“I know you wish it had never happened, Mom. I remember you saying that when I left.”
“No, son, I never said that. I said ‘I wish . . .’ and you didn’t allow me to finish. Now I want you to listen to me.” The steel was back in her voice. “I never have wished I didn’t conceive you. What I wish is that I had told you sooner. I held information that you needed to make sense of who you are. Of why you and your father sometimes butt heads.”
He was confused. She still used the phrase your father naturally. “Is Bill here?” he asked.
She stiffened. “Your father,” she said, “is out taking a walk around the grounds. He’ll be back soon.”
“I understand. I’ll be gone before he gets back.”
“No, Sean,” she begged. “He needs to see you, say things to you. Please—wait until he gets back. Until you two can talk.”
He’d put her through so much pain, he could give her that much, he decided. “Mom, I’ve got all the time in the world. I’ll wait.”
He couldn’t believe those words had emerged from his mouth. A first for someone who fled from even the suggestion of family get-togethers.
As the bell tower at the point rang out the early evening hour, the man focused his binoculars on the poignant embrace. His gaze lingered first on the young man, then on the woman, as their auburn hair mingled in shades of dark and light red. It was only when they stepped apart that he swung the binoculars to inspect the house again and the shore on either side of the estate. Still no movement.
Now is the time, he decided. He powered up the idling boat so he could make his way to shore. He reached for the bulky package and started to open it.
At that instant, though, unrest swept over him. He refocused the binoculars on the man and woman. She was weeping, holding his face in her hands.
He couldn’t do what he’d come to do. Instead he withdrew only a creased photo from the packet. Dropping it over the side of the boat, he watched until the faces blurred, waterlogged, and the photo at last sank into the lake.
Perhaps it was time for some things to end.
60
NEW YORK CITY
Sarah and Jon were almost done with their meal when his cell rang. He frowned, got up from the kitchen bar stool, and moved into the living room to take the call.
“You sure?” Sarah heard him say. “Absolutely sure? . . . I see.”
He looked troubled when he sat back down on the stool.
“Hey, you’ve been babysitting me enough lately.” Sarah chuckled. “Not that I needed it or anything. Need a listening ear?”
He swiveled toward her. “I just got confirmation on a rumor I came across a couple of days ago. Turns out it’s real. Or they’re real.”
“What’s real?”
“Take a look for yourself.” He handed her his cell phone. “Scroll through the images.”
Frowning, she took the phone and scanned the photos. “Hey, that looks like the Polar Bear Bomber—Justin Eliot. Where did you get these? And that looks like . . .” She zoomed in on the images. “There’s only profiles of the other guy, but Jon, I swear that’s . . . Sean.”
“It is,” Jon murmured. “It’s been confirmed as an undeniable match.”
She now stared at him. “Sean knew Justin Eliot? But that’s not poss—”
“The photos show that Sean and Justin had a conversation of some kind. Looks like it was at a bar. What exactly they said, we don’t know. We haven’t been able to trace any recording. This is the first time I’ve seen the photos,” he added. “They were only a rumor before.”
“You don’t think—”
“No,” Jon replied, “I don’t think.”
But Sean had disappeared, she knew. Had he gone off the deep end because he’d somehow gotten involved with an eco-crazy group that had hired Justin Eliot to playact and then plant a bomb? Had he been wrestling with his conscience and couldn’t take it anymore, so he had to leave the country for a while? Or had he discovered his unwitting role the night he disappeared from New York City? Is that why he couldn’t explain to her where he’d been?
Then the full extent of the legal, ethical quandary hit. In her relentless search for the accomplices behind the bombing, had she actually been searching for her brother?
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
The man’s contact phoned while he was still on Chautauqua Lake. “Stapleton’s at it again,” he reported. “Convincing the president to buy Sarah Worthington off with the AG job isn’t enough. Word is, she’s still not backing off the AF case. She’s not happy with only taking Sandstrom down.”
The man nodded. So Sarah was still digging. She didn’t yet know how dangerous the game could get.
“The president threw another tantrum in the Oval Office,” his contact added. “Says he wants the Worthingtons controlled. So he and Stapleton are putting the heat on Sarah’s boss. They aren’t taking no for an answer. Let’s just say John Barnhill isn’t having a restful Saturday night. Can’t say no to the president but is defending Sarah and her instincts too.”
“And Sean’s already in a headlock,” the man mused. Even if he doesn’t know about the photos yet.
Carson, Sandstrom, and Spencer had been in on that setup. They’d already used that card to keep Will in check and take him out of Senator Loughlin’s way. They’d use it again, the man knew, if Sean even hinted that he might step into any political race.
“Yes,” his contact agreed. “So Will is left. Getting him out of politics wasn’t enough. Spencer is after all three of the Worthington kids. Makes you wonder why he’s so vitriolic against them.”
The man knew why, but he’d let his contact come to his own conclusions and not confirm or deny them. “So what’s his next plan for Will?”
“Word is that he and Stapleton have agreed that Stapleton is going to offer Will the CEO position. He says Will’s always wanted it, and he can use that to control Will and the Worthington family. Stapleton has a lot of confidence in himself.”
And that’s exactly what will take him down someday.
“With Sarah as AG, her hands will be tied on the AF case because of the deal in place. With Will as CEO, the White House and AF will control him. And Sean will stay meek, or Will might force him to be so out of fear of what might happen if those photos become live.”
“Maybe.” The man frowned. “I guess that remains to be seen.”
But somehow he knew it would take more than that to alter the destinies of the three Worthington siblings.
61
NEW YORK CITY
The room spun crazily around Sarah as she considered the possibilities.
“Wait,” Jon said. “Look carefully at the photos again.”
His quiet voice cut through the dizziness, and she blinked. “What about the photos?”
“Check every photo. Note the angle of the camera. Sean is always a profile. But the bomber? He changes positions for each photo, as if he’s mugging for a camera . . .”
“. . . so his face can be viewed from all angles, for positive ID,” she finished.
“Exactly.”
“You’re thinking this is a setup,” she said.
“You bet I am. Sean might be a wild card sometimes, but he’d never be involved in a bombing.”
She shook her head. “This looks really bad.” It was hard enough that Will was on the board of AF and Sean was with a Green Justice buddy in the Arctic when the oil fiasco happened, and now she was the one prosecuting the DOJ’s criminal negligence suit against AF. Even though she’d given up any legal decision-making power to Worthington Shares when she’d taken her DOJ job—a decision her father would never understand—that wouldn’t mean anything to the public. She was still a Worthington in their eyes. And if it was the least bit possible Sean had anything to do with the bombing and with trying to control the flow of information about the oil crisis by having a New York Times reporter on board with him . . . well, her thoughts couldn’t even go there. The press would crucify t
he DOJ, the entire Worthington family, and Jon Gillibrand.
“I agree. The evidence looks pretty incriminating,” Jon admitted. “Then again, any evidence can be manufactured. We both know that. My guess is that he was just being Sean. He met a guy at a bar when he was killing time waiting for somebody, and they talked. Sean had no idea he was being captured on camera.”
“How long can you keep this info under wraps?” Sarah asked.
“I called in a favor with a lab tech friend to run Sean’s facial recognition and body profiling software, to make sure my gut was right—that the profile was a match for him. My friend will keep his mouth shut until I tell him it’s okay to open it. But there’s no guarantee other people don’t have or won’t receive copies of these photos and won’t come to other conclusions.”
“There’s only one person who can tell us the truth—Sean.” She speed-dialed his number.
“Actually, two,” Jon corrected. “Whoever set him up.”
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
Sean was sitting on the porch, enjoying the peaceful view. His mother was moving happily around the kitchen, rustling up a simple dinner. Sean didn’t want anything to eat, but his mother needed to prepare it. His stomach still churned at the confrontation soon to come.
Out of habit, he checked his cell for calls and messages. Sarah had phoned three times in the past 15 minutes and left a terse text.
Call. Now.
Like he needed more tension in his life at the moment. He wasn’t ready to explain anything to his sister.
The phone rang again with her ringtone. Leave it to his attorney sister to be so persistent.
He took the call. He knew she wouldn’t give up until he did. This time he couldn’t claim he was in a meeting halfway around the world and too busy to take it—a tactic he knew she was wise to but he still tried.
He was right. Her lawyer side was in full swing, and she was in interrogation mode.
“You met some guy at a bar and talked to him. Who was it?”
“What?” Now he was confused. This wasn’t about where he’d been the last two weeks? He hadn’t been in any bars in Portugal or the Azores.
“A bar near 20th and Madison,” she clarified.
He searched his memory, and guilt set in. That was the night he’d been trying to duck the family dinner that Drew had set up. The night Drew had given the three siblings the spiel about how the American Frontier crisis would change each of their destinies. He’d been late. “Yeah, I was there once, for a meeting with an executive, but that’s been a while. And the guy never showed.”
“So who did you talk with?”
“And this is important why?” he tried.
“Just answer the question!”
It was like dealing with a younger version of their father. He acquiesced to get it over with. “I had a long wait, so I chatted with some people.” He thought back. “One guy in particular, who sat next to me at the bar. Seemed nice enough, but a bit odd, or maybe he’d already had too much to drink.”
“But you didn’t know him?”
“What? I’d never seen him before. Haven’t seen him since. Don’t know his name. So now are you going to tell me why you’re grilling me?”
“I’ve just seen photos of you with that guy. And he happens to be the Polar Bear Bomber,” she announced.
He dropped his phone. “You have what?” he said after he’d fumbled to pick it up from the porch steps.
“Wait, and I’ll send one to you.”
He raised a brow when he saw it. “Yes, that’s me, and that’s the guy who was a little off. We just chatted for a bit about nothing, I guess. Can’t remember. Then I left to go to the dinner at Drew’s. So why would somebody take a picture . . .” Reality set in. “Are there more?”
“Yes. Jon’s got them on his phone.”
“Jon? He’s seen them? What does he know? Where did he get them?” He fired the questions at her.
“Jon’s here. He showed them to me.”
Jon was there? Sean didn’t have more than an instant to ponder that.
His friend’s voice came on the line. “You know what this means, right?”
He did. His heart was racing as he put together the pieces. “But you don’t think . . .”
“Of course we don’t think,” Jon replied, “but you should probably—”
“—let Will know.” He would as soon as he hung up with Jon.
“And Sean? Don’t worry. I’ll be here with your sister.”
Leave it to Jon to be the knight in subtle armor.
62
NEW YORK CITY
Will was sitting with Davy in their biggest chair, reading Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, when Laura handed him his cell. “It’s Sean.”
He raised a brow. She simply nodded.
“Hey, pardner,” she told Davy, “I’ll take over and finish, okay?”
Davy wrinkled his nose but got up from his dad’s lap.
Will took the phone out into the foyer. This wasn’t the best time to have an intense conversation—on a Saturday evening right before Davy was heading to bed.
“Okay,” Will said into the phone, “I’m clear.”
“I need to tell you something,” Sean said.
Will’s heart sped up. What had happened when Sean was gone? Where had he gone?
“There are some photos of me, taken with the Polar Bear Bomber in a bar,” Sean declared.
Will felt sick. So Sean knew about them? And he knew the guy was the Polar Bear Bomber? So that meant . . . wait. Before he deduced anything, he needed to ask. “Is there anything you want to tell me about them? Or how you know about them?”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I knew,” Will murmured.
“What?”
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
Sean gripped the phone and headed down the cobblestone path. “You know I’m not involved in the bombing, right? It was a setup.”
“Just tell me what happened,” his brother said. “We’ll put the pieces together.”
After Sean told him about the secretary who’d called last-minute about the meeting at the bar, Will commented only, “Hmm.”
“The executive didn’t show,” Sean added.
“Hmm,” Will said again.
Sean knew his brother’s code. Will’s mind was working at light speed to pull together myriad scattered information and form a precise picture. Sean’s own thoughts flashed back to the day Will had passed on the Senate bid. Jason Carson had been lurking around the side of the stage during Will’s announcement. Suddenly Sean knew the truth.
“Carson told you right before you were to announce your run, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t know my role in it, so you took a pass?”
“As far as the public is concerned, your role in it doesn’t really matter,” Will said. “Point is, the pictures exist. For most people, that would be enough.”
Sean stopped walking. He was stunned at the depth of his brother’s love. “You put yourself on the chopping block. Not only for one reason but for two. Everything you’d dreamed of, you gave up . . . for me.” How greatly he’d misjudged Will.
“No, not everything. Only one thing. And nothing is worth losing you or risking your reputation.”
“So what do we do now?” Sean asked.
“We fight back. We leverage Carson’s own setup—and all who are involved with him—against him.”
“How?”
“Leave that up to me.”
Sean heard the determination in his brother’s voice. Will had a plan, but he wasn’t willing to share it. Sean knew better than to push. It was enough that his big brother believed him and would fight for him.
“Caped Crusader, huh?” Sean joked.
“Always.”
NEW YORK CITY
Will stepped outside his front door so he’d have absolute quiet to assemble the pieces of the puzzle.
Sarah’s and Will’
s suspicions about American Frontier bombing their own building, which Darcy and Jon concurred with, had to be true, even if they couldn’t fully prove them yet.
Will also was fairly certain the convenient confession and quick death of the bomber was orchestrated by AF somehow, particularly Sandstrom and Carson. Sarah was on the trail and wouldn’t give up until she had answers.
The photos of Sean with the bomber were a hackneyed attempt to frame the easiest Worthington sibling to get to. Sean, by nature, was friendly and social. He didn’t have Will’s natural cynicism or Sarah’s attorney instincts. Plus his ties with ecological causes made him a prime target—a good excuse for hating big oil companies.
Will narrowed his eyes. So they thought they could control his political run—saving Loughlin’s ineffectual hide for another term in office—and force him away from American Frontier in order to continue their Viking drive forward into new ventures without a naysayer voice. They thought they could control how hard and deep Sarah dug for the criminal negligence suit. All by holding set-up pictures of Sean with the bomber as a noose around the Worthington family’s necks.
Those moves infuriated Will. Might did not make right. His keen sense of justice and his determination to go after Carson—the key to felling the other chess pieces, he believed—hardened like cement. Sandstrom was already soon to fall. That left Frank Stapleton, his old mentor but secret enemy, in temporary leadership of AF. Stapleton didn’t care about whales and polar bears or oil-coated shores. His interest was purely financial. And he had strong ties to the current president of the United States for extra backing.
Everyone, though, had their Achilles’ heel. Will simply had to find it.
He thought back to the night of the setup—the same night Drew had called the three siblings together. What would have happened if Sean had said he couldn’t make the meeting at the bar and been at Drew’s house on time?
Will shook his head. He knew the answer. Carson would just have found another time and place to set up Sean with the bomber.
A Powerful Secret Page 22
