by A. C. Arthur
Brandon nodded. “You up for that?” he asked Bailey.
“Yes. I’m sick of these secrets and knowing looks from the Seniors. Aunt Beverly acts like she didn’t even hear what they’d said at the table that day. That her husband could have fathered another child. Who the hell reacts like that when they find out their husband has been unfaithful?” Bailey continued as they walked down the hallway.
“They weren’t married when Uncle Henry slept with Roslyn Ausby,” Brock said calmly.
“Bullshit! They were weeks away from being married, that’s close enough for me. Why isn’t she raging? Why didn’t she walk out on his sorry ass?” Bailey asked when they came to a stop near the elevators.
“Why didn’t mom?” Brandon asked.
None of them answered. They all simply stood in front of the elevator doors and waited until they opened. They boarded and rode down to the first floor then went their separate ways in the garage to get their cars.
They arrived at the house at the same time, getting out and walking inside only to come to a stop in the foyer.
“I didn’t see this when I came in last night,” Bailey said.
The pictures that had been hanging in the study—the one of Darla and of their family—were stacked against the wall.
“Did he say anything about moving?” Brock asked.
He’d walked further into the house so that he could see into the living room. Brandon followed him. There were boxes in there as well as pictures that were taken off the walls.
“None of this was here when I left the house last night. If he started packing it was after eight. When I came back I didn’t turn on all these lights. I was going to go upstairs and go to bed but I saw the light on in his study so I went back there to see what he was doing up,” Bailey said as she too now looked around the living room.
“What was he doing?” she asked.
Brock shook his head. “Let’s find out.”
The foyer was in a circular shape with the main staircase winding at its center. Beige marble floors with an intricate dark brown mosaic design at its center gleamed as the brothers and sister walked back toward the room that was their father’s study. Stepping inside each of them noted all the boxes around the room.
“He was lying right here,” Bailey said when she stood in front of that old burgundy leather couch.
Brock nodded. “Then let’s start looking through these boxes. We’ll see what he was packing up.”
“You mean what he was trying to hide this time that ended up causing his heart attack?”
“Don’t say that,” Bailey said vehemently. “This did not cause his heart…he’s going to wake up. He will,” she said and opened a box.
Brock looked at Brandon, who did not say a word, simply opened the box in front of him and began going through it.
About a half hour in, there was a curse. Loud, long and fluent Brandon cursed again as he read the words of a letter.
“Hello Darla,” he began to read out loud when he’d looked up to see his brother and sister staring at him.
“I am writing to tell you about a little secret your husband and I share. He’s grown into such an intelligent young man, with dark brown eyes like his daddy. He likes football and barbeque ribs, especially the Kenner’s Sweet ‘n Spicy sauce. You like that Kenner’s sauce too, don’t you? I mean, you should since you own a good chunk of stock in your daddy’s company. You’ll also inherit your husband’s fortune if anything should happen to him. You and your two darling twins. A boy and a girl, but that wasn’t enough. No, you had to go out and get another son. I often wondered why you did that when your husband has known for years about a little boy who needs his daddy. But how lucky for you that you now have the perfect family. Well, it’s my turn to make my family perfect. Ask your husband about that day. If he doesn’t remember show him these pictures and maybe it’ll all come back to him.”
Brandon turned the envelope upside down and watched as pictures scattered across the carpeted floor. For endless moments the three of them simply stared down at the pictures, none of them moving to pick them up. It was as if those dark storm clouds hanging over their heads had just started to erupt.
Brock was the first to break the silence. “What was the date of the letter?”
Brandon shook his head and forced himself to look away from the pictures and back to the letter in his hand. He read off the date slowly, knowingly.
“Two weeks before mom’s accident,” Brock said.
“No,” Bailey whispered. “No. No. No.”
“I had that old police report pulled,” Brock continued. “Nobody ever mentioned that there was rear-end damage to mom’s car.”
Brandon felt his fingers tightening on the letter. “Maybe she was in an accident before then.”
“Two accidents? In her precious Camaro?” Brock asked. “Mom taught me how to drive in that car. Nobody could handle it the way she did, especially not on those curvy dirt roads where she was driving.”
“She’d had her last round of chemo that day,” Bailey said. “She was tired and probably got dizzy. No matter how good a driver she was, there was no way she would have been able to control the car under those conditions.”
“Then why would she have gotten into the car in the first place?” Brandon asked. “We all got that speech about drinking and driving or drinking while impaired in any way. Hell, we were afraid she was going to have it printed on the back of our driver’s licenses as soon as we got them. She was cautious and damn near fanatical about driver safety. So why get into her car right after dad brought her home from that last chemo session? Why not come right inside and go to bed the way she’d been doing before?”
“You are not going to do this!” Bailey yelled. “You two don’t get to stand here while my father is lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life and insinuate that he had something to do with her death! That maybe some crazy ass woman also had something to do with my mother’s death! She was not run off that road. If she had been, somebody would have told us. Why would anybody want to keep that a secret? I don’t believe it and I’m warning you to both stop it! Just stop this right now!”
Bailey was trembling as she spoke and when Brandon made a motion to go to her, she’d jerked away so hard she almost fell back on the couch.
“Let’s just all stay calm and think this through together,” Brock said.
“No! Dammit! I will not stay calm while you bring all this bullshit up,” she said before tossing whatever she’d taken out of those boxes across the room. “I just won’t!”
She was gone before either of them knew she planned to leave. Running out of the room as if someone were chasing her. Brock looked to Brandon and they both wondered what to do next. Bailey never had meltdowns, at least not in front of her family and not like that. One of them should go after her, Brandon thought. Brock, once again, spoke first.
“Give her a minute. She’s gonna hate us both for seeing her like that and I don’t know about you but I’m not in the mood to have Bailey swinging on me right now,” he said grimly.
Brandon hated to admit it, but neither was he. Maybe he would just give Bailey a moment and then he’d go see if she was alright.
#
Bailey needed air. She needed to breathe and re-evaluate. To play back everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes and years before. She needed, oh god, she needed none of this to be happening. As she yanked open the front door of the house and ran outside the last thing she expected was to be scooped up into strong arms and held on to as if she were a precious jewel.
But that’s exactly what he did.
Devlin held her as she cried. He sat on the front step and cradled her in his arms as she sobbed for every picture she’d seen of her father naked in bed with another woman on the floor, for the words her brothers had spoken about her mother’s car accident and for all the truths that she was stuck with no matter how much she wanted to deny them.
Chapter 9
The room was dark and quiet but for the irritating sound of the machines beeping beside the bed. Albert had been in and out all day, hearing familiar voices and then those of the doctors or nursing staff, talking quietly, but succinctly, about his condition. There were things they wanted to know about his eating and exercising habits and about his life in general. They asked if there had been any stress in the last months.
Al had remained silent, listening as his children tried to answer—but at the same time not really tell everything—the questions. Nobody wanted to speak about the secret son, the one that was now making himself known to their family. Al didn’t want to know himself. Or rather, he did want to know once and for all whose son this was, even if that revelation could destroy their family.
Bailey had sounded different. Not like her normal strong and confident self. Her tone had been more questioning as she’d asked the doctor what they could do to help him. She was concerned but wondered if she should be. The sound broke Al’s heart. Brandon and Brock had done most of the talking, asking questions, getting clarifications and making sure that nothing about what was going on in their family was leaked to any of the staff. Even Everette had interceded when the doctors continuously pressed about Al’s work habits and if he’d had any recent upsets. Nobody wanted the Donovan secret to get out, not beyond what had already been revealed anyway. That’s what they’d been doing for so long, Al doubted there was any other way for them to react. Keep the secret. Protect the family at all costs.
Lose your wife and your peace, and almost—but not quite this time—your life. All for the sake of the family name.
He sighed heavily with that thought.
Al really felt like he was losing it all. The last time he’d spoken to Brandon, his son had looked at him with clear disdain and disappointment. He’d tried answering all of Brandon’s questions, hoping that the answers would ease the anger, but it hadn’t. Brandon did not understand how his father could have held all of this back from them for so long. Al couldn’t either. Except that he really hadn’t thought his children needed to know about his mistake. It had been between him and Darla and they’d handled it. His wife, bless everything about her, had forgiven whatever had happened that day between him and Roslyn and they’d gone on to live their life and raise their children. That was what had mattered most to him. Nothing else. Not even the son that might be his.
Guilt sat in the center of his chest pretending to be his heart attacking his body once more, but Al knew the difference this time. He’d felt sick to his stomach before collapsing to the floor last night. He’d been packing and remembering and wanting to change the past, but pissed off because he knew he couldn’t. Trying to get to the phone had proved futile as his breath had come in shorter and shorter pants that felt like he was struggling with every last bit of strength to take. But as he lay there, he distinctly remembered calling his children’s names, all three of them, apologizing to them even though he knew they weren’t there to hear him.
“I’m sorry.”
Al felt his lips moving now even if the two words came in a hoarse whisper. Even if, once again, his children weren’t there to hear it.
“What are you sorry for?”
The deep voice scared him and if he’d had more strength Al was sure he would have hopped out of the bed. His gaze moved slowly around the room he’d thought was empty, until it fell on the shadow at the foot of his bed.
“Tell me what you’re sorry about, Mr. Donovan.”
Al couldn’t see his face, but he knew that he was tall and probably muscled by the span of his shoulders. He had a deep voice that echoed throughout the room. Al’s hands began to shake. There was a buzzer, a button or something that he could push in case of emergency. He tried to remember where it was and then wondered if this was the type of emergency they were referring to.
“Who are you?” Al asked after attempting to take a few steadying breaths.
“Who do you think I am?”
Al didn’t know and dammit, he didn’t care.
“You don’t belong in here,” Al told him. Maybe he wasn’t there at all. This could simply be a manifestation of his guilt, Al thought. Or rather, he hoped.
“How do you know where I belong?” the man spoke again. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for years now.”
“I’m going to call the nurses,” Al said, but no matter how much he moved his hands over the warm white blankets, he could not find that buzzer to make good on his threat.
“And tell them what? That your son is here to see you?”
Al’s lips clapped shut.
“Wait,” the voice continued. “You can’t tell them that because you don’t know if I’m your son or not.”
Al shook his head. “No,” he said.
“No, you don’t know if I’m you’re son? Or no, you don’t want to tell the nurses I’m here?”
“Get out,” Al said and closed his eyes because he was now feeling extremely tired.
“I’d planned to stay away a little longer,” the voice kept talking. “But then nothing ever really goes as planned. I figure you already know that.”
“No,” Al whispered again, opening his eyes to see that the man was no longer standing at the foot of the bed, but was now right beside him.
He couldn’t make out any facial features, maybe he didn’t want to. But when the man placed the call button in Al’s hand, there was no more doubt. This wasn’t a manifestation at all. There was someone in this room with him.
“I want you out of here,” Al said once more, this time attempting to pull himself up. He couldn’t just lay here helplessly.
“We rarely seem to get everything we want,” he said. “But I can respect that you’re not feeling like yourself right now, so I won’t stay. Not tonight.”
Al held that button in his hand. Part of him wanted to squeeze it while the other wasn’t so sure. His finger rested over the red button, but he did not immediately push it.
“I won’t go away either,” the man continued, staring down at Al. “I won’t slink back into the shadows and let the rest of you live your privileged lives when you’ve destroyed so many.”
“Shut up,” Al said, his breaths coming shorter as he tried to speak. “Just shut up. It’s done and it’s over.”
“No, it’s not over,” his voice was slightly raised this time. “Not until each of you pay for what you’ve done.”
Pay? He wanted them to pay? Hadn’t Darla already paid for Al’s sins? Weren’t his children even now paying for the knowledge of what he may have done in his past? Al didn’t want to hear any more about paying for sins. He didn’t want to hear any of this ever again!
He pushed the button so hard he thought surely the buzzing would sound throughout the entire hospital. Then Al closed his eyes. He tried to catch his breath but it was harder and harder, a heavy weight seemingly pressing down over his entire body. He was so tired, so damn tired of all of this.
“Can I help you, Mr. Donovan? Is something hurting?”
Al opened his eyes to the female voice and saw a nurse standing over him. Immediately, he leaned to the side to see if the man—the Donovan son—was still there. He wasn’t.
#
“Did you see that?” Bailey asked Devlin as they turned the corner heading toward the wing in the hospital where her father’s room was.
It was late and visiting hours were over, but the nurse at the desk had taken one look at Devlin and let them pass. She didn’t know whether the woman was attracted to, or afraid, of him. Either way, Bailey wasn’t certain how she felt about the instant reaction. Just as she hadn’t been certain about whatever was transpiring between her and Devlin. She’d chosen not to think about it. Lord knew she had more important things to worry about. Case in point, who the hell was that leaving her father’s room?
“Yeah, I saw him,” Devlin replied. “Check on your father. I’ll find out who that was.”
They split up, Devlin moving quickly down toward the end
of the hall where the man who had been wearing a black cap, pants and suit jacket had disappeared. Bailey moved fast, pushing the door to her father’s room open, listening to hear the persistent beep of those machines that were hooked to him. She hadn’t expected to see the nurse standing over him and her father wide awake.
“What happened?” she asked, coming around to the other side of the bed and looking down at her father.
His face was ashen, his pupils dilated, hands shaking.
“Who was that in here with you?” she continued when her father hadn’t answered the first question.
Al shook his head as he looked up to his daughter. “I don’t…I don’t know,” he told her and Bailey knew instinctively that it was lie.
She made her living interrogating people and deciphering when they were lying or telling the truth. That was her part in the private investigation firm—she could break anyone down, reading them better than they could even describe themselves. All because she’d desperately wanted to become a profiler with the FBI, but because of her cousin’s not-so-smooth maneuvering she’d been roped into D&D Investigations, and now couldn’t bear to leave the family owned and operated firm.
“Who else knows you’re here?” she asked him.
“Ma’am, maybe you should wait until morning to talk to him again,” the nurse said just as one of the machines began beeping.
The bed was adjusted then, adding to the sounds in the room, and the nurse lay him flat on his back, while she reached over his head to an intercom and called for help.
Her father had opened his mouth to speak, but was now silent, his eyes still wide, hands shaking uncontrollably.
“What’s happening?” Bailey asked, her heart beating rapidly now as she thought that maybe whoever was in here before had done something to her father. “What’s going on?”
“He’s having some difficulties right now. I have to ask you to leave,” the nurse told her.
“I am not leaving him,” Bailey replied adamantly. “Now tell me what is happening.”
