“Whatever normal might be,” Kat had added.
And as to Bart Winston . . .
No arrests. The man didn’t even have parking tickets.
“I’m still working on social media,” Kat wrote.
Time was ticking by.
Angela didn’t think that she could eat another Danish.
Checking in with Jackson, she found he was walking through the Alistair Apartments, seeking any weaknesses in security.
“So?” Josh asked.
She didn’t answer him. She saw the door was opening and though it wasn’t quite closing, Liam appeared to be leaving.
She texted Jackson quickly and rose in what she hoped was a leisurely fashion.
He’s had a “normal” childhood. Whatever that meant. His mom had passed away, but he’d been raised by a caring aunt.
As she walked, following Liam at a distance, she texted Kat back.
What about the boy’s father?
Jackson
He’d been meeting with a security guard and didn’t see Angela’s text until several minutes after it had been written.
He quickly called her back.
“What are you doing? Sorry, following Liam. But why?” he asked her.
“He reads, for one. And I’m waiting on a reply from Kat. He was raised by an aunt after his mother died. I’m trying to find out about the father. Oh, and his aunt just passed this year.”
“Okay, I have your location on the phone. Just be careful. I’ll catch up with you.”
“Fine. We’re not heading for the apartments,” she said.
“Where are you heading?”
“No idea yet!”
“Okay, Josh is still with you, right?”
“Right behind me,” she said, glancing at the ghost keeping pace with her.
Josh heard her and grinned. “Not that I can beat anyone up!”
“You can help, and you have helped before,” she reminded him.
He smiled. “Yeah, I have!”
Angela noted Liam’s backpack, but everyone carried a backpack these days.
She couldn’t help but wonder if it carried a gun or worse.
She was startled when they arrived at another outdoor café and she wondered how she could appear casual, being at a café again after leaving a café.
This one promised music—safe music, of course, with a husband-and-wife duo performing on an outdoor stage.
Did he plan on just spending the next hours listening to music?
Her phone started to ring again. She glanced at the caller I.D.
Jackson was calling her back.
“Hey,” she said softly, keeping her distance from the tables at the café.
“I just did some research on Bart Winston and Grant Lockwood. Lockwood is a divorce attorney who has never been married himself. Bart Winston was widowed twenty years ago. He has two grown children and grandchildren, and I haven’t been able to find an evil thing that the man has done to anyone. Both donate to several charities. I’m wondering if the note was intended for either of them. I looked for information on Liam’s father.”
As she listened, Angela watched Josh. He’d walked over to watch Liam. The young man had been digging in his backpack.
He pulled out a book.
“Angela?” Jackson asked.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Anything on Liam’s father?”
“There is no father listed.”
“Oh! Okay. Thanks.”
“Angela—”
She cut the call as he said her name. Josh was hurrying back over to her.
“He has a box cutter in there—in the backpack!” Josh said. “He was just fingering it, and then looking at his watch!”
Angela made a split-second decision. If she was wrong, well . . .
They’d be back to square one. But Liam was young, and she had been at her job a long time. She hoped she was reading him right.
She walked straight to his table and sat across from him.
He looked up from his book, startled. Then he frowned, confused.
“I just saw you at the café and . . . you’re not six feet away from me, you know.”
“I’m taking a chance,” she said quietly. “You’re reading Shakespeare.”
“I like Shakespeare! And that’s no crime.”
“But planning to kill people a minute after midnight is.”
“What?”
“’At his heels a grass green turf, at his head a stone.’”
He turned the color of new fallen snow as she spoke.
“You wrote the note on that napkin, Liam. You were wearing gloves, so you left no prints. You were in early, and you intended the note for Grant Lockwood. We know that.”
They didn’t really know it at all. But it sounded better when she spoke with conviction.
“I—I—I didn’t. I . . .”
“You did. We know that you did. What we don’t know is why you want to kill Grant Lockwood.”
“I didn’t intend to kill him!” Liam protested.
But he had written the note! It was more than evident.
“Then why do you have the box cutter in your bag. Again, we know you wrote the note.”
She was surprised to see the silent tears that suddenly streamed down his face.
“I didn’t intend to kill him. I intended to kill myself—in front of him!”
“But—why?” she asked, stunned by his response.
“Because he’s my father and he abandoned my mother and didn’t even stay around. I wanted him to know he had a son. A dead son.”
He was openly sobbing then.
And he was telling the truth. She was certain of it. The hurt and pain in his voice, in the way that his shoulders sagged . . .
“It was all right when Aunt Minnie was alive, but this year . . . she was gone, too, and I was young when mom died, but Aunt Minnie always told me it didn’t matter, I had her . . . she told me my father was dead. But later Aunt Minnie told me that . . . she thought she knew who it might be, and I found out in a letter my mom had written her years ago when I had to clear out her things after she died. And I was suddenly just so alone . . . everyone who ever loved me . . . and my father who abandoned my mother was still alive and well and he had to know that . . .”
She didn’t mean to be careless in any way, but Angela couldn’t stand the pain. She walked around and slid another chair next to him, putting her arms around his shoulders.
“But you’re a smart and talented kid and the whole world is out there! There will be people to love, and I will tell Grant Lockwood what a jerk he is and there is no reason for you to kill yourself over someone else’s bad behavior!”
She winced, praying he wasn’t a better actor than his coworker Jake, and he wasn’t playing her.
She just didn’t think so.
She saw Josh was by them, looking at her with sadness in his eyes.
Angela quickly pulled out her phone.
“Jackson, are you still at the apartments?”
“I was just about to come and find you—”
“No, please, get to Grant Lockwood. Ask him if he had a son he abandoned.”
“What?”
“Please, Jackson. Do it quickly.”
“All right. I’m near Winston’s apartment . . . I’m at the door, knocking. The phone is on speaker. Winston. Where’s Grant Lockwood?”
“On the sofa. Why? Is there something—”
“Lockwood, do you have a son?”
“What?” Angela could hear the surprise in the man’s voice. “No. I’ve never been married.”
Liam could hear the conversation.
“He never was married. Ask him about a woman named Mary Cathleen Cross,” he said.
Jackson did.
Lockwood let out a pained sigh. “She was the love of my life. But that was years ago, years and years ago. And I was hooked on drugs back then. I . . . I needed heroine more than her, and when I finally managed to clean up . . . she was g
one. She wanted nothing to do with me. She thought I was dangerous. I might have been. But I’ve been clean now for almost twenty years. I knew Mary Cathleen, yes. I loved her. But what does that have to do with what’s going on?”
“Angela?” Jackson asked.
“Tell Mr. Lockwood that he does have a son. And his son is in agony. Alone. There was never a threat against his life.”
Lockwood heard her. “A son! I have a son. Oh, my God, I’d have given anything to have a child . . . but I have a child. Who wanted to kill me?”
“No,” Angela heard Jackson say quietly. “He wanted to kill himself.”
Lockwood let out a “No!” that was heart-wrenching.
“Angela,” Jackson said, “I’ll come to you—”
“No. We’ll come to you,” Angela said. She ended the call and looking hard at Liam she said, “Liam, don’t you see? Your mother was trying to protect you. The man she knew was a mess, an addict. She was afraid he’d do nothing but hurt you. You heard him. You don’t fake that kind of pain—you weren’t faking it with me. Please.”
Liam sat back. He stared at her, lost, afraid, and confused.
“He knows what I wrote. He knows I’m a . . .”
“Slightly broken, needing fixing. Please, Liam. Maybe you can heal one another. Maybe he needs help, too.”
“But—”
“Please. Liam, you were thinking about the most horrible thing in the world—what can be worse?”
“I was wondering if the pain of death could be worse than the pain of living,” he said.
“Tell him that it is,” Josh said softly.
She didn’t say those words; she really wouldn’t be able to explain them. Instead, she reached out and took his hand.
“Liam, I wouldn’t have known what you were suffering. You’re a great person. Your boss thinks the world of you. You’re going to school. And you’re going to come with me and meet your father, and I don’t know him, but Jackson has met him, and if he were any kind of a monster, Jackson would know, I truly believe that, and . . . please?”
He nodded slowly.
She started to rise. He was going to come with her.
Then she remembered that Jackson had taken the car.
“Hm. You’re walking, right?”
“Yes.”
“Uber!” she said. And she smiled again.
Because he had smiled at last.
Jackson
The amazing thing about the introduction of Liam and Grant was that both stood staring at one another . . . shaking like leaves.
Then both were sobbing.
Grant Lockwood reached out for the son he’d never known he’d had, tentative, afraid.
Liam walked into his arms.
And both sobbed and held one another.
It was a hug that had to make up for years and years of hugs that hadn’t been.
Jackson watched Angela’s face as she stood silently, watching father and son. And he smiled, grateful and newly amazed.
She never ceased to surprise him.
She had managed to turn it all around. In his own mind, he was still putting all the pieces together. But as the two finally parted, as Bart Winston suggested that they sit together and asked everyone if he could get anyone anything, they began to talk.
And Grant Lockwood explained how he had loved Liam’s mother, but she had done the right thing keeping him away—and never telling him that she was going to have a child.
Liam explained that he thought that his father was a monster who had abandoned her and hadn’t wanted a child.
Then there were questions, so many questions. And the two were focused on one another with wonder and amazement.
“Maybe we should leave them together to get to know one another,” Jackson murmured. “And I should go out and tell Adam what’s happened. He’ll be waiting.”
“May I tell him?” Josh said. “I need to be with Dad at midnight anyway, and it’s getting closer and closer, you know.”
“I think I’ll go out for coffee,” Bart Winston said.
Lockwood heard him. He rose and clapped his friend on the shoulder.
“No, no, you don’t need to leave your own apartment! Son, we’ll go to my place. It’s just upstairs.”
“You—you’re sure?” Liam asked.
“My home is your home. I . . . I mean if you want. I mean, I can’t tell you how much I regret my past, how much I longed for a child,” Lockwood said.
Liam looked at Angela.
“Thank you!” he whispered.
She nodded. “Thank you!” she told him.
“We’ll get out of here,” Jackson said.
“But!” Angela stepped forward, producing one of her cards. “You will call us and let us know how you’re doing. And if there’s anything we can do for you.”
Liam and his father nodded as one.
“Well,” Bart Winston said lightly, “There goes my New Year’s!”
“No, no, sir. I’m sorry, I—we’ll come back. Right Mr. Lockwood?”
“Right—Dad?” Lockwood suggested.
“Right, Dad?” Liam said.
“If you’ll have us, Bart,” Lockwood said.
“Yah!” Bart Winston said. “Hell, yeah!”
Jackson, Angela, and Josh managed to slip out. As they walked to the car, Jackson called Adam, who would let everyone know the alert was over.
They dropped Josh at Adam’s house and drove on to their own.
Mary was there to greet them. She’d set the house up for their small family gathering, having cookies and sparkling apple cider ready for all.
Midnight came. The baby slept through it. Corby played with his noise maker and they all clicked plastic glasses of sparkling cider.
Then Corby and Mary Tiger gave it up and went to bed.
“The new year!” Angela said.
“The new year. Hope and good things,” Jackson said. “2020—so rough for so many people. So many losses. And yet—”
He paused. He could hear Angela’s phone ringing. She answered it quickly, smiled, and said, “Happy New Year!”
She listened for a minute, repeated the words, and said “Thank you,” softly.
She looked at Jackson again.
“Liam. He wanted to assure me he was fine and say happy New Year. He and his dad are still fine, which is great. Jackson, I can’t believe it! It was so wonderful. Lockwood was never in denial, demanding a DNA test or anything. And it’s amazing! The kid was just so lost, and this little twist of finding out that someone out there wanted and loved him was so . . . incredible.”
“You should still suggest therapy,” Jackson told her.
“Yes, definitely,” she agreed. “And still . . .”
Jackson walked over to her, taking her into his arms.
“A tough year. But at the end, you turned a possible tragedy into triumph. And we have our children. So much to be thankful for.”
“So much. And still . . .”
“And still?”
She laughed.
“Happy New Year! Hallelujah! And here’s to 2021!”
“Here’s to 2021!” he agreed. “Let’s start it off with a bang!”
And rising, he lifted her into his arms.
“To 2021,” he said. “And every year that I am blessed to spend with you!”
Other Books by Heather
WICKED DEEDS
DARK RITES
DYING BREATH
A PERFECT OBSESSION
DARKEST JOURNEY
DEADLY FATE
HAUNTED DESTINY
FLAWLESS
THE HIDDEN
THE FORGOTTEN
THE SILENCED
THE DEAD PLAY ON
THE BETRAYED
THE HEXED
THE CURSED
WAKING THE DEAD
THE NIGHT IS FOREVER
THE NIGHT IS ALIVE
THE NIGHT IS WATCHING
LET THE DEAD SLEEP
THE UNINVITED
THE UNHOLY
THE UNSEEN
AN ANGEL FOR CHRISTMAS
THE EVIL INSIDE
SACRED EVIL
HEART OF EVIL
PHANTOM EVIL
“Graham is a master at world building and her latest is a thrilling, dark, and deadly tale of romantic suspense.”
-Booklist, starred review, on Haunted Destiny
“Graham is the queen of romantic suspense.”
--RT Book Reviews
“An incredible storyteller.”
-Los Angeles Daily News
“Graham stands at the top of the romantic suspense category.”
--Publishers Weekly
For more information check out her website at www.theoriginalheathergraham.com
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