Hidden Legacy

by Lynn Huggins Blackburn

  Us again.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I have to try.”

  “Are they close?”

  “I’m about to find out.”

  “Couldn’t you talk about it on the phone? Why do you have to meet him in person?”

  “His idea.”

  She studied his face. He saw the awareness in her eyes. He could pretend following a clue, even if it led to his father, was part of the investigative process he would go through for any citizen, but she knew he was doing this for her.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” she asked.

  “Why? You don’t like him, either.”

  “I don’t want you to have to do it alone.”

  It was so tempting. His father would be more inclined to behave if Caroline was there. But he hated the idea of using her as a shield. “I’m a big boy. I can survive a meal with the man.” Maybe.

  She looked down. “I don’t want…” She said more, but he couldn’t catch it.

  “What?”

  Her face and neck were pink as she faced him. Was she embarrassed? Why?

  “I said I don’t want you to leave me.” She ducked her head.

  “Afraid I won’t come back?” He deserved it if she was.

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I just… I don’t…” She shook her head.

  He pulled her toward him. He’d release her if she resisted him at all, but she didn’t.

  “Are you scared?” He whispered the words against her hair.

  “Terrified.”

  “I would never leave you if I didn’t think you’d be safe.” She didn’t respond. “But if you want, you and Henry can come with me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  They should go inside. Kyle was probably watching them from a computer monitor. And the longer he held her, the harder it was to resist tilting her chin and claiming her lips again.

  He stepped back. She laced her arm through his as they walked back to the house. “I don’t promise to be nice to him,” she warned him.

  He patted her hand. “Sure.”

  She would be. She couldn’t help it. She was nice to everyone.

  SEVENTEEN

  Forty-five minutes later, they parked in the Hot Dog World parking lot. Caroline grinned. “I love this place.”

  “This might ruin it for you forever.”

  “No chance,” she said. “I’m hopelessly devoted to the onion rings.”

  “Stay close,” he said.

  “At least we’re bug-free,” she said, patting the grocery bag she’d thrown Henry’s change of clothes into.

  “Maybe you’ll start a new trend with that thing,” he said with a laugh.

  The laughter died in his throat when he spotted his father at the door. Suit, tie, spit-shined shoes. Trim. Still had a head full of hair. Oozed confidence. He looked exactly the same as Jason remembered from all his worst childhood memories.

  Maybe bringing Caroline had been a bad idea. He didn’t want her to see how hard it was for him to be around this man.

  “Mr. Slater.” She extended her hand, the picture of grace and Southern charm. “Thank you for meeting with us.”

  There was that “us” again.

  “Caroline.” His father seemed genuinely pleased to see her. “This is a pleasant surprise. I haven’t seen you since the Christmas party at the Fultons’. How are you? And how is this little guy?”

  She laughed, and it sounded so natural. “Henry’s great. Thank you for asking.” She glanced at Jason. The look on her face was clear. It was time for him to play nice, too.

  “Thank you for meeting us,” he said. His version sounded stilted to his own ears, but his father accepted it.

  “Happy to help. Let’s order and you can ask me whatever you need.”

  They made it through the line, filled their drinks, and then Caroline slid into a booth and settled Henry beside her. He squeezed in beside Henry. It was tight, but he couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep Henry close. And he didn’t mind being forced to sit so close to her. His father took the other side of the booth.

  Henry kept all of them entertained while they made small talk as they waited on their food. When it arrived, Caroline flashed him a smile. “Jason, would you bless the food for us?”

  “Of course,” he said before offering the shortest grace possible.

  “Now,” his father said as he picked up an onion ring, “what on earth have you two gotten into now?”

  “Sir?” Caroline was all innocence and confusion.

  He shook his head. “Jason calls me out of the blue wanting info about Freddie Larrabie? And you show up with him? And with Henry? You couldn’t have me more confused or curious if you tried.”

  Jason took a sip of his Coke. “How well do you know Freddie Larrabie, sir?”

  His father leaned back in the booth. “I knew him over twenty years. No, make that thirty years. We used to play golf whenever I was in Raleigh.” He looked between him and Caroline. “Why?”

  “Knew him?”

  “Yes. Freddie passed away about two years ago.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Cancer. Pancreatic. Went pretty fast.”

  Jason looked at Caroline, and he could see his own confusion in her face. He’d been assuming Freddie Larrabie was alive and well.

  “What can you tell us about him?”

  His father dunked an onion ring in ketchup and took a bite before he answered. “He was a good guy and an excellent businessman. His son isn’t as solid as he was, but he’s turned into a decent CEO of the company. His grandkids, however, are some of the most spoiled and self-absorbed people I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.”

  He looked at Caroline, an appreciative smile on his face. “You and your brother, you two break the mold,” he said. He took a drink and then gestured toward Caroline with his cup. “I run with a lot of wealthy families.”

  Here we go. More name-dropping.

  “I’m sorry to say that often the older generations, the ones who worked hard and made the greatest sacrifices, somehow don’t pass their integrity down. The kids get the money but not the work ethic. You and that brother of yours haven’t let your money go to your heads,” he said. “It’s commendable. And rare.” He turned his attention back to Jason. “If something’s going on with the Larrabies, I’d suspect that bratty set of twin grandkids—Liam and Fern—are at the root of it. I suffered through a round of golf with the boy a few years ago, right before Freddie got sick.”

  He looked like he’d gotten a whiff of something rotten. “He spent the entire front nine trying to talk Freddie into buying him a new drone. Apparently it was his favorite hobby and he’d crashed his best one. It was like being around a five-year-old begging for a toy for Christmas.”

  Jason grabbed a notebook from his jacket pocket and wrote down the grandchildren’s names. “Before we go any further, I need to know something. Can we speak to you about Larrabie with complete confidence?”

  “Of course, son. I will help you, and Caroline, in any way I can.”

  Jason studied him. His dad was a lawyer. Some people would say he was a professional liar. But he didn’t have time to argue.

  “Fine.” He laid out the facts as they knew them. His father listened, nodded his head in the appropriate places and didn’t interrupt.

  “This afternoon, we found a letter where Stephanie claimed that her husband, Henry’s father, was the illegitimate son of none other than Frederick Larrabie.”

  That made his father put down his hot dog. “Wow.”

  An accurate summation.

  His father cleared his throat. “I won’t say this is a total surprise. Freddie was no saint. But I would have thought he would be the kind of man who would take full responsibility for his actions.”

  Jason explained what Stephanie had shared in her letter.

  “Sounds like he was trying to do the right thing, o
r at least that he was making some effort to be fair to his son.” He leaned his head back in the booth. “So what’s the motive for someone to come after Henry now?” He said it to himself, not looking for an answer. Jason met Caroline’s gaze. She gave him an encouraging smile.

  After a few more moments of internal debate, his father looked at both of them. “It has to be either the son, William, or the grandchildren, Liam and Fern. My guess is the grandchildren have the most to lose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “William Larrabie is only ten years younger than I am. He has his own money, and I’ve never seen any signs that he overspends or might have any debt issues. Whatever he inherited from Freddie would probably go straight into investments and then eventually to his children. He doesn’t need that money for his day-to-day life, and it’s unlikely he’d been counting on it for anything.”

  “So the grandkids…”

  “Well, that’s a whole different ball game,” he said. “Last time I saw William, about a year ago, he complained that his kids had no interest in running the family business. He said they were more interested in living off their trust funds than doing anything productive with their lives.”

  Jason tried to picture it. “So their grandfather dies, they find out there’s a secret son who might get a piece of the inheritance—if an investigator can track him down—and decide the best thing to do is get there first and get rid of him? Seems pretty drastic.”

  “That’s why I’m wondering about the motive. It’s one thing to be angry about someone taking half your inheritance, but to hunt him down, stage a crime, have him incarcerated and then killed? And then to later try to eliminate his son? That requires some serious determination and motivation, and I’m just not seeing it. I could call William and do a little fishing.”

  Caroline’s face paled. “Mr. Slater, Stephanie was terrified of them. She wanted to be sure they never knew about Henry.”

  “Looks to me like they already do.”

  *

  Caroline’s stomach flipped at Mr. Slater’s observation. He was right, but somehow having the words out there made it harder for her to pretend they were going to be able to get out of this without making contact with the Larrabie family.

  Jason didn’t seem convinced. “We have no proof of that. Everything we have is circumstantial. Stephanie pointed the finger and said they are dangerous. Unfortunately, we can’t arrest anyone on that.”

  “You need to talk to William,” his father said.

  “And play right into their hands?”

  “I’m not sure how talking to William is dangerous. From what you’ve told me, Freddie changed the will. If he did, then William already knows about Lee.”

  Caroline looked at Henry. Would they try to take him from her?

  Mr. Slater patted her hand. “Caroline?” Her face heated as she realized she’d missed something. Mr. Slater’s smile was kind, his eyes full of compassion. He bore little resemblance to her memory of the man who’d been the very real stuff of nightmares for Jason and Mama Drake. “I get your fear, but from what you’ve told me, Stephanie’s trust documents were written specifically to ensure they would have no claim on her son. The reality is that all of us are human. We all fail. And some of us, myself included, royally messed up our lives when we were younger. We can’t change our past mistakes, but I can tell you we wish we could and we’d give anything to make amends.”

  His eyes didn’t leave her face as he spoke, but she knew he wasn’t speaking to her anymore. In her peripheral vision, she saw Jason stiffen.

  Mr. Slater leaned forward. “I have a friend who is a crackerjack estate lawyer. He could glance over Stephanie’s paperwork to make sure it’s solid if it would make you feel better. But if you think about this logically, rather than from a place of fear, I think you’ll see no one would have any interest in removing Henry from your custody. William’s in his fifties now, and I’m confident he has no interest in raising a toddler. And there’s not a court in the land that would give custody to Liam or Fern.”

  His assurances made sense. Part of her fear of Henry’s birth father’s family was that there would be a sister or grieving mother of Stephanie’s husband who would try to take him. But if the Larrabies were the family, there wasn’t anyone who should have an interest in taking her son from her.

  Mr. Slater smiled at her. “I’m sure it’s hard for you to imagine what it’s like to look in the mirror every day and know your life is a mess because of your own poor decisions.” He glanced at Jason, who was now sitting at attention, jaw clenched. “Since you won’t normally answer my calls, I’m going to go ahead and say what I’ve been trying to say to you for the past six months.”

  Jason put his hand up, but Mr. Slater pressed on. “I’m sorry.”

  Caroline wanted to crawl under the booth. She should not be here for this. But Jason’s father wasn’t paying any attention to her.

  “I know you’ll never forgive me. I can’t say I’ve accepted it, though I do understand and I don’t blame you. But I need you to know how sorry I am. I’ve been sober for three years. Met a guy at one of my meetings who conned me into going to church with him, too. I go every week now.”

  Jason shook his head. “Going to church doesn’t—”

  “I know. Church attendance doesn’t mean anything, but you need to know that I don’t go to impress. I’m not the same. I’m a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. I still have a temper, but I don’t make excuses for it anymore. I ask forgiveness. I lean into grace. I’ve apologized to your mother, and to Richard.”

  Were those tears in his eyes? “I realize I’m the source of your worst memories. I’m not asking for a relationship with you. All I’ve wanted is for you to know that I am sorry and I do love you. Always have.”

  Jason’s only response was a slow nod. Caroline hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she heard herself exhale.

  Mr. Slater didn’t seem to be worried about Jason’s reaction to his apology. He straightened in the booth and turned his attention to Caroline. “If you decide you want to talk to William, or that you’d like for me to give him a call and ask a few questions, you know how to reach me.”

  His gaze made the circuit from Jason to Henry to Caroline and back to Jason. “You’ve got the makings of a nice little family here,” he said with a sly wink. “I’ll do anything I can to help you protect them.”

  Jason’s skin flushed at his birth father’s words. “Thank you, sir.” The words sounded like they’d been ripped out of him, but there was a difference from before. The tone wasn’t cordial, but it wasn’t hostile, either.

  Mr. Slater slid out of the booth. “Let me know.”

  “We will,” Caroline said, her voice catching in her throat. She watched him walk away, then turned back to Jason. “Ready to go?”

  He looked at her, and it took a second before he seemed to really see her. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Let’s go.” They grabbed refills and loaded back into the car in silence. The quiet stretched until they pulled into her driveway, when he reached for her hand. “I’m glad you were there for that,” Jason said, his voice rough.

  “I felt like such an intruder,” she said.

  “Never.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve been waiting twenty years for an apology from him. For some acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Mom’s been begging me to accept his phone calls, but I’ve refused.” He shook his head. “I’d convinced myself that I had forgiven him a long time ago. That I’d put it behind me. Of course, it was easier to believe that as long as he wasn’t trying to get in touch with me.” He put the car into Park. “Forgiveness is hard.”

  Oh, how well she knew it. “What he did was terrible.”

  “Yes, it was.” He turned to face her. “Do you think people can really change?”

  He needed more than a yes-or-no answer. How could she explain this to him? Father, help me. Give me the words. She paused a few seconds. This praying was happening more often. When had
that happened?

  “I do. I’ve seen it. Stephanie changed. When I went to Duke and she went to ASU, we drifted apart for a while. She made some bad choices, started partying, gave me a hard time for not being much fun to be around because I wouldn’t get drunk with her.” She hesitated to say the next part, but she had to. “When Chad died, she came right away. His death…”

  She fought the tears that threatened. “I will never know why his life was so short, but his life mattered. And so did his death. I know of at least twenty people who came to Christ as a direct result of the sermon preached at his funeral. And Stephanie was never the same. She went back to church, sent me cards with Bible verses, prayed with me and for me.”

  She dropped her head. “When she told me she was pregnant, I’m afraid I didn’t take it well. I always wondered if she’d really been married, or if she’d fallen back into bad habits and was ashamed to admit it.” A tear escaped, and Jason’s finger brushed it away. “But I know now that wasn’t true. She never went back to the way she was. She’d been changed forever. So yeah, I believe people can change.”

  Jason seemed to be considering her words. “Did you believe him? My birth father?”

  “I’ve heard some rumors,” she said. “People are saying he’s not the same. Dad told me he’d heard that your father lost a few clients because he wouldn’t help them try to get around some legal issues the way they wanted him to. I’ve also heard he’s in church. And when I saw him at the Fultons’ Christmas party, he was drinking water.”

  “It could have been vodka,” Jason said.

  “No. I was standing there when he ordered it.”

  “So you believe him? You think I should let it all go?”

  “That’s not what I said. I said I’ve heard he’s changed. I think the issue of forgiveness is one you already know the answer to. The question isn’t whether or not you should forgive him. The question is whether or not you think he deserves it.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “None of us do.”

  He huffed. “No. I guess we don’t.” He rubbed a circle on her hand.

  She smiled at him. “You’ve been waiting on this for twenty years. Give yourself more than twenty minutes to process it.”