by Ken Casper
He seemed more annoyed than intimidated by the question. “He’d moved as much of the yellowcake as he could to the Ship Channel before the Superfund came in. He was trying to sell it, but twice the deal fell through because the buyers couldn’t come up with the million dollars in cash he was demanding. When you announced you were looking for the missing uranium, he knew it wouldn’t be long before his other warehouses were searched. He needed to hide it in a place nobody would think of looking.”
Marcus made a growling sound, but said nothing. His son would have shrunk from the old man’s glare, had he had the courage to meet his father’s eyes.
“So you knew what he wanted to store at the boat-house? Why did you let him?”
“I had no choice. He threatened to go to Pop with my gambling debts if I didn’t.”
Marcus hung his head, then raised it. “You let that man store terrorist weapons of mass destruction on our property?” he asked his son. “You were willing to commit treason over gambling debts?”
“He also had a list of all the women I’d taken up there.”
The old man squeezed his eyes shut. When he reopened them, they were glassy. He focused not on his son but on Catherine.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me for what I have done to you and your daughter . . . our granddaughter.” Amanda sniffled at his side. “My failings, my blindness and vanity don’t deserve pardon. But I do want you to know that I am sorry for failing you and the rest of the family. I take full responsibility for what this man—he is no longer my son—has done. Had I been a good father we would never have reached this point, Jordan would still be alive, Kelsey would be unharmed and my grandson would have a bright, healthy future ahead of him.”
Amanda stretched her hand across the desktop. He took it and swallowed it in his own.
As the two clung to each other, Catherine felt her animosity for them dissipate. They alone had created the hell they would have to live with for the rest of their lives. Nothing she did or said could add to or alleviate their suffering. She could have loved them once, if only for Jordan’s sake, and maybe in a way, she did even now.
Melissa had moved closer to Dante and was clinging to him, as if she could shield him from what was to come. They were Tyrone’s true victims. Two caring people, who would never recover from the evil of the man they had tried to love.
Catherine rose. “Tyrone Tanner, I am placing you under arrest for the rape of Kelsey Tanner—” Amanda began to sob “—and for violations of the Patriot Act—”
“The hell you are.” Tyrone pulled open a drawer of the wet bar and produced a revolver. With outstretched arms, he pointed it directly at Catherine’s head.
Jeff was on his feet, facing Tyrone and the other members of the family. Catherine’s back was to him, a distinct disadvantage, since she was the one person he needed to act in concert with. Her gun was in the handbag at her feet. His was strapped to his ankle, equally inaccessible. At least for the moment.
“You’re making a bad situation worse,” she said, her voice calm.
The others in the room were a tableau of shock, horror and fear. Amanda, still sitting near the desk, was blinking slowly, as though unable to comprehend what was happening. Her husband was ramrod straight in his high-backed chair, his jaw working from side to side. Melissa’s breathing was audible, her lips turned inward, as she stared at her husband.
Only Dante seemed unintimidated by his father’s desperate move.
“The house is surrounded by police,” Jeff told the man with the gun. “You won’t get out of here alive.”
“With her I will,” he said, lowering the pistol to aim it at Catherine’s chest rather than her head. A smart move, since the torso was a bigger target, easier to hit in a crisis.
Jeff wished he could make eye contact with her, signal a plan. They worked so well together.
“Dad,” Dante said calmly from his father’s right.
He received no response.
“Dad.” The young man’s tone was unconcerned, almost friendly, as if he were about to ask him for the car keys to go on a date.
“Shut up,” Tyrone shouted to his son.
Melissa sucked in her breath when Dante took a step toward his father. Everyone’s eyes were pinned on him.
“Stay back,” Tyrone said in a tense voice, “or I’ll shoot her.”
Dante ignored him and moved directly into the path between his father and his aunt. “You’ll have to shoot me first.”
“Get out of the way,” Tyrone shrieked, frightened now, rather than belligerent.
Jeff watched Catherine. She was still in a difficult position. If she stepped out from behind Dante, she would make herself a target again, yet using her nephew as a shield was unacceptable.
Father and son stared at each other.
“Shoot me,” Dante said. “I have nothing to live for. Shoot me. Then they’ll arrest you for killing me, and I can die knowing I accomplished something positive with my life.”
“Nooo,” Melissa cried.
“Son,” Marcus pleaded just above a whisper.
“Go on, Dad. Shoot,” Dante insisted.
“Drop the gun, Ty,” Catherine urged him. “Let’s end this without anyone else getting hurt.”
Jeff could see Tyrone was uncertain. Still, he clutched the revolver in his hand securely, unwilling to let it go. But the standoff wasn’t to last.
Dante took the final step toward his father, reached out and grabbed the weapon by the barrel. Tyrone’s finger tightened on the trigger. Neither man said a word. Their eyes locked, Dante twisted the gun and wrenched it from his father’s hand. Lightning fast, he reversed the weapon and pointed it at his father’s heart.
He was about to pull the trigger, when Catherine bolted from behind him, and in one swift motion, forced Dante’s arm up. The gun went off.
Tyrone’s face was a mask of stunned horror. The bullet had embedded itself in the ceiling, but not before it snipped off the tip of his left ear, confirming that his son had had every intention of killing him. In an uncharacteristic move, the big man covered his face with his hands and staggered to the couch.
Melissa dashed past him and threw her arms around her son. Dante stroked his mother’s back. Dry-eyed, he assured her he was okay, and that everything was going to be all right.
Which, of course, it wasn’t.
The shot had brought uniformed cops into the room, their guns drawn. Catherine kicked Tyrone’s revolver under a chair where it was not accessible, then instructed her officers to holster their weapons. She ordered the arrest of Tyrone Tanner for rape and for violations of the Patriot Act. With an aching heart, she then arrested his son, Dante, for the murder of Jordan Tanner.
Melissa screamed when her son was handcuffed. She clung to him as he was being led away. Jeff restrained her while Catherine attended to formal police details.
Within a matter of minutes, the last siren had faded into the night and the stately mansion was quiet again.
With Jeff standing behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, she addressed her in-laws.
Marcus looked defeated, wrung-out, Amanda numb.
“I’m sorry it came to this,” Catherine said. “I truly am. In spite of everything, Jordan loved you both very much. I wish you could have let me love you, too.”
Amanda’s eyes blazed at her. “Get out,” she said in a low growl. “Get out of our house.”
Catherine nodded, her heart filled with sadness for these people who had closed their eyes to the wrongs they had spawned. She gazed at Melissa, who sat on the couch, her arms clutched across her slender waist. With bowed head, she rocked back and forth, sobbing inconsolably. Maybe in the months and years to come she’d be able to take some comfort in her other children. Catherine went over to the weeping woman and rested a hand on her thin shoulder. When Melissa looked up, Catherine expected to see reproach. What she found was a plea for forgiveness.
Catherine walked through the door to the hallway,
then turned back one last time to behold a family destroyed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
* * *
JEFF ACCOMPANIED CATHERINE back downtown. The people on the force who had hesitated to greet him the first time he’d appeared there were eager to shake his hand and slap him on the back, now that they knew the role he’d played in bringing down Rialto and finding the missing uranium.
His former partner in homicide even suggested Jeff’s firing last year had been a ruse, that the chief had had him undercover all that time. With a wink toward Catherine, Jeff skirted the issue, thereby enhancing the rumor. Perhaps the termination hadn’t ruined his reputation after all.
It was nearly four o’clock in the morning by the time he and Catherine entered the parking garage adjoining the headquarters building. As they approached her Lexus, Jeff stopped short.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“My car. It’s gone.”
“Where did you leave it?”
He pointed to the zebra-striped no-parking zone.
Catherine nearly doubled over laughing. “You can get it out of the impound lot tomorrow—for a price.”
“I can’t believe they towed it.”
She kept laughing. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
By the time she had her engine started, he was laughing, too.
“Tired?” she asked, as she pulled out of the garage and turned south.
“I should be,” he admitted. “But I’m not.”
“Me, neither.”
He gazed over at the woman behind the wheel. She was still in her professional role, the one that coped with death and disaster and kept a cool head. But this case hadn’t been someone else’s disaster. It had been hers. She’d invested more than half her life in the Tanner family. She bore their name. She’d offered them her loyalty and friendship, and they’d rejected both. More than that, they’d rejected her.
“Where do we go from here?” he asked.
“It’s not over,” she said. “Rialto will be denied bail on the terrorist charge, but that doesn’t mean—”
He covered her hand on the steering wheel with his own. “I meant where do we go from here. You and me?”
Biting her lip, she checked her rearview mirror. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
He saw the beginning of a chink in her cool demeanor. She was conflicted in a way he no longer was. He’d promised to separate himself from her for Kelsey’s sake, but now with the young woman getting professional help, his promise to Catherine seemed less relevant.
“I want you,” he said. “I want you in my life, Cate. And I think you want me.”
She drove on. “It’s more than that,” she acknowledged. “I need you. I shouldn’t, but I do. And that scares me.”
She turned off the loop onto a secondary road.
“And I need you as I’ve never needed another person,” he said, “You complete me, Cate. You make me . . . feel . . . like I’m just waking up. I love you.”
Her lips quivered, but she continued to drive in silence.
“I made a promise that I would not come between you and Kelsey,” he said, “and I intend to honor it, but—”
“I made a vow, too,” she said. “I’m her mother. She has to be my first responsibility. I failed her—”
“You didn’t fail her, Cate. There was no way you could have foreseen what Tyrone was going to do. He’d behaved for twenty-five years—”
“But that’s just the point,” she argued. “He wasn’t behaving. I knew he was playing around, being unfaithful—”
“And so did his wife.”
“But she had no idea he was capable of rape. I did, and I kept quiet about it. I endangered other people by my silence.”
“He was aggressive with you, and he deserved what he got from you. But how do you know he wouldn’t have stopped on his own, that he wouldn’t have pulled back at the last minute?”
She glared over at him. “You mean I should have let him rape me so I could be sure he would?”
He shook his head in frustration. “Pull over, Cate.”
“What?” She tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
“Pull over. Stop the car. Turn off the engine.”
Annoyed and angry, she nevertheless complied.
“Look at me,” he said.
She swiveled to face him, her expression one of irritation and confusion, and a little girl lost.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing to yourself?” he asked, a note of censure in his voice. “You’ve backed yourself into a no-win corner. You blame yourself for Tyrone coming on to you. You blame yourself for kicking him in the balls too early or too late. You blame yourself for not telling Jordan at the time or later. No matter what the alternative is, you insist on beating yourself up for making the wrong choice.”
He reached out and ran a knuckle along the line of her jaw.
“You did exactly the right thing twenty-five years ago. You handled a tough situation with strength and wisdom. You were right not to tell Jordan. As a result you had a beautiful marriage, one that brought you happiness and made his life a joy.”
A tear spilled down her cheek. Jeff gently brushed it away with his forefinger.
“What happened to Kelsey is not your fault. It’s not Kelsey’s fault. It’s not even the fault of Ty’s narrow-minded parents or his too-tolerant wife. It’s the exclusive fault of Tyrone Tanner, a man who knew what was right and chose to do the opposite.” Jeff lifted her chin and softened his voice. “Stop killing yourself for it. You won’t help Kelsey that way, and you’ll never be happy yourself.”
She lowered her gaze.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. “I want you to be happy, Cate. I hope you’ll let me be a part of your life. I’ll be disappointed—” miserable “—if I can’t be, but as long as you’re happy, I will be, too, even if it has to be at a distance.”
She sniffled a sigh, reached up and clasped his wrist with her hand. “I love you,” she murmured.
“Then,” he responded, unable to suppress the joy her words ignited, “I suggest you start this car and drive to my place. There are no ghosts there, and no one is going to walk in on us.”
She chuckled, brushed back the last vagrant tear, turned the key in the ignition and was about to put the car in gear, when Jeff said, “Don’t forget your seat belL”
“Oh,” she said, laughing as she buckled up, “you’re the one who’s going to need a seat belt tonight.”
EPILOGUE
* * *
Six weeks later:
CATHERINE ARRIVED at the Galleria five minutes late and would have been even more behind schedule if she hadn’t lucked out and found a parking space right in front of the Cheesecake Factory entrance. She hurried up the stairs to the restaurant’s second floor and was surprised to find Melissa, who was always on time and usually early, hadn’t yet arrived. Since their corner booth was ready, the maitre d’ showed her to it and promised to bring her lunch companion as soon as she arrived, which turned out to be almost fifteen minutes. Since that fateful night, as Catherine thought of it, the two Tanner women had met several times in her office, but always in the presence of third parties: lawyers, reporters and other law enforcement officials. Private conversations had been confined to late-night telephone calls.
All eyes were on Melissa as she crossed the dining room behind the head waiter, whom she towered over by at least six inches. She hadn’t lost her refined taste in clothes, but today’s outfit wasn’t designed to be glamorous or eye-catching, as on previous occasions. Today she was wearing a beautifully tailored gray business suit and white silk blouse that had just enough ruffle in the collar and cuffs to be feminine without being too girlie.
“Sorry I’m late.” She slipped onto the bench seat opposite Catherine. “Editorial meetings inevitably take longer than I expect. I guess that means I should adjust my expectations.”
Catherine chuckled. “Jordan always complained
about them being too long and drawn out too.” Noting the electric energy in her sister-in-law, Catherine added, “You look and sound like you’re enjoying this new challenge.”
The morning after Tyrone was arrested for violations of the Patriot Act, Melissa filed for divorce, making Catherine suspect she’d been waiting for the right excuse. The following day she called on her father-in-law and told him she wanted to take over the newspaper as editor.
Amanda had been scornful in proclaiming Tyrone’s trophy wife unqualified. Melissa coldly reminded her she had a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s in business administration, better qualifications than Ty’s BS in kinesiology. Under Ty’s inept leadership circulation had dropped, and the paper’s reputation had suffered. Melissa guaranteed she could turn things around.
Marcus refused her offer nevertheless, so Melissa used leverage. If they didn’t grant her request they’d never see Tyrone’s kids again. She’d also change the last names of the minor children to her maiden name, which she was reverting to, in order to spare them the humiliation of being associated with a traitor and a felon.
Marcus raged and threatened to cut off all financial support to her, while Amanda swore they’d sue for custody of the minor children.
Melissa called their bluffs. While Ty was playing around with other women—no telling how many of them he raped—she had been playing the stock market and doing quite well, thank you very much. She didn’t need Tanner money and wouldn’t take any, but if they did anything to alienate her children—like call her a slut—she vowed to use her resources to destroy them. Amanda became irate. Marcus ordered her to silence and agreed to Melissa's demands.
“I am enjoying it,” she told Catherine now. “I should have gotten a job years ago, but that, of course, is water under the bridge.”
“I’m so proud of the way you’re taking charge,” Catherine said. “Jordan would be too.”
A waiter appeared. Melissa ordered lobster ravioli, fruit compote, and garlic bread, then asked Catherine if she’d split a piece of turtle pie with her for dessert. Catherine grinned. “No more dry garden salads?”
