The Third Secret

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Why you’re doing this. You’re busy. You have a whole life, which I’m disrupting, and now, the paint and the furniture and all the stuff we’re doing in here… It costs money…and…why?”

  Camy joined us, standing in the doorway, as if she, too, was judging my response. The words of wisdom I’d been about to spew forth wouldn’t come.

  Holding my paintbrush with both hands, I faced the young woman who was, I feared, far wiser than I’d ever be. The young woman who was showing me things about myself that I’d been blissfully and foolishly ignoring.

  “Two reasons,” I said. And then scrambled for some innocuous way to express them and retreat without leaving my comfort zone.

  Maggie waited. I had her full attention.

  “First, because…the truth is, Maggie…I grew up in the same trailer park where you lived with your mom.”

  The girl’s mouth dropped open. “You did?”

  “I did.” There was more. “It was just me and my mom. Any money she managed to earn went to her drugs first. Our rent and food and clothes second.”

  “But—”

  “My father was…is…” I almost choked on the word. “A dealer. He was her dealer.” Needless to say, they’d never married.

  “He’s still alive?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you ever hear from him?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Nine months ago.” And no one knew. No one. As far as anyone in Chandler, anyone in my life, was concerned, my father had been dead since I was a little girl.

  That’s the story my mother told me. I planned to stick to it. Except with Maggie.

  “Does he know what you do? Who you are?”

  Camy lay down in the doorway, but she didn’t put her head on her paws. She just kept watching me. “Yes.”

  “Does he ask for money?”

  The child was perceptive. But then I already knew that. “Yes.”

  “And you give it to him?”

  God help me. “Yes.”

  “I guess I’m lucky, then.”

  “Why?”

  “My dad and I, whoever he is, neither of us knows he’s my dad.”

  I should have something to say to that. But I agreed with her.

  “What about your mom?” Maggie asked.

  “She’s been dead for years.”

  Nodding, Maggie switched the roller to her left hand, but otherwise, didn’t move. “So you want to help me because you know what’s it like to be where I am….”

  “Right.”

  “You said there were two reasons.”

  Being a parent didn’t get easier.

  “The second one is less clear-cut. It’s harder to put into words,” I began.

  Maggie dipped her roller and turned back to the wall.

  “It’s because I love you, Maggie. As if you were my own child.”

  The girl froze, arm extended to the wall.

  And my phone rang again. I grabbed it off the dresser, looked at caller ID.

  Erin.

  “Hello?” I caught it on the third ring. Maggie went back to painting. I thought about leaving the room, but didn’t.

  “I’m pretty sure Rick Thomas is lying to me.”

  Without even saying hello, Erin told me about the conversation she’d had with her client the day before, about the way he seemed to know about classified investigations. “He said he’d heard things in the army about classified cases,” Erin said. “And maybe I’m overeacting, but I still get the sense that he’s hiding something.”

  “Are you taking yourself off the case?” Erin had been adamant about not representing anyone who lied to her.

  “I should. I know I should. I can’t do it again. I can’t defend someone who’s guilty and using me to circumvent the system.”

  “And you think he is guilty?” This was Erin’s journey. Not mine. My job was to facilitate.

  Maggie looked at me over her shoulder.

  Facilitating I could do.

  “What I think is that this guy has some kind of hold on me.” She sighed. “I don’t want to turn my back on him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think he did it, Kelly. He’s keeping secrets. But I don’t think he killed Charles Cook.” She told me about the visit to Lakeside that morning. “Watching him with Steve today… I just don’t believe he could murder someone….”

  Familiar instincts were suddenly in place. “Every good person has bad qualities,” I felt compelled to remind her. “And the reverse of that is also true. Most people have good qualities, too.”

  “So you think he’s guilty?”

  “I have no idea!” I told her. “All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t judge a person based solely on one set of circumstances, based on how he or she acts in just one situation.”

  “I know that.” Erin sighed again, a sigh that seemed filled with frustration as much as anything else.

  I studied my new charge. And remembered the way David Abrams had looked at her the weekend before. David. A man everyone, people who’d known him his whole life, thought incapable of doing harm. We’d all seen his compassion and generosity on so many occasions, in so many different situations.

  And yet this was the man who’d taken the virginity of a vulnerable, at-risk, fourteen-year-old girl. After he’d purchased the right from her mother to use the girl to deliver methamphetamine.

  “How about if I interview him?” I suggested. The idea had come to me fully formed. I had a light schedule and could rearrange appointments. “It would be good to get away for a few days.”

  “What about Maggie?” That was part of the point.

  “I’ll bring her along.” Neither of us had ever been on a family vacation. Right now, with David Abrams’s influence still so strongly felt, running away felt damned good. Missing a few days of school shouldn’t be a problem.

  And if our time away provided Maggie and me with a chance to bond…

  “I was actually going to ask if you’d talk to him for me,” Erin said with a small chuckle. “But I have two conditions.”

  “What are they?”

  “The first is that I be allowed to pay you.”

  “And the second?”

  “That you stay here, at my house.”

  Maggie was staring at me.

  A house on the lake might be wonderful for the girl. Help her relax. See life from a completely different perspective. And if we were lucky, Erin and I might just be able to give her the start of a new support system. Something that would lessen her need to believe in the love of a man who’d used her in the worst possible way.

  “I accept.”

  Caylee’s car was parked at the top of Erin’s long, tree-lined drive when Erin got back from Ludington. She’d tried to call the girl, left several messages since leaving Lakeside, but hadn’t heard back from her.

  Pulling around Caylee’s car, she parked in the garage and was just exiting when she saw the slender figure come around from the back of the house. The teenager’s eyes were swollen, as though she’d been crying.

  Erin should never have stood her up that morning.

  “What’s going on?” she called as she approached the girl, reaching out to give her a hug.

  “I think someone was up here,” Caylee said, frowning.

  Not the answer Erin had expected. “What do you mean?”

  “A car was parked at the bottom of the hill when I came up your driveway. I had to go around it to make the turn. And I’m sure I saw movement in the woods as I drove up. Someone wearing blue or black. I called out and I was just looking around, but didn’t find anyone. Nothing seems to be disturbed.”

  Erin glanced down her hill. “There’s no car down there now.”

  “I know. I checked, too,” Caylee told her. “But I’m positive someone was here.”

  “Probably just looking for lake access.” It wouldn’t have been the first time, though usually she on
ly dealt with that kind of visitor during the summer months, when tourists swarmed Michigan’s eastern coast.

  Erin led the way through the garage, to the house door, typing her code into the alarm system. Once inside, she grabbed a couple of sodas, handed one to Caylee and dropped her purse on the counter, all the while looking around, just to be certain everything was as she’d left it.

  Boots twisted himself around her ankles, mewing at her. And Erin knew all was well. The cat hid under the bed for hours anytime there was anyone he didn’t know in the house.

  “You’ve been crying,” she said as soon as she and Caylee were situated on the couch. Caylee tucked her legs underneath her. Her sweater was unbuttoned, revealing the V-neck of the long white top underneath.

  Caylee ran her fingers up and down the cold can of soda. “Mom and Dad told me they wanted to speak with me this morning,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to see you so early, because I knew what was coming. They’d already talked to some of the others last night and I had a feeling they were preparing everyone, telling them about the scholarship and why I shouldn’t accept it. You know, to form that united front that keeps all of us in line.”

  Erin didn’t recognize the bitterness coming from the girl. Nor would she have recognized it from any other member of the Fitzgerald family.

  “Or at the very least, to find out who’d be on their side, and who they had to keep from influencing me to go.”

  Or to tell you that your mother has an incurable liver disease. And to talk about a possible liver transplant in her future.

  Erin now figured she understood the tears. Caylee had just found out about her mother’s illness. Since she knew that the Fitzgeralds always started with the oldest and worked their way down when they had meetings with their kids, she’d guessed it would be a few days before the news reached Caylee. She’d thought they had time.

  That she’d be able to work out what to tell the girl about Yale in light of what she’d learned about her mother.

  “So I went in armed,” Caylee was saying. “I knew what they were going to do and that I’d never be strong enough to stand up to them. I could feel my chances of going to Yale slipping away and something inside me just kind of snapped. I knew I was letting a dream come true pass through my fingers and, if I let it go, I might not ever be given another.

  “So before they could say a word to me, I told Mom about the scholarship. Dad tried to interrupt, but I wouldn’t even look at him. I couldn’t. I told Mom that Dad knew. That he wanted me to turn down the opportunity. And I showed them the letter of acceptance I’d typed this morning and put in the mail before I could chicken out, or before they could convince me otherwise.”

  Oh, boy. “So what happened?”

  “Dad asked me if I’d talked to you.” Her glance at Erin was furtive. “I told him I had.” And then she rushed on. “I’m sorry, but I knew we were going to talk today and I just couldn’t go in there all alone. Noah would’ve wanted me to take his strength in there with me because I was so sure I was doing the right thing.”

  “So they think I told you to do what you did this morning.”

  “I guess. Yeah. Or at least that you knew about it. They think I had your support.”

  “What did they say?” She was afraid to ask. Based on the evidence of Caylee’s recent tears, the reaction couldn’t have been good.

  “Mom didn’t get a chance to say anything. Dad stood, told me that he and Mom didn’t deserve my disrespect. He said I should never have sent that letter without all of us discussing it. That that’s what we Fitzgeralds do, he said, we face life as a family.

  “But I knew I’d never be able to stand up to him, Erin. Letting my father and then my mom get to me was going to be the same as turning Yale down. I just couldn’t do that.”

  Maybe there’d been a better way to approach things. Maybe Erin could have helped Noah’s little sister, could have lived up to the responsibility she’d been given, if she’d taken the time to meet with her as planned.

  “My dad said that if being part of the family was so abhorrent to me, that if I was so eager to live on my own, then I should pack up my things and go.”

  “He didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, he did.” Tears fell from Caylee’s eyes.

  “Maybe at the moment. But not really.”

  “He carried my stuff to the car.”

  Erin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What about your mother? What did she say, or do, through all of this?”

  “I’m not sure. She started to cry and Dad called Margaret and I didn’t see Mom again.”

  Margaret, the eldest living Fitzgerald sibling. The only one Erin had never been able to warm up to.

  “Have you talked to Daniel?”

  “Not yet. He’d just agree with my dad. He’d say, ‘I told you so.’”

  With her stomach in knots, Erin scrambled for logic while she wrestled a confusing barrage of emotions. “You’ll stay here,” she said. That was the first and most obvious decision.

  Kelly and Maggie would be there the next evening, too, but she had four bedrooms.

  And three bathrooms. Plenty of linens.

  Caylee had a car to get herself to and from school.

  They’d have to grocery shop.

  And surely Patricia knew that Caylee would be protected, well supervised and loved while under Erin’s care. Erin hoped that would relieve her mind at least a little.

  And that Caylee would only be with her for a few hours.

  “Your parents weren’t going to speak to you about Yale this morning,” she said next. Right or wrong. She had to start trusting herself again.

  “How do you know? Did they call you?”

  “Not today. No.” Reaching over, Erin brushed the hair from Caylee’s face. The amber strands were soft, easily breakable. Just like Caylee. “Your mom’s sick, Caylee. They found out the details on Thursday and were going to tell your brothers and sisters and you, starting last night. They wanted to give each of you private time with them to ask questions and—”

  “Mom’s sick?” Caylee’s expression went from horrified to terrified. “How sick? Does she have cancer or something? Oh, my God. How could I be so selfish? Like school even matters if—”

  “Hey, slow down,” Erin said, taking the girl’s hand. “First, no, it’s not cancer.” Erin told Caylee everything Patricia had told her about the disease, minus the part about needing a family donor.

  “So she’s going to be fine,” Caylee said, still crying.

  “The disease is incurable, but the damage to her liver isn’t too great yet, and it’s very possible that medication can prevent any further deterioration.”

  Caylee still looked lost. Scared. And Erin did the only thing she could. She called the girl’s mom.

  As Erin had expected, Patricia Fitzgerald was relieved to hear from her. She’d hoped that Caylee was with her. She knew Erin would never have told Caylee to act without their counsel, but also understood that Caylee didn’t trust herself to stand up to her father. She was proud of Caylee and adamantly wanted the girl to pursue her dreams, and Erin thought they were home-free until Ron Fitzgerald came into the room. Patricia asked for a few minutes alone with her husband. She said she’d call them back. She told Erin to give Caylee her love.

  Patricia didn’t call back. Ron did.

  He needed to make one thing quite clear, he said. He was going to protect his wife and her health at all costs. And to his mind, the stress that would result from Patricia’s knowing that Caylee would be leaving them to live alone out east could mean the coming months of medication would not work to put Patricia in remission.

  “Don’t you think that kicking Caylee out of the house is going to worry Patricia more than knowing she’ll be going to Yale next fall?” Erin could feel Caylee’s gaze boring into her back as she talked on the phone to her father.

  She’d told the teenager about her mother’s reaction. Gotten her hopes up.

 
“The girl is not going to Yale and that’s final.” Ron used a tone she’d never heard before. One that hurt. A lot.

  “Please let her come home, Ron.” She tried again, anyway. “Don’t rob Patricia of even a week of Caylee’s senior year,” Erin continued, finally believing she could make things right. “She’s got homecoming coming up. And Thanksgiving and—”

  “How many children do you have Erin?”

  “None.”

  “I have eight. And so far all of them have grown up to be successful, happy contributors to society.”

  Erin couldn’t argue with that.

  “Caylee will come home when she’s ready to be part of this family,” he said. “When she knows she has to put family first. The lesson might seem tough to you, but once learned, it will serve my daughter for the rest of her life. Because in the end, nothing else matters. Not money. Not degrees. Not jobs. Just family.”

  “Does her mother agree with that?”

  “Yes, she does.” Erin heard a muffled, “Talk to her, Patricia,” and then Patricia was on the phone again. “As hard as this is, I think he’s right, Erin,” the other woman said. She still sounded strong. In control. But sad, too.

  “I’ve always had a tendency to baby Caylee, to go easier on her than we did with the other kids. We did right by the rest. I can’t sell Caylee short with my inability to be tough on her. If Caylee wants a college education, there are colleges here in Michigan, and we’ll help her pay for it. But she had to learn to put family first.”

  Was the whole world going crazy? Since when was a child’s desire to pursue an educational gift some kind of betrayal? The girl had a fully paid scholarship to one of the most prestigious colleges in the nation. A degree from Yale would open so many more doors for Caylee.

  “Patricia tells me you’ve said Caylee can stay with you.” Ron was back on the line. “That’s right.”

  “I appreciate that. Patricia won’t worry so much with her there. I’ll drop off money for her support at your office on Monday.”

  This couldn’t be happening.

  “Please, Ron…”

  “When Caylee writes a retraction to Yale and is ready to be here for her mother, she can come home.”