A Powerful Secret

by Dr. Kevin Leman

  How much does he really know about Sean? Will couldn’t help but wonder. But he also got Drew’s gentle point. It was time for Will to leave the office. He was needed more right now at Chautauqua. News about the jumper and the possible connection to Sean wasn’t something he could share with his mother over the phone.

  He’d call Laura. She’d pack a bag for him and hand it to him at the doorway to speed him on his way. He could be in Chautauqua by nightfall.

  “You’re where?” Sarah asked Will. “In the middle of a workday?”

  “On my way to Chautauqua. I need to give Mom some news. But I also need to talk with you.”

  It had to be serious if Will left work. Sarah waved off a colleague who held paperwork and shut her office door. “I’m alone now. What’s up?”

  “I’m going to say it straight.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes even though Will couldn’t see it. How else could Will, Mr. Straightforward, say anything?

  “A guy jumped off the Peace Bridge last Thursday night. The details sound like a close match for Sean.”

  Sarah lowered herself into her desk chair. Thursday night. The night she’d had the weird dream or indigestion, couldn’t go back to sleep, and tried to call Sean but didn’t reach him. Had he been jumping off a bridge?

  If it hadn’t been Will telling her, she would have laughed at the ludicrous nature of the information. But this was Will, who never failed to check his facts before moving on anything.

  She shook her head, trying to clear the haze. “I can’t believe it. I don’t believe it. I mean, he’s been on the edge, but that? No way. Can’t be Sean. Not the brother I know who rolls with the punches.”

  “We’re checking into every angle we can. I’ll let you know if we find anything. But I didn’t want you to be blindsided if the news leaked from somewhere else.”

  “Got it, and that’s much appreciated. Let me know after you’ve talked with Mom. Then I’ll call and talk her down off the ceiling.”

  “You always could do that, sis. Thanks.”

  “And Will?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not Sean. I just know it’s not.”

  But then why had she felt like her heart had been stabbed the night that guy jumped off the bridge? The coincidence was eerie.

  32

  CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION, WESTERN NEW YORK

  Will focused like a laser on what he had to do the entire drive to their family’s summer home in Chautauqua. By the time he’d reached the wood-framed, old stone mansion, the sky was streaked with gold and red. He inhaled deeply of the lake air as he stepped out of his Land Rover and stretched his tight back muscles.

  He loved this place, had loved it since he was a boy. Gazing toward the house, he scanned the expansive front porch. This was the time of day his father would sit in his favorite rocker, book in hand, enjoying the view. Since Bill Worthington wasn’t on the porch, he was likely out of town.

  That meant Ava was down by the lake watching the sunset. “Maybe it’s my heritage showing through, but I feel most at peace when I’m close to the water,” she’d told Will once. Her family still owned a picturesque castle and grounds and several estates in Wicklow overlooking the Irish Sea. Will and Laura had honeymooned at the castle.

  Perhaps the fact his mother was by the water would somehow make the news easier.

  Will headed for her favorite spot. The year that he had left for his freshman year at Harvard, Bill had hired artisans to craft a winding cobblestone path strewn with Ava’s favorite flower bushes and grasses. Then he’d added a selection of vintage rockers that could withstand the weather changes year-round. Bill had scoured the best antique shops nationwide to secure the rockers and surprise her. He’d told Will it would help Ava deal with the transition of her first baby heading off to university. Will remembered it distinctly because it was one of the rare times his father revealed his tender love for Ava. He was usually so pragmatic and business-oriented.

  Will was right. His mother was sitting in one of the rockers beside the path. The lowering sun glinted gold on her auburn hair that peeked above the top of the chair. She held a wine glass in one hand.

  “Mom,” he said softly, so as not to startle her.

  She turned and peered around the side of the chair. “Will? My goodness! What are you doing here? I didn’t expect you.” Setting her wine glass on the table nestled next to the chair, she got up to hug him.

  Within a minute, though, she stepped back from the hug. “You’re stiff. That means you have news to tell me. And it’s not good.” Her eyes met his. “Out with it. I can take it. Whatever it is.”

  She always could read him like a book. But he wasn’t sure she could take this news.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Mom?”

  A visible shiver coursed through her. “It’s about Sean, isn’t it? And no, I will not.”

  He stayed close, in case he needed to catch her if she swayed. “Yes, it is about Sean.” He gave the news the only way he could—honestly. “Last week a man jumped off the Peace Bridge in Buffalo. His description has similarities to Sean.”

  “What day?” she asked.

  “Thursday.”

  “When?”

  “Very late Thursday evening.”

  She was quiet. He could tell she was calculating the hours. “He left our flat . . .”

  It was a little over six hours’ drive from New York City to Buffalo, Will knew—and so did his mother.

  “Oh my.” Ava swayed, and Will reached out to catch her. She batted his hand away. “So it’s possible. But Will? It can’t be. It just can’t be. He couldn’t have—”

  “Drew is checking out every lead he can right now. No body has been found, and no one is certain of anything. But we know the possibility exists.”

  Ava’s body trembled. “It can’t end like this. Sean can’t end like this. He always was fascinated with Niagara Falls.”

  Will remembered. Sean had been eight when the family visited there. He’d been enthralled with the racing white water and the story of Annie Edson Taylor, who went over the falls in a barrel in 1901. “Someday I’m going to do that too,” he’d claimed. Will’s careful research—of others who had tried and died—at last curbed Sean’s desire to try it.

  But the trip whet Sean’s appetite for adrenaline-rush adventures. After he hit adulthood and was away from his mama bear’s clutches, he’d trained with the best white-water rafting experts and had since traversed the gorge downstream from the falls many times. He’d never told his mother about those and other daredevil stunts. But Will knew, since he’d been called to rescue Sean from many of those stunts, especially when Sean was in his early twenties.

  Now Will felt a kick in his gut. Would Sean choose to end his life there, near the falls? He shook his head to refocus. “You had to know, and Dad has to know of the potential connection. No matter what happens, I couldn’t withhold this news from you until we knew one way or the other. I couldn’t tell you on the phone. Laura agreed I should come in person.”

  “Thank you for telling me, son. But your father is in DC. He’s not coming home for a few days,” she whispered.

  “I’ll talk to him. He’ll be on the next flight home, I can guarantee that.”

  Ava grabbed his arm. “I have to tell your father the whole story.”

  “Yes, Mom, you do. It’s the right thing to do. For Sean, for yourself, for Dad, for all of us.”

  She dropped her head for a minute. When she looked at Will again, the haze of weepy emotion that had plagued her for weeks had disappeared. Her face was stoic, but fiery determination glimmered in her eyes.

  “Yes, Will, you are right. Absolutely right.” She lifted her chin. “I am afraid of what this might mean, especially for me, for your father. But I have lived with that fear ever since that night at Camp David. Now I need to face it. I can’t hide from it anymore.”

  The Ava Worthington who took on challenges regally and defeated them was back.

&nbs
p; LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  “The new witness you uncovered said what?” the man behind the mahogany desk demanded.

  “That he swears he saw the guy pause before doing a nosedive into the Niagara. Oncoming headlights blinded the witness for an instant. The next thing he saw was the jumper had disappeared. But a guy was running down the Peace Bridge toward the Canadian side.”

  “Is the witness sure?”

  “As sure as a dotty old man of 87 can be,” his contact said. “But his granddaughter, who was with him at the time, swears he’s fully all there in the head and has excellent vision. I checked the background on the witness. He was a sharp attorney in Maryland before his retirement. Seems quite credible.”

  So the options were getting more complicated.

  The supposed jumper might be Sean, or it might not be.

  The jumper might have jumped, or he might not have.

  If he did jump, his body might be found, or not.

  If he didn’t jump, he might have exited the Peace Bridge in Canada and be hanging out there for a while, hoping to be incognito.

  The last option was the one the man was most interested in right now, because the others were dead ends in finding Sean Worthington alive.

  “You know what to do,” he told his contact. “Pull strings with immigration in Canada. If he crossed, they should have a record. Check with the border officials on both sides.”

  “Already in motion. I was pretty sure you’d say that.”

  “Good. Call me with any leads.”

  “Always.”

  The man ended the call. His plan was set in motion. He knew his source would apply the right amount of pressure to get the job done. After all, his contact had never taken no for an answer in his career before, and he certainly wouldn’t now. It was why the man had kept him on his payroll all these years.

  33

  JAMESTOWN, NEW YORK

  True to Will’s prediction, Bill had not only been on the first flight home but had chartered a plane to get him there as early as possible. Since a storm had loomed the previous night, they hadn’t been able to leave DC as swiftly as Bill wanted. However, Will picked him up at 10:00 the next morning at a private airfield outside Jamestown.

  Bill was quiet, his expression bland, almost numb. He didn’t hug Will or even greet him. He merely stashed his luggage in the backseat of Will’s Land Rover and got in the passenger seat. They’d both agreed the 15-mile drive to their Chautauqua home would give them the opportunity to talk man-to-man before Bill saw Ava.

  The instant they were on the road, he swiveled toward Will. “Do you think it’s Sean?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Dad. The details seem to match, but . . .”

  Bill nodded. “So you doubt it’s him too. So do I. Sean’s done a lot of wild things over the years—more than I want to know about. He’s been hot under the collar sometimes, but I can’t imagine him doing anything like that. Especially now, when he’s considering running for governor. It doesn’t make any sense. Sean wouldn’t, couldn’t, crack like that. Not without justifiable cause.”

  But there is, Dad, there is, Will couldn’t help but think. What Sean believed to be true all these years has been ripped away from him.

  His father plunged on, his speech almost a stream of consciousness. “It would have to be something big that completely crushed him to weigh him down so much. I have a theory.”

  “What’s that?” Will asked, tightening his grip on the wheel as he drove. How much did his father know? Had he guessed?

  “Sean has seemed more restless than usual lately. Maybe he needed some time away before he took the next step of the governor’s race.” Bill scratched his grizzly chin, which looked like it hadn’t seen a razor yet that morning. That small detail told Will how upset his father really was. “Or perhaps he wanted to think it through for himself, make sure it was what he should do.”

  “Maybe,” was all Will could say.

  “I know I’ve been hard on the boy over the years. I simply want what’s best for him, and sometimes that has meant exerting a little extra pressure. You never needed it. You were hard enough on yourself. But Sean, and later Sarah . . .” His father turned his head toward the window. “They needed more direction. I worried far more about them than I ever did about you in your teen years and early twenties.” He added more softly, “Maybe that’s why he couldn’t come to me. He had to run away for a short while instead.”

  “He didn’t come to me either,” Will countered.

  Bill’s head whipped back toward him. “That’s because you and me, we’re the same. Driving toward the goal. We forget to smell the flowers along the way. So Ava reminds me. That’s why I need her in my life, and you need Laura.”

  “So true, Dad, so true,” Will said.

  They were silent the rest of the journey home. They’d said what they could, for now.

  NEW YORK CITY

  Sarah’s mind wasn’t on her DOJ meeting. It was on her mother, who still hadn’t returned her call. Ava was an early-to-bed type, so Sarah wasn’t surprised she hadn’t reached her last night. The shock of the news received from Will had probably kept her mother up far later than her norm. Maybe she was sleeping in this morning.

  Sarah checked her texts. There was one from Will at 9:30.

  Mom home and okay. Picking up Dad. Landing at Jamestown at 10. More when can.

  She shook her head. Leave it to Will to manage the details, even in crisis. He’d not only contacted their dad but had remembered to text her, knowing she had to be worried about their mother.

  Will was so much like their father, except he had another dimension—a much more tender side. Bill loved his kids. Sarah had no doubt of that. But he’d been reared in such a stiff, formal environment that showing outward affection wasn’t natural for him. She couldn’t count the times he’d told her, “So you fell down. Don’t sit there. Get up, brush yourself off, think about what you learned through failure, and move on.” There was no coddling with Bill, just straight talk. Will had similar proclivities, but Ava and Sarah had worked on him. Then Laura took over when she and Will got married and had done an admirable job.

  In the boardroom, Will was a force to be reckoned with. But at home? Laura was the one who kept the henhouse and the rooster in order.

  The analogy made Sarah grin.

  34

  CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

  Will had done many hard things in his life—even more so lately. But a glimpse of the resignation and pain on his mother’s face when she greeted Bill almost broke Will. He and Laura were the only ones who knew the true depth of her pain and why her heart was doubly breaking.

  Ava sat in the porch rocker, awaiting their arrival. Will lingered at the driver’s side of the vehicle as his father moved toward her and up the stairs. Then, uncharacteristically, Bill didn’t say anything. He simply gathered Ava into his arms and held her as she started sobbing.

  Will left his father’s luggage in his Land Rover and headed down the cobblestone path toward the lake. He sank onto a nearby rocker, his gaze flicking from the house to the lake. He felt torn in two. This day would change everything for their family. Will had no idea which direction it would go.

  In the midst of his pain, the still small voice spoke. It is when you are weak that true strength comes.

  Yes, he felt weak. It was a quality he would never have assigned to himself in the past. But the recent events had revealed how weak he was when his family was threatened.

  Will needed that true strength. For the first time in his life, he realized he couldn’t make himself strong. Perhaps his Bible-banging sister was right. Maybe he did need help from above, from the God who had seemed elusive, out of reach, and unnecessary to his life.

  He gazed at the horizon. It was a gray day—both sky and water—with a hint of moisture in the air. A day as morbid and heavy as his thoughts.

  Will closed his eyes. “God,” he breathed, “if you are there . . .”

  He si
ghed—the kind of long, drawn-out sigh that released years of weariness. Calm settled over him like a lightweight but warm blanket. He rested in its enfolding embrace.

  Will had no idea how long he sat there in the rocker on the cobblestone path. But when he opened his eyes at last and looked skyward, a shaft of gold-white light pierced the cloud over him.

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  The man paced the length of his large study, thinking. His source had checked with Canada immigration. No one named Sean Worthington or matching his description had passed over the Peace Bridge and through the entry point on the Canadian side. It was highly unlikely he’d been able to slip through unnoticed, since every visitor had to show ID once they’d passed over the bridge in order to get into Canada. Then again, Sean was a Worthington. Anything was possible with his type of high connections.

  Perhaps he bribed someone to let him through, the man thought. Still, that didn’t fit Sean’s profile. Then again, neither did a suicide attempt.

  He’d had his source circle around again to interview the cab driver. No new information there.

  No one could confirm Sean’s whereabouts one way or the other if he wasn’t dead. It was unnerving and exasperating.

  The man evaluated the information his contact had gathered.

  If Sean had jumped over the Peace Bridge, his body would have floated down the river toward Niagara Falls and gone over the falls. The body might be trapped under the 3,000-plus tons of water flowing down the falls every second. That meant it could never be discovered or retrieved.

  The other option was that it could float downriver from the falls. The swift river currents averaged 7.5 to 12 miles per hour. Four of the five Great Lakes drained into the Niagara River before emptying into Lake Ontario. That meant if the body had gone over the falls, floated downriver, and somehow managed to make its way into Lake Ontario, weeks could pass before it was discovered—even if it was located. By then the body would be in such rough shape it couldn’t be identified, except for dental records.