by Megyn Ward
“No.” It comes out of his mouth, short and sharp, his face falling into a scowl that looks more like Tob. More like how he usually looks at me. “No,” he says again, softer this time. “That’s not what happened.” The baby on his shoulder lets out a burp and it chases the scowl away. “She came to see me—that GAL of yours—when we were trying to get you out of Brighton.” Shifting the baby again, he reaches for the bottle, taking it from my slackened grip. “She showed up at my office and demanded a meeting—”
“Catherine.” I say her name like Tob would remember her, like he’s the one she saved. “Catherine told you about me?” I’m not sure why I feel betrayed. Why it’s the last thing I’d expect. Why it hurts so much, but it does.
“What?” Tob gives me a look while he offers the baby the rest of the bottle, laughing a little when she latches onto it as ferociously as she did that first time. “No, not her—the other one. The asshole—the one who was on maternity leave. She showed up unannounced and started throwing files and reports in my face, dating back to when you first got to Brighton. She told me that if I was so set on helping you get emancipated, then I should know who I was trying to set free. I told her to get the fuck out of my office and then I made a few calls and got her fired. That wasn’t enough to make me feel better, so I made a few more and had her disbarred.”
Her.
The one who worked so hard to keep me locked up, despite the fact that it was her job to protect me. Make sure I was treated fairly. I don’t even remember her name.
“You knew the entire time.” I can’t even wrap my head around it. What that means. Unease turns over in my gut, grows and hardens. Sinks deep. Turns black. “You knew and you just left them with me.” I’m angry at him. At how careless with his family he was by leaving them in my care. “Trusted me, knowing who I am. What I could’ve—”
“Yeah, I did.” He cuts me off, his soft tone carrying the weight of a wrecking ball. “I left my only son, the infant daughter I named after my mother, and the woman I love so much I’d die for—with you. Left without a second thought because you’re right—I know exactly who and what you are. You’re my brother. You’re their uncle. You’re the guy who was ready to beat me stupid when I was an asshole to Silver. You’re a better man on your worst day than I could ever hope to be and because I know exactly what you’re capable of and what you’re not—and just so we’re clear, one of the things you’re not capable of is hurting a woman—or kids for that matter.”
“You don’t know that.” I shake my head, staring at him like he’s insane. Like he’s so far beyond stupid that there’s no hope for him. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.” I don’t know how to tell him. How to explain the river of rage I keep dammed up inside me. How to tell him about the way it constantly threatens to overtake me.
Consume me.
“I know you’re not your father—neither of us are,” he tells me while he pulls the spent bottle from his daughter’s mouth. She’s sleeping now, her cheek pressed against Tob’s chest, the tattoo inked into it. It’s an old English crown, same as mine. We all have them. They’re what link us together. The tangible thing that marks us as brothers. He strokes a finger over her cheek and smiles at the way her lips twitch in response. “They might’ve made us but they aren’t all that we are and they don’t get to decide who we are. The kind of men we decide to be—that’s up to us.”
I think about Tob’s father. He’s famous. Beloved the world over. Tried to force his mother to have an abortion when she told him that their affair resulted in pregnancy. The pile of money Tob landed in when he turned eighteen was hush money from a man he never met. Someone who never claimed him. Was never there to teach him was a father is supposed to be.
And here he is, doing it anyway.
“How’d you like the Porsche?” he says, his way of changing the subject before things get too heavy. Before I reject everything he just said to me.
“Porsche?”
“Yeah—I noticed the keys are gone,” he says, with a laugh. “Honestly, I’m surprised you picked that one to drive—I’d have figure it was too obnoxious for you.”
“Your Porsche is gone.”
“Dude—” Tob frowns at me like I might’ve fallen down and hit my head. “Is there a reason you keep repeating everything I say?”
“I have to tell you something—something else.” I reach up and swipe a rough hand over my face. “It’s about Jane.”
Forty-Seven
Jane
At the mention of Logan, his grandfather’s face falls, softens just for a second before its features are snapped back into place and held together by anger. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re running, Missy—”
“His name is Logan.” I say it fast, reaching for the screen door so I can open it. Stop him from slamming the door in my face if I have to. “Logan Emmett Bright. He kept your name, Mr. Collins. When he had the chance to get rid of it, to change everything about himself that might remind him of who his father is and what he did, he kept your name—yours.”
That shuts him up. Stops him dead in his tracks. He stares at me for a moment, his gaze so sharp, so much like his grandson’s that I can feel myself start to squirm. Start to second guess every decision I’ve made over the last several hours. Finally, right before I’m about to apologize for intruding and bolt off the porch, he speaks. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Jane,” I clear my throat and square my shoulders like I’m preparing for battle. “Jane Halstead.”
“There was another Halstead, come here about Matthew, a while back—” He rakes his ice blue glare from my face to my feet. “she had your look.”
“My mother,” I tell him, more surprised than I should be to learn that mother came here. It makes sense. She’d want to know about Logan before she did what I asked her to do. Know where he came from. If there was something she needed to know about him that wasn’t in his file. “Catherine Halstead—she was his Guardian ad Litem.”
He stares at me some more, his expression caught somewhere between sadness and agitation. “I’m guessing you want to ask me why I didn’t want him, same as she did.”
“I want to know how,” I say, angrier than I have a right to be. This man didn’t abandon me. He’s not my father. My grandfather, but it’s there—an old wound I didn’t even realize I was suffering from until I was standing here, asking questions that are really none of my business. “How could you abandon him like that? He was just a kid and he needed you. He needed—”
“I was the last thing that boy needed,” he says cutting me off. Sighing heavily, he turns his wrist to look at his watch before reaching out to open the screen door. “I’ve got lunch on the stove—I suppose you’ll want to come in so you can keep badgering me.”
Even though it’s not a question, I nod my head and take a step back when he pushes the screen door open, wide enough for me to pass through it. Leaving the door open, he latches the screen before moving past me toward the back of the house, obviously expecting me to follow.
Watching him go, I take a quick look to my left to find a set of pocket doors shut tight. To the right is a neat but sparsely furnished living room. Thread bare sofa. Scarred coffee table. Well used recliner. An ancient box television with a set of foil wrapped, rabbit ear antenna. A brick fireplace with framed photographs littering its mantel. Instead of following Logan’s grandfather to what I’m assuming is the kitchen, I step into the living room because I’m an unrepentant snoop who can’t help herself.
Lifting one of the framed photos, I use my hand to wipe away the thin film of dust that’s settled on it. It’s Logan, at about six or seven, posed in front of the same low, stone wall that I saw outside, surrounding the property. He has a fishing pole in his hand and he’s grinning into the camera like he’s having the time of his life. His hair is a bit lighter, not quite the near black color it is now but it’s sticking up all over his head just the same, his pale blue eyes squinted against th
e summer sun.
Setting it down, I pick up the next in line. It’s Logan again, still grinning—his sturdy, sun-browned legs stuck through the hole of a tire strung up with a rope and tied to the branch of an old oak tree.
“He loved that thing.”
I turn around, picture still in hand to find Logan’s grandfather, serving tray held in front of him, watching me from the doorway.
“Found that old tire in the garage and begged me to string it up for him.” He shakes his head and comes forward to set the tray down on the coffee table. “I kept telling him no, that it was dangerous but he kept begging… he fell out of the fool thing and busted his lip about five minutes after I took the picture.” He laughs, the sound of it somehow sad while he eases himself into the recliner, still looking at me. “He was a good boy.” When he says it, I set the framed photo down and turn to face him directly.
“It that’s true, then—”
“If you came all the way from Boston like I suspect, I’m guessing you’re hungry,” he tells me, leaning forward in his chair to survey the tray he set on the coffee table. Wide, squat mugs full of what looks like tomato soup. A pile of grilled cheese sandwiches cut in half and stacked on a plate. “Best eat before you start up on your badgering again.”
Sitting on the couch, I reach for a sandwich and set it on a plate before placing it on my lap. We eat in silence for a few minutes—me picking at my food while he plows through his, slow and methodical, like he doesn’t want to eat but knows he has to. Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. Setting the plate on the table, I lean forward. “Mr. Collins—”
“Call me Emmett,” he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin before setting his own empty plate aside. “And I’ll call you Jane—might be old fashioned but I think you should be on a first name basis with a person willing to crosses state lines to harass you.”
“Okay, Emmett…” When he doesn’t interrupt me, I stall out, not sure what I want to say. Where to begin.
“You want to know why I wouldn’t take him. If Matthew was such a good boy and I loved him so much, how I could just give him away like I did.”
“Yes.” I have to whisper it because my throat is suddenly tight. So dry I can feel it crack.
Instead of answering the question, he sighs. “My wife left me—left us when my son was just about as old as Matthew is in those pictures.” Sitting back in his chair, he gives it a lazy rock, like he’s trying to work the memory loose. “She didn’t want me anymore. Didn’t want him. Just packed up and left without any real explanation. I tried to be a good husband to her—tried to provide. Tried to be what I thought a good man and father should be but it wasn’t enough—nothing I did ever was, so she left—and he was just old enough to remember it.” Reaching up, Emmett runs a hand over his hair, like he’s trying to smother it. “So, I raised him alone. Did the best I could…” The hand on his head drops into his lap and he looks past me, out the wide, picture window that faces the front yard. “When he married Mathew’s mother, I couldn’t believe how much she reminded me of my wife. They could’ve been sisters, if not for the age difference. I liked her, she had a sweetness to her that my wife never had and she loved Matthew something fierce. I knew she’d never do to him what my wife did to our boy… him spending summers here with me was her idea. My son was against it—he’d distanced himself from me over the years. I think he blamed me for his mother leaving—but Cindy insisted that Matthew got to know me and I was grateful to her for it…” His face falls into a frown like whatever he saw outside the window upset him. “but it worried me that she’d go against him like that because I knew it caused trouble, I knew—”
“Did he abuse her?” Something catches in my throat when I say it. It’s not fear, it’s sadness. Sadness over what Logan must’ve seen, what he might’ve had to endure, even before his mother was gone. Even before his father killed all those women.
“I never had proof and she’d never admit to it when I asked her, but my own father had a heavy hand with my mother so I know what that looks like—and before you ask, the answer is no. I never so much as raised my voice to my wife or my son.”
“I believe you,” I tell him, giving him a nod. When I say it, his expression changes, loosens a little, the change reminding me of Logan, when I told him I believed him when he said he never hurt Jenny.
“He came here with her once when they were first married—she was pregnant with Matthew. He stood out in the front yard and screamed at her because the gas station attendant in town smiled at her. Screamed at her so loud the neighbors came out to gawk.” He looks sick to his stomach, like it’s happening right in front of him, all over again, and he’s powerless to stop it. “Before could I do or say anything about it, he dragged her into the garage…” His mouth flattens, its corners turning down in a grimace. “By the time I got the door open, whatever he did to her was over. She’d never say what happened but I know she never stopped at that gas station again.”
“He was jealous.” It suddenly makes sense, how scared Logan gets when he feels that way. How upset it makes him. How out of control he feels.
Emmett nods. “I don’t know where it came from—I was never that way, I’d get jealous if my wife flirted with the neighbor or one of my friends, sure, but not like that. I never screamed at her. Never hurt her.”
I think about the things he told me about his own father. I think about genetics. How sometimes these things can skip generations. Lay dormant in a bloodline for years, just waiting to make a monster. “I’m sure nothing that you did made your son do the things he did.”
He makes that sound—the one Logan makes in the back of this throat when someone says something he doesn’t believe. Doesn’t agree with. When I hear it, my heart breaks a little. “You’re not to blame for the things your son did,” I say, trying to convince him, even though I know it’s useless. “He’s the monster, Emmett—not you and not your grandson.”
Just as I thought, he doesn’t believe me. “I made him. I raised him—if I’m not to blame then who?”
“Is that why you wouldn’t take Logan?” Another puzzle piece clicks into place. “Because you think you did something to make your son kill those women?”
“Cindy tried to leave him—that’s why he killed her,” he tells me in response. “She called me, and told me she was leaving, that she couldn’t take it. Couldn’t have Matthew around my son anymore. That she was afraid of what he’d become if she waited much longer—how could I take him after that? After the thing I raise murdered his mother—all those women—right in front of him?”
For a second, I don’t know what to say. How to respond. How I can possibly convince this man that he’s not responsible for the horrible things his son did, any more than Logan is. “He’s good to me,” I finally say because I realize that convincing him of his own innocence isn’t what I came here to do. It isn’t something I can do. I came here to tell him about Logan. “Even when he loses his temper, I know I’m safe with him. I’ve never felt like I’ve been in danger. I’ve never been afraid.” I don’t tell him that it’s over. That whatever Logan and I had is finished because it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the truth. “He has a nephew that he adores and the feeling is mutual. They cook together. Play Legos. He’s patient with him. Kind—that’s the part of you that’s inside your grandson, Emmett.”
He stares at me for a while, his sharp blue eyes gone cloudy with tears. “It’s too late now,” he finally says, shaking his head. “I left him in that place, like you said—he won’t forgive me.”
Reaching into my purse, I pull out a notepad and a pen. “Maybe not,” I tell him, setting them both on the table between us. “But don’t you think he deserves to make that decision for himself?”
Forty-Eight
Logan
Declan pulls up to the curb in front of my building an hour later and he isn’t alone. Ryan is in the driver’s seat. I want to ask why he needed to get Henley’s brother involved in all this, but I don’
t. Instead, I climb into the back seat of his truck.
“She’s in Connecticut,” I tell them without preamble, shutting the door behind me. “Best I can figure, she helped herself to one of Tob’s car this morning to make the drive.” As soon as I told him about Jane, Tob called his automotive concierge service and had them locate his missing Porsche. As soon as he told me where it was, I knew it was Jane and why she was there.
Declan turns in his seat, just as Ryan pulls away from the curb. “What the fuck is she doing in Connecticut?” he asks, scowling at me.
“She went there to see my grandfather.” Saying it out loud should make me mad. Knowing that she’s still snooping and prying into my life should piss me off but it doesn’t. To be honest, I’m so goddamned grateful I want to cry because it means she hasn’t given up on me.
Still thinks I’m worth saving.
“So, she’s okay then?” Declan passes a rough hand over his face. “Jane is okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod, watching as his massive shoulders deflate with relief. “If she’s with my grandfather, she’s fine.”
“Okay—that’s good,” Ryan says from the driver seat, shooting me a quick look in the rearview mirror. “So are we still breaking into this prison or—”
“Yeah.” I give him a quick nod before sitting back in my seat and aiming my gaze out the passenger side window. “I still want to see my father. I have a few things I need to say.”
Less than an hour later, I’m in a room. No windows. No two-way mirrors. No cameras. Just a long, sturdy table, bolted to the floor and a pair of chairs, one on either side. This is the room prisoners use to meet their lawyers. Being here and the fact that I was escorted through multiple checkpoints without being searched or even having been asked for ID, makes me wonder who Declan Gilroy really is. What he’s done to make the connections necessary to pull this off, and what those connections have to do with Ryan O’Connell.
