Truth and Justice

by Fern Michaels

  “What are you saying, Andy? Are you really saying you don’t want me at your wedding?”

  The answer was an explosive, “Yes, that’s what I’m saying!” It was the ultimate put-down that Sara knew she would never recover from. Andy must have realized his words hurt her, so he hastened to say, “It’s just us, sis. Don’t be upset. Next leave, we’ll all go out to dinner, and you’ll get to meet Bella. I know you will love her like I do. Just be happy for me, okay. Gotta go. Love ya!” Sara’s hate was in full bloom now. She went out and bought a gun.

  And those were the last words she’d ever heard Andy speak. Sara told herself not to go there because she couldn’t handle the grief. She told herself to think about other things, secrets Andy had told her, confidences he’d shared, like his donating his sperm to a sperm bank to freeze. How two visits ago, he’d convinced Bella to freeze her eggs in case something happened to him. Things like that.

  Sara looked around the beautiful kitchen but barely noticed it. She knew it was considered beautiful because she’d read in the real-estate brochures that this kitchen was crafted for every homemaker in the world, not someone like her. It had everything. Everything. And it was all built-in and flush with the wall—clean, stark lines. She looked at the top-of-the-line names on the appliances. Wolf, Sub-Zero. When something came with red knobs, the price was two grand higher, which made every woman in the world want to have the red-knobbed appliances in her kitchen. It makes no sense, but that’s the way it was. Andy would have shaken his head and dragged her off to Sears or Walmart, where his parents had always shopped. Andy was frugal, and she had always admired that. He had always had money to lend her when she used up her allowance ahead of time. He never asked for it back, but she made sure she paid him exactly when and what she’d promised. Andy told her more than once that she was the only one he could trust.

  That particular day, they’d made a pact with each other to never, never, ever divulge a whispered secret. She’d been so thrilled, so giddy that Andy thought that much of her, she felt like she was walking on air. Even though Andy never said the same thing to her, she assumed he felt the same way. Otherwise, why even bring it up or discuss it. No, they were always on the same page. She was sure of it.

  Sara uncorked an outrageously expensive bottle of wine and poured it into a flute that looked like it would shatter if you even breathed on it. She found a package of stale crackers and a chunk of cheese that had a corner with no mold on it. She devoured it as she finished the wine, then poured another full glass.

  While she was up and moving, she opened the china buffet, which was where she kept all of Andy’s mementoes. She rummaged until she found the eight pieces of paper that Andy had entrusted her to take care of, which she had. She looked down at the sheaf of papers that looked wrinkled and ready for the shredder. That would never happen, not on her watch.

  They were from the fertility clinic. Seals in place. Andy’s signature where it said “donor.” While it said donor, the word that should have been on each piece of paper was client, along with an assigned number. Only it wasn’t Andy’s name on the eight pieces of paper even though it was his signature. Because he didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing or why he’d chosen to use an alias. He’d even asked for her input. In the end, he had chosen the name Windsor for Sara’s last name and Andrews for his own first name. All eight pieces of paper bore the signature Windsor Andrews, with an s at the end. They had laughed like two lunatics at their antics.

  Sara remembered the discussion they’d had over what they were doing. She’d said she just heard guys donated their sperm for money. Why didn’t he take the money? was her burning question. Andy’s answer was simple. He was going into the military. Things happened, things went wrong. Andy said he wanted to be sure if anything went awry that he could have a bloodline to fall back on. She’d accepted it all because it actually made sense to her.

  And now . . . she was the sole owner of eight slips of paper saying she could be inseminated and deliver eight children that would all look like Andy and her. Assuming, of course, that all donations, contributions, or whatever they were called were swimmers. And that was exactly what she was going to do. The best part, though, was knowing that the snot Andy had married knew that he had made eight donations or contributions.

  Sara had no doubt that Bella Ames was searching for Andy’s progeny. That’s how she thought of them, even if they were just sperm cells. And if she, Sara, the woman of many aliases, had anything to do with it, Bella Ames would never find them.

  Sara fanned out the eight pieces of paper and stared at them and the dates. Andy had made his deposits to the fertility clinic on the same day of every month for eight months; then he’d asked Sara to create a checking account under the name Windsor Andrews and pay the storage fee every month while he was deployed, a duty she relished and happily performed each and every month.

  As she stared at the signed receipts, she couldn’t help but wonder if Andy ever shared their secret with snotty Bella. While she wasn’t sure, she didn’t really want to know if Andy’s wife knew how close Sara and her husband were. She had never been sure if Andy viewed their shared secrets as sacrosanct the way she did.

  Sara shook her head. She had no way of knowing if she and Bella Ames were anything alike. She hoped not. She didn’t want to be anything like anyone but herself. What she did know for certain was if she was in Bella Ames’s position and knew about those eight pieces of paper, she would be turning the world upside down to locate those eight specimens—progeny, Andy’s sons and daughters. She loved the way those words rolled off her tongue.

  If Andy had shared his best-kept secret with his new wife, then Bella surely would have contacted Andy’s parents’ lawyer, or at the very least tried to find her, Sara, to ask for help. Then again, maybe she was spinning her wheels because Bella didn’t like kids, Andy’s or anyone else’s kids. Not everyone was cut out to be a parent. She ought to know, she thought sourly.

  Sara plucked a magnet off the refrigerator that said Alfonso would deliver a pizza with the works along with a quart of sweet tea in twenty minutes for the princely sum of $20 plus $5 for delivery and a $10 tip. Total $35. Cash only. No credit cards. No checks.

  Sara dug around in her purse. She had forgotten to go to the ATM today. Tomorrow, for sure, she would need to hit one up. After pawing through the contents of her purse, she came up with the full amount, with the last two dollars being in change. She shrugged. Money was money. That’s when she realized how hungry she was and that she hadn’t eaten anything today except for that little chunk of mold-free cheese.

  While she waited for the pizza delivery, Sara uncorked another bottle of wine, this one more costly than the last bottle she’d opened. She swirled it around, sniffed it, then sipped the wine. She was no connoisseur, that was for sure. It was dry and sweet, and that was the way she liked it. Knowing next to nothing about wine, she decided it was probably worth the money. You could get a buzz on with cheap wine just the way you could with expensive wine. Had she been smart, she would have chosen Bud Light. Beer went with pizza more so than wine. But . . . the crowd she was running with these days preferred wine with pizza. When in Rome . . .

  Alfonso was as good as his word. The doorbell rang exactly twenty minutes from the time she had made the call. Money changed hands. Sara was careful to lock both locks and slide the dead bolt into place.

  The pie smelled heavenly. Sara dived into it with gusto and gobbled four slices so quickly she could feel a bad case of heartburn coming on. Like she cared. She reached for the fifth slice and chomped down. It tasted just as good as the first bite had. She finished the wine in her glass and knew she needed to take a nap. She reached for the tea bottle and chugged with gusto. Cold and frosty, tongue-numbing. She loved it. But yes, a nap was definitely in order. She’d wake up refreshed and, she hoped, full of spit and vinegar and ready to take on Andy’s widow, Bella Ames Nolan, the little snot.

  To Sara’s wooly, woozy
mind, a two-day marriage counted for nothing. Not when she had access to, at the very least, six hundred years of the Andy Nolan–Sara Windsor bloodline sitting right in front of her.

  * * *

  Sara rolled over on the couch. She reared back when her face brushed against the scratchy brocade of the sofa. It took her a full two minutes before she realized where she was. Normally, she slept in a king-size bed in a bedroom bigger than most people’s houses. She did like lots of room. At the moment, it simply didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered now was that she get up, wash her face, brush her teeth, and get down to work.

  Sara returned to the kitchen thirty minutes later wearing a silky, slithery hostess gown, a gift from her third husband . . . maybe the second one, she really couldn’t remember. Nor did she care. The only thing she really liked about it was all the different shades of purple that went into the swirling mass of material. She felt like a fairy child when she wore it, a feeling she liked very much. Magical. A feeling that she never had growing up in the Nolan household.

  Sara sat down and immediately went to work. She kept shaking her head as she tried to come to terms with the fact that she’d taken a five-hour nap. Five hours! She couldn’t remember if she had ever slept five hours straight in her whole life. She shook her head again to clear it before she opened up her laptop and her phone. In the blink of an eye, she made three medical appointments. A heartbeat later, she had an appointment for an extensive blood work-up, compliments of her OB-GYN.

  Two hours later, satisfied that everything was on schedule, Sara finished the online shopping spree that left her positively giddy as she tried to imagine the weight gain from her pregnancies and how she was going to look in her swanky, designer maternity clothes. She’d take a lot of selfies and stick them up on the wall in what would be the baby’s dressing room. Maybe what she could do was have a really good picture of Andy blown up and put on a cardboard mount with a back to it so it could stand alone. She wouldn’t call it Andy. “No, I’m just going to call the lifelike cutout Daddy,” Sara squealed happily. “Maybe I might even get one of myself and call it Mommy.” Sara giggled. Mommy and Daddy looking after their brood.

  Sara’s thoughts meandered down another road. What to name the firstborn. Andy, of course. And if it was a girl, it would be Andrea. She also needed to think of another, better name for the second child if it was a girl. She sucked in her breath. She knew she had to be careful. Sara and Andy . . . Someone might put two and two together and come up with Sara Windsor and Andy Nolan. She could absolutely see that happening at some point. Well, she had all the time in the world to think about names, disguises, and ways to blend in and ways to hide out.

  All the time in the world.

  Sara filled her glass with a new batch of ice cubes. The night loomed ahead of her. She needed to work on her various lists. Put things in order so that her plans flowed flawlessly.

  The first list had only one task on it. More like a question. Not caring what time it was, Sara dialed a number she knew from memory, certain she would get a robotic message directing her to leave a message at the sound of the tone. Instead, she was surprised to hear a gravelly voice say, “This is Clint Aldrich. What can I do for you at this ungodly hour of the evening?”

  Sara cleared her throat. “Hello, Clint. This is Jackie Pope,” Sara said, using one of her many aliases. “I’m sorry about the time. I lost track of it today for some reason. I think the weather might have something to do with it. Supposed to rain. Barometric pressure and all that. Before I retire for the evening, I wanted to know if you have anything new on Bella Ames.”

  “Her name is Nolan. Not Ames. You keep mixing it up, Miz Pope.”

  Sara giggled. “I do, don’t I? I’m so sorry. I’ll try to be more careful. Do you have any news? Do you know where she is?”

  “Well, of course I do. I am a detective after all. Mrs. Nolan left today to go to Virginia to visit someone named Myra Rutledge. She’s married to a veddy veddy British gentleman named Sir Charles Martin. He once worked for the queen. That would be the Queen of England. Scuttlebutt has it that they were friends in the sandbox. You aren’t paying me for background material, so I keep it to a bare minimum.

  “I followed Mrs. Nolan to Pinewood, but once she drove through a security gate, I could not enter without proper credentials, so I drove back around, parked, and took up a position in a small, well-tended forest. From where I was hunkered down, I could see directly into the courtyard and the parking lot, and I could also see the contents of the kitchen through the kitchen window. I stayed till four o’clock, when it became obvious to me, Mrs. Nolan was not going to leave.”

  Sara bristled angrily. Her voice was just as angry when she said, “How can you be sure she wasn’t going to leave?”

  “Because at three thirty she opened the trunk of her car, took out two suitcases, and carried them into a very quaint little cottage. The day had been overcast, and it looked like dusk. She turned all the lights on and settled in for what looked to me to be a mini vacation. Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “I would like a report around noon tomorrow. You can e-mail it to me.”

  “Okay. You’re the boss. Anything else, Miz Pope?”

  “No, I think that’s it. Thank you for your help, and I apologize for calling so late. It’s been one of those days if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. I have them on a regular basis. Good night, Miz Pope.”

  Sara ended the call without saying another word.

  Her eyes looked from one end of the table to the other, to the lists, to the pictures, to the legal papers. What to do with the whole mess? Should she get rid of what she didn’t need? Or would this turn out to be one of those cases in which the minute she discarded something she would discover that she needed it, but it would be too late to retrieve it because she’d gotten rid of it? Perhaps what she didn’t want or need right now, at this point in time, could be put in a box with a whole lot of tape. A whole lot of tape because it would take too much time and trouble to cut it all away. Yes, yes, a whole lot of tape, maybe even a whole roll. She did have three rolls because that’s how they were sold.

  Sara clapped her hands. It was a plan. Everything always looked better when you were following a plan. She took a deep breath, then another, and still another. She suddenly felt incredibly powerful. She was here in Kalorama, one of her favorite places. She loved this particular house.

  Too bad that Andy had never seen it. He’d spent considerable time at her previous house in Lorton when he was going to some kind of special school that raised him in rank. He’d been so proud of himself. One day, they were driving through Kalorama and he remarked that when he was ready to settle down and raise a family, he would buy a house there, in Kalorama. She wished there was a way for her to tell his spirit she’d done just that for him. Maybe tomorrow she’d go out to the cemetery and bury a picture of this house along with a copy of the deed.

  There was no way a two-day marriage would have ever worked out. That was nothing but a fairy tale in the making. What she had, what she’d done for Andy, that was real. Bella Ames was just a fairy princess who would turn into a frog and disappear from his life. Sara had endured. So had Andy. So what if he’d taken a two-day flyer instead of a one-night stand?

  If that two-day marriage meant anything, Andy would have had the nurses and doctors find Bella and bring her to the hospital where he was being cared for. He hadn’t done that. And he hadn’t cared enough about his precious Bella to do more than send Sara the paperwork necessary to provide for his new wife, which she had, somehow, never got around to doing by the time Andy had been killed. And then it was all over.

  Putting all of the above aside, she knew she really didn’t need any additional proof, what with the packet of papers the private detective Clint Aldrich had given her. Bella had been on her way to sign divorce papers the day the military informed her of Andy’s death. Clint said he was not certain if Bella had signed the divorce
papers or not. Nor was Clint certain if the divorce papers ever got filed in court by Bella’s attorney. More likely not. Why bother? It would be such an ugly memory. It wasn’t as if Andy had died the day Bella either signed or didn’t sign the papers. Bella was notified of Andy’s death on the day she was to sign the divorce papers even though he had died eight months earlier, and therein lies the difference, Sara kept telling herself. With that, she’d told Clint Aldrich to stop the surveillance and drop the case. She paid him his outrageous fee and tried not to think about what she had learned and what it meant in terms of her inheritance. Sometimes, ignorance was pure bliss.

  One more thing to do and she could retire for the night. Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow was a new beginning for her and all the wheels she’d put in motion. All she needed to do was follow through, and if there was one thing she excelled at, it was arranging details to make things work to her advantage.

  Sara typed an e-mail to her new fertility clinic, saying she would be in at noon to discuss a matter of grave importance and settle her bill. “Settling the matter of grave importance” was going to give her such pleasure. She crossed her fingers in the hope that she would be able to achieve personal happiness the moment things were settled. She was giddy at the thought. She was still smiling to herself as she tidied up the kitchen table, checked the lock on the back door, turned out the lights, and set the alarm. Finally, she was ready for bed.