Price of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  “I… I was just curious at first, you know? Couldn’t figure out why she was here. She didn’t do any work. Hendrickson was all weird about her, tried to avoid her, yet she’d smile at him like… I don’t know like what. Celeste hated her, but she’s the one who hired her. None of it made sense.

  “I started doing searches, just, uh, to see if there was anything.” He looked up under his brows toward Jamie. “There was.”

  “What did you find?” Landis asked.

  “Bethany Usher’s not her name. It’s something else. And that person has a criminal record. Fraud and scams and break-ins.”

  Air streamed out between Jamie’s lips. She looked to Belichek.

  He lowered his head in a solitary nod of confirmation.

  Adam rushed his next words, “I didn’t know what to do. I was going to tell you, Jamie, but I didn’t want to land that on you right before you left. I figured it could wait. The management company might pick it up if they did good background searches. Or I could drop it in their laps and you wouldn’t ever have had to know. And then, with everything that happened… It just… I didn’t know…”

  “How did you do that search, Adam?” Landis asked.

  “Oh, uh, I tried basic search terms that led to—”

  Jamie intervened. “You mean what device? He must have used the foundation computer. That’s what you took to check, isn’t it?”

  “We have his phone, too.”

  “Which phone?” she asked.

  Landis snapped to Delattre. “You were asked for all communication devices.”

  The guy looked miserable, though whether that was from being caught or the anticipation of losing another device, Belichek couldn’t tell. On the other hand, the cause of Jamie’s misery was clear. She felt she’d inadvertently betrayed Delattre.

  Landis collected the phone. “Anything else?”

  “I just bought a new one. I didn’t even have it until a week ago.”

  “Hand it over.”

  “I’m sorry, Adam,” Jamie said. “Get yourself another one. Make it a foundation phone.”

  “But when am I going to get my stuff back? This set-up…”

  Telling him to wait in his office, they left him in mid-techno lament.

  * * * *

  Landis frowned down at her. “If you can’t keep quiet, we’ll conduct this questioning without you, and if your people don’t cooperate, we’ll be questioning them at the police department.”

  Unintimidated, she said, “Or we could all talk here — all the foundation people — and get this cleared up quickly and completely.”

  Landis looked over her head to Belichek.

  “Okay. Get everybody together.”

  * * * *

  Landis and Belichek stood at the door of the conference room, directing the foundation employees inside. Hendrickson York marched down the side of the table and took the chair at the far end. Delattre shied away from joining him. Celeste t’ched at him, maneuvered past and took the middle chair on that side. Kimby eased behind those two and sat in the chair closest to York.

  On the opposite side, Belichek sat across from her. Jamie left a space between them.

  “Yes, please come in,” Landis instructed someone, who turned out to be Denise. She sat between Jamie and Belichek, sitting well back from the table as if to pretend she weren’t here. Or to leave the people on either side of her a view of each other.

  Landis, after closing the door, took the seat at the head of the table.

  Celeste scowled at Landis, clearly thinking Jamie should be in that spot. Adam kept his head tipped forward in apparent contemplation of the table top. Jamie looked around at the foundation staffers, lingering on Hendrickson.

  Belichek shifted his attention from Jamie on his left to the man on his right. His face was flushed, making the mustache stand out against the ruddy color.

  As Landis recapped what the police techs found from Adam’s cloning of Bethany Usher’s phone, Maggie came in quietly and took a chair away from the table by the door. No doubt Carson was on the other side of the door.

  When Landis synopsized Adam’s reasons for his searches and what those searches raised, both Hendrickson and Celeste stiffened noticeably.

  At the end, though, all eyes went to Hendrickson York.

  “Yes, yes, all right. You’ve been nosing around and pushing and prying and now you should all be happy at my complete and utter humiliation. She came here because of me. A felon, introduced to the Sunshine Foundation because of me,” he said with bitter self-pity. “At the perfect time to give you the excuse you were looking for to force me out.”

  Jamie was horrified. “Hendrickson, we’d never—”

  Celeste was outraged. “That is entirely unfair to Jamie.”

  “Fair? Fair? Nothing was fair.” He stabbed a finger toward Jamie. “You should have been my daughter. Mine and Vivian’s. That would have been fair.”

  York’s protectiveness and possessiveness took on an entirely different cast in Belichek’s mind.

  People have … secrets. Wounds they don’t want to reveal to the air.

  Had Jamie known how the man truly felt?

  “You’re just like Vivian. Spending all your time on grubby little people instead of seeing what was right in front of her—”

  “You. Oh, Hendrickson, I am sorry. All these years, loving her so much, and she chose someone else.”

  “A child molester! A murderer! She said no to me and chose him. How could she do that? How could she? And then you with those boyfriends of yours and the families — all that grubby neediness. Pawing at you—”

  Delattre’s head jerked up. “We did not paw at her. Grubby neediness. Rude of us to want lives. Rude of us not to stay out of your way so you could play the generous philanthropist with all the donors without being bothered by the people you’re supposed to be wanting to help.”

  “I don’t mean you, Adam. You — and your family — have done admirably raising yourselves up. But it doesn’t change that I received nothing. Pushed to the edges. Allowed the merest crumbs of attention when I gave up my business, my life, to run this foundation. And then you—” Pointing at Jamie. “—were going to bring in this company to push me out completely. I should have known. It’s how it’s always been. Look no further than there—”

  Another finger stab, this time over Jamie’s head. To the photo that was the twin for the one in Jamie’s living room.

  “The perfect template for how I’ve been treated. The dedication to the park honoring Vivian, that I worked so long and hard for. But do you see me in that photo? Oh, no. I am taking the photo. Not good enough—”

  “Hendrickson, we never meant— You have to know how appreciated, how loved—”

  He talked through Jamie’s attempt. “—to be included in the commemoration of the culmination of my effort, but not only pushed aside, made to be of service. Because I was not appreciated. Not recognized for—”

  Landis cut across the pity party. “Why did you bring the woman you knew as Bethany Usher into the foundation.”

  “Because I had no choice. My whole life lived to a standard and then, gone, all gone. My reputation, the foundation’s reputation… I didn’t believe it at first, but she had proof. The dates. The name. She was my daughter. My natural daughter. It was so wrong. So unfair. Unfair! She was my daughter.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  The heads that had been turned to York, swung to Landis at his declaration, then back to York for his reaction.

  York looked down his nose at Landis. He hadn’t lost all his assurance. “Don’t treat me like a fool, young man. I insisted on a paternity test. She was my biological daughter.”

  “She must have rigged the paternity test because our lab found no family connections in the DNA in this case. That would include you and Bethany Usher.”

  Hendrickson repeated to Landis, “That is impossible.”

  “She owned a website produci
ng bogus paternity test results. She definitely used them herself. More than once. She didn’t miss a trick. Blackmail a guy and make a profit on the paternity test that gave her leverage to squeeze harder.”

  Hendrickson looked both outraged and hopeful.

  “But Hendrickson, if she was your daughter or you thought she was, why didn’t you tell me. We’d have hired her and—”

  “I didn’t want her here. The harpy was blackmailing me — she tried to blackmail me.”

  “Blackmailing? You? What in the world could she blackmail you over?” Kimby’s voice rose with each question.

  “Over her existence, of course.”

  “Which was it? Tried or was blackmailing?” Landis asked.

  “She was blackmailing me for money. An allowance she called it. Making up for all the lost years.” His voice was dry and bitter. “She also tried to blackmail me to get into the foundation.”

  “Tried? But—”

  “Yes, but she did get into the foundation. Not through my auspice, however. This was the last place I wanted her to be.”

  “And yet, she started working here at the beginning of the summer,” Landis pointed out. “How did that happen?”

  “She hired her.” Now his bitterness speared Jamie. “I told her no. I told her to look at the work record. But, oh, no, she had to give someone another chance. Be the one to hire the person nobody else would hire — for good reason.”

  Jamie opened her mouth and closed it. She was going to let Hendrickson blame her.

  Belichek said, “You and Jamie approved the volunteers, right? And the employees…?”

  He felt Jamie’s frown directed at him.

  This wasn’t about good feelings among the foundation staffers. It was about getting to the truth.

  “Yes. What does that—?” Hendrickson stared at the foundation’s office manager. “You. Oh, yes, I can believe that. Now it makes sense. Celeste found her somehow or Bethany told her who she was and Celeste could not resist the opportunity to triumph over me as she has sought to for years. And now she has her complete and total victory.”

  “Shut up, Hendrickson,” Celeste ordered.

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, so you could tell the tale, and thus enjoy your triumph to the fullest.”

  He faced Landis down the length of the table.

  “Officer, I confess. Once Bethany was working here, she pressured me more and more for money. I told her I couldn’t pay her more. She said she’d tell not only Jamie our true relationship, but the entire world, exposing the whole sordid past and harming the foundation any way she could in the process.” He drew in a breath that hitched partway through. “And then she drew a check on foundation funds and wrote my name to it and said if I exposed her, she’d do as she’d threatened. I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen. But Jamie was leaving to write her book and Bethany was leaving for a vacation and I thought it would give me the time to… give me the time to regain my footing. To figure things out.”

  “Optimism over action,” Belichek muttered.

  Jamie didn’t look toward him, but he knew she heard, because color marked her cheekbones.

  But at the same time, he was hearing again Jamie’s words about wounds.

  And then Celeste…

  That man couldn’t conspire over a surprise birthday party.

  Belichek heard the click in his brain.

  He looked diagonally across the table to the office manager. “You tried to lead us away from York. Carefully and strategically.”

  “I have no idea what—”

  Without taking his gaze from Celeste, he said, “Adam, have there been any financial transactions such as Hendrickson described being flagged in the foundation’s online account?”

  “There… uh, there was one I mentioned to Celeste, but she said she’d take care of it. And the next day the balance was right. The check was canceled.”

  “Celeste? What did you do?”

  She reached across the table toward Jamie, her fingers well short of the younger woman. “It’s all right, Jamie. The foundation was covered. I canceled the check.” She pulled in air. “Then I wrote a personal check to Bethany for the same amount. And told her not to come back from her vacation.”

  “But… But then she’d have kept coming to you,” Hendrickson said.

  “That’s what I figured.”

  “Why? Why would you do such a thing.”

  “You stupid old goat. You think I’d let you do that? You think I’d let you betray Jamie, the foundation — yourself? You think I’d stand by and let you be hurt — hurt yourself that way? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I canceled the check, cut her off from foundation funds. If she’d come back in here and tried to make life a misery for you, I was prepared to do more.”

  Stunned silence greeted this declaration.

  Hendrickson shook his head. “You…? No, no…. But…” The head-shaking slowed, then stopped. “Why?”

  “Why do you think, you stupid old goat. Because I love you. Always have, despite your being a crotchety fool.”

  Hendrickson’s mouth gaped open in shock.

  Against all his personal rules, against the habits of a career, against the training of his grandfather, Ford Belichek looked away from the possible suspects to the likely intended victim.

  People have … secrets. Wounds they don’t want to reveal to the air.

  She’d known. She’d known all along how Celeste Renfro felt about Hendrickson York. And she hadn’t given as much as a hint.

  His attention snapped back. York hadn’t moved or changed expression. Celeste’s color had deepened, but her stubborn jaw remained set as if daring her eyes to let loose the tears standing in them.

  * * * *

  “Poor Hendrickson.”

  “Do not feel sorry for him,” Maggie ordered.

  “I do. He carried such a weight. He was unraveling and I didn’t even notice.”

  “He’s got one heck of a motive,” Landis said. “We’ll start on how he’d get his hands on a shotgun.”

  “Celeste, too,” Belichek said.

  “Yeah—”

  “You can’t.” Jamie directed it all at Belichek. “You cannot suspect either one of them—”

  “We do. Out of their own mouths. And we’re going to investigate them.”

  She threw up her hands, then spun away from them.

  Then she turned back. “I am staying here to work the rest of this afternoon.”

  “Jamie—”

  “No, Maggie, just no.” She pulled in a breath. “I appreciate your concern for me. All of you. But you have a suspect in custody and I have a foundation that has been torn to its core. Starting this minute, I give it the attention it deserves.”

  This time when she turned away, it was measured. She didn’t look back as she entered the door and went up the stairs.

  “We’ll stay here in the parking lot,” Maggie started.

  “She’s a grown woman,” Carson said to her.

  “We do have a suspect in custody,” Landis muttered.

  He and Maggie looked at Belichek.

  Staying here would tick her off. Worse, he wouldn’t be pursuing the investigation that could make her truly safe. But to leave her on her own…

  * * * *

  Celeste walked into Jamie’s office and went to the window.

  “There’s a young guy hanging around outside.” She gestured to the arched window. When Jamie joined her beside it, she pointed down. “Tried to hang around in our lobby and I told him he had to get out.”

  “Oh.” How could she be both angry and touched? “His name is Schmidt. Be nice to him. Tell him to come inside. It looks like it might rain again.”

  Celeste’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t directly respond as she made for the door.

  What she did say was, “Never heard you sharper with anyone than you are with that detective.”

  “You would be sharp with him, too, if you were in my shoes.”

  “I
would be sharp with him in my own shoes. But you usually aren’t. Except your cousin Maggie, though you’re sharper with this detective.”

  She walked out.

  Leaving Jamie to get back to work.

  If she could stop thinking about why she would be sharpest with Ford Belichek… If she was.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  With Schmidt in place, and leaving Jamie’s car there for her, Belichek, Maggie, and Carson got in Landis’ car and began running through what happened for Carson.

  Landis said, “Delattre was suspicious because there was something hinky going on between Bethany and York.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie said. “Celeste probably picked up on it first. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if jealousy made her think it was something other than blackmail. At least at first. Probably worried she had a rival.”

  How much of this had Jamie known or guessed or intuited? Belichek was a lot clearer on how much she’d shared. Zero.

  “He runs the search that turns up Bethany’s background, right back to being born Boda. But keeps it to himself,” Maggie continued. “Celeste starts to pick up on Bethany’s true designs. Meanwhile, York’s being squeezed. Not knowing Celeste stopped the check and covered his tracks, would he have tried to kill Jamie to keep her from knowing?”

  “Could.” Landis asked, “What’s with them all keeping things from Jamie.”

  “It’s what people do. They try to protect her. Not make her deal with the real world. It’s always been like that.”

  “She deals with the real world.” Belichek raised his gaze to the rearview mirror and saw Maggie staring at him, while Carson studied her.

  “You don’t,” Maggie said abruptly.

  “He doesn’t deal with the real world? I’ve said that for years,” Landis said, unaware of the interplay of looks beside and behind him.

  “No. He doesn’t try to protect her.”

  “Like hell. Taking her to you in the mountains, risking his career—”

  Maggie cut across Landis, still staring into the rearview mirror at Belichek. “I mean he tells her the truth. He … makes her tell the truth. To see things. Reality.”