“Where did she go?”
“Dallas. Said she was goin’ home. I tried to make her wait till you got back, but she wouldn’t listen to nothin’ I said. Talkin’ crazy, she was. Said for me to tell you to file for that annulment you promised her.”
Mack dropped his arms to his side. “No,” he whispered, then spun away and dug his fists against his eyes. “Oh God, please, no.”
Mack wasn’t about to lose Addy. He was going to Dallas and he was bringing her and the baby back home with him where they belonged.
But before he could do that, he had to settle some business with Ty.
He didn’t know what Ty had said to Addy, and really didn’t care. What he did know was that Ty was the one who was responsible for her leaving, and Mack was going to make damn sure that his half brother never had the power to interfere in his life again.
Since his last attempt to meet with Ty had failed miserably, he decided to try a different tactic this time around.
At 9:00 a.m. sharp, two days after Addy’s departure, he pulled into the parking lot of the condo in Houston where Ty was currently living and gathered the bulky file the P.I. had prepared for him under his arm, along with the thinner and neater file of documents Lenny had prepared, and climbed from his car. He shot a glance at the car that pulled into the slot next to his, then headed up the walk toward the condo.
Hoping that his half brother was true to form, he leaned on the doorbell. He could hear the continuous musical peel through the wooden door and smiled, knowing there was no way Ty could ignore the irritating sound for very long.
Within minutes, he heard the angry stomp of footsteps approaching from the other side of the door, and his half brother’s muttered curses. He quickly stepped out of view, so that Ty couldn’t see him through the peep hole, and waited.
The door was yanked open and Ty stepped out, wearing nothing but a pair of silk pajama pants and a scowl.
Mack pulled his finger from the doorbell. “Good morning, Ty.”
“Go to hell,” Ty growled and gave the door an angry shove.
Mack stuck his boot in the opening, before the door could slam in his face, and stepped inside.
“Nice place,” he commented as he looked around.
Ty whirled, his face flushed an angry red. “What the hell do you want?”
Calmly Mack drew the folders from beneath his arm. “Since you missed our previous appointment, I thought I’d save us both the frustration of attempting to schedule another by dropping by unannounced.”
“If that’s a paternity release you’ve got, you’re wasting your time. I’m not signing it.”
“You might want to reconsider that decision,” Mack suggested mildly.
Ty folded his arms across his bare chest, his stance cocky. “If you think you can waltz in here and bulldoze me into signing away my rights to the kid, you’re wrong. I’m a step ahead of you, big brother. I figured out your little scheme. That baby’s mine and you’re going to pay dearly to have it.”
Unfazed, Mack flipped open the file folder Lenny had prepared for him. “Speaking of money, I have some financial statements that might interest you.”
Ty eyed him suspiciously. “What financial statements?”
Ignoring the question, Mack peered around him. “Is there a place where we can sit down and discuss this more comfortably?”
Ty hesitated a moment, then dropped his arms with a sigh and turned away. “In here,” he said and led the way into a living area that opened off the entry.
He gestured to a chair opposite the sofa. “Make it quick,” he told Mack, before sprawling on the sofa. “I want to get back to bed.”
Mack perched on the edge of the chair and opened Lenny’s file on the coffee table in front of him. He picked up the first set of clipped documents and tossed them onto the coffee table in front of Ty.
“As you can see,” he said, tipping his head to indicate the papers. “That is the Year-to-Date statement of the trust Mom set up for you, prior to her death.”
Ty didn’t so much as glance at the document. “So? I get one from the accountant every quarter.”
“Do you ever read it?” Mack asked.
Ty shifted uncomfortably. “What’s the use? It’s just a bunch of numbers.”
Mack leaned over and picked up the document. “If you’d bothered to read the report,” he said as he flipped to the last page, “you’d know that the balance of your trust is zero, and has been for almost two years.”
He had the satisfaction of watching Ty pale.
“That can’t be right,” Ty blustered. “Funds are deposited to my personal account every month, same as always.”
Mack sank back in his chair. “Yes,” he agreed. “But the funds haven’t been coming from your trust. As I mentioned, that account bottomed out almost two years ago.”
Ty shot to his feet. “That’s bull!” he cried. “There was a million and a half in that trust.”
Mack nodded. “And you managed to blow it all in a little over twelve years.”
Ty dragged a hand over his hair, shooting it into spikes, as he paced away. “No way. There’s no way in hell I spent all that money.”
“Oh, but you did. And then some.”
Ty whirled. “But I’m still getting money every month. I must have investments left that are paying dividends.”
Mack shook his head. “You don’t have any assets left. If you’ll remember, you had the accountant turn all your assets into cash on your thirtieth birthday. Against my advice, I might add. As I recall, you wanted the cash to purchase a boat of some kind. A small yacht, wasn’t it?”
Mack could see that his half brother was beginning to sweat, and knew he had him where he wanted him.
He dismissed the boat with a wave of his hand. “But that’s old history,” he said. “Out of respect to our mother,” he went on, “I continued to make deposits to your account, using my own personal funds, to support you.”
Wanting to give Ty a moment to absorb that information, before hitting him with the final blow, he leaned forward and picked up the statement. After placing it carefully back in the file, he sank back in the chair again and met Ty’s gaze. “But I won’t be making those deposits in the future.”
The blood drained from Ty’s face. “But how am I supposed to live? How will I pay my bills?”
Mack shrugged. “I suppose you could sell your yacht. That ought to be enough to keep you going until you can find employment.”
Ty sagged down on the sofa with a groan and dropped his face into his hands.
It was all Mack could do to appear concerned. “Is there a problem?”
“The yacht’s gone,” Ty mumbled.
“Gone?” Mack repeated in confusion, though he’d already known Ty was no longer in possession of the yacht. The coastguard had confiscated it during a drug raid over a year ago, a bit of information the P.I. Mack had hired had discovered.
Ty dropped his hands and fell back against the sofa with a weary sigh. “Yeah, gone,” he said miserably. “I loaned it to a buddy of mine, and he…well, he got into a little bit of trouble on his return from Mexico and the feds ended up with it.”
Mack shook his head sadly. “That’s a shame, Ty. A real shame.” He glanced around the room, noting the expensive furniture and accessories. “Maybe the woman you’re living with would be willing to support you, until you can find a job. Looks as if she could afford to.”
Ty dropped his head back and dragged his hands down his face. “Not for long. She’s already harping about me chipping in more.”
“Well, gee,” Mack said sympathetically, “that kind of puts you between a rock and a hard place, doesn’t it?”
Ty lowered his chin to narrow an eye at Mack. “You knew all along, didn’t you? All this talk about my finances was a set up, so you can get the kid.”
Mack reached again for the file Lenny had prepared. “I’d rather think of it as laying all the cards on the table. Sounds much more civil, don’t you think?”
/>
He drew the second set of clipped pages from the file and tossed them onto the coffee table in front of Ty. “Those are the papers you were supposed to sign yesterday at the airport. To save you the time of fighting your way through all the legalese, it is a legal document Lenny prepared in which you forfeit all paternal rights to Addy’s baby.” A slow smile spread across his face. “But I guess you probably know what a Forfeiture of Paternity Rights consists of. You’ve signed enough of them over the years to know the verbiage by heart.”
Scowling, Ty sat up and dragged the document closer. “So what do I get out of this?” he asked as he scanned it. “I deserve something out of this deal. I am the kid’s father, after all.”
“A responsibility you ran from,” Mack reminded him.
Ty lifted his head and grinned. “Your gain, though, right? Come on, Mack, let’s cut to the chase. How much is the kid worth to you?”
The world. But Mack wasn’t about to let Ty know how much he loved Johnny Mack.
“You can’t put a value on human life,” he informed Ty wryly. He pulled the last set of clipped pages from the file, tossed them on top of the papers of forfeiture, then sank back in his chair and templed his fingers before his chest. “But I do feel a moral obligation to our mother. Before she died, she made me promise that I would look after you, a promise that I’ve honored for fourteen years. But I’m done, Ty. I won’t be depositing any more money into your account, and I won’t be bailing you out of trouble any longer. Your life is yours to live, and you’ll have to deal with the consequences of how you choose to live it all on your own. I refuse to serve as your safety net any more.”
He dipped his chin, indicating the last document he’d tossed to Ty. “I’m sure Lenny found a much more complicated way in which to state it, but that’s pretty much what that document says. Your signature on the last page will acknowledge your understanding of what I’ve just explained to you. The same is needed on the Parental Forfeiture document, which will relieve you of any financial support required by the state and its courts now and any time in the future.”
Ty quickly flipped to the last page, where a thin black line awaited his signature. “And if I don’t sign?” he asked.
“As far as the document that spells out my financial responsibility to you in the future is concerned, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. You’ve spent your trust, and what money I have is mine to spend as I see fit and I no longer feel an obligation to give any of it to you.
“But the document concerning your parental rights is a different matter. If you insist upon retaining your parental rights, then you will also be responsible for the child’s support, which will be decided by a judge.”
Ty snorted. “Hard to get blood out of a turnip. A judge can’t order me to turn over money I don’t have.”
Mack flapped a hand, indicating the document Ty still held. “If you’ll look at paragraph three on page one, you’ll find that you do have some money. Not much, considering the amount you’ve blown, but enough to clear my conscience and give you the time you’ll need to find yourself a job.”
Ty quickly flipped back to the first page and scanned until he found paragraph three. “A hundred thousand dollars,” he read in disbelief, then lifted his gaze to Mack’s. “You’re giving me a hundred thousand dollars?”
“If you’ll read a little further, you’ll discover that the gift is contingent on you signing the document.”
Ty glanced down at the paper again. After a moment, he choked a laugh. “Oh, I get it now. This is a trick. A smooth one, I have to admit, but a trick nonetheless. If I sign this, but refuse to sign away my paternal rights, then I’m setting myself up to be stripped clean by some judge, who’ll garnish a healthy portion of the funds as support for the kid.”
Mack plucked a pen from the pocket of his shirt and tossed it onto the table. “In the eyes of the court, a child is entitled to support from his father.”
Shaking his head, Ty picked up the pen.
“Wait just a second,” Mack said, stopping him before he could sign his name. He rose and headed toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” Ty asked in frustration. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I intend to,” Mack replied, then opened the door and waved a hand, signaling the men parked in the car beside his to come inside.
Ty stared, slack-jawed, as Mack’s lawyer, preacher, banker, and childhood friend, Bill Johnson, followed him back into the room.
“Just to make everything legal,” he explained to Ty, as he took his seat opposite his half brother again, then smiled. “I don’t like leaving any loose ends.”
“It’s not that we’re destitute,” Addy assured Johnny Mack, as she cranked the handle of the infant swing she’d placed him in. “But having a little nest egg to fall back on for those little emergencies that tend to crop up certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
She set the swing in motion, then approached the trunk, dragging her sweaty palms across her rear end to dry them.
“Cross your fingers,” she said to the baby and lifted the lid. Sinking to her knees, she began to pull out items.
“Good heavens,” she fussed. “Would you look at all this junk?” Curling her nose in disgust, she pulled a dried corsage from inside, its flattened flowers yellow and brittle with age. “Why on earth did Mom save all this stuff?”
After ten minutes spent sorting and discarding without finding anything that closely resembled the torn piece of paper that had supposedly belonged to her father, Addy grew discouraged.
“I don’t know why I’m wasting my time,” she told the baby crossly as she pawed through the scattered items remaining on the bottom of the trunk. “If he really did send it to Mom, she would’ve thrown it away.”
She froze when she caught a glimpse of an air mail envelope, its red and blue markings faded with time, but distinctive enough to recognize. Her fingers trembling, she pulled it from the trunk and sat down on the floor.
“It’s stamped ‘Vietnam,’” she told Johnny Mack, as she smoothed a hand over the front of the envelope. “But there’s no name on the return address. Just an APO.” She closed her eyes, promising herself she wouldn’t be disappointed by whatever she found inside.
Bracing herself, she flipped up the flap and pulled out the letter enclosed. She said a quick prayer, then opened the folds. As she did, a piece of paper fell out. Her heart seemed to stop, as she watched it float to her lap.
“Johnny Mack,” she whispered, as if the sound of her voice might cause the piece of paper to disintegrate if she spoke too loudly. “I found it. Oh, my God, I really found it!”
With her heart beating wildly in her chest, she lifted the scrap of paper to examine it. She frowned as she scanned the handwritten words, unable to make heads or tails of their meaning from the fragmented words. She quickly turned the paper over and looked at the back side. There she found a notary public’s seal, a woman’s name and what must be Antonio Rocci’s signature.
She traced the tip of her finger along the scrawled letters of his name, awed that the signature was obviously written by her father’s hand. “It’s like touching him,” she said to Johnny Mack, then gulped back the emotion that crowded her throat. “I never knew him, never saw him. He died before I was born.”
She glanced up at her son, his image blurred by her tears. “He was your grandfather. Antonio Rocci was my father and your grandfather. This is his signature.”
Johnny Mack kicked his feet and cooed, making the swing dance. Wanting, needing to share this moment with her son, Addy gathered the letter up and moved to sit in front of the swing.
“Let’s see what the letter says,” she told him and opened it to read aloud.
Dear Mary Claire,
You don’t know me, so I feel I should introduce myself. My name is Larry Blair and I served alongside Tony in Vietnam. I was with him the day he died.
She lifted her head to peer wide-eyed at Johnny Mack. “The letter’s not
from him,” she told Johnny Mack, then gulped and dropped her gaze to read on.
I know that what I’m about to tell you will in no way make up for the loss you have suffered, but I feel a tremendous burden to share my impressions of Tony with you.
I first met Tony in Austin the day we shipped out for San Francisco, the first leg in our journey to Vietnam. I didn’t know his real name at the time, as the guys who’d attended boot camp with him had given him the nickname “Romeo.” I guess it isn’t much of a stretch for you to understand why they’d tag him as such. His Italian good looks and those dark eyes of his were hard for any woman to resist.
But Tony was a lot more than a pretty face. He had a heart as big as the state he called home and the kind of personality that made him a favorite with all the guys. Here in Vietnam, there are times when it’s hard to find anything to laugh about. But when morale was low and everybody was suffering a bad case of the blues, we could always count on Tony to do or say something to pull us out of the muck.
He was a good friend to the guys he served with. One in particular, Preacher, Tony treated like a kid brother. He’d argue and fight with him some, kind of like brothers do, I guess. But when push came to shove, Tony was first in line to defend Preacher. Some of the men give Preacher a hard time because he is—well, I guess you’d say he is tender-hearted. The thought of shooting another human being, enemy or not, is something he can’t bring himself to do. But Tony didn’t hold that against Preacher the way the others did. In fact, he bloodied the noses of a few who dared call Preacher a coward.
As I said before, I was with Tony the day he was killed. The mission we were on was supposed to be “safe,” but I guess there’s no such thing in times of war. I won’t go into the details of the battle, but I do want to tell you this. Tony was a brave soldier and gave his life to protect the men he served with.
The night before he was killed, Tony told me about the baby you carry. His baby. He said that he felt bad about running off and leaving you alone to take care of everything and wanted to do something to make things right. His plan was to send you a portion of his check each month. When he returned home, he hoped to find a job that paid more than a soldier’s pay and be able to send you a larger sum for child support. I guess it goes without saying that he won’t be able to do that now.
A Piece of Texas Trilogy Page 27