by Lisa Jackson
Well, too bad, she thought, walking across thick white carpet toward a muted blue couch placed in front of a gas fireplace that burned softly. Few of the pieces of furniture were reminders of Kacey’s youth. Most of the artwork, chairs, lamps, and tables were new, bought after her mother had sold the house where she’d grown up and had put what the new owners didn’t want in the garage, where she had organized her own estate sale.
“I needed to see you face-to-face.” Kacey’s heart was knocking more than a little; she’d never been one to confront Maribelle, but then few had, and then there was the continuing problem of her slightly upset stomach, which felt like it had turned into a hard fist.
“Can I get you a cup of tea or a glass of wine? I’ve got a nice pinot breathing—”
“No, Mom. I just want to talk.” She warmed the back of her legs before the fire as Maribelle, in jeans, gold sweater, and worried expression, settled into a corner of the couch, where a paperback book lay facedown and a half-drunk glass of wine sat neglected for the moment.
Kacey extracted an envelope from her purse, opened it, and slid the contents on the coffee table toward Maribelle. Pictures of Shelly Bonaventure, Jocelyn Wallis, and Elle Alexander stared up at her.
“What are these?”
“Notice anything, Mom? These women all look alike. They bear enough of a resemblance as to be sisters.”
“So?”
“They’re all dead. Died from accidents within the last week.”
Her mother paled a bit. Reached for her wineglass.
“And they look like me, too, Mom. Don’t tell me you can’t see. It. Then there’s this woman.” She pulled out the brochure from Fit Forever Gym, already folded open to a picture of Gloria Sanders-O’Malley, and placed it near the others. “She’s a fitness instructor, still very much alive.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Kacey stared at her mother. “I just don’t think this is coincidence. I checked. Three of these women were born at Valley Hospital, here in Helena. Just like me. I’m not sure about Elle. Her background is a little murky, and unfortunately she’s not around to tell us what she knows. She claimed she always lived in Idaho, but still . . .”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. You think women who look like you are being killed?”
“Women who look like me and are from the same damned hospital.” Her insides were twisting, but she had to know, and Maribelle, if she wasn’t specifically hiding something, was definitely worried.
“Lots of people look alike.”
“I know. I was willing to dismiss it. But the hospital, Mom. If I go there, what will I find out?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“What would I find out with a sample of my DNA? And a sample from some of the other women?”
“What?”
Kacey didn’t answer; she didn’t have to. She saw the change in her mother’s eyes as she realized her daughter wasn’t bluffing. Her thin shoulders slumped beneath her sweater. Suddenly Maribelle looked as old as her years.
“Oh, Lord.” She twisted her hands and glanced away, toward the window and the night falling beyond.
“Tell me what I’m missing,” Kacey demanded.
She shook her head slowly. “I was afraid this day would come.”
“Why?”
Maribelle closed her eyes and let out a tremulous sigh. For theatrics? Or from her heart?
Oh, God, who could tell?
“I was hoping I’d never have to confide this,” she said.
Kacey clamped her teeth together, waiting, wanting to scream while her mother slowly processed each word.
“Stanley isn’t—wasn’t—your real father. You seem to have figured that out.”
“You mean, not my biological father,” Kacey clarified, heart beating heavily.
“Yes.” Maribelle was on her feet, the contents in her glass sloshing precariously. “No one knew, not even Stanley, at least not at first.” She glared at her daughter, as if this were somehow Kacey’s fault.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it would have killed Stanley,” Maribelle said, as if Kacey were dense for not catching on. “When you were around seven and it ... it was obvious that you didn’t look like anyone in his family or mine, he began to get suspicious and we argued. He threatened to have a paternity test and so . . . so I told him. From that moment on, our marriage, what little there was left of it, was a sham.”
There was a roar in her ears.
“We stayed together for you. He loved you,” Maribelle said with a trace of regret. “It didn’t matter that you weren’t of his blood. You were his little girl.” She had to clear her throat and look away. “We couldn’t divorce ... that was out of the question . . . or even separate.” She shook her head. “Things were different then in a town this size. My parents . . .” She fluttered her fingers. “It was better.”
Kacey wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t imagine herself remaining in a loveless marriage with Jeffrey. No way. But Maribelle’s jaw was set. Defensive.
“Dad’s gone,” Kacey said, pointing out the obvious, the ache in her heart painful when she thought of the man she’d known as her father. “You . . . you could have told me.”
“It was too late then.”
“It’s not too late now.” Kacey’s stomach ached. All the deception. All the lies. Her medical history compromised, her entire life a sham. And yet it all made a distorted kind of sense somehow. It explained so much, especially why she was close to her parents, even though they’d lost their bond to each other.
“Who’s my biological father?” Kacey asked.
Her mother finished the wine and left the empty glass on the mantel. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. In so many ways I can’t even begin to tell you. Women are being killed, Mom. Women I suspect might have my same DNA.”
“That’s the problem with all that ... science!”
“You were a nurse, for God’s sake,” Kacey said, cutting her off abruptly. “You believe in science.”
“Well, it’s gone too far. Become too invasive. There is no privacy anymore. If you ask me, people should leave well enough alone!”
“This is my life, Mother!”
Maribelle rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled to the bone. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“You’ve avoided it for thirty-five years!” Kacey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her whole damned life had been a lie. “And now women are dying.”
“In accidents!” Something flared in Maribelle’s eyes. “Do you really think someone’s out killing women who look like you because of some kind of DNA link? For the love of God, Kacey. Listen to yourself.”
“Who is he?”
“There’s no reason to bother your father with this.”
Kacey practically sputtered, “He’s not my father. You were married to my father. But ... this other man? He’s still alive?” Kacey was reeling.
“Yes.”
“You still keep in contact with him?”
“No, of course not.”
“Does he know about me?” she asked and, when her mother didn’t answer, said, “And the others . . .” The faces of the women who had died ran through her brain, women with features so like her own. “Does he know of them? Are they . . .” She shook her head.
No, no, this was all wrong. Suddenly she doubted her convictions for coming here in the first place. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop now. In a voice she didn’t recognize as her own, she asked, “Are you telling me that this ... this man went around impregnating women and just leaving them . . .”
But Maribelle had fallen silent.
“Mom . . . ?” There was something more, and Kacey braced herself. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
The starch seemed to drain out of Maribelle, and she returned to her spot on the couch. Her eyes were focused on the fire, but Kacey knew that she wasn’t seeing the golden flam
es licking the ceramic logs. No, her mind was far away, in a place that only she knew of, a spot that was in the distant past. “It wasn’t like that. You have to understand. He’s a fine, upstanding man. A pillar of the community, really. People look up to him. . . . Ours was an affair of the heart.”
She’d elevated her relationship to something pure and special and unique. Still. After over a third of a century.
“Everyone thinks that. That’s the reason people cheat on their spouses, because this new relationship is just so exciting and new.”
“But ours . . .” A beatific smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she remembered. She still believed what she and this man had shared was unique to the universe. Swallowing hard, Maribelle shot Kacey a hard look. “You wouldn’t understand. Couldn’t.”
“Don’t patronize me, Mom!” Kacey hated that she was a part of this, an integral part of this. “Who is he?”
A pause.
“Maribelle?”
“I promised myself that I would never say. And I’ve not broken that vow.”
“I’ll find out,” Kacey insisted. “And it’ll be worse if I have to go looking.”
Maribelle stared at her hands. “David doesn’t know.”
David Spencer. Her mother’s would-be boyfriend. “I won’t tell him,” Kacey stated flatly. “But if he finds out some other way, then there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not going to live this lie another second!”
Maribelle spoke in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “You’re angry!”
“Angry and frustrated. You lied to me. All my damned life.”
“I’m sorry for that. Truly.” She blinked against tears. “It was different then. I was young. Impressionable . . .”
“Don’t forget married.”
Maribelle winced. “There were problems there, too. For one thing, I couldn’t get pregnant, not that I planned this, of course, but your father, er, Stanley and I . . . Our marriage was pretty rocky at that time. I was taking classes and met a medical student who was . . .” She let her voice drift off before finishing. “Well, he was everything Stanley wasn’t. We, um, became involved, and just when we decided to call things off, you were conceived.” She looked up at Kacey with tears glistening in her eyes. “I was so happy. I’d thought maybe I was barren, but I’d never been tested, nor had Stanley, and then there you were, a miracle baby!” She smiled a bit through her tears, lifted her hands. “It was a blessing. At least for me. Look at you. I wanted a baby so badly, and you were conceived!”
Kacey thought of the hardworking father she’d grown up with, the grandparents whose home she’d inherited, and everything seemed off, just half a step out of sync. “Dad will always be—”
“I know.” Maribelle snagged her glass and walked to her kitchen, where the bottle of pinot noir was breathing on the sleek granite counter she had installed just the year before. “Would you like a little?” she offered, rummaging in a cupboard for another glass.
Kacey shook her head. The last thing she needed was to think any less clearly than she already was. As Maribelle poured herself another drink, her hands trembling a bit, Kacey stood on the opposite side of the kitchen island. “So who is he, Mom?” Maribelle set the bottle aside. “I think I deserve to know.”
Her mother twisted the stem and watched the dark liquid swirl, then sniffed it before taking a sip. “I suppose you do,” she agreed finally. “I’ve often thought so, but I just couldn’t tell you.”
“You’d rather lie.”
“Avoid the truth. It got easier over time, harder to find a way to . . . Oh, well, I finally decided it was best to let it all die.”
“I need to meet him.”
She was startled. “Oh, no! He’s past all this now, and I don’t want you bothering him or his wife.”
“Wife?” Kacey repeated.
“Yes. Wife. Of what? Oh, I guess about forty-five years now,” she said with more than a trace of bitterness.
“I’ll find out who he is whether you tell me or not.”
“Fine!” Maribelle was angry, but she saw that Kacey was dead serious. Taking a deep breath, she said, “His name is Gerald Johnson.” She glanced up, as if the name would mean something to Kacey. When Kacey didn’t react, she added, “He’s a renowned heart surgeon who helped develop a special kind of stent, and no, he doesn’t know about you. I decided it wouldn’t do any good to tell him. Soon after he left his practice, he moved his family to Missoula.” She shrugged. “It’s common knowledge. You can find that out in seconds on the Internet, so I’m not divulging any secrets there, but please don’t bother him. He wouldn’t appreciate it, and neither would Noreen and her brood.”
“Noreen being his wife, and his brood meaning his children?”
Half brothers and sisters. The missing piece. She, who had been raised an only child, had fantasized about a large family with enough siblings to play baseball or board games or cards, even another person for video games.... “How many does he have?”
“Children?” Maribelle looked up, met her daughter’s gaze. “Five, I think. No, there were twins, so six. Or, was it seven? I can’t remember!” She slid her gaze to the living room and the coffee table, where the pictures Kacey had brought were still strewn. “Well, I guess, maybe even more.”
That was the understatement of the year. “Maybe a lot more,” Kacey murmured, wondering.
Who was this guy? A doctor who didn’t practice birth control, never used a condom, and had a string of affairs? The women in the pictures were all around her age, give or take a few years. What kind of Montana Lothario was he? No, something wasn’t right.
And possibly women were being killed because of it?
“I need to meet him,” she said again.
“No!” Maribelle fumbled with her glass. It fell from her hands and shattered against the granite of the counter, splashing red wine onto her sweater and sending shards of glass skittering to the floor. “Oh, look what you’ve done! This sweater cost me a fortune,” she cried and raced off to the bedroom area. Kacey rotely began to clean up the mess.
A mess that was a whole lot deeper than the spilled wine and shattered crystal.
CHAPTER 23
He should have killed the mother.
That was where he’d made his mistake.
He knew it now as he sat in his truck just outside the gates of Rolling Hills Senior Estates. He’d trusted that Maribelle Collins would do anything to keep her secret locked away, but now, as he watched Acacia drive out through the gates, he wondered what she knew, what damage she could wreak.
Too much.
He should have expected this. Anticipated this move. Was it too late?
Probably.
But the old bat still needed to be silenced.
It shouldn’t be too hard; from what he understood, she had a heart problem, took nitroglycerin tablets....
He didn’t have time to deal with her now.
He had to find out what her damned daughter had learned. If she had found out the truth, he had to stop her before she did anything that would ruin everything. With a final glance over his shoulder toward the still open gates of Rolling Hills, he silently vowed to return.
He felt his scar pulse as he grabbed his ski mask and pulled it over his head. Then he started his truck and eased out of his parking slot.
He caught sight of the taillights of Acacia’s Ford far ahead, but he wasn’t worried about losing her. The magnetic, splash-proof GPS device he’d installed in her rear wheel well wouldn’t be discovered until she rotated her tires, and maybe not even then.
Which would be too late.
Switching on the tiny monitor, he saw that she’d turned onto the highway, heading west. Toward Grizzly Falls. As expected.
Relaxing slightly, he began to follow at a safe distance. Checking his rearview mirror, he noticed another vehicle pull out of an alley and turn on its headlights. A niggle of apprehension slithered through his brain.
It’s nothi
ng! Another car, another driver, no big deal.
And yet he watched as the headlights behind him, of some kind of sports car, he thought, were steady. Other cars came between them, but for every turn, the sports car behind slowly followed, never catching up, not even at the one stoplight.
Someone going the same direction as you. Nothing more.
But he thought of all the times he’d felt he was being watched, as if he were the prey rather than the hunter.
Even if the car follows onto the main road, heading west, it’s just chance. Happenstance. Another driver going toward Missoula or beyond.
Relax!
But his fingers held the steering wheel in a death grip as he turned onto the highway and watched the traffic behind him. Yep, the gray sedan followed, but that wasn’t the vehicle he was watching.... No, the car he was worried about, a black sports car, maybe a BMW . . . didn’t turn onto the highway.
Good.
Exhaling a sigh of relief, he was instantly at ease again and, with one final glance to his rearview, turned his attention back to where it belonged. Hitting the gas, he homed in on Acacia. According to his nifty little device, she was less than two miles ahead.
He planned not only to catch her but to pass her as well.
Trace heard a moan and then a harsh round of rattling coughs from Eli’s room.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he flipped on the lights at the second story and pushed open the door. Eli was on the bed, but his hair was sweaty, his face flushed, and his eyes looked sunken.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, trying to rouse his son. “Eli?” Eli opened a bleary eye. “How ya feelin’?”
“My throat hurts. Bad.” He blinked himself awake and started coughing deep and hard.
“I’m going to take your temp again,” Trace said.
Eli wasn’t very cooperative, but eventually Trace convinced him to slide the thermometer into his mouth. A few minutes later Trace discovered that his temperature had spiked, now showing 105 degrees, way too high for comfort.
Crushing a children’s Tylenol into water, he insisted his son drink the whole glass, then, walking into the hallway, pulled the door to Eli’s room nearly shut. Sliding a cell phone from his pocket, he dialed the number Kacey had left for him, peering through the crack into his son’s room as he counted off the rings.
