There she was. Finally.
“What are you looking at?” she asked as she put in a pair of diamond studs—the ones he had surprised her with for her birthday.
Eric rose from the couch and approached slowly, taking her in. “My fucking beautiful wife,” he said, and then, before he could help himself, slipped a hand around her waist. He just wanted to feel her again. Touch her. Smell her.
She stilled, but allowed their cheeks to brush together.
“Well, hello to you too.” Her hands crept up his chest. She laid her palms flat over his shirt front, pressing one over his heart. It gave a strong thump.
I miss you, Eric wanted to say. I need you. Will you come back to me completely, or is this just for today?
He desperately wanted to kiss her, pull her into the bedroom, remind her in much more physical ways what he felt for her.
But. She wasn’t ready yet.
“‘Who dreams that beauty passes like a dream?’” Eric blurted out, unable to hold back completely.
“What’s that?” Jane wondered, still rubbing her cheek to his like a cat marking its territory.
Eric continued, holding her still. “‘For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, mournful that no new wonder may betide…’”
“Yeats again?”
Eric nodded into her hair.
Against his cheek, Jane smiled. “Are you back to talking poetry to me, Mr. de Vries?”
God, he loved hearing her call him that again. Eric leaned back and pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, enjoying the new warmth he saw there. “I’ll always talk poetry to you, pretty girl.”
Her eyes closed, like it was almost too much. “It helps. It really does.”
Fucking hell, a victory. Well, she’d better be ready. He’d be dragging out every volume of poetry he owned if he could get her to call him Mr. de Vries again.
“Thank you for waiting for me,” she whispered.
The remaining lines of Yeats’s verse echoed through his memory, seeming almost too apt for the moment: Troy passed away in one high funereal gleam, and Usna’s children died.
In the end, Eric just wrapped his hand around her neck and urged her head to lie on his shoulder. She sighed with something resembling content and allowed her body to mold to his.
“I miss you too,” she said in response to his silent thoughts. “We’ll get it back, Eric, I promise. We’ll get us back.”
“I know we will,” he said, his arms tightening around her. “It’s already coming.”
They arrived at the familiar house on Lexington and Sixty-Sixth just as the clouds in the sky began sprinkling a harsh, cold rain. Eric held an umbrella over them both, providing shelter as they climbed the steps of the brownstone, trailed by Tony while the other two detail waited in the car.
“Is this where you grew up?” Jane asked as Eric rang the doorbell.
He nodded. “Until I was eleven, maybe twelve. Then I moved into my grandmother’s penthouse.” He didn’t mention that memories of the old place had been rushing back more and more. To the point where he wondered if he should dig out some of those old journals he started keeping just after his father’s death. Maybe there was something there. Something else he needed to remember.
That is, if his mother couldn’t shine her own light on things.
Jane clearly wanted more, but the heavy oak door opened, and Heather appeared. Her large gray eyes, nearly as expressive as her son’s, opened wide.
“Oh!” she said. “I—well, this is a surprise.”
They stood awkwardly on the stoop while the rain streamed over the umbrella.
“Jane, we are so glad you’re back safe, truly.”
“Thank you,” Jane demurred.
Eric fought the need to take her hand and tuck her into his side. She wouldn’t appreciate being diminished, he thought. But at the same time, the awkwardness of this exchange, when his mother and wife had barely interacted much over the last several months, was painful.
“Mom,” he said. “We need to talk. Can we come in?”
Heather glanced at them curiously, taking in the umbrella, the rain, the hulking security agent behind them. They made an imposing bunch. “I—well, I did have a lunch, but—yes, yes. Okay, come in.”
Eric signaled that Tony could wait in the car, then allowed his mother to usher them inside the house that genuinely hadn’t changed much since he was a boy. Same floors. Same tasteful furniture. Same art. The primary differences were things like photos—the ones he remembered of his father were missing completely, replaced by one or two of Heather and her husband.
Heather excused herself to cancel her lunch date, then reappeared having changed out of her tasteful suit into a more comfortable pair of pants, sweater, and rose-printed top. The pattern made Eric pause. How many times had his father swung Heather around in dresses that looked just like that?
He shook his head. “No Horace?” he asked of his stepfather, whom Heather had married over twenty years ago.
Even as an adolescent, Eric had barely known the man. He and Heather had gotten married not even a year after Jacob passed. Horace Keeler was a short, squat, somewhat effeminate man, the polar opposite of the tower of bright Dutch heritage that was Jacob de Vries. Horace had always seemed painfully disinterested in Eric. But by the time he married Heather, Eric had already moved out anyway.
Even so, Eric got the distinct impression that his mother and Horace Keeler lived pretty separate lives and had for some time. Horace hadn’t even attended the wedding or his grandmother’s funeral.
And no one had said a word.
“He’s away on business,” Heather said as she took their coats. “At the house in Orlando for the next few weeks. I think.”
Separate lives indeed.
Eric just nodded. His stepfather’s “business” primarily consisted of commercial real estate developments—strip malls outside of the city, mostly. Small-time operations.
Heather guided them into the sitting room, thanking Jane politely when she complimented the decor. “Well,” she said once everyone was settled onto the Georgian chairs and Paul Follot sofa. “To what do I owe this surprise?”
Eric glanced at Jane, who just raised an eyebrow. This might have been her idea, but it was his show.
He cleared his throat. “Ah, Mom. Well, Nina said she kept you apprised of what happened in Korea, right?”
Heather’s slim body wilted. “Yes. Such a tragedy, really. Jane, I’m so very sorry. For you both. As for John…there’s absolutely no excuse for what he’s done.”
She didn’t, Eric noted, seem surprised. Sad, yes. But surprised by Carson’s actions? No.
She glanced between them. “I gather he hasn’t been found yet.”
Beside him, Jane tensed. This time, Eric did take her hand and wouldn’t let her pull it out of his lap.
“Not yet,” he said. “But it’s only a matter of time. The man has been accused of treason. The second he steps into the United States or a country with an extradition treaty, his bed is made for him.”
“Treason?” Now Heather looked genuinely alarmed. “Whatever for?”
“Mom.”
She strongly resembled a deer in headlights. “What?”
“Dad’s journal is with the FBI now. You wanted me to read it, so I assume you have too.”
Heather worried her jaw for a moment, then nodded.
“Then you know what’s in it,” Eric continued. “Their dealings in Hwaseong and Goseong. Together with the P.I.’s files, the journal makes a strong case for treason. John Carson has been setting up a nuclear weapons operation in conjunction with the North Koreans since the eighties. He’s in deep shit.”
Heather covered her mouth with a slim hand, as if she could hardly bear the news. “Dear God,” she murmured. “I read them, yes, but I never knew…oh, Johnny, what were you thinking?”
Eric frowned. So Johnny was Carson. The sweetened version of the bastard’s name made him feel sick, and if
the way Jane was squeezing his hand was any indication, she didn’t like it either.
“Look,” he said. “It is horrific. But it’s not what Jane and I wanted to talk about today.”
Heather dropped her hand. “Eric, I’m not sure what you think I can offer. I don’t know anything about treason, honestly. And—”
“Mom, I remember,” he interrupted. “That day. When Grandmother came to get me. John Carson came and threatened you and me.” He leaned across the wide blue ottoman. “Dad’s journal had some other interesting things about you. Things I couldn’t quite make sense of. The North Korean deal explains why he and Dad fell out, but not his obsession with this family. With me and Jane.” He arched a brow. “John Carson has been one step ahead of us for years, and he just cost us our own child.” Fucking hell, would his voice ever remain still when he said that? “If there is anything else you can offer here, we need to know. Now.”
Had she always been this shifty? This skittish? Eric was ashamed to say he didn’t really know his own mother that way. But after she had rearranged every goddamn drape of her clothing, she did finally look up. And her deep silvery eyes, the ones she had given him, mirrored his and Jane’s sorrow.
“Oh, Eric.” Heather’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I didn’t want to send you away. But it was for your own good. Johnny was…well, I won’t say in love, because it was never that. A person doesn’t do the things he did out of love. But he thought it was. He was…fixated…on me.”
Eric sat back once again, and Jane fell into his side, like she was preparing for a terrible ghost story. Which, Eric thought, it sort of was. He draped his hand over her knee, urging her close.
“Mom,” he said carefully, “I think you had better tell me everything that went on between you, Dad, and John Carson back then. Especially if people have lost their lives over it. Especially if others might too.”
Heather swallowed, and then she stood up.
“Where are you going?” Eric demanded.
She carefully said, “Eric, you can’t possibly think I would be able to do this without a glass of Chardonnay. I’ll be back in a moment.”
A few minutes later, she returned carrying a tray containing two wine glasses, another drink, and a bottle of wine. She set a glass of vodka in front of Eric, then proceeded to pour the wine into the other two glasses.
“Mom, it’s not even one in the afternoon,” Eric said.
“Don’t be such a square,” Jane replied, happily accepting her glass of wine. “I cannot think of a day that better deserves a bit of alcohol. Can you?”
“What in the world do you think we would drink at lunch anyway?” Heather remarked. “Did you forget everything while you were away, my darling?”
Well, he wasn’t going to argue with that. Eric took his glass, swirled the liquor around the ice cubes, then took a long sip. Fucking hell, it did taste good.
Eric watched his mother gulp down half her glass. Well, if it would loosen her tongue, he supposed it didn’t matter.
“All right,” Heather said quietly after she topped off her glass. “I should probably start at the beginning.”
25
“We were all friends in college,” Heather began once she had topped off her glass again. “I was…well, Eric, you know this, but, Jane, perhaps you don’t. I didn’t come from a wealthy family. My parents were from a small town in New Jersey.”
Jane coughed. “You’re from the land of Springsteen, Mrs. Keeler?”
Heather offered a wry, satisfied look. “Yes. But Pompton Lakes is better known for cancer than for rock and roll.”
“The Stallsmiths,” Eric murmured, enjoying Jane’s sudden recognition. Clearly she was remembering their first meeting, when he had introduced himself using that name, not de Vries.
“I attended Princeton on a scholarship,” Heather continued. “Which was where I met Jacob. And John Carson.”
The boys were in the same fraternity, seniors when Heather was a freshman. She had met Carson first at a mixer.
“Johnny was always single-minded, and he was interested in me from the beginning. Because we had similar backgrounds, he said. We were going through the same thing, learning to acclimate to society at an Ivy League school.”
“What do you mean, similar backgrounds?” Jane asked. “I thought he came from wealth. Wasn’t his father a big arms manufacturer?”
Heather turned to her. “That’s a common misconception, one that Johnny fostered himself. His grandfather owned Chariot, yes, but John Carson grew up in Montana the son of a gun shop owner and a housewife. They were hardly a fountain of wealth. Johnny’s grandfather put him through school to become an engineer so he could work for the company. He was quite brilliant, really. Double majored in business and some kind of science. Physics, I think it was.”
“Nuclear?” Eric ventured. Jane snorted into his shoulder.
Heather looked uneasy. “Well, yes, come to think of it. He actually started a Ph.D., near the end, but he dropped out of that program.”
“What happened?” Jane prodded.
“It was just tragic. First, John’s mother died of cancer, just after he graduated, poor thing. Then it was his grandfather, a few months later, and he shocked everyone by leaving Johnny all of Chariot. Then his father died too in a car accident. Johnny went back to Montana, sold the store, and put nearly everything back into Chariot.” Heather shook her head. “Can you even fathom that much loss in one year?”
“I can imagine it,” Eric said dryly.
Jane didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t even seem to breathe.
Heather blinked between them, perhaps realizing how tone-deaf her comments were. “Yes. Well. When John came back, he wanted Jake to invest. That was a major disagreement between them, you see. Johnny didn’t like rules. He didn’t like agreements. He had his own plans and didn’t like people asking questions, pulling things apart. Which, of course, Jake always did.”
“So he’s a cowboy,” Jane said. Her voice was toneless, gray somehow. Eric peered at her curiously, but he wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“He certainly imagined himself as one. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Their troubles, well, it was about more than just business.” Heather sighed. “Before his family essentially disappeared, Johnny took me out a few times. But it didn’t last, because on our third date, I met his roommate. Your father.”
John Carson didn’t stand a chance. From the second they met, Heather and Jacob were inseparable. Heather fell head over heels for the charismatic heir, blissfully unaware of exactly who he was for several months, well after they were far too in love for the white lie to matter.
“Oh, you should have seen him, Eric,” Heather said dreamily, the effects of the wine clearly kicking in. “Captain of the crew team, president of the fraternity. A born leader. Tall, handsome, like the sun followed him everywhere. You look so like him, darling, you really do.”
“Like the sun,” Jane murmured.
Eric turned. “What’s a sun without its moon?” he said.
Jane shivered. Good or bad? He honestly couldn’t tell. Her mood had shifted again as Heather had started telling this story, but Eric was struggling to read it.
There was a drop of wine on her lip. Fuck it, Eric thought as he leaned close. Quickly, he kissed the drop away. Jane started, then inched slightly away.
Fuck, Eric thought. Wrong fucking move.
He turned back to his mother. “So what happened? You jilted Carson for Dad? That seems like ancient history, especially after only a few dates. Not really the stuff of lifelong grudges.”
Heather studied the rim of her wine glass. “One would think. But John…did not take it well.”
As it turned out, what Heather believed was a dalliance was something much more intense for Carson. It got to the point where he would spontaneously appear when she and Jacob were on a date. He stalked her to and from classes when Jacob wasn’t around. Begged her to break it off, and when she didn’t, appealed to Jac
ob’s loyalties.
“I honestly never knew if it was me, or if it was because of your father. He seemed to want me more after he learned of Jacob’s and my connection. He was always very jealous of Jake, of his family, his resources, his connections. The de Vries name, you know, was very well known on the Princeton campus. They have a hall named for them and several other buildings. Everyone knew who he was.” Heather sighed again, perhaps out of nostalgia. “John simply wanted whatever Jake had. And your father, Eric, he had such a big heart. I think he felt guilty about stealing me away.”
So although Jacob wasn’t willing to end it, his guilt overcame him. He got Carson into the most exclusive fraternity. The best internships. The most exclusive clubs. Things that greased the wheels for the business Carson would eventually build after his father’s death.
“Secret societies?” Jane asked tentatively.
Heather looked up with an alarmed expression. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“She knows, Mom.”
Immediately, Heather’s alarm transformed into pity. “Oh. Well. That’s a shame.” She shook her head. “They don’t take kindly to their secrets getting out, Jane. They tend to react very…preemptively…toward anyone who discovers them.”
Eric could only wonder how exactly his mother knew that. If the society had done something to her. And what it might be. Jane worried her skirt material between her fingers hard enough that her fingertips turned white.
But before Eric could ask, another thought popped into his mind. “In Dad’s journals, there was a bunch of stuff about Caesar salads. Were those references to the society?”
Heather nodded. “Yes. Jake was absolutely terrible at keeping secrets. From me, anyway.” She shook her head with a curious mix of rue and pleasure. “At any rate, he sacrificed a lot to help John into that ridiculous group. Your grandfather was not at all pleased with him.”
“Grandfather?” Eric asked. “What did he have to do with it?”
“Eric.” Heather cocked her head. “Did you really read the journal?”
The Love Trap (Quicksilver Book 3) Page 24