by Sharon Potts
Kevin glanced over at the Simmers, who were walking across the grass toward their limo. “Time to go.” He hugged her but didn’t release his grip. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were wet. “Thanks again for saving my little guy,” he said, then hurried after his in-laws.
A breeze unsettled the tree, and a few leaves floated down. Kevin was back. She had her brother back.
She sensed someone standing near her and turned. Tom Smolleck. She hadn’t expected to see him, but here he was, looking unflappable, once again, in his dark suit and white shirt.
“Nice service,” he said.
“I didn’t realize you were here. Thank you for coming.”
“I wanted to say good-bye.” He rubbed his eyebrow. “When are you heading up to Rhode Island?”
“In a couple of days. I have to get back to my classes, but I want to be sure everyone is okay before I leave.”
“I heard your dad will be in rehab for a while.”
“That’s right,” she said. “He’s going to have to work very hard if he wants to walk again.”
“Sounds like it’s in his hands.”
“Yes. I suppose it is.” The sails on the sailboat were coming down. She wondered whether the boat was going to moor at Scotty’s where she and Smolleck had had lunch. It wasn’t far from here.
She wondered whether she would ever see him again.
“A few days ago you talked about living in a glass bubble,” she said.
He nodded.
“The thing about bubbles is they inevitably burst,” she said.
There was a sadness in his gray eyes. “I’m sorry about all you’ve been through,” he said. “But sometimes leaving your sheltered world behind can free you to do other things.”
She couldn’t help but smile. There was an optimist hiding inside that dark suit.
He took her hand and held it. “If there’s anything I can ever do for you, you’ll call me, right?”
The heat of his hand warmed hers. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”
He met her eyes and hesitated. Either one of them could have leaned in a tiny bit, but the moment passed.
He released her hand. “Take care of yourself.”
“You, too.”
She watched him leave the park, shoulders stiff, head up. The perfect clothes, the rigid, formal way he moved and talked—it was his way of coping with impossible, heart-breaking situations. It was his armor.
And she realized, with her glass bubble gone, so was her own armor. No protective glass.
Just herself.
The thought was terrifying.
CHAPTER 57
She was choking, smoke stinging her nose and eyes. She had to find Ethan. She had to save Mama.
Aubrey woke with a start, her heart pounding. She blinked as the blurs around her came into focus. Grayish-blue wallpaper. White bedspread. Pillow crushed in her arms.
It had been a dream. Just another dream.
She sniffed the air. Smoke.
That was no dream.
She jumped out of bed and hurried into the hallway. The smell of something burning was stronger here. Like the time she and Kevin had made a fire in their parents’ fireplace. The smoky smell had lingered in the upstairs bedrooms and hallway for weeks.
The door to her mother’s bedroom was ajar. Aubrey went inside. The bed was made—all the throw pillows in place—but Mama wasn’t there.
A thin haze floated around her, glowing in the morning light that spilled in from behind the curtains. Had her mother built a fire?
Aubrey knelt down on the cold stone slab in front of the fireplace. A couple of embers smoldered, and thin pieces of charred paper drifted like bats in the draft. She pushed through the ashes with the poker.
Several fragments of yellowed paper.
As recently as ten days ago, just before her epiphany about Jackson, she would have put the poker down and returned to her room. But she no longer ran from asking questions.
She picked out a few small pieces of paper caught beneath a leg of the andiron and examined one. On it was a line drawing of some kind. An architect’s blueprint? She examined another fragment. Part of a printed word—LIBR. The Spanish word libre, meaning free?
Then she realized what she held in her hand—remnants of the blueprint for Columbia’s library. The blueprint her mother had told her about. On another small piece were scorched words.
Several hundred students . . .
Written with a black pen in a strong, confident hand.
It was just like the handwriting on the notecard she had found in Mama’s memento box.
Her father’s handwriting.
Aubrey was falling. She leaned back against one of the armchairs.
Would you still love me, Princess? Even when you realize the one you love is a murderer?
Now she understood why he had asked that.
And Mama knew, too.
CHAPTER 58
Her mother sat in a chair at the patio table, shaded by the gumbo limbos, palms, and bamboo trees. Maybe it was the harsh morning light, or perhaps the recent lack of rain, but the plants seemed to droop around her.
She was staring off absently, unaware of Aubrey’s presence, her bandaged hands upturned as though in supplication.
Aubrey pulled out the chair beside her. The loud scraping sound jarred Mama back. Her eyes flitted over the oversize T-shirt Aubrey had slept in, then paused on her fingertips, which were blackened by soot.
“Why did you burn the blueprint?” Aubrey was surprised by the strength in her voice, because it was nothing like the terrible weakness inside her.
Mama bit her lower lip and looked down at her bandaged hands.
That’s when it hit her.
Her mother had wanted her to smell the smoke and find the few charred scraps of blueprint.
“Have you had it hidden away?” Aubrey asked. “Tell me. Why did you burn it now, after all these years?”
She continued to stare at her hands. “A nurse gave it to me at the hospital. It was with your father’s things when the ambulance brought him in.”
Had that been the paper her father had found when she’d called him about the babysitter? If so, had he taken it from the time-share, planning to destroy it, knowing it was the one remaining physical link to what he had planned to do?
“It was Dad’s idea to blow up Columbia’s library and kill innocent people, wasn’t it?”
Her mother’s face seemed to harden into stone. She was protecting him, the way she had always done.
“Can’t you for once tell me the truth? For God’s sake, Mama. My whole life you and Dad have tried to keep me in the dark. And I’ve let you. I’ve been afraid if I pressed you for answers, I would somehow rip whatever it was that held you and Dad together.” She took a breath. Her heart was racing. “Why did I bother? You two were already broken.”
Her mother’s face was filled with agony. She extended her bandaged hands toward Aubrey.
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey said, “but I can’t do this anymore. I need to know the truth, and if you won’t tell me, maybe Dad will.” She pushed back the heavy wrought iron chair. The sound scraped painfully against her heart as she went toward the house.
Behind her, she could hear her mother’s voice, barely a whisper. “I love you, sweetheart,” she said. “Remember that, no matter what.”
CHAPTER 59
Her father sat in a chair by the window in his hospital room, the basket of wildflowers from the Simmers, now wilted, on a side table. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his hands lay palms-up on his lap, like they’d already surrendered.
Her father. Would he finally tell her the truth?
Aubrey stepped into the room. It was larger than the one he had been in originally, and there was a patient in the second bed. An orderly was adjusting the bed, moving wires and tubes.
Her father stared at his writhing roommate, who was moaning over and over, “Kill me. Put me out of my misery. Kill me.”
“Leave me alone,” said the man. “I want to die.”
“Dad,” Aubrey said, “I have to talk to you.”
He ignored her and continued watching the other man as the orderly rolled the gurney out of the room. “Why are they prolonging his agony?” her father said, frowning at the empty space where his roommate’s bed had been. “He just wants to die.”
“Dad. We have to talk.” She stood directly in front of him, forcing him to look at her.
He sighed. “What is it, Aubrey?” His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by purple bruises.
She held out her hand with the fragment of charred paper covered with his handwriting.
He seemed to shrink against the chair. “Where . . . where did you get that?”
“From the fireplace. Mama tried to burn it—not very successfully.”
“It’s not what you think, Aubrey. I swear.”
He had the audacity to deny it? “Tell me the truth,” she said. “What you did. All of it. I need to hear it from you.”
“So she told you.” His face drooped. “She promised she wouldn’t.”
There was something in his voice that stopped her. A plaintive tone like from the previous day. Was there another secret he believed Mama had revealed?
Would you still love me, Princess? Even when you realize the one you love is a murderer?
He couldn’t have been referring to the library. Even though he may have planned it, the library bombing had never happened, and no one had died. Yet he had called himself a murderer.
A murderer.
The pieces came crashing together.
“Oh, my God. You blew up the brownstone, didn’t you?” Her voice sounded discombobulated to herself.
Her father looked away abruptly.
In that single gesture, he confirmed what she didn’t want to believe, but she had to hear him say it. Once and for all, she needed to hear the truth.
“Say it,” she said.
He kept his head down.
“Say it!”
“Yes.” His chin jerked up. “Yes. I did it. I blew up the brownstone. I killed my friends and an innocent child.”
She sat on the edge of his bed, no longer able to support her own weight. His confession brought no relief, only a deeper pain. Her father was a weak, selfish person who was willing to kill others so he wouldn’t go to jail. Her father was a murderer.
She slowed her breathing, trying to calm herself. “That’s why you took on all those Innocence Projects. Freeing innocent men because you’re the one who should have been behind bars.”
He stared at the empty space where his roommate’s bed had been.
“We almost lost Ethan because of you.”
“I’m so sorry, Princess. So sorry about everything.”
She took in a deep breath. “You must tell the FBI what you’ve done. You must pay for this.”
He shook his bandaged head, his hands open, pleading.
“You’re a coward,” she said.
He met her eyes. “But you’re not.”
Maybe not a coward, but certainly no hero. She got up from the bed on unsteady feet, wondering how she would be able to walk out of this room, walk to her car, walk away from everything.
His voice followed her. It sounded as though he were begging her. “I love you, Princess. Remember that, no matter what.”
“I’m not your princess,” she said, and kept walking.
CHAPTER 60
The snow was falling lightly. Aubrey watched through the kitchen window in her apartment. She had been back in Rhode Island for more than two weeks, burying herself in her classes and dissertation, trying not to think about what she had left behind, unfinished. What she couldn’t bring herself to do.
She dumped the empty bottle of wine she and Trish had drunk the night before in the garbage, along with the mostly empty Chinese-takeout containers. She and her friend had talked until almost two in the morning, and Aubrey had been too exhausted to clean up when Trish had finally left.
Trish was a good listener, and like the professional psychologist she was, she offered no solutions. They both understood the process. That getting it all out—the hurt, the fear, the letdown—might somehow free Aubrey to move on.
But Aubrey hadn’t told Trish everything. She doubted that she’d ever admit to anyone what her father had done.
She put the teabags back into the blue-and-white porcelain canister and an open box of Triscuits into the fridge. The postcard Kevin had sent her a couple of days ago was stuck on the refrigerator door with a little doggy magnet.
Aubrey slipped the postcard off and examined it once again. A jumping dolphin against a blue-green lagoon and the printed words, “Dolphin Research Center, Marathon, Florida.” On the back, Kevin had written:
Yeah—I know. I can’t believe they still make postcards. Ethan’s loving the dolphins. He gave one a big hug. He’s doing great. Mom’s good. We’re all good. I know it sounds corny, but wish you were here. Kev (aka Bilbo Baggins)
Her eyes stung, like the first time she’d read the postcard. Ethan was doing great, her brother was back to his old self, and Mama was good. Aubrey spoke to her every day. The conversations were slightly awkward, as they both struggled to acquaint themselves with the people they had become, but each day was a little easier. A little more natural.
They never talked about Dad.
He had been moved to a rehab center in Miami. He was still in a wheelchair, uninterested in trying to walk on his own, unwilling to take another step. At least, that was the most recent report Aubrey had gotten from his doctor yesterday.
She put the postcard back under the magnet and headed toward the front door. She turned at the sound of toenails skittering across the wood floor. She stooped over and hugged Wolvie, taking in his delicious musty-dog smell. Wolvie ran his cold, wet nose against her neck.
At least getting her dog back had been an easy decision for her. When she’d gotten home from Miami, the first thing she’d done was march over to the apartment where Jackson lived with his latest conquest. Wolvie had raced into Aubrey’s arms, and she had refused to let him go.
“I’m taking him,” she’d told Jackson. “For the last six years, I’ve been the one to feed him, walk him, and take care of him when he’s sick. He’s at least as much mine as yours.”
“So take him,” Jackson had said with a shrug. “I don’t give a shit.” And Aubrey had wondered what she’d ever seen in the man.
Wolvie rolled over on his back, and she scratched his belly. “I have to go to class, puppy,” she said. “But I’ll be back soon.”
Her dog’s tail thumped against the floor.
It was snowing hard when she got to the campus. She trudged across the slushy path toward her classroom. Benches and skeletal tree branches were coated with snow. In front of her, barely visible through a curtain of white, was the grayish-white facade of the library. She watched students climbing the steps and thought about another college library. Another era.
Snowflakes stung her cheeks like pinpricks.
She no longer had the protection of her snow-globe bubble. She was on her own, faced with a decision only she could make.
What was holding her back? It wasn’t as though she hadn’t already been making difficult choices during Ethan’s ordeal. She had toughened her heart, first deciding whether to tell the FBI about the ransom note, then whether to turn her mother in to them. But those choices at least had the potential of a good outcome. They had been about getting Ethan back. This decision would make her a traitor to her family, and worse. Her father would likely go to prison, maybe even be subject to the death penalty.
How could she do that to her father? Just because it was the right thing?
But what was the right thing?
The snow fell around her. Flakes clung to her coat, reminding her of the ashes that fell when sh
e had stood beside Janis, watching the time-share burn. I’m free, Gertrude’s daughter had said, her wrists in handcuffs. And so is Mom.
Aubrey thought about her father in his wheelchair, already mummified and so paralyzed by guilt and shame he was unable to do what he needed to. She thought about her mother, reaching for her with bandaged hands. Mama didn’t have the strength to take action, either. She had already been burned once too often trying to help her husband.
The answer came to Aubrey with a gust of glistening flakes. Her parents wanted her to free them. They needed her to free them.
She reached into her pocket for her phone.
“Smolleck,” he said. His voice was strong and emboldening, but she didn’t need his reassurance. She had made her decision.
“Tom. It’s Aubrey.”
A memory brushed her consciousness. A smiling blue-eyed man lifting her high in the air. How’s my beautiful princess?
She blinked back tears and took a deep breath. “There’s something I must tell you about my father.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Whew. Finished the book. I never could have done it without an amazing support system.
My tough-but-always perspicacious critique group: Christine Jackson, Miriam Auerbach, Neil Plakcy, and Kristy Montee. An especially hearty thanks to Neil and Kristy for their in-depth, critical reading of the manuscript and their often-brilliant suggestions.
My technical support crew: Julie Hecht DeMay and David Hecht, for their patience and useful input on psychology in academia. Jack and Marilyn Turken, for their medical expertise. Detective John Perez, Miami-Dade County Special Victims Bureau, Missing Persons Unit, who graciously took time out of his busy day to help me understand police procedures.
My first-readers and cheerleaders: Arnold Weiss, Koula Papadopoulos, and, as always, Delia Foley, who did double duty as my tour guide around her native Coconut Grove, with a memorable lunch stop at Scotty’s Landing.
My enthusiastic champion, Christine Kling, who guided me to the perfect home for Someone Must Die.
