t seem to exist until shortly before he met and married my mom. We had several theories about why that might have been, but the knowledge that even Mom didn’t know where he’d come from was surprising.
“So Dad never told you where he grew up or anything at all about his past?” I knew I should let it go, but I found I couldn’t.
“No. As I said, his past was off the table.”
I put my hand on Mom’s. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
She put her other hand on top of mine. “It was hard, but it was the deal I made.”
“Do you ever regret that decision?”
Mom leaned back into the softness of the sofa. “There were times, when your dad was still alive, when I wondered how my life would have turned out if I had chosen differently. But then I’d look at you and Mike and know that if I had to do it over again, I would do exactly the same thing.” She paused before going on. “You’re probably picking up on the fact that your dad and I didn’t have the perfect marriage. I never wanted you or Mike to know about the struggles we had. Grant was a good man. He worked hard and took care of his family. And he loved you both. Very much. I hope I haven’t said anything that will cause you to doubt that.”
“No,” I assured Mom. “Nothing you’ve said has changed my opinion about Dad. If anything, I feel like I have a better understanding of things. I’ll admit to having a few unanswered questions now that I’m
older and beginning to put pieces of my moments with Dad together. I’m curious: If your marriage wasn’t exactly happy, out of all the lakes in this area, why did you want to spend our vacation here?”
Mom lowered her eyes. “I guess I have a few unanswered questions of my own. I thought perhaps I’d find them here.”
“About what?” I asked.
Mom stood up. “It’s not important. I think I’ve said enough for one day. I need to check my roast, and then I think I’ll lay down for a bit. We should eat around six thirty.”
I could feel the tension build in my shoulders as she walked out of the room. I wondered what that was all about. I’d give Mom her space now, but before the week was over, I fully intended to find out more about what she was struggling with.
Tony came in with an armload full of wood just as Mom headed into the kitchen. I filled him in briefly on our conversation while he placed new logs on the low embers. We agreed that while we wanted answers, the last thing we wanted to do was to cause Mom any sadness or discomfort, though that seemed to be what we were doing by digging around in Dad’s past.
We sat down on the sofa, and I put my head on his shoulder and thought back to the conversation I’d had with her a month ago, after Tony found the photo of her standing on the same bridge Jared Collins had been. I hadn’t talked with her all that much about Dad before then. She’d revealed her love affair with Collins, and admitted she never loved Dad the way she had this other unobtainable man. She’d told me about her trip to Europe, her heartbreak, and her decision to enter into a relationship with a man she met back in the States who looked a whole lot like him. While they looked almost like twins, they were very different people. Collins was open and loving, while my dad was distant and withdrawn.
Tony and I hadn’t figured out why Collins was being investigated by Senator Kline, and after we realized he and my dad weren’t the same person, we’d stopped trying. We’d decided to focus our energy on finding my dad, though now I wondered if we might have given up our research into Jared Collins a little too early.
I was about to bring that up when Mike and Bree walked in. “Any luck?” I asked.
“No one admits ever having seen the dog, and we confirmed with them that there aren’t any houses where we found him,” Bree said.
I looked at Mike and smiled. “Congratulations. It looks like you just became a dad.”
I was expecting a flat-out refusal, but instead he shrugged and helped himself to some cheese.
“We got some information about Doug Peterman,” she said.
“We did too,” I replied. “What did you find?”
“We talked to a man named Harris Beaufort, who said he’d run into Peterman at the bar in the next little town over at around eight on Friday evening. Peterman mentioned he’d been at the lake, cleaning one of the houses, but he was finished and planned to take the rest of the weekend off.”
“A man we spoke to today said he saw Peterman’s truck in front of the house at around ten p.m. I guess he might have left and then come back for some reason.”
Bree lifted a shoulder. “I guess.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“We saw a man pulled onto the side of the road. He was driving a black truck with tinted windows, and it was sitting in an odd spot. I had Bree wait with Leonard and went over to talk to him. I asked if he’d broken down, but he said he hadn’t, that he was waiting for someone, though he didn’t say who. Bree and I drove on, but the man we spoke to at the next house commented that he’d seen a man in a black truck lingering in the area. I don’t know if it means anything, but I plan to call Holderman to fill him in.”
Tony and I went to freshen up before dinner and Bree did the same, while Mike made his call. I didn’t have a grasp on what was going on with Peterman’s death at this point, but my gut told me that just because we were visitors who’d never met him didn’t mean we’d be off the hook for any fallout from whatever was going on.
******
Dinner was amazing. Afterward, Tony and I volunteered to take on cleanup duties, while Mike and Bree took the three dogs for a walk and Mom said good night and retired to her suite. It was only a little past eight, so I was somewhat concerned that she was turning in so early. She’d been quiet during dinner, and I suspected she might still have our conversation from earlier on her mind.
When Tony and I finished in the kitchen and Mike and Bree returned with the dogs, the four of us headed outside to take a soak in the hot tub. It was a clear, starry night despite the overcast skies earlier in the day, and the zillions of stars overhead were like a tapestry that had been arranged just for our enjoyment.
“Now this is the life,” I said as I melted into the hot water. The stress I had been holding on to seemed to evaporate with the steam that rose into the frigid air.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a hot tub for my place,” Mike said. “Of course, it would only be one more thing to dig out every time it snows.”
“You could build a cover over it, but then you wouldn’t be able to look up at the stars,” I said.
“There was a hot tub at the little house I rented before I bought my house,” Bree reminded me. “The concept was nice, but I never really used it. It isn’t as if I was on vacation and had a lot of free time. When I thought to use it, it was usually on a cold winter night, and as Mike said, the need to dig it out before I could use it had me settling for a glass of wine or a cup of tea in front of the fire.”
“A fire sounds good, but I’m not sure it would melt away my stress the way this hot tub does,” I countered.
“It’s too bad Mom is missing out,” Mike said. “She looked sort of stressed at dinner. Did something happen I don’t know about?”
I didn’t answer immediately. I hadn’t shared any of the information Tony and I had dug up about my dad with Mike yet, but I assumed at some point I would. I wasn’t certain this was the best time to do it. Still, he deserved the truth. “Mom and I got onto a conversation about Dad. I’m not sure if I told you, but Aunt Ruthie has been helping me build a family tree, and while I’m making good progress on Mom’s side of the family, I haven’t found a single thing on Dad’s.”
“I guess he never really talked about his relatives,” Mike said.
“Not at all. I didn’t even have names to plug into the spots for paternal grandparents, so I asked Mom about them, and it turns out she doesn’t know either.”
Mike frowned. “She doesn’t know the names of Dad’s parents?”
“No, she doesn’t,” I confirmed. “She asked about his family and his past when they met, and he said all that was off the table. She didn’t push, but as time went by and she could see he was never going to volunteer any information, she asked again, and he basically told her the door to his past was closed and if she couldn’t accept that, he’d move on. She chose to accept it.”
Mike sat up a bit. “You know, as a kid I used to wonder. I asked Dad a few times about our grandparents, and he just said they were dead. I thought it was strange that no one from Dad’s family came around or sent cards or gifts or anything, but that’s the way it is in some families, and I don’t suppose it bothered me all that much. I do remember wondering why we still hadn’t heard from anyone when he died. I figured his parents were dead and he might not have siblings, so maybe there really wasn’t anyone, but in the back of my mind I felt there was more to it.”
“Now that your dad is gone, he can’t get mad if you have Tony poke around a bit,” Bree suggested. “He should at least be able to find a birth certificate that will give you his parents’ names for your family tree.”
I glanced at Tony. He shrugged, and I decided to respond. “I didn’t tell Mom this part because I could see she was getting upset, but I already had Tony do that.”
“And…?” Mike asked.
“And according to what Tony could find, Grant Thomas didn’t exist before 1981.”
Mike sat forward. “What do you mean, he didn’t e
xist?”
“He couldn’t find any school, work, or financial records for Grant Walton Thomas,” I said. “Tony couldn’t find a birth certificate, a driver’s license, or a passport, nothing.”
“There has to be a mistake. That’s impossible. Of course he existed,” Mike spat out. “Tony must have missed something.”
“He didn’t miss anything. In fact, he spent a lot of time on it,” I said. Mike was getting angry and agitated, and I hated that this conversation was ruining our evening, but I supposed there never was going to be a good time to talk about this. Now that I’d started, I figured I may as well go all-in. “I didn’t want to bring it up until I knew more, but Tony and I have been looking in to it for a while.”
“What exactly have you been looking in to?”
“Mike honey,” Bree said, “why don’t we let Tess tell us without jumping down her throat? I’m sure whatever she has to say is as difficult for her to talk about as it is for you to hear.”
Mike took several deep breaths, then ran his hands over his face. He leaned back, then sat forward again. Eventually, he said, “I’m sorry, Tess. Please continue.”
Tony took my hand in his beneath the water and gave it a little squeeze. I knew he’d been ready to jump in if needed, but this was my story to tell.
“Maybe we should get out of here and go inside,” I began. “This is going to be a long story, and I’m not sure you’re supposed to sit in water this warm for hours and hours.”
Mike didn’t answer.
“Let’s meet in our room,” I added. “I don’t want Mom to overhear what I have to say, so we shouldn’t talk in the living room. When you’ve heard it all, we can decide together what, if anything, to tell her.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Bree said, standing up, stepping over the edge of the hot tub, and grabbing a towel. “We’ll get dressed and then we’ll calmly talk this out.” She looked at Mike and held out a hand. “Okay?”
Mike took her hand and stood up. “Okay.”