All she felt now was revulsion, a sickness in her stomach, watching him drink like a fish knowing what he’d done to a little boy.
“From that moment on, Alana and Jessica blackmailed me into every goddamn scheme they cooked up.”
He stared up at Gloria. “And yes, that includes taking away your babies, Gloria. I knew what they planned to do all along. For two months before they did it. I wasn’t on location making a film when you went into labor but rather five miles down the road holed up in a beach bungalow waiting for you to give birth. The surprise came when you had not one baby but two.
“Alana certainly wasn’t willing to take both of them and Jessica had just that past May given birth to her third boy. That would be Collin. So when it was decided that Alana would keep the girl that left the boy to deal with. Since no one wanted him, Jessica planned to put him up for adoption. But I put my foot down, said no way. I wouldn’t sign the papers for that. So, I took the boy here, got on a plane and took him to my mother in Ireland so she could raise him there same as she did me.”
“And left Kit in the capable hands of a psychopath,” Jake finished.
“I swear I didn’t know…”
“Save it,” Jake practically shouted at him. “Any time during those first five years when you saw the bruises on Kit and the list of broken bones a mile long, you could have snatched her up and taken her to Ireland just like you did Ben here. But you didn’t do that, Griffin. How does a father leave a defenseless child with a habitual abuser like Alana?
“Not to mention by this time you had to wonder about Alana and Jessica. Just what exactly were these two women capable of doing?”
For the first time since coming into the house, John’s eyes got misty. But Jake ignored the tears. “How does a father leave his own little girl with a woman he knows isn’t her mother, a woman who is so into porn that we found reels of the stuff in her attic?”
John’s face went white. “Now wait a minute, most of that stuff was done long before Kit ever came along.”
Realizing what he’d said, he started to backtrack. “Okay, I know. I’m sorry, Kit. I’m so sorry I left you there time and time again with that monster. You need to understand I tried to talk sense into her. She’d promise the abuse would stop and that it would never happen again. But of course it always did.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m not sure you know the depths of Alana’s depravity over the years, Griffin. Or do you? These schemes you were dragged into, did they also include murdering the Parkers?”
John’s face showed confusion whether forced or genuine, Jake couldn’t tell.
“Who are the Parkers?”
Jake went through the details about their deaths, the gun, and how they had tied the crime to Alana and Jessica. He studied the man’s face to gauge his reaction and looked around the room at the expressive watchful eyes of his friends. He’d have to ask them later if they bought into the guy’s performance.
Because John was adamant, he shook his head. “If I’d known they committed cold-blooded murder, don’t you think I would’ve blackmailed both of them to get them off my back? That’s how desperate I was back then. You have to understand I would have used any means, done anything to get out from under Alana’s control. She was driving me nuts.”
“So you couldn’t use the porn as leverage but decided to fake your own death instead, is that it?” Jake wasn’t sure who the man thought he was kidding. In his opinion, Griffin had lost every ounce of his ability to act.
“Yes. I gave up my acting career such as it was back then. I found people that would help me. The key was to make the story so convincing Alana and Jessica would have to believe it and never look for me.”
For the first time since John’s performance began for the crowd sitting around her, Kit spoke up. “I didn’t believe it, not for a long time. As a matter of fact, I didn’t believe it until two months ago. Tell him, Jake. Tell him how I wanted you to check out the story I’d been told.”
He nodded. “She did. In fact, she was convinced you were alive and that Alana had told her that to simply get back at her for some infraction she’d committed.”
John looked at Kit then straight on. “I’m sorry, Angel. I tried to come up with a way out but I just couldn’t think of anything else other than to disappear.”
Reese walked over to stand by Jake. “Are you telling us the truth, Mr. Griffin? You didn’t even suspect that Alana and Jessica had murdered the Parkers for their money, to get full and complete access to their trust?”
“Look, I’m telling you, the only thing I knew for certain was both women held a ton of secrets. They had their hands in a lot of pies back then, if you know what I mean. I suspected Jessica was doing something illegal, using her law practice to do all kinds of underhanded things. After all, I’d been a party to stealing Gloria’s babies. I knew she was into handling adoptions all over the state. The only things I ever suspected them of doing like murder was when…” He looked over at Baylee. “When Sarah Moreland disappeared. Something was a little off with their story. It crossed my mind back then that they’d done something to Sarah, Baylee’s mother.”
“What? Why?” Baylee asked the man she used to have such respect for. “Why did you suspect them? They did murder her, Mr. Griffin. And no one, not even my own father did a single thing to find out where she’d gone. They pushed her down the stairs, Mr. Griffin. They found Sarah’s body not a week ago buried on the grounds of The Enclave next to the reflecting pool.”
John looked as though he’d stepped off a cliff and were falling about a hundred miles an hour in a downward drop. “Uh… I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You might consider getting an attorney, Mr. Griffin,” Reese suggested. “You’ve just confessed to a hit-and-run, a felony. As an officer of the court, I’d say the sooner you retain one and come clean, the sooner you’ll get this behind you. I know this much. You’re lucky. The statute of limitations for vehicular manslaughter is three to six years so you may not even be prosecuted after such a long time. But you left the state for some time and went to live in another country. Believe me, that will count against you and will negate the statute of limitations. By how much, I have no idea. The clock started ticking the minute you left California and faked your own death, which, I might add, is prosecutable if fraud was involved. After so long, the most you may get is a fine and two to three years of jail time.”
“Three years? Is that all?” Kit asked. She stared at her father. “Reese is right, you are lucky. David Foster’s family deserves to know what happened to their son.”
“And look what you put your own daughter through,” Ben pointed out. “All this time she thought you were dead.”
John looked confused again. “You’d both throw me to the wolves, my own children? But I’m here to catch up, spend some time with Kit after such a long time away. Surely you won’t be a party to turning me in for something that happened so long ago.”
Disgusted, Kit searched her father’s eyes for some semblance of right and wrong. She shook her head. “To think I used to worship the ground you walked on. How pathetic you are now. I’m going to say this once, John. You were responsible for a little nine-year-old boy’s death. Don’t you think it is past time you did the right thing just once in your miserable life? Instead of thinking of yourself, at least make some attempt at doing the right thing for that little boy’s family.”
She glanced over at Ben, the brother she’d known for less than an hour. “What do you say, brother of mine? How do you feel about what your father’s confessed here today?”
“Ashamed. Surprised. A lot disgusted.” He turned to John. “I’d want the father I’ve known all these years to ’fess up to what he’s done. Kit’s right. That boy’s family deserves to know the truth even after all these years have gone by. The boy might have had brothers or sisters who still, even today, need some closure.”
Proud to have a man like Ben for a brother, Kit leaned over and hugged
him. “Welcome to our little family such as it is. How about we take a walk and get to know each other better?”
She put her other arm around Gloria. “Come on, Mom, you come with us. It’ll be the best family reunion I’ve ever had.”
After the intense scene with John Griffin died down, Baylee and Quinn did their best to make sense out of things. Back in the kitchen they sat at the table with Dylan and Reese, going over everything John had told them.
“Why didn’t he just stay in Ireland?” Dylan asked.
“He couldn’t very well send his son, Ben, and remain out of the picture. Sorry for the pun: actor, picture. Anyway it was sad to watch Kit’s face while he went over everything. You could tell she was devastated at learning how he lied.”
Quinn sighed. “Yeah, that was the worst, watching the disappointment on her face, seeing how crestfallen she was that everything she’d believed about him had been a lie. She trusted him.”
Baylee stared at Quinn. “All three of us did. We thought he was—the good guy. Sad to know there doesn’t seem to have been any good guys in our little world back then.”
“True. At least now she knows the truth and out of his own mouth. She deserves to know that much.”
“We all do,” Baylee said as she linked fingers with Dylan.
“Of course she does. It’s just that Jake’s feeling a little raw right now because he’s the one who verified the man was dead from the fall in Spain. He taps into a database listing that info on the site, trusts it enough to verify he’s gone. Bam, she’s upset all over again, has to face the fact Alana didn’t lie. Then he walks in here, big as life.”
Quinn looked sympathetic for about two seconds. “Jake wasn’t to blame for John Griffin setting out to lie and deceive his own daughter. What kind of men become fathers only to walk away from establishing that bond with their own blood?”
All four knew she wasn’t talking about John Griffin at that point, but Nick Tyler.
“Just remember, Quinn, my own father kept such horrible secrets after doing despicable things.”
“Will you be able to forgive him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But watching him suffer, go downhill a little more each day is…heartbreaking.”
Quinn squeezed her free hand. “You’ve such a good heart. I wish I could say I’d forgive but I’m not sure I have that in me. We were so young. We were supposed to be able to trust the adults around us. And now…”
“Quinn, we were caught up in the overindulgences of adults, in their narcissistic pursuits, their selfishness. Don’t you think it’s time to put all that away, put it behind us once and for all and move on with our own lives?”
“You’re right. It’s just that…I don’t like Ella, let alone love her. I never did. That’s my burden to bear. Growing up, she was…always so…uncaring, even mean. Not like Alana mean but…a child deserves to have caring people around them.”
Baylee reached over and scooped Quinn into her chest for a hug. “Yes, they do. I know Kit and I were poor substitutes but we did our best.” She grinned. “The minute I looked over and saw you sitting next to me in Mrs. O’Malley’s third grade class I knew we were going to be besties.”
“That’s only because I had all the answers to the math quizzes.”
“There was that. How’d you get to be so smart anyway if you didn’t go to school regularly until you came here?”
She shrugged. “The answers just came to me.”
“Ah. Genius. Kit and I were always proud of how smart you were.”
At that moment, Kit and Jake came through the back door holding hands while Gloria and Ben lagged behind. “Where’s John?” Kit asked.
Quinn waved a hand. “He’s…somewhere. I think he went outside on the front porch to smoke a cigarette.”
“As long as he didn’t decide to steal the silver and take off,” Kit grumbled as she took a seat at the table.
“I know you’re upset,” Baylee said. “But at least he finally came clean.”
Kit sighed. “Yeah, there’s that. He gets points for plotting to steal his own kids right from the get-go, not being able to take a stand with Alana, and faking his own death, letting me believe he was gone from my life for good. Yeah, he’s a prize all right.”
Baylee laughed. “Ah. Well. I don’t think any of us won prizes in the parent department, except maybe Quinn here.”
Taken aback, Quinn stared at her friend. “What? Why would you say such a thing? Two decades of neglect is hardly a reason to hand out father of the year awards.”
“True. But at least he’s here now trying to…”
“So what if he is?” Quinn exploded. “Twenty years went by and nothing. Now Nick Tyler gets points for showing up? I don’t think so.”
Kit exchanged looks with Baylee. “What she’s saying, Quinn, is that Nick Tyler might warrant a second chance. From what you say happened at Reese’s office, he thought you were being well-cared for, living a typical rich kid, Beverly Hills kind of life.”
“And if he’d bothered contacting me just once, he’d have known better, discovered the truth instead of finding out after the fact, after it no longer matters.”
Baylee shook her head. “It matters, Quinn. No one’s saying it doesn’t. But he believed the lies, lies we all grew up believing. We were surrounded by such evil and deceit and grew up with lies built on top of lies. It’s got to end at some point. It might as well end with us. The three of us deserve better. We’ve got to put an end to this, end this evil that’s haunted our past, put this crap behind us once and for all, and move forward.”
Kit reached for her hand. “We aren’t saying it’ll be easy, Quinn. But you have a chance with Nick, your father, to make a fresh start. Don’t let all the negative stuff from the past cloud the fact he’s here now, willing to establish a relationship.”
Baylee clasped hands with her friends, then pointed out, “Quinn, look at the love around this table, what we’ve meant to each other over the years. Don’t let his mistake not getting to know you affect you for the rest of your life. Try to forgive and forget or you’ll be letting it ruin the future, your future.
“And if all that still means nothing to you, then think of it this way. You’ll only get the one chance at having a father, one chance, Quinn, that’s it,” Baylee reasoned.
She met Reese’s eyes. “Reese said the same thing. I’m just not sure I can get past his never being there for me. It hurt, damn it. All those years it hurt.”
“Of course it did. We were there with you. But trust me on this,” Kit said. “You can and you should find a way. The anger and hate will only eat you up inside. Is that what you want? You have a brilliant career ahead of you. Why hold on to all that negative energy.”
Baylee picked up the chorus. “Haven’t we lived in the shadow of all of this too long as it is? Isn’t it time to let go of the pain? I don’t want to waste a single minute of my precious time with Dylan and Sarah fixated on the lousy way my father treated me any more. I want to let it go and look forward to my future, the future I have with Dylan.”
“I guess I’ll try, but I need you guys with me tomorrow when we get the DNA results. Just like Kit needed us here today, I want you there with me, all of you.” She looked around the table and into the eyes of each of them. “I can’t do this alone. In fact, I don’t want to do it alone.”
“And so we will be.”
CHAPTER 23
By the time she’d reached twenty-one, the smack had hold of Ella Canyon so bad she’d have done anything for a fix. Anything. That included selling out a member of her own family. A small price to pay really to make certain the steady stream of heroin kept coming.
She didn’t like thinking about that time, so long ago now, it seemed it might have happened to someone else.
It hadn’t been her fault, she reminded herself. Just because she hadn’t stood up for her cousin didn’t mean what had happened had been her fault. No one dared confront Jessica Boyd
and Alana Stevens, even she had known that.
Oh, but Lisa had. That had been her undoing. Lisa. She’d been so young, so naïve. If only Lisa had kept her mouth shut that day. If only she hadn’t upset Jessica and Alana. If only Lisa had listened to her.
In her short seventeen years Lisa Redfield had made two huge mistakes. Her first one had been to get pregnant at fifteen, to let a hunky Irish rock singer take her virginity. Her second was to put blind faith and trust in an attorney, especially, it seemed, this one.
Lisa swallowed hard and glanced up into the cold, hard stare of Jessica Boyd. When she’d first met Jessica she had thought the woman walked on water. After all, Jessica had promised to get money out of the rock star. At the time Lisa had believed the attorney was a godsend, one who had her best interests at heart.
And why wouldn’t she think that? After all, Ella Canyon, her own cousin, had recommended Jessica personally, family looking out for family.
She glanced over at Ella, who stood off to the side like a vulture.
What a poor excuse for family, Lisa thought now. Ella had been looking out for herself and had been since day one.
Lisa had to wonder if she would ever get out of this mess.
And how in the world had she not seen Jessica’s dark side that first day? Because she’d been bubbly and upbeat and so sure she could handle all Lisa’s problems.
If things weren’t bad enough, Lisa hated it when she had to meet with Jessica while Alana Stevens was in the room. Jessica always insisted Lisa bend to do what she wanted. But Alana liked to threaten her with physical violence. The woman flat-out gave her the willies.
Up to now, Lisa had relented and done everything they’d wanted her to do. She’d met Jessica’s demands and then some.
But now, as she sat in Jessica’s office, there was another lecture coming, another threat of some kind, she could feel it—building to a crescendo. She could tell by the way the two women exchanged sidelong glances.
Ending Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 3) Page 27