Deadline

by K. A. Tracy

  “You’re wrong,” Sam cut her off. “Jeff rejected your advances because he had a girlfriend back home he planned to marry, which was a very good thing, too.”

  Lena tensed. “I think it’s time you leave,” she told Sam.

  “He would have wanted me,” Anne insisted, ignoring Lena, “but Mama came between us.” She looked at her mother. “You have everything; you’ve always had everything. Why couldn’t you just let me have this one thing?” She was crying again, her face turning splotchy.

  “Anne, your mother wasn’t trying to hurt you. Just like Jeff, she was only trying to protect you.”

  “Bullshit!” she wailed. “That’s bullshit! She’s still punishing me for what happened before. She blames me for having to cancel the series. Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think we moved to the middle of nowhere? She doesn’t want people to know she has a crazy daughter. She’s ashamed of me.”

  “I have never been ashamed of you.”

  “Yes you are! How could you not be? Look at me. I’m ashamed of me. Why can’t you just admit it?”

  “I can prove she was only trying to protect you,” Sam told her.

  “You keep saying that,” she snapped peevishly, wiping her nose. “Protect me from what?”

  “From this,” she held up the envelope.

  Anne looked from her mother to Lena, both watching Sam intently. “What’s in there?”

  “The truth.”

  “The truth about what?”

  “About everything. About Jeff, about your family.”

  “My family?” Anne repeated, intrigued. “You mean my birth family? What do you know about them?”

  “No!” Lena jumped up. “I won’t let you do this—”

  “Stay out of it,” Anne said angrily. “I’m sick of you always trying to run everyone’s life around here.”

  “She’s right,” Sam agreed. “It’s really not your call.”

  Lena turned to Ellen. “You have to stop this.”

  “Sit down, Lee. Or leave,” she said wearily then looked at Sam. “I should be the one to tell her.”

  “Let me. Then there’ll be no broken promises.”

  Ellen lightly touched the scratches on Sam’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t let her destroy us.” Desperation pinched Lena’s face. “Please.”

  Ellen’s expression was melancholy but resolute. “Lee, we’ve lived the lie for too long. And look what it’s brought us to. Let Anne and Luke hear what she has to say.”

  Sam opened the envelope and took out the pictures. “By the way,” she said to Lena, “Belinda Peletier says hi. She’d like you to call her. Dr. Crane sends his regards as well.”

  Ellen glanced at her in wonderment while Lena looked as if she had just seen the dead rise.

  Sam spoke directly to Anne. “The first thing you should know is that June and Bill Konrad are not your mother’s natural parents.”

  “What?” Luke stared at Ellen. “You were adopted, too?”

  Sam held her hand up. “Just be quiet and listen, okay? All your questions are going to be answered.”

  Luke nodded unhappily, his expression confused.

  “Your mother’s birth mother and aunt were identical twin sisters whose married names were Gail Konrad and Grace Bayles. Grace had a daughter named Elisa; Gail had a daughter named Ellen. El and El…I assume their names were an homage to their maternal grandmother, whose name was Eleanor.

  Ellen nodded.

  “Ellen’s family nickname was Nell, and her younger sister was named Elizabeth—”

  “You have a sister?” Luke asked in disbelief.

  “Luke,” Sam closed her eyes in annoyance, “what part of be quiet and listen isn’t sinking in?”

  After he apologized again, she methodically recounted the story Belinda had told her: the accident killing the parents, Elisa moving in with Nell’s family, Gail’s breakdown, her marriage to Dale Overton, and the subsequent molestation of his stepdaughters. “Even though he never legally adopted them, Dale insisted Nell and Elizabeth take his last name, I’d guess mostly as a show of possession.”

  Sam pulled out a photo of Lena and Nell, sitting on a porch stoop. Lena wore her hair in a short wedge cut. Although not beautiful, she had a pleasant face and exuded a certain vivaciousness that Sam had to admit was appealing. Sam put the picture on the coffee table for Luke and Anne to see, the sheet with the caption placed beneath it. She described how their friendship began after Dale moved the family to Rocky Hollow.

  “They became as close as sisters, but there was another reason Lena was a fixture at Nell’s house.”

  Sam put the picture of Lena and Elisa next to the first photo. They stood with their arms around each other’s waist in an obvious romantic embrace, their touching heads turned towards the camera. According to the caption they were standing in front of a “sugar maple by the creek.” Although she was younger, Elisa was taller than Lena and from the looks of it already fully developed. Like the young Nell, she was sensual, self-possessed, and beautiful.

  “Lena fell in love with Elisa and from the looks of it, Elisa fell in love back.”

  Whether because the French doors were open or she had a fever, Sam felt flushed and the room blurred. She stopped, rubbing her eyes.

  “Go on,” Anne prompted, engrossed in the story.

  Sam took a step toward her, squinting to focus. “Dale got Nell pregnant when she was barely seventeen and sent her to stay with her great-uncle Bill Konrad, who arranged to have the baby adopted.”

  Sam glanced at Ellen. “Did anyone at home know about the pregnancy?”

  “Nobody knew.”

  Sam walked over to Luke, who sat with clenched fists. “Nell never went back home. She moved with her aunt and uncle to California to get away from Dale. Once here, Bill and his wife June legally adopted her. And Nell started going by her birth name, Ellen.”

  “The adoption was Bill’s idea,” Ellen told Sam. “He didn’t want to take the chance Dale would try something.”

  “Even with grown kids, a new birth certificate is issued when you are adopted,” Sam explained to Anne and Luke. “That’s why anyone looking will see June and William Konrad listed as Ellen Konrad’s parents.”

  Feeling clammy, Sam pushed up her shirtsleeves. “With Nell gone, Dale turned his attentions to Elisa after he caught her and Lena being intimate.” The last photo she set on the coffee table was of Elisa and Nell. “She no doubt reminded Dale of Nell. The two of them looked so much alike they could have easily passed for twins, just like their mothers.”

  Anne and Luke listened intently as Sam explained how Lena convinced Elisa to run away and go stay with Nell, Bill, and June in California. Then she handed them copies of the newspaper clipping of the accident that took Elisa’s life.

  “This is so sad,” Anne muttered, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “The problem is, the accident didn’t happen the way the article says.”

  Sam set an enlarged crop of Elisa and Lena’s picture on the coffee table for everyone to see. She was again struck by how the picture captured Elisa’s natural beauty and made it hard to take your eyes off her. To Sam that had been more identifiable than a fingerprint—or the fresh cut clearly visible by Elisa’s swollen right eyebrow.

  “If the tanker hit the driver’s side, odds are the person thrown from the car to safety was the passenger. That means it wasn’t Elisa Bayles who died on the freeway that day. It was Ellen Konrad.” Sam gently rubbed her thumb over the scar removing the concealer. “Isn’t that right, Elisa?”

  She reached for Sam’s hand. “They told me it was that one in a million case of not wearing a seat belt saving a life.”

  “Wait, just wait…” Luke pressed his palms against the side of his head, as if to keep it from exploding. “Just hold on. You’re telling us you’re not Ellen ‘Nell’ Konrad? You’re Elisa Bayles?”

  She met his incredulous, disillusioned stare steadily. “That’s right, s
weetheart.”

  He went white. “All this time you’ve been posing as someone else? Pretending to be your dead cousin? That’s like identity theft times ten.”

  “Mama’s still the same person,” Anne said, surprisingly calm. “All that’s different is her name. Why are you so upset?”

  “Because she lied to us,” Luke said, biting the words off. He looked at Ellen. “You’ve lied to us all our lives. I don’t understand why you’d ever do that.”

  “I made her promise to never tell anyone, including you,” Lena said. “It was also my idea for her to take Nell’s identity. Nell’s mother had died a couple months earlier, and Dale had been threatening us.”

  “About what?” Luke asked.

  When she didn’t answer Sam picked up the photo. “Lena was over eighteen, and while it might not look like it here, Elisa had only just turned fourteen, so Lena was guilty of statutory rape every time they made love.” Sam set the picture back down and said to Lena. “You must have constantly been looking over your shoulders, wondering if Dale would turn you in to authorities.”

  “When the police came to the door the day of the accident, I thought it was to take Elisa away. When they said there’d been an accident, we rushed to the hospital, not knowing who had survived. It was agonizing, praying that my best friend would be the one dead instead of my lover. You don’t know what that’s like.”

  “I wouldn’t pretend to.”

  “Elisa was still unconscious but by the grace of God only had some cuts and a broken arm. When they asked us to identify her, I said her name was Ellen Konrad. Bill, June, and I talked in the waiting room and agreed it was for the best and stuck to the story. When she came to, I made her promise to go along with it. I told her it was the only way we’d be safe.”

  Sam brushed a loose strand of hair away from Ellen’s face. “You used Nell’s Tennessee driver’s license to get a California ID in her name.” She turned back to Luke. “Because they looked so much alike nobody would have questioned it. Your mom simply appropriated Nell’s vital statistics to complete the switch and bury Elisa for good.”

  “I still can’t believe you’ve been lying all this time about who you were. I wouldn’t have cared.” He sat back on the couch, his petulance turning slowly to stunned understanding as something else sunk in. “Wait a minute. So if you’re really Elisa then that means it was you and Lena who were…Oh, wow. Are you still?”

  Ellen and Lena hesitated but Anne was amused by her brother’s fluster. “Where have you been since daddy died? Don’t freak, big bro. It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’ve known?”

  “You haven’t? Why do you think they fight so much?” She rolled her eyes. “God, men really are oblivious.”

  Sam smiled. She might be crazy, but she’s perceptive. Though Luke hadn’t been the only one oblivious to the obvious. Sam couldn’t believe she hadn’t figured it out either. It wasn’t even so much that Ellen and Lena lived in the same house. It was the tension she had witnessed between them. There’s a specific acrimony and possessive resentment that is only spawned from having shared a life and a bed.

  The realization opened up a world of hopeful possibilities in Sam’s heart. She looked down, acutely aware they were still holding hands. Maybe, just maybe, there really could be more between them than just friendship.

  Luke picked up the photos from the coffee table then threw them down. “Why was everything such a big, dark, damn secret? And what’s any of it got to do with Jeff?”

  “I was getting to that.” Sam rubbed her throbbing temple. “After Nell gave birth, William and June arranged for the baby to be adopted by friends of theirs named Stan and Vicky Rydell.”

  That had become clear when a previous address in Sevierville had shown up on Bill and June’s personals from Nate. Once Dorothy heard the name, she confirmed it.

  “When Vicky died, Jeff found a copy of his original birth certificate, which listed Ellen Konrad as his mother. So he tracked down the woman who should have been his birth mother, except you weren’t. You were just his second half-cousin. Did you tell him the truth?”

  Ellen stared out the French doors. “Part of it. I was stunned because Nell never told us about her baby. But as soon as I saw the birth certificate and his birth date I knew what must have happened. I told Jeff that his mother was my first cousin, and she’d been killed. I said I used her name as my stage name to honor her. I insisted we take blood tests, which confirmed we were not parent and child.”

  “Did you tell him about Dale?”

  She shook her head. “I thought it was more important for him to know his mother was a wonderful person who died far too young and had only wanted what was best for him. He was so compassionate about Nell and genuinely grateful she placed him with such a good family. She would have been proud of the man he became.”

  “Then why were you so against me loving him?” Anne asked, her face a mask of misery. “Why couldn’t you just be happy for me for once? Did you think I wasn’t good enough for him?”

  “Of course I didn’t think that.”

  “Then what?”

  Sam noticed a movement by the French door furthest to her left. She glanced over and saw Larson peering in. He put a finger to his mouth.

  “Remember Nell’s sister, Elizabeth?” Sam moved slightly to Anne’s right to draw her line of sight away from the doors. “With Elisa and Nell both gone, she was on her own with Overton. Not long after Nell left, he got her pregnant as well, but this time, he chose to keep the baby. Dale took Elizabeth out of school and isolated her from her friends. She was essentially a prisoner. After Gail died, Elizabeth in essence became his ad hoc wife. Not long after the birth of their child, he got her pregnant a second time. It’s hard to fathom how alone and hopeless she must have felt.”

  Sam saw Larson move to the second French door, which was ajar.

  The last thing in the envelope was a printout of an article from The Mountain Press newspaper. Sam hesitated then handed it to Anne. “One day Elizabeth asked a neighbor to babysit her kids for a few hours. Police speculated she shot Dale as soon as he walked in the door then turned the gun on herself. Elizabeth was only 18. She left a handwritten will on the table, leaving the care of her children to the sister who she believed was alive and well in California.”

  Anne read the article’s last sentence. “She is survived by her children Lucas, three, and two-year-old Anne.”

  As the implication sank in, Anne dropped the paper and began shaking violently. “No…no…no! Tell her she’s wrong. Please, Mama, tell her she’s wrong.”

  Larson was inching his way in.

  Sam took a step closer, trying to draw all of Anne’s attention to her. “She can’t, because it’s true. You, Luke, and Jeff are all Dale Overton’s children.”

  “You’re telling me I was in love with my brother? That I fucked my brother?”

  The agonized keen that came from Anne’s core raised the hair on Sam’s arms. Ellen reached out, but Anne recoiled from her. “How could you not tell me?” she screamed, choking on her tears. “You knew I loved him, that I wanted him. Do you have any idea what I made him do to me? How could you let me do that? You let me defile myself, and him, just to protect your fucking secret? There’s something wrong with all of us. We should all be exterminated.”

  When Anne raised her arms in despair, Luke and Lena ducked, believing she was going to shoot but Ellen sat motionless, prepared to accept her daughter’s retribution. Sam instinctively shielded her while Larson rushed in and grabbed Anne’s wrists from behind. He pushed her arms up, twisting her hand forcefully until the gun dropped.

  “I didn’t mean for him to die,” Anne sobbed. “Bring him back, God. Please let me die instead. I want to die…please let me die.” Her knees buckled, and she collapsed, curling on the floor begging and whimpering for God to make the pain stop and let her die.

  “Everyone okay?’ Larson picked up the gun and stepped away from Anne. He opened the weap
on and rubbed his hand over his face. “It’s empty.”

  Sam doubted she’d been abducted with an empty gun. Anne has unloaded it because she never intended to hurt anyone. She was just screaming for help.

  Luke crouched by his sister, cradling her head in his lap and crying. Ellen knelt by the chair, agonizing over her daughter’s inconsolable guilt and grief, pierced by her son’s anger and disappointment. She leaned into Sam and wept. Sam held Ellen close, rocking her gently. Lena silently stared at them with eyes full of loss and regret then walked out of the room.

  Epilogue

  Sam sat on her patio admiring the mountain vista framed by the towering palm trees of her complex. It was Saturday afternoon, and the sliding glass doors to the living room and both bedrooms were open, allowing her to carry on a running conversation with Joe as he went back and forth between rooms. He had his two suitcases on the guest room bed, and his freshly dried clothes were spread out on Sam’s bed in the master, where Alpha and Omega napped on the chair.

  “What time is Kevin supposed to pick you up?” Sam was trying to hide her melancholy over him leaving.

  “He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes, which is why…” Joe disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two glasses, an ice-filled champagne bucket, and a bottle of Mumm Rosé, “…we’re going to have a toast now. To friendship.” They tapped flutes and the patio table then drank. “I’m going to miss you,” he sighed, briefly giving in to sentimentality. “But at least it won’t be for long. We should be out here by the beginning of November at the latest, maybe even earlier. Now that we’ve made the decision to move, I just want to get going with it.”

  He walked into her bedroom to finish folding his clothes. “So you’ll keep an eye out for any units that go on sale here, right?”

  “I’ve already got the resident real estate agent on it,”

  He joined her on the patio and emptied his glass in one swallow, checking his watch frequently.

  “Getting antsy?”

  “We’re supposed to have dinner at 7:00 with some prospective clients, and I don’t want to have to rush to get ready.”